Week 92

hello my Family!

 

so i still dont know if the mail strike ended, but the ZLs will go to teresina today and bring back stuff if there is anything, so in a week i will know when we have a zone meting. with the ski passes i dont know what is best... maybe a seasons pass for sundance because i will have a car right and can go a lot? but i would like to go to snowbird at least once. dad can visit me and we can have a daddy son day :)

 

so i will start with the book of mórmon activity. it was awesome! the branch presidente sais that it was the best missionary activity he has ever seen here :) all that credit goes to mom! we brought a box of 60 books and all of them were used! there was a lot of people and it was a special activity. now we just need to follow up with the people to see if they gave them out.

 

its a bummer because the pictures aren't working again... :(

 

this week had some super funny adventures with me and Elder Robb. the adventure was with our razors. so i discovered that i left my charger in Araguaína, so this week i had to buy a real razor. i had only used one once before and that was the very first time that i had shaved. so we went to the Market and i bought a razor for me to use, but also they have these super cheap ones here that are only R$1. i wanted to buy it just to see how it would be. i has 1 blade and everything is just plastic. we each bought one to use and went the whole day with razor burn. it was a good adventure! with the normal one i dont have any probem though. i feel more like a man now.

 

so we should have two baptismal interviews this week and two baptisms on the 9th! one is the girl friend of a Young man, and the other is a daughter of an inactive Family. we are really hoping that the parents will see the example of their daughter and want to come back to church. they have been inactive for a long time and she really wants to be baptized!

 

we did two Family nights this week that were both really good. one was with the extended Family of the girl who will be baptized and the other was the house of a recent convert where the rest of her Family aren't members. they were both really awesome and the members are helping us out a bunch here. its a great area!

 

this week we were also able to mark a baptismal date with the mom of a member! the missionaries have already been visiting her for over a year now and she finally accepted! i have really learned that the book of mórmon is the secret to everything! she had never prayed to know if its true and when she did this week, she felt its true and knows that she has to follow the answer!

 

we are working really hard here, but we still have a shortage of investigators. we are having to knock on lots of doors and do lots of contacts, but i am learning a lot! i hope that in these next week we can get a solid teaching group!

 

i hope all is well with everyone and i love you all bunches!

Week 91

Add-On from last week

so stheffane's baptism worked out great! it was very spiritual and a great experience to see someone be baptized after attending church fora year. that was a great moment to happen right before being transferred.

so i had to leave monday morning to be transferred and that's why i am sending email now.

this city seems great, i will like it a lot, but obviously miss lots of people. its close to campo maior and so i might have a chance to see some of my buddies from there!

a random cool experience that happened the other day is that when we were walking in the street a lady randomly pulled over in her car and asked me were the church is. she told me that her daughter and her husband just moved from portugal and are members and didn't know where the church was in the city. they showed up sunday with their two kids. the husband also brought a reference to church that was awesome. he participated a bunch and loved it! its a bummer i was transferred because he said that every sunday he will go. he will probably be baptized really fast.

So when you sign me up for classes, probably sign me up just for the generals and try to sign me up for class times in the morning. I like to study more in the morning than the later afternoon

I still haven’t gotten the packages yet, I will try to enter in contact with the secretaries to see if anything showed up there. Maybe it just took a long time to arrive. Also the internet isn't working here so I don’t know if I will be able to send much of an email this week :( at least I got one part sent!

The internet fell that day so i just completed it today. next week i will send more

Well I love you all and wish you a great week!

This week

well everyone is wondering about my new area, so i will respond to everything here. so this place is a little hotter than the last, but a lot drier which is good; i don't sweat as much :) the apartment here is really nice, it is just missing some simple things that would keep it a little more organized. i will try to take some pictures this week. here it is a branch, and it is awesome. the leadership is super good and the branch president is the man. i have been able to work with him a lot already and he will help us out a bunch. the average attendance here is about 90 which is good for a branch. This city i think is maybe just a little smaller than the last one and has all the necessary things pretty close to the house. there are still some lunches that we have to walk really far to get there... my buddy from campo maior didn't come here because he knows a lot of people and thought it would be better for him to go to a different city. elder waltenberg will train so i have another grandkid here! i really likethe people who I'm living with!

so i figured out why i haven't gotten the other packages yet. it appears as if there has been a post office strike for a little while now. i hope it ends soon because i want to get my things!!

oh i forgot one part. i am still the district leader... i think i will pass my whole mission almost with this calling! i really like it though because i have more responsibility, but doesn't take away my time to do normal missionary work.

i have a request also, i will make a cover for my last planner for the mission and i would love it if everyone can send an updated picture of their family. i don't have an updated picture with all the new happenings (so a picture with nat and brodie, mel dave and kid, amy and jer with kids... ect.) i will make a cool planner with everyone on it!

and mom you will be happy to know that you are the reason for a lot of excitement here! i took your idea with what you did with the book of mormon and presented it to the branch here. we will have a big branch activity on wednesday and all the families will participate. everyone will write their testimonies of the book of mormon and glue it to the cover and we will help them give them out to their best friends of special people that they know. they are all really excited and this should be a way for us to get some good family references! mom is famous!

here the church was without any activities so we planned one for this week that already passed and we will have the book of mormon one this week now. everyone is getting super excited and i have already gotten to know lots of the members. its awesome because they always come up to me and ask me what i will plan for the next activity. i hope this will strengthen the branch a lot. i feel like i have already known all these people for a long time! i also gave a talk in church on sunday about accelerate missionary work! i will really like this area because i already am!

this area didn't have a teaching group when i got here so we knocked on lots of doors and did lots of contacts. its good because its motivating me to work really hard, but it is also really hard work. we taught the same person more then once only one time this week. all the other lessons were knocking on doors doing the first visit or teaching in the streets trying to find people who are worth going back to do a second visit. we will see if we are able to continue finding some good people this week. i hope so!

i love you all very much and wish you a wonderous week!

-Elder Lambert

Week 90

well, transfers struck...

sadly i got transfered from araguaína, but i really felt like i did my work there. i was able witness some awesome miracles and baptize some really special people. i got transferred to a city called piripiri. its in piauí and i will finish the training of an american named elder robb. it will be cool because i will live with elder waltenberg (trained him) and tiago (part time missionary from campo maior!) its funny how that all worked out. im guessing that this was my last transfer change until i get sent home!

Week 89

well hello my wonderful family!

so as you have remembered. this will be the last week of the transfer! im really excietd to finish off one more transfer strong in my mission. i am really happy with my work that i have done so far here in araguaína! im starting to get really sad at the same time though thinking about how much i iwll miss all these people. i have friendships so strong its like they are my family. but the Lord might need me in another place so i will see what will happen! 

so this week we never ended up traveling to imperatriz. i think we will go tomorrow, so i will let you know about the packages. i dont think i got any because thats what elder rais said... how long ago were they sent? 

photo: giant moth!

so conference was awesome! me and elder lott were able to get it set up in the church computer room and watch it in english here. the talks were super good and i loved all of them. one of my favorite quotes was that 'the biggest blessing receive from conference are the blessings that we receive afterwards'. this phrase really hit me because it isn't just listening to the prophets voice that blesses us. we get blessed as we put the things into practice. 

we had quite the set-up in our room. we got an ice cooler and filled the room with snacks :) On saturday (just me and elder lott) we drank 6.6 liters of soda, and on sunday we drank another 5. it was wonderful :) 

we decided to wear matching ties also just to top things off. im gunna miss this kid alot when i leave. we have a really strong relationship that im sure will continue on to after the mission. 

so this week we will baptise someone named stheffane! it will be a very special baptism because she has been waiting a year for this already. she was a reference from amember and has been attending church for a year. sadly her family hasnt let her be baptized and because she is only 17 she cant do it without permission. on friday she will have her 18th birthday! this will be a very special moment for all!

its so wierd thinking just 2 more transfers. it will be a good last two though. i iwll have christmas and also i will be able to talk with yall on the computer right before getting home! it will be such a funny call; 'see ya next week!' where will everyone be? is this the year that everyone has christmas in other places? 

if you havent sent the last package yet, i will probably need one more stick of deodorant. i dont know what else i want really.... are there any things that the fam is wanting specifically from brasil?now would be the time to ask. i dont know what yall would want... and how is my registration going? will nat sign me up for classes. i guess i will just do generals. im excited to get back into the college life! 

today i feel like i am at home. the whole sky is grey with clouds! this is the first time i hve ever seen this here! i was cold in the afternoon. when i was sleeping i had to get a sheet! this will be the first time in over a year and 8 months that i will go through a whole day without sweating :) i think i will suffer in utah...

well sorry fam that this weeks email was a little short i didnt have much to talk about, but i love you all and thats whats most important! i have such a wonderous family!

-Elder Lambert

Week 88

wow i hope this email wont be super short. its hard because i got so many email this week! so i would like to start off thanking everyone for the things they got me! i received the two packages from mom and dad, but not yet the others. i will have a meeting on friday, so maybe they were just later than the others. thanks also for the emails that i got from everyone! i have an awesome family and awesome friends :) 

so my birthday was awesome. on sunday we had a HUGE BBQ at imrã lizetes house. there was lots of meat, soda, and food 

it was really fun to have my birthday with irmã lizete because i love her so much! i feel like she is my mother here in araguaína. it was nice to relax a little bit, eat some cake, and talk with lots of people. i was always curious how birthdays would be in the mission. now i know!

photo: me and imrã lizete!

i love all the people here, they are so kind to me :)

another awesome thing that happened this week is that alana came back! she was a girl that we baptized a couple months ago during her vacation, but she returned to her dads house. now she is back here to stay! it was awesome seeing her again and following up with her. 

so for my schooling, i guess just sign me up for GE's. i will want to talk with dad first before deciding what i want to do exactly with my life. he is a good mentor :) just ask nat what she thinks is best for housing. we have very similar tastes so whatever she liked, i will like!

im excited for this week because it will have lots of exciting things! on friday i think we will travel to inperatriz for a zone meeting (i will get packages!) and saturday and sunday will have general conference! it will be wierd because we will only have 3 full days of work. it is kinda stressing me out because we have lots of things to do and now we dont have much time, but im excited because they will be awesome events :) i think me and elder lott will stay together in the secretary office or something to watch in english. i like to hear the voices of the people.

this week we had divisions with the zone leaders which was fun. i stayed with elder rodgers. he is from south carolina and has an awesome accent. his portuguese is really funny also because of it. he is an awesome person and we will try to set some things up so that we can hang out after the mish. its strange because today is my 3 months to home mark. i dont want it to end so fast! im excited to come home, but at the same time i dont want it to end :(

photo: hat that me and elder lott designed. its the brasilina flag inside of some mountains!

well i love everyone and wish yall and awesome week! thanks so much for all the presents and love!

-Elder Lambert

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

Week 83

hellllo family!

this week had its up´s and downs. happily it was more ups than downs though :) 

so i guess the biggest down was that we were robbed.... i was coming home from a family night one day and two men passed by us on a motorcycle and the guy in back got off and pointed a gun at me and took my cell phone. luckily that was the only thing they took and i didnt lose my camera or anything else. little robberies like this are very common here. i think the police found the people because they had been doing lots of assaults.

a fun thing  that we did was divisions with the zone leaders! it was fun to work with my  "dad" again and joke around with them. we have a pretty fun district here in araguaína. at the end of divisions we bought a HUGE pizza. it was one of the biggest pizzas i have ever seen.

we will have a zone meeting tomorrow so we will have to travel to imperatriz and the president will be there. 

a cool thing that happened this week was that we visited a less active father and son and the kid went to church! it was awesome to see him there in his white shirt and tie with the other boys. we will keep working with his dad to see what we can do to help him out too. 

we had a cool FHE with the president and his wife. it was for other members to show up at, but it just ended up being them and the missionaries! it was cool though because it was very spiritual. the games were pretty funny at the end as you can see in the picture. i definitely won this one. we also had a weekly activity that was fun.  elder lott and i played around alot with the motorcycle helmet of one of the members. he looked like an astronaut. 

With elder Lott

the best thing of all this week was a BAPTISM!!! we had the baptism of imrã lizete and her daughter emily. it was soo cool and such a great experience for me. i am so happy because i got to see the whole process; finding, teaching, converting, and baptizing. they both chose me to do the baptisms which was such an honor. its so cool how much imrã lizete has progressed in the gospel; she absolutely loves the church and is sharing her testimony with a bunch of people. i feel like she is kind of my mom here. i always make juice with her and we talk a bunch. saldy i dont have the pictures of the baptisms with me right now, so i will have to send them next week.

so exciting news! i found out about my return date! it is officially marked for the 30th of december! sadly i will not be home for christmas, but it will be a pretty awesome new years eve party! we will have to delay nat's birthday by a day. im glad that everything was arranged so that i will get back home in time for school, but it will be kinda hard just to be with you guys for a week. at least you guys have lots of time to prepare a kicking party for me :) 

i hope that everything is going great with the family. everything is going great here! its so weird to think that two years is already winding down to the end. it passes by so fast! im so thankful for all the things that i have learned. it has been sooo much!  i love the mission, i love the church, and i love my life!

-Elder Lambert