Hillbilies in Honduras

Dear Mom and everyone else,

It´s great to hear that you and Kristi had a great time in Peru. I´ve always wnated to see Macchu Picchu. My whole life!!!! Ok so there aren´t even 20 in my long life yet, but almost!!! It still hasn´t sunk in yet that I will be 20 years old in my next email. Wow. But at least for a couple of years I have wanted to see Machu Pichu and those crazy places. I just have one question. We have a firepit now? When did that show up? Oh and before I forget, yes I did take some money out of my account last month.
Not much has really happened this week. I just love seeing the difference in the area with a hard working comp. The thing about Central American missions (or at least Honduran) missions is that you don´t have to work super hard to get baptisms. There are elders here who don´t do jack squat and haul in baptisms, trust me, I lived with one for three months. A lot of elders just get content and lay off the rules. But from what I have learned from the General Authorities that speak to the missionaries and all the friends that are on missions, that´s not the way it´s supposed to be. So I always had the vision of how awesome it would be with two elders that just work their tales off without looking down the nose at the ones that don´t quite seem to get (very annoying, but there are those missionaries). I{m finally getting to see it. Elder Beus has a way of inspiring me to work even harder without saying a word. It is awesome, and while numbers don´t really matter, it is fun to see how much the area has changed and exploded since Elder Beus got here.
First off I just have to tell you about something that I didn{t really think I would see in Honduras, and even more what I never thought I would see in church. We found this man named Pacundo (I still have trouble saying it). He is an very old man whose house is surrounded by trees even though he still lives in the middle of the town. It´s weird, when we go there I feel like I am at the cabin of some old mountain hermit or hillbilly. All he does all day is lay in his hammock, his thumb is cut off halfway down, the ground is covered in beer bottles (the strong stuff too), he lives with another grumpy old man, and when we went to pick him up for church he told us, "Just let me drink my coffee first, it{s almost ready." as he put out his cigarette. Never in my life would I expect to see this man in church. Oh how the Lord loves to prove men wrong. Halfway through sacrament guess who walks into the little house where we have church...PACUNDO!!!! And oh man did he love it. He kept asking when we were going back to visit him. All the members commented on having him in church to us. Actually yesterday a lot of people that the members have been working with for years finally came to chruch. It was really quite fun to have all the members come up and tell us thank you. Thing is, we can{t take any credit because all we did was pass by and invite them. The Lord has His time. We just have to be ready so that he might reward us with a sliver of credit in the last days.
I love you all and hope everything is going great back there for you all!
Love,
Elder Neiswender