Elder Roney

*Note from Derek and Becky: "We loved every minute of skyping with Ashton on Christmas Day.  He looks great, loves the work, loves Alaska and is growing in the gospel."*

Hey everyone!
 Sorry I didnt get an email out to you guys yesterday, the place we usually do emails at was closed yesterday and same with the library. So I wasn't really able to get an email sent out yesterday. But skyping home was awesome! I loved it so much! It just made my day so much better, definitely the highlight of the day. It sounds like you guys all had a pretty good christmas and are gonna have a pretty good rest of your christmas break.Im glad you all liked your presents, you guys can switch with each other if you want to.  I loved the gifts you sent me, especially the ties, it was hard but I didn't open most of them before christmas! I feel accomplished for holding off til christmas. Thats fun that youre both teaching classes now, that should be a fun change for you guys.  Skiing should be pretty fun for you guys, thatd be sweet if I could ski up here haha.  Anyways, so for your questions, you can go ahead and give his mom a call, I wouldn't hate that. I like him a lot most of the time. He's a pretty nice guy. In this area I don't have to teach classes or give talks at all, at least not yet. In Homer me and elder Butler taught the gospel principles class most of the time, and we didn't have to give talks.  But yea its crazy how unhappy and messed up peoples lives can be, especially growing up in Orem you don't really see too much of it, but I never realized how unhappy people really are. But thats awesome news about Kendis, thatd be a sweet place to go on a mission.(His cousin, Kendis Roney, is going to Paris, France to serve in April)   And uncle Blake might not be too far away from her.

 But yea, theres not a ton of new news that I have from this last week that you dont already know about since we skyped. Last week was good though, we helped this less active couple move back to Utah, theyre gonna be living closer to his family, theyre an awesome couple, theyll be missed for sure. They gave us some of their furniture, so now I have a place big enough for all my garments and service and pday clothes besides on top of the shelf in my closet! Oh and I already told you on skype, but we had a lesson with Eric, the boyfriend of a girl in the ward. It went super good, we taught him some of the principles from the restoration. And tonight were watching the Joseph Smith movie with him and the Garcias, and if we have time we might watch another short church movie. It should be pretty great. Christmas and Christmas Eve were both amazing, on Christmas eve we ate dinner at a members house with 4 families in the ward, it was lots of fun. Those 4 families are some of my favorites. Christmas was awesome too, loved skyping and seeing you guys. And we had dinner with another favorite family in the ward, theyre a ton of fun. They got a chinchila for christmas! Its pretty awesome, that families pretty cool. Then we went and visited a couple members for the rest of the night. The ward here spoiled us, we got a bunch of gifts from the ward members. We got a mug, a tie, a scarf, a walmart gift card,  truffles, and a chocolate scrabble game. Ill probably send that mug that I got home sometime soon, its pretty cool. And again, I loved the gifts you guys sent me! thank you!  P-day was good, we were at the mission home all day, just playing ping pong, and games, eating lunch, and just hanging out with other missionaries. I found a couple pretty fun games yesterday, ones called mexican trains, its super fun, and also a card game blink. They're both fun games that I think you guys would enjoy playing. So guess what?! at the end of Pday when we were leaving the mission home two moose were hanging out outside of the mission home! Ill send pictures, they were two baby moose, but still pretty big. Their backs were about as tall as me, we were able to get like 4 feet away from them and they didnt care! One of the elders stood really still and held out his hand and the moose started licking his hand, it was pretty sweet. Good thing mama moose wasn't around that we could see. Anyways, not too much new stuff. Ill send the picures next week. Anyways, I love you guys and loved seeing you all on christmas! I hope you all had a great christmas and have a fun week! Tell Kendis congrats for me.    Love you guys!

Love Elder Roney

First December Countdown!

Hey everyone,

    So I have some good news, dad will love it. President Beesley sent out the news that we can skype if we want to! So thats pretty sweet, the only bummer thing about it is that if we do skype we cant talk for as long as if we talked over the phone, because I would have to skype at a members house. So just let me know if you want to skype or call. Thats crazy that Braedon and Virginia are getting married this saturday, its come so fast! Man, 6 days, thats awesome, too bad im gonna miss it.  It sounds like you all had a fun week, and the parties sound like they were lots of fun. Thats pretty sweet that Kurt Bestor played for the Nu Skin party, and you all got kindles, thats pretty dang cool. Kenzies homecoming sounded like it went great.{ a cousin that just returned from Guatemala}  It sounds like her mission was crazy, it sounds like she had some completely ridiculous pile(thats what we call missionaries that are worthless, like a pile of poop) {so sorry - he's a boy} companions. I definitely wouldnt sleep much for that week or two until she left, Id be terrified.  Haha its funny that Avery moans about your long prayers, once they go on missions they're prayers will get pretty long and they'll see alot of really long prayers that other missionaries give. That's fun that you saw Lane at build a bear with the marines. I did get the picture, its pretty sweet.
Our investigators are going alright. So Joan, she was going to come to church yesterday but didn't end up coming. We think her husband might be an influence that's kind of getting in the way. She seemed so golden and excited, then her husband just got back from working on the slope, up with all the oil way up north. And since hes been back we haven't been able to see her.   He answers the door each time and said she's not feeling too good. So hopefully once he goes back to work in a week or two (the people who work on the slope usually work two weeks on and two off,because they have to fly up there) we can start working with her again and get her to church. He seems pretty nice, I think he's just not very interested, so hopefully once he leaves we can make some headway. Also, a members daughter, Tasha, we're going to start working with her probably this or next week. Shes not a member and when she came to alaska she was against the church and wasn't interested in it at all.  Now shes warming up to us alot and said that once her husband (soon to be ex husband) leaves town she'll accept a book of mormon and maybe start taking lessons.  Her husbands super against our church and mad that she's looking into it. She seems super solid and golden though, a previous elder from this mission lives in the apartment in the upstairs of her moms house and hes been really helping her progress.  They've had alot of talks about the gospel and good discussions. So hopefully we'll start teaching her soon. There's a couple other people were working with too, but we can really see that things are brewing and gonna start going good here soon. We've got a bunch of potential investigators too, so hopefully those turn into solid investigators soon.
    So this weeks been pretty good for the most part for us. The wind here has been crazy the past two days, and last night we got like a foot of snow! The weathers kind of bipolar right now, its pretty weird.  But its been warmer, its been in the 20s alot! I got your letters and the packages from family and soon to be family the Voeks, thank you all so much! I love getting mail, it's so exciting to see a letter in the PO box. I put up my little christmas tree and put all my presents around it, and then I taped up that paper christmas tree on the wall and put up all those paper ornaments on it. {Thanks to Uncle Park and Aunt Stephanie}  Ill send a picture of our living room next week.  It's completely decked out in christmas lights, we taped up probably 8 or 9 strands of lights on our ceiling so when we hit the light switch all the lights turn on, and now thats how we light up our living room, I think it's awesome. Were borrowing 2 strands from a member, im using the lights you sent me in my christmas package, and then we got the rest from salvation army, it was pretty sweet. Theyre so dang cheap there, like a buck fifty for 100 lights, its great, gotta love thrift stores, and the best part is that theyre brand new and work like a charm. So our apartments pretty cool right now. We did exchanges this week, it was alot of fun, I went to Chugiak with Elder Darcey,and Elder MacPherson stayed in Eagle River with Elder Ivan, it was fun, then elder Ivan and Darcey slept over at our place last night becasue they had a dentist apointment early this morning, that was alot of fun. Elder Mac got Dear Johned, that wasn't so fun for him. We got to go to the temple on Wednesday! It was awesome, I love going to the temple. Last night I found out that a guy in the ward here helped design the anchorage temple. I thought it was cool. Tomorrow we have zone conference, thatll be fun, its our christmas one so theyre giong to have a dinner there for us and everything. It should be a pretty good zone conference.
      So nothing too crazy has happened lately.   this weeks been pretty good,  Love you guys!

                            Love Elder Roney

Elder Roney

Hey Everyone!
     So this weeks been pretty weird and went by pretty slow. So on Friday we got a call from our zone leaders with some weird news/information. President had them tell us that we arent allowed to leave our appartment until further notice. The reason was because there was going to be freezing rain and during the darker hours of the day/night it would all freeze and make the roads straight ice.   So it was going to be really slick and dangerous to be driving around.   So just about all day we were inside our apartment, and I figured out how to do the rubiks cube haha. We were only allowed to be out of our apartment for a couple hours if we had lessons planned, so we were only out of our apartment for about an hour or so that day. It was super weird. Then the next day, we went around doing our thing then at about 3 they called again and told us that because of weather and slick roads due to rain we could only be out and about until 6.   And Saturday night a lady in the ward called us and told us that because of slick roads and weather conditions, church would be cancelled on Sunday, so there was no church yesterday, it didnt feel like Sunday at all. I guess there were like 30 crashes/cars in ditches on the freeway between anchorage to eagle river. And anchorage is only about 30 minutes from eagle river, I heard anchorage had like 115 mph winds saturday or sunday night.  And again our zone leaders called us Sunday morning telling us that we couldn't leave our apartment because of road conditions. Then, just like before they said we could be out between 4 and 6.   So pretty much all we did on Sunday was watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional at a members house, then eat dinner at that members house and head home after dinner. It did not feel like Sunday, the only reason I remembered it was Sunday was becasue we were fasting. The Christmas Devotional was amazing, I hope you guys watched it or heard about it. It talked alot about the real reason for Christmas, the gifts God gave us, and charity. And it showed some of the new videos that they filmed in the new Jerusalem theyve been building. They were super good. So the weekend was the slowest weekend ever, the weekend felt like a whole week.
     So we picked up a new investigator this week! Her name is Joanne Thor, she's the lady that gave us the dolphin statue. We went back and visited her twice this last week, once to do a lesson, and once to remind her about church. Thats right, the first visit last week she told us she wanted to  come to church with us, she was telling us that she wants to stop using alcohol and went to the AA class the previous night. The second time we visited her to remind her about church she was super drunk again, but still wanted to come to church with us. She said she would be sober for church which was good and gave us her number so we could call her in the morning and remind her and make sure shes sober. Unfortunately we had to tell her that church was cancelled but she could come next week. So that's what she wanted to do, she told us that she would be there next week. We'll probably visit her again this week once or twice to see how shes doing, hopefully teach her a lesson and remind her about church. So thats the main new exciting thing thats going on here. The work here is slowly picking up and were finding more people to teach, so thats awesome! Elder MacPherson and I came up with another idea to help everything to get going. We made a sign up sheet that we passed around relief society to have short lessons with members. Hopefully this way we can get the trust of the members, earn referrals and get people more involved and excited about missionary work. I think it'll be good. Weve been tracting more too, and we've found a few more potential investigators, so hopefully that will turn into something good!
     Oh and guess what?! Ive worked off all the Thanksgiving dinners I ate and then some. But Im still about 5 or 6 pounds heavier that when I came out. Its better than 15 pounds heavier than last week. The slim fast diet works haha, Ive lost about 10 pounds since last monday!   Also, I got the christmas package that had the nativity, window clingons, 12 days of christmas bag for me and Elder MacPherson, that countdown chain and all that other good stuff. Thank you! I absolutely love getting mail, so keep mail coming if you can:)   That's so exciting that the weddings in 2 weeks, its coming up pretty quick. Its funny that my sister in laws older sister is so close too, maybe Ill get sent somewhere in Anchorage to serve sometime and Ill get to see her. Thats good that the Roneys and Borens are doing good. All of those many Christmas parties are going to be fun for you guys, its just gonna be one party after another, party time!  Christmas is going to be alot different this year for me, itll be good though. Hopefully people are more receptive during Christmas season as we share a message with them about Christ and the real meaning of Christmas.  
     Anyway, it sounds like everyones doing good, and staying busy. Hopefully it stays that way. This week was good for me, we're starting to see some good success here in Eagle River.   I'm excited about that.   It got into the 50s on Sunday, so that was good.   I didn't have to wear my coat that day, it was nice. The devotional on tv was great, loved it!    You guys should check out the videos filmed in the new Jerusalem that they have so far, they' re good. Also, you guys should make a mormon.org profile, I know Braedon wanted us to make one while he was on his mission too.   So you should do it.    

 Anyways, Im doing good and I love you guys!

                Love Elder Ashton Roney