Week ~ 45

Picture of Elder Lambert and Elder W. visiting the MRC (Missionary Recovery Center) right next to the MTC in Manila.

Hello world. This work is just too awesome. I love it, even if it is the hardest thing known to man. This week was kind of crazy. I will give some quick background. So Elder E, Elder S and Elder C are a trisome companionship in our house, Elder E ended up with a condition called "Sore eyes" in our society, we call it pink eye. Anyway, so he can't work so what happened is Elder S worked with me and Elder Webster and we covered both of our areas. Elder C stayed at the house with the big man (Elder E). Anyway, so we worked that day with the 3 of us. On Saturday (since I am now a District Leader) we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders, so it was me, Elder S and then Elder Sm. Elder Sm has been out for a while now and is super super humble and awesome. He is from Illinois. Anyway, I will tell the story of the last lesson of the day. So we had been working all day and the last part of the day we were knocking houses and tracting. Elder Sm knocked a house and I took the house directly next door. Elder Sm ended up getting in for a lesson and then he walked in. I was the last to walk in. I saw something that I have never seen, like maybe only on TV. I saw a nanay (a mom) holding a child. But I will be honest, it didn't look like a child. I saw it, and was in shock. It was a child that had a head that was probably 4 times the size of mine. Now, we ALL know that I have a big head, or a "bulbous" head as some of the homies call it, but this child had a very large head. It was born with a SEVERE birth defect. Severe might even be an understatement. I didn't know what to do in my shock, so I asked a simple question. I asked how old the child was. The child is 3 years old. So this nanay is the tender age of 24 years old. So we sat down and started talking to them about their day and everything. We kept it super casual. We started to teach about how the gospel can help us with any problems. The nanay then proceeded to tell us her whole life story. I will give some quick points to her life: 1) her mom died when she was 6 and the dad abandoned her. 2) she has no siblings. 3) she was homeless. 4) she has basically no family except her "asawa" (husband) who is working all day to pay for hospital bills. So basically what I got out of all of this, is I have a good, easy, happy life. I was mind blown at the type of trials that she has in her life. She did a good job holding herself from together, until the end. She shared that she sometimes asks herself if there is a God, and why God gave her such a hard thing in her life. We have answers for that, but not an immediate answer that people always want. We did our best to basically share our testimonies. Elder S basically told her that he doesn't know ANYTHING about what she is going through, but the Savior does. He started to choke up, but we all know I was probably choking up 5 minutes earlier, but it was my turn to speak after that. I bore a solid testimony about the importance of the Atonement and that The Savior DOES know our thoughts, problems, and feelings. It was a super tender lesson. We all walked out of that lesson in a sort of shocked state. The spirit was so strong. I couldn't even believe it. Anyway, that was my spiritual experience for the week. I don't have a pic of the baby, cause I am not sure how appropriate that would have been, but yeah.

 This week was a fine week, we went to the MRC again.  I again saw a sister who was in the MTC when I was there so I talked to her for a bit. She was a batch behind me so we were never close, but it was fun to see her. That trip was another all day excursion through the depths of Manila. I got some DP for me and Elder E so that was a good thing that happened. 

One sad thing though, we didn't have any investigators at sacrament. We had so many people promise to go to church, but no one came. The investigator who came last week went missing in action, so that was lovely. Sister Maricel is doing super well. She is now "75% leaning toward baptism," and not only 50%. So we are making progress! We taught a great lesson about repentance to her with Elder Sm so that was good. Elder Smith is a beast so yeah. I learned a ton from him. He is completely 100% fluent, I hope some day I get that way! It was good though. Sister Maricel said that she has work off to go to church next Sunday, so she should make it. We will continue to contact those other people who promised to go but didn't. We are doing well though. The area is doing way better now. We have lots of people to teach and stuff, if they are at their house of course ha ha. Elder W is doing better at the language. Sometimes its super hard when we are around lots of people, but I love that! So it's a nice balance. We are just having fun and all that, I love my roommates, we just party and make lots of food and stuff so yeah. (after the work is done of course!) That was the gist of my week! I have no pics cause... idk what kind of pics to take cause its not the beautiful island of Palawan anymore ha ha. Love you all! 

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Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth