29 June 2016 - Average but Interesting

Dearest Darlingest friends and family,

This week was kind of average, but some interesting things happened.

I went on Divisions with one of the Elders in my district this week. He was training a new missionary from Peru, but around the end of the first week of this change, his companion found himself in the hospital because of a preexistent condition with his head. He gets horrible headaches from being in the sun too long. In case you don't remember, here in Mty, this part of the year is really really really really hot. In the morning before we were going to end divisions, we get a call from Sister McArthur telling us that the new missionary will be going home indefinitely. This particular story might sound sad at the beginning, but in reality it isn't. Elder Ruiz was a very strong and dedicated missionary from the beginning. He has told me that he feels at peace with the decision and that he knows that he will have many opportunities to serve in the work of salvation in the future. Sometimes, we just don't know what the Lord's plans are. All we can to in those situations is have patience and hope for the best. The spirit will always confirm what is right.

Today we went to the temple. As always, it was a grand experience. I got to see two former companions and many friends. I will attach photos.

Se que el Señor vive. Se que si confiamos en El y en el Espiritu, podemos hacer todo. Se que Dios tiene muchas cosas preparadas para nosotros y que podemos confiar en El.

Los amo,

Elder Lambert

20 June 2016 - A week of discovery (changes)

Dear Friends and Family,

This has been a week of discovery......In other words I got changed again.

My new area is called Colinas. I am in another city here in NL: Santa Catarina. I have always wanted to come over here since my training. There is a famous hip hop group from this city that my Trainer Elder Alexander was obsessed with.

Things are a little strange here. Not that the people are any weirder, but rather that there are elements that I am not used to. This area is an economic mixed bag. The area closest to our house is economically higher than I am used to by any means. I have been in two of the poorer parts of Mty and Escobedo for the last full year of my mission, so I don't really know how to deal with rich people. This has been causing me a fair amount of anxiety this week. There is also a lower middle class portion and lower class portion, but we have not been working there as much. I didn't realize how much I hate the struggle of getting to know an area.

We had a baptism this week. Cristian was taught all the lessons by my current companion, Elder Chan from Merida, but I got to teach him about tithing and the law of chastity. He is going to make an excellent Deacon.

Se que el Señor nos pone donde vamos a crecer mas. Se que este obra esta dirigida poer El y que somos llamados por profetas de Dios.

Los amo, 

Elder Lambert

13 June 2016 - This week was awesome!

This week was AWESOME!!!

The first thing you need to know about is our miracle baptism: This last Monday we had a zone meeting in which an epistle from Pres. McArthur was read. It dealt with President Kimball's address to missionaries about making excuses for the failure to baptize. At the end of the meeting (which, frankly, went on way too long) our leaders told us that there was still always a chance to see some kind of miracle by the end of this last week of the transfer cycle. Immediately, both my companion and I felt that it would, indeed, be possible and that we should search for a way to squeeze one more baptism out of our time here. We started working with Emmanuel's sister Sandra but, long story short, it didn't work out. We thought we had lost all hope for helping someone start the road to eternal life when we get a phone call on Thursday.

Our ward missiona leader calls us in the middle of a street contact and my companion answers. It is starting to get dark and I am talking to some teenager in the street that obviously has not interest, but I keep going to make it seem less weird. That is when my companion comes up and says: "Elder, we have a miracle!" Our Ward mission leader had called to tell us that one of the investigators that we had been teaching for almost my entire time here in the area wanted to get baptized on Saturday.

David is the friend of one of the Bishopric's secretaries to whom he gave a Book of Mormon. The member invited us to a Family Home evening one week and we gladly went. That is where we met David. Ever since, we have been working with him to help him overcome his doubts AND his trouble with smoking. He is a very thoughtful and inteligent person and I am Happier than I can express to have been able to see him baptized.

The only lame thing about this week is that it is changes......and both of us are being changed. I will be serving this next week in Santa Catarina and my companion will be climbing Cerro de la Silla in Barrio San Angel. Two new missionaries will be coming to this area in order to teach and baptize our progressing investigators and visit my converts. I originally was bummed because I will have a tough time trusting the converts and investigators I have come to love so much in unknown hands, but then the spirit told me something that I already knew: They are not in the hands of two missionaries, they are in the hands of the Lord. It's a sappy thought, I know, but it helps me deal with the idea of leaving this area that I have loved so much.

Se que el Señor dirige este obra. Se que El nos ama y quiere que seamos fuertes. Se que las pruebas de este vida son importantes por nuestro progreso espiritual y que la Expiacion de Jesucristo nos puede fortalecer.

Los amo,

Elder Lambert

6 June 2016 - Wet and Insane

Dear Friends and family,

This week was.......wet.

It has been raining on and off almost all week. It is kind of a late rainy season, which is unusual. We have had to struggle against the rain and the tendency to stop working when the rain comes. 

Despite the weather, this week was really an incredible one. We really had an amazing work week and I am very proud of the progress we are making. We are in line to have a number of baptisms this coming change. On one of the rainiest days of the week we wound up with 6 lessons with a member present. It felt good. We are thinking that there is a chance to get a baptism this coming Sunday and we are gonna do everything in our power to get it done. You will all see the results next week. 

Strange Mexico thing of the week: We had an insane dude walk right into sacrament meeting before it started. He was wearing a filthy Mario t shirt and he started looking through one of the assistant's bags for a pen at one point. I thought he was one of their investigators. After the baby blessings the assistants did the hard part and escorted him out. 

We have a new investigator that speaks English. He is the first one I have ever had that has reasonable chances of progressing. He spent the better part of his life in various different states in the US. He spent a lot of time in New Mexico and therefore has his whole home decorated with Navajo art. He is a taxi driver and primarily works with disabled clients that other taxi drivers wouldn't take the time to cover. Because of that I feel I have a special connection with the dude. I really really really hope he progresses and I will do everything in my power (given me of God) to make that happen.

Se que este realmente es la Obra del Señor. Se que Cristo esta a la cabeza de este Iglesia y no hay otra Iglesia verdadera sobre la faz de la Tierra. Se que por medio de la fe que mostramos por medio de nuestros acciones, podemos ver grandes milagros.

Los amo,

Elder Lambert

30 May 2016 - Things are looking up

Dear Friends and Family,

Things are looking up.

This week, unlike last week, we had people in church. Two people that had never come before. Sometimes missionary work is frustrating because you have leave a lot of the work that you did in weeks past behind to be able to focus on new people that have a higher chance of progressing, but it's worth it in the end.

So, lets start off with the worldly stuff: Monterrey lost the championship this week. Remember when Tigres won the championship a few months ago? Ha!

Anyway, on to the cool and important stuff. First the vaguely creepy part:

Occasionally, as a missionary, your day just flat doesn't go the way you want it to go. On days like this, it not unusual for a missionary to want to simply go and get something to eat and get to the house at 9. That was the case this Friday. BUT, it is also common that on occasions like this, that the spirit constrains you to not get discouraged and keep working till the end of the night. That was also the case this Friday.

We had one of the young men accompany us for several hours on Friday, but we were not able to get a single lesson out of it. All of our appointments fell and all of the contacts we did were lame. We were going to simply give up when the young man left at 830, BUT something told me that something good would happen if we kept at it. So, I grabbed an English Book of Mormon to give to an English speaking investigator and we went on our way to his house to drop it off. On the way there, a fellow that I had already met last month beckoned us over to his patio. Everything seemed kind of strange in the orange glow of the street light above, and the power was out throughout the entire street because of wind the day before, but we went over.

The kid turned out to be the husband of a young woman that I had bought tostadas from before. As we talked to them, we discovered that the young man was very confused about the concept of God while the girl had been raised by christian family members. Now here comes the strange and creepy bit: Here in Mexico, the cartels have promulgated a catholic knockoff cult dealing with a particular idolatrous image, la santa muerte. It's basically lady death or the grim reaper. The young man was brought up in the belief in this particular heathen saint and felt that it was coming to control him. Long story short, we taught him about the nature of God and the Devil and offered to get rid of his image of the SM. We made an appointment for the next day (which went surprisingly well) and on our way home we smashed the figure on the street and tossed it in a nearby trash.

It was wild.

Also, we discovered a neighborhood here called The Island which consists of a single dirt road with tiny side roads coming off of it. The road is separated from  everything else by an overgrown ditch that one must cross be means of a concrete bridge. Hence the name The Island. We found a few excellent new investigators there. It was an interesting day.

Se que el Señor nos guia en este obra. Se que si escuchamos los susurros del Espiritu Santo, vamos a ser bendecidos. Se que Cristo vive y dirige este Iglesia.

23 May 2016 - A lot of things to learn from

Dear Friends and Family,

This has been a week with a lot of things to learn from.

At the beginning of the week, our Zone Leaders committed us to getting 15 lessons with member present. This is a very difficult task here in Mty for many reasons. BUT, we were determined to get as many as we darn well could. In the past couple of weeks we have been getting only about 2 or 3 which is the bare average minimum. But, with intense planning and phone calling and simply asking members to come with us any time we visited them, we got up to 9. That is actually the highest I have ever gotten in my mission. 

Apart from all that, I felt like this week was one of the more satisfying weeks work wise. We worked effectively and invited a lot of people to listen to the message of the Restoration. We found several less active members who we think can progress and we are making plans to get more work done in our area to re-activate and baptize people so that our little corner of the ward stops looking so.....dry.

Then.......Sunday came around. We had committed at least 9 people to come to church....and there was nobody. It was a difficult and stressful thing to witness. For a little while, it seemed like ALL of our work and effort was for nothing. I would like to say this story has a happy, miraculous, faith inspiring ending.......but it doesn't.

Simply put, the mission isn't all sunshine and rainbows. After eating, an appointment we had made fell through and on the way to the house to drop off our stuff (six blocks), three consecutive drunk dudes stopped us on our way to either ask for money or bug us about being gringos. Insult to injury. 

BUT! That is not going to get us down. Sometimes we have to pass through a teeny tiny bit of what our savior passed through during his ministry in order to really understand the importance of this work. The Lord works miracles, but at times we also have to learn how to rely on him more fully. These are the kinds of experiences that build our faith. It's tough, but it's worth it in the end. 

Se que este es la obra del Señor. Se que El nos ama y nos pruebe para mostrar este amor. Se que nunca debemos desanimarnos, porque el Señor siempre esta a nuestro lado. Se que mientras mas grande la lucha, mas glorioso el triunfo y que no importa cual es la lucha, Jesucristo nos ayudara si confiamos en El.

Los amo,

Elder Lambert

16 May 2016 - "Neutral Good Week

Dearest Friends and Family,

This week was "Neutral Good". Let me tell you why.

We didn't have our normal district meeting because on Thursday we had Zone Conference. It was a very good conference. We talked about emergency procedure with Hna McArthur and then talked extensively about finding new investigators efficiently with our ZL's. President talked about various different topics dealing with the work. Especially about the sanctity of our calling.

It has been raining off and on all week. I was awoken to rolling thunder and lightning in the middle of the night last night. It freaked me out.

 

Another thing that freaked me out was an open roof Mother's Day celebration on Tuesday (Mexican Mother's day is the 10th of May always) with a male stripper. I remind you that this was literally on the roof of a house.

We have been working and hoping all week to get two new investigators in church on Sunday. It didn't happen :( because it was Stake Conference. The messages from the Seventies that visited were amazing and inspiring. The lack of investigators in church was sad, but the ability to see old friends was awesome.

In the Anahuac stake, there are two missionary zones. I started the mission in Zona Anahuac and I am currently in the second one, Topo Chico. I got to see a lot of the people from my first ward Los Andes, including one of my converts, Erika. It was really amazing to see them after so long. It made me miss my old wards, but gave me inspiration to work hard in this one. 

Se que el Señor dirige este Iglesia por medio de sus siervos los Profetas. Se que Jesucristo vive y que Thomas S. Monson es un Profeta verdadero de El. Se que el Profeta Jose Smith restauro este Iglesia por medio de la  dirección de Dios. 

Los Amo,

Elder Lambert

PS: Props to those that "got" my intro.