Heavy is heaven, the devil on me two tons too

Pictures from the Baptism! It was awesome! 

HEYYYY guys! Well i dont have much time to write this week....but luckily for you guys, not much really happened!! haha so you dont have to feel like you are missing out on anything! (now theres a positive look at an otherwise dismal situation! haha

       Alright, my dads questions!! (They are pretty good this week too!) 1 - There is not really a specific occasion when they eat a certain meat....although they have festivals of a certain type of meat. AND pork is ALWAYS at the parties. Without fail. 2 - There IS a hymn here thats not in the English hymnbook...its called "Placentero Nos Es Trabajar".....but that one's not so great. HOWEVER!...thers another one called "Oid El Toque Del Clarin"....which isnt terrible haha so yah. 3 - I hear US music playing....kinda rarely...and when i do, its always something OLD. Like seriously we are talking 2010 music. But they listen to a lot of types of music in spanish. They typical genres are Bachata, Salsa, Cumbia, Reggaton, and another one....which is found only here...just from Mexico....that is the WORST music i have ever had the displeasure of having enter my ear holes. It is called Banda, and if you value the life of your children, DONT go look it up! hahaha horrible. And the music videos are always very dirty soooo theres that tooo haha my bad Mexico...#Sorrynotsorry

Here's the welcome cake the members made! 

       Welllll like i said, we dont have much time this week. Things are fine in the area. The people we have right now are progressing. And the biggest news would be that the zone is ON FIRE! We led the mission last month in baptisms even though we have like the least amount of missionaries here, and things are looking great again this month. WE are AWESOME here in Izucar. Truly we are working the way the Lord wants. So yah. We were able to go to Tlapa Guerrero....it was alright haha.  There is alot of political disruption right now but the Elders there are doing well and some members made us a cake!!  Then this Sunday (yesterday) we got to baptize the 2 little girls that we have been teaching who are the daughters of our recent converts! It was super awesome and things went really well. So it was a success!! But thats about it, sorry!!

Interchanges with the Elders in Tlapa!

       To finish with the spiritual thought, id just like to share a scripture that really stood out to me this week. Elder P and I started talking about the natual man. Not sure why but we just got on the topic and we were talking about how really, it is the great purpose of our life here on Earth to get rid of the Natural Man. Think about it....would you let someone walk into your house with your worst enemy, knowing that he only wanted to do harm? NO. (Thats the answer in case you didnt quite get there yet). Well according to Mosiah 3:19 "The natural man is an enemy to God"....meaning that God isnt gonna let us back into his presence if we show up with his enemy. And while i was thinking about all of this i realized just how hard it is sometimes to give up the natural man. I mean seriously, its sooo hard, cause in many respects, the natural man gives us pleasure, and pleasure is something hard to deny ourselves. But then i was enlightened by a scripture i found in Alma 41:11. It reads: "And now, my son, all men that are in a state of nature, or I would say, in a carnal state, are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; they are without God in the world, and they have gone contrary to the nature of God; therefore, they are in a state contrary to the nature of happiness." So even though sometimes we might think the natural man is a great thing....it really is CONTRARY to the NATURE of HAPPINESS. Not even contrary to happiness, but to the NATURE of happiness!! So we arent even closee to real happiness. So like it says in a GREAT song, I know that heaven can be pretty heavy, and that when the Devil is also trying to drag you down, it can seem nearly impossible. BUT i can promise you that putting off the natural man will help you secure an eternal happiness, such as pleasure could never bring you. 

Love,

Elder Josh Hamm