Last P-Day in the MTC!

Well here's my email from my FINAL P-Day in the MTC. I'm kind of really excited and really bummed at the same time. I'm excited because I'm so ready to get to Italy and help the people of Italy on the path to salvation. But at the same time I've grown to love all the people here so much, even the fake investigators we teach.

If there's one thing I've noticed, it's that God has thrown certain people in my life to get me onto the right path. Sometimes Heavenly Father will help you out through experiences or various other means. For me, it was the examples of people around me. What brought me back to the Church was the example of those around me at BYU, all the amazing guys in my hall, all the many friends I made there. I've grown so very much from them. Now He has blessed me with an awesome companion, and overall, an awesome zone in the MTC. These elders and sisters are some of the most amazing people and I have no doubt in my mind that they are going to do great things in Romania and Italy. On top of that, He has blessed me with the 4 greatest teachers in the entire MTC. ;) I can constantly feel the love and care from them as they teach me the Gospel in Italian. Their examples have truly helped me grow closer to Christ and I am forever grateful to everyone who has ever helped me for that.

One scripture that I think of when I think about the crazy things that have happened to get me where I am today is in D&C 101:9. In this verse it says "I will not utterly cast them off." It basically talks about how no matter what sins, Heavenly Father and Christ won't forget us. They will still love us just as much. Nothing can alter that love.

Yesterday we had a really awesome devotional from Elder Ballard. So far we've heard from Elder Bednar, Nelson, Ballard, Cook. All of them have been sweet. One thing Elder Ballard talked about was "being wise as a serpent and peaceful as a dove" or something like that. It's from Matthew 10 I believe. But he talked about how snakes are very smart animals. They can sense danger and avoid it very easily. He talked about how we need to be like serpents, which was odd at first because we never want to be like serpents hahah. But we do need to be like serpents. We need to be able to sense danger and avoid it.

I guess the last thing I'll leave everyone with is a funny scripture and a testament that the Old Testament is a bit crazy. Just read through Numbers 25 and you'll get what I'm saying. That is why we have the Book of Mormon. Hahaha

But yea everything is going great here. Basically fluent in Italian as long as I only talk about Gospel topics. We will see in 2 weeks how Italy is. I won't send out an email next Wednesday because I'll be traveling all day Tuesday and Wednesday to Milan. So you'll here from me in 2 weeks from Italy!

I love you all and thank you all so much for your support and prayers and examples.

Anziano Guthrie