Well, another week down in the mission and it was a pretty good one! Details to come! My dad didnt really have any questions this week cause hes busy with scout camp and trek and stuff like that, butttt next week there will be questions! haha

       Alright, well this week was good. First things first, we have changes. I am staying in Atlixco, however my companion Elder A has changes. Sooo Im pretty glad to be staying here cause i like the area...however, Allred AND Dougherty the 2 Zone Leaders who happen to be my best bros on the mission now are leaving after only one change together. They also leave for home in 6 weeks so thats kinda sad, but oh well, not much i can do now. So Im getting a tonnn of new people in the district and im gonna have 2 sisters training. Wish me luck. In other news, the US is doing farely well in the world cup. I just wanna let you know....people here are NOT fans of the United States haha every soccer game played theres a huge group of people hating on the US. In the game verses Portugal, I even saw a man in a Barcelona jersey chearing for Portugal. EXCUSE ME?! Do you even KNOW who plays on the Portugal team? Cause im getting the vibe like you dont....but alas, its okay. This week we were able to have a sickkk lesson with 2 new investigators. Its actually a cool story! We dropped an investigator and her husband last week because they werent progressing and we were superrr dissapointed cause they had baptismal dates and everything!! But then this week we went on visits with a councilor in the stake presidency and he told us he has been thinking about 2 people a lot recently. He took us to a house....and it was the house of the dropped investigators. He told us that this old investigator had a brother who was living with his girlfriend here and some time ago they were investigating the church. So we went in and talked to them and the wife told us that she has been hoping every time when we have come over that we would talk to her again, and that maybe someday when we came over, we would be coming over for her and her husband. We talked with them and she told us that her famliy is very against the church and they had a pastor come over and tell her that if she was gonna be in a religion she needed to pray and ask God which one was right. And so she prayed to get an answer about which church to join and she dreamed about the Book of Mormon! The lesson was so powerful and we put a goal for a date for them to get married AND baptismal dates with both of them! It was awesome. The rest of the week was pretty slow, but that pretty much MADE the whole week worth while haha

       Sooooo the spiritual thought for this week comes from Alma in chapter 3 verses 26 and 27. I was reading in Alma and they were talking about all the wars that they were having with the Lamanites and how great the number of deaths were in the land. Then they put an interesting spin on the high death toll, drawing a very cool message from it. It reads: 

26 And in one year were thousands and tens of thousands of souls sent to the eternal world, that they might reap their rewards according to their works, whether they were good or whether they were bad, to reap eternal happiness or eternal misery, according to the spirit which they listed to obey, whether it be a good spirit or a bad one.

27 For every man receiveth wages of him whom he listeth to obey, and this according to the words of the spirit of prophecy; therefore let it be according to the truth. And thus endeth the fifth year of the reign of the judges.

I LOVE how that reads "Every man recieveth wages of him whom he listeth to obey..." That is so true! If we look around at the world, we see many people listing to obey a great variety of bad spirits. Whether it be alcohol, drugs, video games, violence, or immorality, these people are reaping what they sow and what they sow is eternal misery according to the spirit which they obey. Satan wants us to be miserable! He makes us think that what we are doing is alright and that we are going to recieve good wages at the end of this life. But as we learn in Alma 30:60, The devil WILL NOT support his children at the last day. Those who list to obey the spirit of the devil, opt out of recieving good wages for their work, but will instead reap eternal misery. So list TODAY to obey the good spirit. Sow good deeds so that in the next life we can reap eternal happiness and recieve the wages that have been promised to us by our Heavenly Father!

Love,
Elder Josh Hamm