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