Sky Diving

Dear Mom and everyone else,

 

    Sometimes I don´t know what to think. One of the councilors in the MTC presidency gave a talk right before we left about his time in paratrooper training. We told us how he had to do a series of jumps from the airplanes. His first experience he said was breathtaking. He described the scenery and how he felt as he fell and how he felt as he floated back down to earth and how he had a rough landing, but in all his thoughts about the beauty of the creations of God and how splendid it looked that by the time he got back to earth he was sad that it was all over, but was lifted by the thought that he still had 6 more jumps to do in his training. He told us that we will have times in the mission that we will be completely engulfed in the joy of seeing God´s miracles among his children and that sometimes we will feel like him when one part of the mission ends, but that another part would always start again. Well I´ve almost done my share of jumps. It is scary watching so many of the friends that I have made here jump back into the real world. I´ve seen missionaries that just look so scared to finish their missions. On wednesday my last transfer will start. I will still be here In La Ceiba, but I still don´t know what to think. I try to focus on the mission and for the most part I do pretty good...but then there´s President Viers always reminding me to start planning for what I´m going to do when I get home. 

  Ok enough baggie news. 

This week was one of the hardest working weeks of the mission. Everyday we were out the door at least an hour earlier than the usual and we got back at 9 or a little after, becuase we had a lot of peole to contact after last weeks activity, and trying to train a and animate a lot of future missionaries that are leaving soon. This included leaving with them and divisions and studying with them Preach My Gospel. I have never realized how much being apparted as a missionary and going to MTC and having a little over 18 months of field experience would change the way I teach, but as I watched those pour young men do their very best at trying to explain gosple principles and remembering how I was when I tried to teach in Mission Prep, I finally realized that there is nothing like being called as a missionary. At the risk of sounds cocky, but giving all the credit to the calling, Elder Juarez and I have shown up quite a few cocky return missionaries here in this ward. They try to make up for the lack of the spirit by using what I call the Shotgun approach, which is where they say everything and anything that they feel might take the investigator´s attention. We usually let them squirm a little bit and then when the investigator looks more confused about whether or not Joseph Smith is a prophet as I am about what´s happening in the NBA playoffs (yes that´s a hint. What happened to the updates?;)), that is when we step in and in less then two hundred words we clear up their doubts and do clean up from the excess material that the return missionary said. I really have to say, I love shutting cocky people up...:) My mission prep teacher once told us that he is an ex mission president and a mission prep teacher but even so, he doesn´t try to explain much to non members without the missionaries present. It amazes me how much the Lord trusts young 19 and 20 years to teach his ever lasting gospel. 

I testify of the truth of this gospel. It is the only one. The Book of Mormon is true. Joseph Smith was a prophet. But most importantly is that Jesus died and was resurrected for us and God is our loving heavenly father.

I love you all and wish you the best week ever!

Love,

Elder Neiswender

I Love Hail Mary's

Dear Mom and everyone else,

Yes I like calling big activities Hail Marys. This week was a mission wide Hail Mary. This Sunday was the day of friends where all the members were supposed to bring friends to church and all the messeges were geared to be investigator friendly. And it worked. The members threw it into fifth gear and brought a ton of friends to church. There were 28 investigators in church which meant a lot of new faces in a still pretty new ward for Elder Neiswender and my comp was in the other ward...ten minutes away in taxi. Oh man it was crazy but everything went great and in the class of Principles of the gospel we watched the story of John Tanner. If you haven´t seen it. Look it up and watch it. It is AWESOME!!! I love it and the investigators loved it. 

   Later on in the day we did divisions with some of the youth and went to teach them how to be missionaries. I went with three youth to work. two of them were awesome and spoke when they were supposed to and said what they were supposed to and great kids. Then there is the other youth who is actually older than me...weird...but he talked a ton. And by a ton I mean I haven´t talked so little (or been interrupted) since elder Marcia a whole year ago. But this time I was the one in charge and got to tell people how to be missionaries. Yes I did laugh mischieviously right there. Now I told him with love how to teach better as a companion. Especially when there are 5 other members who all at least have to say something or else they feel useless. Sometimes I feel more like a coach than a missionary, trying to get everyone playing time so they don{t pull an Andrei Kirilinko and start crying, but it{s fun and I really enjoy it. 

Saturday was great because I had two hour long bus rides with elder Ellett and we talked all about the mission and all that we have learned. It is so much fun talking to him every night on the phone lol. And it{s the rules too because he is my leader:)

Well I love you all and hope you have the best week possible!

Love,

Elder Neiswender

Surprises!!

Dear mom and everyone else,

 

   This week has been a great week, and one of the craziest of the mission. To start, from Wednesday night to Sunday night I pretty much did not work in the area of Montecristo, the area that I´m assigned. On Thursday I went on divisions to another area, Friday went to work in the other Ward of my area. Saturday, we went to the extention that is an hour away in bus, and when we got there the member that helps us out so much out there comes up and say. "This family wants to get baptized tomorrow."...Well twist my arm. The only thing was that we still had to work out the interview. And so I used his phone to call up Elder Ellett (my ZL) and see how we could do it. And so after some planning acrobatics we figured that Sundaymorning we would do divinions and his comp would go to the interview and I would go with Elder Ellett to his ward. The only problem is that the bishop of Montecristo wouldn´t answer his phone at all and so he didn´t know that there were not going to be missionaries in Montecristo. I´m sure that was a pleasent surprise for him!  But we went and asked forgiveness afterwards and he understood completely. Oh and the baptism went through without a hitch! so I hear, I didn´t actually see it, but I saw the pictures:)

    Also on Saturday, our kind and loving heavenly father took me back to miracle school. We went to a house where we were teaching a few youth, but we hadn´t met the mom yet. Saturday was our lucky day, We walked up to the house and she was outside and the kids inside...They changed places really really fast when they saw us come up. After talking with the kids a few minutes we asked if mom was going to join us. She said no. But then we realized that her daughters were moving dirt from one place to another (still not sure why) so we went to help them all out and after a few minutes of moving dirt the mom walked out and we started talking with her and she opened up to us and told us about her life and how she had read part of the Book of Mormon before in Miami and as we testified of the Book of Mormon she looked as though it was just what she needed. Then when she was giving the final prayer she started crying (sometimes crying is a good thing).

I really love you all and hope you have the best week ever. And mom, I am way super proud of you for Graduating College!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Neiswender

Montecristo

Letter from the Editor (or lack there of):
I have failed terribly the last seven months of post my brother's emails, I didn't think anybody tuned in to them and I was without internet for four of those months generally speaking, and any time I did have internet access, I was frantically trying to work on wedding plans that I needed the web for.  Today blogger showed me that this blog had nearly 1200 views, so although this darling little lad only has two and a half months left, I am repenting and will start posting his emails again.  Thank you! :D


Dear mom and everyone else,

First off I just have to tell you about how weird church was yesterday. In this new area we have two wards and an extention under us and so yesterday my comp went to the other ward and I was left by myself in Montecristo playing musical priesthood holders because they all had their own assignments and couldn´t spend the whole time with me. I had to ask multiple times to men that I still don´t know if they would help me walk down the hall. And then in the classes that I didn´t teach I made sure to put a wall of priesthood holders all around me so that no sisters sat next to me. It was...fun(?) It won´t be like that when I get home will it?
   Aside from that, the other day I got to go on divisions with Elder Ellett. We were comps for a day for the first time since the MTC. He is still a great kid and I had a great time on divisions and yes, we ripped up the area just as we always said that we would and then the next morning we went and worked out together again. I was a little embarrased because I haven´t worked out since the last time we were comps over a year and a half ago. 
    Things keep rolling along here. It is weird working in an area where the church has been in for a while. Sometimes random people show  up and are already for baptism. The only downside is the divisions in the ward. there are a  lot of them, and it all comes becuase people judge others. Oh how I just want to take these people by the ears, turn into Elder Uchtdorf and yell "STOP IT!!!". It is very, very frustrating. But that has always what I loved about the priests quorum growing up, was that we were all so different, but that didn´t stop us from getting along and being best of friends. 
   Well I hope you all have the best week ever and I´ll be sure to write next week!
Love,
Elder Neiswender

p.s. we went to Wendy´s today and I had to help some random people order their food becuase they didn´t know spanish. Seems like yesterday that that was me:) 

Tender Mercies

Dear Mom and everyone else,

Well there isn't a whole lot to report on this week. Three of the six work days were gobbled up by travling and Elder Rodriguez saying goodby to people because he got a change. I'm going to miss that kid. He was sincere but he still had a great sense of humor. I have a new comp from Guatamala. His name is Elder Poroj (pronounced Poró not porridge). He is a little hard worker and by little I mean short. He is really short. He comes up to about my ribcage. It's a good thing that we are on bikes here instead of walking becuase quite literally one of my steps is three of his steps. But he works hard and easy to talk to so we get along:)

The cool experience of the week was with a family that we are teaching that live near our house which is about 15 minutes on bike from where we usually work. Well, on Thursday night we put an appointment with some people that live close to our family for the afternoon. So at 3 o clock under the hot Honduran Sun we rode hard for fifteen minutes to that appointment only to find out that those dang people from the night before weren't even there. Well hot, tired, sweaty, and a little teed off, I remembered what President Viers always says, that when we have an appointment fall it's because the Lord has someone else closeby ready for us. So we started peddling down and past our families house and saw that they were struggling to get a fridge from their beat up truck to their beat up house. They called us over and we went and helped them. Then after all was said and done, we started talking with them for few minutes before the next appointment. After a few minutes of talking they start telling us about how great God is because 5 minutes before we showed up they were wondering how on earth they were going to get that fridge in the house with only the husband and the wife. They told us that they kept telling each other "Don't worry, the Elders will come soon to help us." And low and behold, we showed up five minutes later! It was an awesome experience. I love that family and they love us!

The spirit is real! When we live worthy he is willing to help us out even if we don't realize. I love this very real gospel and really know that it is true. And I can't wait to hear from our very real Prophet and Apotstles this weekend. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Neiswender

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

The Ensign Never Gets Old

Dear Mom and Everyone else,

I will try taping a picture of Jesus on the bag and see if that works:)

I guess I have done bad at telling you about my wonderful comp Elder Rodriguez from El Salvador. This kid is a stud. He is a convert of about four years and is anxious to share his newfound gospel with the people here in Honduras. He is kind of weird, but then I realized I'm kind of weird too so we get along great:) I love talking with him because he talks to me! He is always testifiing to the people that he knows that this stuff is true. I love working with him. And Dad just to answer your question...He is 5 bajilion time better than Marcia. My only regret is that this is an area where the people have trained for 20 years to not like the mormons. Many times we go contact a house and right off the bat they tell us that they don't like the mormon church. But they never give us a reason, just that they don't like it. Oh if only they knew the blessings that came from the Church of Jesus Christ.

There is a scene from the movie Night at the Museum that I have been comparing to the work here that makes me chuckle. It's when the little cowboys and the little romans are letting the air out of the tire of bad guy's van and it shows them giving every thing they have and from their level it seems so dramatic and then it zooms out and the van still looks the same and you really can't tell that anything is going on. I would recommend that you watch it. It makes me laugh every time:) Anyway that's how I have felt the past little while, but finally we are starting to see some results which makes me way happy. And I found out that Elder Beus and his other comp are baptizing a lot of the people that I left behind and all the wedding that I didn't get to see are all happening so that has made me extremely happy.

As for my earlier emails about feeling a little bit distanced from the Lords. Or not being able to feel the Spirit like I wanted......

This week I went on divisions to another area. While I was there the Elder that I was with was taking a shower and I was thinking what I should do till he got out. That's when the Ensign sitting on the table caught my attention. Imediately I felt drawn to it. It was from 2007. The opening article was by President Faust, it talked about never giving any space to that wiley fow Satan. He trys everything he can, but we just have to be strong. The next article was by Elder Scott. I can't remember much of what he talked about, but there was a line there where he gives thanks to a God who lets us struggle and gain knowledge piece by piece. That line hit me. I felt like these past six weeks I had been getting little pieces of the comfort that I was longing for, but it never lasted and it was driving me crazy. After reading the article I remember how much I love the Ensign. I really learned to love it in my time with Elder Marcia. Because that's when I had a LOT of time to read it lol. I remembered then that the time I felt closest to the Lord was when I had a steady diet of The Book of Mormon and the Ensign.

Saturday night I searched through the huge stack of Liahonas and Ensigns and pulled out all the English ones (it's just not quite the same in Spanish). I found a copy of the ensign from 1988!!!!! That thing is older than Madison!!! I decided to read it and the opening article was from a member of the First Presidencey that is still familiar to me. President Monson. It talked about the pioneers and the sacrifices that they made and how they were drivin and driven from place to place until they found a place which the Lord had prepared for them. After reading a few more articles that were written before I was even born it was about 10:15 and time to get ready for bed. But I have never felt the prompting so strongly to pray before in my life. I couldn't resist it. So I bowed before my God and even before I had said anything the familiar feeling that I have missed so much came rushing back to me with such force that couldn't help but crying. I didn't even have to say anything. He knew what I wanted and what I needed and in that night I recieved what I have been searching for in these past 6 weeks.

1988 was a long time ago. But really the Ensigns is modern day scripture. Read it and I promise you that it will never get old.

Sincerely,

A much happier Elder Neiswender