Snow: The Final Frontier

Sorry I couldn't come up with a good title this week. But, it I would like to say that something crazy happened here... It snowed. I walked out of church on Sunday, and SHAMWOW! It looked like the pagan sky gods were spilling powdered sugar everywhere as they ate their heavenly crepes and french toast. It's a good thing there are no "sky gods", But it's even better that we do have crepes and french toast. Mmmm.

 Also, I would just like to wish you all a late "Merry Christmas!" and an early "Happy New Year!" , and let you all know that I had a spectacular Christmas. We were able to carol this week on Christmas eve, and it was fun being able to carol again! One of my favorite family memories is going caroling as a family. We also had our mission Christmas party this week on Tuesday, and it was about the most ferocious, wild type of revelry I could ever imagine missionaries participating in. That doesn't mean it was bad, because it was a ton of fun, and it didn't get out of hand. It wasn't worldly revelry, it was missionary revelry (so, no alcohol). I guess I could say it was righteous revelry and missionary merrymaking. I know both of those words have bad connotations, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, I am very excited because we are going to be having Susan's baptism in two days! Her baptism will be my first! It is so amazing watching people change and improve their lives by receiving  Jesus Christ and his restored Gospel! I love being a missionary.

We also had an interesting discovery with Michael. We were talking to him about baptism, and he asked me what views we had on re-baptism. I thought he was talking about how he'd been baptized in another church, and I was confused because we'd already talked about proper authority and such, but  then he revealed the final card, delivered the punch line, the uppercut, the last straw, the final countdown, he pulled up the last weed... anyway, he finally revealed that somehow he had already been baptized into our church at the age of 18. Unfortunately, it sounds like their had been some sort of confusion as to the correct procedures for baptism, and he didn't really understand what was going on, he only knew that they wanted him to be baptized before he went off to war. Well, if we can find his records, he's going to go from being an investigator to a less active of 34 years. Holy Guacamole. He hadn't brought this up before, and I don't know why, because we'd asked him about his previous baptisms, and he had only ever told us about his other baptisms. I think he was afraid we'd stop teaching him, or something. In any case, Michael is a wonderful man, and he is progressing slowly, but surely. I love being able to meet people like this.

I guess I'll wrap up now with a scripture, namely, 2 Timothy 6:12 "Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses."

Now, there is a lot to look at in that verse, but what I wanted to point out is when he says "lay hold upon eternal life".

God has prepared a way so that we all have the opportunity to receive eternal life. The word of God is before us! If we lay hold upon his word and obey it, we shall have eternal life! Helaman 3

:30 

The reason I brought this up is because it is easy to get discouraged. The world is a depressing place filled with hard ship. We cannot allow the evil influences of the world to beat us down. Remember, that God has prepared a path for us to take to be free from sin and from discouragement. It won't be easy, but it is there, and it is the best path we could ever take. It is the only path that will lead us to be truly happy. Keep up the good fight of faith! Do not just lay down and take all the crap that the world throws at you, but remember your Savior and Redeemer, and remember that through his power, you can overcome all things! This I testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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Elder Benge