Jan 13th, 2016

Hey everyone! I hope everything is going great in your respective places. Brescia is going well, so that's always good. The past few days have actually been pretty warm, so that's always nice. The days before those were pretty rainy and gross, so it's great to have some sun for once.

Cool stuff from this week. So the family that was baptized right before I got here to Brescia, the brother of one of the women who was baptized is going to get baptized on January 30th, so that is super awesome. This family is really incredible and I'm so glad that they are being united in the Gospel. He's 17 years old, almost 18 and so incredibly humble.

So I've been reading a bit more from the New Testament and there was a cool verse I read that I wanted to mention. In Galatians 2:20, Paul says,

20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

So a couple things from here that I liked. First, the idea that Christ lives in us is really cool, because in the end, this life of ours wouldn't really serve anything if we didn't have Christ and His Atonement. We would never be able to grow or progress and we could never return to the presence of our Heavenly Father, so Christ literally did give us life, both physical life, the chance to live again, and spiritual life, the chance to live with God.

Then Paul says that the life we now live in the flesh, we live by faith in the Son of God, in Christ, who gave Himself for us. I've been thinking about that phrase a bit, living our life by faith. What does that really mean? I'd say submitting our will to God's, having hope and faith in God's unfolding plan for us and for those around us. Those are just what I came up with, but it is applicable to everyone.

Thanks for everything you all do. You guys rock.
Do great things today!

Anz. Ben Guthrie