Hey

 Whats up guys! Im lovin it down here. The weeks feel like days. 

Its starting to get real that Im heading to Peru. A week from now Ill be packing my bags. Ive been going on google maps and using street veiw to walk around chiclayo, jaen, and chachapoyas (areas in my mission) and all I see is huge mountains, a bunch of third world looking buildings, motorcycles, and a ton of nasty looking dogs lol. It will be a change. 

Spanish is coming. I feel like i can say just about anything i want to (with bad conjugation and bad wordage of course) but its getting better. I love talking to the Elders from Mexico. Listening and talking to natives teaches you so much faster than a textbook can. I often find myself saying words that I never have been taught, just picked up from conversation, and honestly would take a minute to think about the meaning in english, but just make sense in spanish. This is a good sign because it means im learning how spanish works and learning meanings in spanish and not translating every word into english and back into spanish in my head. I feel so blessed to learn this language. 

Im so sick of the food. Its different but all tastes the same. My dad was epic and send me corn nuts and fat ties this week though so im good👍

Im going to finish with an absolutely incredible experience from this week. I know these words wont even roughly put into perspective how much this experience meant to me, but Ill share anyways. This sunday elder B and I were asked to share a brief 5 minute lesson as part of our Branch priesthood meeting. The Branch President had the 45 minute lesson, so it was just a small part of the lesson. On saturday we planned out what we were going to say. It seemed great. Our lesson was about teaching by the spirit. As we stood up to teach. I got a strong feeling to scrap everything. The entire lesson. I followed the prompting. It was obvioulsy a short lesson so all this change included was scrapping my scripture and Preach My Gospel qoute and follow the spirit in finding a new one. I said this to everyone, and everyone was caught off gaurd (especially my comp lol). With absolutely no lesson plan, I was prompted to go to 2 Nephi 32, where I had been studying all week. I love this chapter. The one verse that hadn't really struck me yet was verse 3. But I felt prompted to read that single verse. I was also prompted to change the first word "angels" to "missionaries". With this change the verse reads 

Missionaries speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.

I shared this, and the spirit absutely flooded the room. I don't even remember what I said after that, because my words were 100% not mine. They were from the spirit. So cool. This experience really proved to me that as a missionary, I am not Elder Pohlman, I am an instrument in the Lords hands (something I talked about in my farewell talk). Elder B went with my little curve ball super well. I concluded with my testimony that if we speak through the spirit, we will touch peoples hearts in an incredible way (a part of my testimony that grew emensly in those 5 minutes). 

After the little lesson, president Savage looked at me and said "A lesson about teaching by the spirit, and you pull that out? Theres no better way to teach the lesson you just taught than by doing what you just did. Im going to follow your example." He pulled out his paper that he had used to map out his 45 minute lesson with and folded it up and threw it away. He started his lesson by saying that he had recieved a prompting from my little lesson to go to a verse in moroni and do the exact same thing. He went to moroni 7 and did this. With the change the verses read 

"And because he hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have MISSIONARIES ceased to minister unto the children of men. For behold, they are subject unto him, to minister according to the word of his command, showing themselves unto them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness.And the office of their ministry is to call men unto repentance, and to fulfil and to do the work of the covenants of the Father, which he hath made unto the children of men, to prepare the way among the children of men, by declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels of the Lord, that they may bear testimony of him."

How cool. President Savage then talked about how he had never looked at these verses in this way, but because of the little tweak I had made, was prompted to go to Moroni and do the same. So freaking cool. From there the lesson was completely guided by the spirit. It was absolutely perfect. It was the strongest spirit I have ever felt. Do you think its possble that 50 minutes of lessons could go absolutely perfect, with no planning at all just on a wimb? I promise you it cant haha. This moment may not seem that cool or important to you guys, but to me it has been absolutely mission changing. Something so simple as going out on a wimb to change to a different verse and change one word because I was prompted to, absolutely changed about 70 peoples Sabath. There was no better way to teach and learn about teaching by the spirit than to practice what I was about to preach and do it. So cool.

Love you guys! 

Elder Pohlman

Some photographs 

1. Me pointing at a cool painting

2. Cruel cruel world (elder adams girl)

3. No hablo ingles 

4. Our district (dont know why i decided to stand in front of everyone but its ok)

5. Go Utes