August 25, 2014

Our week did not start as a week of miracles, this week started super rough for us, especially after the week we had just had. You know the struggle, appointments falling through, nobody listening. Just the same old struggles. So going into Sunday we were going in knowing we needed to hit it hard if we wanted the week to end good. So we went with our faith and that's about it. When we got to church we were hoping our usual investigating family would be there. The dad is usually out of town working and had been gone for 4 weeks. But he had gotten home the day before so he came to church. So i knew we needed to go teach them something. So we set up a time after church to talk to them. We met at a members home, and i felt impressed to have a testimony meeting. So to start we sang "im trying to be like Jesus" then we went around in a circle and shared how we had seen the church and teaching of Christ change our lives. It was super cool and we all felt the spirit. The Dad shared his testimony as well. So then we started talking about Baptism. And how we were not trying to get them to be baptized so we could just add members to the church, but really so they could come closer to Christ. I then shared Mosiah 18: 9-10 which the most powerful question is "what is stopping you from being baptized in the name of the Lord?" He could not come up with anything, and i told him its because the time has arrived to be baptized. so we put them on date for the 6th of September. Same day the other missionary's of our branch are having a baptism as well. So it will just be a big party! Im super excited for them.

So two nights ago i made Elder Farr prayerfully choose where to track. He was hesitant but i told him he could do it. So he choose a place and we went the next day. Several appointment had to fall through to get there but we did. When we got there I prayed to know where should we start, I felt we needed to start in this random corner. So we knocked the first door... No answer. So we were getting ready to go to the next one when Elder Farr just started walking into the woods on this little trail. I asked him if we had to and he said yes. So we did, And ran into this Hispanic family. they were not interested at and frankly kinda rude. But as we were about to leave i felt i needed to ask for a referral. So i did, the father quickly answered and said that everyone needs a message of Christ. I still felt we needed an answer. So i asked if he knew anyone who spoke Spanish. The wife was about to say something when the husband quickly answered again. Still no answer, but i knew who ever she was about to say is where we needed to go. So i asked again, she answered and directed us across the street. So we went, It was a family from mexico, they let us in and we shared the first lesson. But differently, we testified allot and spoke more boldly. In the end we asked them to be baptized when the came to know these things are true. They said yes! We are going back this Tuesday to teach the second lesson with them. Its crazy to see how when we let him the Lord guides us to those who will receive us.  

Other than that is was a pretty uneventful week, other than our car won for being the cleanest in the zone at zone conference so very proud about that :)

Siga adelante y el Senor estara con tigo

Elder Lamb

August 18, 2014

week in a highlight...

So this week was a great week. I had my first district meeting where i hosted it. It was all planned at so well. All the time was filled, all the points that needed to be touched were there and the training's and role plays all had their time ready to go. It looked so good planned out on my sticky note. But me and my memory, well lets just says that sticky note did me allot of good sitting on my desk back at home. So the meeting went on a wing and a lot of prayers. So in the end the it did end up good, not as good as it could have been but still went well for a first time.

This week we saw allot of help from the members. We had members out with us almost every day this past week. Having members coming out with us helps so much. Because we have good use of the language but they have complete command of the language. So it helps to have them when we cant explain something as deep or in the way they need it explained. Also almost every member is a convert to the church so they have their own personal story and their own super strong testimony that they can share so to help the people come and understand Jesus Christ even more. Having the members going out and helping the missionary's is so important to the work. And also those referrals we get from members as well.

 

I also got the chance to do my first baptismal interviews as well this week. That was a very cool experience. The family's name is Cardoza. They are super awesome, it was so special to get the opportunity to meet them and to see their desire to follow Christ. The mom has gone through several hard spots in her life. She told me she had just barely got done praying to God to help her find a "home" when not 5 minuets later the Missionary's knocked on her door. And she knew that was gods answer that this was the "home" she was looking for. That is the best part of the mission, watching this people come unto Christ, or at the lest helping them to understand the savior that much more. This truly is the work of the lord. I can see his hand in every aspect of it. He is truly preparing people to hear this message and they are just waiting for this message. And as missionary's it is our sacred responsibility to bring this message to them. I love this work and its sad to think almost one year of it is over. But the good news is there is still one year left to go.

Con Mucho Amor

Elder Lamb

                                        here is a very badly placed fire hyrdrant

A couple of letters from the President!!!

Brother Lamb,

I just want to update you on the progress of your son in the mission here in Georgia.

I’m sure he’ll do a great job! That will keep him busy doing both new jobs. It’s been fun

Getting to know him better since he is serving close to the mission office. I love him!

Sincerely,

Sister Residori

Georgia Atlanta North Mission

1150 Cole Dr. SW

Lilburn, Georgia 30047

Ph. 770-925-8115

                                    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------         

August 6, 2014

Dear Elder Daxton Michael Lamb:

Congratulations! We are thrilled that you are training one of the Lord’s newest missionaries.  This trust is one of the most important responsibilities that can be given to you.  You were chosen for this assignment because of the example you have set with your work ethic, obedience, love, and your ability to teach the gospel by the Spirit.  The training you give during the first twelve weeks will establish patterns that will greatly affect the performance of your new missionary throughout her entire mission.

To help you to keep focused, please remember the following:

1. Love your companion the way the Lord loves her.  Pray to understand and help her.
2. Follow the training schedule outline in the First Twelve Weeks training booklet.

3.     Teach your new companion how to focus on our purpose as missionaries.

4.     Be strictly obedient by conducting yourself in accordance with the scriptures, the White Handbook, Preach My Gospel and the principles you have been taught in this mission.

5.     Follow the daily mission study plan.

6.     Study the Book of Mormon daily.

7.     Practice teaching the lessons from Preach My Gospel daily, prayerfully focusing on the needs of your investigators.

8.     Establish weekly goals in each of the key indicators and work diligently to achieve them.

9.     Teach how to plan for success during your daily and weekly planning sessions.

10.  Work prayerfully and diligently in unity and love with your companion to find, teach, and convert those whom the Lord has prepared for you. 

May the Lord bless you in assisting Him in this great work of salvation.  We will continue to pray for you both as you begin this assignment together.

With love and respect,

                                                                             

John E. Bennion, President

Georgia Atlanta North Mission

cc. copy to parents and file

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

                                                                                                            August 6, 2014

Dear Elder Daxton Michael Lamb,

We are thrilled that you have been called to serve as a district leader.  We have confidence in you and in your abilities to lead a group of missionaries.  Your stewardship will be a great blessing to you and all those you are called to serve with you.

Successful leaders always lead by example.  You will need to plan well, and work to have the top proselyting area in your district.  Pray every day that you will be led to sincere seekers of the truth.  Get out on time and contact people all day long.  Build your teaching pool.  You cannot lift others until you are first on higher ground; you cannot ignite others until you are on fire yourself.

This call to leadership requires you to take responsibility for the success of your district.  After your own area is running well, help your missionaries succeed in their areas.  Plan and conduct effective district meetings, and counsel with your district members and your zone leaders about ways for your district to be more successful.  In addition, teach by example while you are on exchanges with them.  This is one of the most powerful tools available to you.  

Most importantly, learn to love and lead in the Lord’s way.  The Savior loved his followers, taught them true principles, held them to high standards, and believed they could become great.  The more you emulate Christ-like qualities in your own life, the more your missionaries will want to follow you.

 

Thank you for your willingness and preparation to accept this important assignment.  As a district leader you have more influence on your missionaries than the zone leaders or assistants. May the Lord bless you as you seek to build up His Kingdom.

With love and respect, your fellow servant.

John E. Bennion, President

Georgia Atlanta North Mission

cc. copy to parents and file

August 11, 2014

First week has been great for us over here. We have seen some very cool miracles. But to start my companions name is Elder Farr from Venezuela. well he lives in Columbus Ohio. But his mom is from there and he live there till he was 3. So he just says that. He does already speaks some Spanish, not fluently. But it is really cool to have a comp that speaks. Because all the other times i was with people who spoke Spanish. Either i could not speak, they could not speak or i was in a trio. So its so nice to be with someone who can speak. Because now we can teach effectively and actively switch off cause we know what the other person is saying. So its really cool, I love it. 

This week also we had the most awesome meeting. So all the leadership from the mission came together for two days and we had some really awesome experiences. So we as a leadership in this Zone. So at the end of the two days we had to choose something our zone was going to focus on to do. Everyone basically had the same thing "love and unity" freaken lame. our focus is so much cooler. We decided that many of the missionarys needed something else. So our focus is "rising up to the occasion." Because allot the missionarys are just not doing it because its "hard" or there "Going home soon" so we really are going to focus on helping them through more effective exchanges and compstudy's. We are all really excited to do this. It really set a great tone for the week. 

Then finally as a closer i want to share what happened on that exchange. So last Tuesday i was looking at the map trying to find a place to tract. and i kept getting lead back to this road named "Simon park cir" But when i wrote it down i wrote "Simion park cir" so when i went to put it in the GPS it found nothing. So i just let it go* and knocked somewhere else. then the next night the sisters called with a referral family on which street? yep, Simon park cir. So on that exchange we went there and they let us in and i was able to teach lesson 1. The elder i was with was an English elder. So i did not feel bad talking the whole time. But anyway in the end we got 4 new investigators, 2 kids were not there. and we are going back this week. So then we will get two more when we go there this week. It is really cool how the lord will still get the missionarys where they need to go even if they spell things wrong. 

Con Mucho Amor

Elder Lamb 

August 4, 2014

It is still very hot here and it sucks. But soon it will cool down. When i got here last October it was really nice, so i just got to survive till then! I hope cale will change schools, i told him he should do it cause Mountain ridge is a dump and i would have left had i had the chance. Not really, but maybe a good motivator. So i hope he will realize this is a time to start over and start new.  

Transfers!! Well this week ended up being a big shock for me, me and my comp were pretty positive we were going to stay together, but then last Tuesday right in the middle of my studies I got the call. The call from the assistance's that i will be training a new missionary that will be coming in. So I had to go to a trainers meeting with the president and start studying the 12 week book again and everything! It has been overwhelming to get that call and that responsibility. But then if that was not enough when we got the call to find out where my current comp is going I got another call! I guess the Lord thought training was just not enough, so now i get to be the District Leader as well. So needless to say the amount of responsibility has gotten much heavier. But I know this is a test the Lord is giving me to see if I will "arise from the dust, and be a man" or shrink before it. I know it is going to take allot of hard work and patience and just basically everything i got to do it, but i feel very honored to be so trusted by the Lord. Im very ready to rise up, and not shrink.

This week was a bit tougher for us, in every sense of the word. But we still had great miracles in the end. so on Saturday we were sitting in the car trying to figure out what to do cause our planned lesson was not home. We were looking at our planners and saw we both had the street name Kings ct written down. No house numbers or name or nothing. Just the street. So we figured it is where we were to go. so we went, and as we were just about to get there we past a less active family house who were have tried countless times to visit. And low and behold they were out side! we were like "this, this is why we needed to come here" so we went back shared a short message and then set up a return appointment. We went back with a member and found out that the dad has big doubts in the BOM and asked us how we knew it was true. So we shared testimony. It went great and we have another appointment with them this next Sunday. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Also as a spiritual note, I have been reading in Moroni 7 this week. 3 days and im only to verse 10. But its so cool, At one point it said "no evil man bringith any good gift" Which made me thing "what is it to bring a "good gift" but then i though more deeply, what does the word Good mean? And what truly is a Gift? so through much pondering and looking through scriptures I found some of my answers. The word Good, I found to mean. That it always points back to Christ and shows his teachings. so a evil man will NEVER point unto Christ. And a Gift for what i found is something freely given for the betterment of others and never ourselves. So also I learned that All good gifts come from god. So can we ever truly give a Good Gift to another If EVERY GOOD GIFT is from God himself? I thought no, but we can most defiantly share our Gifts. and i compared it to the Light of Christ. We can give no man this gift cause it is not ours to give. But we can most defiantly share it with others. So that they may see it and desire it for themselves. So my invitation is let us share the gifts we have, and let us use them to bless the lives of others so they may see and desire the same gifts we have, which gifts our father in heaven has prepared for ALL that will come unto him.   

Permita que la luz de cristo more en tigo

Elder Lamb 

July 28, 2014

Its like i told mom, i think cale should go to the school by your new house, just leave mountain ridge and lone peak behind. Especially Mountain ridge, that school is a dump. So maybe ill tell him that, nobody know better about switching schools than me. 

This week we did not get 108 contacts, we still got 78 though. So still doing awesome! But the week was harder for us, we had it all changed up by a Tuesday pday cause we had interviews on Monday. So that through us off a little. Then I ended up getting some kinda bug. So between the coughing up my left lung and head acks and my voice being almost gone. It was hard sometimes to find the drive to do anything. Getting sick in the mission sucks, cause you refuse to stay in cause you know you will just feel worse that you did not do anything. But happily im better, so no worries.  

This week we had a hard time getting in with any investigators. we were able to only get in with one buy this week. But it does not mean that the week was a bust. We ended up having really cool experiences.

The first experience was with this guy named Brian. He is about 25 or so and we meet him knocking doors. We talked to him for a long time, one thing he brought up though is something we hear allot but not the way he did. Cause he brought it up the correct way. Many times people bring up the scripture in revelations were it says basically "do not add or take from this book" and everyone always thinks it means the Bible, which it doesn't. And he knew that, he said he had read it and did research and arrived at the conclusion that it is only talking about "the Book of Revelations" Which is correct! He is the only person i have met that actually knew that. This guy though sounds just like a member of the church and everything he shared is what we teach. So in short we gave him a Book of Mormon and he told us he is going to read all we left him and more and he his going to pray and find out for himself and then in 3 weeks we are to come back and discuses what he read and what he thinks. I truly think he could go far, i cant explain more because it would take to long but we hope big things, also a big miracle is he being white we thought we would have to give him off, but we dont! He married a Girl from Columbia and he speaks Spanish as well. so is perfect!   

The second little miracle happened yesterday tracking, it was weird because at dinner our investigators showed up at the members home and we thought about staying to teach them, but just not feel right about it. So we left and went to knock doors by another member and that is when we ran into a girl named Tiffany, We talked to her for a while as well. She said she has been looking for a new church because hers has changed its views and in moving away from focusing on Christ like discipleship. She knew what church we were from and everything. She said we had caught her at a good time, cause she usually works Sunday evenings. She also has hear allot about our church and kinda scares her, but she is willing to see what it is like, because maybe it could be the one for her. Which it is of course, sadly though we did have to turn her over to English missionary's. But im happy we decided to not teach that lesson and leave. Because in the end we found her. And we might not off knocked there yesterday had we stayed and taught. so im glad we followed the spirit and left.

Con Mucho Amor

Elder Lamb     

July 21, 2014

Im happy to hear cale enjoyed that trip and that you did as well. I Cant wait to go mountain biking, i make it back in time so we will defiantly go.

 This week was a very good week for us, and i loved it! To start off the weather was very nice and cool. Only about 70 and clouds all over so it was awesome. Also this week I decided it was time to step up my contacting if i wanted to work harder. So I worked through even the awkward contacts like people cutting the lawn, driving out of there driveway, any possible person i could talk to i did. And it payed off for us, we got 108 contacts for the week! A crazy number and the best part is we only trackted 12 hours this week. Which in that time we only need to get 70 contacts so we really killed it.

Nothing special happened this week but it was a great week, I am going to share though something that has really helped me and can help every one. During my studies I decided to pray frequently during them so that i can be more taught by the spirit and learn what the scriptures are truly saying. And i did that, and the effects are amazing. Everything was so much more clear and powerful. It made my studies so much more worth it. I was reading a part in    2 Nephi 1: 21, 23 These scriptures are now my favorite for the invitations they give to us, the powerful callings in which they extend. They tell us to "Arise from the dust, and be men" which to me is the calling God is giving each and everyone of us, To rise up from where we are and take upon us this higher conviction, this higher calling. To be better, to truly "rise from the dust"  I love this scriptures and am trying my best to be a better servant each and everyday. It makes me so happy to know that everyday we can be better than our last and that one day we will reach who we are truly meant to be. 

So as an invitation to end this message (cause we always leave commitments) Try to reach higher, don't be content with where you are. Strive and try to reach this higher calling. And soon you shall get to where you wish to go " Awake my sons; put on the armor of righteousness. Shake off the the chains with which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity, and arise from the dust" Verse 23

levantete y siga adelante

Elder Lamb

P.s. 2 Nephi 9 :45