Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Week 40

friends and family!

so to respond to my mothers questions.
i am not in the mission home, but rather the back up mission home. when the other one gets full, they come here. the other one always gets full so about once a transfer or every other transfer there will be some other people here. my companion who is the AP is from Utah, but the kid i work with the most is from minnesota! his name is elder Davis and we get along really great. the other AP (elder davis´ companion) is from São Paulo. we do get mail more often now, everytime the ap´s go to meet with the president in the office they bring it to us :) i got a bunch of letters recently :) as of now, i cant really think of anybody who needs a christmas package. i think everyone here is pretty good off. but if you would like you could send something and i can decide who to give it to. 
as for me, this week was going great until thursday... ill let you know what happened...

monday- we had a great family night at a couples house who is preparing to get sealed. it was really good because there was also some less actives there and a couple who arent members of the church.

tuesday- we had our first district meeting here and it went really well. i really like my district, its just kinda a bummer because we have to scale a mountain pretty much to get to the other church building. elder spackman left in the morning to travel to a couple places to give trainings to other zones and he will return next tuesday (tomorrow)! at night we went on a division with some ward members that helped us teach a little more. 

wednesday- today was a very interesting day. we didnt end up teaching a single lesson with investigators, but we were able to visit alot of members to help gain their confidence and encourage them to help the ward out. we will have to do alot of small steps like this to try to save this ward. we are encouraging everyone to visit the members less active and help the active members a little more.

me leaving sobral!

thursday-i made nine months in the mission!! time is passing super fast. today was really great at the beginning, but started going downhill at the end of the day. i was teaching really good lessons, but all of a sudden felt a little sick and threw up all over the place. we kept trying to working but i was throwing up more so we went to the house :(

friday-i woke up feeling really awful and it stayed that way through the whole day. the good thing was that we had a great lesson with acelino and leidimar. we watched the restoration DVD and they really liked it. we are trying really hard to help her gain a testimony of joseph smith. at night we had a really good reunion with the ward missionaries.

part of my area!

saturday-i woke up feeling like garbage again today and again we worked! we made lunch in our house which was actually really good! i was quite proud of us :) we taught a 15 and 20 year old couple that we are trying to help marry them. also we had another great lesson with leidimar on how to stop drinking/the importance of stopping drinking coffee. she liked the ideas we had and i think this time it will work! we also taught someone who was baptized 5 months ago but was never confirmed. we went to see what had happened and she was super drunk and said she doesnt want our help... that was kinda sad...

sunday-we had to wake up early to get to a church meeting at 7. i felt even worse this day, but still went! church was very interesting. its kinda hard to see because it is so disfunctional. we will try really hard to help out this ward. at night we walked a ton because all of our plans fell through :( this did not help the little sick boy out very much. 

monday-i am even worse today, but i think its the peak of my sickness. i woke up with a fever and i feel like my head will explode, but god will bless me :) its good its pday. today should be pretty relaxed. we will just do a family night tonight which will be watching a movie about the importance of temple marriage. i hope i will wake up better tomorrow!

thanks for all your love/support/and prayers. it may sound weird, but i can really feel it here :) and good luck to all those who are turning in mission papers!


Monday, October 22, 2012

Week 39

hello my dearest family!

so first of all i would like to tell you what happened with the last
email. so the last pday i didnt even have an hour of time to send
email to family. the reason why i didnt have an hour is because i got
transfered! i am now oficially working in satelite, teresina. even
more exciting is that my companion is the assistant to the president,
elder Spackman! the funny thing however is that i am not the other
assistant... they were just split up so they both have junior companions
but we all live in the same house. they did this so that when they
travel, which is alot, us two juniors will work together and will have
one to know each area so we can switch days in the areas.

last week-the main event was definitely last monday. in the morning we
found out about trasfers and we went to have a huge bbq again at
sombodies house. we bought tons of meat again so
it was really a party. we hung out there for a while and then
afterwards we went to a youth activity that we organized. it was way
fun hanging out with all the youth and great to see them all bonding.
it also gave me a good chance to say goodbye to a good chunk of them.
staying 4 1/2 months in one area gives you lots of time to get really
attached to some of the members. i had alot of people to say goodbye
to and it was super hard actually. after the activity i passed by all
my family friends here, somebody gave us dinner, and another family
gave us dessert. i took tons of pictures, but this area is too
dangerous to bring your camera with you so sadly i cannot send
anything home :( there was alot of crazy stuff that happened earlier
in the week, but i dont remember really... i stayed up super late
hanging out with elder albuquerque and elder bastos just chillin
around and talking.

tuesday-i woke up and finished all my packing and made some last
minute phone calls to my buddies. we made the trek over to the bus
station to wait. i arrived here safely in teresina and went to work!

about now its hard to do an every day summary so i will give a weekly summary.

so the thing is that this ward has TONS of members but VERY few
active.. our goal is to really help the leadership of the ward
understand the importance of their callings so they will actually work
and we will work alot with less active members. we cant work with a
bunch of investigators because we dont have a ward that will support
them after the baptism. we have to strengthen and train the ward so
they can do their part and we can do ours. right now we are visiting
alot of members to gain their confidence and show them that we are
here to work and to teach them how to do their visits with the less
actives. there are a ton of less actives because the other
missionaries came through just baptizing little kids who had no chance
staying active. right now we will only work with the ward or families
who will make a difference in the ward when they are baptized. this
church needs leaders. and that my friends is our goal :) we have a lot
of work to do, but we have the Lord to help us every step of the way!

to respond to my families questions... i sleep in the hammock
sometimes, but not all the time. its really nice to rest in :) that
floral tie sadly is not mine, i was just borrowing it from elder
bastos. im super excited to see what will happen now with this
new age rule. i think it was a great change. and im super glad about
all the other positive news!

thanks for all the love and support! i love you all my friends and
family and wish the best of luck to you all!!!
-Elder Lambert

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Week 37

my beloved family and friends(i hope you read this in the voice of the conference guy)

this week was full of fun and adventure, like all the weeks! for sure the highlite of this week was conference. it was super great and super funny because it was just me and elder black watching in a small room alone. we were able to set it up in english which is nice because i love hearing their voices. like always, elder holland gave a killer talk that i absolutely loved. i did find the money in the tie mom, thanks :) also we had interviews this week and got mail! i got mail from my family!!! whoohooo!!! its so great hearing from you guys. i got my package sponsored by grandma, thanks so much! and my package from amy! it appears llike everything is coming through fine which is good. i will also send out some letters today, i was able to find a bit of time this morning! 

traveling to tianguá
the huge chapel there
monday-after p-day we went to our recent convert´s house (bruno) to play uno with him and some youth of our ward. he really liked it and is integrating very well with them. we will continue to do everything we can to help him stay in the church.

conference breakfast :)
my cake that i made
wednesday-we traveled back to sobral in the morning and at night we watched the joseph smith movie with some members and a less active girl. it was a really cool experience and everybody liked it.

thrusday-so our water disappeard which brought back nightmares of são luís... we were supposed to have our interviews at night, but the president was running way late so he told us to go to the church the next morning. someone who had the interview brought my a package i had sponsored by my grandma! it was so great to recieve licorice and jelly beans and the other goodies she gave me :) 

friday-in the morning we had our interviews. it was oh so great. he helped me alot with some questions i had and how i can be a better leader in the mission. he shared some really inspiring scriptures with me that gave me alot of motivation to work really hard. i want to start praying and fasting more to be a more spiritual person. our water came back which was good. we discovered that someone opened the cover on the outside of our house and turned the switch to the pump off.... also i had a very cool chat with elder bastos and we finished the night by drinking a glass of peach juice :)

saturday-GENERAL CONFERENCE! it was so so grat and i loved every talk. its amazing how much faster it goes by when you pay attention and actually look to learn from it. me and elder black watched in english.its so crazy that they reduced the ages that boys and girls can serve missions! i think alot alot more girls will go now. i think it will be a really cool change. also two new temples is always good :) i had my mashed potatoes and gravy that my mom sent me and a tradicional delicous conference lunch. also, we were invited to have dinner at someodies house :)

me with some other elders and a youth
my name tag reflecting someone speaking at conference

tuesday-i gave a training on how to use the scriptures in the district meeting, and afterwards i traveled to tianguá with the elders in my district that work there! every transfer i need to do divisions with all the elders in my distrct, so this day i went there! it was really funny because we got a ride in a tiny tiny van and elder deaver took up two seats almost with his humongous legs. it was crammed full so i was pretty much sitting on his lap. we got there and tianguá is great! its alot colder there! its so cool. its the coolest area in the mission. it was really fun working with elder deaver and elder ribeiro for the day and we spent the night there. in the morning it was actually cold! its the first time i have felt cold in 8 months... it was oh so great! 

sunday-conference was great again :) i loved all the talks and have so many things to work on in my life now :) in between sessions we scored some lasagna from one of the families in our ward which was delicious. after everything, elder bastos played the piano and we were singing lots of hymns with all the missionaries that were there. it was super fun and a way cool experience. 

it sounds like all is well and i hope it will continue to stay this way! i will keep everyone in my thoughts and prayers! let me know if there is anything that you guys want to hear from me!

love,
-elder lambert

me and elder black watching conference

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Week 36

hello my dearest USA!

this week was an absolute blast! we ended up teaching alot, but also doing some really fun/different things! we worked alot with the members/less ative members which is always way good! ALSO, we scored food a TON this week. the only thing i had to buy this p-day for the following week was toilet paper and milk. i found a scale today and found out that i have already gained 5 kilos (11 pounds)... i dont really know if its a good thing or a bad thing, but regardless i am positive i will continue to gain....

soap soccer

family night with irmã alzira

so i forgot my journal, but i will try to remember everything that happened!

monday-so this p-day was awesome. we have a little tile area in our house and we plugged all the drains and filled it up with soap and water :) we played soap soccer for quite a while and everybody left with bruises all over their bodies and walking funny. BUT, it was really really fun! i have some funny videos but they are too big to attach, i will try to send them on a CD or something... it was really great at night, because a group of the young women in our ward went to visit bruno (recent convert) and he really liked it! we are doing everything to make sure that he stays firm!

tuesday-for the district meeting i gave a training about how we should share personal experiences to bare testimony more powerfully. we had a family night about how to use our free agency. it was really good for everyone in the family to hear, and also the girl had her boyfirend there! he is not a member of the church so it was really good for them too.

cake that we scored with some members :)

activity for the youth

wednesday-i did a division with elder black in his area this day. it was really fun and we had a very successful day! its always fun working with other people, especially in other areas. i love meeting the new people and looking around in different areas.

thursday-today was a very very awesome day. our plans were not falling through and we taught people in all differet kinds of groups! we also showed up at emanuel´s house to teach him, but he was playing uno, so naturally we played with him! he had two friends there who really liked us and we will start teaching them too now. 

one of my presents. i never could have guessed it was a tie...

sunday lunch BBQ (with LOTS of coke!)

friday-to be honest, i dont really remember what happened this day. we taught and worked :)

saturday-saturday we were planning to go to tianguá to do a division with the elders there, but their baptismal interview fell through. i think we will go there tomorrow. we passed the day with some members less active and after we had a youth activity at somebody's house. it was way good and i think the youth liked it alot. they used a fish hook and explained how it is easy to get hooked, but really hard to get off. they related this to stuff for the youth (drugs, dating, law of chastity, friends, beer).

me and jaredy (he turned 14 the 29th)
everyone at jaredy´s and my birthday lunch!

sunday-wooohooo!!!! 20 years old! i feel so old and wise! today was a perfect day. we had ward conference today which was way good and after we had a BBQ at one of the members houses to elebrate my birthday and the birthday of her son (jaredy). there were 6 people there and we ate tons and tons of meat and drank 12 liters of coca cola :) i bought a bunch saturday night so we could drink it there sunday :) this family is super cool so we talked to them for a long time and the mom (irmã valdira) gave me a pair of jeans from her work for my birthday! the people in the ward are so so awesome. ALSO, we scored dinner at night in the house of another family :) still the attendace of our ward is increasing which is way good.

monday-we went to the center this morning with a boy who will leave on a mission soon. we are trying to encourage him alot and give lots of support. it was fun hanging out with him during the day. we are about to go out and work and do another week in the mission! this week should pass really really fast.

irmã valdira gave me jeans for my birthday!

dinner that antoher family made for us

this week we have interviews with the president, divisions in tianguá, and general conference! i'm so exited! here the sessions will be sat/sun 1-3 and 5-7. i'm super excited to watch and for all the other stuff that will happen this week. my birthday was perfect and i want to thank everyone for the love and support!!! i love you all and wish you the best! i would love to thank my family for the presents and pictures they sent me :) they mean alot!
-Elder Lambert

me with my shirt and bag from my fam!