April 13..... Spiritual Knowledge

That's right folks... it got up to like +14 yesterday... and today is lookin pretty dang nice. 

So to start off with some funnies... Sister Pitcher is seriously hilarious. Sometimes i laugh a little more at her than with her but i just cant help it... I have to share two funny quotes from her this week. 

first, we were saying bye to someone after a lesson and were giving hugs... when we leave Sister pitcher just looks at me with such sad eyes and says "I have such nerd problems... she squished my glasses against my face" ... I know it doesnt sound as funny over email but if you could see the legit sadness and concern in her face when she said it, you would laugh to. 

second. We were rushing into the apartment to grab something and im a fast walker to begin with so i was ahead of her, and all I hear is "I feel like a wiener dog chasing a greyhound" and we had to stop and laugh for a few moments. 

I know these probably are not funny to other people. But im still laughing about it as a type...  

I love it here in Fredericton... with all my heart... we are getting transfer letters on sunday and i DONT WANT TO LEAVE. I have been here for 3 transfers now so it is that awkward medium where i could easily stay... but people are usually in an area for around 3 transfers so i could just as easily leave... 

Something that i love about serving in a mission with small wards is how close you get to the members. What  a blessing to be building up great friendships everywhere we go! 

I read a talk this week called "Why 1820?" by Hyrum Smith (not Josephs brother Hyrum, a different Hyrum) and it is the funniest, sassiest, but inspirational and factual talk i have read in a while, i encourage everyone to read it! It talks about why God needed to restore the church in America in the year 1820, instead of (for example) a boy in europe in 1420... 

It is an amazing gift to have the knowledge of the Gospel in our life. And it is amazing that we have been chosen spirits to come to the earth in the last dispensation.

 I have been studying a lot on the topic of "Knowledge" and what it really means to have knowledge of the gospel. Because it is not necessarily to know where every scripture is and the ability to quote every prophet that has lived. But it is to consistently learning, and coming closer to our Heavenly Father through action. Action is such a huge part of spiritual knowledge. Having that perfect balance of work (scripture study, prayer) and faith - knowing that you will receive answers and blessing from the work that you put in. As we work to balance these things, we will become more like our Savior, and we will build our capability to serve him. 

I hope everyone has a great week! It sounds like a pretty crazy week for a lot of my family and friends! I hope that everyone travels safely! 

Love you all lots, i am blessed to have so much love and support! 

Love, 

Sister Lambert :) 

April 6...... How Great Was Conference!

Happy Easter everyone :) :) 

Soooooo I know everyone wants to talk about it so lets just start with it.... HOW GREAT WAS CONFERENCE! I am so so sad that it is over.... me and Sister Pitcher are thinking of rewatching it during our meal breaks for.... the rest of our missions. 

I love that they talked so much about family, mainly focusing on marriage. For a family to progress in the way of the Lord, the parents must first be unified in purpose, and the best way to do that is to be unified with our Heavenly Father. I loved the statement given by Elder Packer "Romantic love is incomplete". So many times on my mission i see people so enveloped in a unhealthy relationship that leads to so much emotional distress. This is not what our Heavenly Father wants for us! Like said in conference: the key to happiness is to marry a worthy partner, in the temple, and growing a family in the gospel. 

In honor of the Easter season i spent my personal studies this week studying the atonement of Jesus Christ. And what a blessing this study has been! I loved the initiative the church put out "Because He Lives". So many people do not fully understand the power behind that statement. Recognizing that God and Jesus Christ live, and have bodies of flesh and bone truly brings into play the realization that we CAN have a very personal relationship with them. I really loved Elder Hollands talk on the atonement. What a perfect way to grasp the importance of Christs atonement. We need Him. We need to be completely vulnerable to Him, because without Him, we will fall. 

Let us grasp onto Christ this Easter season. Like Elder Nelson said in his talk "How will i change?" I think we all very constantly notice "what" we need to change, but i hope we all consider "how" we will change. Set goals and make plans on how you will accomplish the things the spirit testified to you this conference.  

Like Elder Renlund said "Don't be Latter Day Quitters!!" 

On a fun little side note, we had a good rest of the week as well. It was +13 on friday, and sooo glorious, i didn't have to wear a coat, and we talked to sooo many people! There are some great walking paths here in Fredericton that were just swarming with young families and couples! It was so great! I got into a bit of a debate with one guy for about 10 min... he told me he knew everything about our religion so didn't need to talk to us. I kindly corrected him (because if he knew everything, than he would obviously be baptized... and then translated...because even the prophet doesn't know everything) and so he yelled at me a little bit for a few minutes... but long story short, he thought Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses were the same thing, and when i corrected him he got a lot nicer and then praised us for being so brave and kind for sharing the word of God. And we invited him to watch conference... so hopefully he does.... 

Also.... on friday i will have officially been out for 7 MONTHS!!! AHHH!!! the time is going by crazy fast.... i don't like it! Everything just needs to slow down!! 

I hope everyone is doing amazing. And i hope everyone loved conference as much as we did!! What a great opportunity to self evaluate and improve our lives and relationships with our Heavenly Father!! Love you all! 

Sister Lambert 

March 30.... Sun made a guest appearance

Yes, yes it is true. The sun made an special guest appearance here in the east coast. GET THIS. I got to wear my fall jacket instead of my winter one for a few days!! And one day i just wore a light sweater!!! I know what you are thinking.. "well Sister Lambert, its been like that all winter here in Alberta... so thats not exciting" But believe me when i say that it was the most glorious blessing from God when i got to go outside and actually feel the warmth of the sun again... 

We went on exchanges this week so i got to go to St.John for a day. It is such a cute city! Kind of reminded me of St.Johns a little bit (yes there is a difference between St. John and St. John's) It is very cute and i got a couple pictures but of course i left my camera cord at the apartment so you will just have to imagine the beauty in your minds this week folks. I hope i get an opportunity to serve there at some point. With that said, its right by the water and so the wind is freeeezing. But in the summer im sure it would be nice! But im also planning on staying in Fredericton for forever... so thats more likely. 

How great was womens session of General Conference??? So amazing! My favorite line in the whole session was when one the speakers (who's name escapes me right now) said "The home is only second to the temple". What a great way to put into perspective the importance and sacredness of the home. A home needs to be an escape from the world, where anyone, member or non-member can feel the presence of the Holy Ghost and feel of our Heavenly Fathers love and comfort. It made me really ponder on the things i am going to do to make my home a Christ- centered home. I sanctuary from the world! 

General Conference is more exciting than Christmas as a missionary. What a great opportunity to hear the Lords Prophet and apostles speak to us and give us council. I hope everyone will get an opportunity to listen and apply the council given!! 

April is almost here..... its crazy... time is going waaay to fast. Im sorry this email is short, but i love and miss all of you!!! Hope everyone is doing well!!! Have a happy easter!! Make sure to watch and share the video the church put out for easter called Because He Lives! Its awesme :) 

Love, 

Sister Lambert

March 23... Just flurries

Hello everyone! Sounds like its been a crazy week! Congrats to Paige and Richard on tying the knot!! I've gained a real appreciation for the temple and the amazing gift of being sealed for time and eternity. It is so exciting to see loved ones make that commitment to each other and to our Heavenly Father. Im sure they are on their honeymoon so they will probably never read this... so if someone could pass on the congrats for me that would be great...

Also a big congrats to Lili Atwood for her farewell talk! I heard it went amazing! 

This week has been a bit crazy... losing some investigators due to some poorly used agency, as well as gaining some wonderful people with a pure desire to come closer to our Heavenly Father! I am currently teaching 2 ex-Pagans, so ive got to learn a lot about that religion lately! Its pretty cool... But God is cooler so... 

We had Stake Conference this week and had a General Authority, Elder Wilson come visit. Luckily the stake centre is in Fredericton so we didnt have to travel, but there were 6 sisters in our apartment which is a blast! The Aps started calling us hotel fredericton because of how often we have sisters staying with us while in transit. 

Elder Wilson gave some great talks, one that stuck out to me the most was his push on education. We need an education to be succesful. And obviously money is something that God does not care about, but when you are in a place where you dont have to worry about money, you have so much more time to focus on your family and the gospel, and on serving others. There is a very spiritual side to being financially stable. He was pretty funny about the weather, he was like "In utah, they would call this a blizzard, here, they said it was just flurries" haha welcome to spring time in eastern canada. 

Ive been really pondering on how I can best build my teaching skills and become more effective with my time, so that I am constantly and consistently working to fulfill my purpose as a missionary. Whenever I do this I end up making these big goals and never knowing where to begin.I did this a lot at the very beginning of my mission. I wanted to become consecrated to the Lord, in every way possible. And I continued to fail, over and over again I fell short to what it means to become fully consecrated to the work. I got so frustrated with myself  (i continue to get frustrated with myself) and as i was reading a talk just this morning by Elder Dallin. H. Oaks called "The Challenge To Become" I realized that the reason I continued to fail and becoming fully consecrated is because I was not yet fully converted. Now dont get me wrong, I know more than anything in the world that this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, and the Book Of Mormon gives us the knowledge and instruction needed for eternal life. But have I allowed this knowledge to change me? to make me into what my Heavenly Father wants me to become? It is frustrating at times because this is not a goal that can be achieved in a week, or a month, or a year. But it is a life-long process that is hard for a impatient soul like mine, who has been trained by the world to want and desire immediate results at the blink of an eye. But as I set small, every day goals, like memorizing a scripture reference, doing small acts of kindness for my companion, and simply loving those i teach, i can work towards that conversion process, and i know that as i work towards that goal, i will become more consecrated to the work, to my purpose, and to my Heavenly Father. 

This is a gospel of learning. It is amazing that we have so much opportunity to change as we put our trust in an unchangeable God. Someone who will never disappoint us. 

It is great hearing from everyone! There is some amazing stuff going on at home from the sounds of everyones emails! And there is some amazing things going on here in Fredericton as well that I am very blessed to be a part of. Love you all!!! 

Sister Lambert :) 

March 16th.....Abinidi is a cool guy

So i promise we were actually having such nice weather! Me and Sister P. even took out our fall jackets, it was that nice!! And then BAM. Around 30cm of snow. it was fun.

We went to the church in the morning and only 6 members showed up in the storm so we just had sacrament meeting then everyone went home. But obviously we have nothing to do at home so we stayed at the church and made calls and sent out emails, filled records, all that fun stuff. Then when we went to leave our car got stuck in the snow, so the elders had to come dig us out, but they could only dig us out enough to get us parked back at the church and we had to walk home... in knee deep snow, with all our area and member books... it was a good time. It made us very grateful for our warm apartment! 

Since we were stuck at the church all day we were going a little bit insane (i can not stay inside for longer than an hour or two... i go crazy... which is weird considering the hours of tv i used to watch before my mission, interesting how things change!) But we needed to go do something, so during our meal time we went to that park that we didnt know was there before and played on that for a while... in the middle of the snow storm. It was pretty fun! There is usually a chain link fence around it but the snow is so high that we just stepped over the fence haha it was only sticking out of the snow about a foot. 

We had a lesson on campus a little while ago, and usually the campus is pretty quiet but that day they were doing tours for the highschool kids who were planning on attending. So we couldnt find a quiet place to have our lesson and the girl we were teaching was like "OH! i know a place!" And takes us to the Catholic chapel on campus! hahahaha so we taught the restoration, with Joseph Smith and the first vision and everything in the catholic chapel! hahah And we didn't burst into flames so i guess what we are teaching is true... (duh) But it was pretty great, luckily im actually pretty good friends with the Chaplain so i dont think she really would have cared anyways. 

Well anyways, I dont have a ton of time today, so my spiritual thought will be short. I have been reading in Mosiah this week (because i re-started the Book of Mormon a couple weeks ago) and i was really inspired by the story of Abinidi. What a cool guy! He gets basically thrown out of the city for preaching the truth and so he comes back in A DISGUISE and just keeps on preachin!!! He knew that the message that he had to share was THAT important. And then when he was in front of the king, about to be killed, it did not even phase him, because he had FULL trust in God and knew without any doubt that his message was true and he would not be killed until he fulfilled his purpose. We have that EXACT same message. And it is just as important today as it was then, and i know that God will give us the means we need to fulfill our purpose, and do everything in his power to help us as long as we do everything in our power to help Him and to share His gospel with everyone. It really helped me recognize that i need to be more bold! We are accountable for those who we do not share this message with. So we need to be sharing it with everyone! (and this is not just to missionaries) 

I love you all, i hope everyone is having a great week! 

Love, 

Sister Lambert :) 

6 month mark, 1 year left!

Yes yes yes, all the rumors are true, i HAVE been on my mission for 6 MONTHS now. Sometimes I'm excited that i have made it this far and learned so much already. And sometimes I just want to cry thinking that i have only learned so much already and i have SO MUCH MORE to learn!! And thinking that 1/3 of my mission is gone is just the saddest thing in the world...

So yesterday morning me and Sister Pitcher decided to be good girls and complete our personal study before running to the church to check transfer letters. During our study we get a text from the Elders saying "woah....." and then a text from the STL's saying "Well that's a twist...." So of course we are freaking out the whole time and not even focusing. We get to the church and turns out they were just messing with us.... Me and Sister Pitcher are both staying in Fredericton. WOOHOO!!! What they were talking about in the text is all the changes they are making to the leadership. Since we have sooo many new missionaries. And all the leaders are going home, they are putting all the current leaders (zone leaders, district leaders) with new or less experienced missionaries to help train all the new missionaries. So now we only have 1 zone leader instead of 2. But then we also have 3 STLs instead of 2... its all confusing. Im not in leadership (thank goodness) so i don't really have to worry about it right now. 

I have been having some awesome personal studies this week. I have been focusing a ton on building confidence, and self-esteem. I talked about it a bit in my last email but its really interesting when you really look at it. Low confidence in yourself is the root of so many issues and is often what leads to disobedience. So how do you combat it? I was studying and studying and then realized "wow... im so dumb. (obviously a great example of self confidence) I have been studying this for 3 days.... but the church has men called of God who have probably already thought about this. Where would their findings be? In a place that is easy access to the main focus group for this issue. The Young Women." So what do the young women recite every sunday? The key characteristics needed to have love for our Heavenly Father, those around us, and ultimately ourselves. Faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity and virtue. As i have been studying these characteristics i have thought about the countless times i recited this theme without have a real understanding of what i was saying. And they all interconnect with each other. You need to have faith in God and His teachings to understand what your divine nature is, and once you understand that you will gain more individual worth... and so on. 

This is where it comes down to faith. Just the other day, Sister Pitcher asked me where i found my faith, how i got it. And the only thing that i could think of is "well, it just makes sense." and i stand by that! Why not choose faith? What else is there to choose? Doubt? fear? loneliness? no thankyou... I would rather put all my trust, love, and time into a God who loves me, who has a plan for me, who cares for my well-being, and who is consistent and will never let me down, then in a world that is shaky and forever changing. 

So this is my plea to all that I meet, including anyone who reads my emails. Choose faith! It is the only option that makes sense!! 

Thanks for letting me rant to all of you! I hope at least some of you chose to accept my Book of Mormon challenge! I love and miss all you! 

hope ya'll are enjoying the nice weather i keep hearing about. This week was actually so beautiful!! We had awesome weather!!!! 

Love, 

Sister Lambert :) 

In honor of my 6 months, im gonna flash it back to the mtc, where i was still with sister Pitcher haha and i was actually tanned and warm...and cute and not pale and tired of snow...and being cold. 

Ello me duckies, March 2

Ello' me duckies.

Sounds like everyone is doing well at home, with baby blessings and weddings and all that fun stuff that makes me freak out for when i have to go home... But i am glad everyone is doing well! 

So just a funny little example of how much snow we have here... Me and Sister Pitcher are teaching this girl, and we were talking about having our next lesson at the church and she says "Oh yeah its the church with the park behind it right?" And we are like "uhh no there isnt a park..." and we get into this 5 minute debate about this park that she thinks is behind our church. And she is saying that she has been there before for blood drives and stuff so she knows there is one. 

We go to the church today and are looking around for this park, and then i look at this 20ft snow bank that has been there all winter and just think ".....no way" i climb it and lo' and behold there has been a park literally 15 ft from our church THIS WHOLE TIME but its buried under 8 ft snow and then hidden by a 20 ft snow bank! Ive been here since december and Sister Pitcher January so we dont know what this place even looks like without snow! It was pretty funny though... 

We have had a great week! The work here in Fredericton is increasing like crazy! we got 4 new investigators this week that are building up our teaching pool, and the Elders are finding even more success! We are all really excited for the work here! We have transfer letters on sunday and i really really really dont want to leave so we will see what happens. 

Something i have recognized is a common theme with a lot of people we teach and is the root of a lot of problems within the church as well. This problem is self-worth and struggles with low self esteem. So i have been focusing on it a lot in my personal study this last week and wanted to share at least a little bit of what ive learned with you! 

When i think about the worth of souls the first scripture that pops into my mind is D&C 18:10 "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" And i would always read this and just skim past because i am always told that God loves me. But this time i looked up the definition of 'great' in the dictionary. Great means remarkable and outstanding. So each soul is remarkable. But how often to we think of ourselves as remarkable? Not as often as we should!! To deny ourselves that title is to deny what God is telling us. To think less of ourselves could in a way be considered a form of disobedience. We are denying what we have been told, and we are then denying ourselves our true potential. 

We are each remarkable and outstanding. God teaches it to us. Christ had a full understanding of the worth of our souls. It is because of His understanding that He so willingly died for us and created the atonement. Because He fully understood what our potential was and knew that we need a little help. 

When my mind wandered to the Atonement i then got to thinking more about Christ. When He was a child, he had the veil put before him just like the rest of us. Christ had to find His potential. He had to learn who He was and what He was capable of. We in turn must follow Christ's example and find our for ourselves what it is that our potential is. What makes us remarkable. 

As you are obedient to God's commandments, and follow His council (including remembering the worth of your soul) you will be able to build a closer relationship with Him as you work towards the potential and the blessings that are yours to receive. 

I love you all, i promise im not buried under snow. Their

snow removal systems here are top shelf. The only scary thing is that almost every stop sign here is buried under the snow haha luckily nothing bad has happened yet! 

Love,

Sister Lambert :)