July 2, 2012

Hello Family,

 

We had a lesson with a lady named dinah. her husband is serbian and a less active member we randomly found. shes now taking lessons and is reading the book of mormon. only problem is that her only days off are tuesday and wednesday and every other day she works 14 hour shifts with her 2 jobs. she super awesome though! she feeds us every time we go over and its SOOOO good! haha. we also are teaching this lady and her 2 kids named vilma. shes from el salvador, speaks perfectly good english and her kids only speak english. Shes really sincere about learning but is very timid and seems scared to do things. weve been teaching her for about a month and she hasnt come to friggin church!!! its really iritating, but what can you do. we also got to help an investigator couple move on saturday and their names are chris and naomi. they both go to UNLV and she has hot pink hair. :D pretty awesome. haha. theyre cool and they feed us every time we come over also. random part of the week. we visited this mexican lady this week and her daughter was getting baptized saturday. after crying and confessing her soul for about an hour she asked me to baptize her daughter. haha. so i got to baptize her, it was pretty cool. but random at the same time. haha. thats my week!

hopefully wel be getting ipads out here soon. theyre replacing our area books where we keep all our investigators info. pretty awesome! haha. but thats cool. have fun with it. -__- btw, im 10 months old now. gross right? haha. LOVE YA!

ELDER NONU

ELDER NONU MAKES DISTRICT LEADER!!!

June 4, 2012


well. i got a call from the asistants last night and im officially going to train a new missionary in my ward. im staying here for another 6 weeks at least (6 months total) and im stoked! im also the district leader.  so im not going to the reno mission nor will i ever. so thats good. this week has been fun, elder thomas and i didnt do a whole lot but im like whatever dude im not dragging you around so im gonna just love the crap out of you and mess around and have fun. aha. not good, but itll change with my trainee. in the mission we call it "having a kid", which means im his dad and elder thomas is his mom. haha. so im calling him my first born in the wilderness, like lehi. :D awesome right?

Your ward fathers day activity sounds cool.  dad should dress up like king noah and carry around 2 stuffed jaguars. itll be awesome and hilarious! glad yall are still having fun and getting ipads and fancy new toys. i wish i could play but i am a little busy at the moment. :P haha.

thats awesome about dad and his companion though, sounds like fun. :) that would be cool after all those years to be reunited with a companion.  :D speaking of which. elder liedecker is training too! :DD im super excited for him. aha. but anyways. thats about all to report this week.

the card thing. just tell me what i gotta do and ill take care of it. ill be cautious sending a card in the mail though just to make sure. anyways! love ya mom. wish me luck with my kid! HAHAHA  :D

LOVE YA!

ELDER NONU

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