Sister Nadira Tupuola Email #57

by JElu - October 08, 2018

Hello family!
I hope your week has been better than being welcomed into the neighborhood with the sound of gun shots just a block over! haha yuup It's been a crazy week here in Sparks! but my companion and I are safe and sound!

Sister Loftice is my new companion and we've had lots of fun being together these past couple days. This is her last transfer and then she will be heading home to the small town of Gilmer, Texas in November. Its been fun getting to know her. She is really funny. She was one of the Sisters that witnessed the tragic shooting that happened in the sacrament meeting in Fallon. She is still overcoming what had happened that day but she is staying strong!

My last companion, Sister Squire is training a new missionary, Sister Gallis from Lehi, Utah.

This is the last pic I took with Sister Squire and her new trainee, Sister Veikoso and her new trainee.

Sparks

So sparks is a city near Reno. It's a small area but has a lot of people. We do not ride bikes due to the amount of bike thefts in the area. So we walk a lot.

This week we've been able to talk to a lot of people. Most of which were not interested. But everyone seems to be nice. There is a huge Tongan community here and a good mix of all different kinds of races. We were able to find 2 new people who were interested and told us we could come back the next day. The next day came and we ended up teaching them about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. There names are Pam and Marie and they are roommates. They are in their 60s and are religious. They loved having us over and invited us to come back on Sunday! So that was exciting!

Mele Kataki Finau!

Sister Finau is a less active member in our El Rancho ward who we are teaching. The Sisters go to her home every Wednesday to share messages with her. It was awesome getting to know her this past week. She used to be very active in the gospel until she was offended by one of the members in the Tongan ward. So she decided to come to our palagi ward. We taught her the importance of going to the temple and doing family history work. She then started to talk about her life growing up in Matahau, Tonga. I told her that my grandmother is from there and then she started to tell me all these stories about the Tavo family. She knew Fatai and Ekuasi Tavo very well. So that was cool. She said she would come to church this Sunday!

Sister Taufa!

I met Sister Taufa at our church building the other day! She knows the Tupuola family and my grandma Ana in Samoa. She was very happy to see me! She currently attends the Tongan ward here in Sparks.(Pic at the bottom)

It was late and we decided to try one more door. We saw that Ed lived nearby and that missionaries have taught him in the past so we decided to see how he was doing. He opened the door and was excited to see us. He has been trying to grow closer to Jesus Christ. He is 78 and lives with his dog named Oreo. We talked about the book of Mormon and how it can help one come closer to Jesus Christ. It was getting late but we scheduled another appointment to meet with him next week!

General Conference!

General conference was amazing! Watching and hearing from our living prophet helped me gain more of a testimony that he truly is a man called of God and that this gospel is true! I learn so much!

Well dang it, my time is up! I will just have to tell you more of the crazy things that happened this week, next week! but I am doing good! Sparks is awesome! The Church is trueeee and Russell M Nelson is the living prophet today! Have a great week!