2012

Hey everyone!

    Happy New Years! Sorry I didn't email yesterday.   The library was closed and same with the college, so we didn't get to email.   They're still closed, but we're all using the family history library computers today.   So I attached the pictures of the moose we saw last week at the mission home.   I was able to get pretty close, it was cool.   Also, I attached a picture of the garcia family.    They used to be not as active a long time ago, but now they're pretty solid and active and have been for a while.   They're doing good.   We read scriptures every night with them and do family home evenings and all that fun stuff.   The picture of elder MacPherson is him burning his shirt.   He hit his year mark last week, so as a missionary tradition - you burn a shirt at your year mark.  That's what he's doing in that picture, it was pretty sweet.    Oh and that last picture was from new years eve, we got martinellis and played darts, it was fun.   That's the mug the garcias gave me.   Once I poured my martenelli into the mug I realized how funny it looked, so we got a picture.
  But this week was good.  We did have to be in early for new years eve.   We were asked to be in our apartments at 7 because alcohol's a big problem up here.   So, from 7 on we played at least 40 games of darts and drank our martinellis and ate alot of the candy and stuff you guys have sent.     Elder MacPherson felt sick the next day - haha.    Our district leader and his companion slept over and we had fun with them.    By the way, me and elder macpherson beat them at darts 20 games to 16.   We went to the mission home yesterday and hung out there for P-day.  I asked President Beesley if I could see Braedon and Virginia when they come up next july-august.  He said he'll think about it but not to get my hopes up.
We taught eric more lessons, he's doing awesome.   So far, we've shown him the restoration dvd, taught the restoration, and also taught about the gospel of Jesus Christ.   And he did accept a baptismal invitation, we just need to set a date with him.   So he'll probably be baptized sometime this transfer, which is awesome!   He said he just needs some time to make sure he really wants to be baptized and make that commitment and do it for the right reason.  But he wants  to know the truth and join our church.   He's awesome.   Also, we have another investigator named tasha. We're slowly but surely making progress with her.  We've watched the restoration dvd with her and talked a little bit about it all.   But a few months ago she didn't even want anything to do with the church and now she'll  take the lessons.   So this week was good, not a whole lot has happened.
It's good that you guys are having good weather and temps in the 40s, right now its -5 here.   It's gotten really cold the past few days, I hate the cold...(Wow, that's news to us!!) My hands almost got stuck to a shovel the other day, the cold just hurts haha. You're lucky that you get to go skiing to.   That'd be awesome if we could ski as a missionary, i'd be all over that.   A member invited us to go skiing with them yesterday and we had to tell them we weren't allowed, haha. That's good that Avery likes skiing so much, and a bummer Brolin doesn't.  It sounds like everyones having fun, thats a bummer that aunt Nancy got stung by a sting ray, that would be terrible.   Thats awesome that Braedon got that grant, thats gonna be awesome for him! {Braedon applied for and received a financial grant for school}   Anyways, it sounds like everythings pretty good for the most part. Everythings good here. I gotta go, I love you guys!

Love Elder Ashton Roney