Week 5- MTC

Dear world, 

Another week down here in the MTC. Week 5. I'm honestly so ready to get out in the field! I can't handle a classroom much longer. I'm gonna be missing everyone in my district, but after proselyting this week I am TOO ready to go to the field! It was honestly a slow week around here. Since the senior batch left, nothing interesting happens around here. Our Sunday night devotional isn't the same. I miss those guys too much. I'm hoping to be able to send some pictures of those guys if I can get a cord from someone. Me and Elder Lye are doing alright I suppose. He has no desire to adjust to my culture, when I'm doing everything I can to adjust to his. He has a short temper and freaks out over the most ridiculous things. I know I shouldn't talk bad about kasama ko, but I try to love him.

Honestly the most interesting thing that happened this week was proselyting on Wednesday! We got to go to the Quezon City mission. We drove to the church, and it was like 6 levels tall I think? Land in the city is so expensive that its waaay cheaper to build up than out. So that was a cool and different thing to see. Also, the churches have metal bars on all the doors and windows so that thieves can't get in! It's also pretty weird to me that every single bank has at least 2 security guards outside of it. Each guard has a shotgun strapped to his chest. So any time I go to the ATM there's a dude with a shotgun looking down my throat. Pretty cool haha. But back to the proselyting, I got paired up with Elder De Luna. He is a Filipino from up north. He's been out for 20 months. He was a super chill dude. He didn't know his English that well, he told me that he has had to learn from his American mga kasama. He spoke better English than I can speak Tagalog! We had 2 appointments set up for the day. Evando, who was a recent convert, and Alcoba who is a less active member. Evando was supposed to be taught tungol sa Ang Plano ng Kaligtasan, pero siya wasn't home. So that was pretty masama. We got to his house and his little brother was there, he was a super sweet kid, who was recently baptized. They live in super poor living conditions, hard to see, pero he was having fun with whatever he was doing! So we decided to "OYM." OYM means to "Open Your Mouth." Which basically means talk to anybody and everybody. We started walking and we walked down this road which has tons and tons of members and less actives! We stopped at this one guys house and he works here at the MTC as a cafeteria guy! He's super nice. Kasama ko asked if we could teach him a quit lesson. He agreed and we taught about Ang Pananumbalik. I did my best understanding those guys. Filipinos talk very very quiet and the people around aren't very quiet either. So that was interesting. Kasama ko did probably 75% of the teaching. I followed along pretty well, we got to the part about the first vision and he kind of looked at me to explain it. I did my very best Taglish. I looked up James 1:5 and read that to him and told the basics of the story. I testified to him that propeta si Joseph Smith restored the ebanghelyo ni Jesucristo on this earth. And I talked about how much ng ebanghelyo blesses families. It was really cool for me. So our lesson ended and we started walking to our next appointment. As we were walking this little girl started yelling "elders elders elders!" And she came running over. She gave us huge hi fives and was so happy to see us. She reminded me of Kelsie and was super super cute. She was probably the same age as Kelsie is. So that was pretty cute. We kept walking and saying hi to people. Its very different here because a lot of people say "Hey Joe!" when they see someone white. They assume you're American and also assume that you have money. So that's kind of obnoxious but whatevs. The people are so nice here. 

We got to our next appointment to a less active guy named Alcoba. He was an older guy. We taught him about keeping the Sabbath day holy. He spoke pretty good English so that made it a bit easier. I shared my testimony on keeping the Sabbath day holy. We invited him to church so hopefully he will go. The lesson went well. After the lesson kasama ko asked him if we could have a drink. He said "siempre!" So he invited us in for a cold glass of water. His wife and daughter and granddaughter were in there. They had like a bunch of snacks on the table. They had sweet potato French fries that were like.. caramelized. They were quite interesting but not bad. Then they brought out the ice cream. Durian ice cream. They sure love that stuff. It was like weird smelling but was pretty masarab! It was like a banana/orange sherbet type of a flavor. I knew I had to eat it all (which was no big deal) so I ate it all and then they just kept shoveling it into my bowl! It was like a bottomless ice cream bowl. I had a lot of ice cream haha. But it was so good dahil we had been non stop sweating (At least I was because I'm a Lambert) So it was a nice break. Even if they have no air conditioning. 

After that we took a jeepnee back to the church. Jeepnees are pretty cool and scary because if you just tell them to stop, they'll stop right in the middle of the road and you get out! I thought it was fun. So we went back to the church and went back to the MTC. Honestly a really good day. But it just made me want to get out in the field that much more. 5 more days and I'll be there! Next emails will be coming from an internet café somewhere in Manila! And my next P day won't be till next Monday! So not for a while. But I should have some good stories for you guys! That was basically all for this week. One good day and a bunch of generic ones!

 I love you all! The Church is true.

 Love, Elder Lambert 

Elder Papalli and me! He's from Australia. He's freaking hilarious. He left last week. But it's weird because he turned 18 like a month ago!

Elder Viti and I! What a stud. He's from Fiji. Probably the quietest kids I've ever met.

Elder Carrington from New Zealand/Australia. He was a stud as well. We got a long super well. He always teased me but who doesn't hahaha

Elder Farrish and I! He's from Cali but goes to BYU. He's one of the guys who left from last week. I'll be seeing him after the mish!

Elder Hunt and I from New Zealand.Out of all the last senior batch me and him were best buds. He's 23 and worked construction just like I did. He was a HUGE example to me in how to be the best missionary I can be.

Almost all of my District! 

Little Bandits!!

Elder Pese and I last week. Elder Bolnick took the tape from the front desk for like 3 days so we had to return it to the front desk past bedtime hahaha. It was hilarious!

IDK if I sent this already (he did!) but some of the boys from my district at the cemetery! Elder Fainuu took the picture and then me and Elder Bolnick and Elder Leon and Elder Pese in the back