Week 3

Hello everyone!

This week has been a long one for me. To start things off, its so stinking HOT!!! I cant believe it! and its only going to get hotter here as the days go by, so I cant wait for that... haha thanks for all of your emails. I love hearing about your week, its great! This week has been pretty crazy. A lot of things have happened. At the beginning of the week we got an e-mail from the mission president saying that he needs baptisms from our area. So no pressure now lol. So this week we really focused on finding new investigators. This area is really slow lately and there hasn't ever really been a lot of baptisms come out of here but I really think we can get some. So we worked hard talking to tons of people and trying to find new investigators. The week started off really well and we found a family last week. This week was our first lesson with them and it went super well and we put one of them on date!! The mom is a member but she is not active at all. She was baptized 12 years ago and doesn't remember anything. So we were super pumped to have a person on date for baptism! Later in the week we went back over and had another great lesson about Joseph Smith. The spirit was strong and everything so we invited them to church and they accepted! On Sunday we went to their house in the morning to pick them up for church. and they weren't home which really sucked because well, first, they didn't come to church and seconnd, it was a really long walk to there house haha. We went by later on Sunday and we were going to teach a lesson but mom came out and said: I am sorry guys I cant let you in. The kids dad does not want you coming to our house anymore. I am really sorry but we cant have you teach us anymore. I felt bad because they where so good and really accepting of the gospel. So this week we are going to try and go talk to the dad and see if we cant figure something out. I hope everything works out so keep us in your prayers for sure!!

This week we really focused on finding new investigators so we knocked, well clapped, at a lot of doors. We found what seems to be some really good people. We found a young family. They have one kid. We found them just knocking doors and we came in to teach and while we where teaching he was asking all the best questions lol like ´if there were prophets in the past, shouldn't we have a prophet today? lol YES!!!! my companions and my eyes got huge and just looked at each other lol and we got really excited and we are going to teach him again this week I hope it all goes well and I hope we can put him on date with his wife. We will see!!
This week pretty much consisted of a ton of walking!! and knocking doors and talking to everyone we pass on the road. so to say the least, my body is pretty dead and I really started to feel it towards the end of the week. On Sunday I got pretty sick and I felt horrible. It wasn't very good and I still don't feel good today, but yesterday was a lot worse so after church we went to a members home for lunch. We eat lunch with members everyday. After that I had to just go home and lay down for a little. I had a fever and it just happened to be the hottest most humid day of my life!! I mean it was so hot I have never sweat that much in my life and I had a fever and felt horrible to begin with so it wasn't very fun at all! And Sunday we had to walk a ton more than the usual day so that just made it so much better haha. As we where walking my back was soaked! When we finally got to the house we where going to, we couldn't even drink the water because it was really bad and just didn't want to risk it. I felt like I was gong to die for real lol after the lesson we went to the bishops house to get water. It was so good!!!!!!! lol Then we had another long long walk home and when I got home I seriously drank 2 liters of water in about 10 mins no joke I was so thirsty and needed water so bad!
Now for the language... it stinks so bad and I am so frustrated with it. I am trying to be positive but it is so hard because I cant talk to anyone! I haven't had a conversations with someone since I got to brazil. Its really hard not being able to communicate with people and to make things worse, I am so sick of being made fun of. Its crazy how much I am getting made fun of! It was all funny the first week and a half and now its just really getting annoying! Its so frustrating to have a group of people just sit there and say things about you and I cant even defend myself because I don't know how to lol so the language really killed me this week I had a hard time with it. But its getting better but its still horrible I cant teach a lot more now than I ever could and I understand more and I can talk more with my companion but its still hard. I have been learning patience for sure out here.
Teaching wise, it's been a good week and we have about 4 or 5 good investigators right now that we are hoping on putting on date very soon. So keep us in your prayers and pray for new investigators! please we could really use the help!
So as far as the week in general, I have learned a lot about being a missionary. The biggest one is that I know now that missionaries are watched over and protected. I know that. We have had some sketchy situations that went a lot better than they should have out here. I am so thankful for the protection out here! And also, I am getting a lot more familiar with the culture but there is just one thing I think I will never get used to out here. the whole toilet paper thing. here you have to put the used toilet paper in the trash next to the toilet.. you don't flush it... its so strange and pretty gross! lol That's my thought of the week lol the week was long just because of frustration and sickness but nothing to bad.

Thanksgiving was kinda sad not having family around. Elder Gillett called me and wished me a happy thanksgiving lol it was funny. no one knows thanksgiving around here. They have never even heard of it so that was sad. In pictures of my thanksgiving dinner I made a sandwich and a chicken patty since it was thanksgiving lol usually I have to choose between the two since we don't get a lot of food around here. The other thing I have learned this week is that I can put the rice and beans down like no ones business! lol I can eat so much rice and beans! I don't know if its because I am starving or because I can just eat a lot of them haha but I find them pretty good now and I eat a ton when I can haha This week has also been exciting as far as almost being hit by things... one bus, two cars, three horse buggy and four motorcycles! I have almost been hit by everyone of those things lol the streets here are like a circus act! I came really close to a motorcycle. I mean super close. I felt the tire on my pant leg! lol kinda scarred me to say the least but don't worry, there were no accidents in my pants lol The dogs here are crazy!!! There are so many of them everywhere!!! They all just run wild and just are crazy. oh and there is a barn right across the street from us and on Saturday night they had a party there... all night long!!!!!! they played music so loud!! all night long, so to say the least, sleep was hard to come by. The party finally ended around 5 in the morning... so that didn't help my sleep issue lol I am still very much tired!!
Well thanks again for all of your emails and love. I am so thankful for all of you and all of your support out here! I think of you all the time and miss you guys a ton but the work is going pretty well and we have a lot to do here so things are good! keep us in your prayers. We can always use the help! I was pretty sick but I am getting better now so no worries. Its super super hot but that's to be expected! haha I am doing good and I am safe for another week lol oh you can send pictures for sure that's totally ok!! that would be awesome and in a package I need face cleanser and deodorant because they don't have that here... and I just ran out so... lol that's the only things I really need right now thanks! I love you all and I think that is about it for the week! have a great one be safe and have a ton of fun!! parabems on the license Darbi that's awesome!! thanks again for all of the love! have a good week!!

Love Elder Novakovich

1st Week in my new area

Hello my family!

First things first. I am so tired!!!!!!!! I cant even believe how tired I am! I haven't caught up from the no sleep for almost two days during the travel. I have never been this tired in my life! lol and I love reading your e-mails because one, well I just love hearing from you guys, and two they are in English and I can understand them!!
Right after leaving from the e-mail place we went and got hair cuts, my first one in brazil! it was well ok lol I couldn't really talk to the lady and tell her what I wanted so my companions just told her to do whatever and it ended up ok . Its not the worst thing I have ever seen. But the rest of the day was good. We went into town and shopped at some stores. Once that was over, we had to go back to work. The rest of the week was pretty much the same. I will do an overview so I don't repeat myself. We wake up everyday a little before 6:30, shower, and then its study time till around 12. After this we head out for the day and start working. Our area is pretty big. It takes a little over an hour to walk from one side to the other, so we got a lot of room to work with. Houses are crammed together and its pretty crazy. Everyday we have some people we try and talk to. We plan every night for the next day so we have a game plan of what we are going to do. Most of the time our appointments don't answer their door or are just not home. So we spend almost all our day knocking doors. Well, we don't knock here, we stand outside their gate and we clap and they come out to talk or they just act like they didn't hear us knock. We do that all day pretty much everyday. We talk to a lot of people but they just say they have another religion. That's been interesting to get to know all of those down here. I've met Mormons, lol Catholics, (lots of those) and even some devil worshipers... that's been fun. We walked by their so called church and its just an eerie feeling but there are just a lot of religions and no one wants to hear about ours so its hard to teach people. we just tell them our message will help them have more faith in God and Jesus Christ. We really don't get to teach that much here and that is hard. We teach 3 lessons a day if we are lucky and the rest of the time we are walking around street contacting and knocking doors. On Tuesday there was a church activity and we went to that. The whole ward comes because there is not enough youth, so everyone comes and they do a spiritual message at the beginning and then they do an activity. Its all combined, no one breaks off into groups like our ward, so its different but pretty cool. The ward is pretty close since there are less than 40 in it lol so everyone knows each other. So we have an activity, then they feed everyone! I love this part because I don't have to understand anyone to be able to eat! lol I know what to do with food. No one has to tell me that. lol Wednesday was district meeting. I got to meet everyone else in my district. They are all pretty cool. The sad news is the zone leaders taught what I think was a great lesson but I understood maybe 10% of it lol.

The language has been killing me... my head at the end of the day feels like it is going to explode!!!! it is so mentally draining to try and understand people all day long. I really haven't heard any English since being here. its pretty hard. I really don't even get to study in English. Its all Portuguese, everything! I guess I will learn faster haha but I just get so frustrated at the end of the day. About the last hour of working I just get so frustrated I cant even think straight. I have no patience with anything at the end of the day. All I do is put a big smile on my face and say sim, sim, sim, and nod my head or if when I say sim they give me a weird look I quickly change to nao nao lol then they realize I have no idea what they are saying and they say something to my companion and he talks lol but anyway the language is coming just really slowly. and I am trying my best. when we teach I say what I can, when I can, but its not much because usually I have no idea where the lesson is. I usually just bear my testimony at the end and that seems to be the best thing and helps the person.
So its just Elder Blanco and myself now. interesting story about that. we did have Elder Gillett with us but he is now a zone leader! lol he goes home in two weeks so that's cool for him! Elder Blanco and I get along pretty well. I mean we have our problems but the big thing is not being able to understand each other so sometimes we get pretty frustrated with each other. but its all good, we work well together and that's all that really matters. a funny story about us is last night he was snoring so loud I could not sleep. so I started clapping my hands till he woke up and I was able to chew him out and tell him to stop snoring, all in Portuguese, lol I thought it was pretty funny.
Everyone in our district calls our area the nova area lol They all say when my 12 week training is over, I will be district leader but I don't think so. I just really like to work hard our here. I don't want any regrets. I am working really hard and my companion likes it, he just gets tired sometimes and asks to sit down for a little rest. We walk a lot and fast, haha but we are doing as much as we can here. I think this areas is going to see some big changes with new missionaries working hard here. It will be fun to see! Our goal this week is to really find some good investigators so we are hoping to find the people the lord has prepared for us!
Another funny story for the week is one day we where working as usual and then we ended up back at the house and I asked why. Elder Gillett then said in English so I could understand, "We are dropping off our stuff. You need to take off your watch and leave your backpack and stuff because we are going to a part of town that isn't very safe"... that got my attention. It was very true and kinda sketchy where we were...but it ended all ok We only had an encounter with a drug guy who was up to no good but we handled it ok. haha we were all safe.
This week has been good though over all. I even had my very fist chicken heart burger!! lol pretty good actually until you see what you are eating then its kinda hard to get down. So I just don't look at the food, but it wasn't horrible, pretty tasty. Then I had my very first "chirrasco" its a Brazilian bbq with tons and tons of meat.

It was nice to be full haha, we really don't get to eat that much here. We eat one meal a day and that's lunch so I am super hungry all the time. It seems like it kinda stinks but we are going to the grocery store after this and I will get some goodies! haha
Its so HOT here!!! everyday it touches 100 degrees! And its humid, so I sweat so much you can see the sweat marks on my socks,

but I mean its so hot its going to take some getting used to for sure! And there is no AC here. No one even knows what that is lol so there is no way to get out of it! the best thing ever though is my camelbak!!! Another fun part are the bugs!! they are eating me alive and the scary part is I don't get bitten during the day... its only at night! I have bites on my face all over my arms everywhere! they love me! its pretty gross when you think about it... lol they only get me when I am sleeping. I try not to think about what goes on haha
Well that's about it for the week! its so crazy wrestling started! I miss it actually. It still haunts me how last season ended... it seriously keeps me up at night when I think about it. I can replay every match at state in my head. it just kills me. it really kills me when I think about it. but oh well tell everyone good luck for the season for me! I will miss being with them! I am doing good so no need to worry about me. I am really loving it in brazil even though I really have no idea what most people are saying to me! lol the people are pretty cool though! I have to say thanks to Madi for the hymn book because we sing hymns for this old lady when go over so, thanks Madi! haha I am just loving it! I am so thankful to be here. I love the area I am in, its perfect, and just what I have ever imagined! I am working hard and learning pretty quick about things here. Things are good even though I am so tired!! I mean so tired its crazy! but I am happy and love being here with the people and I love serving here its really cool! I am frustrated with the language but no need to worry, its coming, and I will get it eventually, just need the patience. thanks for all of you support I love you all. Have a great week in the snow. I will try and send some heat your way! lol have a good thanksgiving I don't get one :( thanks for the e-mails again I love you all so much thanks for all of your support have a great week!!!!!!!


love Elder Novakovich

Arrived in Brazil

Hello from Brazil!!!!

Holy cow this is the craziest thing ever!!!! I cant believe it! I don't have too much time so I will start from when I started to brazil from Atlanta. It took me awhile to figure out how to use this dang computer because everything is in Portuguese, lol, but we're all good now.
It was so great to talk to you guys. I loved it so much! It was amazing to hear everyone's voices again! I talked to dad last in Atlanta and while I was talking to him an elder ran over and said they were boarding the plane right away, so I had to go pretty quick. Sorry about that, but I walked over and got on the plane right away. It was a huge plane but unfortunately I was in the very back of the dang thing so my seat didn't recline at all. And lets just say that planes are not very comfy. So we got on and I was sitting next to the elder who was serving in Salt Lake as well, so we got to be good friends through out all this traveling. As we started to move, and the plane made its way to the runway, it really started to hit me that I was going to Brazil. It was the weirdest feeing I have ever had. I was so excited but really scarred at the same time and I had no idea what to think. The plane took off and I was on my way to Brazil. I watched all the lights of America pass away as we went out over the ocean. The first hour of the flight was great, then as time went on, I started to get super tired and I couldn't get comfortable to save my life. So I just looked out the window and watched Jamaica, Cuba and all those cool places pass by but I don't think I saw a little elder Romney running around in Jamaica haha, it was to dark, but anyway the flight went on and on and on and on and on for forever!! I am not lying, it was the longest flight ever. First, because it was just a long flight to begin with, and second, I could not fall asleep, it was horrible. I really only slept good for like 15 mins. I couldn't get in a good spot to sleep so I was pretty frustrated and the last two or so hours of the flight I just wanted to be there already. But the time finally came and we landed in Sao Paulo! Flying over the city was so crazy. It was morning and we could see everything. It is an impressive city for sure. It is so huge, like mind blowing huge! So that was really cool to see brazil and all the houses and buildings as we landed. I got off the plane and bam! HEAT and HUMIDITY! It smacked me in the face pretty hard lol I was sweating pretty good just walking through the tunnel to the airport. Once we got in, we had to go straight to customs. That was interesting. We walked into a big room and this lady was yelling, "Foreigners in this line!" I started walking the other way not realizing that I am now a foreigner lol. The lady nicely grabbed my shirt and put me in the right line. It was pretty funny. The other elders where laughing at me. It was weird realizing that I was now a foreigner. So I got to the front of the line hoping I had filled out all the paper work correctly. I went to the window and the lady said something that I didn't understand so I just gave her my passport and the paperwork and she did some stuff said some stuff and I just smiled at her because I had no idea what she was saying. She handed me my stuff and everything was all good. The next step was getting my bags. That went great and it was really fast. Then we went out of that room and there where two people waiting to help us with everything. They helped us exchange our money and then we headed over to get our plane ticket to Porta Alegre. I got my ticket and everything was going smoothly. We had a couple hours to sit and wait for our flight, so we went through security. I was expecting the same kind of thing as in salt lake, but no lol the security was pretty much nothing, so I made it through with no problems there. I found my gate and then tried to find a place where I could call you guys but there was nothing. Sorry about that. We had a long time to wait till the flight so a couple elders and I just sat and people watched the whole time. OH! I forgot we met up with some more elders in Sao Paulo and one of them was elder law from my district in the MTC. It was great to see him. We stayed together the whole time. We boarded our plane and headed out. The flight was good and took little more than 2 hours. I did get about hmm 20 mins of sleep so that was awesome! Well it was good until we started our decent to land and that was a nightmare. I don't know what was going on but the plane kept going up and down, up and down, and this is when I started to feel a little sick. lol not good. Just before I got to the point of throwing up on the plane, we landed. We headed out and met two elders who had been sent to pick us up. One was the assistant. We talked to him for a minute and then went out to get a shuttle. There were 6 elders and one sister, all new, going to Santa Maria, so that was cool. Outside was so stinking HOT and so humid. I was sweating big time haha. We were standing waiting for a shuttle and someone asked the elders how far to Santa Maria? They then informed us, .... 5 hours..... All I could think was NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol I wasn't to excited about the ride but I was excited to drive through town and see everything in the city. We started driving and I have to say the shuttle was pretty nice. I mean nice for brazil. haha We started and the city was awesome and I saw some super cool things, then we left the city and it is just grass and rice farms from there to santa maria lol with some houses and tiny towns mixed in. So the drive was pretty cool. The best part was I got like an hour of sleep!!!!!!!!! oh yeah!!! I was really excited as we got closer to Santa Maria, even though I was super tired. The first thing we did was went to what they call the big house. Its a... well.... big house that has 8 beds in one room. hah They use it for transfers and stuff. We dropped our bags off there and headed to the mission presidents house. He lives on top of like an 8 story building. We got there, said hello, or Oi, to the family and they took us to the roof to look at the city from there! It was so crazy. I will try and send pictures, but it was so cool. We could see a ton and it was surreal just to sit there and look and know that I was in brazil and this was my mission. It was a very special moment for me. After looking for awhile they got some pizza for use to eat and I was starving. We didn't eat a lot the whole trip. The last time I ate was in Atlanta and had Panda Express!!! yummy! After dinner, they told us we could call our parents and let them know we had arrived safely. I got so excited! We only got like 1 min though, so I called mom and that was great! I was so excited to call her from brazil! way cool! After everyone called their parents, we headed back to the big house to sleep!!! yay!!! The president wasn't at his house because he was traveling for zone conferences. When we got to the house, it took awhile for everyone to get settled down and ready for bed. When I first laid in bed, it felt wet, it was weird and I thought to myself, "What the heck is this?" Then I realized it was wet just because it was so humid! It was hard to fall asleep but I was so tired nothing could stop me, not even the bugs crawling on me. I woke up to a huge clap of thunder and a lightning storm, just my luck! The houses here don't have glass in the windows. They just have open bars or slats. It was pretty loud and it was raining so hard. It was actually pretty nice to just sit there and listen to the storm. I love storms haha I don't think the girls would have liked it very much. lol but it was raining really hard and it was lightning so often it was really cool. After enjoying that for a little while, I fell back to sleep and woke up in the morning getting about 4 hours of sleep. I was soaked. lol I had been sweating pretty bad. Getting ready was fun. there were 8 of us and only one shower. Ok. so the shower was the crazy! Let me just say this.. you could shower and sit on the toilet at the same time! It was still raining in the morning and we had to be at the church for zone conference. The good news was that mom got me an umbrella. It came in handy as we started walking in the poring rain. I was thinking that it would be just a short walk and we would be there. I was wrong. It was about a 30 min walk to the church in the rain on my first day in Brazil, but I have to say it was so awesome walking through the middle of the city. There were lots of people and it was like nothing I have ever seen before! The city is so awesome! I love it! When we got to the church, I met the mission president. He is really cool but he only knows a tiny bit of English so it was kind of hard to talk with him, but I had and interview with him and understood almost everything he was saying. He helped a lot by talking super slow. After the interviews, it was time for zone conference. There were a lot of Elders there and I even saw someone I knew from the MTC. Zone conference was all in Portuguese of course and I don't know Portuguese, so the president had the American elders translate for us.

Ughh I am running out of time so I need to cram a ton of stuff in really quick with not a lot of details sorry!
The conference was good. The next day we had training and we got our new companions! My companions names are Elder Blanco, who is from sao paulo, and speaks no English. The other is Elder Gillett. He is from Utah but he goes home in three weeks so its just for a short time. They don't speak any English with me, so most of the time it is hard to communicate. They are both super cool! We get along very well and they help with the language a ton. Portuguese is coming along pretty well actually. I am surprised I can understand Elder Blanco a lot because he talks slow for me. But when it comes to the locals... no chance.... I don't get anything!!!! When training was done, we headed to our areas. This is when I found out I had yet another 5 hour bus ride... ugh and our bus left at 9 pm so we traveled through the night. I didn't sleep at all on the bus, it was horrible. We got home a little after 2:30 am and went to bed around 3. I slept great for 3 1/2 hours.. till we had to wake up at 6:30. My first area is Alegrete! It is so awesome!! It is everything I ever wanted it to be!!! Its the coolest little town ever! I love everything about it! All the roads are cobblestone and most of the houses are brick shack things. The people are pretty poor around here. We actually live in a pretty nice place for the area, its not bad at all. It is pretty hot around these parts. haha, but its not horrible. I sweat a lot and when I get in bed at night my skin feels so weird; like salt. As for water... I have a little filter thing at the house that I use when I am there, but we aren't here a lot and I need water so we are forced to drink the regular water. Its probably not great but its either drink the water or turn into a raisin and die of heat exhaustion. I choose water. I probably wont die from it I hope lol sorry mom you probably don't like me drinking the water.... I love you!! but I have to. Anyway, my areas is so cool and my trainers are great, they help a ton. Church was ... interesting. There are only about 38 members who come so it's super tiny. It's weird going from salt lake to here. The singing in church was awesome lol there is no piano and everyone well is pretty bad at singing haha it was so funny to hear everyone sing. Everyone sings their own thing, its great! I contacted 8 people yesterday! The language isn't horrible. I am doing alright. I really like Alegrete. I love being in Brazil; its the craziest place I have ever been! I cant believe I am really here! I am doing great. Have a great week. I love you all!!

p.s. All I eat is rice and beans with some kind of meat lol and I got bit by a bug the other night and now I have a rash looking thing on my arm where it bit me. lol Fun stuff being in brazil but I am so excited to be here!!

A really boring week!!

Oi familia!!!!

Crazy week and I don't have a lot of time to write but trust me I will make up for it in the next sentence....... I AM GOING TO BRAZIL!!!!!!!! Tomorrow!!!! Tuesday I am leaving on a jet plane to another country!! lol that is so crazy I cant believe I even am telling you this right know. I thought it would never come!!!!! ah!! I am so excited and so nervous at the same time!! I don't really know much about my travel because I get all that info tonight! I do know I leave at 11:25 tomorrow! That's all I know right now so I will call you from the airport probably earlier than that but I am not sure I have no idea what's going on! lol so I am going to try and call you before I leave I will probably go from here to Atlanta then to Sao Paulo then to somewhere close to Santa Maria! Then I have a 3 hours bus ride to Santa Maria. I will tell you guys everything tomorrow when I call! but that's the crazy news of the week!! lol pretty good news if you ask me!!
I found out in a pretty crazy way really lol this was Thursday. so it was just a normal day and we where out tracking a little and going to appointments and so forth, then we had a Portuguese referral to go to. so we headed over to that and right in the middle of the lesson we were having on their front porch the phone rang in my pocket and so I pulled it out to see who it was and it said "mission office" my heart started racing so fast but I got super scared and nervous so I just clicked decline because I couldn't open it in the middle of the lesson so we continued and just talked in Portuguese of course. lol oh by the way mine is pretty bad lol Brazilians talk so fast and I am not even in brazil yet!! haha so I can catch some things and can usually tell what's going on in the conversation but not all the time so they all have a good time laughing at me lol but its all good. I do get pretty frustrated sometimes though I just want to speak it well but I don't and now I am going to brazil so that will be interesting. haha so after the whole lesson we were walking to the car and I pulled the phone out and said hey Elders I we got a call from the mission office and they both went crazy lol they left a message so I listened to it. I was so nervous, my heart was racing pretty fast lol so it started "we have a message for Elder Novakovich... HIS VISA HAS COME!" lol he said a lot more stuff after that but I blacked out lol and didn't hear anything after that. until he said "he is leaving on Tuesday" I heard that haha I was so excited and in shock I didn't know what to do I was just like "my visa came!!" Elder Ramos and Elder Rogers where very excited for me! haha it was pretty cool. I will record the message onto my camera and try and send it to you guys later. So that's how I found out I got my visa! pretty funny that I was talking to a Portuguese family when it happened. so my day today will consist of trying to get everything ready to go for tomorrow! I have no idea how I am going to be ready in time! I haven't even started to do anything to be ready. And our night is pretty full of lessons and stuff so I will have to pack when I get home so not much time really. but I am sure it will work out some how. so that's that I will explain better tomorrow I hope!!
Anyway I will tell a little about how my week went. We had some really good expectations for this week and we where really excited to work hard and meet some pretty high goals we set for ourselves. So we had a lesson with this lady who is in here 20s and they have taught her like twice before and we went in planning on committing her to baptism. So the lesson was going great and the time came and we gave her the invitation and she said yes to being baptized which was awesome so we asked her to prepare herself for November 19. she said yes so we started making some plans and telling her about the stuff we still had to teach her in order for her to be baptized. In the middle of it all she kinda stopped and looked at us and said. "Is there anyway I can be baptized sooner than the 19th?" It kinda took all of us off guard lol we were like yeah!! haha it was really cool to have her ask that to us. It just amazed me how she was prepared to move forward. Its so cool how the Lord has prepared people even before the missionaries find them. It testified to me that there are people out there who are just waiting for the gospel. They are waiting for something but they don't know what it is and as soon as they talk with a member or a missionary they recognize that and accept it so willingly. that's the really cool story for the week and there are more but no time to write. I am sorry this letter seems short but I will talk to you all tomorrow and share everything with you!!!! but the other thing is this week that I have really realized is how real Satan is and how he tries his best to keep people from the church. We have a recent covert who is really struggling right know for some crazy things and its just crazy how Satan knows how to keep people from dong what's right. we have about 3 investigators right now who are really fighting Satan head on. they are so close to baptism but Satan is giving them everything he has to keep them from doing it. its really sad but we are doing our best to help them through it and get them to baptism. I will explain more tomorrow! haha
That's awesome that state was good! I am so proud of you Darbi!!!!!! I want to talk to you so bad about it!! lets talk tomorrow! haha but congratulations!!!! that's awesome! hope you enjoyed the letter this week haha sorry for the e-mail subject lol I thought it would be fun to put something sad so you guys didn't expect anything lol but it was a great week!!!! I promise!!!
I cant wait to talk to you guys tomorrow!! I hope I can talk to everyone!! have a good day I love you all so much and so excited to leave for Brazil in the morning!!!

Love Elder Novakovich


I cant believe the next e-mail will come from Brazil!!!!!

P.S. I gave a blessing in Portuguese this week super crazy story!! I will tell you tomorrow :) love you!!!