Fredericton, New Brunswick, Here I Come

So i will start with the exciting news of Transfers... drum role please....... IM GETTING TRANSFERRED to Fredericton New Brunswick. Am i freaking out? yes. Am i excited? Heck yes. Honestly soo many emotions. I am soooo sad i am leaving St.Johns. Newfoundland in the promised land. Strong families continue to be moved here, and it is so they can help the work to grow and build up the branch here. There is so much work to be done here and i wish i could have done more while i was here. Its a pretty crappy feeling to wish you would have done more, so thats something i will make sure i will never experience again. I am here to work hard and give my all. I will make sure that at the end of each day i will have the assurance that there is nothing more i could have done that day, and i will have nothing left. Because this feeling of wishing i helped and gave more is the worst. I dont know anything about my new companion. Her name is Sister Hughes, but nobody here has served with her. I will be serving in the same area as my zone leaders who are Elder Torie and and Elder Tusa. Elder Torie was the assistant when i came out and he is awesome, Elder Tusa i hear a lot about because apparently he is really funny, so i am excited. And i might be serving in one of the few wards in the mission!!! That will be cool! Elder Gibb is going to be the Zone leader here in NFLD!! crazy!! 

Thank you for all the packages and gifts i have received! i feel so loved!!! And it really does make my day! My favorite thing to get is letters and pictures!

The weather in Newfoundland will forever be the weirdest thing in the entire world. It is so warm lately, it had been raining a lot and it looks like they may even have a green christmas, no snow here. In one day you will experience snow, insane wind, sunny skies and then rain. But i will miss the warm times and the lack of snow, because all i hear about NB is snow, snow, and more snow. 

We had our Christmas Zone Conference this week, my trio and elder Gibb may or may not have performed a little song... it was pretty great! Santa came and gave us all gift cards for timmies, and we had a white elephant gift exchange and i got a massive stuffed giraffe that i am determined to take with me, it is going to be a huge struggle to try and stay under the weight limit when i fly out. 

Christmas is a great time of year because everyone really stops and remembers family and service. After the Zone Conference a bunch of missionaries who traveled from all over NFLD as well as the assistants went caroling with us in Downtown St.Johns, it was so fun! We sang Christmas carols, talked to a lot of people, and even had pictures and videos taken of us. People really loved it! It was a great opportunity to share the He Is The Gift initiative with many people and help others recognize the real meaning of Christmas! 

Something we have been focusing on a lot is faith. It is such a simple word with so much power behind it. It is truly only through faith that anything can become possible. If you lack in faith then you lack in power, in teaching, in the spirit, in everything really. And the best way to gain faith is through prayer. So thats something i have really been focusing on lately, my prayers. It is an amazing blessing to be able to have such a personal conversation and connection with my Heavenly Father, it would be crazy for me to not take advantage of that! 

At first, i was so nervous about transfers, this is my first area and i love it here with all my heart, but i am comfortable and i could see my progression slowing down. So i cant wait to have a change and to once again be pushed out of my comfort zone, because that is the best time to grow and become better. Its a little sad it is happening right before Christmas since i wont know people yet and i now have to figure out how to get my gifts from here to there. But all will be okay because this is Gods will. I am here to follow Gods will, not my own, and i am here to work to the point where my will and Gods will are aligned. Because it will be at that point that i will reach pure happiness and satisfaction in my abilities and talents given to me in this life. But i didnt recognize this at first, i needed to pray, and i needed to have faith that President Leavitt puts us where God needs us and wants us to be. 

A mission is not what i expected it to be, its harder, it creates hardships and at points, sorrow. But it has been the most rewarding time, i have never felt so much joy, and ive learned so much. And its only been 3 months!! I know that great things lie ahead for me and for this work. And i cant wait. 

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas! I hope everyone has seen and shared the He Is The Gift video on christmas.mormon.org because its awesome and needs to be shared withe everyone! I love you and miss you all!!!! 

Love,

Sister Lambert

Love My Companions

My companions and I get a long so well, we have so much fun together. We are just all really silly and find each other hilarious. We jam out in the car to circle of life a lot, its like the only somewhat upbeat song sung by MoTab. We all have our own parts in it and everything. I cant even explain how we have fun because it just sounds silly to everyone else. Elder Gibb compares us to Cohen, Kaden and Brayden if that helps...
That is crazy about Riley!!!! And Taylor!! (I am sure she would add her congratulations! haha)

We had a girl on date for baptism december 20th, and then this week she texted us out of the blue and told us she doesnt want to meet with us anymore and now she wont answer any of our calls or texts. not gonna lie, it really broke my heart. To know that someone had recognized the truth of this gospel and felt that spirit all of a sudden turn around and deny it, just kills me. I feel sorrow for her because i know that she is probably feeling so much sadness from it. 
There is a couple that moved into our ward 2 weeks ago, the Earls. and WE LOVE SISTER EARL. and brother earl, but the elders get him.  She is from salt lake, and she is a amazing member missionary. He is here for the oil and she had decided that the reason she is here is to build the branch and do missionary work. She is going to be working a lot with the ysa, which is good. 
We actually got a decent amount of dinner appointments this month, must be the christmas spirit haha the members here are starting to get excited about missionary work and i actually emailed President Leavitt telling him i really dont want to leave because i love it here. There is soo much potential in this branch and i just so badly want to be apart of the growth that i know is coming here. Because they didnt have a lot of strong families here in the first place God is putting job opportunities here to bring in strong families from afar. And those families are going to bring in more families and really help build up the church here. 

We made a ginger bread temple for christmas, its pretty great. First temple is St.Johns ;) 

Email from Emily's companion, Sister Sharp

Hello! This is Sister Sharp. I am currently serving with your little one, Sister Lambert. She is fantastic! I thought you should know that you have raised a fine daughter and a fantastic missionary. I feel privileged to serve with her and am thankful to have her friendship. She maybe has told you some silly stories about me but rest assured that I do know the sacredness of this calling. I hope your family has a wonderful Christmas! I have seen pictures and you are a good lookin' bunch! Keep up the good work. 
Sister Lambert is hard working and always striving to improve and serve the Lord more fully. I am very impressed with how quickly she progresses. I know that she will have important responsibilities in this mission. 
Merry Christmas! And if you haven't seen the church's video "He is the Gift" then you should watch it immediately. 
And if you wouldn't mind, would you pray that we will find people to teach? That would be a marvelous gift to us sisters. 
Thank you for being so supportive of the fabulous Sister Lambert. I just love that gal!

Christmas Season is Here!

The Christmas season is officially here!!! Since my companions are Americans... i was not allowed to be stoked about Christmas until after american thanks giving, which actually ended up being a bigger deal than Canadian thanks giving in the St.Johns branch. This is because pretty much half of the branch are engineers for Exon oil and so they are all from Texas and other places in the states... so for Canadian Thanksgiving I had mexican food...and this time I had two Thanksgiving dinners!! One on Thanksgiving with a member and the next day because all the oil families got together and had a big thanksgiving meal at the church (we werent actually invited, we showed up to cook our dinner at the church (canned soup...) cause its faster and found them there, and they felt bad so they let us eat with them haha)   

So something im working on this week and for the rest of my mission is being better at waking up in the morning... I will admit that I am not much of a morning person but I read a quote this last week from Elder Holland that said "You tell me how those first few hours of a missionary's day go, and I'll tell you how the rest of their day will go. Ill tell you how their week will go, how their month will go, how their year will go, and ultimately how their life will go." And so I realized that I didnt like how my mornings reflected my attitude. So now, instead of laying in bed for 4 minutes wishing I could sleep longer, I get up within like 5 seconds, say my prayers, make my bed, and start my 5BX workout. And as I've done that, I have noticed a huge difference in my day. Who knew how much that 4 minutes laying in bed affected my attitude!! lesson learned. 

We had our interviews with President Leavitt this week, and by interviews I mean him talking to the 3 of us for over an hour about our facebook usage and then talking to each of us for 5 minutes making sure all is well haha  In our mission they have really started encouraging us to use facebook and email way more. And its weird to do because I feel like I am not really doing missionary work when i am using facebook but I am!! I talk to way more people and effectively teach about the gospel more in 30 minutes on facebook then I do in 2 hours walking around downtown St.Johns. And its an amazing way to get in contact with less actives! The point that President made is that missionary work has been the same for the last 100 years, knocking on doors, talking to people in the streets, and getting ditched for appointments. If we are going to continue doing the same thing we can only expect the same results, but we need to be hastening the work which means we need to change the way we do things. The internet can be an amazing tool when used correctly! And people arent as open to allowing missionaries into their home anymore, or talking to us on the streets and giving us there info so we can contact them again, but people are more likely to be comfortable giving us there facebook name so we can send them a mormon message. Its great! 

I read a talk this week called "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ" by Elder Gene Cook (great talk, everyone should read it) and it really helped me recognize the role faith has in my work as a missionary. And i know this probably sounds like a "duh" moment to everyone else but it just really hit me this week. We need to be always willing to give everything to the Lord at the very moment he asks it of us. If you have any doubts in your mind. any fear, or any distractions, then you will not have the power you are capable of having. When you FULLY trust in the Lord you will have "sufficient faith that the people cannot disbelieve their words" what an amazing blessing we have been promised! Having faith does not just change our attitude but it is something that others will recognize and desire to know more about. There are so many blessings promised to us in the scriptures, all we need to do is work to be worthy of those blessings!! 

The church has put out a new video called He is the Gift and i will ask all of you to watch and share that video with the hashtag #sharethegift, its an amazing video and deserves to be shared be everyone!!! It is something we have been asked to use as our main focus in our missionary work this next month, we have pass along cards and we are asking everyone we meet to watch the video, lets show how we can use social networking to  bring Christ into the lives of everyone!!! 

I love you all, I wish I had pictures of the snow here but I dont yet, I will work on that! miss you, and hope everyone is staying warm!!

Burden free life

I read a talk this week called The Challenging and Testifying Missionary, great talk. It really made me realize that I need to really let go of my fear. This message is so important and I need to help people recognize that. I also need to worry less about how I teach a lesson and focus on just inviting the spirit, because in the end it is the Spirit who is the true teacher. 

I have thought a lot about trials and the lessons you learn from them. Like I said in the letter last week, this is a time for us to learn and grow. And something I have learned to do on my mission is when I get frustrated and things just really are not working out, I just stop and  say "what am I supposed to be learning right now" and as I ponder that, I receive personal revelation on what I am supposed to learn, and what I need to do to apply that lesson to my life and how I do my work. And once you recognize what you need to learn, it never feels like a burden, its an exciting opportunity to grow even more and become closer to our Heavenly Father. Its a really great way to achieve a burden free life. Don't think of trials as burdens, think of them as opportunities!! 

I love to hear everything that is going on at home, it makes me happy when people reference my letters so that I know people are actually reading them haha I love you all, I will try my best to answer everyones emails but I do promise I read every single one!! I am happy to be serving here, I know this is where I need to be and that I am growing from the experiences I am having.

Proselyting in the rain for three days straight!!!

October 27th Changing my Heart

In my personal study I was reading the fourth missionary talk and pondering a lot about what I need to do to improve my missionary work and my attitude towards the work. I even talked about it in my farewell talk a bit, about changing the intents of your heart and giving your desires to the Lord. I seemed to have an idea that you can do it like a flip of a switch, easy. Just give yourself to the Lord. no problem. 

Changing the intents of your heart is hard, it can be a real challenge. And its a process, it really does take a lot of change. But what is the purpose of our time here on earth? to change!! Saying that its in your nature or its just the way you are, is never an excuse. The atonement and the plan of salvation is tilting everything in our favor, with help from the Lord and sincere prayer, we can be like our savior, and be able to live up to our divine potential that we each have received in the pre existence. Nothing we can create ourselves will be better than what the Lord has created for us. 

A barrier I've always had is that I never had good grades, I never thought about myself as a smart person and that has limited my ability to progress, I was constantly limiting myself. But I am a daughter of God, I was born in this gospel to progress, and help others to progress.I am a daughter of a King and therefore I have no limits to what I can become. If I want to be loving, caring, affectionate, AND smart. than I am going to work to become that. I never got good grades in school because I didnt allow myself to.  This is a life of no limits. This is a time where we can learn to become like God. 

My challenge to everyone this week is to think about the barriers you each have and about how you can overcome them, and what steps you need to take to become the person you want to become. Because most of the barriers in life are mental

ones that we have created ourselves. 

Thanksgiving

In the season of thanks, i would just like to give a quick spiritual thought on recognizing our blessings. The other day we were street contacting in down town St. Johns, which we do at least 3 or 4 times a week, and i was having just a downer of a day. Nobody was talking to us and i was (still am) having troubles talking to people, and we were walking back to the car and i was just thinking about how many things i need to work on and how ineffective i was until i perfected those aspects, and really just bringing myself down, i was tired and just wanted to go crawl into my bed even though it was only the morning. Then i just had a voice come into my head that said "think about how blessed you are" I turned around at the top of the hill we had just walked up to see a beautiful scene of St. Johns. How blessed am I. I am serving my mission in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. I have a companion i get a long with, I have a name tag with the name of Jesus Christ on it. He has chosen me to represent Him. How blessed am I. I was raised with an amazing family who is strong in the gospel. I have a knowledge of our Heavenly Father who loves me and will bless me even though im not a perfect teacher. I get to spend the next 17 months of my life, not having to worry about rent and money, or any worldly thing, i get the opportunity to share my knowledge and my blessings with everyone i meet. And how blessed am I to have the Holy Ghost with me to remind me of these blessings when im feeling down.

Alma 32:1 "And it came to pass that they did go forth, and began to preach the word of God unto the people, entering into their synagogues, and into their houses; yea, and even they did preach the word in their streets."

During Sister Lambert's first visit to downtown St. John's, she took the opportunity to share about the Book of Mormon!

Like