May 28, 2012

im sorry for your motherly anxiety about none of us being at home, here i promise ill live at home for at least 3 years and you can catch up on what youve missed out. haha. good one. anyways!

church was pretty good for us too. we have a gospel principles teacher named bro. hastings who is the ex stake president and is awesome! he teaches everything so simply and clearly that you cant help but get drawn into his lesson. this week has been good, but transfers are in a week and im anxious to figure out what mission ill be in on july 1st. ill know by saturday, but its killing me to know what my fate is.

thats way cool about the choir also. hopefully it turned out well. there are 2 samoan elders from apia that came into the mission this transfer. elders iloane and lilo. i met elder lilo and hes a super skinny short guy. aha. hes super nice though and cool guy. i asked him if he knew any nonus and he said yah. so i assume he knows the whole family back home. pretty cool.

other than that this week has been ok. nothing special, although we ended up dropping alan, the "smart" investigator guy. we told him to read the book of mormon and pray about it but he doesnt think hell get an answer because every religion says they prayed about it and its true. so basically he refuses to pray. during the lesson our ward mission stumped him and his buddy with a bunch of science questions and to explain how they came to be through science and they couldnt answer them. i.e.: the creation, universes, etc. and then i testified and told him god wont answer an ignorant prayer, so we promised him that hell never get an answer. it was cool. annoying but cool. i wanted to slap him. but whatever.

anyways. all is well in paradise. youll know by next monday where im going and all that. so ill let you know. should be interesting. :)

love ya!

ELDER NONU

also, please send my camo back pack, i could really use it. this bag i have is destroying my shoulder. and those sunglasses if you can find them. thanks. love you!

May 21, 2012

I've been asked SEVERAL times to teach gospel principles and ive realized i love teaching and speaking haha. sounds a little self centered, but its true. not because i wanna hear myself speak, but i just like teaching people. We had a lesson with this guy that fancies himself to be a "theologist" and he brought up a lot of things that he found on anti sites and junk. and he kept bringing up how hes ignorant and he doesnt think that god will answer his prayers. We taught about praying about the BoM and he kept bringing it up and i say to him "god will not answer an ignorant mans prayer until you humble yourself alan" and he just kind of paused and our ward mission leader looked at me, and the investigators like "good point" haha. it was pretty funny.


thats cool about keana going to Sac for the summer though. hope she has fun. say hi to karlie for me if you see her. Shes awesome, shes the only friend i have thats written me every week and throughout my mission so far and itll probably stay that way. thats good that shes reading a lot and enjoying seminary tell her to keep it up and im proud of her for doing that too, i sure didnt.

patrick comes home in february though. crazy right? hes on the downhill slope. haha. anyways. love ya!

ELDER NONU

Mike and his family and his baptism

Mike gets baptized

May 14, 2012

Mothers day was fun! it was good to see you guys. you all still look good. :) Elder Thomas has been lazy this week and told me to wait until it happens to me (wanting to go home) and so i told him, every time missionaries or people tell me im going to fail, or slack, or get lazy, its just motivation for me to shut them up and work harder, so were going to see a lot of blessings this week.

the work has been slow, but our ward mission leader is doing awesome! hes a new guy in the ward and a fire ball. hes super awesome, and acts like our best friend. we love him. he drops what hes doing to help us out. but we do the same in return. Mike had ankle surgery a couple weeks ago and has been struggling and told us the other day the first thing hes doing after he gets it off is go do baptisms for the dead at the temple. it was sooo cool!!!! tuesday was awesome also! the romos (ward missionaries) went to the temple for the first time and we went. the spirit was so strong in that room. they stood them by the door so they could shake everyones hand as we walked out. I looked at him and told him that "we face a lot of crap and discrimination on the streets in missionary work, and its people like you that make it all worth it" and i got really emotional, but its so true! we dont baptize people to get a tally on our record, but to bring people, fully repentant, to christ to make covenants and follow through with them to exaltation. i love the gospel a lot, in case you havent notice. :)

anyways. glad you guys are still doing good. i love you guys a lot!

ELDER NONU

john 19:26 When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!

 

happy mothers day! :D

You're an awesome example of a daughter of God mom and a true parent the way HF wants us to be. I know the success ive had on my mission has been recieved with the assistance of your prayers and i know that because every time i kneel to pray at night, i know your kneeling along side me. i love you. :) happy mothers day.

May 3, 2012

WOW....can a brotha get the gospel in his life. freak.... thats crazy. Funny because i just read (well, more like dissected with highlighters and pens and scripture references) president Packers talk in the conference ensign this morning "a little child will lead them" or something like that. But it talks about how parenting is a full time calling that we will never be released from. It was awesome. A lot of good stuff in there. My favorite part is when he talks about the little girl in the kimono during WWII collecting leaves. The spirit hit me like a ton of bricks after i read that part. yay revelation! it also talked about parents who cant have children will be taken care of in the after life. i was like oh snap celestial babies! what up! but i digress.

I studied Alma 32 this week. Alma tells us that it is better to humble ourselves, showing real faith, then to be compelled to be humble. there was a lady we taught on exchanges and she said that she felt like she had no faith because nothings happened in her life to make her feel like gods there. As i waited for a bit i felt impressed to respond. and i said "why does someone need to suffer for you to know that god loves you?" obviously she had no response, and the obvious feeling of guilt was apparent in her facial expression. But i hear people all the time here say "if jesus came down, then id believe and have faith" and so many times, were just like "what part of that is faith?" christ has already been here, several times, and people still spat in his face and called him a fraud. after studying the spirit world, were told even THERE that there will be 1000 times more success then the elders on earth but there will still be some that dont except it. faith is NOT nor will it EVER be a need for evidence. the spirit should be good enough. and if someone can recieve that spiritual witness of these things to be true and they still dont accept it, then i wish them the best. 

OH! tuesday is an exciting day! :D theres a recent convert in our ward and his wife that are getting sealed on tuesday night and they invited elder thomas and i to go! were super stoked!

tell dad i love him and am going to send a letter this week, i never have stamps so i just bought some. so ill put something together. also with mothers day this sunday i have my 2nd phone call home. :D and skype is approved.  anyways, thats all this week.

LOVE YA! see you sunday. :)

ELDER NONU

April 23, 2012

this week has been awesome. We had a baptism for margie on saturday and elder thomas and I are STAYING TOGETHER FOR ANOTHER TRANSFER! :D were super excited. we just got a new ward mission leader this sunday and hes awesome. he has a lot of good ideas for finding more people for us to teach. Ward council still makes me upset. We have a lady that might be interested in coming to church and she has a 14 yr old daughter. youth conference is coming up and we suggested to get a form for her so she can go. Then the young womens PRESIDENT goes "no, i cant deal with that right now" elder thomas and i were so upset.   so we took a form to her anyway, and had her fill it out. The whole time were like really? a youth wants to come to a huge activity and you dont want her to because you dont want to put the piece of paper in a folder? Then, a recent convert is coming up on her year mark and we suggested for her to get signed up for temple prep and she just got called to primary. Well the primary PRESIDENT says, no i need her in primary, she cant go to temple prep. WHAT THE FREAK MAN!!! its not like random people, these are the AUXILLARY PRESIDENTS of each group that arent letting people in the ward progress. then they wonder why theyve struggled for baptisms and retention. ugh! so this is what we deal with. ugh.......!

anyways! thats way sweet that dad got called to that calling. Im going to send a package home for him when i can and a letter. :) tell him i love him and happy birthday grandpa!

thanks for sending the package, i cant wait. i love you guys!!

ELDER NONU 
:D

March 26, 2012

Ive loved these past 6 months a lot. Im almost done with the book of mormon and ive learned a lot from it. Ive actually studied it. 90% of the stuff ive learned makes life understandable and easier. as far as my future outlook on it goes. there was a leadership meeting for the mission this last thursday and Im not in leadership but i got invited to go. Im really glad i did. It was AWESOME!!! I actually understand my purpose as a missionary now and im trying really really hard to be better, because afterwards i felt like crap because i hadnt been doing all the things they had been talking about. Like making companion and personal study sacred. Praying for investigators, teaching by the spirit, focusing on the purpose of numbers rather than just getting them. It makes more sense. theres speculation that the younger missionarys that got asked to come will probably be in leadership positions in the reno mission, but who knows. But, elder liedecker (mtc companion) and elder mochi
(i cant spell his full last name) were there too, and theyre both amazing missionaries. We aspire to serve with one another. haha. But afterwards i was just super pumped to go out and find people. In this past week weve gotten 6 new investigators, 1 is a family of 4 that hopefully will start letting us teach them and 1 is a girl that has been saying she wants to get baptized like now!! im lke WHAT THE FREAK!!!! why havent we been teaching her? and the family thats close to her is like, she has family problems we dont want to ask her yet. we talked to bro hasting (ex stake prez and ward missionary) last night and hes like, ill go over there with you guys and well talk to them. so basically were gonna teach her and help her out. so yah. exciting stuff happening.

I gave a talk at an 8 yr olds baptism and im like, what the heck am i gonna talk about? so i compared baptism and partaking of the sacrament to super mario. haha. it was hilarious. but i liked it, so whatever. I dont even know the kid, but he wanted a missionary. Other than that, its been good. For the first time on my mission im physically energized and emotionally and spiritually drained... Emotionally because my roomate (zone leader) needs to stop whining all the times about the changes that president nieder is putting together and start sustaining our leaders and I bore my testimony a couple weeks ago at a district meeting about if you dont have a desire to serve god then go home.
I didnt come here to complain so if they are they can leave, we dont need people like that. jefferey r holland said it, if you dont have a desire, then stop waisting gods time and leave. After that an elder in our zone went home because he missed his girlfriend or something stupid like that. Everyones like good job nonu you made him go home (jokingly).

anyways. :) Im having fun, vegas is ghetto and ill probably never come back here again, unless i see people i really love. Thats the update!

oh and mike is getting baptized on the 7th!!!! :D yay!!!

oh and for my birthday, i want to buy a new pair of oakleys because its sunny and dusty here and potentially an ipod shuffle (the ones with the touch screen) because if were not outside weve got music playing around the house and its nice to fall asleep to. They also have watch bands that you can put your ipod into and make it into a watch and stuff. Ask keana, shell know. And thats honestly about it. I guess i could use more garments. other than that im content with my surroundings.

LOVE YA!!

ELDER NONU