Good morning friends and family,

So this morning has been kind of crazy. Elder Carter was supposed to
Skype to his family, but the internet shop owner forgot and we are
kind of just scrambling now. I sure hope that my Skype works tomorrow
when I try to get on. I guess we will see tomorrow when it happens. I
am thinking that I will be able to Skype, but this is still Palawan.
So the internet is going to be very… Not good. So we just need to be
patient. It might come down to me being able to see you, but you can’t
see me, just so we can have a decent conversation. So just bare with
me, besides the fact that I will see all of you soon so no worries.

It has been a GREAT week! We have really had the best week since I
have been here in Palawan. We have TONS of great people we are
teaching right now that are part member families. We have been
focusing in an area called Mainit. It is like a 30 minute tricycle
ride from our house. It is a little far from the church, but it is
around lots of members. There are tons of part member families up
there so we have been trying to find those who are seekers of the
truth. One of them that we talked to is the niece and the nephew of an
RM here in our branch. They are Sis. Abigail and Bro. Ryan Macles.
They are siblings the kid is like 14 and the girl is 13. We taught a
great first lesson about families, read in the Book of Mormon, and
then we invited for baptism! This was all on Saturday. Then, they came
to church yesterday! It was super awesome. I think that should be
baptized. We gave them a day for baptism on February 4, 2017, but of
course that can change depending on their progression. I am very
excited about them. Another family that we have been focusing on is
the OTHER Macles family. So the Macles family is HUGE. There are like
9 kids and they all have their own families. So we are teaching some
of the grand kids and yeah. So this other Macles family is very
special. Their 3 kids, Joel, Morelyn, and Jenny Ann were baptized by
Elder Gibson last December. And now we are working on their parents
and some of their other cousins! It is so hard to explain, maybe I can
explain on Skype and then mom can type it all out haha. Basta.. It is
so awesome. We are really finding some families to teach so that we
can help them be complete and active in the gospel.

So about Christmas… On Saturday night, we were up in Mainit. Which
like I said, is very far away. We were at the Bagyo family. They are
one of those families who are Natibo, meaning they speak a different
dialect and do things a little differently. They are so kind! We went
to their house and watched Joy to the World hooked up to a small DVD
player and then a car battery. It was a very humble but very amazing
experience. They speak like close to zero English so it was hard for
them to understand the video. I translated it a little bit just to
keep them up to date on what is happening. It wasn’t too bad though at
all! I had a good time and then a member came to pick us up. When he
picked us up, we had to get Elder Jones and Elder Reyes in their area
and take them home. When we got there, I had to go and get them in the
house. Of course they invited us in and we started smashing more food
and stuff. So yeah. Lots of food. We got home a little late because of
that… But I mean. Yeah… Hahah.

Christmas day was good! We had 9 investigators at church! That is how
you know that you did well, is based on investigators at church. The
Lord really blessed us this week, and he guided us to those people who
we needed to focus on at this time in their lives. It was a 1 hour
sacrament block, and that was it. We then got to watch the First
Presidency Christmas devotional with the members. After that, we went
home and ate lots of French toast that we made at our house! Then, we
went up to a place called Espanola to work. It was about a 45 minute
shuttle ride to a member that lives there! They fed us heaps ton and
we left full. After that, we rode home and starting cooking our own
food! We had adobo and sisig. We cooked it at the house with the
members. We have like an outdoor kitchen thing that we cooked at. Then
we moved the table and ate! We were SO FULL. We even bought sparkling
cider and had some nice bottled kuwan like that  So it was nice!

I think this was our week in a short email. We had a GREAT week. The
Lord is blessing us at the best time of the year! It has been another
humbling Christmas as we have been here to share the gospel. I have
loved every second of it. Sana we can Skype tomorrow! We shall see.
Love you all and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

-- 
Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth

Good morning friends and family,

Merry Christmas to everyone! This was a good week. We had lots to do
and were super busy. Monday we had our P-day and just worked. Tuesday
we had zone meeting in Narra. Basically, we got home late from that
and had no work that day. We just had a good training from the zone
leaders and all that. We learned about really going out to find
scattered Israel. Basically we learned how to better apply the
training from our Christmas zone conference from Elder Haynie.  It was
really good to see some of the Elders in the zone. Elder Gibson and
Elder Monson go to Manila every month for meetings and they got some
stuff from my luggage. While they were in my luggage, they pulled out
2 of my ties that they thought would be funny to wear at zone meeting.
So that was a little funny haha. That was our Tuesday I suppose.

Anyways. Our first official day of work was on Wednesday. Me and Elder
Jones went on exchanges in his area. That was a nice rest if you know
what I mean. We taught 7 lessons in his area. We basically killed it.
It made me really see where our area is lacking. I came into our area
and it was kind of… kulang. (ya’ll can translate that if you want.) We
worked and just had a good day in his area. In the mean time, the
other two elders were supposed to be working in our area. I guess
Elder Carter got sick, so they were unable to work. So that was
another day in our area with no work. Thursday we worked hard and
prepared for the Christmas party that was happening on that Saturday.
We taught a few lessons. But for the most part we were rejected to be
honest haha. We were trying to go to an area and find new people, but
it just happened to be where there are lots of Iglesia ni Cristo
members. We just got basically told off all day haha. We had lots of
OYMs though! Nothing much came out of it though. We recontacted a
former investigator of Elder Carter’s from a while ago. Her name is
Anna Mae and she is like 19 years old and has a kid. She is actually
very interested, and we were able to teach her mom who was there as
well. So it was nice to finally get someone who was willing to listen.
We basically just ended the day very tired and sweaty. Friday was an
okay day as well. We weekly planned and I did my best to get a feel
for the area and what we should do for it. This area has a few
challenges, just like all of the areas, but it is a great area. We
also went to the church to have some of the RM members teach us a
dance for the Christmas party, but then we figured it probably
wouldn’t be a good idea, so we just ended up singing anyways. Friday
we worked, did some more finding again so that we can have some new
people to teach. Saturday was a day that I was really looking forward
to. It was a day where we got to go be at the church and feel the
Christmas spirit and spend time with the members. For various reasons,
we need to make some friends and build some trust with members. It was
a great opportunity to see and be with the members. I have a lot of
friends here who are new RM’s and some are preparing to leave on their
missions. We have a lot of fun together with those guys. I got to know
lots of new members and stuff. AND on top of that, we smashed a lot of
super nice food! We ate lechon baboy! It was another one of those pig
things that tastes oh so good. We sang songs and lots of the members
performed like dance number things. It was a lot of fun and some good
laughs. Another one of those stress reliever things.

Saturday we went to church. The thing is, is that there has been an
UNREAL amount of rain here in Palawan for the past 3 days or so. Like
it has hardly stopped. A lot of our area was flooded yesterday after
church. After all that, we had about 3 investigators at church again.
We are doing well in that sense, we just need to really push them
harder. That is what we are lacking in our area is pushing people to
baptism. We just have a hard time inviting people and teaching them on
a consistent basis. We are having fun though. Sometimes a little
rough, but not bad though.  I am really loving it here and I guess
Christmas is in a few days. So I will see some of you soon! Love you
all!


PS i will work on some of the pics

-- 
Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth

Good morning world,

We are just having another nnice hot sweaty morning here in Brookes
Point. I still love it here. We had a super busy week last week so we
ended up emailing on Monday night, when I was expecting to email on
like Wednesday. Its okay though because we got the fast internet up in
Puerto. We actually ended up back in Brookes Point on Wednesday
because the travel is so far away. It was nice though. It was a nice
couple days to relax and enjoy the Christmas spirit, especially with
the other missionaries from all over the island. Lots of stuff is
going on here. We will see how that goes.

So the 4 missionaries here in Brookes Point, we are are trying to
organize a Christmas proselyting activity where we can invite people
to come out and have some fun, and learn about the message! So what we
are doing, is we rented this like basketball court thing where we can
invite people to come out to this court where we can watch Meet the
Mormons and watch some of the church’s Christmas videos they have done
over the years. So far it is taking a lot of planning. We are trying
to get some money for it as well to rent some nice speakers and stuff!
So hopefully we can get all that approved. It should be a great
opportunity for people to learn about the church, watch a movie, and
have some light snacks. That will be going down on December 23rd.
Also,  this coming Saturday we have our branch Christmas party! I cant
wait for that one. I guess we are going to do a talent thing for the
branch. I think that would be the 4 of us, so we will see how that
goes ha. I look forward to that.

So the work here in Brookes… Hmmm. It is a little difficult right now
here. I mean it wouldn’t be right if it was easy. We are having just
some struggles just because the area is so big! Transportation is a
bit of a problem just because we have to make sure that we are getting
a good deal when it comes down to our transportation. It is a little
difficult since lots of people think that we are two rich white guys,
when in reality we know what the price should be. So that is a little
tough. We have to like work them down but they come up with some of
the dumbest reasons to raise the price. We do alright though. We work
in an area called Mainit. It is like a 20 minute tricycle ride up
there. It is like up in the forest. So it is a lot of fun to go up
there. It is like hiking through the forest and stuff. It isn’t too
hot either. There are TONS of members in that area too, which includes
Less Active members.  So when we go up there, we have lots to teach,
the problem is, is finding transportation when it is like 7 or so at
night. The other day we got a free ride in the back of a flat bed rice
truck thing. That was super fun ha. We had a ball on that one. We have
been teaching a few people. Some are progressing, but not a lot of
them are at a fast pace. Especially since we had a lot less work this
week. Some of the people are coming to church, others disappear at
random times and we cant find them. We really are doing our best . We
had a lot of investigators at church though! The issue is, is that
they are kind of on and off investigators. We are going to really
focus this week on people who will progress so we look forward to
that.

I think that is all for the area. We are trying to get adjusted to
each other, me and my companion. Its very interesting, but it is
going. I guess we will skype in a few weeks! That will be good. We
will see how it goes with the internet here in Brookes. Love you all!

PS i will add some pics

-- 
Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth

Dear World,

So sorry I am on so dang late. We are currently here in Puerto Princessa Palawan here at the church. So yeah. I will explain that momentarily. 

So this last week was pretty good. We knew it was going to be a busy week just because of all what was going to be happening this last weekend, but sufficeth to say I am/was really excited! We had a lot happening this weekend. So I will start at the beginning.

Friday: We had our weekly planning. And that was a joy, as always. We taught a few lessons to some people. We were hoping to teach Sister Michelle again, but she ended up cancelling on us after we scrambled for a member to work with us so that we could teach her. So yeah, also we packed for the weekend, since we were going on a road trip!

Saturday: So we ended up (as a branch) renting 4 shuttle/van things so that the entire branch would be able to go to district conference. We ended up going with the branch at about 6 in the morning all the way up to Narra. We road in the van with like 6 RM's and a couple of guys who are preparing to go on missions. Lets just say it was a troll fest, (or the new "slang" these days: Savage.) Everyone was so savage in that car. Lets just say we had a good time and then ended up sleeping. It was nice. We ended up in Narra at about 1 I think and then we had to go study. At 4:00 PM we went to the chapel to prepare for the Saturday night adult session. I was SO excited because I was going to see the Rizal members! Just like last year they were the choir. But this year i wasn't helping to direct it. They did a good job. Anyways, before the session, I walked by the room that Rizal was rehearsing in and Sister Mia saw me. I remember seeing her jaw drop and she liked yelled my name and they all ran out to say hi! I was so excited and basically almost starting crying. Several of them teared up a bit too. Boy I miss them a lot. It was GREAT to see them. The session was great as well. We had an area Seventy there that presided at the conference. Also President and Sister Ostler were there and of course spoke. It was interesting because they had a translator. A lot of the members here in Palawan speak very little English, its very different than the mainland. It was a great conference, we learned a lot and the area Seventy that spoke is awesome. It was interesting because he spoke TONS of English in his talk. So we understood everything he said. Sometimes it is a little difficult to understand that kind of stuff just because it can get deep. It was good though. After the session we drove the 45 minutes in a shuttle to Narra so that we can sleep in the Narra Elder's house. That morning, we woke up and went to the Sunday morning session of the District Conference. 

Sunday: At the conference, we started at 9 in the morning. Again I saw the Rizal members. They kept on telling me that I needed to come back to Rizal. I want to so bad, I just kept telling them that, but we can wait I suppose haha. It was a great session as well. They also reorganized the District presidency here in Narra District. The new District President is from Brookes Point. He will do a great job, and hopefully in the next few years we can see this area become wards and stakes. The vision for the area was really like layed out for everybody to see and understand. They can make that happen. it may take some time though. After the session we took some nice pics and I had to have another good bye moment with the Rizal members. So that was a joy. Immedietly after, we got into shuttles and made our way to Puerto Princessa for our Mission Tour. This year, Elder Allen D. Haynie of the area presidency came to our mission to speak and train us. That was actually this morning, since I am emailing at night time. 

Monday: I thought that I would be emailing on Wednesday (sorry I forgot to tell everyone last week) but then it changed and here I am emailing... So next week it should be back to normal next week. Anyways, after waking up in a NICE hotel bed and CRYING in my 25 minute hot shower, we showed up to the church for our conference with Elder Haynie. We learned about the gathering of Israel! It was pretty deep doctrine, but he made it sound so simple, and so true. It was a great conference, but because of my lack of time, I will have to talk about it at a later date. 

This week was super nice. We had a nice relaxed week this last week. We are kind of struggling in our area. My companion is still trying to figure out the area, but thats okay because it is forcing me to learn it faster and get to know the members faster. So no problems. We are doing well.  I really love the members here. The area is great. I am just kind of prepping for a nice Christmas again here in paradise. So yeah. I love you all. Hope you like some of my pics. Here is a few more. Also, I think I will be able to skype from Brookes, so we can discuss the plans for that in the next few weeks. I love you all! 

PS the hat that I just got like 10 minutes ago is of course too small for my giant ulo. 

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth