Email update

dad, That is so cool that you guys got a new puppy. i bet mom is lovin life with all the training she now gets to do. that is pretty intense how big her dad was, i think you should have gotten a boy with carly, that would have been pretty neat, but i'm sure mom put her foot down on three dogs in the house. I bet the drive was pretty nasty, although the good thing is this time you got to bring someone home instead of leave them behind at the MTC. The weather here is pretty odd, I would compare it to somewhere like london, it gets very foggy, muggy, and rainy allllllll the time. they say it doesn't snow until around christmas time, which doesn't bother me in the least, since on my mission i can't use the snow. Well i think that this week i made a break through as far as missing home. i have been able to overcome homesickness. i have really tried hard to work hard, so it goes away. i can now focus on the task at hand, which is a huge relief to my mind. i think the turn around was the other day, i was big time strugglin and i said a prayer, i got the distinct impression, that even though i can't talk to you when i want or see you. Our Heavenly Father is always there for us and he can supply comfort whenever we need it. like no one else can. I really felt his love that day. It is amazing how much he cares for his missionaries and makes sure they are happy.the sports scene looks like i haven't missed much this year, which is good for me. it looks liek i am rootin for Texas tech even though i would rather texas of beat them, but i know how you feel aboutthat. lol. you always root for the underdog. so we shall see how that goes. but no one saw those two teams bein number one and two when the season started. but that is cool for them.Rick really is a good guy. it is neat to hear how much people look up to you when you are just being your regular self and not trying to be someone i'm not. tell them i am thankful for them and there admiration. Your picture did come through and that was fun to see the new pup. I am trying to send you some pics in email, but i hope it works. I will send my card home, since i got the one in the mail the other day. so hopefully you get them soon.Dad, i am so grateful for all that you have taught me in life, and i will always be. i love you so much. Love always,your sonElder Novakovich

New Family Member

We have a new member of the family. Nikki claims she looks a lot like me. She eats like me for sure. Jaren and I drove to Preston Idaho to pick her up yesterday. She is only 8 weeks old and is going to grow like crazy. Her dad weighs 240 and her mom weighs 170.

Missionary Letter

It is pretty funny being in another country during election time. Everyone asks what I think being an american. I just laugh and tell them who i would want and leave it at that. But it sounds like Obama won from what mom told me, oh well. As far as the weather goes we have been really fortunate here. it has been nice and pretty warm, it looks like it is trying to become winter with all the fog and cold nights but the day s are wonderful. that stinks about zoe and her election. just tell her i love her and she will have more fun not being president, cause when you are president all people do is complain to you. lol. i'm sure she will be ok in a few days. that is so cool that jaren did so well in his race, that is amazing. and darbi also she is amazing for just a freshman. i wish i was as good at anything as a freshman. both of them tear it up on the field. it sounds like byu is still lovin to flirt with danger, i think that is why they lose. who knows. as for sports it sounds like it was a good time to leave with all my teams doing so well this year. man, it is just funny when your teams start doing horrible. good ol' wsu. and so much for the seahawks eh? pathetic it is. I have actually lost weight in the field. it is nice cause in the mtc i was havin to pull my pants tight to get them buttoned, but now they are kinda loose, so that is nice.lol. i heard about derrick and that would be interesting to be in the mtc for the holidays. as for the work here, i am actually beginning to become a focused and hard working missinoary. not that i wasn't just more so now. It is pretty cool to be able to feel the Lord working in my life. I can't believe the blessings that come to one, becuase of missionary service. I have always heard of them, but it is so surreal to have them in your own life. I'm so glad that i am out here. and tell mom to quite asking to get released cause if she does that i'm going to pray that she is still the teacher when i get home. we will alwasys be blessed if we magnify our calling and lose ourself in the service of others. I love you so much and will always be grateful for how you raised me dad. i love you.
Love your son
Elder Novakovich

Pumpkins

We all have been enjoying a very full fall season this year. We have been watching the kids run in their cross country meets. We celebrate every Wednesday by jumping out of bed and rushing to the computers to read the email updates from Elder Novakovich. It is so fun to hear how well he is doing and the maturity level he is rising to.

Work continues to go well and we are feeling the blessings of having a missionary out in the field.

First Email from Nick

Well I am just going to write one ginormas letter to you all. lol. So here it goes. Well to answer your questions, the other day it was 9 celsius here with a wind, so it was cold, the crapy thing was that it was thanksgiving and i hadn't gotten a coat yet so i was cold to say the least, oh well, i pressed on. as far as sickness i got pretty sick in the MTC but i am fine now. my comp has only served in three different areas, but he is awesome, we are trying to convert his family. lol. he was born here, so he has cousins and gmas to convert. but the work is going well, people here are terrible smokers so i get some headaches when we go into houses sometimes. and they all have commitment issues, we are at about three standstills untill they just commit to being baptized. That is great that work is going well. as far as i know this is the best place for the winter, it snows in about december so wel will be good for a little bit. with that package that you are going to send me, it needs to be off soon so that i can get it incase i transfer in 6 weeks, so yeah. oh as far as thanksgiving, it is not near as good as american style!! and we did eath enough, we went to one sunday night, ate a ton, and then on monday we had a dinner and supper appointment! so we ate so much, that it was gross! oh well. the branch here is so small we had about 30 people show this sunday, so that is about average i hear. i had to speak also, that was entertaining! the food hear is pretty normal, we did eat some sea food chowder last night at an investigators house, that i was not a fan of at all. but i ate it. well keep filling me in on all the sports action if you can, no one even cares over here. lol. you can go ahead and get rid of the van, lol, i could care less,lol. my apartment isn't too bad, it needs to be cleaned desperately, lol, so that will be on the agenda today, since it is pday. well i hope that you can answer all the questions with the info i gave you. oh one last thing, tell people about the email, cause to send a leter is a dollar to teh US, so i am only going to hand write you and ry. But the work is going good, my homesickness is wearing off, i have made it a point to think of the people instead of home. i love you all and it is great to hear from you, thanks for all your prayers and support.

More running

There has been more running at the Novakovich house. Of course none of it was by me. There are only a few things I believe are worth running for; from the law, from responsibility, from chores and the two for one sale at Crispy Cremes.

Darbi and Jaren had a meet this afternoon and both did remarkably well. Jaren placed 4th on his team and this the first race back from surgery two weeks ago. His legs were tired but his heart was in it.

Darbi placed 3rd on her team and ran the best race of the season for her. She has really worked on her form and it has paid off. (I have also worked on my form and it HASN'T paid off.) She kept up with the girl she was trying to beat the whole race. At the 800 meter mark she was 20 yards behind this girl. I yelled at her to catch her and it inspired the girl in front to fun faster. After 100 meters she started to close the gap on a downhill. I lost sight of her but when she rounded the corner towards the finish she was already 10 yards ahead and poring it on. She finished like a true sprinter and the coach said he wanted her to run the 400 meters in track after seeing that performance.

We have heard from Nick and he is enjoying being out in the field. He said they were leaving a dinner appointment the other night and asked the lady if they could do anything for her. She said she had seen a discarded matress down the street a couple of blocks and wondered if they wouldn't mind getting it for her. They found this thing in a trash heap and even though it was well used, they hauled it back to this house on their backs. Now he says nobody will let them in the door because word is out the mormon missionaries are stealing people's furniture.

He is in a small branch with only 30 members. He got to speak the first Sunday he was there. He likes the people and his companion and is really starting to enjoy it all. His email is ElderNovakovich@myldsmail.net if you want to write to him.

Off to Canada, eh

We got our anticipated call this morning from Nick as he began his journey to the mission field. He called from the Salt Lake airport on their way to Detroit and then to Halifax. He left the MTC at 6 am and will arrive at the mission office at 11pm this evening. They are traveling with 11 Elders and 2 Sisters, all going to the same mission.



He sounded good and was excited to first get some breakfast and then to finally be out in the mission field. (Teenagers) He loved the MTC and all the opportunities that were there to help him prepare to be a more effective missionary.



Darbi had another XC race we attended in Yakima this last weekend. We drove up and stayed in a hotel on Friday and then watched the races all day Saturday. There were 400 kids in each heat and there were 8 heats. She came in 35th in her race. The girls team placed 3rd overall.






Jaren wasn't able to race because the doctor wouldn't clear him to run in a race of that size. There was a lot of pushing and shoving and spiking going on. The doctor told him to wait 2 or 3 more weeks before he tried to run but he jumped on the treadmill last night and ran 3 miles. He said it felt pretty good even though his arm looked like it was frozen in place while he ran.



Zoe continues to excell in school and ask lots of questions. She comes up with such brainiac things I have accused Nikki of cheating because I couldn't father someone so smart. So I had her take a paternity test and sure enough.....the father is pictured below.