First Week in Homer!

Hey everyone,

so everythings good, Alaskas good. Its been rainy almost everyday but pretty here. In Anchorage at the mission home we all ate Mucktuck, its whale blubber, and its disgusting. But I like my mission president, president Beesley, he retired a year ago or something like that, hes the best test pilot in the USA, when theyre testing out a new fighter jet they call him. He was the first person to fly the f-33 and hes done a ton of top secret stuff too, its pretty cool. The Time Bandit from The Deadliest Catch docks here in Homer. Its pretty cool, I havent seen it yet because its still out fishing. Homers a tourist attraction and Its where cruise ships come bring tourists. We went out to the spit, and we met some LDS families out there. And we talked to a russian guy out there too. When we were talking to the russian some people were taking pictures of us, it was kinda funny, the russians dont dress that good but are rich. The spits where the time bandit docks, and the tourist shops are, and its where you go to get on a fishing boat. The spits pretty much a skinny piece of land that stretches out into the ocean. It has the same feel as James Town {Georgetown} in Cayman, because of all the tourist shops and tourists walking around. Homers good. Its got some really weird people. We do lots of service here, on wednesday we mowed lawns and cloroxed the roof of a house, on the houses here, moss grows and so to kill the moss or stop it from growing you put clorox bleach on your roof. And on Friday we helped some investigators butcher chickens. It was pretty gross, my companion, elder Butler killed them and I plucked them. I was gonna kill too until I watched him do it first. What you do is tie their feet so they're upside down, and you cut their throat to kill them and let them bleed out and die, then you take them and pluck them. I didnt want to kill them because they would scream and flap their wings, and the blade was pretty dull so it took a little bit to kill them, I didnt want to do that. So I helped pluck them and then later we packaged the meat. And it was super rainy and cold that day too. So thats been the service part so far. We do alot of tracting, its so worthless, no one lets you in, its like theyre all hiding from people and dont want to see anyone. And some people will hide, and youll see them in the window but they still wont answer the door, or youll see them look in the peep hole but wont answer the door, Im pretty sure theyre all afraid of us. The houses here are super spread out too, each house is like 100 yards from each other so you walk like almost a mile to tract part of each road. Its crazy, but the members are good here, and the wards good. We eat at a members house almost every night for dinner. The members definitely feed you good here, and the fresh salmon and halibut is delicious, its a ton better than the salmon and halibut at home. Homers such a small town, its weird, theres only one stop light here and theres only 2 fast food places, mcdonalds and subway. And theres one LDS church in all of Homer. Theres a russian religion here, you dont have to be russian to be in it, you just have to speak russian. Its kinda cool, theres russian villages of just the people in their religion. Everyone in their church has to dress a certain way, the guys cant ever shave their beards, and the guys have to wear this weird flower embroidered shirt, and the girls have to wear these weird hats and dresses. Everyone in their church gets a brand new super nice big truck too. Because when you join their religion everything you make goes to the church but they split it up equally among everyone, and thats whey they all have nice trucks. So whenever theres a nice new truck its a russian almost everytime. My companions elder Butler, hes from Idaho. Hes cool. The work heres way slow, but a non member family that just moved to homer showed up at church yesterday, so theres a good chance theyll be baptized. Thatd be sweet! My Pdays are on Monday. And Ill send some pictures next week, I forgot my card reader at the apartment in the camera case, sorry! But I like it here, its pretty cool, Im doing good.

Love Elder Roney