September 7th.... 1 Year Anniversary

Yes yes, the rumors are true.... I HAVE BEEN OUT FOR A YEAR. my goodness.... it's crazy. 

This week as flown by!!!! Moncton. Dartmouth and NFLD Zone conference.... so much fun! But i am a wee bit tired now... just a little bit. The conference was jam packed with info and it was very uplifting and inspiring! We had the couple who is in charge of the medical stuff in our mission (and like 6 other missions) come and give us a training on how to stay healthy and stress free. Then Brother Cartier who is the CES representative in the east coast (and the institute teacher here in Halifax) gave us a training on how to study the scriptures and get the most out of our personal study. That was an awesome training! It is amazing how much you can get out of a single verse of scripture. 

THEN President gave a training on member presents and near the end said "and now the STLTs are going to train you on IPERF" (a new concept that we had just learned about from president the night before) So we had zero idea he wanted us to train on it.... and we barely understood it ourselves....but we did it. And it turned out pretty good. It was a fun surprise.... 

It was so great going back to Newfoundland again! Me and Sister Fenn both served there so it was a good time. And my old comp Sister Pitcher was just made STL there so we got to go on exchanges with them :) It was a struggle getting to NFLD though. The assistants put my name on the ticket as Emily Fenn, so i couldnt use the ticket. And to get my name changed on the ticket was a hour and a half long process.... and the check in for my flight was closing in 10 minutes... so i had to buy a whole new ticket (didnt help that it was 5am so nobody was answering the phone) ive decided that airports are the biggest rip off in the world... so sneaky with all there hidden fees and silly rules. anyways, it was great once i got there but a bit stressful. I had a nice chat with the assistants after that. But all is well!!!! 

I am loving serving with Sister Fenn, she is so fun!!! We are getting along great :) 

I may have sinned.... i didnt write in my journal all week.... MY BAD! so i dont have much to tell...Sister Fenn almost got hit by a car in Halifax and then we got in a car crash in NFLD. THAT was fun. I would tell details, but i think its funner to just leave it at that. 

The greatest thing that i learned at Zone Conference is that their are two reasons to read the scriptures: 

1.To be changed

2.To obtain light and truth that will save me, my family, and those i serve. 

And if these are not the reasons we have in mind as we read, then they need to become the reason! 

Thanks for the emails and the support, It is a blessing to reflect every monday on the love and care i receive from those at home. Love you all lots :) 

Sister Lambert 

August 31... Hipster or Homeless

Yes, the new hit game here in Hali is "hipster or homeless" we feel that the "rugged" look is starting to a get a little too much... i know mom is going to be laughing when she reads this considering she thought i looked like a homeless person about 50% of the time. 

So we had transfers this week. My new companion is Sister Fenn and she is AWESOME. She is hilarious! We are going to have a darn good transfer... The transfer time was pretty crazy! We had 8 Sisters in our apartment, but it was a blast haha It was 4 of the sisters who were going home and we just had a good night.... it was so heart breaking to see all those sisters going home. I realized that every sister that i had looked up to when i first came out is home now. :( Now im going to be an old lady in the mission. there are only a few sisters who have been out longer than me! ahhh! And so many new sisters coming out! We had 7 this last transfer and another 6-7 next transfer! Woohoo!! 

So we started working with a less-active who is the most interesting person ever... But i love her! Every time i see her i just imagine what she can become, she is going to be a solid member one day! She has some really crazy tattoos, few piercings and a mohawk. She was going to join the circus (walking on glass, and people would staple money to her body...) BUT she backed out and so thank goodness for that.... We spent an hour cleaning a layer of nicotine off her walls the other day.... on the way to salvation!!! one step at a time. 

We had the Halifax YSA conference this weekend! It went great!! People came from Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Quebec and PEI. It added up to about 100 people (thats a lot for the east coast) We got to attend the devotional and we came for all the meals....(cant say no to free food) Quit a few less actives came and we had our investigator John come for the second half.(John is from China, and so John is his english name) We had to leave to go to a lesson, so we asked the Elders to keep an eye on John while we were gone (make sure people are talking to him and that he is having a good time)  When we get back Elder Dudley comes up to me "hey we named him!" ....what? They decided to change his english name from John to Rickie... because apparently Chinese people can just do that. John/rickie was so excited. They had roleplayed different names and that is what they decided. So now we have to go change his teaching record to Rickie. But he was jumping off the walls with excitement.

So over all it has been a great week. Last week i was pretty stressed about things, but my companion is da bomb and so is President so im a little more calm now. The anxiety is gone and im just really excited for what lies ahead! 

Tomorrow we are going to Moncton for zone conference, then Zone conference in Dartmouth wednesday, and then thursday we are flying to Newfoundland and staying till saturday... i and then lessons all in-between!! woohoo! 

Love ya all. Hope everyone is doing great :) 

Love, 

Sister Lambert :)

August 24... Lots of Training

Oh well hello everyone.... Long time no talk! 

Okay. CRAZY heat wave has hit Nova Scotia.... IM DYING HERE.

This has been a pretty crazy week! First off, I am now in a trio!!! But just for the week. One of the cole harbour sisters got sick and needed to go home and so sister Smith is now here with us in Halifax 😊 it has been a blast since she speaks some Chinese and our investigators love it! So Sister Smith and Sister Howell are BOTHA going home on Thursday soooo this is going to be a short email, I got two dying missionaries to keep busy here! 

We had transfer letters!!! Drum role..... I'm staying here in Hali (WOOHOO) and Sister Fenn is going to be my new companion! Which I am so excited about because I love her! She is so fun! 2 days before transfers I was telling president that I had a feeling that Sister Fenn was going to be my companion (because we are the only STLs that have been out for 2 transfers, everyone else is newer or going home) and so when I saw him at our weekly meeting on Sunday he's like "I didn't make her your companion cause you asked me to okay? Don't think you can just go around requesting companions..." Hahaha I get what I want here.... Guess you could say I run the show 😉

This next transfer is going to be CRAZY. I'm over 6 sets of sisters now. That wouldn't be too crazy but it doesn't help that they are spread over the whole mission. So I have to help train 4 new STLs and then I have 2 sets of regular missionaries as well. I'm going to be going to Newfoundland again next week because I might be giving a training at zone conference and to go on exchanges with the sisters there... Then we are going to be teaching all of our investigators as well as the assistants investigators because they are going to be traveling with the member 70 that is touring the mission this transfer. So they will basically be out of there area for 2-3 week. All while trying to fit in my 5 other exchanges in the first 3 weeks of the transfer. Woohoo..... Oh, and president said that he wants me to become an "expert" in working on campus. Since our mission focus is going to be on the YSA and institute he is going to give me this transfer to get really good at working on campus and then the next transfer train the mission on it... He told it to me AND the assistants but they are going to be gone for pretty much the first 3 weeks of the transfer so they put it on me... And sister Fenn of course, but she doesn't know it yet. So this transfer has felt so crazy and went by sooo fast... And next transfer is going to be even more crazy and go by even faster! But it's okay.... We got this...with a whole lot of the Lord’s help. 

I'm sorry but I have no spiritual thought this week! We went to Peggy's Cove today with Ryan and the Tegge girls (they are from Edmonton, one went to school here and the other served her mission here) it was lots of fun! 

Love you, I might not have time to respond personally to very many of you! Sorry!!! 

August 17--- I'm 20!

Yes, it is true. I am now 20. But that was a whole 3 days ago, let's move on. 

Sorry my email is late. We have a senior couple in the YSA Ward, the Excels. And they took us to the beach today! It was so nice! 

So at the beginning of the week we went on exchanges with the Bridgewater sisters, Sister killpack and sister Lybbert. They are so fun! Sister Killpack came back with me to Halifax. She couldn't believe how many lessons we had in the day! Then we spent the night in Bridgewater and then went to district meeting in Annapolis Royal. (It is beautiful there btw) 

We had an awesome Skype call with all the STLs this week, their are 5 STLs going home at the end of this transfer so we made the topic "what I wished I had known when I first became an STL" it turned into a wonderful discussion on the things we had learned over our transfers as leaders. What I shared is the importance of being vulnerable to Christ. Vulnerable towards his love and direction, always looking for His guidance. Really becoming dependant on Him. And then furthering that to the sisters we serve. Being humble towards feedback and showing them our weakness and our dependency on the Savior. Oft times we think that a leader should not show weakness when in reality showing our weakness can be the most powerful way to strengthen others. That's something that has taken my whole mission to figure out, but it has been what's changed me. 

So on the day of my birthday they had a YSA barbecue, and yes mom, they did sing me happy birthday...thanks to the elders who ratted me out. In the morning Sister Howell decorated the apartment and made me a massive cookie for me. it was fun :) I can honestly say that this has been one of my best birthdays! We had weekly planning where I got to reflect on the amazing people we are teaching and working with, then we went street contacting and set up 4 lessons within an hour! Then went to the branch activity! It was a great day! And of course I really appreciate the wonderful cards and packages I recieved! Everyone made me feel very very loved. Thanks for thinking of me on this day. I especially loved the photo album with everyone's pictures in it! It was so fun! I look at it all the time now haha 

I'm sorry but I am going to be making this email a bit short cause I don't have a lot of time but I love you all! Thanks for all the love you show to me, i always appreciate it! I'm on an iPad right now so I can't send my pictures but I'm gonna take one on here of my sweet new Chinese name tag I ordered... We have 7 Chinese investigators right now so I decided that I deserve it haha 

August 10th... That's How IT's Done Folks

Yes it is true. Today is my 11 month mark. And YES it is ALSO true that i am going to be turning the big 2-0 on friday..... the teen life of wild games and adventures is over... or have they just begun? i guess only time will tell. 

My goodness what a fun week this has been! I must repent, i only wrote in my journal once this past week, and it was last night... and this morning... 

So on Tuesday we got 3 new investigators! They are all chinese (of course) Sam and Amber are students, they are dating and so darn cute. They have been here for 3 years and have pretty good english. We are also teaching Ambers mom Mandy, she has only been here for a month, and has brutal english, luckily we have some pretty solid Chinese members in the ward to help us out. In our first lesson Sam said "do you always talk to strangers on the street?" and so we explained how thats how we find people to teach, and he's like "i introduce you to my Chinese friends, you teach them so you dont have to talk to strangers on street anymore" hahaha it was great. On Sunday Sam and Mandy came to church, our recent convert sharon translated for Mandy and we sat with Sam. The gospel principles lesson was on tithing, Sam turned to us and said "i want to pay tithing" "okay great, you don't need to pay tithing unless you are a member though" "what do i need to do to become mormon?" "get baptized, do you know what baptism means?" "no" *explain baptism* Sam: "okay,i want to do that" ....... and thats how its done folks. 

We also started teaching another girl who lives next door to our investigator Glenna, her name is Kim. She converted to Muslim 9 years ago but is very interested in what we teach. She has a 2 page list of questions for us! We went over and started answering some of her questions. When we started we said that we are not perfect teachers, and we may not be able to answer all her questions but that doesn't mean that there is not an answer, and that the ones we don't know we will write down and study. Then Glenna stops us and says to Kim "if the sisters dont know the answers, you can just read the Book Of Mormon. It answers lots of questions" .... gotta love when an investigator teaches for you. 

How great are the people we are teaching right now???? so great... 

YES I DID GET TO GO TO NEWFOUNDLAND THIS WEEK! AND IT WAS SO GREAT! So we were supposed to go tuesday night, but then we may or may not have missed our flight... woops. But fret not, we left wednesday morning instead. We get to St. Johns safely and work with the St. Johns sisters for the day. We went to the Regatta which is apparently the oldest boat race in North America. It was pretty sweet! There were thousands of people there and it was pretty insane. The Sister i was with has some pretty bad anxiety so we took it pretty easy while we were in the crowd. It is hard to talk to people about the gospel in large and loud crowds, but i still managed to pass out at least one Book Of Mormon. Then we went to Bay Roberts and had an awesome time with Sister Christiansen and Sister Fenn. Im 99% sure Sister Fenn is going to be my next companion, she is an awesome sister! 

I forgot how easy it is to talk to Newfies. They are just so nice!!! You really will not meet a kinder soul, sadly more often then not they are also very content with mediocrity, making them hard to teach. But you will have a hoot talking to them!! 

But i am happy to be home in Halifax. There are some great works going on here and im very excited for these next couple of months!!! 

As for my birthday. The YSA is having a activity in honor of me turning 20. okay... well they might not know its my birthday, and they may have planned the activity before i got here... but my plan is to just walk in and be like "wow!! for me? THANKS guys!" and hopefully everyone will just play along.... 

I know these 7 months are going to fly by, and i hope to cherish every moment. It was a very cool experience to be back in my first area and see the progress i have made over the last 11 months. And i still have so much more work to do!!! And so little time!!! So i better get off this computer and get to work! 

Love you all lots, thank you for the early birthday wishes! have a great week me duckies' 

Love, 

Sister Lambert

August 3- It's a great day to be Alive!!

What a wonderful time to be alive, am i right? yes i am. 

Halifax is bumpin' right now!! There is a buskers festival on the water front and so there are always tons of people downtown. They also have cruise ships coming in and so half of our street contacting consists of trying to tell the tourists from the locals. Not that tourists don't need there souls saved, but they can be saved by missionaries in there own darn country. Us and the other metro sisters are going to see all the buskers for our prep day today :) 

Since i have been in Halifax, i have grown such a deep love for Chinese people. Oh my heavens they are so much fun. And once baptized, they become the best member missionaries! The Elders are teaching a kid from China named Chris, he is hilarious! And he just LOVES church. I was sitting beside him in sunday school and asked him what he thought of church so far and he was like "i like here. I feel like family. i keep come back" it was awesome :) YSA really are the best fellowshipers. 

i find it interesting how so many members seem to get worse at being friendly as they get older, dont you think it would be the opposite? 

We went on exchanges this week to Cole Harbour and Amherst. I spent the day with Sister Smith in Cole Habour, she is the sweetest sister! I am sad that she is going home this transfer. We got to go to North Preston to contact some referrals me and Sister Shannon had got our last day there. I finally got a picture by the sign, i was pretty stoked. 

It was funny doing the Amherst exchange. I got to bring Sister Mangelson, who was my first trainer to Hali with me. It was fun spending the day together and seeing the progression we both have made. 

We are getting more and more busy in Halifax! I love it!!! I just running around and never having a moment to stop. (and im not being sarcastic, i really do love it, it is exciting) we are going to be in NFLD wednesday and thursday so we are trying to mash everything into the other days. We are hopefully going to be having 3 baptisms is august and early september. :) 

Now for the spiritual part... 

Something i have always wondered is why scriptures are sometimes so harsh. i would always get a little frustrated when i finished teaching an investigator about how loving our Heavenly Father is and how much he wants us to find joy and then later we read a scripture that includes a nice little threat about fire & brimstone. 

BUT i finally understand why. I was reading in 1 Nephi, and this is when Nephi was having yet another problem with Laman and Lemuel. and he talks about how there hearts were softened. 18:20 "And there was nothing save it were the power of God, which threatened them with destruction, could soften their hearts" 

The only way to soften there hearts was with some threats and a good ol' rebuking! I was thinking how crazy that was that people needed to be given threats to finally make there hearts open enough to receive blessings. But then i realized how often that happens in my own life. How many times did i not realize how much i had hardened my heart to the promptings of the spirit until it had been completely removed from me for a space of time. Or how often have i waited to thank God for blessings that i had received in the past until God has withheld them from me. Now i have never been directly threatened with fire and brimstone, but i sure have received a kick in the butt here and there to remind me that this isn't my show, and that i need to soften my heart and become more reliant on our Heavenly Father for guidance. A goal that i have made for myself is to have frequent self evaluations. Considering the blessings i have been given, the actions i have made, and the things that i have done. Hopefully as i do this i will be able to stop myself from hardening my heart. Always being aware of my spiritual welfare. I feel i should not have to wait until God withdraws the spirit or blessings from me to realize how much i need Him.

So hopefully others can learn from this as well, do a inventory! Where is your spiritual dependency on God and our Savior? 

Thanks for the love shown to me, i truly appreciate it :) 

Love, 

Sister Lambert 

July 27...Flashback to YSA

Hello everyone! What a wonderful week filled with miracles and learning :) 

So i had a flashback to my YSA year as a FHE Mom when we were asked to plan the FHE activity for Monday night! We played chair soccer, reminded me that the Elders, although representatives of Jesus Christ, are still just 19 year old boys.... it got pretty competitive hahaha.  

we had a crazy day on tuesday! MLC followed by 4 hours to do 4 lessons before running off to Fredericton for Zone Training (a 4.5 hour drive) and then I GOT TO SEE SISTER PITCHER. Oh my lans, i sure do love that girl. We got to do some street contacting with them for a bit, i went with a sister that sister pitcher is training, she was awesome! I am amazed by the new sisters that had come out just the transfer before, they are all super stars! it was so much fun being in my old area, talking with my old companion and seeing the progression we have both made in the short 2 months. 

We then went on exchanges with the STLs in St.John, which is a great city! Tons of crazy people...makes it pretty fun for street contacting. We met this one guy who just walked up to us and was like "hey, can i have a discussion with you guys?" and then we had an amazing talk about the gospel and how it can bless families. He and his girlfriend just had a baby and he is really starting to consider the importance of religion in his child's life. It is remarkable to see God preparing his children for the gospel! 

          Friday was CRAZY! we were out of our area for 2 days so had a whole lot of catching up to do. Being busy is so much fun though! It keeps things exciting and entertaining. You feel so much more accomplished at the end of the day! We had a lesson with a chinese girl named Minmin. Have you ever met a chinese hippy? well she is a chinese hippy. We brought a recent convert from China named Sharon. Minmin would go off about how we can't limit ourselves to one God and how if God loves her than he will love her even if she doesn't believe in Him and does nice things for people. Sharon didn't like that and they would get into a heated discussion. The problem is that they would get in these discussions in Chinese... so me and Sister Howell just had to sit and wait till they were done and then we didn't know what they talked about so we didn't know where to go from there... the problems of teaching people who don't know english very well... 

I saw Elder Gibb!! He came with the Amherst branch to the temple and they needed someone to be the escort for a recently returning member who hasn't been to the temple in 20 years. Sister Howell taught her for a while and so she got to be the escort and of course i got to go to. It was fun catching up with him a bit, he is doing great! He is going to do really well in Amherst. 

We started teaching this woman who is so amazing! We had a great lesson with her. She was put up for adoption as a baby and recently reconnected with her birth mom after 55 years. She found out that her mom had joined The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints. And so she requested a Book Of Mormon and now she wants to learn all about it! We had a spirit filled lesson, she told us about her son who had passed away 11 years ago and was never baptized but she feels that he is still with God. We were able to testify to her about eternal families and the blessings of the temple. She cried when she heard that her son could still be baptized and is so excited to continue to learn. She readily accepted the invitation to be baptized. There are a lot of changes she will need to make between now and then but we are excited to see the blessings the gospel is going to bring into her life! 

I feel so blessed to have the promise to be with my family for time and eternity. It is such a comfort to know that i have a Heavenly Father who loves me enough to give me a wonderful family and endless opportunities to stay with them forever. As i sat in the temple this week i reflected on the events in my life that have lead me to the testimony and understanding i now have of this perfect gospel. I do have to go because i have to do a 45 minute training tomorrow in missionary leadership council (which i found out about last night and am freaking out about) 

It is great hearing from everyone as always... congrats to my aunty Mari on the beautiful wedding! I am so happy for her :) 

Love you and miss you all :) 

Sister Lambert

July 20.... Halifax

Well hello everyone!! What a fun week this has been!

I am now in Halifax and i am loving every moment!!!! I am just so excited about everything that has to do with missionary work right now!

So it was sad leaving Cole Harbour, since Sister Shannon was going home we spent more time than i usually would during transfers saying goodbye to members, packing, and preparing the maps and books for the new sisters coming in.
On our last day we decided to go knocking in North Preston. For those who are not aware (and im sure most of you are not) North Preston is the largest black community in all of North America! And it was sooooo much fun. There is not a single white person in the whole area and we were getting the weirdest looks. Cars would drive past us, turn around and drive past us again like 6 times. I think a lot of them thought we worked for the government or something. There were some moments where i thought i was going to get jumped.... but i didn't. so all is well. Everyone we talked to was sooo nice... super Baptist, but so nice. It was a good time haha 

We went to the temple for transfers and it was weird saying bye to Sister Shannon after as well as Sister Spencer who was one of my trainers!! 2/3 of my trainers are home, and the 3rd (Sister Mangelson) is going home at the end of this transfer.... crazy!

And now Halifax! It is so so great here! Sister Howell is great! We get along really well and i have so much to learn from her! And everyone here is so ready and prepared to hear the gospel! Just the other day we walked around our apartment to a bus stop and got 5 potentials and set up 3 lessons.... THAT NEVER HAPPENS. only in Halifax... We are currently teaching 2 people from China, 2 from Nepal, and 1 girl from Bolivia... it is so diverse and exciting here! (and we are teaching a couple canadians of course...) But this has been a very humbling time for me! It has been a great because i am learning to teach more simply and take out the filler words in my sentences. (which im sure you can tell by the million run on sentences in my emails) 

So we are covering both the family and Ysa ward in Halifax. It is a hoot and a half. We went to the church at 8:30am for correlation and then didn't leave till 4:30pm, just enough time to make some calls and then head to the mission home for dinner and a meeting with President & Sister Pratt and the APs, that meeting goes till 8pm and then we ran to a lesson with a Child of Record we are teaching. it was a looong day. And it is going to be like that every sunday!! woohoo!  

I am really excited for the responsibilities we are given for this transfer (now that i know what they actually are) This upcoming week we get to travel to my favorite place of Fredericton NB for zone training, and then go on exchanges with the STLs in St. John. In a couple weeks President is flying us out to NFLD for exchanges which i am so excited about! Me and Sister Howell both served in St.Johns so we are hoping we get to spend some time there in our travels! 

OH and i have a ipad!!! Only about 6 missionaries in the mission have them, us, the APs and 2 other elders. They are so handy to have!

When we met with President Pratt on sunday we talked about the focus for this upcoming transfer, what the members need, the missionaries need, and what we need to do to strengthen the missionary success here. Our focus is on keeping the sabbath day holy. It is the Churches focus right now and is really such a simple answer to so many diverse and complex issues. And as missionaries, we can sometime be surprisingly bad and keeping the sabbath day holy. Not in the way of playing sports. But we are bad at making Sunday separate from every other day. Since we focus so much on the Lords work everyday, it makes it hard to remember that sunday needs to be different from every other day. We are going to be focusing a lot on encouraging missionaries to finish all they need to do before sunday, and use the sabbath day as a time to meet with member in the ward, less actives, and doing service. I have come to know as i have studies the purpose of the sabbath the many blessings that come as we focus on the savior. There is a talk called "The Sabbath is a delight" by Elder Nelson that talks about how we need to not focus on the things we can't do on sunday but instead focus on the good things, that blessings that come. I hope everyone can take a moment to read or listen to that talk and consider there own sabbath day activities! My favorite part of the talk is when he says "

my conduct and my attitude on the Sabbath constituted a sign between me and my Heavenly Father.12 With that understanding, I no longer needed lists of dos and don’ts. When I had to make a decision whether or not an activity was appropriate for the Sabbath, I simply asked myself, “What sign do I want to give to God?” That question made my choices about the Sabbath day crystal clear."

I feel blessed for these opportunities given to me. This transfer is going to be a huge growing experience for me! I Cant wait to see what lies ahead.