Week 96

hello my Family! so this week is transfer week! I still haven't heard about the transfer, but I should be staying here. When I was in teresina I got the transfer with my buddy who is the secretary :) It's good to have friends in powerful places. only if there is an emergency change will something move here. so, the week was great and its super weird to think that i am starting my last transfer and that this transfer will only be 5 weeks for me! im so excited but so sad at the same time! i hope the pictures worked out. i have to make them low quality to be able to send them here, i still have all the originals though!

so for pday we went to this giant man made lake that was pretty cool. it was a good opportunity to take some pictures and play around a bit. sadly i couldnt get in the water which drives me nuts! i miss the water so much and i am so excited to get back in it when i get home.

this week didnt have THAT many adventures because i spent some time in teresina. so i left thursday at midnight and got bak Friday night. i went there because my visa had already been expired for almost a year and a half. the people werent too happy when i went there to get it renewed and they saw that :) i was fun because i stayed a bunch with Elder f Sousa who is my good buddy who got here in my group from são Paulo. he is the secretary and it was im speaking english to yall. he has learned quite a bit! in the secretary office there is also a missionary who is deaf and dumb. we became super good buddies even though he cant talk. i learned a little bit of sign language to talk to him. he Works with the baptismal forms, when they get in the office he puts the information in the computor. he signed to be that i was a good missionary because he always sees baptismal forms with my name on them :) sadly i didnt have my câmera with me, but on my way home ill take a Picture with him in the office!

so on saturday we had two baptisms! we had the baptism of Joelson (19) and Mayra (12). they were both awesome baptisms and mayra's whole Family went to see the baptism also :) i feel really good about these baptisms because even though they are Young, they are both very well integrated in the branch. they have so many awesome friends that will help them out a bunch! Mayra is already giving refrences to us and we give her for the strength of youth pamphlets to hand out at school. she loves to participate! the baptism was super spiritual and all the members were very excited which made it awesome :) i am really loving the people here. on sunday we had a HUGE miracle! we were able to break the record for the attendace in piripiri! yesterday we had 9 investigators from our área and 123 people in total at sacrament meeting. the branch presidente is super happy with our work and said that we will be history in piripiri :) the highest monthly average attendance was about 105, we had a monthly average of 112 in november! we will see if we can get it up to 115 in december. i love the presidente here, he is super cool.

 and yes i got my package in teresina! thanks very much! im excited to start setting up christmas decorations here :) me and Elder robb are pretty excited that we will pass christmas together! we are already in the christmas spirit. we broke the rule of waiting for thanksgiving as i have already listened to Charlie brown christmas a couple times this week :) oops! i still have to send my knives home, that was a good reminder. i took the blades out, so i will probably wrap them in TP and send them and leave the handles in my suitcase. they just look like pieces of metal. im starting to remember random things at home that i had forgotten about and i am curious what our house will look like. i dont remember very well. im interested to see whats still there and whats not! i got super happy when i read that we got big ben from grandma :) until the next week my Family that i love so much!

-Elder Lambert

Week 95

well family, i am great!

we had one of the best weeks of my mission this last week. we had lots of miracles happen! i am really excited to finish my mission here because i am being able to work really hard and focus well.

so some cool things that happened is that i found out that two of my buddies in araguaína were baptized this last saturday! that was super awesome to hear about that and i am super happy for them! i talked to one of them on the phone after her baptism and it was so good to hear the news :)

another cool thing was four baptisms that happened here this saturday also. four kids were baptized and the parents will be baptized soon also, they are just finishing up the process of getting married. its a really special family and they will be awesome in the church. 

so i did two division this week, one was witht he ZL's from parnaíba which was really good. we were able to find some new people to teach and mark a baptismal date! later during the week i did one with elder waltenberg which was fun to work with him again because i havent worked with him since i finished his training.

this week there was nobody to open the church for the early morning seminary, so me and elder robb volunteered ourselves to go over. we had to wake up at 5 every morning. what we would do is bring our hammocks and hang it up in the tree and sleep during seminary and afterwards just come home and get ready for studies. that was a funny experience. 

so this week we will have two more baptisms! one of the girls names is mayra. she had been taught for a while already, but her parents didnt want her to be baptized. her parents are letting her now! this is a great miracle and its cool to see her progression. she is giving out for the strength of youth pamphlets at school to her friends. the other guys name is joelson. he is girls boyfriend here in the branch. we started teaching him not that long ago and elder robb marked a date for this week and he accepted! we got him taught everything and they both already passed the interviews :) im super excited for all the miracles that are happening and that we are really seeing the fruits of our hard work at the beginning of the transfer until now. 

we made a contact with a woman in the street and she also showed up at church this week. she loved it and said it was completely different than anything she had thought. she also knows a lot of people who are members here. her name is monique and is really wanting to start a new life following christ. we marked a date with her also for the 7th of december. we have some good baptisms lined up, we will just have to keep working so that all these things end up happening! 

i got a call this morning from the secretaries saying that this week i will travel to teresina to renew my visa. its about time! i have been here with an expired visa for the last year and finally i am getting it renewed. good thing i was never deported :) 

i love yall so much and love the pictures that yall send me! im excited for the snow! i keep seeing lots of pictures of it :) you all are so awesome and the best family ever! i love you!

-Elder Lambert

Week 94

so this week was rough, but has some really special moments!

so we went to parnaíba for the zone meeting this week. it was really cool to see some of the missionaries i hadnt seen in a REALLY long time. i saw my comp from the CTM for the first time since the beginning of my third transfer. so i got mail! i got lots of letters, my birthday package from gma mimi and mel, and the envelope from amy. i loved all the pictures that i got and the letters! the last package still hasnt gotten here. maybe by now it has. i will find out next month!

on p-day, we got caught in a HUGE rain storm. i think most people would get upset about it, but me and elder robb were dancing and singing in the rain all the way home with our groceries. we look upset in the picture, but it was actually really fun.

on wednesday there was a baptism of a members kid who turned 8. it was a really cool baptism!

so one of the coolest things in my misison happened this last week. so we had one of the worst days ever, and we were praying that something good would happen. while we were walking home we decided to make one last contact in the square. we sat down with a family that looked really poor. we found out that they dont have any money and dont have a home. they are going city to city trying to find a job. it was parents and two kids. they said that they learned about the church in teresina from the missionaries but were never baptized. they had a book of mormon but had lost it. we talked to them alot about their family and what they were trying to do and the difficulties., we gave them another book of mormon and they got super happy about it. we found out that they were going to sleep in the bus station to try to move to the next city and didnt have any food for the day. we felt something super special about that family and we didnt know why. they started heading to the bus station and we raced home. we switched to work clothes and filled backpacks with 2 liters of juice, a loaf of bread, tub of butter, 4 packs of wafers, and some church books. we then made a 30 minute run to the bus station and got there at about the same time as them, when they saw us they were really confused and when we started pulling out food for them they got super happy! i have never felt so appreciated in my life. it was the worst day that became the best day. they were so grateful and calling us their angels. the next morning we scrambled and cooked 14 eggs, made 2 liters of chocolate milk, and bought some fresh bread and ran it to the bus station in the morning to give to them. we couldnt find them so i guess they were able to get a bus! i really hope their family gets blessed by others because they really need it and wherever they turn up they said they would look for the church!

so on saturday morning there was a branch activity that was really good! everyone played around alot and everything got super dirty so it was kinda stressful trying to clean everything to get ready for the baptisms. BUT, both the baptisms worked out great and were both very special/spiritual! im so happy for both the people who were baptized and they were both confirmed yesterday! sunday church was great! it hit the record for the most people in a long time! our branch had 113 in sacrament meeting yesterday :)

 

I tried to upload pictures but it didn't work :(

 

well I am loving my life like always and I love all of you!

 

Elder Lambert

Week 93

hello my family!!!!

here is a picture from last weeks BOM activity

so Halloween was this week! sadly i didnt go trick or treating, but we made watermelon jack o lanterns!! i made a missionary and elder robb carved 'brasil'. i was really fun and we had lots of watermelon guts to eat! it was nice because with pumpkin it all goes to waste, but with watermelon it doesn't :) 

we had another activity this week that was really good! we had ping pong and water balloon volleyball. so far i have been able to plan activities every week and i will keep going until i leave! the members are really liking it and there are always some non members at them. I'm really liking the branch so far.

so the two girls were interviewed and everything is ready for the baptisms on saturday! it will be super cool because we will have to have two separate baptisms. one can only do it in the afternoon, and the other only at night! it will be a very spiritual day!

we also found out that we will have a zone meeting tomorrow. it appears that the strike has ended because they said that i got lots of stuff! im really excited to see what i got :) 

so do you guys already have the itinerary for my flights? if so, send them to me because i want to see everything! 

so just some random activities that happened during the week. we ate goat meat one day for lunch, thats was weird. Me and elder robb have been having lots of interesting adventures.

two weeks ago we talked with a drunk guy in the street and told him we wanted to help him and gave him a word of wisdom pamphlet. on friday this week we passed in front of his house to visit him and he was in front reading it! he said that he really liked it and wants forgiveness of his sins. we marked baptism with him for the 30th. we will have to work hard with him because he smokes and drinks. he went to church also this sunday and love it!

we have a bigger teaching group which is awesome and this week went a little better. little by little miracles are happening because of our efforts! i hope that it will continue like this forever  there were alot of people in church this week which was awesome. members brought alot of friends that we will visit during the week :) 

this is our super nacho lunch we made! it had cheese, chips, meat, onion, pepper, and lots of seasoning!

i miss all yall and am excited to see you soon! we can almost start planning the Christmas call! its coming up. just know that i love my mission and i love all of you!

-Elder Lambert