Week ~ 156523

Hello world. Another week down. Kind of a slow week since we didn't even work for two whole days. Last Wednesday we went to the MRC for Elder Webster, so that was a day of no work haha. Kind of hard. Then Thursday was Zone Conference! Boy that was the highlight by far. We were trained and taught by our wonderful mission president and AP's. It was just great and uplifting. It was just a nice spiritual recharge from everything we have been doing. We went all the way to Makati, which is where the mission office is for this conference. I was super excited to see some of my best friends here in the mission. I have some pics, but I forgot the memory card at home so that was cool. I got to see all the boys though. The theme of the conference was "I Will be the One." Basically it was focusing on the missionaries being "The One." Really just meaning the one to always be obedient, to always do the right thing. The one to stand up for what is expected of us as missionaries. It was just really good. President Ostler focused on teaching the message of the Restoration, which we all know is our unique message to the world. President Ostler actually did some practice teaching which I thought was really cool. He focused on making the First Vision a VERY special thing. He said we are making it more of a casual thing when we share it. So that's something that we need to work on. I actually find it so amazing when we share the First Vision, it blows my mind every single time. I can't even remember it in English  kind of funny. So that is something that we can work on here in our area. 

This week I also had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Elder Casteneda. He is one of our Zone Leaders who is a pretty chill guy. We had a tough time with exchanges cause the sisters in my district are having some problems. I don't know the nature of the problems, but yeah so the ZL's had to go give them a blessing. So that cut into exchanges. I learned some great things from him and new techniques in teaching that I have already applied so that was really good for me. I sometimes don't like exchanges that much, but this week was really good during the exchange. 

Anyways, about our work this week. It was a little tough this week, since we didn't have much work, but yeah. Anyways Sister Maricel now has chicken pox. So we taught her once on Tuesday with Elder Casteneda, but other than that we weren't able to teach her. We are having troubles with members commiting to work with us, and then they bail by just not even showing up. So we make plans to teach people and then we can't teach them cause we don't have a brother working with us. That was super frustrating this week. We got punted (or in other words didn't teach any lessons) like 2 days last week. So that really killed our numbers. We just can't seem to get people to be home and ACTUALLY commit to being there when we come over. So that is no good. We are trying to find new people but the small little areas that are worth working in just don't like us aha. And when we knock doors at the super rich peoples houses we just get told by the maid that the owner isn't home. We are doing our best though! Hopefully this next week will be better. We are trying to keep our people who are progressing, progressing. It was hard cause Sister Maricel wasn't able to go to church because of chicken pox, so that was sad. But it won't count against her at all towards baptism. It really shows in progression of people when you just aren't able to teach people for whatever reason. So yeah, we will keep being positive. 

The funny story this week is SUPER funny to me ha-ha. We were walking and these "bakla" (which is the Tagalog word for gay) were yelling at us. We had talked to them a long time ago but I felt like having some fun, anyways we walked over to them and they immediately started hitting on us. They told Elder Webster that he was more "gwuapo" than Harry Potter! So I was just laughing and all that. Pretty funny, had to be there ;) If anyone wants to know sometimes you can't tell if a person is a guy or a girl, and that was the case with these people, they are dudes! But they basically are 90% girls ha-ha. You always know when they start talking to you. Pretty funny. Anyways, that was the funny experience this week. 

This next Wednesday should be transfer days, but since the MTC is changing the way things are done, we have an 8 week transfer. So yeah. 2 weeks more until transfers. I love you all and will talk to you next week! 

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth