Fun in Anchorage

Hey everyone! 

   This week was good, I was in Anchorage for most of the week so we didn't really get to meet with too many people this week.   But we got to see the Iditarod winners come in on Tuesday night at like 11:30 (we got permission) and we just saw the first two people come in then we went back to the apartment. It was awesome.  Then, when we were getting some lunch at subway before we left to Anchorage on Wednesday we saw Lance Mackey and another guy come in. It was fun watching Lance and the other guy come in, they were neck to neck.  At first, Lance was ahead, then the other guy pulled ahead of him and got onto the last small stretch.  But once he got to the last stretch, his dogs sat down in the middle of the street and Lance was able to get ahead of him and beat him. It was good lunchtime entertainment haha. 

  

  President Beasley told us that were both staying in Nome for another transfer.  And he told me in my interview with him that I'm not going to finish my mission here in Nome. So either this transfer or next transfer will be my last one in Nome.  

  

  We flew to Anchorage on Wednesday (for zone conference)  and got back on Sunday about 20 minutes before church started. Flying back was kinda crazy.  We ended up flying back to Nome twice within like 16 hours and we were on the plane for 8 hours.   So originally we had planned on returning to Nome tomorrow (Tuesday) after transfer meeting.  But the assistants gave us our flight itinerary on Saturday and said we were leaving in a few hours. So on Saturday we left on the 5:10 flight back to Nome.  We stopped in Kotzebue (above the arctic circle) for a little while then on to Nome from there.   When we were about to land in Nome and about 300 feet above the ground the pilotpulled up super fast.  The weather was so bad that they missed the runway and couldn't see very well.   So they kept flying, came on the intercom and told us that were going back to Anchorage because of weather conditions. So we landed back in Anchorage at about 10 pm or so and the assistants took us back to the mission home for the night. Our flight was rebooked by the airlines for the 6 am flight and we landed in Nome at about 9 am and got back to the church/apartment at about 9:45.  We had just enough time to shovel the porch to get to the door and get a few things set up before church started at 10. 

  

  Zone conference was good, the assistants did a neat activity/training on light houses. They taught that light houses have the big light up top that everyone knows about, but they have a lower light as well and this is one thing that I didn't know, but the reason they have a lower light is to more accurately guide ships to shore. When you're trying to be guided by the light house you line up the lower light and the big light straight up and down from each other and that leads you through a safe path. They related the lower light to us as missionaries and members and that we need to be a good example/have the spirit/do what were supposed to because people see that and we have to make sure that were being that light to lead people to Christ and being lined up with the big light. There were lots more good training that we recieved but due to time that's all that I'll share from zone conference with you guys.  We got to go to the temple while we were in Anchorage.  It was us, the Bethel elders, the assistants and President and Sister Beesley that went. It's so nice to go through the temple again, I just love it there.   It was super weird being in Anchorage for a few days and not having an area.  We stayed at the mission home while we were down there.  It was kinda cool/fun being around President Beesley everyday. 

  

  Other than the adventure to and from Anchorage this week, I was able to meet with some less active members that we've had a hard time getting in with this transfer. Then we met with Christine and her family. It was just quick because we had a few things we had to get done that day before we left Nome. But it was good, she's a cool lady.   

  Here's the answers to your questions now :), Il be watching general conference here at the church, unless someone invites us to watch it with them at their house. And the church does have satelite reception to watch all the sessions. Yeah,  I'll for sure send my winter clothing home once it warms up,probably a few boxes of winter stuff once summer hits.

  

  Im glad you guys are doing so good and had a fun trip, St George sounds like it was a fun trip, it would be so nice to have some warm weather even somewhat close to the weather you guys had down there. The warmest weather I've felt in a while was when I was in Anchorage last week end and it was in the 20s or 30s, so nice. Well I'm glad everyone's doing good and staying busy, hope you guys have an awesome week! Love you guys!

 Love Elder Ashton Roney

 Oh and Ill send some pictures :)

The one with missionaries is my district and the two guys in the front are the zone leaders(meadow creek)

And some pictures of the iditarod of the Lance  coming in off the ocean ice

   Enjoy!

deliciouso

Hey everyone! 

  This weeks been good, I had to give a talk on sunday.  Even in front of just 20 or less people I found that I still really don't like giving them, haha. It was good though. I did it on being converted, hopefully it was good. We got the news that we're flying down to Anchorage on wednesday at noon for zone conference on friday.  And then a week from tomorrow is transfer meeting, so I might find out if I'm staying or leaving sometime today or tomorrow. Hopefully the iditarod comes in before wednesday.  We heard that the musher in the lead just passed Koyuk so there's a chance that we'll be able to see the winner come in. It's gonna stink if we leave just before they come in. The town's getting crazy the past day or so with all the people that have come in for iditarod.  

We helped a guy  move his shop.  He owns a native shop with ivory and all sorts of cool, legit stuff that natives from the villages sell him.   We go in there just about every week to look around and stuff.  His sister or cousin or ? is a potential investigator, so we try to see if we can catch her there.  After helping him he gave us some pretty cool small ivory carvings for helping him move. It was pretty awesome. There was a snow sculpting contest yesterday.  It was pretty cool to see some of the things people carved, there was a lazy boy in front of a tv, there was a giant pineapple, a muskox, the red bird on angry birds and a few other things, it was cool. I had a terrifying experience at the senior center this week ha.  We were playing bingo with some older folks and I was the one who was calling the numbers. Well, this one old lady from the village of wales got a bingo and she was asking what she would win.  We told her that her prize was that she gets to play again, haha, because they hadn't bought any more candy since the last time we played bingo.  But then after a minute she tried tickling me, but I ignored her and didn't acknowledge her at all and then she said; "Do I get to tickle you?" and then tried tickling me again.   It was probably the most terrifying thing that's happened to me all week, haha. Next time I'm sitting on the other side of the table. Oh and I finally got a picture in front of the welcome to nome sign, it's a giant gold pan. (They mine gold in Nome) I got the package you guys sent me, thank you so much! the thermals were definitely a big help, we had some crazy wind storms and blizzards this week that were pretty cold. 

  This week we saw I---------- a few times, we had some good lessons with him. For one of the lessons we were planning on reading through Moroni 7, but he accidentally started in chapter 1 and when we told him that he was in the wrong chapter he made the decision to just read all of Moroni haha.  So we read all 10 chapters of the book of Moroni with him and he loved it, it was awesome. 

  So about the reindeer in the back of the truck, (A picture he sent with last week's email), well that's some dudes pet.  He drives around town with it in the back of his truck.  So it pretty much thinks it's a dog and it'll lean its head to let you pet it haha.  At first you think it's like trying to keep you away or kill you or something because it's antlers poke you but it's just trying to get you to pet it when it does that. (Only in Alaska)

  I'm glad you all had a good week, it sounds like some crazy stuff happened this week. It would of been pretty interesting to be Brolin and see that dude in the sweats hanging out in our backyard early in the morning, and Avery declined the Mr.Orem nomination haha, gotta do what you gotta do I guess :),(Avery's been fighting some stomach problems for about two weeks - legit excuse)

Well I gotta go, love you guys! Hope you all have a wonderful week!

 Love Elder Ashton Roney

Upchuck Mucktuck?

Hey everyone!

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY POPSY!!!! I hope you had the most wonderful, delightful, delectable, and best birthday ever! You'll never be 52 ever again. The Iditarod race started yesterday, so I guess they did it for your birthday, they're so nice, i'll tell them thanks for you.  It sounds like it was a pretty good one, I'm glad it was so good! (The Iditarod sled dog race starts in Anchorage and ends in Nome.  Last year, Ashton helped as a volunteer for the Iditerod in Anchorage.  This year, he'll be able to watch the finish in Nome.)

  I ate the eskimo food and didn't get sick! I'll send a picture, but what I ate was mucktuck (whale skin and whale blubber), fermented mucktuck (they let it sit out in room temperature for 2 weeks to prepare it, ew), and I ate walrus meat and walrus skin. I liked the walrus meat and regular mucktuck the best, the walrus meat was like eating steak that tasted a little bit fishy. The mucktuck was alright, it didn't taste too bad but it was super hard to chew. Then the walrus skin was kinda like eating a salty, fishy tasting rubber band, but probably easier to chew than a rubber band might be. And the fermented mucktuck was just something that makes me want to throw up, it was slimy and looked like a loogy and tasted super gross and left a nasty aftertaste in your mouth. I would be perfectly happy never eating it again, or smelling it again. Carol said that she's gonna feed us whale meat, fermented baby walrus, seal oil, cormorant (a sea bird) and all the rest of the eskimo food, not sure when yet though. Oh and every october she comes down for general conference and she's gonna bring down some eskimo food for you guys to try :). It was cold for a couple days this week, it got down to -30, I only got a picture of the thermometer in our car when it was saying -27 though.

 We hiked out to an old mining dredge last week, I'll send some pictures. It was really cool, super big and super neat. Oh and mom, I don't have the song down yet, maybe once I get home I'll be able to sing it. ( He's learning a song in Siberian Yuptik, which is a language native to the town of Savoonga where he's hoping to work.)  But instead of sending a video of me singing it I'll send a video of me eating eskimo food hah. We drove on the ocean this week too, it was super cool, the ice is thick enough now that you can drive your truck out there, so we drove where it was packed down by other trucks and snowmachines. It was neat driving around frozen ice chunks and everything, and don't worry mom, it's safe. 

  So we met with I-------- again, we were only able to meet with him once this week because of his work schedule but it was good. We read over Mosiah 5 with him and helped him understand it better. It was really good, were probably gonna meet with him tomorrow again, it should be good. We had a lesson with M---------, she's a lady who had been taught in the past (about 18 months ago) and it went really well. She's real interested in learning and were gonna meet with her again this week.Theres a lady named J---- that we met with, she's super religious and willing to learn more about our beliefs and a really cool lady. We won't be able to meet with her for a while though because she's gonna be out of town for a few weeks to go have a baby in Anchorage. Unfortunately we weren't able to see G-------- this week, I think she already left to Shaktoolik but I'm not sure. We went back to see if we could catch both Rob and G--------- but when we went back some other guy answered the door and said that he didn't know who either of them are. So well keep looking for them and hope they give us a call haha. Our ward did a mini golf activity that was based around the plan of salvation, it was a really fun activity. The young men each made a hole and had to relate it to something in the plan of salvation.

 I'm glad everyone had such a good week! Good job on getting nominated to be Mr. Orem Avery, youre for sure gonna win! That's pretty sweet that youre growing so much since August Brolin, you're gonna be taller than me by the time I get home, I think I'm probably done growing, I'll never make it to 6ft haha, but whatever I never wanted to be 6 ft tall anyways.. haha.  I'm glad Dad had such a good birthday! That's so good that everyone had a good week! Hopefully everyone has a great week this week too. Gotta go now, bye!

Love you guys!

  Love Elder Ashton Roney