I'm a real missionary now.

Happy Halloween my family!!!!!

This week has been so crazy. I have no idea where to start! I have so many things to tell you I hope I can remember them and get them all typed in time!!! First off, I miss you all so much! Its been kinda weird not getting mail everyday, but at the same time I have no time to even think about that! lol Second Darbi!! ahhhh!!!!!!!!!! thata girl!!!! kickin butt, that is so awesome to hear you made it to state!!!!!!!!!!! I am so proud and excited for you!! You are so awesome! I was so excited to read the e-mails about it! I was thinking about you all day on Saturday wondering how it all went!! I bet you feel amazing! I remember when I crossed that finish line and I knew I had made it to state! It makes all the hard work and sweat all worth it. It's an amazing feeling and I am sure you felt that when you heard you had made it!! I am so excited for you! as well as the whole girls and boys teams!!! That's so awesome parabems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that's great I wish I could be there to cheer you on all around that place but that's alright I will be cheering from right here in Salt Lake City!!!! lol GO kick butt out there sis! All my advice I have to give to you about that is just relax and have fun with it. I know last year when I made it, I was so nervous I puked and could barely walk. But now that I look back on it, there was no reason to be that nervous. You made it this far and no one can ever take that away from you! YOU are a state runner!! That is so awesome! Go out there and have fun with it; enjoy every second; enjoy the energy of all the other runners; take a lot of deep breaths and go out there and give it everything you can because it the last time you will run cross for East Valley. Have fun, you going to do so great I am so pumped for you!!!!
Alright I guess I better start talking a little about my week. Crazy!!! So Tuesday morning I woke up at 5 but fell back to sleep till 5:30... oops. so I was pretty rushed to get to the travel office at 6. So I throw all that I had laying around in the bags and left. I had stayed up pretty late packing the night before, so I had most of it done. Anyway, so Elder Dean and I made it to the office on time and there were about 15 people leaving that morning so we got split up which kinda sucked but oh well. I got a seat on the van that was going directly to the Mission home and he got on the bus to go to the airport first to drop Elders off there. So it wasn't that long of a drive to the mission Home; 40 mins or so. When I got there, I was with 7 other Elders. So we were there and no one was at the mission offices so all the doors were locked and the bus had to leave so he left all of us waiting outside the office lol It was pretty dang cold but that's ok. So finally, about a half hour later someone showed up and let us in the office. We waited and talked a little till the mission president got there. We met with him and all the Elders who had just arrived and all the trainers and assistants were there. So we met everyone and had to introduce ourselves in front of everyone. So then the mission president went through and announced everyone and everyone claps and cheers as people meet their new companions lol so I was one of the last ones to go and the craziest thing happened!!

Do you remember when Bro. C took me out to lunch with the kid who was gong to the same mission in brazil as me? Well I guess he got re-assigned to Salt Lake as well about a month before me. And lo and behold we got put into a companionship together!!! how crazy, we got called to the same mission twice and now we are companions!! crazy!!! But he has been with an Elder from guess! Brazil!!! so his trainer is from Brazil and they have been companions since he got here. Crazy stuff!!! His name is Elder Rogers who I knew back home. And the my trainer who is from Brazil is named Elder Ramos!! lol He is awesome!! He Helps Elder Rogers and myself with Portuguese! He is a way cool guy and he has only been here for 5 months!! so still pretty new and his English is so funny!!! lol He speaks it really well but some things he says in the wrong order and it's so funny!!! lol I am laughing just typing about it!! lol he has this funny little Portuguese accent lol. He is so funny!!! But he is such a good missionary!! He blows my mind! haha I make sure to tell him that every night before we go to bed. haha but anyway yeah we are in a threesome. A lot of Elders are too because there are so many Visa waiters they are putting a lot of threesomes together. It is pretty cool I like having three. Elders Rogers is way cool too. By the way we get along pretty well and share a lot of laughs about elder Ramos English mistakes. lol So that's my new companionship.
After all that stuff we left to drop my bags off at the apartment. Dropped them off then we where out the door to go to work!! that fast, we were out working by 11 am!! pretty crazy lol I was expecting a nice little welcome day but no, straight to work which was pretty cool, though I didn't mind at all. So we went out to some appointments that they already had lined up. some were not home so they both thought it would be fun to try some tracking on the first day. lol We went to some condos and we were knocking and not a lot of people answered but there were some but nothing great. haha so while we were knocking a lady from a couple doors down opened the door and yelled "Stop knocking and go away! Everyone here is a Jew!!!" lol it was so funny I tried not to laugh but I couldn't hold it all in. lol so after knocking for awhile and doing some other stuff it was dinner time. This was one of the most interesting experiences of my life hands down. We came in and the house was so humble. There are four people in the family and one who is 11 has a mental disorder.. The house was very humble and it made me thankful for what we have. But she made spaghetti for dinner and it was pretty hard to eat just with everything being so dirty... I was good and ate all I could. The 11 year old kid who is not all there sat next to me which was all cool until he started wiping his spaghetti sauce fingers all over my suit jacket. lol I didn't know what to do so I just kinda pushed his hand away and he kinda stopped. This happened about three times, but I was being nice haha so out of no where he got up and left and a couple moments latter he came back... only he forgot something... all of his clothes!!!!!!! He came walking into the kitchen butt naked and wow that was a shock. yeah. So the parents just asked him nicely to go put some clothes on, so he left for a little bit but again returned with no clothes. He left and put some clothes on eventually though so that was good. It was about time to leave and we kinda had a testimony meeting and telling stories about our baptisms and stuff, it was cool. So that was my very first dinner appointments in the field. Pretty crazy if you ask me. We got out and I was kinda in shock not knowing what to think about it all and Elder Ramos just said out of the silence "So who wants McDonalds?" lol no one had eaten till they where full just because yeah. so we went and got some dollar menu stuff lol it was very yummy I hadn't had that in two months!!! lol After we went to more appointments for the rest of the night. It was pretty cool but I still have a ton to learn about everything and how to teach better. It was still fun to teach real people! We came back to the apartment and planned for the next day. The first day I taught 5 lessons!!! lol Bed time was much needed by the time 10:30 came.
The rest of the days we just taught pretty much all day long, it was pretty spiritual. The coolest one is this lady named Rebecca who is a single mom with two little girls. We taught her and she was planning on getting baptized on Saturday! So the next day we taught her again and it was really spiritual and we asked if she could say the closing prayer and when she was saying it in the middle she just stopped and started crying. The spirit was so strong. She just cried in the middle of her prayer and she ended and kept crying. It is amazing how the Lord prepares people to be baptized. She was so ready to be baptized it was so cool to see that. So Saturday came around and I had my first baptism!!! lol I really didn't do much just helped teach twice. so I wont count that one but it was way cool to see her enter the waters of baptism. I even got to be the witness for her baptism!! That's about it for the week. Sorry I cant go into details about everyday. I don't have much time, but we are in the less wealthy part of town for sure. Its really cool and I have met some really cool young families that fed us this week, some really good food haha which I was so thankful for!!!!!!!! but with the three of us we cover 5 wards!!!! Plus we cover a Portuguese branch because Elder Ramos can speak with them lol so we went there for a little on Sunday which was cool. Everyone is so nice!! last night we went to a Portuguese referral we got and the family was so cool they just had a little baby 10 days ago and they are super nice!!! We talked to them for awhile and they helped Elder Rogers and myself with the language it was pretty funny Elder Rogers did really good but me on the other hand, knew pretty much nothing. The couple really liked talking to me because I had no idea what they were saying lol but they laughed and helped me. they were awesome even though I left a little frustrated with the language thing. I have no idea how to speak real Portuguese lol cant wait for Brazil.
So I haven't heard anything about the Visa, we did drop an Elder off this morning to go to Brazil. I will let you all know as soon as I hear anything. the mission office address is 3487 S. 13 E. if you want to send stuff in the mail. We only get mail on Thursdays. Will you let Madi and who ever else know that for me please. Thanks!!

well that's about all I can put in this week I hope you get the pictures I put in haha enjoy I will try and send more later!! I am doing great!! the field is awesome and I love teaching. I just need a lot of help and have a lot to learn about everything! I am really enjoying it, its been great and this week we taught 37 lessons, with one baptism! lol I love it out here and the area is pretty cool Salt Lake isn't that bad lol still looking for that reason I have been sent here haha but I am working hard and trying my best out here! have a great week I love you all and be safe thanks for the e-mails!!! I love you all happy Halloween!!


Love Elder Novakovich "a real missionary now"