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.