Allen wrench in the tire

                         
                                     Ryan gets an Allen wrench stuck in his tire!!  Nice job!!

LV Missionaries

                                   
                          Mission call received and the Las Vegas missionaries help him celebrate!!!

OCTOBER 29, 2012

this week has been awesome! monday: we went to the outlet mall thats at the end of our zone. oh gosh. i miss shopping for things i dont need so much! i needed a new bag to bike with and work with because the one i have is getting pretty jacked up, so i bought a new one and an oregon shirt to rep my colors! then we watched the presidential debate. it was very informative minus like the WHOLE THING! since everything they were talking about has happened on my mission. lame.... but still. tuesday: we had district meeting in the morning and then exchanges. i went with a new missionary thats been out for about 2 weeks named elder sherwood from arkansas. hes super cool and funny guy,. i love him. we had a good day together. wednesday we exchanged back and then had a good day together with elder taetakua and i. we have SO MUCH fun together. i love polynesian companions. :D hahaaha. thursday we went to the spanish district meeting and it was really good then had our exchange with the spanish district leader and his companion. it was cool but that night we got a less then exciting call from my companion telling us about our investigator. we found this family through tracted and have been teaching them. theyre spanish. well, elder taetakua calls me and tells me that the mom just got out of jail febrauary for drug trafficking. turns out that she went to tijuana and woke up drugged up and was detained from the airport and found drugs stashed on her, so she has a court date in november and will probably spend 2 years in prison. fun times. so yah... friday nothing really happened, saturday was fun. we had our trunk or treat and we bought a bunch of candy and stapled mormon.org cards to each one. and had one of the young men sit in our trunk witha blanket over his head and scare the little kids as the reached into our trunk. HAHAHA!!! it was awesome. sunday not a whole lot went down either. renewed our covenants and were edified. yay. thats my week! we also found 4 new people to teach and have our first lessons with them this coming week! :D oh and we also have this performance going on on the 11th. its called the lamb of god and its an orchestra performance that all the zone leaders will be ushering for and then we gget awesome seats! :D yay! i love zone leadery thingy benefits. :DDD haha

now we have 12 investigators that weve found within the last 3 weeks. we have at least 7-8 appointments set up this week. which is the first in i dont even know how long. so yah. good stuff. good to have a hard working fun loving companion.

by the way. every time you talk about something along the lines of me going home or something to do with home, i show to the other elders and call it my mom's "trunky thought of the week" ;D haha

oh btw, did you know an eduardo deleon in college? filipino guy, short, wears glasses. well hes in my ward and he went to BYU Hawaii in 81 and thought he recognized your name, so i thought id asked. he said he went by edu (eh-doo) so yah. hes awesome! anyways.

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!

ELDER NONU

OCTOBER 22, 2012

this wek has been great!!! monday we had a good p-day, played some rugby and hung out with the other missionaries. that night we visited a member in the ward named bro nuckolls he had told us that he was working with a family and their 3 kids to try and get them baptised. well, when we stopped by he said he should try and call them and see if that was ok. they happened to be having a birthday party for the moms grandma and we walked over with him. we talked to the family and bro. nuckolls invited the kids to take lessons and they accepted. AWESOME!!!! thats 3 new people to teach. tuesday we had district meeting and started our exchanges with our district leader and his companion. it was a good exchange. SUPER RANDOM THOUGH!! nothing i planned to do happened, but we got some good food from this less active vietnamese lady. so good!!!! and we saw the mallorys (my favorite family in the ward) wednesday we switched back and i got my buddy taetakua back and then we got to go to the temple. WOO!!!! it was awesome. i had been going into the temple to see what we can do better to halp the members do missionary work. so we sat down in the chapel waiting for our session to start and the couple in front of us turns around and tells us that they just got back from a proselyting mission in england together and now they are serving as addiction recovery missionaries in the valley. he started testifying on how you need to TEACH the members how to find and how to do missionary work. so i took that for my answer. he continued to do so in the celestial room and then outside of the temple. it was awesome. we visited our ward mission leader later and turns out that he had been praying for the same thing and got the same answer! so we put a lesson plan together on teaching the members how to have faith in finding and how the atonement motivates us to share the gospel to our friends and family. which was AWESOME!!!!!!! thursday i got to go to lunch with mom and dad which was really fun. haha. elder taetakua loves you guys. aha. after we got our tire fixed because the night before i got a flat and looked at the tire and turns out i had an alen wrnech sticking out of my tire. really annoying. so we got it fixed for free by a shop up on the mountain. friday we planned for our next week, nothing special. saturday was really fun. we did a service project for the city as a zone. we cleaned up trash around a park it was really fun, then after they fed us burgers and ribs and salad and stuff. it was awesome!!! that night we had dinner with a part member family and shared a mormon message about the priesthood. we testified that the priesthood has been restored and invited him to take the lessons and he accepted!!! WOOOO!!!!! thats 4 people this week. awesome!!! it was so cool. sunday we had church and not a whole lot happened. at night though we had the why i believe fireside that weve been planning for about a month. before it started elder taetakua and i were running around trying to make sure everything was set up and that the program was ready.

That's my week,

Love you guys,

Elder Nonu

LOOK WHO WE HAD LUNCH WITH!!

Nonu and I go to Vegas for the day.  We got permission from Ryan's Mission President to take Ryan and his companion out to lunch.  It was so good to see him.  He's doing so well.  So grown up, but yet still the same ole' Ry.

OCTOBER 15, 2012

this week has been cool. monday was another boring p-day. we spent it saying good bye to people for elder hardy. tuesday was transfers and i saw james' wifes' brother there. hes in the zone that i just left. so i barely missed serving next to him. hes a cool guy though. we had fun with elder vaiaoga and latu (the missionary he's training) so that was fun. After we went to BJs :D with a member in our ward that works around the mission office. i got like 3 pizookies and we shared them. :P i love elder taetakua. hes a good missionary and a humble big tongan boy from hawaii. haha. weve been having a blast together. wednesday we had our lesson with the family that hardy and i found tracting. it went really well. we taught about the restoration of the gospel through jospeh smith and her kids were really interested and comitted to read and pray about the book of mormon. she had her sisters kids sit in as awell, and said shed ask if they can learn. so that was awesome. so thats a mom and 5 kids with a lot of potential. thursday nothing really, friday we had our zone meeting for our zone. elder taetakua was a little nervous, but he did really well. during zone meeting we just make announcements from zone leader council and relay them from president back to all of our missionaries. we also trained on planning and using the area book. it went well. some of the missionaries looked less then enthused but the missionaries that we see working really hard in their areas were the ones taking notes, engaging in the conversations. so it was good. then we took a missionary and his comp to lunch and i bought him lunch for his birthday. saturday we went to 2 baptisms. 1 for the spanish elders in the zone and another at night for the sisters in our district. its always a good saturday going to baptisms. so that was nice. sunday was great too. elder taetakua got to meet a bunch of the members and classes went well. scott (our recent convert) taught the gospel principles class, he was nervous too, but still did well. we had dinner with my favorite family in the ward. the wards. haha. and i got to see a missionary that was with me in the MTC whos a zone leader in the zone next to ours. after we headed home and called the mission president's secretary and got things figured out for the fireside that elder taetakua and I are in charge of next sunday. its called the "why i believe" fireside that the mission puts together once a month. scott is going to be speaking so were really excited about that. :D well, thats our week. today were playing rugby with a bunch of the elders in the mission, i found a rugby pitch in a park in our zone, so it should be fun. im excited.

ive heard of that place here in vegas. or at least i think they are. so thats cool. im glad Nan's found a job that shes liked. i miss santa cruz. its so friggin dry here its not even funny. i want the ocean. haha. but thats fun. i wish i could go. but ill get over it. -__- haha.

i dont know where Karifi lives but ill give him a call and drop some stuff off for you guys. so yah. did you send another mrs. fields package? btw. if you did, dont put elder ryan anymore. you have to put elder nonu because theres 3 ryans in the mission, one of which was my companion when i got the first one and they had to call us to figure it out. so yah. just for convenience.

thats awesome about keana though. im glad that she made that decision. she can turn in her papers the month i get home. haha. so ill get back and then shell be gone. thats cool. haha. did she get my letter? hope so.

anyways. all is well in vegas. btw, if you call the mission home and ask to take us to dinner you might be able to. ;D haha. just saying.

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!

OCTOBER 8, 2012

this week has been awesome!!!!!! monday was boring, did do much. tuesday we had our baptism for joey which was awesome. he asked me to baptize him. when we got into the changing room, we changed and he sat back and i asked him how he felt, and he said "my whole life just changed." and i gave him a hug. it was cool. really strong spirit there. wednesday we had ZLC and elder hardy and I gave a training to the other zone leaders. we had this survey at interviews and i guess our mission president and his wife thought we did really well with things (planning skills, obedience, area book care, etc.) so we gave a training on how everyone needs to be doing these things or we have no reason to be leaders and guide our missionaries on how its to be done properly. then we had a huge awesome lunch. :P thursday was REALLY awesome. wednesday night we were planning and we were thinking about where we should go, and i remembered a small court we always passed by thats tucked away off of a street, well thinking that missionaries NEVER have been there i said, "we should tract that street." and elder hardy says,"yah i was thinking that exact thing." so we went to it thursday and knocked on this door and a spanish lady answered and we went inside and left a blessing on her home. she said, "my three sons have been wanting to talk with you guys for a long time, can you come back next week?" well, our jaws dropped to say the least and we set an appointment for this wednesday! :DDDD haha. friday not a whole lot happened, then saturday was conference and we got wing stop for lunch!!!! SO GOOD!!!! SO THAT WAS AWESOME. sunday was awesome also with conference. other then that. it was great week. also. transfers is tomorrow and elder hardy is getting transferrred and i will be with elder taetekua, hes tongon from hawaii, so im sure this will be a fun transfer. im excited. :D

That's awesome about Keana and the temple too. i wish we could have done that. i thought about this ward and if we lived here id be there almost every morning. but its kind of sad when you see couples that dont go weekly when its down the street. LITERALLY. i figured you guys were going to at least one of the sessions. your so lucky. i wanted to go so bad. the conference was awesome!!!!! i loved elders holland and bednar's talks. they were awesome. ive been studying the healing, enabling, and exalting of the atonement, and sure enough thats exactly what everyone talked about. so that was nice to see also. and i need to write keana back, i lost my friggin stamps. so ill get on that. im attempting to write micheal also. i didnt realize hes been out for 6 months already. thats cool.

thats awesome about oregon too. theres a sister here that graduated from washington state so let me know what the score of that game is. ;D haha. ill be looking forward to that. haha. anyways. all is well here.

anyways. LOVE YA!!!!!

ELDER NONU

OCTOBER 1, 2012

Hi Mom and Dad,

This week has been good. monday we didnt do a whole lot. hardy got a hair cut and it was pretty boring. but yah. tuesday we had interviews with president and sister neider. he had a lot of questions about the zone and if im worried about any of the companionships. it was my favorite interview with president. we watched his general conference talk he gave. this month's ensign he actually has an article that he wrote. its about voting. Micheal A. Neider. i read it this morning. that night bro. mallory in our ward is the fire captian for the fire house here and he gave us a tour and let us mess with all the tools and stuff. it was really fun. all his nonmember coworkers were really nice to us. they were asking him a bunch of questions about missionaries and stuff. his son is serving a mission in seoul korea. pretty cool right? yah i know... haha. then wednesday we had district meeting in the morning, nothing special throughout the day. thursday we did a session in the temple and i almost got the ending perfect this time. aha. i felt accomplished. i learned some stuff also which was really cool. I love doing that. it felt like i was going to disneyland that morning. i was so anxious to go. it was awesome! friday wasnt too exciting either. saturday though was fun. we were on exchanges with a missionary i served around a couple transfers ago and we stayed up until around 2am just talking friday night. haha. in the morning we went to 2 baptisms. one for someone in our district and then a spanish baptism that elder bennett (my exchange comp) sang at. i could pretty much understand what they were saying. so that was good. ive heard enough spanish to be able to listen to people and know whats being said to me. so that was cool. joey also had his baptismal interview and passed of course. after the baptisms we went with scott (our recent convert) dale (his friend) and jessica (dales sister) to wing stop. weve gotten pretty close with all of them and elder bennett and i had a lot of fun. and the fun was awesome. :P sunday was rather interesting. church was really , the mission has set every fast sunday for the month as a day to fast to reach our mission baptismal goal of 1200 and hopefully well get close to it. the zone has been doing really well. we had 10 baptisms this past month which is AWESOME!!!! haha. so were really proud of how hard the missionaries are working. We had a meeting with our ward mission leader.  My companion, Elder Hardy told him he was getting burned out.  Then he looks at me,"youre not getting burnt out are you?" i said,"bro. agan ive been out for a year, i dont have the option of being burnt out, and ive been in every area for at least 4 1/2 to 6 months" he just says "good."  for dinner we went to bro. flanagan's house whos married to a mexican lady and she made some GOOD food. ever since ive eaten real mexican food, i cant stand taco bell or chipotle anymore. -___- sad, but oh so true. haha. then we had a fun lesson with joey and played a game about the ten commandments and then got his baptismal program figured out. so yah. good times.

 

Dad is still in my prayers. i fasted for him sunday. so that will help. if theres anything ive learned on my mission about a successful family for when im married, its that church, prayer, and reading are the fundamentals that will keep us happy. going to church as a family and getting things out of it together, praying morning and night as a family, and family home evenings every week, and daily family scripture study will make mountains move for a family. along with personal scripture study and prayer. it makes all the difference. building my testimony every day has helped me so much. before my mission i couldnt find 3 nephi in the book of mormon and hadnt even read it yet, and i could tell you who the apostles were or who was in the first presidency. now, i can tell you in depth what every story is about, ive truly come to grow a testimony of the atonement and an understanding that helps me brush off every little stupid thing like its not even there, and ive grown a very close relationship with god. i actually have a testimony and conviction opposed to an attendance record at church. it makes all the difference in the eternities.

 

anyways. all is well still. transfers are next tuesday and im excited to see what happens. love you all!!!!

ELDER NONU

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

FINALLY YOU WRITE ABOUT FOOTBALL!!!!!!! gosh. bro. mallory is a member we love in the ward and the ONLY person that talks about it or updates me. but i dont hear about it very often. i heard that the flippin pats lost to the rams. but oregon is 3-0 and destroying everyone also. so thats good. i just hope that they kill USC. that would excite me. hehe. :D i was so happy that they lost to stanford. so that made my week. anyways. all is well here.

monday didnt do much, tuesday we did service for this elderly couple in the ward, the rossers. we love them. haha. they have a closet full of food and let us go "shopping" after every service project or whenever we just feel like stopping by. wednesday we had district meeting and started our exchanges with the district leaders in the zone. I went with elder cornelison who came out with me, so that was SOOO much fun.

Friday, not a whole lot again, saturday was pretty good. the morning and afternoon was uneventful, but later that evening we played softball with the ward which was fun. and then went to a baptism for someone elder hardy taught. but the cool thing about this lady was that she was deaf. so the baptism, was done in sign language and the confirmation was done in sign language. it was rather interesting. aha. but the spirit was super strong. right before the baptism, the spanish ward was having a HUGE party, so i got some food. ;P so yah. that was my week in a nut shell. :)

Inot sure if ill get transferred or not. im assuming hardy will because weve been together for 2 transfers and hes been in the area for 3. but this area is so small, we struggle to stay busy all day. so yah. hopefully i leave soon. but i love the members so much. theyre all awesome. but they dont keep us busy. so yah.

we have a baptism for joey bagwell on the 2nd. so thats really exciting.

ill be praying for dad. OH YAH!! his friend kerifi is in the ward next to us. so he told me to tell him to call him. hes taking us to dinner next monday. so yah. his number is. 702-542-8959

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!

ELDER NONU

SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

Were planning on going to the temple this friday as a district, so that should be fun. well be going at the same time as the new missionaries so ill be able to see elder V and his trainee. so im looking forward to that. I got to see them last night. we picked them up for a mission fireside and then dropped them off. theres a fijian guy, bro. tui, that we know that is super cool, so we went over there and hung out with him for a bit and 2 other missionaries. elders vakauta and ioane. we ate curry and told bro tui that he needs to go to church and dump his nonmember girlfriend so he can go to the temple. it was funny. haha.

that would be cool if you got to work from home. finding a job when i get back should be interesting. haha. just kidding. i told dad ill be praying for him, so hopefully hell get better soon.

Everybody is getting married i swear. dad told me that james's wife's brother is coming to this mission. I feel like i dont know ANY missionaries now. they used to introduce them to everyone at transfers, but now they come in a day later and then get put with their trainers, so we dont get to know them at all. its strange. but oh well.

The work has been picking up this week. weve been trying to teach the wife of a part member family. her husband has been really against her taking lessons and the first time she was taught, he freaked out when the missionaries talked to her about baptism, and stopped taking them. well since i got here weve been trying to teach her. weve gotten to know them really well and they love us. She donated a kidney a couple years ago and the one she has now, has been giving her a lot of problems and shes been in and out of the hospital the past few weeks. the member we have fellowshipping them drove her husband somewhere and then up to the temple and asked if they had been to the temple on the grounds and in response he asked "after my wife gets better, what do we have to do to get her baptised?" it was awesome!!! so we will be teaching her soon and hopefully will be baptising her next month. We are also teaching one of the priests friends named joey and he is getting baptised at the end of the month. hes awesome! other then that were still trying to find people to keep the work going.

I wish we could go to a temple dedication. -___- but no. oh well..

Anyways. all is well here, 3 more weeks of this transfer. its going by very fast. and im very grateful. :)

LOVE YA!!!

ELDER NONU

SEPTEMBER 3, 2012

this week was a struggle again. we had problems finding people to teach and basically just having stuff to do all day. were on our bikes the whole time and cant keep ourselves busy because there is NOTHING to do. but luckily we had a little ray of sunshine yesterday night. the family that fed us last sunday told us that their son had a friend or 2 that wanted to learn about the church and stuff. well he brought him over yesterday night and we had a lesson with him. we taught about the book of mormon and it went really well. andat the end we comitted him to be baptised! pretty awesome! yah bro! but he said that that is definately something that he wants to do. but we told him to pray about it and let us know on tuesday what date he thinks would be good. hell probably say something in like 3 months, but well pray too and think of something for like 3-4 weeks from now. haha. so yah. golden investigator. but the cool thing is that he also has ANOTHER friend that wants to get baptised too, but the problem is that he just got kicked out of his house and put into foster care and had to quit his job and everything and might not be going to school anymore. he was a super cool kid too but everything is going bad for him. so yah, well see how that goes.

sounds like a good day though. that would be good. the only problem is that the only other shoes i have are kind of uncomfortable like... a lot. so yah. but ill mail them to you. thatd be good though. as far as things that i need im not sure what id need. so yah. aha. whatever you send would be fine.

ive thought about byu hawaii for school maybe. i guess they have a pretty good architectural program there. so yah. well see though. dont really care to think about it now. so yah.

 thatd be awesome though. ive been wanting to write bishop sharp, but had no idea what his adress is. oh yah! i got a letter from sis. limutau and a couple other sisters today. so that was cool. but id love to hear from him and see how the ward is doing. :) hows micheal doing in st. louis though? havent heard from him yet. and tell derek to email me that fruit cake! bishop prob thought those things were funny anyways. haha.

 anyways. all is well here still. love you mom!!

AUGUST 27, 2012

this week has been a challenge. we have been struggling just to fill our days with things to do. although that may be weve done some awesome stuff this week! :D friday we had a huge softball game with the ward and it went great. this less active samoan family came also and were planning on playing rugby with them today. AHHH!!! im so excited. too many friggin white people here. ugh.... but i spoke on sunday. it went well, a lot of people came up and thought it was good. but i spoke for 30 minutes on accident. i got to the atonement and got emotional. its not my FAULT!!! but anyways. still good though.

 

we got a tender sweet mercy from the lord yesterday. the son of the family that fed us last night brought his friend over who wasnt a member and he was talking about church and everything, and we invited him out to play softball with us ther next time we plan on having a game. he seemed excited. so hopefully next time we see him we can start teaching him soon. that would be SWEET!!!!

also next time you send a package. i dont know if you remember from my last email but my eccos blew out on the side and i know that you can get new ones because they come with a 2 year warranty, so if you could check that out id appreciate it. also, my dress shoes i left at home, if you could send those also. i wanna have a pair for meetings, and a pair for running around in, but the dress ones i bought out here suck and are falling apart already and i just bought them like 3 months ago. so yah, that would be good.

im very much not looking forward to missing football season, but this is the last one ill miss and ill get home right in time for it next year! ;D yes!!! haha. but its whatever. i cant see the pictures btw. so yah.

i hit my year mark in 2 weeks. what the freak!!!! ugh. and this is my 3rd out of 4 phone call home and my 3rd out of 4 general conference. and my last holiday season. :( lame. oh well.

love you guys!!!!

ELDER NONU

ps: guess what? elder vaiaoga (the missionary i trained last transfer) is TRAINING THIS TRANSFER!!! :DDDDD i was so proud of him. haha.

LOVE YA BYE!