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