Week 57

heeeelllllllooo family!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so i guess the big news of the week is transfers! i was selected to stay here in the wonderful place of campo maior! i was super happy to stay here because i love this area soo much! the other news is that i will continue as the district leader, but i will also train! i am training a missionary named Elder Waltenberg, pronounced Valtenberg. he is 24 and from a state called Rondónia here in brasil. one cool thing is that he only has a year and two months as a member of the church! there were also some other changes in the district. the missionary from argentina still lives with us and another brasileiro. now i will be speaking lots of portuguese, but my companion speaks english pretty well so i will help him. 

transfers: monday night we went around to visit all the members so that elder benally could say goodbye. the best part was that throughout the night, we ended up getting 8 liters of pop :) we stayed up late packing his things so that he could leave the next day. he left tuesday afternoon and i was pretty sad because he was a great companion. we got along really well and had the FUNNIEST moments together. the transfer went by so fast with him. because my misisonary is new, i had to go get him in teresina and get some more trainings. 

teresina: it was a fun little travel to get to teresina. i went by myself, but met up with a missionary there (elder peterson). just the two of us will be training this transfer. it was really cool because the president talked to us and said that he is tired of people doing a bad training job so he chose two people in the misison who he thought will train the best! that made me really happy to hear because i am really trying my best. its nice to hear a little reward every once in a while :) elder Peterson was really happy to hear that too. tuesday night we slept in the mission home which was fun because elder Rais was there! he was my trainer and it was great to catch up with him. wednesday, we passed the day with the president and the assistants receiving trainings. it was fun to be with elder spackman again also and to catch up on things. this night i did a division with elder rais, it was fun teaching with him again especially because i can teach now! my companion has some knee problems, so instead of returning to campo maior on thursday, we passed the whole day going between hospitals and physical therapists to find out the problem and the solution. it was pretty fun going just cruisin in Teresina and being able to get my way around. who thought that would ever happen. i remember when i used to be terrified of being left alone or doing something like that. i love it now :) its so cool!! we got back to campo maior thursday night. while i was in teresina, i picked up two envelope things i had there. thanks mom! i have a question though, one of the packages said that it had pens... did it really? it didnt have pens in it. also, the christmas card must have fallen in a puddle so it didn't work to read the card and the picture is all a blur, can you mail another? thanks! 

pictures: me and elder benally, me and elder waltenberg 

Gabriel was interviewed on saturday and passed and chose me to baptise him! he will be baptized on friday! yay. i'm super happy for him and i know he will be a strong leader in the church. we were also able to mark a date for the 16th of march with somebody named J_____. he has been loving the messages and went to church this sunday. he really liked church and we will pass by his house with some members this week. i think the only difficulty will be for him to stop drinking, he likes parties... BUT, the book of mormon solves all problems. thats something i learned here, and he loves the book of mormon!

i'm so happy to be here in the mission right now. especially here in campo maior. i feel so much love here! the other night the branch invited me to a dinner/date night with the couples of the branch. it was so funny to be there with my companion and the food was so good! always at church i am talking with all the men and women and they just make me so happy. i promise i do miss my family though!! this awesome branch just helps alot. i will be sad the day that i have to leave :( i think i will stay two more transfers though so i can finish the new guys training.

just a heads up for nat, somebody in the branch wants to talk with her on faccebook. she loves to talk to the sisters of the missionaries and she will type everything in english and when you respond, she will translate it to portuguese. her name is Débora Raveina. when you see this name, dont freak out, just add her :)

photos:dinner/date night

i love you all and wish you all the best always! you are such great people :)

-Elder Lambert 

Week 56

hello my dearest family!!!

this email kind of surprised me because of some sad news that happened in the family. i hope everyone is doing well and know that you are all in my thoughts and my prayers!! today is the day that we find out about transfers, however i still do not know! you might all have to wait until the next email. this week was yet another great week and happily a week without sickness!

this week were able to teach ALOT of lessons. it felt really good to have every slot filled with plans and that we passed every day teaching. we took one day of the week to just visit people who are inactive which was really fun because we got to meet lots of new people. it was cool because one of them went to church this sunday and loved it! i hope he will be able to go next week also. its a really cool feeling to see people who have known the happiness that the church has brought them and help them get this happiness back.

one day we also had a service project that was way cool. there was a mother of a member and behind her house was always a bunch of water. this would bring tons of mosquitos and gross bugs. we went over there with a couple of men and we dug a huge hole in the back and filled it up with a bunch of rocks. it was really fun doing something a little different and it was great doing some manual labor again. my hands have gotten so soft that i get blisters from sweeping the house... the project was on saturday and i'm still pretty sore. hopefully his mom will start to be a little more interested soon!

another exciting thing is that I made a plan to read jesus the christ before the end of my mission. i planned out how much i need to read each transfer and marked it in my book. i'm really liking the book so far!

g_______ is progressing super fast and his baptismal date is for the next week! he wants to serve a mission so bad and is already stronger than alot of members. he spent the whole day yesterday studying the ensign and reading the book of mormon. he is super excited to get a calling after his baptism so that he can help more in the branch. its really cool too because he wants to help reactivate his younger brother. the last time we went, he gave us goiaba ice cream :)

it has been raining a ton here lately and the streets are always flooded! it reminds me of home! except here, all the water stays in the street... we have been getting soaked every day, but its kinda nice :) also there has been some really cool lightning everyday. its crazy how often it is. there is seriously a bolt of lightning every 10 seconds. BIG lightning too. the weird part is that there is hardly any thunder; i dont know how that works...

i hope everyone is hangin in there. you are all in my thoughts and prayers! i love you all SO much!

-Elder Lambert

Week 55

hello my wondrous family!

i have sooo many funny things to tell you about this week. i just hope that i can remember them all! we are getting down to the last week here for the transfer so maybe by the next email i will already know the results. and good news- i remembered everything to send pictures! because i am sending a lot, i had to reduce the file size so i can send more. i hope you don't mind! also, the mail office is closed because of carnival, the letters will have to wait until next week. also, i don't know yet if i have gotten any packages. i will let you know when i find out!

my district

 

the dam/bridge that we cross

 my shirt for 1 year

 my shirt burning

 the day i made one year in my planner

first of all, i am soo soo happy to hear that Aunt Cynthia is doing better health wise this week! And i will keep Grandpa John in my prayers.i get so nervous when stuff happens and i am so far away and pass a week without finding out anything... thanks for all the updates!

i am so jealous about all this skiing! also hearing that people wont go with dad- for all those people who thought it was too cold, you can come here to experience what is more than too hot...

maria de deus' baptism

 waiting for the bus

 the black mamba

 the hospital

 carnival

so the first item of buisiness; zone meeting on tuesday. so we had a meeting with the zone on tuesday in teresina. this meeting started at 8, which means we had to wake up at 4:45 to get there on time! yay campo maior! the meeting was 10 hours ALL about how to plan your month. it was sooo long, but i learned so much good stuff. i have never had a 10 hour training just on planning though. the meeting ended at 6:30 and we went to get a bus to go back to campo maior. the first bus passed after 2 HOURS. we had to wait forever and when it was coming we all jumped up and started waving and it just went right past... the next one came after another 2 HOURS and it did the same thing! it was so funny that we had to wait so long for the buses, and when they finally came they didn't stop! after this happened, we decided that we had to take a bus to the big bus station and we bought a ticket to leave at 12 (midnight) we ended up getting back home past 1. it was a very interesting night but soo funny. its frustrating, but i think experiences like this are soo funny :) i have a picture of us waiting :) 

also as you can see for the next picture, i designed a little sock snake called 'the black mamba'. he is designed to help people wake up on the right time because there is someone in our house who always sleeps past the time to get up. when i figure out how to send videos home, you will see him in action. just to explain a little bit, you sneak up on the person while singing the jaws music and when the music gets intense and you get close, you smack them in the face really hard :) its soooo funny and i have already used him many times this week. i guarantee you will like the video.

a sad item of news is that we discovered a problem that will slow down the baptismal process of g_____ a little bit. we are working super hard to resolve everything though and we should get everything squared away soon!

another exciting thing is that i got sick again! i'm not really sure what happened, but on saturday i woke up with a 102 fever and stayed like that the whole day with diarrhea and throwing up. at night time our neighbor who is a member decided to take me to the hospital. we all went to the hospital which is very interesting during carnival. carnival is when everyone gets super drunk for a week and lots of bad things happen. a guy walked in who was shot in the foot by the police, someone had their chin cut off and a bunch of other stuff. i told the doctor what i was feeling and like everything, he told me to get an IV. all public hospitals give you this. you could have a hangnail and they would give you an IV, they never even tell you whats wrong, its super funny. they decided to put me on a bed next to a passed out drunk guy who got stabbed in the head (hes on the other bed in the picture, also notice my tan line...) i guess you could say this sickness kinda ruined my day... i stayed home all Saturday and Sunday, but i'm better now! i lost 8 pounds in these two days... 

there has been tons of noise because of carnival, but we havent seen anything because we have had to go home every night at 6. i took a picture of the square that has all the parties, but nothing is there during the day. 

this week, we also started a prank battle among the companionships. it all started when i decided to take out the part of the bed frame that supports the mattress of the other companionship. when they sat down, they fell through, it was super funny. they got me back by filling the shower head with stawberry juice powder, then i got them back by filling it with chicken seasoning :) later when we all went running together, me and elder benally ran home faster to grab water balloons that we had pre-filled (thanks amy!) and nailed them with those. the war is still going, and i am very open to new ideas (hint hint dave!). 

this week was super interesting but i loved it. the mission is great and the church is true. 

i love all of you and hope you enjoyed this email!!

-Elder Lambert

Week 54

hello my dearest friends and family!

this week was super great like always. i'm sad to hear about so many problems with health in the family. i will be sure to pray super hard to help everyone. it was fun to hear about the super bowl though from dad! i'm so out of the loop on everything. its super weird to have no idea what is going on with stuff that is such a big deal. i hope that all the skiing is going well and that there will be lots of snow! i also hope that there will be even more snow next year! 

this week had some really cool things that i would love to talk about. also, i have a good computer!! but i forgot my sd card again :( one day i will get these pictures through!

so saturday was the baptism of maria de deus. the baptismal service was really special and really spiritual. she absolutely loved it and said that she felt really really good. she is the grandmother of a guy who was less active. its so cool to see how through his reactivation he has brought more reactivations and also a baptism to the family. later this week we will go to visit more members of this family. they said that with the baptism of the mom/grandma of everyone, its likely that lots of people will follow. she also got confirmed on sunday ad loved receiving the spirit. she was definitely the oldest person i have baptised yet! it made me so happy seeing how happy she was. we cant hug girls, but she didnt know so after the baptism, she gave me the biggest hug ever. i could barely breathe, but it felt so good. i could really feel the gratitude that she has. 

also a really cool miracle that happened is a man named gabriel. i made a goal this last week to teach more people that are less active. we had already visited a less active kid a couple of times and he has never wanted anything, but we felt we should visit him anyways. as we got there, he was home, but his older brother answered the door. he asked us if we wanted to come in anyways and we were thinking about just saying that we would come back a different day, but he told us to come in before we could respond. as we were talking to him, he kept looking to my book of mormon and he said, i dont know why, but i really feel like i should read that book. we taught him about the book of mormon and he was really interested. we came back later in the week and explained the restoration and he loved it. he is really liking reading and asks really good questions. we invited him to the baptism on saturday, church on sunday, piano class on wednesday, and english class on thursday and he wanted to go to all of them. we followed up with him yesterday about how things are. he loved the baptism and thought it was very interesting and he loved church also. he said that he will go every sunday for the rest of his life. he kept telling us that usually he doesnt like to accept people or do what they tell him to, but he said that he feels super strong that he needs to do all these things. at the end of the lesson before we even got to the baptismal invitation, he said, before you guys leave, i want you to baptize me. i was so happy when he said that! it was such a cool experience and cool to see how the spirit works with people when they are willing to receive promptings. we marked a date for the 16th of this month! we will see if we can get him interviewed and ready to go by saturday!

carnival is coming! the 8-12 we have to come back home at 6 at night to study and clean the house. we cant be out during carnival because it will get really crazy... 

i have been studying some really cool things this week that i really liked. firstly, i got the new for the strength of youth and i love it! it has alot more stuff and it is so good! i'm going through and highlighting it and everything. also, i studied a really cool thing in jesus the christ. it was talking about how the atonement of christ for us is like plants and animals. it said that a mineral cannot become a living thing, a plant cannot become an animal etc. HOWEVER, a plant can suck up minerals and raise them to their level and an animal can eat a plant which raises the level of the plant. its the same with the atonement. we cant become immortal with our forces, we cant pay for our sins. HOWEVER, through christ, he raises us up so we can! it was such a cool analogy :) i just started reading this book this week and set up a plan to finish before the end of the mission. also, congrats dad for finishing!!!

i'm having alot of fun with elder benally and we get along great. this morning i made french toast with syrup for all the elders and they loved it! i really really love the members here and i hope that i will be able to stay here for a long time. i'm super sorry about the lack of pictures again, but i will send them next week!

i love you bunches and bunches!

-Elder Lambert