Hey guys!!!!!

So the end of this week is General Conference!!!!  Who else is pumped??  Literally I am so stinking excited. Partially because I most likely will get to watch it in English, but if not that is okay, but regardless I am still super pumped!  I am hearing lots of rumors of big changes. I know they are just rumors but we will know the truth when the big guys speak this week......

This week we had some interesting things happen. We have this huge group of Venezuelans that we are trying to teach, but they are quite interesting. Last night we were working with one of them, then his friend came in and started giving him a haircut right in front of us talking like nothing was happening. They didn't even mention anything about the haircut. It is like he read his mind for exactly what he wanted. They are also all a little gangster-ish.... but they said that we are homies and they got our backs, so I feel safe. They also wanted to take pictures with us and the Book of Mormons, so we took pictures with them. However I don't know what will happen with the pictures because they have them, not me.  Haha.  Even though this part of town where they are at I hear is a little dangerous, we have like 25 Venezuelan ripped out dudes as protection.

This week was super awesome. We had a conferencia de mision!!!  Elder Alonso of the Seventy came to speak to us and said many amazing things. The theme was definitely centered on Christ. I learned a lot this week about developing the attributes of Christ. He gave us the perfect example to follow, and even though we are SOOOO imperfect, we will someday become like Him if we have a constant effort to develop His attributes. I learned a lot about the importance of love, charity, and humility. These attributes are essential to develop if we want to have a happy life.

I began to study more into the attributes of Christ myself and had some really uplifting personal studies. I learned that Joy is a gift for the faithful who live within the commandments of God, and are living lives centered on Christ. We begin to experience pain, sadness, frustrations, anger, hatred, when our thoughts deviate from the Savior. How else the pioneers could get through the trials they faced? They were chased, persecuted, murdered, yet they found joy. They sang and danced while pushing through their way to the west. It is because their joy came from the savior. Joy doesn't come from the world. Joy comes from things we feel, such as our families. Such as love. Peace. This is joy. When we start worrying about our Facebook, Instagram, what clothes we are wearing, who is going out with who, the hurt others cause us, the injustice we receive,  we open ourselves up to the negative feelings that don`t come from God. We begin to feel sorry for ourselves. We begin to focus on how we are hurt. We focus on what happened to us. The Savior felt pain. he felt sadness. He had it rough. But I don`t believe one tear he shed, one drop of blood, one yell of pain was for himself. He felt the pain of the world for the fallen and wicked state we are and His sadness comes from when we fall away from Him. When we feel joy, it is because our thoughts are on Him who made it possible to feel happiness. When we feel joy, Christ rejoices too.

I love you guys all so much. I know that we all face trials, but how often do we include Christ when we are struggling?  How often do we think about Him?  It is something I noticed in myself this week is when I struggle, I tend to think of myself and rarely about Christ or other people. I know that through and with Him, the trials we face will seem pretty small in comparison for what we have in store. The gospel is true, the church is true, now let us rejoice!!!!!!


Below are pictures of Elder Sangerman and I on our first day in Chepen and the rest are pictures in a district meeting and it was Sister Clark`s birthday