Sunday: Briefing

Today was our first full day in Italy. We went to church this morning after grabbing some pastries from the Cafe down the street. There were probably about 25-30 people at the church and that is who attends regularly. Andre, Paul's (the pastor) son-in-law gave a message based on the passage Ephesians 6:16. It's about the flaming arrows of the devil.

The thing that really hit home for me was when he was talking about faith and what it means to have faith and what it doesn't mean to have faith. Andre said that we do not find favor with God because of even how much we love Him; we only are only saved through our faith in Jesus Christ. I feel like I forget that when I feel bad or that The Lord won't use me because I haven't read my bible enough or prayed enough or spent enough time with The Lord. The truth is, it doesn't matter what we do, The Lord will use us. Obviously, usually there is a correlation between our desire to know God and love Him and His ability to use is and align us to His will be use loving God doesn't earn us salvation.

Then we had lunch after church and then I went out with some Italians to walk around Torino. We ended up walking fairly far and saw La Monte de Capucinni. I took some really cool pictures because you can see the whole city from up there. I spent most of the day with Candice, Katie, and Ketty. Candice is from Colorado but is here because her parents are supporters of the Testa's (a missionary couple here). She felt called to come here due to a dream and has been feeling drawn here ever since.
Katie had a similar story but her Aunt and Uncle were already missionaries in Torino. Jokingly she said she would come back with them and it just kind of happened. She's been here for about 2 months and is going home (since you can only be in the country for 3 months without a visa) and is probably going to come back in the summer.
Ketty is originally from Peru but she moved here about 15 years ago. She is going to school at a university here and wants to work for a year and then travel for a while.

Then Rudy and I met up to practice the songs for tomorrow. After that, we grabbed some dinner and now we're settling down

There are so many more things. I just hope I remember them all.