17 POUNDS OF ICE CREAM

As the church of Jesus Christ, we have received revelation concerning the substances we should and should not put in our bodies called the Word of Wisdom.  

It was made, as revelation from God, in 1833.  It stated that we should NOT smoke.

Since then, the world has seen a huge incline and then decline in smoking usage.

It was once good and fun to smoke.  We now know what the prophets knew in 1833.  

A great talk from Elder Cook:

The Word of Wisdom revelation was received in 1833. In 1921 President Heber J. Grant, inspired by the Lord, called on all Saints to more fully live the Word of Wisdom. At the time, mass marketing and glamorization in the movies made cigarette smoking appear fashionable, sophisticated, and fun. It wasn't until 1964, forty-three years later, that the surgeon general of the United States concluded, "Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action."

The statistics today with respect to cigarette smoking are not in dispute. Smokers are more likely than nonsmokers to develop heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer. It is estimated to increase the risk of lung cancer by twenty-five times.

So what the adversary portrayed as fashionable, sophisticated, and fun has in fact resulted in misery and untimely death for millions of people.

Over many years I have followed a research project that commenced in the 1940s. Initially there were 268 men attending Harvard University who were periodically studied over their entire lives. Later, others, including women, became part of the study. The goal of the original study was to find out about success and happiness. The study showed that college entrance scores and grade averages did not predict either success or ­happiness in later life.

This study contains three significant insights for me. First, adult happiness has a high correlation with childhood family happiness, especially love and affection from parents. Second is the importance of a healthy, stable marriage to lifelong happiness. Third is the negative effects of alcohol on marital and lifetime success and happiness. Alcohol abuse touches one-third of families and is involved in one-fourth of hospital admissions. It plays a major role in death, bad health, and ­diminished accomplishment.

In "Wine, Women and Danger," a recent Washington Post front-page article based on U.S. federal health data, it was reported that "women in America are drinking far more, and far more frequently, than their mothers or grandmothers did, and alcohol consumption is killing them in record numbers." The article concluded with comments by Robert D. Brewer that "the current and emerging science does not support the purported benefits of moderate drinking" and that "the risk of death from cancer appears to go up with any level of alcohol consumption."

In the last two or three years, many universities across the world have been trying to diminish alcohol use because of its connection to serious antisocial behaviors, including sexual assault and serious health concerns, especially from binge drinking. The terrible impact of alcohol on young brains is now medically established.

We need to give heed to the prophets.  

Listen to General Conference this weekend.  Pray beforehand with a question. Know God is working hard and what he wants you to hear will be said during conference.

LOVE YOU ALL,

ELDER AMANN

17 POUNDS OF ICE CREAM FOR ELDER STARLEYS BIRTHDAY (eat in moderation hahah)

A sweet water fall in a place called the Jewel

AND OUR DAY AT SCHOOL!!! We taught 5th graders about the USA and about the importance of taking care of our bodies! 

Curiosity and a poem

Last week I read a children´s story about a little boy who´s friend shows him an inappropriate photo on his phone.

https://www.lds.org/liahona/2017/08/children/the-bad-picture?lang=eng&clang=ase

        This week a friend showed me something inappropriate on her phone.  She showed me a song that a clasemate sent her.  It was easily the most destructive, direct from satan song Ive EVER heard.    It immediately sucked it all out of me. 

 ..But she kinda liked it.  Of course she did... maybe it seems silly to talk about the devil like this, but he is real, and he uses attractive things.. Things that gnaw at us, things that make us curious, things that make us look for more when no one is around.

       And although I immediately deleted it, I saw the name of it, and something has keeping it in my brain too, been pushing me to look it up when I got to a computer... Or in other words... right now.  Its been gnawing at me... Ive been so curious. 

But what good would that serve?

 Its been bad enough knowing that this song exists... its hurt me enough already..  

So I´m not going to look it up, despite the curiosity.  I´m not used to denying curiosity so firmly, but I now understand.  I write this letter to help instill the same thing the Liahona instilled in me.  To REJECT the adversary as soon as he wiggles his way into your ears, and to tell someone.  Especially parents.

Satan uses attractive things.  He knows what makes us curious, what makes us want to discover more when no one is looking.  Music is so very special to me, and for satan to use it makes me so sad.  His attack on young adults is insane.  He uses pretty things, a special formula of opposites, a fake sanitized by chemicals clean, instead of the full fire cleansing that God offers us.

God gives us help, he gives us families.  We must stay with them, we must work together.  We must do everything we can to not be alone.  Because we are never alone, though the adversary will do everything to make us think so.

heres a poem

I preach peace,

but I am not a pacifist.

Because we are at war,

We are on the front lines

and he is hurting 

the ones I love.

I preach peace,

but I cannot be a pacifist.

LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH, PLEASE BE SAFE, SURROUND YOURSELF BY YOUR FAMILY, DONT YOU DARE LET YOURSELF THINK/BE ALONE.

Elder Amann

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ITS MY GOOD FRIEND´S ELDER STARLEY´S BIRTHDAY TODAY

photos of a very beautiful baptism that was held in La Punta by my good friend ELDER MENDONÇA

RUNNING AROUND WITH FIRE EXTINGUISHERS

ELDER STARLEY AND ME WITH A GIANT ARGENTINE HOT DOG

This comes from a talk by Neil A. Maxwell:  Meeting the Challenges of Today, and Becometh as a Child

Although I am far away, I have become aware of the various natural disasters that are affecting all over the world.  These events are horrible and the people affected need our love and our prayers.

I am reminded of a talk by Neil A Maxwell, about the confusion of the world.  He write many wonderful things about how we need to rely on God.

First, brothers and sisters, some brief samples illustrating the challenge of making our way through today’s Sinai of secularism, and then a focus on how inspired children help in that trek.

All about us we see the bitter and abundant harvest from permissiveness. A perceptive person has acknowledged: “The struggle to live ethically without God has left us not with the just and moral order we imagined but with disorder and confusion.

“Something has gone radically wrong with secularism. The problem has more than its share of irony, for secularism, in the end, has converted itself into a kind of religion. …

“… Now the transition is complete: the state has become the church” (Peter Marin, “Secularism’s Blind Faith,” Harper’s Magazine, Sept. 1995, 20).

The more what is politically correct seeks to replace what God has declared correct, the more ineffective approaches to human problems there will be, all reminding us of C. S. Lewis’s metaphor about those who run around with fire extinguishers in times of flood.

The more ineffective approaches to human problems there will be.

I love this metaphor of people running around with fire extinguishers in times of flood.  We need to remember this metaphor as people are suffering in various parts of the world.

We need to remember what effective approaches will be.  We need to constantly remember what saves people, where they are home, where and how they feel love.

We need to remember the children, who seemingly are closer.

Benjamin Ballam is the special spina bifida child of Michael and Laurie Ballam. He has been such a blessing to them and many others. Also spiritually precocious, Benjamin is a constant source of love and reassurance. Having had 17 surgeries, resilient Benjamin knows all about hospitals and doctors. Once, when an overwhelmed attendant became vocally upset—not at Benjamin, but over stressful circumstances—little three-year-old Benjamin exemplified the words of another Benjamin about our need to be childlike and “full of love” (Mosiah 3:19). Little Benjamin reached out, tenderly patted the irritated attendant, and said, “I love you anyway.” A similar episode occurred recently in an Israeli hospital, where little Benjamin, going through a necessary but very painful procedure, used the same loving words to reassure a physician. No wonder, brothers and sisters, in certain moments we feel children are our spiritual superiors.

Brothers and sisters, no wonder the divine direction is for each of us to “becometh as a child” (Mosiah 3:19). 

Please put down your fire extinguishers and pull out the buckets.  We´ve got a lot of work to do.  But the good news is, we´ve got ALL the solutions.  Or rather, We´ve got faith in God, a faith that moves mountains and isnt detained by mortal death.

LOVE YOU ALL,

ELDER AMANN

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My (now famous) Banana bread

Cute dog on my lap

 as we went back to Mendoza to get Elder Starley official in Argentina!

Hearts and Love and . . .

Friends!

MELINA!!

Our wonderful friend Melina was baptized last Saturday.   She is a soldier and it was so wonderful to see her faith, and the spirit that she brings to those around her. 

I honestly cant explain it, but I know these things, baptism, temples... Bring us closer to a spiritual self that we really are.  You can see it.  You can see it when you look in the eyes of someone.

I know this church is true, and I am so glad to be a part of something that brings people so much peace and happiness.  

Along with Melina, a man who turned 78 years the same day was baptized, Antolino.  I got the chance to talk to him and interview him, and the humility and faith that this man has are tremendous.  This gospel is for everyone and of course it is.

LOVE,

Elder Amann

Melina and her family!