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