Free Bread!!

Thanksgiving week! So this week was rather fun and not super crazy. For Thanksgiving we went to a part member family's house, the Keath's, for the first dinner that we had. What was interesting about that dinner was two things. One, Brother Fowler. Brother Fowler is one of those guys who just keeps on talking and talking and just demands all the attention in the room so he can brag about his whole family and how they are just so much better than you. It was just funny to me because he kept dropping his family members names that were supposed to be "big names" that we would all be super impressed by. He was a nice enough guy but his conversations did not need anyone else to be apart of it, he just talked while the 4 of us just kind of looked off into space clearly not interested. I am just glad he is in the Parson's branch and that Elder Robinson and Jones are the one who have to deal with him, especially since he is the main source of driving for the missionaries. and point number two, Elder Staley's bike got stolen while we were at the the Keath's. The part that bother us was that Brother
Fowler had a spectacular view out of the window staring right at our bikes, and the only two bikes out there were mine and Staley's. So yeah, rather annoying, but a less active's husband is a cop and is on the case so we are all good to go.

After the Keath's we went to the Moss family and had dessert and played Risk for a little bit. It was a lot of fun. Other than that our Thanksgiving was rather dull but relaxing.

So while we were out at a less active member's house, a lady drove by and offered to give us some bread. We asked how much she was willing to give us and she lifted up a trash bag full fmo her truck bed full of bread (both the truck bed and the bag were full.) Ya it was awesome. So our freezer is now full of bread. Well other than that not too much to report on. Most of our investigators went home for the holiday so no news

 

Love and thanks for all the prayers

 

So this week Elder Staley  and I decided we wanted to learn a few new knots to tie. There is this new french knot going around the mission that looks like you parted your tie, like we do our hair. so we decided, why not just blow that knot out of the water and look super fly. So we learned what we are calling the Trifecta and the Eldrege knot. The trifecta is the one that looks like it has 3 sides all point to the same spot. The Eldrege one is this cascading epic looking one that looks like a staircase of pure awesomeness. Ya we are looking pretty fly with these knots.

So the other  pictures that I have for you is some water painting that I did while at a members house the other day. We needed to do laundry real bad and our usual person was unavailable so we asked another ward member if we could do it at their place. While we waited for the laundry to be done we sat down with Luke, their 3 year old child, and decided to join him in doing water colors. The pictures you see is what I ended up painting. I know, I am an expert painter. You are all free to determine what the interpretation of the paintings are.

So this week we saw Hannah again, and we watched the Restoration DVD. It went well and after we talked about her interest in the church. She still does want to learn, so that is a relief to hear. She has felt the spirit so much from the Book of Mormon that she can't deny what she felt. I think she is just afraid of making the change. I am sure there are parents and friends involved that will make the change hard on her but we will try and show her that any price paid for this is worth it.

We also met with a new investigator named Tiffany Brown. She is a referral from Grove, Oklahoma whose dad and grandma are members. We called her last Saturday night and she said she would come to church, but then called to let us know she wouldn't be able to come to church on Sunday morning. We met with her on Wednesday and when we walked in she had a roommate sitting in the living room and she told us that 2 more would be joining for the lesson too. Sweet! so we taught all 4 of them and gave them all copies of the Book of Mormon. We tried our best to talk up the Book or Mormon so they might actually read it. We won't be meeting with her this week because she is back in Oklahoma for the week but we will be visiting her next week. more news on her as it develops.

We also tracted into an atheist on Thursday and talked to him for a good hour and a half. We would have stayed and ate dinner with him l but we had another dinner appointment to get to. He was rather interesting, he said he wouldn't believe a sign even if one was shown to him (so at least he understood that faith was not grown from seeing signs), but he said he spent the first 22 years of his life looking for god and that, "god doesn't answer his cell phone. You know he has caller I.D. and voice mail but he still doesn't answer or call you back."  He as nice enough but just sad to see him in that way. We later talked to a member about it, Brother Cubette, and he told us about Pascal's Wager. You should look that up if you have time or have never heard of it. But to summarize it up, it says that there is no rational way to prove there is a god, so every one wagers on weather there is a god or not. Depending on how we put our wager is how we live. If we wager there is a god, then we live the commandments. if we were right in our wager we get heaven, if we wrong we have happiness in this life. If you wager there is no god then you will not live the commandments. If you are right in your wager, then we all die after an unhappy life and cease to exist. If you are wrong in that wager then you go to hell (just to put it simply). so it is better to just wager there is a god and call it good.

Well I have talked far too much and not said much at all. Thank you for listening and thank you for all the prayers and love. Thank you all for all you do and the sacrifices that you all make for others in your life. 

p.s. so apparently I have to much in this letter so i will send 2 letters. the second one will have more picture

 November 12- Kansas?
   
Hello everybody. This week went pretty well. A lot of our investigators are not progressing, so we have decided to make more efforts this week to find new investigators. We have been tracting a lot and finding some decent success. We have decided to let our ward mission leader be in charge of where we tract, and we will be the ones who tract. Since missionaries are in charge of teaching and baptizing that leaves the responsibility of finding up to the ward, so we have been trying to get that to happen. So we found another Spanish family tracting this week, the dad speaks pretty good English and the wife speaks none. We tracted into them and they were literally just leaving and they said to come back, so we did. We showed up and we taught the father a lesson and read from the Book of Mormon. He says there is such a spirit that comes from us and he really believes us. His wife on the other hand, is a super catholic so this does make it challenging. We are invited back whenever so we will have to watch the restoration DVD in Spanish and bring Brother Moss, who speaks Spanish as well to to  do the talking. We also tracted in to a lady named Zeda that we will be checking in on this week.
     So we taught a lesson to Hannah again this week, and it didn't go super well. We taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ and she agreed with everything, until we got the the part where we told her she needed to be baptized again. She doesn't see the need for authority to do baptizing, nor does she believe we have it. We almost lost her in the lesson but luckily Elder Staley was able to save the day. We ended the lesson by pointing out how many miracles had occurred in setting her up to visit us. We also talked about the spirit she felt when she read the Book of Mormon, she won't deny those things but she is so set in her religion that making the change will be hard for her. I just hope that she won't reject the truth because it will require a change. We will keep on her though.
     We also had a lesson with the Keaths. Jennifer is the non member that we are working with, and her husband David is excommunicated. Their big hold up is the word of wisdom and they are trying to get overt that. We tried to have a lesson with them where we talked about the benefits of  not smoking, just so they can get a clear picture of the blessing that come along with it... but Brother Keath wouldn't have any of it. They will quit their coffee and smoking on their own time frame. I was disappointed that the lesson was pretty much rejected, because I wanted them to set a date for the future (even if it is for 6 months) just so they have a island to row to. Oh well. Elder Harter also sent us a referral. We contacted her Saturday night and she said she was coming to church but Sunday morning she said she wouldn't be able to due to sickness but she set up an appointment for Wednesday. So stay in tune for more developments on her.
     Other than that nothing super odd or worth noting happened this week. The wheel keeps on rolling. Thank you for all your prayers and keeping me in mind. Lots of love!

First off, watch this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DREFM8Ig5TA

 So a few weeks ago I had my mom send me a copy of Green Eggs and Ham so I could turn it into this. It is super epic and I have been reading it to members teaching them how to do missionary work. Persistence is the way to getting people to try it. But any who I had a member bear his testimony about the book on Sunday. He gets up and rehearses a conversation we had with him at dinner a few nights ago. Basically it went like this.

Brother Hurt, "you know Elder Rasband you don't look old enough to be on a mission"

Elder Rasband, "Ya... well I blame my young looks on my short hair at this point."
BH, "I don't know, I think its just your face."

ER, "ya probably."
BH, "Well do you have a message for us tonight?"

ER, "I do"
Then I pulled out Green Eggs and Ham and after we read it he said

BH, "you know after that conversation about your young looks then you pulling out a children's book didn't help."
ER, "Ya probably not my best move, but it was a good book eh?"
BH, "it sure was."

Basically he rehearsed that over the pulpit then bore his testimony that the green eggs and ham book helped him understand the principles of missionary work and he is going to try much harder at it now. It was actually pretty cool to hear that. It made my day. And that is now only the second time my young looks were mentioned over the pulpit.
So now an explanation of the pictures. The weather rock, just made me laugh. It was at an old people home of a person we were visiting and I just had to get a picture. The street sign one, ha ha ya you are either going to get it or not. I wish I could claim the pumpkin I was holding but the Wilde Family let us pretend we made them.

So as far as investigators go, we taught Hannah again this week and we taught the Word of Wisdom. She has no problem with any of the Word of Wisdom councils so she is ready to go. I love when a plan comes together. We are still working on getting her to institute so she can meet more people her age, because in a lot of ways our ward is a newly wed or nearly dead ward. But she is still doing very well. We should have a baptismal date with her soon. We also ran into Lance again (the guy we poached from the baptist church) and he is going to buy a triple combo so he can read it and study the church. He is sweet!!! We have been doing a lot of wandering around lately trying to find more people to teach and  I am amazed at how many people do stop and talk to us. Now all we need is for them to call us back and our days would be booked. It is cool to experience people who are just waiting to find the truth but just don't know where to find it. We have been praying to be lead to people who are looking and for people who are looking to be lead to us, and I honestly feel that is happening. God does answer prayers, just in his own time frame. Just be patient.

Love, Elder Rasband