Week 64

hello family! 

it was great to hear that all y'all are doing great! thats really exciting that nat will start teaching! it was also cool hearing about the new mission calls. its so crazy how many girls are leaving on missions! its so great :) you asked about sports being banned here.... so the area presidency a while ago banned soccer and basketball. it was the area presidency, so i just think its here in brasil. its been like this though for about 6 months already. and about transfers; transfers will happen on the 30th of this month. there is a good chance that i will leave :( i get really sad wheni think about transfers because i want to stay here so bad! i have made a bunch of super good friends. i am wanting to come back to visit after the mission. maybe we can take a trip together :) one thing that i found out that is funny is that elder waltenberg's dad translates my emails and reads them! i will include a message for him.
"olá irmão Waltenberg! fiquei feliz em saber que alguém lê meus emails! espero que tudo está muito bem contigo. seu filho fala MUITO bem de você e ele é um missionário muito bom. estou muito feliz pela oportunidade que tenho de trabalhar com ele."

another fun thing that i did this week was i went to altos to do divisions! i feel like i am always there... the division was really fun with elder correia and i even got to watch a wedding! the woman who was getting married is named marta. i returned to altos saturday to do her baptismal interview. while i was there, i got to do something that i have always wanted to do. i held a monkey! he was really small, but super soft and cute. the funny part was that he didnt like any of the brasilian missionaries. he would always run away from them, but he really liked me! he sat on my head and back and shoulders and he would let me pet him all i wanted :) it was an experience that for sure i wont forget! the whole time i was thinking about the monkey that bit nat... hahaha

so for sure the most exciting part of the week was the baptism that happened friday! Fabrício was baptized and it was so cool! there were lots of people there including two investigators! he was really happy to be baptized and said that he liked it alot! elder waltenberg baptized him which was cool because it was the first person on the mission for whom he did the ordinance. on sunday i was able to confirm him a member and give the holy ghost which was also cool because i had never done that! it was cool all around. at the baptismal service, his grandmother bore testimony about how he has changed and how we have been an answer to her prayer. ever since she was a member she has been praying that other family members will join the church and this is the first one that has joined! her dream was accomplished after 15 years.

so another random/exciting/funny story is that i ate cow heart! me and elder waltenberg paid to eat at a fancy restaurant place that has lots of meat. when the plate of meat came out, i wanted to eat all of them! i got to one piece of meat that was really weird looking, i was cutting it up looking at it strangely and decided to give it a go. it was pretty good actually, it wasnt until after though that i discovered it was cow heart! cow heart isnt something that i eat every day :) another funny thing is that in the morning, somebody gave us corn to cook and eat later when we are at home. the funny part is that she gave it to us at 10:30 in the morning. we had to walk around with a bag full of corn all day. the corn traveled to altos and back to do an interview. i was thinking about replacing flat stanley and inventing a corn stanley and take pictures with him in all of my adventures. the worst part was that we were fasting, so when we got home we still couldnt eat it!

i found out that i will do divisions with the zone leaders this week! after the district meeting tuesday, i will stay with one here and my comp will go to teresina. i will stay with him until thursday night! it will be a long fun division! thursday night we will both go to teresina to sleep there because friday morning i have a meeting with elder godoy! he is in the area presidency of brasil and i will get to talk with him! its for all the district leaders. i'm super excited because i wont just see a member of the 70, but i will talk to him personally, maybe even be interviewed by him! he will select 3 district leaders to interview. it would be pretty intense to be interviewed by a member of the 70.

im excited for this next week because we made some REALLY good plans. we should be able to work with the members a bunch. 

photo- my bed sheet is dying :( this was one that i snagged from somebody going home a while ago. as youcan see, i might have to buy a new one soon. it doesnt really stay on the bed very well

i love the mission, i love my life, and i love campo maior!
-Elder Lambert