Merry Christmas!!

Dear Mom and everyone else,

Well it's Christmas time in Honduras. I think back to the festivites
and the fun that I've had in Christmases past. We have had some pretty
crazy Christmases. Honestly my favorite memories about Christmas time
is delivering the presents to the neighbors houses, doing sub for
santa with the priests, and going and shoveling snow for random people
in the ward with Ryan on random Sunday nights when it snows.
Remembering these times of service make me glad that I am here serving
my fellow man. A lot of elders get homesick during this time of being
away from the family. To be completely honest, as much as I miss being
with the family for Christmas I wouldn't rather be anywhere than right
here teaching the gospel to those who need it. Going around and
knockin on peoples door all day everyday I would think that we would
more people that are already members of the church. I know in Utah it
seems like everyother house is members. But here we can contact all
day and not find a member of the church. It really makes me realize
how much work there is to do and how little time to do it. What really
helps the work move along is help from the members. I would encourage
all of you to help the work of the Lord move as fast as possible and
help the people that need the word.
Thanks mom for the music. I had a really cool experience with the
piano the other day. Wednesday a whole bunch of the zones got to meet
with president and listen to him. After we listened to him there was a
talent show. Each zone had some talent prepared. Our talent was that
one of the sisters in the zone who played the guitar and sang the
first noel. After the talent show the AP got up and said that we would
all move back into the chapel and listen to Elder Neiswender play the
piano! Surprise to Elder Neiswender:) I guess our zone leaders told
the aps that I would play the piano but they forgot to tell the person
playing the piano. Luckily I have kept Marching Season polished over
these months. So I decided to play Marching Season. More background
about the people in the mission. The Latins and the North Americans
don't get along in big groups. There are a few that intermingle, but
for the most part if people aren't in integrated companionships they
hardly talk to members of the other race. It's something that needs to
be worked on I know. It was really cool, I got up there and played
Marching Season and I messed up and of course I was devestated, but
luckily nobody has ever heard that song so they all thought it was
part of the song:) But afterwards everybody kept coming up to me and
telling me good job and one Latin that I personally had problems
getting along with came up and told me that he had "never heard
anybody play the piano like that before." It made me realize that the
Lord works through strange means to bring to pass even small things
like if to Elders in a zone get along. It was really fun to play and
then have a really cool experience like that after. It shows that the
Lord really does care about little things.
I'm going to be able to skype! I talked to President and he said it
was ok. We are going to be able to do it at 10:00 am here so it will
be 9:00 am there in Utah:) I look foreward to seeing everybody again
and Merry Christmas:)
love,
Elder Neiswender

Las Flores

Dear Mom and everyone else,

Things here in Las Flores are great! The zone I am in is called
villaneueva so Dad you can look it up on google maps. My comp got sick
on tuesday so we didn't get anything done that day.

Honestly we are looking at this week as one of those trial weeks that
people talk about. It started out looking good. We are on an awesome
streak of door contacting. We haven't got a whole lot of numbers on
the door contacting because people keep answering and giving us return
appointments:) We are on an 11 door streak. 11 Straight people that we
have contacted has invited us back to here more as a family and one
family let us come in and teach them the first lesson on that first
visit so we were pumped. All of Friday Saturday and Sunday were packed
with return appointments from the people we contacted. We were both
looking foreward to it a lot.

But I was reminded of a talk by President (might have been just Elder)
Eyering in conference a few years back when he told a story from his
childhood. he said he was having a rough time and he went to his dad
to talk about it and his dad told him "remember, this too shall pass".
A little while later he said that things were going really great and
he went and told his dad about how great things were going and his dad
told him, "remember, this too shall pass." Oh man did that ever happen
to us this past week. We were having all this success and the
all...and yes I mean ALL but one appointment fell on those three days.
Nobody was in their house when they said they would be. It was very
hard. 15 appointments in three days that fell. But oh well "this too
shall pass."

Me and my comp get along real well. It started off a little rough, but
now we are great friends. We just keep working hard and supporting
each other through the hard times and celebrating through the great
times. The only thing with him is that whenever I try to do something
to improve myself he starts acting like I'm just trying to be better
than every one else. I never realized that the hardest place to try
and be obedient is on your mission. But we get a lot of good lessons
in when the people are there. And that's all that really matters:)

As for the story that Kristi is supposed to tell me. I hope I find out
soon because I am very confused by that first paragraph:)

Well that's all that I have for this week. I'll work on getting
pictures for you from this new area. It is way pretty:)
Love,

Elder Neiswender

Transfer

Dear Mom and Everyone else,
Well I got tranferred this past week to a new area. This area is
called Las Flores, the flowers. It is a lot prettier than my other
area since this one is out of the city. I get a chance to get away
from all the pollution and everything. but I haven't been able to see
it all clear and sunny because it has rained everyday since I have
been here. There is so much mud. But it is fun:) The house that I get
to live in now is about as big as the piano with a all down the middle
of it. It is tiny, but the upside is that it has A/C instead of just a
couple of portable fans. The work is great here. I have been here for
a week and we already hope to get three baptisms this next weekend. I
really hope it goes through. It's always a good way to start off an
area with a baptism:)
Now for the bad news. The day before I left my last area I went to
different places to say goodbye to everybody. I wanted to go say
goodbye to Luis and encourage him to keep reading and praying. So we
went to his house, and called his name three times and he didn't come.
Finally on the fourth time he came out, but he didn't even open the
gate to talk to us so we got to talk to him through the gate. He told
us that he had read the Book of Mormon and that from a history point
of veiw it from what he read it seemed true (He got through 1 Nephi
2). But he didn't believe that it was the word of God. His mom also
told him that he could choose for himself but that if he chose the
Mormons then the house would be divided. Oh man I wanted to talk to
that mother, but she wasn't there. He said that he was going to join
the other church. It just about broke my heart, and I think he saw it
because he kept asking if we were still friends. We said yes but that
I was leaving the next day and he looked sad. Luckily he asked if he
could keep his BOM. hopefully he keeps reading and one day he won't
care what his family says and he will join the church...Hopefully.

The goodnews is that we got to see the Christmas devotional last
night. And yes I saw Dad on TV!! It was good to see you again Dad!
Even though when they showed you was when you were looking down at you
music like you lost your place:) Oh well it was just great to see you.

No I haven't gotten the package with music yet. I'm sure that right
now it's at the mission office. Now I just have to wait for them to
bring it to my area. I don't know if you already sent the Christmas
package, but if you haven't I keep forgeting that I don't have
pictures of my family or my friends. That would be something that I
would really like if you get a chance.

Well that's all for this week,
Love forever,
Elder Neiswender

Turn Turn Turn

Dear mom and everybody,

Well that's just too bad that BYU had to go lose to Utah on a last second play, but I guess it was their turn to lose on the last second play. Oh well I don't get too much crap from the Ute fans down here;)

Well time for the big news. I just found out that I have to leave this area on Wednesday. I am getting transferred and right as it looked like we are getting ready to have some great stuff in December. The last change I never thought I would miss this area, but I guess that was just the fear talking. This change has been a lot better. We found a lot of good people that are progressing slowly but are progressing and there is a definate upside to not getting robbed this change:)

The saddest part is that I don't get to keep teaching Luis. It was awesome last Monday night. I guess I should start before that. Luis said that he was confused about whether he wanted to join the mormons or the Jehova's Witnesses (BYU-UtahX50^2). He said that Sunday the 28th he was going to checkout the JWs church and see what he thought. We didn't think that he was very interested in our church anymore. It was heartbreaking. But last Monday night, I was on divisions with an Elder Beus. We went out to contact a few houses before dinner. We contacted one house and another black teenager came out. We started talking with him. We said that we were from the LDS church and then he says "Oh my cousin is going to that church and I want to go with him one these weeks." Well that kind of response is always welcome to missionaries no matter who the coulsin is. We asked him who his cousin was and he told us "Carlos Luis Flores." I kindof lost my train of thought right then in amazement. We made arragements that we can return and maybe teach them together sometime, but the best thing that kid said was that his cousin (Luis) liked our church! Oh man it was a shot of hope.

The next day we had divisions again and I got to go with a Latino for the first time so far in the mission. We went and visited Luis and true to form Luis asked a lot of questions that I know how to answer in Enlish, but I just had to rely on the spirit and my comp to help me make sense in Spanish. We spent a while there teaching and answering questions. and then we left. When me and Elder Skinner went back friday he said that he couldn't do it that day but that he had read. We asked about going to church on Sunday and he said he still wanted to see what the Jehova's Witnesses had to offer. So now it's just more of the waiting game until we go with him tomorrow.

Well that's the big story from Honduras this week.

I love you all, and thanks Matz, Melanie and Davy for writing:)

Love,

Elder Neiswender

Holy War

Dear mom and everyone else,

first no I haven't met the dowings yet. but Ill keep an eye out.

So a lot of you are probably thinking that in the subject line I am referring to the BYU-UTAH game coming up in a few weeks. While I have a deep rooted passion for sports and the byu utah rivalry, I am using the Holy War to refer to a different rivalry.

I have always loved rivalries. The feel. the passion. the tension. The exhilaration of your team winning and the crushing blow of your team losing. One thing that I always try to do is not let a loss in a rivalry effect me to much. Because let's face it if BYU loses it's not really the end of the world.

The rivalry I'm talking about has been around since before the world. The rivalry between our enemy, Satan and our biggest ally, Jesus Christ. I have never seen the thin line of choice as clear as I did the other night with one of our investigators. He knows that the gospel is true and the the book of mormon is true. He knows it and he has told us. He just is very scared to go to church because he is afraid that he will see a girl that he dated a few years ago. He is sixteen and this huge black kid. he is taller than me. I have only met with him a few times but I feel like I love him like my brother.

I've seen the forces of Christ mounting behind him from the missionaries. But at the same time he has the forces of Satan mounting against him to bring him down. I felt like there were two huge armies facing one another ready to fight with everything and he was right In the middle of it. I could see that seen clear as day. I knew that he had a choice to make. I felt that if he went to church this week he would be alright and love the church and make the right choice of eternal life. but if he didn't go to church he would stray and be destroyed by the opposing side. I could see it.

Needless to say that by halfway through sacrament meeting and not having seen him come in I was very disappointed and resigned to take a loss. I felt like one of my best friends just chose the the wrong side. Then all of the sudden Luis walked through the door. I could feel the spirit so strong and I knew that he could feel it too. It was amazing. The closing hymn was the Spirit of God and I got to play the piano for it. The feeling there was amazing. I can't describe it but I know that in this case, in this game, in this battle, Jesus Christ just won.

The only thing I can ask in this email, and I ask it to the person who is reading it, is never be the reason someone is scared to go to church. If you think you have hurt someone, apologize. If you have been wronged by someone, forgive them and move on. I am sorry to anyone that I have wronged and I ask for your forgiveness. If you are reading this, know that I love you and never want to hurt you.

Sincerely,

Elder Neiswender

Piano Lessons

Dear Mom and everybody,

Oh man I love those Searle boys. My comps probably know more about how awesome Austin Searle is than they know about any of my other friends. Those boys always know how to make you laugh and smile no matter how you are feeling.

First off for Christmas. If you could send me the red book of hymn arrangements that I have. I can't remember who they are by, but I think his first name is David. Speaking of David. If you wouldn't mind sending the David Lanz book down that Vicki gave me a few years ago. And then the Jon Schmidt book that has the song All of Me in it. I learned that song right before I left, but I can only remember the first half of it to the great disappointment of many people down here. I haven't gotten the Halloween package yet because we are all going to the office this week for our interviews with president. I go on Thursday so I will be able to get the package then. I guess I can always find uses for new socks:) The ones I have now are holding up fine, but they have only been through two months of Honduras so far lol:) A sweater would be nice. It's been getting kindof cold the past week at nights and a sweater would be great:) Oh and could you let me know how much money I have in my account? That's all I can think of for Christmas right now:)

First, speaking of the piano music and everything. It was awesome. So I was getting frustrated with my comp because he kept making me feel like I should know everything in Spanish that instant and that if I didn't get it right away it was because I didn't have faith. And I shouldn't get frustrated because the language is easy. Oh man I was frustrated. But then he wanted me to teach him how to play the piano...Oh that made me happy. I realized I had two choices when I said yes. I could play the couple of yanni songs that I know and so that learning the piano was easy and blah blah blah, or I could try to be the bigger man and smile and help him along with love. Oh decisions. I finally decided to smile and help him along with love. And when he got frustrated with learning the piano I would tell him to take a five minute break and get a drink. He took the advice and then he started being a lot more patcient with my Spanish. It feels so much better than just getting revenge:)

The next story is about this guy who is about dad's age and his family. The family is him his wife and his two daughters. They have been teaching this family since before I got here. but in the time with my last comp we baptised the Dad (Calixto) and his two daughters, but his wife just doesn't want to break tradition. It was so cute yesterday. We were just talking with him when his wife wasn't there and we asked if we could pray before we leave. He said of course then we asked if there was anything specific we should mention in our prayer. He asked that would could ask a blessing that his wife could go to church. It was the biggest act of love I have seen here. The family here isn't very important so it was great to see a guy who really wanted to be with his family forever through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's all for this week.

Love,

Elder Neiswender

First Baptism Story

Dear Mom and everybody,

That's awesome about Kristi!!! Not going to lie it really stunk having to wait till today to find out about her. But I am relieved to hear that she is doing fine. Make sure she knows I was praying for her.

Haha I'm glad the kids had fun with the pinata. I actually got to see them made here in honduras. It was fun to see. My first comp went home on wednesday. thats when we had changes. And I got my comp and he is from...California!!!!! Yes, they sent me another North American so I still havent had the whole learn Spanish or die, but the Spanish is coming along alright. I can carry on conversations pretty good now. It was annoying at first. I feel like he thinks I should know it all right away, and if I ask him for help then he tells me like I'm stupid. I'm going to talk to him about that one lol, But he is fun to talk to. Oh and he told me that we CAN use Skype for when we call home on Christmas so I am going to look into that more:)

So I don't think I told you the whole story about my first baptism here. I got to baptize the three youth that we taught. Thing about them...They lived in the house that we were trying to contact my second here when I got robbed. When finally decided to go back two weeks later they let us in and said that they were waiting for missionaries to baptize them and they had been to church a whole bunch of times!! It was good to see some success from perseverance :)

Well That's all for this week,

Talk to you all next week:)

Love,

Elder Neiswender

Hablo Espanol? Almost.

Dear Mom and everyone else,

Well this week has been full of ups and downs. We had two more baptisms, a father and his daughter, this past weekend which makes 8 for this change! It was awesome! We had a cake because it was the birthday of one of the people we baptized. It was his first ever birthday party and he is 53 years old. I know crazy, I remember having a birthday party when I was 9. I love talking with him and his family, I can actually understand them now and talk back with them. It was great because on Friday we did their baptismal interviews, but obviously I couldn't be with them in the interview so I had to just sit outside with the person that wasn't being interviewed at the time. It was fun, I was able to talk with them and when I ran out of things to say in Spanish i figured might as well read in the Book of Mormon instead of just sitting there in awkward silence. It was fun reading the Book of Mormon with native Spanish speakers so that they could help my pronounciation. It was a lot of fun.

Now I would like to apologize for anything negative about the people that I might have said last week. I have a companion who...let's just say he is extremely racist. But he won't admit it. He sits and tells me how proud he is to be an American and then insults the Hondurans for being proud to be Hondurans. He tells me at least ten times a day (no exageration there...honest) how much the people here "suck". He takes all the insults that people say on the street as a personal insult. The kids here always ask if we want coffee as their big joke. The other day Durrant snapped and went up to the kid and said yes he would like some, then he said to the kid "Oh that's right you can't get me coffee because you can't even afford dinner for tonght." I just about hit him when he said that. Then he turned to me and told me not to let the insults bother me. lol...ok? I try my best to tune out all his negative comments about the people and the country, but having to listen to it everyday for six weeks is rather difficult and sometimes (like last week) it gets to me. I love it here and am trying like crazy to earn respect from the people and to love them all at the same time. It works pretty well, especially since I can play the piano:)

Now to answer your questions.

Yes I am getting better at understanding people. Still not amazing at it yet, but I'm getting better. Oh and we found out that we don't have a rat. We have a mouse. That's why the rat trap that is for big rats didn't go off on this little mouse, and of course they don't sell regular mouse traps here. Just big rat traps lol. Oh and I got that first package:) That picture made me and my comp laugh so hard! It was great getting it! Thank you! oh and the chocolate was really good. I have almost run out of the candy that Kristi sent me in the MTC so it was nice to get that candy.

Well that's about it for this week. Until next week family:) Thanks to everyone that wrote:)

Love,

Elder Travis Neiswender

Tom and Jerry

Dear Mom and everybody,

Thanks for the list of all the people that you are sending this too. It´s good to hear that BYU was finally able to win a game and the FSU beat Miami!! I haven´t gotten the package yet, but we don´´t get mail until tuesdays usually. It doesn´t quite make sense to me lol. oh well. I´ll keep you posted on it. As for the internet time, yes I have to pay but it is way cheap. We are talking for 2 hours it´s about a dollar. So yeah it would be easier and faster to just write through emails. That´s weird to think that David is going to be singing with the Tab Choir. Some of the missionaries down here that I know were here when he came and did a special fireside for the missionaries down here. My wrist is doing great. I can still play the piano in church and everything, it´s just when I bend it back real far that it hurts more than it should. San Pedro is way green, but to be honest it´s hard to apprciate all the green when all the streets are covered with garbage and you have to watch your step or there is a great chance of stepping in garbage. It´s not on the beach, it´s actually in a valley so I do get to see mountains, but they just aren´t the same as Utah mountains.

The people...they really like to insult gringos that can´t speak Spanish. Luckily I can´t understand all that they say, but my companion tells me enough of what they say. But I am still trying to love them:)

As for the subject line of this email Tom and Jerry. That´s really how I fell right now. We have a rat in our house that we found last Monday. I actually haven´t seen him but my comp did. We bought a rat trap thursday when we were at the store. however The first night that rat just ate the bread and peanut butter right off the trap. The next night we put a piece of hot dog on it. And the same thing happened. The last night we tested the trap by throwing little pieces of soap at it and it worked great on the soap. So we set the trap with more hot dog. When we woke up the peice of hot dog was gone and the trap still didn´t go off. So now it´s rat 3 humans 0. We just can´t catch this rat lol.

Well that´s about all that´s happened this week. ill keep you posted on the package.

Love,

Elder Neiswender

Ouch

Dear Mom and everyone else,

Things are going well down here. Not a whole heck of a lot has happened the past week. Me and my comp and another two baptisms. It was awesome because they were baptised by their family members.

Yes I did get to watch all of conference and in English too!!! It was great to be able to hear all that they had to say and understand it because all of the meetings that we have down here are in Spanish so I can't quite understand everything they are saying. Just the basics of what they are talking about.

I'm going to take a wild shot in the dark and say thay BYU isn't going to be going to the Las Vegas Bowl this year...Just a wild guess:) Maybe I should come back because they seemed to do pretty good when I was there;) Oh well maybe a miracle will happen and we will beat the ranked Utah Utes and TCU.

Quick question to Dad. They redid the IMAX screen late last April. So are they replacing it again? thats wierd of them lol. I thought I saw Adam in that MTC choir but I wasn't sure because I thought that he had left the MTC already. Chris was in the Guatamala MTC so he didn't get the chance to sing in the choir but I don't know how excited he would have been to sing in another choir:)

Thanks for forewarding the emails from Ryan and Grant to me. it was good to hear about them.

A quick note to Elder Ryan Horne...I'm in Honduras and Elder Chris Horne is in Guatamala:)

Could you send me a list of all the people you are sending my emails to and I will tell you if there are any others that would be interested? Thanks:)

Ok so time for the funny yet really painful story. Between the Saturday morning and afternoon session of conference me and another Elder were sent to get food for everybody. As we walked out of the church I saw what thought I would never see in Honduras. A real basketball hoop. I couldn't resist so I checked to make sure it was just me and the other missionary, then got a nice running start and jumped to see if I could still touch the rim. I GOT IT. I can still touch the rim! But oh man I haven't jumped like that since the first week in the MTC! I landed...lost my balance and fell down. At first I didn't think anything was wrong. My wrist hurt a little bit but not much. So we went through the day and by the end of priesthood session my hand hurt so freaking bad. I figured "great I think I sprained my hand" First thought was to get home and put ice on it...One problem with that is that ice doesn't stay frozen very long here! So thank you mom for making me take that bottle of Ibeprofen with me. It helped a little bit. It was still the longest night so far because no matter where I put my wrist the entire night, it would start hurting five minutes later. Oh yeah and we didn't have anything to wrap it in either. So I had to wait till the zone nurse got to conference Sunday after the first session to get it wrapped up. Luckily it is only just sprained. She wrapped it up nice and tight and after a few minutes my fingers started turning purple. She said it was just cause I was cold (Air conditioning in the Church:)) She finally decided it was too tight when I told her I couldn't feel my thumb anymore. lol. But now it's wrapped up nice and not cutting off the circulation:)

well that's all for this week:) I'll write more next week.

Love

Elder Travis Neiswender

Baptisms!

Dear Mom, and everyone!

How are things back on the Homefront? Everything is going good down here.

This week has been so freaking busy. We had to get ready for four baptisms on Saturday and I got to baptize 3 of them! I had the baptismal prayer down and everything, but I still can't say the names right down here. Oh well it will come. I can actually understand some of what the people here are trying to say to me some of the time. Actually I can understand where we are in the lessons, but in regular conversations...not yet.

So the baptism the other day was great. It kind of reminded me of how the weddings go in our family. The night before there was a big rain storm and we didn't have any water at our house, so naturally we were worried that there wouldn't be water at the church. Luckily they have a researve of water under the church for just that reason. Everything after that seemed to go real smooth until the time that we were trying to leave to go to the baptism. We got hit by a huge rainstorm about five minutes before we were supposed to leave. It was huge! The people here were saying it was a hurricane...I don't know if I want to believe that so if anyone there wants to look it up and see if it was or not that would be great. :) It rained so hard it turned the nice dirt roads into rivers. I had to cross one but I didn't know where the heck I was going to cross. Then this guy drives up in a truck and starts talking to me in Spanish. It was raining so hard I could barely hear him as it was. My companion told me that the guy was saying to cross over the bed of the truck and the streets are narrow enough that we could jump from the side of the truck and make it to the other side. So that's what I did. I still don't know who the driver of the truck was. Anyway so three out of the four showed up. After waiting a while the fourth girl showed up, we asked why she was late, and she told us that she and her friend had gotten robbed on their way to the baptism. Crazy. But after that everything went smooth. It just reminded me of the weddings in our family because all the weird bad things wait to the last minute to happen lol:)

Any way. Quick question mom. did you add verl greenhalgh to the email list when he asked you to forward his email to me? If not will you do so:) Maybe you could send me a list of all the people you are sending my emails to and I will let you know if there are anymore:)

Well that's all for this week, hope everything is going well back at home!

Love,

Elder Travis Neiswender

"God Sees All"

Dear Mom and everybodyelse,

First, Happy Birthday Madison and Danielle!!!! I feel bad that I didn't say that in my last email. I was thinking about the whole day befoe and the next time I thought of it was after we had finished our time at the internet.

Well this week hasn't been nearly as fun as the first week. :) and by not as fun, I mean that I wasn't robbed or bit by any more dogs yet. As for the hole in my pants it was just the two holes in them from dog's two sharp teeth. Just those two little holes. It's nothing really bad, and you can't even really tell when I walk. You know I was thinking of Joseph Smith a lot that first week too. I figured I haven't been tarred and feathered yet so I can't complain. The funny thing about it all is that the story of getting robbed and bit doesn't even phase the other missionaries. They all just say "welcome to Honduras". It sounds weird,but I'm really glad that none of them made a big deal about it. They just say to carry a few cents just to make make the robbers happy.

I guess the story of the week happened on Saturday. There was a big dance/get together with all the youth kindof like a seminary or stake dance. Me and my comp didn't go because we had a lot of appointments to get to. We found out at the end of the dance that the rest of our district had gone and been there from 3:00 in the afternoon to about 8:00 at night. We found that out and one of the ones that was there was the district leader so now they keep calling us and asking why we don't have baptisms yet, just trying to make us look bad so that if we tell on them to the president then they will try to tell him that we weren't working. They are really paranoid...some of them are weird like that. Made me chuckle a little bit down inside.

That's cool that Matt got home the other day, it doesn't seem like he left that long ago at all. You can tell him that I haven't gotten doors slammed in my face because there aren't a whole lot of doors here. A lot of them just have sheets covering their doorways.

That's funny to hear about good ole Ryan. Glad to hear that everything worked out for him. He always seemed really distracted whenever I would see him at the MTC, he would say hi and then run of and start studying Japanese again. I was able to corner him a couple of times in the cafeteria though. Funny kid. I never thought of it like Sister Horne said about being brilliant but not trusting him to cross the street alone. lol

Ok so my P-day is Monday. Last week was different because we had the Seventy over our mission zone,area, district, thing (I still don't know how they are all separated). I thing he is over Central America. Anyway he came and spoke to us last Monday so P-day got moved to tuesday.

I'm not going to lie. Most of the food down here is really bland and filled with...hold on to your socks...Onions, peppers, chillies, and just about all of the other foods that I said that I would force myself to like when I got called to Central America. Oh Karma!!! Luckily the members don't feed us all that often. I get to live off of Mac and Cheese, Cup n Noodles, Hot Dogs, and of course PB&Js :) And I do have the candy that my good sister Kristi sent me that really helps get the lingering taste of Onions and whatever else was in dinner that night out of my mouth. But hey only three more meals a day for how long? I can do it!!

By the way I hope this gets to you before you send that package. The President says that if anyone sends packages, the ones that are usually left alone are the ones with pictures of Jesus on them. Go figure. One missionary says that his Mom puts a picture of Jesus with "God sees all" in Spanish written under it.

Did Dad get my address to the people at Jordan Common's yet?

Ok one last request, and it's going to sound strange I know. But one P-days we have a lot of down time and you can only play so many games of Monopoly with the same guy lol. Would it be possible for you to send my 1050 math book down here. With the Moroon covered book that is the book that details how most of the problems are supposed to be done. I am hoping to be able to study that for a little bit of time on P-days so that maybe I can just test out of that class when I get back home:) If you could do that it would be great!!

Tell Kaitlin congradulations on winning the Miss Murray pagent...wait you are sending this to her too right? My bad...Congradulations on winning the Miss Murray pagent Kaitlin! That's so awesome! Good luck in the Miss Utah pagent!

Well that's all for this week. Talk to you all next week.

Love,

Elder Travis Neiswender

Bitten and Robbed: Welcome to Honduras

Dear Mom and everybody,

Well this is the first email from Honduras!!! It's been a crazy first week here in this country. So much to tell so I'll try to start at the beginning. First, Troy and Logan were right, I did feel my suit suddenly start sticking to me when I first got off the plane. It was 8:30 at night and it was still amazingly hot. We started going through customs and got a chance to practice my Spanish on complete strangers. It was fun. I didn't see the mission President at customs and got worried that he had forgotten or something like you only see in the movies. Luckly he was just around the corner after we got through customs. He took us to the mission secretary's (that's a missionary position that I never heard about) and he got us Wendy's which is not the same as in the states, too bad. Everybody drives so fast here. Even in the city streets my President Veirs was hauling at 75 mph. I thought I was going to die, but I didn't thankfully. :)

On Tuesday we got to go to President's house for breakfast and interviews. Elder Ellett told them that I play the piano so I got to play my two Yanni songs Marching Seasons and Reflections of Passion for them. They really liked it. They also say that I can listen to Yanni and Tab Choir and the Bagpipes, so I get to keep my sanity that way.

We went out contacting for about an hour and a half later that day with just random missionaries that were not going to be our real companions. While my temporary companion and I were contacting, I got to meet my first drunk here in Honduras and he spoke english. He kept asking us why we were in Honduras, so we told him. Then he started swearing and saying that Abraham came before Jesus...funny, I think we believe that one too:)

Oh and Uncle Logan...you made the cold showers here sound like a bad thing. It was the best thing ever to finally be able to hop into a real cold shower and not feel hot and sticky for a those few minutes. And Dad, I kept saying I couldn't wait to take a shower and dry off with a towel but never be dry no matter how much I used the towell, and you kept saying it wouldn't be that way lol, well it was just like I pictured it. The get I use takes forever to dry. It's quite an adventure.

My companion here in Honduras is really cool. He's actually just from West Jordan and he goes home in five weeks. He had to have surgery on his foot my third day here to remove ten planters warts so he couldn't walk or two days so we were just stuck in the house for two days.

Ok now for the fun experiences.

President said that he and his wife called you and told you that my plane landed safely which it did. He also told me that he told you that I got robbed on Thursday. That is true. All the missionariers were surprised to hear that I had already gotten robbed on my second day. They took my watch and 5 limpidas or about 25 cents. I was only a little shaken up after that:)

Later that day we were out contacting and my companion told me to go contact this one lady that was just sitting there holding her kid. I went up, said hello, she turned around and was just sitting there breastfeeding that little kid. Needless to say it was a short contact and then we got out of there.

On Sunday we were around contacting a little because one of our appointments fell through and out of the corner of my eye I see a dog, I like dogs but I just kept walking. The dog started coming up behind me, I didn't think anything of it because we have had a few nice dogs that will just follow us to the church. Then the dog bit my on the back of my lower thigh and then ran off! but I still like dogs...I still like dogs. It poked two nice holes in my black pants but didn't even leave a mark on my garments or my leg. It was pretty cool. Or as cool as getting bit by a dog.

Well those are all the real fun stories of the first week. Now I will answer your questions. So far what do I think of Honduras? Well they have little mountains that are covered with lush green growth. That part is pretty. After that...it gets questionable. The people quite often take their garbage out on the street and just burn it. Right on the side of the street. Because they are always burning their garbage it smells horrible. It always smells like smoke mixed with a few other things. The people are amazingly cocky, they think that everything American was actually made in Honduras then stolen by America. They complain that America never sends any help, but when America does send money, the people here go and blow it on cable tv and new cell phones. They live in shammbles but still have cable tv and cell phones. In a lot of the really poor areas which by the way are really really really really poor, they have their ideas for architcture all wrong. The build the walls of the house out of blankets and use the cinderblocks for their beds. It seems kind of backwards.

Well I'm out of time,

know that I do love it here

Love,

Elder Travis Neiswender

Take Alcohol (August 30th E-mail)

Yes we finally got our travel plans Friday! :) We are leaving Monday September 6th. That is also labor day yes? I am going to miss it here but I'm so excited to get out and start doing the work with real people!! Yes I will get a chance to call you guys. We actually have two lay overs to get to Honduras. We leave the Salt Lake airport at 6:00 in the morning, then fly to Dallas. I won't have time to call in Dallas, from there we fly to Miami and have a five hour layover there. Like I said I don't know if I will get a chance to call from Salt Lake, but I will definately have time to call from Miami. We land in Miami at 2:40 pm Miami time so that's 12:40(?) Salt Lake time. Then our flight leaves from Miami to Honduras around 7:25 Miami time. So if you want, write me a letter telling me when you want me to call, and I will do my best to call then, but I will call for sure. Probably between 4:00 and 6:00 Miami (2:00 and 4:00 our) time should work out. Oh and does anybody know how much it would cost for that kind of a call? If you could tell me that would be great. I'm really looking forward to talking to you again.

We got the whole going away and how to travel pep talk yesterday from our Branch President (yes the one that is awesome and has done everything, and knows everybody...Like Mike Fisher;)). Really good advice from him. He knows pretty much all the airports inside and outside and some sideways too. He told us yesterday that he has flown over 12 million miles in his time. And yes he has flown on Air Force One. This guy is amazing!

We were talking about how scary/cool it would be to fly through (only the idea was cool to landlocked people who had never seen a real hurricane). President Studdard, who is on wikipedia if any one wants to look him up and make sure I'm not lying about how cool he is, very calmly gave us a short story and said "Now when you're in one of those little eight man airplanes and you're in a storm getting tossed around and having been struck by lightning and you can see the pilot (because the small plane didn't have a cockpit door) and he is crossing himself (found out that means the Catholic cross) saying 'we're gonna die we're gonna die' then it's really scary. I thought we were going down for sure." and he told the whole story with a smile on his face and just so calmly like it happens to everyone! Oh and he smiles even when he frowns kinda like President Ruben.

So joke of the week is on me and my wonderul Spanish. Friday night I was feeling pretty good about my Spanish, like I was ready to go and "Cut my teeth" on real people. Saturday, for the teaching we do to volunteers that speak our same language, my companion and I started out with an Elder who also was learning Spanish and so we talked nice and slow and it went well, but during the break we had, they got some volunteers so they switched out the nice slow talking Elder with the RAPIDO teenage girls! I think I understood three words they said. We would ask a question (about the word of wisdom) they would say something back and we would nod and keep going. It was really hard. But the best was when I tried asking them if they wanted to quit alcohol. They all strarted laughing jibbering in Spanish. Found out later I asked if they wanted to take of alcohol instead. Oh well won't make that mistake again...

Hopefully,

Well I'm all out of time. Love you all. Let me know when to call you:)

Love,

Elder Travis Neiswender

August 23rd E-mail

So I got a funny letter from cousin Elder Greenhalgh the other day asking what was new at the MTC! lol. I Wonder sometimes if this place ever changes or if it is same as when Troy was here. Not that it's a bad thing. It's way fun here and there is plenty to do, and of course very spiritual. I actually learned how to pray for more than three minutes at a time like all my three minute prayers at home!! I actually learned it a couple weeks ago, but it still happens. I thought Uncle Doug was crazy in his letter he wrote with the family talked about saying fifteen to thirty minute prayers. I couldn't see how that would happen. My second or third week here (they all kindof blend together but I'm told that's a good thing) one of the older missionaries were talking and he told me how he was challenged to pray and to keep praying until he actually for sure felt the presence of the Holy Ghost there with him. He challenged me to do the same thing. I thought it was a little weird cause I thought that I had really felt the spirit sometimes in my dinky little two-three minute prayers. But I figured I would try it anyway and it was amazing!!!!!!! Sure it took twenty minutes, but when it happened I remembered all of the reasons I was out here. Not that I have been doubting, but it's always nice to get a reminded.

It's really weird. We have a new district in our zone that had been here for almost two weeks now. When they first got here they looked so young. It's like Josh told me before I came. Even though we are just a few weeks apart it still seems like years differences. I was having fun watching them "grow up" and pointing out how they look more like missionaries now when another elder showed me a picture of my district the second or third week here and we all looked so relly young. It's really amazing how much you grow up here and not just mentally and emotionally. I understand why some people are surprised when they find out that we are just 19 and 20 year olds. There is an actually physical change that makes missionaries look older. I can't describe it except to say that it's amazing.

So fun fact of the week. (actually it was a few weeks ago. I'm bad at this game.) There is an Elder here from Alabama, I think I have told you about him. He played football and soccer in high school. Anyways...I found out that he actually played football with Phillip River's (quarterback of the San Diego Chargers) brother in high school and that they are from the same town. It was fun for me because I love football!!! Good times good times.

Oh so quick question...are there any fires going on in or around Utah Valley because it has seemed really really really smoky these past few days.

Well I'm almost out of time so I won't get to start the tradition this week, but I'll start it next week. I'm going to try to put a choke at the end of every email. Just remember I am on a msision so some will be very cheesy;) but it will help every one smile.

You can send jokes if you want to too :)

Much love,

Elder Travis Neiswender

August 16th E-mail

Dear Mom, and everyone else.

Thank you for the pitch pipe it has made singing hymns in class a lot easier :) Most people didn't even know what it was and I had to explain it to them. It was fun. So yes the box did get here just fine with everything. Thank you.

And as long as you are sending cookies...I have been craving some gatorade. only have lemonade, powerade, and soda. And let's face it...some dark purple (Grape) Gatorade is better than all those:)

Just letting you know, while I'm here at the MTC I Check my emails around 12:00.

The letter with ink or pencil is a fun choice to make. I tried writing one in ink, but I keep getting frustrated with my own handwriting and instead of eraesing I had a letter filled with words crossed out and it's worse now with half the words coming out in Spanish. It's the downside to having bad handwriting. I can send you some in ink, but they might be really messy so just let me know what you want to do.

So, funny story of the week. I found out why me and my companion get along so well. (We haven't had any fights in the whole time we have been here). He was telling me about a girl he dated a while ago and that her last name was Blackburn. I told him that I was rellated to Blackeburns. That's when he told me he was actually related to Blackburns. So after a few minutes told him that I was from Dorothy Blackburn and he is from Elda Blackburn. I don't remember that name from grandma's stories, but when I told him about Lorenzo Blackburn that sealed the deal. He told me that he has a picture of Lorenzo Blackburn. So we know we are related pretty close (especially for being in the MTC) but we don't know just how close, if it is possible, could I get a few more generation of geneology on the blackburn line? yes Grandma Neiswender can send it to me by herself:) Elder Ellett is going to ask if we could get a copy of the picture of Lorenzo Blackburn. It's crazy :)

I've also been asked by the Branch President to make an arrangement of Where can I Turn for Peace to sing in our zone sacrament meeting! Should be fun. And a couple of the other elders in my district want me to arrange Amazing Grace to sing in a fireside or devotional. They are both oked by the branch president to work on so it's not bad for me to work on them on my own time:)

It was fun yesterday. I was in the cafeteria and looked across that the next table in front of me and saw Elder Horne. We made a few gentures of hello and then he started making weird gestures and pointing at what I thought was me. I finally caught on to trun around and when I did, there was Elder Ruben. It was a good time to get us all together, but no Elder Abeyta yet. I have only seen him once.

As of right now I am scheduled to leave on September 6th. But that is not in concrete. I will get my travel papers in a weed or a week and a half. They send a copy of them to you so we can work things out then.

Much Love,

Elder Neiswender

August 9th E-mail

thanks for those great pictures of my new nephew! He has quite a lip:) Just one question...How come there is a picture with grandpa and Dallin, but no Grandma and Dallin? And was it as hard to get a picture of Dallin with his eys open as his grandpa with his eyes open;) Chisteando (yes Troy and Logan I realize that isn't quite the word for just kidding).

This weed has been great. We learned a couple new grammer rules and I was actually able to understand them! Whether I can actually use them in real senteces is still questionable. But the language started picking up a lot and now I'm cruising (relatively) through El Libro de Mormón. Sorry if there are a few times that I accidentally slip into Spanish for. It´s real fun here! We had our "Halfway through the MTC" party on Wednesday (even though the halfway point wasn't actually till Saturday). I feel bad for most of the Elders in my zone here. Probably about 36 of them have been called to Mexico, and the church has been having lots of problems getting visas for Mexico so those elders are going to be staying at the MTC for a while. It's not just our zone either. It's the wholde MTC! I met an Elder the other week that had been here for 17 weeks!!! I mean the MTC is great, but man that's almost four months! I started getting worried that that would happen to us that are going to Honduras, but we lucked out because we don't need visas to get into Honduras. They just did all that background stuff to make sure we are good people.

Were you able to get Tim Richardson's, Chris Horne's and Andrew Abeyta's email addresses? And Bishop Collette's if he wants to get these? Speaking of people in the ward, I can't remember if I told you this already, but Chelsea Schlegal (?) was in the same zone as me. She left the MTC about two weeks before I came in. Oh and I saw Elder Ruben yesterday. It was fun because we were outside and he didn't even realize that Timp was in perfect view of the MTC! So we chatted about hiking it the Friday before I came in. It was fun. By the way...if you could also send these tocody.maxfield@myldsmail.net that would be awesome. Elder Cody Maxfield is a friend from high school and actually hiked Timp with me and Elder Ruben. He's going to Florida and got in the MTC after me but has already left!!

Have you sent that super dooper drying towel yet? Cause if you have, I haven't gotten it yet.

How is the family doing. How are cousins grandmas and grandpa, aunts and uncles doing? I haven't heard anything from or about them (except the timp hike) yet.

Alright I still have a few minutes so I'll attempt to bear my testimony in Español.

Yo tengo un testimonio sobre Dios y Jesucristo. Yo sé que Jesucristo es el hijo de Dios y mi salvdador. Sé que José Smith fue un profeta llama de Dios, y Thomas S. Monson es el profeta de Dios sobre la tierra hoy. Sé que Jose Smith tradujo El Libro de Mormón por poder de Dios.

That's all I have time for. Troy and Logan feel free to grammer and spell check that and help me out if you want.

,Lovem

dElder neiswender

July 26th E-mail

It's been a busy week here too. yes I did finally get everything from the missionary mall. But then again every week here is. The analogy my branch president used is it's like trying to get a drink of water from a fire hydrant!!! I couldn't agree with him more.

First and foremost to my sister Madison. Guess who is in the same computer room with while I am writing this email (besides my companion)...Sister Purser! She is wondering why she hasn't gotten a letter from you yet. I told her I'd get you to write her one, so You should write Marissa...Sister Purser a letter.

Oh and happy birthday Troy! I know it's late but it was right in the middle of the week. And mom I don't want to do the math right now and I'm not sure if your birthday is before next monday or on next monday, but Happy Birthday anyway.

Sorry if I ask about things that you have already answered in you letter. I didn't get it this mornign so I will have to wait till tonight to read and P-day ends at six.

How was the reunion? Who won the rook tournament? How was the food, games and other festivities? Just wondering, are there any other missionaries from the big family out right now or am I the only one? Did anybody hike timp? I get to see that mountain almost 24/7!!! In my classroom we have a window, and Timp is pretty much centered in that window. So if anyone made it past the saddle or to the top, I'll just pretend that I saw them wave. I can see that it has no snow (on the Utah Valley side) so I know there can't be a whole lot on the other side. Pretty sure I could make it now. I always talk about hiking timp when I'm around the Elders. They keep telling me to just sneak off one night and hike it real quick, and I must admit it sounds kind of appealing. The only time we get to see the outside world is when we get to walk around the temple on Sundays.

Speaking of the temple, it opens soon so we get to go next week!!!

How was having the 24th of July at the family reunion? We really didn't get any celebration at all here. The closest I got to any kind of festivities here was around 10:15 when from our bed room window, off in the distance, over a treeline, we could see all the fireworks...that went really high, and not many went high enough.

So it's been pinned up in my room for almost three weeks now, and Mike's mafia picture is still considered the best picture in the district.

My branch president is awesome!!! I found out this week that he served on three different presidential staffs. I think it was Reagan, Ford, and I can't remember the last one. But he has met all sorts of people. He was down in Haiti this week helping out down there. Oh and I get to play the piano in some of the meetings. It's great! They always choose songs that I don't know so I have to learn them. It's fun. But what is not fun is when President Studdard decides to change the song at the pulpit to a song that I don't know. He's done that three times to me! Luckily there are a couple of other pianist in our branch.

We got a new group of missionaries this week so we aren't the youngest anymore!! Not that there's a problem with being the youngest:) There are elders that are from all over country in the new district. It's funny one companionship is an elder from Alabama and an elder from Texas. No one else here thinks that was funny, but then again the national championship was a whole six months ago. The elder from Alabama plays football and was actually getting recruited by Tenessee before he came on his mission and before Couch Lane Kiffen moved to USC.

By the way, I don't know peoples' address. So if any of you (VICKI AND MELENIE) want me to write you...you need to write me first:)

Well I'm out of time.

I'll talk to you all next week.

Love,

Elder Travis Neiswender

Beware of Hungry Elders

Things here are pretty much about the same. Except the temple is open now! we got to go earlier today! It was great!!

Hey I'm not sure, what's Chris Hornes address? If you could get that for me and maybe snail mail it that would be awesome.

There was almost a fight in the cafeteria yesterday. It was dinner (after the fast) and a really really tall elder wanted more food on his plate then he actually got (no this is not me), which is totally fine. So he turned to a Branch President behind him and gave the plate to him. the way I understand it is that he might not have been very nice about it, but after he got his plate with more food, an elder who was with the branch president, and seemed like he just wanted to pick a fight, followed the really tall elder across the lunch room to tell him to have more repect for the president. He was a shorter elder so as they started yelling at each other he showed off his little man syndrome and started trying to act tough and intimidate the really tall elder. It would have been commical if they hadn't started swearing at each other. I sat next the shorter elder in the fireside afterwards and he kept telling me how he had hoped the tall elder would throw a punch because he could take it and beat up the tall elder. Somehow I couldn't help but laugh deep inside, but on the surface he was just flat out annoying lol. We all know those kinds of people. I really wanted to just stand up, stoop down to eye level and asked him if he felt like a better person. But I then I realized that that would probably only spark his little man syndrome again and I didn't want to do that. My companion and roommates were feeling the same way lol:) ...some elders...I was actually kinda surprised there weren't more confrontations like that. I mean a whole day without food, and a cafeteria with hundreds of really hungry elders? What would you expect? lol:)

Spanish is coming along. I was talking with my branch president about it. He asked if it felt like two steps foreward, one step back. I told him that's pretty much how it felt. he got this big jolley grin on his face and saids that's exactly how it should be :) I love the branch president. Right after telling me that he gave me a very detailed plan that would enable to get the brownies from the end of the ice cream line, get a class of milk, and that's how you get close to chocolate cake. He also has a story for everything. And it's never just "In my life I've seen...". It's always "Now when I was with Elder Packer, or Elder '...' or President Hinkley." It seems like he's spent half his life with apostles so it's hard to argue when he tells you to stand up when you pray instead of sitting because that's what President Packer told him :)

Frizz Here

Hello friends and family!! Glad that you've stopped by to check up on Travis' mission! It has taken me a while to get this up and fully running, but we are at about 95% now! It's just a matter of getting up an actual post on his mish and some pictures, don't worry, coming very soon, hopefully in the next day or two. As for now, know that he is safe and enjoying the MTC.

Please feel free to leave comments and if you would like I'll pass them on to him.