I saw a dead dog

 Hey there ladies and gentleman! Ill be honest, I dont have a ton to say this week. It flew. 

We didnt teach a ton this week, but we had a bunch of high quality lessons. Members are the ticket, let me tell ya. Weve been really working hard with the members and it is paying off. We had 8 lessons with families that the members took us to meet. We have return appointments with all 8 of them for this week. Every single one of them is very interested and I have a great feeling about all of them. We probably contacted 50 people on our own and have return appointments with maybe 15. Every missionary dreams of the random door they knock that turns into a member, but the reality is that 9/10 true conversions will come through members. The people having a friend that has been going to the church for a while that can testify the same things we do makes the church seem a little less like an American spy organization and more like a church. 

There was a dead dog floating down the river this week. I have a video but probably wont send it in this email haha. I hate the dogs so bad. I probably see 150 a day. Theres one that I hate so bad. He gets after me every day and hes the only one that doesn't run from my dog zapper so I absolutely domed him with a big rock when he got after me yesterday. Had to put him in his place. 

This week is conference and Im hyped. The branch has a big kick back and everyone watches. They gonna make some Brazilian bbq too I think. Legendary. 

I drank about 30 cokes this week because my stomach has been feeling kinda Peru. I realized on about coke 10 that this would probably be a good way to put on a quick 20 pounds so I switched to diet cokes. Ive never ever ever ever been a soda drinker at all. I think this was the first time in 10 years that Ive drinken soda. I then found sparkling water so now thats my stuff. The soda phase didnt even last a week. 

I didnt take photos at all this week. Ill be better next week 

1. Locked in in the bus

2. Pretty sunset and Peru flag

3. My Peru Mountain dri fits (they're real)

4. Swing 

Peru is no joke

 Yoooooooo whats good friends. Just kinda living the Peruvian life. Its crazy down here lol. 

Motupe is dope. Super pretty little town. The branch is getting better. There are some obvious changes that the missionaries were missing. They were just doing stuff for numbers it seems. For example, theres a kid named Alex that is 9 that we were going to baptize next week. His whole fam are members. His family wanted us to baptize him because his pops didnt feel worthy. The elders before put him on date, but when we found out why they wanted us to baptize him it just didnt feel right. So we talked to the branch president and the dad and the dad is going to work to be worthy to baptize his son. It seems like the elders before never had thought to do this probably just because they wanted to baptize him. The way I see it, it doesnt matter who baptizes him. Its all the same. However, eventually elder O and I will get transfered and leave. His dad wont. So its a no brainer for us to work with his dad to be worthy to baptize him. 

Teaching here is harder than the rest of the mission because not only is every single person catholic, but they also have a cross somewhere up in the mountains close to town that they worship. That is what Motupe is known for. If you look up Motupe Peru odds are the first things you see are the huge catholic cathedral or the cross lol. But we work so very hard every single day. God bless these wonderful people. One legendary thing that is happening next month is a free mass wedding for anyone that wants to get married for free. This is epic. Anyone who has served a mission in south america has faced the problem of marriage "por la ventana" basically a family that have been living together forever, has a bunch of kids, but isnt officially married, so they cant be baptized. We have 5 or 6 families that want to be members but cant because they live together, so were hoping we can get them married next month. Its obviously a super long shot because who knows if they will actually want to get married, but if they do we could have like 30 baptisms (well actually the elders after we get trasnfered probably). We'll see what happens.

I get made fun of every day because I always use the word Español instead of Castellano when I say Spanish. They call it Castellano because they don't like the Spain thpanish or thomething (People from Thpain thpeak with a lithp.) 

Oranges are free from every orange tree. I eat 5 each a day. Lendendary.

The economy here is crazy. We couldn't spend all the money we get each month if we tried. For reference, a 12 pack of diet coke is about 10 cents. A pint of feching good ice cream is like 5 cents. 5 bananas is like 2 cents. I eat so many bananas.

I didnt realize Peru was this humble. We probably taught 60 lessons this week and probably 58 of them were in houses with dirt floors, tin roofs, and no running water. Yet the people always run to the store and buy us an Inka Cola or a Coke. They are so awesome. 

Ill finish with a cool story. The very first person that I contacted fully by myself is named Hermano Ulyses. We met him outside his house, talked for a while, gave him a BOM, read Moronis promise and set up a meeting for 2 days after. When we came to meet with him he saw us coming, stood up and yelled that the book is true. He then proceeded to tell us that "este libro es mejor de la biblia" which means this book is better than the Bible. We obviously had to explain that that was not necesarily true haha. He then gave us a summary of the whole book. He had sat outside all day Wed after we met with him, all day thursday and all day friday up until we came by and had read up until the end of Alma. So cool. What a legend. 

I could go on and on and on about spiritual experiences but the only people that want to hear those are my grandmas haha. The rest of you just want to see pictures of turantulas, iguanas in the church, good food, cool sunsets, and dangerous looking snakes (lmk if he was dangerous or not I dont have google). Heres some flicks.

Have a good week ladies and gentleman

Con amor 

Elder Poh-mahn

Trap houses, looking like Peru -future

 Dislcaimer lol really struggling to figure out the shared phone lol sorry if this isnt working haha. 

What a week! Just kinda chillin down here tbh. Ok so there are about a million things that have happened so Ill just give a little summary. So we got here and spend the first night in the main city of Chiclayo. Im not sure how to feel about the city haha. It basically lookes like Iraq lol. There is sooooooo much flipping dust there especially but everywhere down here. all my shirts are allready brown haha. Its terrible. That has been the biggest struggle for me so far. Swollowing dust all day. Its also pretty humid so it just cakes on my face and arms. 

Anyways, Friday morning we met our trainers and they shipped us off to our areas. My comp is an absolute legend. Hes from Heber and says he knows Adam Clawson so that alone is enough to get convos started haha. We mesh really well. Anyways, my area is Motupe. It is about 2 hours outside of Chiclayo. Its basically just all of the pueblos in the northern part of the mountains. The actual city of Motupe is kinda just in the foothills, but our area is huge. It would take 3 hours in a car to walk from one end of our area to the other. It goes wayyyyyy up into the mountains. Where we are in the city isnt necesarily mountainous, but you can see the huge mountains, and we will spend a lot of time driving through them in mototaxis to get up into the other little towns. A cool place in our area is called Colaya. Look it up. Its dope. I love this area (Mostly because I only wake up with a thin layer of dust on my face and not a half inch.) 

Holllllllly ned the food. I am going to gain so much weight lol. So in my mission we have people called pensionistas. The will cook every single meal our whole mission and do all of our laundry. They are members of the church and are trained in making food that (hopefully) doesnt kill the missionaries. I wont cook a single time down here. So thats nice. The food is absolutely incredible. Tons of variety and flavors. Every single meal has been absolutely incredible. Obviously a lot of chicken and steak and rice, but also stuff like pasta, tons of potatoes, ice cream, rice pudding, french toast, tons of good juices, and incredible sauces for the chicken. I could go on and on lol. 

I am yet to find purple sporade, but the red is still pretty fire. It reminds me of my ecy days. Shoutout ecy crew. Also jugo de maracuya is something we drank a lot in ecy that we have a ton here. Its a passionfruit drink that is freaking good. 

The weather is interesing. In the city it is freaking hot from about 10 to 5. The mornings and evenings are actually quit chilly. Up further into the mountains its pretty cold all day. 

Theres a lot of stuff that I need to get used to such as dust, cold showers, not getting hit by motorcycles, freaking dogs (been here for 2 days and could allready rant), cockroaches in my bed (and rats), no water filter in the house Im in (I have to filter everything I drink through my water bottle), and many other things lol. 

The branch here is pretty cool. Theres about 40 people. The problem is we dont have much priesthood. There are probably 25 super devoted members. There are also probably 10 that come to everything, church every sunday and everything else but arent baptized because they wont get married (thats a common issue down here). So basically about 50 people. 

The members down here are inspiring. They have some of the strongest testimonies I have ever seen. My pensionista Hermana Gina allready feels like my mom. She is so freaking cool. And there are about 5 abuelitas in the branch that also feel like my moms too. I am in good hands. 

Everyone is sooooooooooooo nice. It is abviously awesome, but it kinda makes the work a little hard because people will talk to us for 30 minutes just because they want to and not because they want to learn. But everyone is super receptive. Of the 30 people weve met, theres only been one that said we couldnt return for another appointment. He cussed us out and yelled at us haha. But for the most part everyone is catholic and love Jesus Christ, so theyre willing to at least learn. Our goal is to get 3 new people to church every sunday. Which is a lot. So yeah, people are pretty receptive. 

Last night we had a super cool experience. We met a family La Familia Campos. There were 11 of them. One was baptized a long time ago, but none of them new anything about the church other than her. We talked for a while in their house. It was about as peru as it gets. Dirt floors, tin roof, kids playing soccer in the street outside, super loud music playing, about 8 nasty dogs in the house (one hairless one named dante like from coco lol). We gave out 8 BOMs and I was kinda tearing up looking at the 5 kids holding a book for the first time that I have known my whole life. I have a really good feeling about them. They let us walk back behind their house and pick oranges from the tree too so that was dope haha. 

We also had a super cool experience the very first night. Same thing, dirt floors, super humble place. It was with a family of three members. The mom, the grandma, and the daughter are members, but the dad isnt. That seems too be a trend, that the woman are way more receptive. They talked about how they had a daughter die, but know they will live with her again. Super cool. 

I didnt take many photos at all this week but heres some I guess. Also dont mind my terrible typing this computer doesnt have autocorrect or anything but letters and numbers haha. 

Love you all, Elder Pohlman

Airport Travel Pics

 

Last one from the homeland

Kinda crazy. Ill be honest Ive kinda ran out of things to say in these emails lol. The mtc is extremely repetitive haha. 

Elder Gary E. Stevenson came last night and we got to escort and sit on the front row so that was dope. 

Bags are packed and Im heading out early tomorow morning. Wont get to chiclayo until friday afternoon though haha. Quick 30 hours. 

One thing Ive been thinking about this week is how cool prayer is in Spanish. There are two forms that you use to talk in spanish.  The Tu form and the Usted form. You use Usted most of the time as a missionary because it is more formal. The only time you use Tu is basically with your best friends and family or little kids. Its just not as formal. But you also use it for prayer. I find it super cool that we talk to the most powerful being in the universe as we would one of our best buddies or our family. Thats cool to me. 

I would just like to give a shoutout to my mom and dad. I love them so much. They have sacrificed so much for me to be able to be here. They are absolutely incredible. If I ever find myself wondering why Im here I always think about my family and the fact that we can be together forever, and how badly I want Peruvian families to find comfort in this same promise.

The Mtc is an emotional rollar coaster. Ive learned a lot about myself. Theres been a lot of highs and a lot of lows. It seems like whenever Im feeling low, God sends a high my way to get me fired up and ready to go again. My faith, spanish, patience, and testimony have all grown emensly. If I could relive the last month I would without a doubt. 

1. Temple early this morning

2. Peru

3. Rip shaggon wagon💔

4. Shoutout Hermana Allen for the journal cover 

5. Blurry picture of me and my awesome parents

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 

Kinda just livin tbh

 "Chosen by God to serve him below. To every land and people we'll go. Standing for truth with fervent accord, teaching his Holy Word."

Whats up everyone. Elder Cpohl checking in. Hope everyone is well. What a beautiful work I get to be apart of! Last Wed I had the opportunity to welcome new missionaries. Shoutout to Stinky and Glib on their arivals. Two studs! Bolivia and Peru are blessed.  Seeing new missionaries flood in is so cool. There have been a few times when I've gotten to talk with elders who I wouldn't necessarily say I got along with in high school. It's cool to see that it doesn't matter if you were a Bengal, titan, eagle, or hawk anymore. Our name tags don't have the names of our schools. They have the name of Christ. Thats one thing we all have in common. We've all put our past issues on the alter of sacrifice to be here, united, to serve the Lord. What a blessing. 

It's awesome here. I love it. I don't want to leave. The days are long, but incredible. Everything is all starting to mesh together as the days start to fly by, so I've been actually writing in my journal every single night for the first time in my life. It's seriously flying already. 14 days from now I'll be living on another continent. Kinda crazy. 

The Lord is blessing my Spanish. There's a district of elders from Mexico here that don't really speak English. I've been hanging out with them a lot. This week I taught the first lesson to two of them fully in Spanish and was able to convey and understand everything I needed to. I told them to talk fast but I'm not sure if they did haha. My teacher asked how I did and one of them told him I have "un testimonio corto y poderoso" a short and powerful testimony. This is honestly all I need. I've learned down here that you don't need a ton of vocab and long drawn out explanations. All you need to really pierce peoples hearts is to bring the spirit, let it talk through you, and then share a quick to the point testimony. The "nativos" say Spanish is the celestial language, and when you're able to feel the spirit in Spanish, it makes sense why. What a beautiful language.

The decision to serve a mission has already blessed my life. I can't wait to see what's ahead. 

Con amor 

Elder Pohlman

No sleep till Brooklyn

 This week has been absolutely legendary. I love it down here. The people down here are pretty epic. The spirit is super strong, and I'm not nece

ssarily excited for when we get to the field and the spirit isn't spoon fed to us. 

Last night was crazy. And such an answer to prayers. Last Sunday as I layed in bed between hourly alarms at about 2 am I felt like I was missing something in my studies. I got on my knees and prayed for guidance in my studies for the week. I got the answer to listen to some talks by Bednar. I listened to probably 20. I loved them and shared them with some of you. Last night we had a typical Tuesday night devotional. Right before the meeting they stood up and announced that there was a member of the 12 speaking. Out walked Bednar. I've always known that guy speaks with power, but when you are sitting 20 feet from him and he looks you in the eyes, it's on a whole different level. I still haven't processed everything he said, but took better notes than I've ever taken in school. I will send a few of my takeaways in my email next week. The meeting was absolutely unreal. We started with Called to Serve. Then heard from Bednar and his wife. Then we (the choir) sang Hope of Israel. Unreal. I'm still in awe. 

Elder B (my comp) is an absolute legend. As I'm writing this he is methodically examining the hymm book to find the most recent addition. He is very confused as to why the church hasn't had any album drops in the last 50 or so years. Pretty good point tbh. Let me know if you know the answer. 

Personal study is the best part of every day. I've already finished the book of mormon once. I plan to read it a few more times before I head out to Peru.

The eye is doing better. I should be fine. I've had migraines and been sick since I got here. The doctor said I just need some sleep. Go figure. They need to get me out of this unsanitary place and send me somewhere clean like Peru. 

I have realized that feeling the spirit every single day is crucial to missionary work. It makes it so much more fun and happy. I've found myself thinking abt people back home and stuff a lot this week. This has made me pretty sad. I don't like it. There's no doubt it's Satan trying to mess with me. My branch president told me in my intro meeting with him that I'm prepared and the only way Satan is going to get to me is through people at home and through Spanish. But the spirit always drowns satan out. 

I'm still terrible at Spanish. I'm just trusting that it will come. It will. 

I'm completely sleep deprived. I can't even explain how horrible I feel all day. Waking up 15+ times a night to an extremely loud alarm is not it. However, Jesus said to love one another. So I do my best. I made a cave and sleep with ear plugs and it still wakes me up at least once an hour. I get in bed at 1020 every night and am asleep before the lights are out at 1030. Just in time for the 11 pm alarm. That's how tired I am lol. You'll notice I'm writing this email at 4 am. That's because I've been up since 1 with the alarms so I just hopped in the shower and got ready, now writing emails. 2 hours of sleep a night can't be healthy... I constantly have headaches and just feel terrible. I finally asked him if there's anything we can do to all get more sleep and he did not take kindly to that at all. Bummer. Guess I'll stick it out for 18 more nights. Really testing my patience and faith.

Anyone who was a fan of my snap story back in the glory days might remember a story about fat ties. I said to resurrect the fat tie. Well that resurrection is coming to pass. Fat ties are lit. If someone can find me a tie with about 6-8 inches of girth, I would really appreciate it. 

Have a good week everyone. God loves you. Elder Pohlman does too. I challenge everyone to read 2 Nephi 9 and email me how you felt after you read it this week. We truly do have a God that loves us. I'd love to talk to anyone today, feel free to reach out. 

Élder Pohlman