I Ate Squirrel

Yee Haw. Naw I'm not even in the right state for that one, here in Kansas its more like, Hi how are you? Kind of boring I know. Well this past week went super swell. Last week I mentioned a dude named Lance. We met him while attending a baptist church last week (that we are no longer invited to come to) and we had a dinner with him on Tuesday. We sat in McDonald's for 2 hours talking about the gospel. He is like 22 and has a epic beard and knows a ton about the Bible. He is going to research the church now, or look up anti, then come back to us. Now he is just a guy who want to know stuff, and is in no way looking for a fight, so I hope this ends out working but I am almost positive it will. In other news, we are still teaching Hannah, we taught her the plan of salvation this week and she took it very well. We had to go rather deep at a few points, because she just asked so may good questions and is just a smart and humble individual. She is on a direct collision course for the baptismal font, more news on her when it comes.
In other news, I ate squirrel. Yep, I sure did. It was very tough but the meat tasted pretty good. I liked it allot actually, but one squirrel for a family doesn't got to far. We got transfer calls this week, and both Staley and I are going to be staying here 6 more weeks. Well thank you for all the letters and prayers you send my way. I really appreciate it.

Todd is also in the same district as our neighbor Elder Robinson (far right)

God of Miracles     

So this week we had some pretty spectacular experiences. On Thursday night we had and hour and a half to kill before curfew so we decided to walk across town and go see a less active lady we have not seen since I first came into the area. On our way there a car pulled off the road always in front of us. We didn't even give it any thought and just thought she was going to flip a U-turn. When we approached she waved us down and asked if we were Missionaries. We said yes, then she proceeded to show us her copy of the Book of Mormon and tell us that she has been looking for some one to talk to about this book, we gave her our number and she gave us hers, and her name is Hannah. We were super exited for the rest of the night and when we got home to do our planning she called us that night and set up an appointment for the next day, how epic! So the next day we were going out with our ward mission leader, Brother Ferguson, and we taught Hannah the restoration, and at the end we asked her to read Moroni 10: 3-5 and she was almost in tears by the end of the reading. She totally recognizes that what she was feeling was the spirit and she says that she has never felt this way before. She committed to coming to church, which she did, and to coming to institute on Tuesday. Yep, she is solid.
      So last night  Elder Staley and I had finished teaching a lesson to Adam Antrilla, Vinny Antrilla's cousin, and thought we would go to Vinny's and try and locate him. We took an odd path that took us by the baptist church we visited a few weeks back. And lo and behold who did we see as we passed by? Vinny Antrilla who is also attending that baptist church. He ran over to see us and tell us that he moved to somewhere else, then some of the other teenagers who attended there ran up and greeted us and invited us to attend another session of there youth group, we had nothing going on so we said why not, and went. We had a great time there and allot of the people really enjoy us there and we have made a lot of good friends. After the youth pastor taught us we had dinner and talked to a lot of people who started asking us questions. Right before we were about to leave the youth pastor, whose name is Todd also, asked us not to come back because the group was for high school students and we were kind of a distraction, he was very sincere and I honestly don't believe he didn't want us there because of who we were. So we talked with a group leader who helped the youth pastor and we set up lunch appointment with him for Tuesday to hang out. Sweet. So when we left we decided to go and find Vinny's new house, which was in the opposite direction of our apartment, we found it then turned around, and as we passed by the church again Lance, the guy we set up a dinner appointment with, was pulling out and asked if we wanted to go hang out. We agreed so we met somewhere and talked for a good hour and a half. Mostly about nerd stuff but we did talk about church things to and he still wants to meet up on Tuesday. Sweet cuppin cakes. I hope this goes somewhere with him. He says he loves Mormons and used to go to our church when he was 11. Maybe he will want to come to a service some time.
      We also spent allot of time on campus this week talking to people. We spent about 2 hours drawing out the entire plan of salvation on the ground using side walk chalk. We didn't get any referrals from it but we talked to a lot of people while we did it, and it was a load of fun. I will send the pictures of us the drawing in another email. Well this is a long letter to make up for all my short letters and lack of letters. Well I love all y'all and I thank you for all the prayers you send my way.

Things I learned while on my mission...

Week 2 in Pittsburg. What a busy week. Its odd to actually have things to do here, we are busy for most of our days and we have lots of missionary work to do. We have a good list of investigators too. This week we had 2 investigators show up at church. We had Vinney Ventrilla and Julie Archuleta (no relation). Vinney is 12 and is definitely the smartest 12 year old I have ever met. He is basically pulling  a Joseph Smith and is investigating lots of churches looking for the truth. He genuinely cares about that at age 12. It is amazing, he knows the Bible super well and is always willing to meet with us. He even made us dinner one night, ya he is exceptional. Next we have Julie, she is pretty cool. She takes the missionary lessons very slow and is not the best at reading but her mom is a member and she comes to church. She seem very interested and is doing all the things we ask her.

So this week we got into a few odd discussions that I never thought I would have ever had to address. First lets talk about Satan. We were talking to Zack (a investigator) and his friend Larry sat in on the lesson and afterward we talked to him. First he talked about how Satan was a humble angel who saw that god was in too deep and needed help and when the humble man (being Satan) asked god if he could help and take over a portion god (being the prideful person he is apparently)  cast Satan out because he doesn't accept help. Then he told us that Satan wanted to take away pain and have a better world. I then used the sword of the spirit and stabbed him in the heart by teaching the true doctrine of the plan of salvation and how if we lived in a world with no sin or pain we could have no progression and no joy. Zack was very impressed and started to back us up, it was epic. So defeated Larry then brought up his next point, Judas Iscariot. Apparently god wouldn't allow Judas to die so when the scriptures say he died apparently they meant he became a vampire. Yep, I didn't know how to fight that so I guess he wins? Next thing I learned is more about Satan. We got into a discussion with one Mike Adams, and he made the argument that we are god's children. I had heard that argument before but not his version of it. Apparently if you read John 8:44 it says (if you take it absolutely literally) we are sons of Satan. So we spent a few seconds finding that scripture and when he did he said (figuratively) "check." I conceded, I had been checked. I smiled at him and said, "yep, we're children of Satan. I am a son of Satan and always will be, and god is my step father." (check mate, says Elder Rasband). Mike lost his smile and said "well that not what that means." Rasband, "no no no, we will always be Satan's children, when god adopts us we are his step children." He didn't argue any more.

Last night we were invited to go to a baptist youth group. After checking with our zone leaders we went. It was actually kind of fun, extremely lacking in the spirit but the idea was sound. They spent a lot of time taking scriptures from Romans that talk about how we are super imperfect and god doesn't see any one of us as good. They also talked a lot about how we don't need to do works at all, but how we need to repent and be good. I was just fascinated at how they contradict themselves and not understand it. So this morning I dedicated my studies so faith and grace. Ephesians 2: 8 says, "By grace we are saved through faith..." This is a scripture that has been popping up a lot in my life lately. So this morning I decided to read everything I had on faith (which was not very much) and I inevitably led me to James 2. Which says faith with out works is dead. The more I read about faith the more is seemed to point to repentance and baptisms. So I opened my Preach My Gospel and began studying the Gospel of Jesus Christ, being faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, enduring to the end. All these things pointed to each other. The last words Christ spoke to his apostles in Matthew is go to everyone and baptize. Then when we read Acts 2 (which takes place just after Christ leaves them so obviously they are doing exactly what Christ taught them a day ago which is...), when the Jews have a faith in Christ and they ask, "What shall we do" and James says, "repent, be baptized, and receive the gift of the holy ghost." So my conclusion is the idea of grace and works is actually just a misunderstanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Voila.

Well this is enough for one letter, I love all yall. Miss you and will see you in the future.