Week 70

Hello my beloved family!

so i guess i will start with the interview with the president.  i just talked with him for a bit about my mission and what i need to do better and how i can help my district. he was happy with my work so that made me happy :)

we took a day out of our week to do contacts again and we got a bunch of new good names. we are having kind of a struggle finding new investigators. this week didnt really work to contact new people because we lost a couple days because my comp was sick. 

when we were in the church organizing the contacts, some random guy showed up who lives in california but was visiting his future wife. he pretty much told us to baptize her, but sadly she lives in the other area. he took a picture of me and elder johnson at church and said he would send it to you in a text. i gave him your number, but i dont know if he sent it or not...

 

pic is of my hands after our service project....

on saturday i did a division with the aregentino. it was super fun and there were some cool miracles that happened. we found some really awesome people to teach in their area that wasn't even planned. we  joked around a bunch and a member gave us some food! *(as you can see in the picture) 

one night we had a super awesome FHE at the house of two young women who are members, but their parents arent. it was an awesome lesson because a member family came and left the message. i love family nights! 

the last pday we helped a family move into the branch. it will be awesome to have them here because they are really strong members and i think will help out a bunch the branch. the cool thing is that i met their son and daughter in the CTM! the daughter is finishing soon.

something awesome we did today was make an american breakfast with a member that served in las vegas! we made bacon, eggs, pancakes with syrup, and ORANGE JUICE! it was so much fun and sooo delicious. i gave him the syrup extract as a present

 photo- this is how me and elder johnson do things

wow, time went by fast this week. it took a while to upload the pictures. but to finish off, just figure out what you have to do to get me home in time for school. i cant believe i have been out for a year and four months! it passes by so fast. i am starting to get sad now thats its going by so fast, but getting so excited to see my family.

i love you all!

-Elder Lambert

Week 69

hello family!

i still have not been able to talk much to president. i will be interviewed on thursday, so i will talk to him then. but i will think and pray very seriously to know what to do.

so this week will definitely be a week to remember! this week was one that alot of things went very right, and also president was here! its always nice when that happens.

the first thing we did was we organized a competition to see who could do the most contacts in one day in the zone. so 2nd place did 54, and first was was..... US! we printed out a bunch of surveys and asked literally every single person that passed us. we did 237 contacts :) i have never talked so fast and to so many people in my life!

on saturday, we did a service project moving a giant pile of clay from one place to another. my hands are pretty destroyed and my back kinda hurts, but it was fun :)

another funny thing we started doing is me and johnson are joking around alot with elder de los santos. i dont know if you guys have seen the "messin' with sasquatch" advertisment for jack links beef jerky, if you havent, watch them. we are doing something similar. elder de los santos is sasquatch and we always pull pranks on him and we get beat up. we have 7 videos already :) i will try to send them through email one day.

the week was pretty hectic, but its more fun that way! its nuts to think that this week i will make 1 year and 4 months in the mission. it passes so fast!

the other thing that was great were the baptisms! so this week was the branch conference. during the Saturday session, each companionship here had two baptisms. the baptisms worked out great and it was a great meeting. the president was impressed. they were also confirmed on Sunday. it was cool because the family was being reactivated and the dad got to baptize his kids.

Week 68

hello!

so the whole city lost internet yesterday after i used the computer for about 5 minutes...

i dont have much time to write because things will be crazy this week,

i absolutely LOVED talking to y'all on mothers day. i hope it was a very happy day for all, it sure was for me! i pretty much caught you up about the stuff here in araguaína. i will tell you about some funny things that i have been doing with the other missionaries here. on thursday, we had a meeting with the zone and we had to take a 6 hour bus ride to get there. me, the other american, and the argentinan like to joke around a bunch. returning back to araguaína we had a MMA/UFC fight on the bus. its super funny because us three always like to wrestle each other. we were all joking on the bus ex: they locked me in the bathroom for like 15 minutes, we would hit each other when someone would fall asleep and at one time elder johnson got a plastic bag put over his head :) sadly, i dont have my camera with me to send pictures. i was sitting next to elder johnson and we double teamed against elder de los santos who was on the other side of the aisle. he slowly took off his seatbelt, then lifted up the armrest and threw us both on the ground in front of our seats. it was super funny and the people behind loved it.

on pday we had another UFC tournament. we started out with me and elder johnson vs elder de los santos and he tapped out the first three times. then we did it me vs elder de los santos. this was interesting because he weighs 230 lbs. i took him down first and we stayed wrestling on the ground for a bit. no one ended up tapping out, we stopped after 5 minutes and nobody had won. elder johnson went against him afterwards and put him in an armbar and elder de los santos tapped out. it was super fun and will probably become a normal pday activity. im sure dad had some days like these. 

i think the next weekend we will have some baptisms! we have been working with a less active couple that have two kids ( 8 and 11) who arent baptized. they are wanting the kids to be baptized. we are going back tonight to mark a date with them! i hope all works out!

well, sorry this email wasn that exciting. i hope i will be able to send pictures next week! i love you all!

-Elder Lambert

Week 67

hellloo!

so i am now writing my emails from a place VERY far away called Araguína in the state tocantins. so the transfer was pretty crazy, i will talk more about it in a bit. so the pres sent you guys an email? what did he say?! im curious :) so about skype, i will skype here at 8 at night, i guess it should be 4 there? im not exactly sure what the time change is, if its 4 or 5 hours. and for mother amy and nat, congrats on the 1/2 marathon! im  happy you guys were not running in boston! all the brasileiros talk to me about the bomb that exploded there. i am attaching lots of pictures so i had to cut the size down alot, i hope you dont mind. 

1-last pizza lunch with tiago and assis

2-family night before leaving

3-saying goodbye to presidente gildásio

4-leaving from the bus station

5-everyone saying goodbye through the bus window and making hearts <3

so first off with the transfers.... so i am in a place super far away called araguína. i live with one other companionship. my companions name is elder bisognin. i was SUPER sad to leave campo maior, when i found out that i was getting transfered, i got really sad. i loved that place so much and i miss the people there a bunch. i have seriously never felt so much love for people in my life. i really hope i can return after my mission. the one great thing about the transfer is that i also always wanted to come here. it is also a branch which i really like. and now i  have officially passed in the four states of the mission! 

on my last p-day, we visited some people and at night we did a huge family night. it was really cool to see and say goodbye to all the people. it was a really special gathering for me because some of the people shared what they liked about me. when it was my turn to bear my testimony and talk about campo maior i cried a bunch :´( at night i packed my bags and got ready for the trip the next day;

on tuesday i started my journey to araguína. i got on my bus at 2 in the afternoon and didnt get off until 12 in the afternoon the next day. it was a solid 22 hour bus ride :) it was nice to think about lots of things and reflect about my mission. 

1-meat hanging in the street

2-me with some whiskey aka water :)

3-my sweaty butt

4-us getting a ride to lunch with the branch president (presidente alves)

so here in my home i am with a brasilian companion and the other companionship is an american and an argentino. during my couple of days here i have gotten to know the leadership of the branch, some other members, and the important investigators. i really really like the president and his wife, they are super cool and i'm excited to work with them! some other random things that have happend that were exciting are that i ate a PB&J! that was the first one in a year and three months... also, today the argentino made homemade pizza which was super good.

church here was cool on sunday, there was an attendance of 54, the branch is still growing here. i liked meeting the other people and am excited to work with them. the hard things about here is that it is really humid, so i sweat alot, and the area is huge! sometimes we have to walk an hour and a half to get to lunch, and thats in the other area so we have to walk all the way back after. the area is super super super big. there is a lunch thats even farther that we will have to go to this week. i hope everyone is very good health wise! i love you all

-Elder lambert

1 pizza!

2-pepsi that is 3.3 liters!

Week 66

hello family!

ohhhh the adventures that i have to tell you all :) so today we will find out about transfers! im super nervous because i think i will go, but i dont want to leave here...

so on tuesday, i did a division in altos with a new missionary, elder rodrigues. it was fun working with another new guy and being able to help him out. i have already make some super strong friendships there from the few visits i have done. one really cool thing that we saw is two goats fighting! it was super intense watching them smash their heads together with their horns. i hope the picture turned out!

picture of lightning!

 

on wednesday, i did a division with one of the missionaries that lives with us. another cool thing that happened was that we saw an alligator! its funny because campo maior is a city that is in the middle of nowhere, and it just has a tiny pond in the middle, but it has alligators! we were walking along and he was just chillen in the grass. i wanted to get a closer picture, but somebody was bitten a week ago and almost died... soooo i decided not to :)

 

 

the division was cool because we were able to teach i think one of the richest people in campo maior. the house was SO big! i think some of the houses in the US will be very shocking when i go back home.

 

on thursday, we left with our recent convert (fabrício) to show him how it is to be a missionary. he really liked doing the visits with us, and it was cool hearing him pray and share his testimony a lot. he got so excited that he wanted to see how we work starting when we wake up. saturday, we planned to do a full day with him. we met him at the church in the morning to do all of our studies together, he ate lunch with us and stayed the whole day! one day he will be a very good missionary.

 

on friday, we had lunch with my buddies aelson and kelly. after lunch kelly taught me how to make dusters! a duster to clean houses and stuff. its super cool because everything is natural. you take palm leaves and you cut them in a special way and do all sorts of stuff and the inside comes out! you can see what the inside is like on my leg. after you doit with a bunch ofleaves, you put them together and attach it to a stick. it was lots of work but super fun and a cool thing to learn. i will see if i can get one from them to send to yall :) not everyone has made a duster from palm leaves!

 

 

photo: me with aelson, kelly, and their baby

 

 

in one neighborhood in the afternoon we made friends with some drugies! they were all high and stuff and the asked us what we were selling and we told them we preach about jesus. they got super excited and asked us to preach to them :) the loved our message and now every time we pass there they want to hear something. one time, they were fighting with each other and we got there and they stopped to hear our message, it was so funny :) i love making friends!

 

sunday was awesome! so a couple weeks ago with the branch presidency, we had planned to do a special sunday devoted to misisonary work. everyone was encouraged to bring friends. we had fasted on saturday that everything would work out. on sunday, our priority family went and 6 other people! it was a very strong testimony builder of fasting and that it works. i was so overfilled with joy to see everyone there :) during the sacrament meeting, me elder waltenberg and the branch mission leader sang! it was a really cool song that we sang and everyone loved it :) i hope...i was also able to do something that i had never done before! there was a sick family where we ate lunch, so we got permission to give them the sacrament. the funny thing was that they didn't have bread, so we blessed a cracker! it was a cool experience. it was the first time i blessed the sacrament on the mission.