Week...9? Maybe. I don't know anymore

Cool cool stuff going on here in Italy. Okay God's Hand. It's everywhere honestly. You just have to look.

Something I always consider a miracle is when someone we teach is just so so prepared to receive our message. We taught this one man this past week named Cesar. We found him through the choir at Church. He came to sing with a friend of his who is a member. So we finally had a first lesson with him and we taught the Restoration. At the beginning of the lesson we told him that he should pay careful attention to how he feels as we talk about all of this. As we started talking about God being our Father, before we even mentioned God IS a Father, he said to us that he has always felt that God is kind of like an older brother or father figure. We sat there for a second and then Anziano Taylor told him that God is LITERALLY our Heavenly Father and we are His children. This happened throughout the entire lesson. He just so readily accepted everything we taught him. Just absolutely prepared for the Gospel. He also said he could probably read the entire BoM in maybe 3-4 days. So I'm excited to see where he got to this past week.

So kind of a downer paragraph here. But we had 2 really REALLY confident baptismal dates, one for this Saturday and another for next Saturday. buuuutttt... Satan's a jerk and hates when people follow Christ, so he's just doing everything he can to stop people from being baptized. So now both of these baptismal dates are up in the air. He just attacks from every single side. Just punch him in the face.

Another fun thing I've experienced this week is crazy people. Possibly detrimental to me being alive. I'm kidding. But at the same time I'm not. Basically I've made to choice to not include my crazy people stories in my emails for my mother's sanity and health :) but I am keeping a journal of all the insane people I meet. Italy is a weird place to say the least. But it has amazing people here too.

As you can imagine, I'm learning a lot about Catholicism here. There is a church here. Referred to as the "skull church" or "church of bones." Real human bones everywhere. They've been there for hundreds of years... Like what the heck?

Let's see. Also we did a scambio this week, or exchange in english. I went with one of the other anziani in my apartment, Anziano Gainer. He's from Florida. I think this picture best exemplifies him. 'Nuf said.

The last thing I wanna leave you all with is a spiritual'ish thought. And a commitment. Kind of what all missionaries do, woah. So we've talked a lot as a district this week about after this life and the 3 degrees of glory, spirit world, all that good stuff. I wanted to just share something one of the current AP's said when he was a Zone Leader a few transfers ago. He said something along the lines of this. Imagine being a missionary and how frustrating it is when people won't accept the gospel basically. We do all we can to teach them and help them understand the Gospel and everything and they just won't accept the invitation to be baptized. Now imagine the missionaries right now in the Spirit World. They have so many people there that they have taught and have accepted the Gospel and have a testimony of Christ. Here's the thing. They CAN'T be baptized because we haven't done the temple work for them. Talk about frustration. They want with all their heart and mind to follow Christ but the literally can not do that. We need to do temple work. It's just so very important. Go do it. I can't otherwise I would. Be grateful to be near a temple hahaha. I miss it. Get to work.

The last LAST thing I wanna share is this really cool thing about the word Succor. It's used talking about Christ's Atonement in Alma 7:12. So this is literally what it means. In italian the word is "soccorere." So there is the Italian word "soccorso" which is the "relief" part of Relief Society. So that one means like relief, help, care, that kind of stuff. Then there is the verb "correre" which is to run. So the word in Italian for succor, "soccorere" literally means to run to help. That's what Christ did through the Atonement. He felt everything we felt and ever will feel so he can RUN to our side and help us. That is literally what that word means and it defines it perfectly.

I love you all.
Christ loves you all. He's RUNNING to your side to help you.

I hope you're all doing fantastic.
Anziano Guthrie