Week ~ 31

Hello world.

Another one done and dusted. For those of you who want to know, I didn't have any kind Thanksgiving here in Rizal. I was actually studying and then I realized it was Thanksgiving day, at least here it was. Not in Utah. I did get a little sad , but that's okay. 

Friday morning, I was on a shuttle at about 6 in the morning and then I realized that all of my family was probably eating at that time. But I did alright! We were on our way to Narra to have our "Follow Up Trainer Meeting." So that was fun. We then stayed at the Zone Leaders mansion in Narra. It is a mansion. It slept 12 missionaries for 2 days. Water pressure isn't too good, but it was alright. I showered outside at the pump ha-ha. Nothing too new. The meeting was fine. My tatay (trainer), Elder Sacay and his companion lead the training, nothing TOO new to me, but it was good. Then after that all 8 companionship's (basically the whole zone) went out and OYMed (Open Your Mouth) basically all of Narra. That was normal, we found a LA (Less Active) member who is from Roxas, (Mom, that missionary who's mom you talk to on FB, is serving in Roxas I believe) but we invited him to go to this big conference we were having this weekend. The conference was being held in a place called Aborlan. The church in Narra wasn't big enough to hold all the branches in it. Aborlan is about 40 minutes from Narra. So that was even more travel! We were sleeping in Narra every night, Friday and Saturday, and then last night we were in Quezon. Which is where we are right now. So much travel and time wasted with travel. It was worth it though. 

On the way from Rizal to Narra Friday, we recieved a text from Riza saying that she wasn't going to be able to make it... I got super sad. We did EVERYTHING we could to make arrangements so she could make the 5 hour trip, and they bailed. I guess a bunch of members gave them clothes and white shirts and dresses and all that stuff. I guess Riza got sick or something. But Sister Resane told us that all of the kids were super sad that they weren't going to be going. I felt bad. 

They missed out on a GREAT conference. President and Sister Ostler came out here to Palawan, as well as Elder Aduruu of the Seventy. Pres. and Sis. Ostler of course gave great talks about basic believes (there were lots of investigators there from the various branches) and then Elder Aduruu is just a boss. He is a Filipino, who is one of the area Seventy's here in the Philippines. At the adult session on Saturday, he spoke about Sabbath Day. Since it wasn't Sunday,it was a little less formal and lots of jokes. It was great though. He had people stand up and ask questions about the Sabbath, and common problems people have keeping the Sabbath Day. People brought up things like TV, shopping, eating food in Sacrament meeting. Kind of some interesting stuff. He had a scripture, in the bible,for EVERY question. He recalled them all by memory. He had one for eating food in sacrament meeting! He called on me to recall that scripture,of course I had no idea! He asked me (this is in front of everyone btw) if I graduated seminary, of course I said yes. Then he says, "Then shouldn't you remember it?" My thought was, I have no idea! Anyone who knows me, knows I was a hooligan in seminary and high school! But he had a scripture FROM MEMORY for every concern. It was so awesome.

Then at the Sunday session, he spoke about how much our Heavenly Father loves us! His message was so simple, but so true! Our Heavenly Father really does love us, and he will never give us anything we can't handle! It was a GREAT conference. President Ostler came and talked to me about the boyfriend of Sis. Riza. I guess this guy lives in the Quezon City Mission, but he works in the Quezon City North Mission! So he has both of those mission presidents involved just to get missionaries to him. So it is happening! Who knows when, but it will happen. 

So my pictures, I don't remember exactly what I sent. I just know that I went on exchanges last week in Quezon with Elder Jones, that night we killed 7 rats. SEVEN. Only 4 pictured there, but that night when I laid down on the bottom bunk, 2 dropped down and ran over me. (I almost said a bad word but I repented of that.) It was gross, but since there were 4 of us, we all helped and got them. 

The other pics, are of family home evenings we have with members and Sis Riza. 

The bonfire is from a couple of weeks ago! That was super super fun. On the beach with no clouds! So Gorgeous. 

The other one is from last week, Sis. Riza's daughter had a birthday! She turned 8! Her name is Jamie. She is super awesome. 

Those are all the pics for now i think. I was going to send more but the computer is "hiding" my camera, its lame. Later today we are watching a movie as a district. Elder Lambert has been put in charge to pic a Disney movie ;) my FAVORITE. I was thinking the new Star Wars since you can get pirated copies and it's cheap and DISNEY ;)hahaha. That is all for this week! Till next weeeeek. 

Mahal ko po kayo,

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth

Week ~ 30

Dear world,

2 big things happened this week. 1) I broke my record on the Rubik’s Cube with a solid 1:04. (Ummm, I'm so proud...)That’s LIGHTNING. 2) One of my best friends in the mission was killed this week. Her name was Elder Lambert. I am sad I never got a picture of her. I don’t even know what kind of dog she was. But she was my favorite. She was killed to be made into “Aso adobo.” So yeah. She was made into food. (Ewwwwww!!!) I miss her dearly. That’s about the big news for the week. Nah joke!!. But those both really did happen. Anyways. 

This week was a good solid week. FINALLY Sis. Riza and her kids came to church! They had a great experience. We also got word from Sis. Riza AND Pres. Ostler that the missionaries in the Quezon City mission had contacted her husband and have started to teach him! Now all we have to do is pray that everything will go smoothly! So far so good I think. It is just a matter of her husband getting back here to Rizal to be married and that is not cheap. But it was great to finally have a good turnout of investigators at church! We had Sis. Riza and her kids which is 5 (6 total but only 5 count as investigators), and then we had Sis. Jho. She is a new investigator who lives with our EQ President and RS President. So, she has fellow-shippers! She has come to church twice now, the only problem is, is that she works Monday-Saturday. So we can only teach her on Sunday after church. We want to goal her for December 26^th, but there is almost no way that we can teach all of the lessons to her between now and then. So that’s a little sad. But, I do think that we can do it so she can be baptized in January! That would be great. I love seeing what is happening here in Rizal. When I came here, we were teaching so many LA and investigators that were not progressing at all. I decided when I was going to be the “Senior” here, that we were going to find lots of new people. Before, we were teaching SO many lessons every week, but no one was progressing or going to church. I felt it was almost a waste of time, not necessarily a waste of time, but we needed new people to teach. So at this point, our lessons have gone way down, but it is all part of balancing out talking to new people and finding new people. So our new people has gone up, but our lessons down. So basically we have hit a great balance in what we are doing here in Rizal. I love it. I really don’t want to leave Rizal. I also do feel like it is a curse to be assigned here in Rizal. I JUST WANT TO SWIM SO BAD EVERY SINGLE DAY BUT I CAN’T CAUSE THAT’S BAWAL. But, on the other hand, I love the members here. I love Palawan. I don’t think I would want to live here permanently, but I wouldn’t mind visiting here like once a year ;) But I don’t have to worry cause I am guaranteed another transfer here (transfers are next Wed) because I am training my anak Elder Garol! 

We are doing well. Sometimes he is very prideful and doesn’t want any of my advice. He kind of thinks that since he worked with the missionaries so much before his mission, he knows everything. That gets so annoying sometimes. Like REALLY annoying. Sometimes he feels like he doesn’t need to study or do any of those things, but I still try to lead by example. It does get frustrating. I do my best. Sometimes we spend too much time at people’s houses, and because I am not fluent I can’t like... cut the conversation. We are working on all that. Other than that we are just fine! No complaints at all. This next week, we go to Narra on Friday for a follow up trainers meeting, we sleep in Narra at the Zone Leaders mansion (yes it is huge) and then Saturday and Sunday we have District Conference in Aborlan! That is about 4 hours from here. Remember, Rizal is the choir, so that should be interesting. On top of that, Elder Lambert is in charge of one of the groups that “blends” with the others. So that is about a joke and a half. I am reminded every practice why I have never joined in any choir in my life. We don’t sound half bad though (except my group’s part). But President Ostler is coming out to our conference as well as a Seventy who is assigned here in the Philippines. So I am excited for that, should be really good! On top of that we are REALLY trying to get Sis. Riza to come with us as part of the choir. She says she wants to! So we are going to make that happen. We are so so busy here all the way through New Year’s, but I am excited for that! And even my Christmas packages ;) if the ZL ever brings them to Palawan ha. That’s a whole nother story.. 

We are doing well here. Busy week this week, again. I also enjoy no more rats! I hear them at night, but they are only in the ceiling. Also, the landlord fixed our water! We now OFFICALY have a sink that works! So we don’t have to wash dishes in the bathroom anymore. It’s like a dream come true now! It is really coming together here in Rizal, with the clean/walang rats and the work here! I love it. I also included pictures of the beach from last week. The one with the kids is actually Riza’s 2 youngest kids! I had a tragedy when I started emailing today, my SD card for my camera has a virus from these dumb internet cafes. Long story short, I lost my pics. But I put them on my companions massive external hard drive. But he said he is going to help me recover them all. So that’s a good thing. Anyways. I love you all! That’s all for this week.

Mahal ko po kayo, 

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth

Week ~ 29

Hello world,

It has been a good week. We are tearing it up here in Rizal. I almost
hate being assigned here. It is SO gorgeous. I just can’t even get
over it. I want to swim every dang day. I haven’t swam in the ocean in
over 10 years, so I am well overdue. It is such a blessing but also a
curse to be assigned in one of the most BEAUTIFUL areas in the whole
world. I will argue that all day long. Last night, I was standing out
on the beach, looking up at the Milky Way and the moon was just above
the horizon. I was just a foot or two from where the waves came. I
couldn’t help but think that all of this isn’t just a coincidence, and
that it came from an Eternal God! It was GORGEOUS and just perfect.  I
love it here and I love the members. 

We are working so hard for this baptism goal on December 26th of this year.
We are going to make it happen. I am excited for the next couple of weeks. 
It is a little stressful. But we are doing pretty well here in Rizal. We had a TON of
new investigators this week. Which is always awesome. It was a crazy
week; we came home from Narra on Wednesday. So it was a short week.
But basically it is always a short week here in Rizal. We have really
been focusing on Sis. Riza and getting her and her kids to the waters
of baptism (the ocean).  They are hard cookies to crack. But it’s
going pretty well! We have FHE tonight. We are doing a bonfire on the
beach tonight ;) I am so pumped. So that should be gorgeous aha. I
will email you all next week how trunky I get ;) jokes. But yeah. We
taught them 2 times this week. We committed her to live the WOW. She
has some problems with that, but it hasn’t been for a couple of weeks.
So we are praying for that. Since Rizal is the choir here in the Narra
District (stake), we have been putting that together. Everybody knows
that Elder Lambert has not a single lick of singing talent, except for
when he is singing in his car. But, there’s no cars here for me. I am
very blessed that my anak, (son) sang in a choir in college and knows
how to put it together! So we don’t sound half bad! We are singing
“How Great Thou Art.” So we sound good! Everyone that joins the choir
gets free fare all the way (4 hours) to Aborlan where we have the
conference! So we are trying to get Sis. Riza to join with her kids.
They came once to practice, but only once. So we will see what happens
with that. We have lots of members participating. We have a family,
who is less active, who we are trying to get to join. They are 3
girls; one is 18, 16, and 14. They all have waaay good voices. The
older two seem to come! But the 14 year old just won’t. But we went to
teach all of them at their moms “store” thing. They cook food and
people buy it there. We were there with some members, Sis. Mia Resane
(16) and her little brother Kim who is 13. Yeah he has the same name
as my mother what of it. 

Anyways, this one guy came up to the store
thing, and he starts looking for something to eat. I started to talk
to him about how gwuapo he was ahahaha. Just cause it was a way to
start the convo. Sister Mia looks at me and
says, “Elder Lambert! Do you realize who that is?!” My thought was, “I
have no idea.” Just because I don’t know any Filipino celebrities. But
I guess he was some famous singer/actor from a very famous Filipino
show called “Showtime.” It was cool to talk to him. He was of course
talking to me in English because he is good at it aha. But it was
cool. On Saturday Sis. Marilyn Diosma (the 18 year old) showed up to
choir practice with this guy! I don’t even know his name, but since we
are singing a Christian hymn, he knows it too. He sang it for us and
he is sooo talented. I was super cool to talk to and see this guy.

This week was pretty normal, for Rizal ahaha. The rats are gone! The
landlord came last Monday and they sealed the hole! I haven’t heard
any since and they aren’t in our house! Woooo! So that’s a plus.
Nothing too crazy this week. Just lots of planning for the coming
weeks and baptisms! If anyone wants to know, I’m not fluent. Sometimes
I still don’t have a clue what people say to me. So that’s
frustrating. But I usually have an idea… I am progressing though.
Slowly but surely! I love this work. Sorry for the short email aha. I
sometimes can’t remember what happened during the week aha. Love you
all!
PS. the internet stinks so bad i cant attach pics...
-- 
Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth

Week ~ 28

Dear world,

Probably the craziest week of my mission. I am not going to say why, (it would be best not to) but it was good! We actually slept in Quezon on Tuesday! That made it even harder! So busy, we are SO busy here in Rizal. With everything that’s going to be happening between now and New Year’s. At the end of this month, we have District Conference. Which is basically stake conference, but since we aren’t a stake its district conference. Since it is so hard for people here to make money, Rizal Branch has been made the District Choir! The district will pay the fare for most of the members I am pretty sure. The Rizal choir wouldn’t exist, if it wasn’t for the missionaries! So we now have to take time out of work to put that together. We already have so much limited time as it is… Because Elder Garol is training, we have an extra hour of companionship study. That just means 1 hour less of work. On top of that, we go 2 hours one way to Quezon for district meeting. So all the travel time, cuts into work. It is just crazy how little amounts of time we have to work. We are trying to work that out. This week was just crazy for a travel and stuff. This week we go to Narra for Zone meeting! So that means we will sleep in Quezon on Tuesday! That should be great… Less work. Kind of frustrating and stressful but we are managing. I was thinking if I had to pinpoint a skill I have learned on my mission, I can do a rubik's cube in less than a minute and a half ;) hehe jokes (but really though). No I have in a way, learned how to use time wisely and manage stress. It's super weird some of the things I am learning. But I love it.

This week Elder Jones (our district leader) called me and said he had some big news. I was like “Oh boy what do you have for me this time?” Because last time he called me it was last week telling us that we had to go about halfway to Narra at 4 in the morning to give Elder Sacay, (my trainer and now my current Zone Leader) some special sheets for the mission, so I was REALLY excited for this phone call. Elder Jones said that the mission is setting a “Goal,” but not really a goal. Something like a commandment. EVERY companionship in the Manila mission is to have 2 baptisms on December 26, 2015, not on the 19^th or the 12^th, but on the 26^th. They are calling it a “White Christmas” here in the Manila mission. So every companionship has to really step up their game in every aspect of the work to make that happen. I got a little nervous at first, but I know with fervent fasting and prayer we can make it happen.  

 Right now we have 6 people with baptismal dates, 4 of them being our member referral, Sister Riza and her 5 kids. 2 of them are too young to be baptized. But I extended baptismal dates to the other 2 kids. They all accepted for the 26th of December!  Then she asked the question, “Elders, can I be baptized even if I am not married?” my heart dropped, but I knew it was the time to tell her. Her live in partner is in Manila working until like May of next year. We tried to get special permission from President Ostler, but it was a nooo. So, we had to tell her that she can’t, but her kids still can. It was a very intense lesson, one of the most intense I have ever taught. She wants to be baptized so badly. But she has to wait ahhh. So our goal is her 3 kids that have dates and are listening! Her kids are so awesome and polite. It is almost weird because that’s rare here in the Philippines ha-ha. But they are progressing! We will make sure that they hit that date. We also coordinated with the branch, and every family is required to give a referral to us. So hopefully that happens. The branch is really good at planning, but not the best at doing. So yeah, we will have to follow that up. I hope that we will get member help in lessons because that makes everything so much better! We will see what happens.

Update on the rats: 3 days ago I set 3 traps with peanut butter to give it a try. Of course, I heard 1 go off that night with nothing in it. The other 2 didn’t go off, but the bait was gone from all 3 of them, so that was lovely. 2 nights ago, we walked in the house and there was a trap on the floor in front of the door, (remember the other 2 didn’t go off but the bait was gone.) basically what happened, a rat stepped on it with its foot and it got it by the foot! It was dragging the trap to try and hide. The spot it chose OF COURSE had to be inside of MY sandal. Not my companion’s sandal, but MY sandal. So I went into killer mode. I moved him outside to start with. He was chewing his foot, almost all the way off! So I used my killing stick and flipped him on his stomach, put the stick on his neck and stepped on him. I heard the classic “snap” and thought it was over, he was still alive and kept moving! He started bleeding all over the porch so I picked up the trap and threw it across the road! So that was that. They are still very active at night so that’s great. Our landlord came over this week to address some other issues we had at the house, and they said today they were gonna come and seal the rat hole! So that better happen. Oh yeah and we also found a spider that was like 4 inches across INSIDE the house. It had a sac of babies. So that was glorious. We used a rat sticky trap to catch it, and when we caught it, the babies all started spewing out! By this point I was having a heart attack, but we survived! Anyways. That was our week! In a nutshell!i will send pics in a sec.

Sister Resane, Sister Riza with Elder Lambert and kids.

Elder Garol, Elder Lambert & Elder Sacay

Ahhh he misses his pup!!

YaY! More rats!!

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth

THE CHURCH OF

JESUS CHRIST

OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS

PHILIPPINES MANILA MISSION

P.O. BOX 1997

Makati Central Post Office

1200, Metro Manila

Philippines

30 October 2015

Dear Brother and Sister Lambert,

We are happy to inform you that your son, Elder Lambert, has recently been called to serve as a 

New Missionary Trainer in the Narra Zone. He will be training Elder Garol, who is from the Philippines. Elder Lambert has shown by his obedience and diligence that he is ready to teach and train a new Elder. This is a very significant missionary leadership calling. We have been asked by Church Leaders to only call our very best missionaries to this responsibility. Trainers have such a huge impact on their new missionaries and eventually on the whole mission.

We are excited about this opportunity for growth in your son. Because of this added responsibility, any extra words of support and encouragement will be appreciated. We are grateful he has accepted this opportunity, and we have great confidence in his ability to succeed.

We are so grateful for your son’s dedication to the Lord’s work. We wish you could see him as he teaches and interacts with the people. We are humbled to be able to serve with him and the rest of the incredible Philippines Manila Missionaries. Thank you for sharing such a wonderful son with us.

Sincerely,

President and Sister Creg D. Ostler

Philippines Manila Mission

Week ~ 26

Dear world,

It saddens me to hear of the loss of Allie’s teammate. Of course I didn’t know her. But me being a part of the lacrosse community, I feel so saddened. I have known of too many lacrosse players in Utah whose life has ended because of accident or suicide. It saddens me beyond words. I do know that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can all be healed from any kind of pain, spiritual, physical, mental. All of it. My prayers are with her family.

This week was good. We have been focusing on finding. Our lessons dropped, but our OYM’s went way up and our new investigators! So we are excited about that. Last Monday we had family home evening with our referral, Sister Riza. We focused on the family aspect of our message. She has 5 kids. The oldest is 13, then 12, and then 7? Then like 2 more younger. They are all very well behaved and respectful kids. Which is a little bit rare here. So yeah. It’s great to teach them. We had a good family home evening. Of course she’s interested in the family aspect. The next day we taught them about our basic beliefs. A short lesson, we invited her oldest son to be baptized as well as her. They both accepted. The son is 13, the next oldest is her daughter who is 12. She wasn’t there to invite, but we will invite her hopefully in our lesson later today. She committed to read in Alma 32, so I hope she actually does that. We will see later tonight! 

Also, on Saturday we OYMed some Muslims! This is always hard because they always seem to say, “Muslim kami Muslim kami!” Which just is saying we are Muslim and we aren’t allowed to change. So yeah. But these people let us in! The tayay (dad) told us that he was willing to listen and that Christians and Muslims should always get along! Which is true, we told him of the importance of family and that was kind of the focus of our message. They speak a different dialect that’s only here in Palawan. It’s called Hulo Sulo. They speak Tagalog, but they prayed in that language and I caught maybe 10 words. It was cool though! They are very active Muslim. But we have a return appointment tomorrow so we will teach about our basic beliefs about Jesus Christ and stuff. They believe he was only a prophet and that he didn’t atone for all of us. So that is going to be interesting. I have taught Muslims before but they never have even a slight interest. I am excited though. Hopefully they will progress. 

Bro. Alvorado

This week also, WAS THE BIG TEMPLE TRIP of all the members getting sealed! Not all of them were back yesterday to go to church. But tonight we have a FHE/birthday/Follow up temple prep with all of them! I am very excited for that. Yesterday at church, we had a whopping 25 at church. The Branch President was at the temple escorting youth to do baptisms; his 1^st counselor was at the temple getting sealed, so his 2^nd counselor presided. No problems, just not very many people. No investigators either. But, one member was there that went to the temple. He is Brother Alvorado, the one with one arm. We drove up, I got out of the tricycle and I have NEVER seen a smile so big on someones face. He was so happy! I went and gave him a hug. He told me how beautiful it was inside the temple. And how much he wishes to go back. Maybe some day he can.

This is the galzote family. with my loving former companion elder baquiran ;) he got to witness cause hes on the mainland. This other pic is just a bunch of the members! (I am sorry mom i may have sinned, i let them borrow my camera to take pics, it came back safe and sound no worries) but yeah i have lots of pics of members in manila! i felt bad cause they dont have cameras so i let them borrow mine.. 

This is a picture of the whole group that went. And then the Vargas family! I love them so much! They work with us every Sunday they are so awesome. 

-- 

News about the rats: I killed 2 “youth” rats this week. I was cooking and turned the stove on and a rat ran out from underneath it. I went into demon mode and tracked it down and killed it. Then another one ran from under the shelf! Got him too. But I know of a big one that I saw last night ahaha. We will get it sooner or later. My companion/bagong anak is good. He is a recent convert, but he worked with the missionaries a lot over the last year. He is from Bacolod which is one of the top baptism missions in the world. So he is always saying the way we do things is weird. Which gets actually way annoying. He always tells me that he doesn't need to study from Preach My Gospel because he knows the lessons. So yeah....We are working hard though here! I incuded a picture of the group that went to the temple and a pic of Brother Alvorado. I will send more in a sec. I also didn't get to go on the hike because of rain. We plan to go today but it is raining right now so not sure... I love you all and keep being awesome! 

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth