A Little Old Man on the Mountain

Dear Mom and everyone else,

I forgot to tell you guys last week, but here is a cool story. So two and a half weeks ago, we get a reference for an old man who lives up on the mountain. Not THE old man on the mountain because there are about fifty old guys that live on this same mountain. Anyway, for us as missionaries, it takes about twenty minutes to half an hour to walk to his house, for normal people, at least an hour. Yes, missionaries walk faster than most people. Anyway, we teach this guy once, and he falls in love with the part about how Jesus Christ organized his church, and kept telling us "Nobody ever explained this to me before." Then we told him how we have the same organization and he about fell off his chair. He walked the hour to church and loved it, but left before we got a chance to talk to him about baptism. We passed him a few days later when we were walking around the mountain. We asked him if he had prayed about baptism and he just tells us simply, "Yes, I have already made the pact with God, so I am going to get baptized." Then on the next Sunday (last Sunday) he comes up and just asks me out of the blue when the next baptismal service was, so I told him this (two days ago) Saturday. "OK" he said "I am going to get baptized that day." And that little old man from the mountain did it. He got baptized this Saturday and the whole time had a huge smile on his face. But there was a little bit of an awkward story from the baptism itself.

I got to organize the agenda of the service, so I decided to call on a non member friend of the guy getting baptized, to give the opening prayer. Just a quick preview to religion in Honduras, there are a TON of different churches, and some of them do or say things in prayers or in testimonies that are supposed to be saved for sacred ordinences. Some of them shout Halleluja all the time or end every prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy ghost. Well this little old guy (like I said, lots of old guys) and he gives a 3 minute introduction to his prayer, also not uncommon here. We finally start praying and I don´t know why but I opened my eyes during the prayer and saw that little old guy praying his heart out with his are put to the square!!!!!! I just about lost it laughing. I know it´s a sacred thing that you´re not supposed to make fun of but that little man just doesn´t know that he´s not supposed to do that! We´ll have to teach him about that one real quick:)

Other than that things have been going alright. We had our regular interviews with President on Firday. His advice to me...Just let Elder Marcia end his mission thinking that he ended good. I love that man, he understands what´s going on and understands the truth when he hears it.

Oh, mom and Kristi...Just remember that when you are in Lima, Peru, I´m here in Lima, Honduras!!! And I can´t wait to talk to you all on Sunday, I should be able to call Sunday in the afternoon around 3.

I love you all and thank you all for everything!

Love,

Elder Neiswender