Week 87

hello family!

its so nuts hearing about everyones farewells at home! you know i am getting close to finishing when i hear that people are leaving on their missions and i remember when i left and they were all 16... 

so something that we are trying to do alot right now is find new families to teach. it has been hard these last few weeks to find families. we made some really awesome plans last week and we were able to execute all of them, but sadly it didn't have the results that i wanted :(  i am thinking a bunch for what we can do differently this week. we were able to come up with some good ideas. we will see what happens. 

so we had a service project that was very fun! we painted a beauty salon of one of the members. my job was the bathroom. it was a fun project to do because it was different than the other projects that i have already done. sadly time ran out right when i was about to finish. i just needed to paint the corners with the orange brush.( they finished the tiling and removed all that brown guck and it looks really nice now! she is so happy and loves telling people that her missionaries painted her salon.

a random thought came into my head on friday of how many days i have until i will go home. i got curious so i looked at the calender. sunday was 100 days until i go home! im super happy because it still hasnt hit me that i am going home soon. i think about it, but then forget it the next moment. it makes me happy that i can still focus 120%, i feel like i will blink my eyes and i will already be home! 

im really excited for my birthday this week! imrã lizete, irmã sônia (alana's mom), and andréia are doing a combined lunch and doing a big party :) on the 29th it will be emilly's and andréia's birtdhay and mine on the 30th! we will have this party on sunday (29th). im so excited because i love irmã lizete and it will be fun to spend alot of time at her house with her family. im also curious what my family sent me! 

the activity that we planned this week was really awesome! the members brought two visitors and they really liked it. we played dominoes, uno, and other card games. i think we will keep playing these games because they all loved it. on sunday one of the visiters went to church with his little brother! 

tonight will be the farewell for my ex-comp (elder borges). he will leave the 25th for teresina and will report in são paulo the 26th. 

well, my time ran out :( i hope you all have an excellent week! i miss you all lots, but i wouldnt want to be in any other place! i hope all is well and until next week!

-Elder lambert

Week 86

hello my dearest family!!!

so the pictures are taking a really long time to upload. i hope i will be able to send something! im glad that you all got home safe from your travels! i got super jealous looking at the píctures, but it didnt take me long to remember that i am in the best place in the world. i honestly would not trade where i am and what i am doing right now for anything in the world. so that was good news also that the seahawks destroyed the 49's (sorry grandpa), im happy to hear they are doing well. so just to answer the random questions: when i go home i will go from teresina. on the last day we have dinner with the president before leaving. i think i will go from teresina to brasilia, then to são paulo, then to texas, then to seattle! i was doing some calculations and i might not get home till the 1st... i really hopé not, i would love to pass new years at home. it depends on if my plane leaves on the 30th or the 31st. so i am weighing 61 kilos right now which is about 135 pounds... lets just say that i have lost alot of weight... i will have to hit the gym when i get home. i dont know the exact percentage of brasilians to americans in the mission right now, but i do know that it is SUPER hard to get visas now. there arent any americans who have come in the last two transfers. we are getting more people from peru and argentina and places like that. everyone is trapped in the US still. so during the trip i was able to get my packages. i got two that were both for my birthday. i was super excited to open a package because it has been a while since i have gotten one, but then i saw that i have to wait until my b-day :( you're killing me mom! :) 

so the coolest thing this week was for sure our baptism. We baptized jose roberto's sons. 

sunday was a great day also because we had both the boys confirmations and leandro (our recent convert) received the priesthood! we didnt have alot of investigators at church, but i am still more than happy with the things that did happen. we did however have two people at church who are showing alot of interest. one is a friend of leandro (joáo pedro) and the other is a friend of lizete (adriana). we will see what will happen with them in the next couple weeks. another awesome thing was that the gospel principles class was about eternal families. i made so many comments about how the family should be because i have such an awesome example! i was talking about how you guys always go on dates even though you have been married for a long time, that you guys always showed interest in my life, and that you always say cool things about one another! it was cool because someone told me that i have a good vision of the family and would be a great husband and father and i was happy to say that i was just talking about what i see in my parents! all this was confirmed today when i received dad's email saying that mom is the love of his life. you guys are awesome :) it was fun after church because we went to lizete's house to read the book of mormon with her family and she has a HUGE mango tree, so me and emily climbed up top to get some mangos!

so the trip to the zone conference was a little rough this week... usually we leave at 3 in the morning which is already rough enough, but monday night we got home at 10 and found out that we would leave at 11:30. we had to hurry and take showers to give us time to walk to the bus station which is like 30 minutes away. we didnt get to eat dinner :( so we got there at 11:30 only to discover that our bus was super late and would arrive at 2:30. so we waited 3 hours at the bus station dying of tiredness.. so we got there and had to wait until lunch to eat, but we made it. then, usually our bus leaves there at 7 at night to get back here at midnight, but they only could get our tickets for 10:40... so we had to wait in the bus station for another 5 hours to find out that our bus was late and would get there at 12:30... we ended up getting home at 5 in the morning. lets just say it was a rough trip - BUT i love my mission and it is so great! its experiences like this that give us fun stories to tell afterwards :)

so we will keep working really hard here in araguaína. i have really loved my time here and feel like this is where i have done my best work. i have been able to baptize alot, and everybody is active! i love you all so much and you are all such great examples to me! thanks for being such an awesome family :)

i love you!

-Elder lambert

Week 85

helllllloooo family!!!

so this was a pretty awesome and very need week for me :) so the first super big blessing was that i got a comp again! it was really hard to stay in a group´of 3 missionaries with the construction; it really limited how much work we could do. his name is elder ribeiro and he is from rio de janeiro and is 23. he was baptized only 2 years ago and has 5 months in the mission field. he is such a great guy and i am really excited to work with him. i think we will be able to get alot of work done here in araguaína together! im guessing this will be my last transfer here, so i will have to go out with a bang! i want to baptize at least 3 more people, its my goal for this month. i will send a picture that we took of us two in the house. 

another awesome thing that happened was that we were able to come back into contact with someone who had kind of disappeared. his name is josé roberto and he was baptized a long time ago in another state, but moved here and went inactive. we found him a couple weeks ago and we were visiting him and his 3 kids who are baptismal age. they all went to church one sunday and loved it, but then disappeared a little. we were able to find them again and we visited alot this last week. we marked a date for his two sons to be baptized on saturday (jeferson and janderson). them two and their dad went to church and really liked it. im super excited for this baptism because i think it will strengthen the dad alot who is really needing it. everyone will be a force for the other person. ill let you know next week how the baptisms turn out!

we had a fun activity for the 7th of september because its the indepence day here. we went to a little place on the outskirts of the city. there was a river to jump in and we had institute class and a BBQ! it was super fun and a good chance to relax a little bit. i learned how to play a domino game and apparently i am a master at it! i was able to win alot which was fun. i will teach yall how to play when i get home :) it was good because it was just a mornign and afternoon activity which allowed us to work still at night

we had a fun activity for the 7th of september because its the indepence day here. we went to a little place on the outskirts of the city. there was a river to jump in and we had institute class and a BBQ! it was super fun and a good chance to relax a little bit. i learned how to play a domino game and apparently i am a master at it! i was able to win alot which was fun. i will teach yall how to play when i get home :) it was good because it was just a morning and afternoon activity which allowed us to work still at night

so another random thing is that our house is starting to get invaded outside by these really big ants. they may not look that big in the picture, but they are huge. i have already been bit by them twice which really hurts, but the pain passes fast and doesnt have any effect. they are digging a big hole in our front area and carrying huge things there. this ant was carrying a huge twig today and i got so impressed i took a picture. i dont know how they are able to lift things that are so big! 

im soooo happy and loving my mission. it has seriously been the best thing i have ever done in my life. i never thought that i would get to a point where i love it so much! im really not wanting to go home, but at the same time i am. its a wierd feeling... it will be something that will really change my life forever. i am so excited for these last couple months because i want to work like i have never worked before. i am for sure doing my best work now. i finally have lots of knowledge and am just applying it all. i get so sad when i see missionaries slow down at the end. i have more fire that i ever have to work. everyday i wake up ready to help more people come unto christ through he waters of baptism!

i love you all and wish yall a great week! thanks for the pictures!

Week 84

hellllllo family!!!

so i guess the first order of business would be to announce the transfers! so my short time missionary companion got his call to serve here in brasil in the mission Belo Horizonte! he will report the 26th of september. he is super excited and it was great to see him open his call. he was the only one who got 'transfered'. 

i stayed yet one more because i will have to present this area to the new guy. im super excited because i will be able to pass my birthday here! irmã lizete is going to throw a party for me and her daughter who will have her birthday on the 29th :)

so just some good things that happened this week. i wasn't robbed again! my comp left a little early so he can start getting all of his things ready for his real mission so we were in a group of three since friday. it was kind of a challenge because there are people who are reforming our beautiful (ugly) house which is such a blessing, but now all three of us have to stay while they work in the afternoon. some of the days we were able to arrange a division so that one group could do visits.  i climbed on our roof to look in the old water tank and i think that was a mistake. i discovered it didn't have a lid and it was completely moldy and full of bugs. it was gross to think that i have been living with that water for 4 months. thankfully they switched the tank today :)

one really cool thing that happened also was that we were invited to sombodies wedding! it was very different than what i am accustomed to, but i still liked it. it was a wedding from the baptist church and it was a arabic style wedding. the mission is so awesome because it is such a learning experience, and we see so many things that are new for us! im excited to look at all my photos when i get home and talk about all the stories :)

we had a zone meeting this week which was also very awesome. sadly the president didn't bring cards so i will have to wait a little longer :( maybe the next time i will just get more letters! the training was given by a bishop in the ward there. it was super good and i'm excited to apply it to see if we get more member references. 

i don't know why, but my mind is super blank this week so i don't have much to say, but if i think of something before the time runs up ill add it in. it was just kind of a weird week because half of it was spent in our house... 

what do you guys think about my return date? are yall ready to party?! i started thinking about home a little bit more and i get so excited! its great though because i am not slowing down the work here. im so excited to see yall, but so excited and motivated to finish my mission working harder than ever!

i hope that everyone is enjoying their travels! the pictures were so cool that you sent dad. i must be cool returning to the same country as your mission! i am wanting to do they same very much! were you able to speak italian well? :) i wish you all a great week and hope that you all miss me bunches because i miss you! 

next week i will send a picture with me and elder ribeiro, my next comp!

-Elder Lambert