Letter from the Editor (Dad)

Since I have had a few people respond with concerns for Steven I feel the need to give everyone a little more detail. We were able to speak with him for a little over an hour on Christmas day and the overall tone of the conversation was very positive and upbeat, in spite of the illness and difficult companion. We could still hear the genuine love of missionary work, Honduras and the people, so those are all very positive things. He laughed and joked on the phone as if he had only been gone a short time and did not appear to be homesick in any way.

Simply put, he really has a strong desire to work hard and do the right things, but is frustrated by not knowing how best to handle the situation since he is still very new to the mission. He knows that things can’t continue as they have been, but at the same time doesn’t want to be branded as a snitch or tattle-tale among his fellow missionaries. He mentioned that someone told him that the local congregational leader was aware of the problems and would be talking to his companion on Sunday, but unfortunately that didn’t happen as hoped for. Maybe it will happen this week and help snap his companion back into shape. You can see from Steven’s letter that this is what he is hoping for.

Those of you who know Steven well will know that he is a very kind and mild-mannered young man. He is non-confrontational and not one to voice his concerns or emotions openly, so this situation is challenging that part of his personality. As a father, I am grateful for the opportunity that this is giving him to stretch and grow, as I am sure that things will eventually improve and that he will learn some important life-lessons from this experience.

Any words of encouragement that you want to send him will be greatly appreciated, I’m sure. His email address is Steven.Neher@myldsmail.net. Since he has a very limited time on the computer each week (less than an hour), please don’t be upset if he cannot respond in depth to each email.

Thanks again for your continued interest in and support of Steven on his mission.

Greg Neher

Week #19 - Feliz Christmas (Bellavista Branch)

Hola amigos and Familia!

Well to update all on what we did this week was basically nothing. Nothing at all, no lessons, no visits with members and I feel terrible about it. I know we are losing the trust and confidence of the members here, which is kind of frustrating because I love them all so much. I really can’t do much because I’m "not in charge of the area" so there’s nothing I can really do. One of the members at the cook´s house told me that the members think we don’t care about them anymore because with most of them we used to pass by at least once a week and now we don’t. Nothing happened at church yesterday like I thought it would and I haven’t said anything to my leaders yet either. I want to wait and see what happens this next week after New Years.

Well I hope everyone had a great Christmas back in the states and that its nice and cold over there :P haha! Well tonight my cook is going to kill an iguana to cook, which sounds really good! I picked it up last night thinking it was dead, but it was still alive! It was super cold, and its tail is huge! Of course I took pictures of it, haha it was awesome! Well I don’t really have much to write today, like I said, we have basically done nothing. It seems to me that many of the Latin elders here think they’re on a vacation.

I got sick this week, I’m sure because of my disobedience, along with my comp, who hasn’t been up to par either. I talked to Hna. Soto who is a nurse and she said she could get some medicine for me, but I highly doubt I will get it because we probably won’t go over to her house. I do feel better though, so I’m just gonna wait it out. Hopefully next week will be better, after all the festivities.

I hope everyone back home had a great Christmas and that you have an even better New Years! I promise to write more when more stuff starts happening here!

Elder Neher

Week #18 - La Ceiba Multizona (Bellavista Branch)

Hola familia y amigos!

Well this week has still been kind of interesting. I kind of don´t really know what to talk about because not much of anything happened, and when I say nothing, I mean nothing. We started off the week good by working a bit harder, but then we had to put all the work on pause on Wed. because we had to go to a little town up in the mountains to get a Partida (something so people can get married here) and this town was a 2 hour drive from Olanchito up into the mountains, through fields and fields of bananas. I have never seen so many banana trees in my life! Also, I don’t recommend ever taking a school bus into the mountains… absolutely uncomfortable! It’s like a full body vibrating machine and I could barely walk when I got out! haha Anyway, we stopped in a town called Arenal, got the Partida and took the bus back home, but this time through Coyoles, which was a 45 minute drive, so I wonder why we didn’t take that route in the first place, but whatever. That day we did about no work because we spent so much time getting the Partida.

Thurs was the multizona activity in La Ceiba with the La Ceiba Zone. The city of La Ceiba is absolutely beautiful. I didn’t see much of it, but what I did see I loved. It’s really beautiful and I hope I can go there again sometime soon. The multizona was great! None of us like getting “macheted” by the AP’s, but I love it when President talks, he is so caring and compassionate and he truly is inspired to be here in this mission. It was a good day and I even got my back adjusted by Pres which was amazing. We also had a Christmas dinner there with the other zone, so now I know a couple more people in the mission, but still not many, but that´ll change for sure. 

 Zone Skit

 Colon Zone

 Colon & La Ceiba Zones

 Strike a pose!

On Friday we finally taught some lessons. We taught someone named Isaac, who came to church last Sunday and wanted to be baptized. He had been taught previously but couldn’t get baptized because his parents wouldn’t give him permission. Fortunately now they finally gave him permission and we baptized him yesterday, and I got to do it! That was really cool to do, even if the water was cold! haha We are teaching another guy who has had an interest in listening to us but has many questions and we can never get to the point of our lessons, but its fine because at least we are helping him. Saturday our branch had a Christmas dinner consisting of beans, cheese, tortillas and carne asada, but there wasn’t enough food for everyone which obviously caused some problems, but it was still fun to be there with the ward. The rest of Saturday and yesterday we didn’t do anything because my comp is "baggie" (basically he misses home because its Christmas time). I miss home too, but not to the point where I don’t want to work, and we are still spending a lot of time at my cook’s house, but I hope after Christmas it will get better. Finally, I haven't really gotten many letters from friends recently. I don't know if you let them know my email address or not but it would be nice to get some every once in a while.

Everything is great here. Hopefully we can find more people to teach and get more baptisms. I hope everyone at home is doing great as well! Talk to you on Saturday!!

Feliz Navidad!

Elder Neher

Week #17 - Tempermental Temperatures (Bellavista Branch)

Buenos Dias familia y amigos!

Well this week has been interesting, and by the title I hope you can kind of tell how it's been, hot one day, cold the next, and it keeps flip-flopping like that, but it’s all good here. Well I have no idea if we are doing a Christmas dinner as a mission or not, but I don't think so, cause everyone is so spread out. We do have a multizona meeting on Wednesday in La Ceiba, so that might count, but I have no idea.

Well I thought it was weird they took out Elder Elison too. They sent him to SPS again, opening an area called La Primavera, the richest part of SPS. It used to be the AP's area, but now they don’t have one, so we'll see what happens there. Well it’s been interesting trying to get used to my new comp. He's cool and basically he’s been raised in the church, but from what it sounds like he might have fallen away at one point.  But now he's here and we are going to be working hard this week, I can tell. This week has been kind of  hard because we have been contacting like crazy, putting citas with people, but then we forget where they live so we can’t teach them. Also, we still have been spending a lot of time at our cook's house, but I guess that’s changing too. I expressed how upset I’ve been recently because we’ve been spending time over there instead of going to the citas we had planned for the day, and one of the cooks daughters told him, so we had comp inventory today and he's going to be super "Fletch" (haha, mission term!)

Alright, so there are basically 3 types of missionaries: a Fletch, a Pilas, or a Planch missionary. Fletch basically means that they obey the rules so much that it becomes a nuisance to others, where he sits there and basically tells everyone what they're doing wrong. A Pilas elder is one who follows the rules, but doesn’t sit there and "give the machete" to those who aren’t as perfect as he is, like the Fletch would.  Then there's the Planch, an elder who basically doesn’t obey any of the rules and does whatever he wants. At least this is what I’ve come to understand of these definitions. Well at first I felt my comp was Planch, but now he's going to be Super Fletch, but hey, as long as we get work done, right?

Well I guess we've dropped most of my investigators too because we haven’t been to see them in about a week and a half =/ so looks like we might have to start from scratch, because Ingrid finally got baptized! haha, Well what ended up happening was we visited her and she didn’t want to get baptized one day and the next day do something stupid or something bad, and we tried reassuring her, but it didn’t seem what we were saying was helping, until we had divisions and my DL could come out and interview her. He said that after baptism we get the Holy Ghost who is our constant companion and will tell us what we should and shouldn’t do, and this reassured her to continue with the baptism. When we asked who she wanted to baptize her she said my DL because he fixed her problem, which is fine, because at least she got baptized!

Something cool I got to do this week was shake a monkey’s hand! haha When divisions started I went to the other side of Olantchito so my DL could do an interview with someone over there and we passed a house that had a monkey in a tree. Another elder has a pic of me with it, but its weird because if the monkey belongs to the family it will have a string tied to it and the tree, but this one was just doing whatever. It was pretty funny!

I have no idea how Christmas is going to work, I’ll let you know as soon as I figure something out, and I figured you might ask something about my physical state! Well, I am definitely losing weight! :P and I think I’m getting more muscle in my legs, but I need to work on my arms too, haha! My arms and face are getting tanner while everything else is about as white as snow, and my body is somewhat used to the food and climate, but I think it will still take some time to get used to it. Everything is going great here and I hope all is well with everyone back home!

Hasta luego!

Elder Neher

Week #16 - Turkeys, Changes and Wendy's (Bellavista Branch)

Hola todos!


Well I'm gonna start off first with the questions before I forget them, I try to write letters when I get the chance, but I’m running out of envelopes and need to find out where to buy more. I’m trying to take more pictures, but I don’t want that off chance I get robbed and its gone. My area is pretty safe, but we never go in the dangerous area, ever, everything is still in development there and it’s just not smart, and we try to stay with the light at night so that there isn’t an opportunity for a sneak attack.


Alright, well if you want a little insight on Honduran buses, you can take anything on them, and I mean ANYTHING. There are 2 kinds, school buses for closer towns, and ones that connect through to SPS or Ceiba are coach buses, with the compartments under the bus. Well, Tues. Elder Elison and I went to Tocoa and as we were getting on the coach bus I saw someone putting a live turkey under the bus. Its gotta be the funniest thing I’ve seen since I’ve been here! haha Man I love it down here! It’s all new and different, but I really don’t feel like I’m in another country at all. The members here really try and help and they’re really nice, especially considering the circumstances.


So last Monday after I sent my letter we found out who had changes. We thought only 2 from my district were going, (Elder Denning in Olanchito, and Elder Gracia in Coyoles), but they ended up leaving Elder Denning, white-washing Coyoles, (both E. Garcia and E. Staples), and Elder Elison. I was in complete shock! I didn’t think he was going to leave as early as he did! I still feel a little lost with what I’m doing right now, but I hope all goes well. Well so Tues. we went to Tocoa to drop off those that were leaving and I went on divisions to Aguan (another part of Tocoa) with Elder Osoy and Elder Merriman, waiting for my new comp. Our zone is so far that we don’t go to the change meeting if we don’t have a change.  While I was in Tocoa I finally got to go to Wendy's! haha It’s the only fast-food restaurant in the whole zone, so it was nice to eat there, but like typical Honduras they sell Baleadas, nachos, and fried chicken! haha

Anyways, my new comp is Elder Contreras, he's from Guatemala City, and he's been here for about 15 months already. So far he seems alright, he deep cleaned our house the first day we were back in our area and we spent 3-4 hours at our cook's house doing nothing, but I hope this next week we can start working harder. He says he wants to work hard but have fun at the same time, but he's been changing almost everything, and I feel he doesn’t want to work with members much. Granted a lot live far from our house, but I don’t know, we'll see what happens. Oh btw, I was at Wendy's again today and they were showing the game of River vs Colon! I left a little after half time so I have no idea how it ended, but it was 1-1 when I left.
 
In other news, Ingrid came to church! She's planning to get baptized this weekend if all goes well. I’m so glad she finally came to church, she has been progressing greatly, and I guess I’ll share her story. Elder Elison and Elder Vasquez (right before I came in) had contacted someone who said they lived on this certain street, they went back to go find her, but couldn’t find her and asked a house if she lived there, the owners looked a bit confused and brought out Ingrid, so they contacted her and I was here when we taught her the second lesson, and she has been progressing so much. The only problem was that it’s been hard for her to go to church because she works at this home and she watches one of the kids. She's either visiting family in Saba or she's at home and has to watch all the kids that are there because the rest are out doing something. She was pretty sad when Elder Elison left, and she told me when I visited with my new comp that she's believed everything we have taught her so far. We’ve taught her everything so now we just talk about some of the other things about the church, like temples. She and the others present loved the lesson and Ingrid made it a goal to go to one. She has been great so far, and I’m hoping we can find more investigators because we might have to drop a few, but we’ll see where it goes.
 
Everything’s going good down here. I got the first package, but like I said it takes forever for me to get stuff out here. I’m enjoying the work and enjoying it out here and I hope everything is going well state side!
 
Tenga una semana maciza!
 
Elder Steven Neher