Hail Mary

Dear Mom and Every one else,

So I'm just going to pretend that Dad didn't send me the update on the BYU Utah game...

But Congratulations to Joey and Jen! What's the little girl's name? That is weird that all those cousins are now uncles and aunt. So I know you probably told me mom, but could you remind me where Elise is going on her mission?

Back to the mission news. Back here in my side of the Holy War things went a little better. Me and Elder Rodriguez had a meeting with our Branch President, President Calix. He is an awesome man. He is not loud or obnoxious, but he just goes along fulfilling his assignment as best as he can. He has been President for 9 years and has seen the attendence in the branch go up and down and around and around and pretty much everything you could think of he has dealt with. We had a good meeting with him to find out what the difference was between a couple years ago and now, aka when the attendence was 100 and now when the attendence hovers around 40. He told us that the difference was activities. When they did activities the numbers went up. And when they didn't do them, the numbers went down. Simple enough. The problem is that the last time we tried an activity we had a grand total of 8 people, or in shorter terms, President Calix's family. It was a tipped ball right into the other teams hand (dang football termonology).

So we planned ourselves a full 100 yard, down 54-10...(Oh wait, trying to forget that score), #1 vs. #107, 3 seconds left on the clock, Hail Mary. We planned an activity on Friday, Saturday and then church on Sunday. Church on Sunday was already planned so that part was easy.

After spending most of the week preping the activities, with invitations and a companionship fast, Friday rolled around. We had it out in the lot where they have finally started building the church in Coyoles. We chose that spot so that people could see that the church was progressing again. We set out twenty seats on the lawn hoping and praying that they would be filled. Well the prayers were answered and over 50 PEOPLE showed up!!! It was awesome. All the people that we wanted to come came and they loved it and were all pumped for Saturday. The heavy rains put a damper on Saturday but even so 20 people showed up. And the attendence did go up on Sunday! Now everybody is pumped and sees that the church is getting going again and everyone says that we have to keep doing these kinds of things! Haha I love seeing problems get solved! :)

I love this work and it makes up for things that didn't quite go right on your side of the Holy War:)

Love,

Elder Neiswender