Camila

Went to the big mall in chiclayo last pday. They have a mcdonalds there. They have Maracuya sundaes. Turns out the icecream is exactly the same as mcdonalds in the states. Probably one of the best things I have ever eaten in my entire mission. 

Had some cow heart this week. I wont lie, it was pretty dang good. I genuinly enjoyed. I don't know why i have avoided it my whole mission.

We had a baptism yesterday. It was really good. Super sweet 13 year old girl named Camila. 

I have been facing a weird challenge lately. I have felt the last few weeks that I cant speak spanish. Or express myself how I want to. It is really weird considering I have felt almost 100 percent comfortable for about a year now. I am trying to figure out what my problem is. I feel like I am forgetting words and grammer rules. Really weird. I think its a mental slump that i am letting get to my head. 

I am so sick of rice. Like seriously so sick of it. I think I am being traumatized by it. I dont think i will voluntarily eat it for at least 5 years after getting home. I would be lying if i said I love eating an absolute mountain of rice and then knocking doors in the heat. 

Yesterday was stake conference in our stake here. The stake is actually huge. It includes a bunch of wards scattered throughout the sugar cane as well as a few branches. It is a huge deal here. The chapel was absolutely packed as well as the overflows. I'd say there were about as many people there as at stake conference back home. I always love the stake conferences on the mission. I think its a blast to get to go to sacrament meeting with a bunch of other missionaries. The 70 that was there was the last speaker. He got about 10 minutes into his talk and then stopped. He said how he was going to do something he had never done before at a stake conference. He turned around and said to president Giuria (mission president) that he wanted him to pick two of the missionaries to come and talk about anything they wanted. The 70 went back and had president tell him who, walked back up to the stand and says "ok elder pohlman y su compañero, su tiempo". I was pretty dang nervous honestly. I dont consider myself someone who likes to speak so to be thrown on the spot like that by a 70 with 0 preperation 0 topic or anything in front of a ton of people was kinda scary. I walked on up to the pulpit with no idea what to talk about. I honestly still dont even remember what I said. But hopefully someone was touched. 

I was reading Luke 4 this week about how Satan tempted Jesus. I think it is very interesting. In verse 3 he tempts him with hunger. In verse 6 he tempts him with power and glory. In verse 7 he tempts him with material wealth. In verse 9 he tests his pride. All of these ways that Satan tempted him were attacking or tempting his natural man. Satan loves attacking and using our natural man to make us fall. I believe it was President Nelson that talked a couple conferences ago about how we need to "despojarnos del hombre natural" (strip ourselves of the natural man). When we learn to control our natural man, we become stronger, more converted people. 

Elder Pohlman