Happy New Year

minha familia,

This week has been pretty slow. Pretty much nothing happened. I mean really I sit here and try and think of things we did lol and nothing is really coming to mind so I will just start writing and see what happens.
Tuesday was district meeting and it was actually pretty useful for once which was a nice change. then on Wednesday we had companionship study with the Zone Leaders and that was actually really good. They wanted to see how I was doing with the language and teaching so we did a role play kinda thing. where I had to be the senior companion and start the teaching and lead the whole discussion. and we had to teach the restoration. It went well I did a lot better than I thought I was going to do so that's always a nice surprise! I taught pretty good and when I got stuck I just looked at Elder Blanco and he helped me out haha but it went well and after the ZLs said that it was really good. They even said that I have learned the language faster than anyone they have seen before. After they said that I thought about it for awhile after and its pretty amazing how much Portuguese I have really learned out here. I have to say I am actually doing pretty well with it. its pretty cool how much the Lord has helped me with it. I know its pretty much all him because I know I couldn't learn any Portuguese by myself. So I am sure it is all a huge blessing from the Lord. I make sure to say thank you to him a lot for that. but that was a pretty cool realization of the week that the language is coming along good. I feel bad for the new sister who was with me in the MTC she is having a super hard time with the language and its really hard on her. She is really struggling with it. I try and help her when I see her but that's not much. It just makes me realize how much the Lord blesses me again when I see someone else struggling with the language. She will get it soon though. Anyway communication with people is becoming a little better which is really nice. I notice that I talk with people more everyday. and I understand a lot. but there are still those people who try and talk with me and I am pretty sure they don't speak Portuguese lol

As for the week of work... pretty much nothing. Work is really hard here around Christmas and new years because more than ever no one wants to hear about the church. lol its really amazing how slow it is. We are working and doing all we can to find people to teach but it feels like nothing is coming of our efforts and that's really frustrating at times. this week we knocked a lot of doors and just talked to people on the street when we passed. One good thing came of this. We where walking to our lunch and it is a pretty good walk from out house so we walked and walked and when we got there no one was home great!! just our luck lol so we had to start our long walk back to the house to make lunch for ourselves. While walking back we say a daughter who is about 10 pushing her mom in a wheel chair down the road. we decided that we would contact them and ask if they needed help. so as we started talking with them they where really nice and they invited us to come over and share a message with them later that week!! awesome!! so the time came for us to visit them the next day or so and we went and shared the restoration and they really liked it and they really liked that part about the authority of god for baptism!! so we soft committed them and asked if when they know that these things are true if they will get baptized and they both said yes!! wooohooo!!!! haha it was really cool the lesson went great. and the next day we went over and painted the inside of there house for them and that was really good to. they really appreciated the help and kept trying to give us money but we told them that we cant and it was all for free and because we like them lol the boyfriend of the mom really likes us but he is a die hard catholic but he is really really interested in the church and how it works and he asked some really good questions that we helped answered so I am hoping he will come around as well. but all this because our lunch canceled so God blessed us with a little miracle of finding the family. I am pretty sure lunch canceled just so we could find them and talk with them. pretty cool story of the week. other than this we really didn't teach much. we visited less active members and members which are pretty much the same thing here lol and yes we went of to Rose house and did some service for her that was good. I think we are going back this week to paint something for her. But as for new investigators we got those 3 which are great and nothing other than that so once again this week we are really trying hard to find new investigators we are going to be walking a lot this week. cant wait!!
this week was crazy as far as food... all but one lunch canceled on us so we had to eat in the house which sucks because we have no food so we live off of little roles and cookies. haha so we didn't really eat to much this week which was a bummer but a lady in the ward invited us over for lunch on new years and we hard a bbq which was good but I am sick a little from it today. lol So that's the food situation for last week.

this week we have interviews with the mission president so that's will be good. we where going to have them last week but he moved it. that's the only news for this week lol and there are some rumors that Elder Blanco and myself are going to be transferred to another city in Alegrete next transfer so that's kinda sad because I really want to have success in the area I am in now. but we'll see what happens with that.
news years was pretty good super lazy. we woke up and went to church. church was only sacrament again lol then we went home and studied for a little. after that we went to lunch and imra Daisy's house had a bbq then we went back to the house. we didn't work because there are to many parties and crazy things to work. hah so we spent the day in the house I studied for like 4 or 5 hours while Elder Blanco slept then after my study I caught up on some sleep. lol
New years eve night was crazy!! I have never heard so many fireworks in my life!! they where going off pretty much once it got dark then we went to bed and woke up to what I thought was the start of WWIII !! so many fireworks and it was so laud lol it was crazy how many fireworks where going off! I don't know where people got them but everyone and there dog seemed to be shooting them off at midnight! we woke up because of that and tried to sleep but that was hard with so much noise but I finally did it! lol
that's about it for the week nothing really exciting although we did get new investigators that seem to be pretty good! New years was pretty laid back didn't really do anything at all. and the week was good just being a missionary in the town of Alegrete lol no one likes the missionaries here and no one wants to help us!!! so keep us in your prays. that's it for the week. sounds like you guys are doing good keep it up lol thanks for all of you love and support love you all have a great week!!!

love Elder Novakovich