Nikki's Velveteen Carli

You have seen pictures of our little dog before, but have you seen her lately?

In November on 2008 Mike and Jaren drove to Preston Idaho to pick up our little treasure. And that she was. At just 8 weeks old she was so cute and timid and cuddly and soft and sweet and loveable and LITTLE!!!

Well now it is October of 2009 and now she is NOT SO LITTLE anymore. What happened to my little Carli?

Now my Carli is just...well see for yourself!

Missionary News

mom and dad-it might be cold there, but maybe i can interest you with some snow???? yup you got it. it snowed last night. winter is here. yeah, i have most of my snow stuff, but i need boots. but they are so expensive it is dumb. i found some nice ones for about 125, but i don't know. i might just tough it for the last winter. what do you think. anyways, i'm really exited right now!!!!!!!!! last night we had a stellar lesson with Lorn and he wants to be baptized a week from today!!! yup my first one, found him, taught him, and we are baptizing him. i'm so stoked, it is like no feeling in the world to bring the gospel to someone. a true truth seeker!!!! I know it is all a blessing from my Father in Heaven though, i make sure to thank him every night for being able to take part in this miracle. so next wednesday, our ward mission leader is going to baptize him. i'm so stoked!!! he is an amazing kid. another cool story or testimony builder for me was last night he told me he wished he would have done the date that we tried for originally which was the 10th of october. so goes to show as missionaries we are inspired even though it wasn't some grand revelation. it is amazing how the Lord works by small and simple things. but what matters is he is being baptized!!! wahoooooo.Other than that things are going well here. it is cold, but things still move along. we are working really hard and trying to do our best. the mission tour was amazing, basically we just had Elder Maynes(a seventy) come and talk to us. i got to have one extra meeting with him since i am a zone leader. that was fun. he just trained us and taught us how to be better servants of the Lord. I really love it out here. it is so cool. time goes by so fast and i get upset cause i want it to slow down. but i know the Lord has more in store for me after. that is amazing about zoe, she is a stud. i still wish i could have learned piano, i plan on just taking it upon myself to get lessons when i get home. tell jaren and darbi good luck with their races. i'm sure they will do amazing. and good luck to both of you on the weight loss. i'm slowly getting fatter and fatter every day.lol. well lets see, anything else...oh no word on transfers yet. i have no idea really. next week i will though. umm...keelp carli around, i will be mad if she isn't there when i get home mom. i did order that quad so who knows when it will get here. and i will be watching for your letter dad. mail has really really slowed down for me. i get it about once ever two weeks maybe. about one or two a month on average. oh well. it keeps me focused and i don't mind to much. i do want the family to know that i love it out here and there is nothing i would rather do right now. i love serving the Lord, he lives, i know he does. The Book of Mormon was translated by the prophet joseph Smith by the power of God. I know that this work is true and we have the possibility of being a family forever. I find such comfort in knowing i will be with all of you forever. i love you all, and always remember to do your member missionary work. it really helps. have a great week.love,elder nick novakovich

X-Country 2009

Well the East Valley X-Country season is well under way and Jaren, Darbi and Zoe are right in the thick of things. We are having a great time watching, cheering and running to different parts to the course to encourage the runners. Jaren has an agenda this year due to a lost season last year. Darbi is working close with the coaches to improve on each race and Zoe is proving that she certainly can run.

We have had several meets to date and the kids are having a great time. We travelled to Missoula last weekend and ran the Mountain West Classic. There are about 53 teams involved in the race and our East Valley Boys team too 11th place. They really are working well together as a team this year.

This weekend we went to Yakima to the Sunfair Invitational Meet. This is a fun race. There is a hill that doesn't quit and lots of gradual hills and sharp turns. Both Jaren and Darbi did well in this race. Jaren ended up taking 15th in his flight.

Mission Mail

hey mom and dad-well this week was the start of an extremely busy week. we have three weeks left in this transfer and have a bunch of exchanges to go on and then meetings we get to go to. our mission tour is the first week in october. Elder Maines is coming to visit us. so it should be exciting but way busy. it will be good though, i'd rather be busy than not have much to do. the work in our area is giong well, we are trying to work as hard as we can when we get a day or two in our area. it is going well though. Both the kids told me that missoula was a success. that is so cool that jaren did so well. darbi sounds a little stressed out with it all and not doing so well as she would like. i tried to give her some encouraging words. but i don't know if it will hlep or not. i hope it does. they all sound like they are doing really well right now which is great to hear. I will keep work in my prayers, i know things will work out. but i understand taht it is nice to know you have work to do. i'll keep prayin for ya. that is great though that things are workin out with getting the house all done up. ibet it looks great. as for transfers, we have 3 weeks left in this one. and i honestly have no idea if i will be moving or not. i have a few places i would like to go, but i would also really liek to stay in fredericton. i have a feeling that if i don't go this transfer i will be in Fredericton for a long time, which isn't too bad i guess. mom, i forgot to tell you a while ago, that book of mormon that you sent me was my favorit thing you sent. i thought that was way cool i have it in my drawer. and we have these little cards with a pic of us as a missionary on them for a place to put our testimonies in when we give out our BOM. so i put one of those in the one yo ugave me. it is pretty cool. i would be pretty excited to hear from bro. Gilson, he is the man. tell him i said hi. i'm so stoked for general conference. and we are just going to our building. we don't really have a big stake gathering. our stake is like most of New brunswick so it is hard for them all to travel that far. we just get it in all of the buildings. in fact our stake goes into maine. the church is really small here, and not diong really well. but we are hoping to make things better. i love general conference though, it is so sweet. i have found a new love for it since i have been on my mission. it is pretty cool stuff. i just sometimes cannot believe how blessed we are to live in the times of the fulness of the gospel...well i love you all and pray for you daily. keep up the good work. i love you./Elder Nick Novakovich

New Letter

dad and mom-so everyone and their dog must have a corn feed. cause we had one too. lol. ours was not too good though, rather boring. that is so sweet though that that elder ended up coming to our area and actaully remembering me, man i forgot about him. but i remember talking to him. man, that is crazy. it is nuts too that i'm almost to a year. pretty nuts. i'm stoked. that is crazy that bishop had a heart attack. good thing he is o.k. though. it is just sad that sometimes that is waht it takes for us to realize we need to prioritize our lifes a little bit. I did hear about BYU. and i don't know if i would get my hopes up, they always find a way to choke...lol. but it would be cool. you should go to that game though, that would be way fun. i just wish i could go as well. that is funny that you guys didn't like pig out in the park. i loved that!!!! i even thought about it the other day and wished i could go. ry and i loved going to that. and mom as for what ry did for me for my bday, i'm not sure yet, she sent a package to me the other day so i will find out soon. i'm pretty excited. and that is good that you all got you cards. i thought they were all pretty funny. Hopefully work continues to go well for you dad. and that would be nice to learn new things so you can do that stuff. so are people still losing their jobs like crazy? Keep paying tithing and praying is all i can say. That is good that the kids started school off well. it started yesterday here. the weather is terrible mom yo have no room to talk. we are in the 10-15 range every day. it is getting cold. we all predicted snow in a couple of weeks. so yeah, you can enjoy spokane mom. lol. as for the questions you asked me dad, we did have zone conferene a couple weeks ago, it was so sweet. i did have to speak on being exactly obedient, and then i gave a training yesterday in the district meetings. tryin to motivate some elders. we have zone council coming up in the end of september which i am super stoked for!!!!!! it is a blast. and way spiritual. there are about 90 people that come to church every week. so big for atlantic canada right now. we are teaching a few people. a part member family and then a young college kid that we are going to teach tonight. so things are getting better, slowly. but i have set new goals for myself and re evaluated my mission for myself. i feel pretty confident that i can work to accomplish my major goal for myself, which is to baptize two times a month for the rest of my mission. so 24 people before i come home. that is my minimum, so i'm prayin hard and workin hard and lovin the people here. well i hope that is good for now. i love you all and keep you in my prayers. Love Elder Nick Novakovich

Late mission mail

hey mom and dad-well all i can say is man that sucks!!! i was sitting here remembering those days of painting the super 1's and i almost cried. in fact i assumed the fetal position here on the floor. lol. just kiddin. but you are right it is work, and a blessing. that sucks about adam though. satan is workin his hardest and that is something i have seen a lot of is that he definately knows when people are on the right track and then pounds them with adversity. it makes my job tough. as for the mariners....they are a joke. It is so nuts that i have almost been out one year!!! half way done. holy cow. i was thinking about that this time last year we were getting all prepared and that fun stuff. it just seems so surreal to me. the time has been flying by. it is good and bad. i absolutely love it out here. and i think i will have a hard time coming home. oh and sorry mom but DO NOT PICK ME UP!!! I REPEAT DO NOT PICK ME UP!!!! i want to come home on the plane and see everyone waiting for me in the airport. i have always dreamed it would be that way and i only get to do it once. so just let me come home. and plus that is a year away, so don't get trunky yet mom. lol. that is good that you got my pic cd. what kind of pictures would you guys like me to take? send some requests and i will see what i can do. i have some funny ones here. My companion. Elder RHoades is from Lindon utah and has been out for 19 months. he is so cool. he was originally assigned to the croatia mission but it closed because of the civil war over there. so he got sent here. it is such a sad story for him. it kills me every time someone asks him about it. he is really cool though, we get along and have some fun. he is different from my other comps though. he doesn't do much with sports and taht kinda stuff. he is cool though. i love serving with him. thank you for the box, i will be looking forward to that. sounds like some fun. It sounds lke the kids had fun on their treak which is good to hear. and no i don't thinki would do it again. i might if cause i could be more prepared, but it would depend i would go with people i wanted to go with, not if it was just luck of the draw again. sometimes those stake youth activities can be sketchy. lol. As for me here, we continue to work our butts off in the freakin humid weather. it has been around 30 lately with about 70% humidity. it is terrible, i have had to come in and change a few times. yeah i know i thought i was in canada as well. oh but today i'm writing you from Houlton Maine baby!!!!! we are in america for the day so that is exciting. the work in Fredericton is really slow. we can't seem to find people who want to hear about the gospel but elder rhoades and i both know they are out there we just need to continue to work and put ourselves in the position for the Lord to bless us. WEll i hope all goes well this week and you continue to have fun. i love you all.

Elder Nick Novakovich