15 Months in the Mission!!

Good morning to the world. 

I just can't even believe another week is gone. Time is starting to go by so so fast. As a matter of fact, I hit my 15 month mark here in the mission, today actually. It is starting to fly. I'm not sure how I feel about it! People are starting to tell me that is close to me going home! But I sure have a lot to do here in this area and especially in the mission!

This week was a little slow for me and Elder Langi. Our number of lessons are a little bit down again. We keep on setting appointments with people and they keep on missing the appointment. So that is a little rough. We do have some good people progressing though. The Manuel family is doing really well. They are continuing to come to church every single week! They just need to be married. This week we went and taught them and were very blunt and honest with them. They told us of all the blessings that they are seeing in their lives because they are attending church and all that. So what we did is we set some goals for them, goals that will move them toward marriage. They told us that money is a little tight right now. So we told them that they could wash our white shirts for us to make a little extra cash. (The missionaries are not allowed to give them money. They would if they could!!) They agreed, and we are starting them on the path towards marriage! I told Elder Langi that we have to follow them up often, because if we don't, they will keep procrastinating the day of their marriage. Haha so that's where we are at with them. They have 3 little kids who are super cute, they are an awesome family. We don't have that many other people who came to church. Kind of a little slow, now that school has started its a little busier around here and harder to teach people. Alvin Gatus (our other progressing investigator) missed church again this week. He has been working lots of overtime. He texted us several times saying to come over and then he isn't there. So that's a little rough though. We are doing our best to contact him and all that. So yeah.

BREAKING NEWS: Tondo 2nd ward now has a ward mission leader! A super active member's son just got off his mission down in the southern Philippines and now has been called as our WML! That just means that missionary work is alive now here. That makes things so much easier on us as missionaries working with the ward. So we were rejoicing over that.

This week we also had zone conference! That time is always a good time to spiritually reload. President Ostler is still super amazing. The focus of the conference was faith and goal setting. President Ostler wants us to focus our goals and raise them up a little and have the faith to make them happen. I thought he was going to raise the OYM standard from 190 to 250, but he just said make everything a little higher, and to push ourselves. It is a great application for us in life as well. We have been talking to the right amount of people, we just need to turn those into some of the other numbers that we need. I look forward into the coming weeks. I told Elder Langi we need to spend more time in areas that are closer to the church, because the super ghetto isn't too effective so far, so we will see where we end up working this week. 

Also I have gotten super fat aha. I was on Palawan and lost a good chunk of weight. Well, now that chunk is back with me! I can pound rice and Filipino food like its no ones business. It is kind of funny though. Some of my shirts were big when I left, so no biggie. Yesterday at our house, one of our neighbors had a baptism. So of course, when someone gets baptized you HAVE to throw a really loud party and drink! So we came home from church and there were tons of (some of my favorite) songs playing like SUPER loud. It was super funny. We had to get some good videos haha. We are doing well though! We are still refreshing the area. And learning a lot together. I love you all! Here's some pics of zone conference. Also this is Elder Cowen, he goes home in a few weeks. I will miss this guy. 

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth

Happy Fathers Day!!

Good morning world, 

Also a happy Fathers Day to all the fathers around the world! Especially my dad for teaching me how to be a man and a worthy Priesthood holder. I love and miss you dad!

I guess I also saw that Cleveland won the NBA Finals. Sayang... in the conference games I wanted OKC to win, and then they lost and I wanted GS, but I guess not. I have decided that I will be watching more basketball when I get home. I am also a little sad, just because its over! NBA games are a super good and easy way to OYM and start conversations with people. But we can always bring up Lebron and Curry and relate their celestial playing abilities to the gospel, so no problem

***(Ummm... oh brother!!!)

This week was a lot better! We had 19 new investigators this week. So that added to our teaching pool quite a bit. There is only one problem, some of them are babae (girls) and we can't teach them without a member with us. The other problem is that there is basically 1 member who works with us in our ward. Which is very different from my last area where we had like 3-4 who would work with us. The good thing is, is that there is a member in our ward returning from his mission and will become our ward mission leader. So HOORAH FOR ISRAEL. We will have a ward mission leader and another member to work with us, so that will be great. We also taught a new family. I actually can't remember the name... But we will be teaching them tomorrow. We of course focus on the family aspect, and hope to make some progress with them. 

Last night we taught the Manuel family, another goal of our companionship (and a goal of mine). They have been coming to church for the last 2 months or so and are ready to be baptized! They need one more thing, MARRIAGE. We set a goal last night, we actually set several goals to make this marriage happen. We committed them to talk as a couple and see what they need to do to make it happen. They said they will talk, talk about a date and talk about the money issue and then on Wednesday we will make some real plans. The good thing is, is that our Bishop has a license to marry people. They just need a license from the city, which is really cheap from what I have heard. So we will be always following them up to make sure that it happens. That would be perfect to move a family of 6 onto the covenant pathway. 

That is about it for the work. Pretty simple. There are SO MANY people in this area. I am convinced that this is the most densely populated area in Manila. Probably the most humble area. Think of the most poor people that you can think, multiply it by 10, and I have seen it. I have seen people living in terrible conditions. I have had kids with no clothes on beg me for money. I have seen  people who talk to themselves and do other crazy things, ask me for money. I thought I was humble before, but we are SO blessed to live in a place where things like that don't happen very often. I also am glad that Utah isn't THAT polluted. The jeepney's right outside our house are so loud and have so much pollution. Our apartment turns very black because of the pollution.Good thing we clean it! I have also decided that I am king of washing clothes by hand, so come at me. Here's some pics of us in the apartment. I kind of suck at pictures. I just have no motivation because it's not Palawan. Anyways. Love you all!

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth

Week of June 12

Hi world.

I guess there goes another one. It's crazy how fast the time is starting to fly. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. Its just crazy to me.

This week was pretty good. Elder Langi and I are still trying to figure each other out. We get along just fine! It is just the teaching portion that needs some work. He is about 10 months in the mission, his Tagalog is getting there. Its super nice though that I have some help in the lessons now.I love the guy. 

We were a little low on lessons this week, which was kind of a downer, but we are trying to kind of refresh the area right now. We actually had about 5 members give us referrals yesterday at church. So our goal this week is to really contact them. We have some appointments with like two of them to go with the member. So those are our big goals this week. 

We had some good lessons this week. We actually talked to this bald guy named Jaime this week. We gave him a Book of Mormon and told him that we would come back the next day. So we did and ended up teaching a great lesson. Bishop Altrez ended up working with us. He is super super awesome. He was catholic before, and then married a Mormon and spent 4 years trying to prove the church wrong. Then he ended up being baptized! So basically, he knows how to teach and testify and has a great conversion story. Jaime and his wife are about 50 years old and they have tons of questions. So we look forward to hopefully getting a nice lesson with them tonight. Our other lesson this week was with a guy named Alvin Gatus. His wife is a member and he may as well be a member! He goes to church every Sunday, he just hesitates for baptism. I have made him my personal target to get this guy baptized. He is so ready, he just doesn't know it yet. He is super awesome though and knows all the lessons. So we will be going on Wednesday to teach him. Should be good. 

Those are the two lessons that stood out to me this week. Honestly this week was a little uneventful. We are just talking to tons and tons of people and doing our best to contact them. Its super crazy when you want to even contact half of the people we talk to. But we do our best! 

That's all for this week honestly haha. I love you all!

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth

Transferred to Tondo!

Hello friends,

So I guess it happened! I was transferred... I left the Las Pinas 1st ward and am now assigned in Tondo 2nd ward! I honestly wasn't expecting to be transferred, but I will be honest, I needed a change. I left Elder Webster in Las Pinas and I am now in Tondo. Tondo is known for being kind of a broken down area. There are are fair amount of squatters and homeless people here. We are right next to Manila Bay, specifically where they unload lots of big cargo box things from off of the big ships. So there are lots of big trucks pulling big trailers through our area. And all these trucks bring lots of polution! So you can say this area is pretty dirty. So far I love it though! There are SO many people here. It is unreal the amount of people here that we can talk to. Compared to my last area there is probably 10x more people that we can talk to. 

So, my new companion. He is definitely straight from Tonga. His name is Elder Langi. I kind of already knew who he was, because he was trained by Elder Leofo. So I thought it was funny when I heard we were companions. Also, when I left my first area to go to Palawan, he was the one who replaced me. So that basically means that he was the one who baptized the Vinculado family! So yeah, he was assigned in my old area. He is super cool. He is probably 5' 10'' and 200 pounds. He is just a lean guy, but not as lean as Elder Eteaki is. Anyways, my new roommates are Elder Lopez and Elder Cibuco. Elder Lopez is actually Puerto Rican from Laz Vegas and Elder Cibuco is from southern Philippines. I am the oldest missionary in the house, so i get all of the questions from everyone. And 3 of us are foreigners, so yeah. Its pretty fun. I miss the old roommates though. Elder Cibuco has only a 3rd grade education, so he isn't very good at english. As a matter of fact, he can't speak it at all. So that companionship has a big language barrier. Me and Elder Langi have no language barrier at all. He is about 90% on his English so thats good. He still struggles with Tagalog but I can help him out pretty well. I look forward to this new area with Elder Langi. He actually is always buying me food, even if i tell him I don't want any haha. He is super nice. Hopefully I don't gain weight... haha!

So the new area... We went to church yesterday and it was pretty interesting. There were like 140 people that attended. It was good. The ward has a some problems from what I have heard, so we will see what we can do. We also had 5 investigators at sacrament! That one blew my mind, I haven't really ever had that happen before. The funny this is, is that I barely know these people and to be honest I don't even know their names... One is the Manuel family I believe. They are a family/couple who wants to be baptize and has been progressing, their concern is is that they aren't married... So that's a tough one. I haven't had a chance to teach them so this week i can give a better explanation for next week. The other is a part member family named Alvin Gatus. His wife is a very active member but he just hasn't made it to baptism. He has been coming to church for almost a year now, his concern is that he is easily offended. So if someone forgets to shake his hand, he will get offended. So that's always a fun one. We will hopefully teach him this week and get a better feel for his concern. The other one is this 17 year old kid named Kenneth. He was actually the first lesson that we taught in this area. He was supposed to be baptized the week before I came, but his parents said no. He is dating a member and apparently he has worked with the Elders before in our area. We went and talked to his mom about it, and she is okay with him being baptize, but his dad doesn't want him to. We were unable to contact the dad last week, so we will try again this week. He came to church and has a real desire. So that should be a baptism in the next few weeks we are hoping. 

This area has TONS of people to talk to and invite. And I will be honest, it is nice to get some help with OYMs and stuff. But I also miss Elder Webby! It was fun being companions with him, but I needed a change of scenery. I REALLY miss the members in Las Pinas. Especially the ones who would work with us frequently. Its okay though, i will see them again! 

This next week I am hoping to get some good pictures sent to you guys. Its hard because all of the internet cafes here don't allow USB, so sorry about that! I will do my best to get some pics next week. I love you all! 

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth

Birthday Email!!

Hello world,

Another one gone. I can't believe how fast the time is going. I guess I hit 14 months this week, so that was pretty crazy. It is going by pretty fast now. 

Also we had my birthday dinner last Monday! We ate at the Adolfo family, Sister Mericor is the RS president here in the ward. She cooks REALLY well. Reminds me of mom. She made us "Shanghais." They are basically these meat roll things that are fried. We KILLED them. I had like 20 of them and gained a lot of weight probs haha. It was good though! And then after that we were walking home and a member drove by and saw us, then he stopped and took us home but bought me ice cream. So that was the icing on the cake for my birthday.

Tuesday we had interviews with President. I walked in for my interview, and walked out about 8 minutes later. All he really said is that someone will be transferring out of me and Elder Webster, and up to this point we still don't know who. So just a quick follow up on obedience and that was it! So yeah, we got to see some people at the mission office who I haven't seen in awhile, so that was nice. Overall we learned some things from the APs and all that, we learned how to really "set our area on fire." Hopefully we can apply those things and make some good things happen. We also saw Elder Garol! He is assigned in Makati right now. I walked into their district meeting before it started and he like saw me and threw his books and like jumped on me!! hahaha. I love him though and I missed him! So Elder Webster got to meet his brother, so that was cool! 

This week was pretty rough in terms of work. We haven't really had anyone progressing in the past 3 weeks or so. We are just finding and finding, but we just can't seem to find the right people. When that happens, you just keep going! So that's what we have been doing. We have been teaching this lady named Irene, she is kind of crazy, but super nice and super willing to listen. She is just really shy. So long story short, the sisters in our district had a baptism this week and we invited Sister I. She ended up coming and looked like she had a good time! She promised us that she would go to church and said she didn't need to be picked up. I had a baptismal interview before church so I was a little glad we didn't need to pick her up. So anyways, she said she would come, and then didn't end up coming. So this next week, we will FOR SURE be picking her up to go to church. Also, our other investigator Sister M who said she wants to be baptized, went back to the province right as we showed up to the appointment she set for us. So that was rough. 

Now, not all this week was full of letdowns! We found some good new people to teach. We found this guy named Melvin and his wife (who I can't remember her name) that we taught last night. He is a stud. He actually works for HOTWIRE.com haha. All of you should be familiar with that, he works at the call center and answers all the complaints of all of us whiny Americans! He is super cool and is a huge American music fan, so you can say we became friends fast ;). His wife is super shy, and actually half Spanish, but he said he will read and pray about the Book or Mormon. So we will see! Our lesson is actually like 65% English because he is so good. But we will see where that ends up. We found some other people this week, and will be following up with them tomorrow. So yeah! 

Things are good here though. Elder Webster almost got kissed by a drunk guy this week. He like leaned in for a juicy one, but Webby wouldn't let him land it. Sayang. So that was hilarious and that SAME drunk guy is convinced that I am the director of Harry Potter. So that was pretty cool. Super funny! Drunk people make life super fun here. (Oh dear....)

So one of us will be transferring this week, we don't know who. I actually really want to stay here. But we will see. So in preparation, we took some pics with the members yesterday at church. We will see what happens! 

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth

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

The Week!!

Yo yo yo peeps. Its been quite the week. Kind of a tough week because we ended up going to the MRC and then we had another appointment on Thursday. So two days of work goneeee. But, we keep moving forward! We are kind of struggling with keeping constant contact with people.

Anyways, so this week we had some interesting experiences. On Friday, we ended up having a member work with us, in an attempt to teach Sister Melh-Jean. We went there, and she wasn't there. No one ever knows where she goes, so we couldn't contact her. This whole week actually, we couldn't contact her. It is super tough to see someone get SO close to being baptized and recieve all of those blessings, but she just can't get over the hump. We also don't know what that hump is sooo. Also, we weren't able to teach to Sister Maricel either. She has been "staying in" at her job in Makati. We had an appointment with her on Saturday, but she wasn't home still. So we prayed and prayed that she would keep her commitment to go to church. So we go to church and she still wasn't there. Last night even, she still wasn't there! So yeah... The struggle hah. We have been trying to keep up with some of these new people we have been teaching. We have 2 new families that we have just started teaching. The one family is very devout "Couples for Christ," which is just another sect of Catholic. They are very "solid" in their faith, but we know that if we keep stopping by they will see how important the message is. Sister didn't want to commit to a time, but we told her we were coming back this next week to share. So hopefully something good happens. We also have this other new family that we taught for the first time last night, who at the beginning wasn't too interested. They are part of the "Dating Daan" religion. That religion is very similar to ours in that the have a prophet and all that. Anyways, so we felt like we should share about the Book of Mormon kasi, I mean come on you can't go wrong with sharing about that. We gave them a copy and told them to read in Moroni and just to pray about it. We will be going back on Thursday to follow up on that. 

So this last Saturday, we taught our most progressing investigator Sister Marlene. She is the maid of one of our members. This member is Brother Rufo Rosario. He is super old but he is of my favorite members to spend time with. Anyways, we taught to her and him on Saturday. She is just barely on the fence for baptism. She wasn't quite sure if she wanted it. Anyways, so she is really reading in the Book of Mormon and committed to come to church. So yesterday we were expecting her to come into church with our member. And we waited... Neither one of them showed up. So we went to see them after church to see what was up. Anyways, they had no driver to drive their car because Brother is 84 and unable to drive. So that was tough. We had some members with us when we went over there. The one member was Brother Henry and the other was Sister Jessa. So we go over there, and Sister Marlene had a story for us. I guess she had prayed the night before, that if the missionaries came by with a member who was a girl, that she would be baptized. So basically she wanted a sign, to know if it was true. So yeah, I guess she saw her sign?! I am not a big fan of all that sign kind of stuff, but I will take it! Sister Marlene and Jessa started hugging and had a tender moment aha. Anyways, she just has to come to church the right amount of times to be baptized. She is doing great though! Keeps all her commitments. 

Also, this last Saturday was national service day here in the Philippines. We sweeped an area over in the Zone Leaders area as a ward. It was a party. We had a big group of us! my companion and I and another member covered like 1/4 of the area that we swept so we killed it! The whole area was MIND BLOWN that 2 white guys were sweeping their area. It was super funny, but a good time. I probably also took my best selfie to date, so ya'll can enjoy that. This next week (the day after my birthday actually) is when we have interviews. So we are planning to really kill it this week in our area. So I look forward to it. 

This weeks funny experience comes from Elder Eteaki. We were hanging out in our room and I hear this super high pitched voice talking. So here's some background: Elder Eteaki is obsessed with BayMax from Big Hero 6, like SUPER obsessed. So he bought this big BayMax balloon and started sucking the helium out of it! It was just super random and funny cause his voice got super super high! He has a super low voice normally so that made it even funnier. 

So this week, we went to a LA family in the area. We actually had no plans about what to share and we ended up just kind of winging it. So we had one of them pick a song to open with, and they chose I Stand All Amazed. So I think its safe to say that we should probably should share about the Atonement. So that's what we went with. We also connected it to Sacrament, because that's the entire reason that we go to church. We were singing that song and I couldn't help but think about the sacrifice that Jesus Christ gave to all of us. And because of that, we can recieve God's mercy. The thing that I have learned in my mission is that mercy and grace aren't some magical thing that we are given. It takes action, and that comes from our inner desire to be better. I have learned so many things in my mission, but having action and the desire to be better is what it takes to make changes in ourselves. Anyways, I know that this church is true. I love you all!

PS theres some selfies from the service project! 

-- 

Elder Lambert

Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth