BiRtHdAy WeEk!!!

Good morning world, I guess its my birthday today? So I guess I'm getting old. But I guess I'm not as old as I look?! Some people still tell me I look 30... So that's always fun haha. I still feel good though! Thank you for all the Happy Birthdays, I really appreciate it! 

Good solid week we had this week! We had a solid 193 new people who we talked to and invited to listen to our message! That was the most that we had in awhile. It feels great talking to that many people! It also helped us finding a new squatter area! A squatter area is basically an area where people are PACKED into small houses. These houses are on top of each other, inside of each other, and like under each other. Its hard to explain other than there are people just packed into a small space! Since our area has lots of rich people, we have a hard time going into those houses cause they don't like us at all. So we try to spend more time in the more humble areas with lots of people to talk to. The problem is, is that they are really small areas and we spend lots of time there. So we tend to see the same people on a daily basis. They all know us and all that. So we were excited to find a new squatter area where we can work and see new people. Lots of these people in this new area have never seen missionaries or let alone 2 white guys walking through an area like theirs. So we did lots of joking in English and then spoke Tagalog to blow their minds and introduce the gospel! That is always fun. People always ask us if we are half Filipino or something, but then they realize how pointy our noses are and then think its impossible. Still fun though to joke with people. That's how you spice up the work a little bit. 

This week was kind of rough in terms of investigators. Sister Maricel and Sister Melh-Jean are both kind of dropped. Both of them are "staying in" at their new jobs. So we haven't seen either one of them in at least 10 days. So we are trying to really find some new people who we can teach and get progressing. We have some new families that we are teaching. One of them is the Arajo family. They are both in their 60's and very very kind. We taught them about the Book of Mormon and then taught a SOLID lesson on the Holy Ghost and kind of His role in conversion. They committed to read and then pray. So we will be following up on that tonight. Other than that, we are kind of "refreshing" our teaching pool. We just weren't really seeing people truly progress, so that's what we are doing. 

Last Sunday, we had our new investigator Sister Irene Evans come to church. She is someone we talked to about 2 weeks ago and we have been teaching her. She didn't come to church this week because she had no one to go with, so we just need to get her a fellowshipper! She is a funny lady. Back in the 1980's, she won the lottery here in the Philippines, I think it was like 15 million pesos? Not sure. But she decided to travel all over Europe and all that. She actually ended up marrying an aircraft engineer from the UK. So she is STILL loaded with cash. Buuuut, he left her and now lives in a different part of the Philippines. So she has a lot of grief from that. We are trying to show her the blessings from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So we just have to be patient with her! Also, the Philippines area presidency changed the standard on going to church for investigators. They have to go to church 4 times still before baptism, but now they are allowed to miss aSunday. But if they miss 2 in a row, it resets their church count to 0. So its a LITTLEEE bit easier to baptize people. So that's a little nicer! 

This week, Elder Leofo randomly called me and said he was outside the apartment and needed to be let in! He had exchanges with Elder Eteaki, so he stayed for a day. That was a blast. We KILLED 6 boxes of Pizza Hut Pizza, so that was super sick. I don't have many pics of this party, cause we were busy doing follow ups and all that with other missionaries. But yeah! It was fun to see him! He goes home next week so I guess i'll see him on the other side of the mission! He actually goes to Utah in July, and I was gonna give him our address so he can meet the fam. That would be cool!

Anyways, it was a great week. I have been reading a GREAT book. Its probably a book that lots of us have heard of, its called Jesus the Christ. It is seriously one of the best (and only books) I have ever read aha. It is written by Elder James E. Talmage of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles. Its super nice. It talks about how Jesus Christ literally spent his WHOLE life, being torn town and smitten and all that stuff. We experience that here in the mission, obviously nothing to the magnitude of his experience, but its still hard. My thought was: is that he is ALWAYS walking beside us, and sometimes even carrying us. I have been carried so many times on my mission, and without the Savior I wouldn't be here. Now that's not just for me, that's for all of us. I love the mission! Don't get me wrong! Its the hardest thing in the world, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Its super fun out here!

I also forgot to give some S/Os to my sisters who are killing it at lacrosse! Congrats to Allie for being 2nd team all state and Mckenna for being a beast of a goalie for leading her team to the semi finals tomorrow! And of course Kelsie for being aggressive on the field just like her brother ;) love you guys! 

Again thank you for the happy birthdays, I wish I could email you all back!

Love you guys! 

PS here's some pizza pics with the big man, Elder E! 

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth