First December Countdown!

Hey everyone,

    So I have some good news, dad will love it. President Beesley sent out the news that we can skype if we want to! So thats pretty sweet, the only bummer thing about it is that if we do skype we cant talk for as long as if we talked over the phone, because I would have to skype at a members house. So just let me know if you want to skype or call. Thats crazy that Braedon and Virginia are getting married this saturday, its come so fast! Man, 6 days, thats awesome, too bad im gonna miss it.  It sounds like you all had a fun week, and the parties sound like they were lots of fun. Thats pretty sweet that Kurt Bestor played for the Nu Skin party, and you all got kindles, thats pretty dang cool. Kenzies homecoming sounded like it went great.{ a cousin that just returned from Guatemala}  It sounds like her mission was crazy, it sounds like she had some completely ridiculous pile(thats what we call missionaries that are worthless, like a pile of poop) {so sorry - he's a boy} companions. I definitely wouldnt sleep much for that week or two until she left, Id be terrified.  Haha its funny that Avery moans about your long prayers, once they go on missions they're prayers will get pretty long and they'll see alot of really long prayers that other missionaries give. That's fun that you saw Lane at build a bear with the marines. I did get the picture, its pretty sweet.
Our investigators are going alright. So Joan, she was going to come to church yesterday but didn't end up coming. We think her husband might be an influence that's kind of getting in the way. She seemed so golden and excited, then her husband just got back from working on the slope, up with all the oil way up north. And since hes been back we haven't been able to see her.   He answers the door each time and said she's not feeling too good. So hopefully once he goes back to work in a week or two (the people who work on the slope usually work two weeks on and two off,because they have to fly up there) we can start working with her again and get her to church. He seems pretty nice, I think he's just not very interested, so hopefully once he leaves we can make some headway. Also, a members daughter, Tasha, we're going to start working with her probably this or next week. Shes not a member and when she came to alaska she was against the church and wasn't interested in it at all.  Now shes warming up to us alot and said that once her husband (soon to be ex husband) leaves town she'll accept a book of mormon and maybe start taking lessons.  Her husbands super against our church and mad that she's looking into it. She seems super solid and golden though, a previous elder from this mission lives in the apartment in the upstairs of her moms house and hes been really helping her progress.  They've had alot of talks about the gospel and good discussions. So hopefully we'll start teaching her soon. There's a couple other people were working with too, but we can really see that things are brewing and gonna start going good here soon. We've got a bunch of potential investigators too, so hopefully those turn into solid investigators soon.
    So this weeks been pretty good for the most part for us. The wind here has been crazy the past two days, and last night we got like a foot of snow! The weathers kind of bipolar right now, its pretty weird.  But its been warmer, its been in the 20s alot! I got your letters and the packages from family and soon to be family the Voeks, thank you all so much! I love getting mail, it's so exciting to see a letter in the PO box. I put up my little christmas tree and put all my presents around it, and then I taped up that paper christmas tree on the wall and put up all those paper ornaments on it. {Thanks to Uncle Park and Aunt Stephanie}  Ill send a picture of our living room next week.  It's completely decked out in christmas lights, we taped up probably 8 or 9 strands of lights on our ceiling so when we hit the light switch all the lights turn on, and now thats how we light up our living room, I think it's awesome. Were borrowing 2 strands from a member, im using the lights you sent me in my christmas package, and then we got the rest from salvation army, it was pretty sweet. Theyre so dang cheap there, like a buck fifty for 100 lights, its great, gotta love thrift stores, and the best part is that theyre brand new and work like a charm. So our apartments pretty cool right now. We did exchanges this week, it was alot of fun, I went to Chugiak with Elder Darcey,and Elder MacPherson stayed in Eagle River with Elder Ivan, it was fun, then elder Ivan and Darcey slept over at our place last night becasue they had a dentist apointment early this morning, that was alot of fun. Elder Mac got Dear Johned, that wasn't so fun for him. We got to go to the temple on Wednesday! It was awesome, I love going to the temple. Last night I found out that a guy in the ward here helped design the anchorage temple. I thought it was cool. Tomorrow we have zone conference, thatll be fun, its our christmas one so theyre giong to have a dinner there for us and everything. It should be a pretty good zone conference.
      So nothing too crazy has happened lately.   this weeks been pretty good,  Love you guys!

                            Love Elder Roney

Elder Roney

Hey Everyone!
     So this weeks been pretty weird and went by pretty slow. So on Friday we got a call from our zone leaders with some weird news/information. President had them tell us that we arent allowed to leave our appartment until further notice. The reason was because there was going to be freezing rain and during the darker hours of the day/night it would all freeze and make the roads straight ice.   So it was going to be really slick and dangerous to be driving around.   So just about all day we were inside our apartment, and I figured out how to do the rubiks cube haha. We were only allowed to be out of our apartment for a couple hours if we had lessons planned, so we were only out of our apartment for about an hour or so that day. It was super weird. Then the next day, we went around doing our thing then at about 3 they called again and told us that because of weather and slick roads due to rain we could only be out and about until 6.   And Saturday night a lady in the ward called us and told us that because of slick roads and weather conditions, church would be cancelled on Sunday, so there was no church yesterday, it didnt feel like Sunday at all. I guess there were like 30 crashes/cars in ditches on the freeway between anchorage to eagle river. And anchorage is only about 30 minutes from eagle river, I heard anchorage had like 115 mph winds saturday or sunday night.  And again our zone leaders called us Sunday morning telling us that we couldn't leave our apartment because of road conditions. Then, just like before they said we could be out between 4 and 6.   So pretty much all we did on Sunday was watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional at a members house, then eat dinner at that members house and head home after dinner. It did not feel like Sunday, the only reason I remembered it was Sunday was becasue we were fasting. The Christmas Devotional was amazing, I hope you guys watched it or heard about it. It talked alot about the real reason for Christmas, the gifts God gave us, and charity. And it showed some of the new videos that they filmed in the new Jerusalem theyve been building. They were super good. So the weekend was the slowest weekend ever, the weekend felt like a whole week.
     So we picked up a new investigator this week! Her name is Joanne Thor, she's the lady that gave us the dolphin statue. We went back and visited her twice this last week, once to do a lesson, and once to remind her about church. Thats right, the first visit last week she told us she wanted to  come to church with us, she was telling us that she wants to stop using alcohol and went to the AA class the previous night. The second time we visited her to remind her about church she was super drunk again, but still wanted to come to church with us. She said she would be sober for church which was good and gave us her number so we could call her in the morning and remind her and make sure shes sober. Unfortunately we had to tell her that church was cancelled but she could come next week. So that's what she wanted to do, she told us that she would be there next week. We'll probably visit her again this week once or twice to see how shes doing, hopefully teach her a lesson and remind her about church. So thats the main new exciting thing thats going on here. The work here is slowly picking up and were finding more people to teach, so thats awesome! Elder MacPherson and I came up with another idea to help everything to get going. We made a sign up sheet that we passed around relief society to have short lessons with members. Hopefully this way we can get the trust of the members, earn referrals and get people more involved and excited about missionary work. I think it'll be good. Weve been tracting more too, and we've found a few more potential investigators, so hopefully that will turn into something good!
     Oh and guess what?! Ive worked off all the Thanksgiving dinners I ate and then some. But Im still about 5 or 6 pounds heavier that when I came out. Its better than 15 pounds heavier than last week. The slim fast diet works haha, Ive lost about 10 pounds since last monday!   Also, I got the christmas package that had the nativity, window clingons, 12 days of christmas bag for me and Elder MacPherson, that countdown chain and all that other good stuff. Thank you! I absolutely love getting mail, so keep mail coming if you can:)   That's so exciting that the weddings in 2 weeks, its coming up pretty quick. Its funny that my sister in laws older sister is so close too, maybe Ill get sent somewhere in Anchorage to serve sometime and Ill get to see her. Thats good that the Roneys and Borens are doing good. All of those many Christmas parties are going to be fun for you guys, its just gonna be one party after another, party time!  Christmas is going to be alot different this year for me, itll be good though. Hopefully people are more receptive during Christmas season as we share a message with them about Christ and the real meaning of Christmas.  
     Anyway, it sounds like everyones doing good, and staying busy. Hopefully it stays that way. This week was good for me, we're starting to see some good success here in Eagle River.   I'm excited about that.   It got into the 50s on Sunday, so that was good.   I didn't have to wear my coat that day, it was nice. The devotional on tv was great, loved it!    You guys should check out the videos filmed in the new Jerusalem that they have so far, they' re good. Also, you guys should make a mormon.org profile, I know Braedon wanted us to make one while he was on his mission too.   So you should do it.    

 Anyways, Im doing good and I love you guys!

                Love Elder Ashton Roney

Elder Roney (photos!)

Oh I forgot to send the picture, and sorry that last email wasnt very long.. Heres the picture. And heres a moose that was right next to the road in Eagle River, and also some missionaries and sister Watson. The one with all the polynesians are me my trainer(the only other white kid), the elder my trainer trained before he trained me (the one on the very far right), the elder my trainers training in fairbanks ( the biggest one, second to the right) hes a samoan from australia, and im not sure who the one in the middle is.
Im getting fat.... :(

Elder Roney

Hey everyone!

So Thanksgiving was good, I never thought I would ever eat that much food in my life! We had 3 full meals and almost had 4, I felt like I was going to blow up at the beginning of the third!  It was crazy, we were eating meals basically all day, from 2 to about 7:30. And they eat turkey up here, haha im sure somewhere in alaska some people eat fish instead though. Not a whole lot of exciting stuff has happened this week,  were just trying to get the work to pick up here. It snowed more this week, so we did alot of shoveling for people, I like shoveling for people, its good exercise haha. This last week when I was shoveling all my hair froze.  It was all frosty, and some of my hair was ice haha.   The bishop here is awesome, he's really into mission work.  You guys are lucky you have good weather and dont need to wear coats yet, I have to wear a coat everyday, its usually in the negatives now, last week it warmed up a little bit! It was like 9ish degrees instead of around 0 or less. It was kind of nice to have it warm up a little bit, it's supposed to get a little warmer too. The reason its been so cold is because there was arctic weather that was pushed into this area because of low pressure or something like that, so thats going away and hopefully itll get warmer.
  So thats good that BYU basketballs doing good, hopefully they can improve and get better and keep winning without Jimmer. Thats fun that Kenzies back, hopefully you get to see her today, her mission really did fly by.  Its exciting that Landons going into the MTC this week, I think he'll do good. Thats going to be fun to get that box, it sounds like its gonna be pretty sweet! I love getting mail sooo much, its super exciting to get mail now haha.  Thats a cool quote that the missionary that spoke in the ward said, two years as a missionary is worth it for families to be together for eternity. pretty cool, and true.  So we went back to give that lady back her dolphin but she said she still wants us to have it haha, she said that she has lots of them and to keep it, so we still have the dolphin statue sitting on my desk, I'll send a picture of it today.  Shes funny, we're going back to visit with her tomorrow I think. Its sad that people drink to fill their emptyness, especially in the middle of the day. Splitting wood wasnt too bad, even though it was in -15. The wood splitter that they usually use was frozen and wouldn't start so we had to split the wood with some axes they had. I already have a face mask, you don't need to send one up to me. And I do have good gloves I use, my gloves I used to ski, and another pair of work gloves I got last month. That's good that dad sent the Vitamin D. Hopefully that will help with the dark. You were right when you said Dec. 21st is the shortest day, members were saying the same thing. That's pretty funny that Alyssa had her car slide off the road too, thats a funny coincidence. We tracted into this older lady a couple days ago, she said she won't be converted and won't read the Book of Mormon, but we can visit with her anytime and play scrabble with her haha. So we might use scrabble to get her interested in learning more about our church. Were going to try to use scripture words haha. Hopefully she becomes more interested in our religion. So not a whole lot of anything super exciting happened this last week, were just trying to find more people to teach, once we find more people the work will start to pick up more, and hopefully that starts real soon. Also, today we get to go to anchorage, we're going to the mission home to play games and hang out with a bunch of missionaries. Its gonna be alot of fun. Anyways, overall this week was pretty good. I gotta go, but I love you all and I hope you have a good week!

Love Elder Roney

Alaska is getting colder..

Hey everyone!
  Sorry the email is so late today, the university here was updating all the computers in the computer lab until 3 so we haven’t been able to do emails until now.
 So I got that envelope from mom and also Braedon, Virginia, and sister Voeks package, thank you all so much! it was nice to finally get some mail. So in my apt. we don’t share it with other missionaries, but there is another missionary apt. a couple minutes away.  
We do still have a vehicle, and it’s a good thing that we do too, the past week or so its been in the negatives quite often. Unfortunately we don’t drive a truck anymore, we have a little pontiac vibe, and were the only ones in our district who don’t drive a truck.
Eagle River is like a suburb of Anchorage, but its a good size town. Thats cool that bishop printed you off a map of Eagle River, that’ll give you more of a perspective of the size. I do get along with Elder Macpherson, he’s a good guy. He played football for snow college, he was their kicker, he’s a pretty fun guy, easy to get along with, he’s a good missionary, obedient too, and he’s from Alpine, so not too far from Orem. Does Virginia know any Terrys? One of the elders in my district, Elder Terry went to Mountain View High School and graduated same year as me.
The wards good here, they feed us every night, they’re good about that. Alot of the members are working with friends and co workers trying to get them ready for missionary lessons too, they’re a solid ward with lots of member missionary work going on. One of the lady’s in the wards mom is in uncle Blake or Brookes ward, I don’t know her maiden name though, so I don’t know her moms last name.  It doesn’t snow as much anymore, it snowed last night though and we got like 3ish inches, so that was fun. Its definitely not warmer up here than in Homer, since Homers by the ocean it keeps it warmer I think, even though it wasn’t very warm. And it snows more up here and the snow sticks, because in the actual town of Homer it rains after it snows so it all turns to slush, at least when I was there, I’m sure its sticking now or will be soon though.   I’ll try to stay warm, its kind of hard here sometimes haha.
On Thursday we did service at the nature center in the woods out in the middle of nowhere splitting wood and it was -15 degrees, my hair and eyelashes had a little bit of frost on them when I was done haha. And we tract almost everyday and its usually single digit temps or in the negatives, like the other day we tracted  and I think it was -10. Crazy stuff! Oh and I don’t think we can skype, that’d be awesome if we could though! If I find out otherwise Ill let you guys know.  This last week was good though, and it sounds like your guys' week was good too, that's too bad thanksgivings not gonna be big and with all the Roney’s together. Tell everyone going on missions and all that good stuff, congrats and good luck for me.
Some fun things happened this last week. So on Friday or Saturday we were tracting and we tracted into this lady who was pretty dang intoxicated, at first she was angry and calling us swearwords and said " Come in and I’ll read the Bible to you" so we got inside and she started showing us her roserie and her prayer book and all that stuff that catholics have (I think she was catholic) and was showing us some pictures of relatives that recently passed away. Then she handed my this crystal and porcelain statue of a dolphin and said " here you go! Take it! The dolphin's a symbol of peace!" and she kept insisting that I take it, so I took it haha and now we have a crystal and porcelain dolphin statue thats probably a foot or a little taller on my study desk hahah. We found out its worth at least $50 too, its made by Lenox and it was made in 1995, so were going to stop by her house sometime this week when she’s hopefully not drunk and see if she wants it back. She had a crystal unicorn too, it would of been pretty sweet if she gave us the unicorn instead. So thats my crazy tracting experience this week, I’ll take a picture of the statue and send it next week.  We also ran into a Jehovah Witness tracting yesterday and he was super nice, usually they’re grouchy and mean to us, and he knew the bible super good. We taught him that we have a prophet on the earth today and he didn’t know that, it was a really good visit with him. were going to try and stop by his house in a couple weeks, he might be a good potential investigator. Its getting darker here too! It stays pretty dark until about 10ish to 11ish and the sun goes down around 4, maybe a little earlier. Its not even the darkest time of year yet either! But this weeks been good, the works still not super busy but were working on it. weve got a bunch of potentials and a referral from SLC that we’ve been trying to get a hold of, she hasn’t picked up her phone or answered her door yet. So hopefully we can get in and start teaching her this week and get some investigators.
Oh yea I almost forgot! Another funny thing that happened this week that didn’t end up too bad. So we were driving and pulled off to the side of the road to look at our area book(the book with all the info about our investigators and all that good stuff) Braedon can tell you about what area books are, and he went to stop but we kept sliding because it was so icy and we ended up in the ditch haha. It happened so quick and the car was pretty dang stuck, we had to dig out the snow around the car and a member pulled us out.  It was pretty funny, Anyways, I gotta go. Love You guys!!   Hope you have a good week this week!

Love Elder Ashton Roney

Chugach?

Hey everyone,
     I'll start out by answering questions and all that stuff.  The actual city that I am in is Eagle River, the address of my apartment is 16810 Easy Street and my mailing address is 16810 Easy Street PO Box 770652 Eagle River, AK 99577, but still use the mission office address if you send me any mail or packages or anything.  It was kind of hard but wasnt too hard to leave Homer, Homer was pretty sweet but I wasnt terribly sad to leave it, being transferred out of there had to come sooner or later.  So that huge storm didnt effect Eagle River that I could tell. It really effected Nome though, they took the elders out of Nome and Im not sure if they put them back yet. President Beesley took them out for transfers and Salt Lake called and told him to take the missionaries out of Nome and Im not sure if theyve put them back yet. Theyve had 20 foot waves in Nome and were expecting like 30 foot waves I think(thats what I heard from a member).  Eagle Rivers a good area, the ward is awesome, they all seem like theyre really good member missionaries which is perfect. I think the areas like 5 miles by 3 miles, so its alot more compact.  My districts good too, everyone in my district except one elder is from Utah, and all generally not too far from orem, its funny. I actually see them too which is great, its weird having district meeting in person instead of over the phone, and were all emailing together right now, we email at the University of Alaska Anchorage computer lab. Theyre all good missionaries. My healths been good for the most part, Elder Butler got sick last week and got me sick a little bit, just a little bit of a cold though, Ive only had a runny/stuffy nose and a little bit of a sore throat. Ive been trying to stay warm, Ive done a decent job, its been pretty cold, its been in the teens and in the low to mid 20s. So I wear my coat everyday, Ive worn my thermals a few times and my thermal socks quite often as well.  But ive mostly stayed pretty warm.  Thats crazy to hear about the earthquake, kind of crazy. Thats good that you guys got my fish, its really good, especially the white salmon. Definitely eat it all, Im pretty sure it wont be that good when I get back so eat all up. And I think someone in Homer said that if its kept for too long it goes kind of grody.  {Ashton mailed all the fish he caught to us since he couldn't take it with him, yum.}   So definitely eat it. Im glad that Don Moran called you guys and told you what to expect and what to do and all that stuff. Did he talk to you guys much about anything else besides the fish? He can talk your ear off if you let him. Thats good that Sage is doing better, thats crazy that the hospital didnt catch the broken disks sooner, thats no good.Thats awesome that Braedon and Virginia found an apartment for such a good price. Thats pretty lucky that they found such a good deal. And their weddings coming up pretty soon, just a little more than a month. It sounds like Britts settling in nicely over in her apartment.Thats funny that the girl I know from Marleys lives above Britt. Tell her hi for me if you see her again. Thats good that Braedons going to be working with Lane and Jesse in Preach My Gospel. Itll be good for them to have that getting ready for their missions, I heard Lanes getting ready to start working on his papars and putting them in. Exciting stuff. BYU destroyed Idaho, thats awesome. Theres lots of BYU fans here too. And Avery and Brolin are doing good in school and staying busy, its good that Brolin got to go to that party too. Thats awesome that Avery sang for Holdens farewell, was he good? Was he the only one singing or did a group of them sing? and what did he sing? Thats pretty sweet that Holdens going into the MTC this week, and to Iowa, thats pretty cool. Tell him good luck for me if you see him! Thats crazy that Landons {a Roney cousin}  going into the MTC pretty soon. Tell him good luck for me!  Thats crazy that Kenzie {another Roney cousin}  gets back in 2ish weeks! Time flies, Ive already been out almost 4 months, its gone by super fast.
      The work right now for us is kind of slow and were trying to expand our teaching pool. We white washed into the area, but luckily elder Mchpherson was here 2 transfers ago so he knows the area a little bit. But the area is way good, weve already got about 8 potential investigators from tracting, weve done lots and lots of tracting, at least an hour each day. Theres alot more snow here than in Homer when I left, theres a few feet of snow. But the areas awesome, theres actually a Walmart here haha. The areas The wards awesome too, they all seem like really good member missionaries. Almost everyone weve had dinner with is working with friends and people trying to get them to where we can teach them. A member gave us each a tie too, its a tie with a bunch of sheep and one black sheep in the middle. A member went to a fireside in Korea like 9 years ago and the theme was Bringing the lost sheep back into the fold. so that member bought 350 of those sheep ties over there in Asia and has been handing them out. And probably 20 members wear them each fast sunday. Its kind of cool I thought. But so the wards really awesome and dedicated to missionary work. The areas good, were just trying to find people to teach. If you guys have any ideas feel free to share no matter what it is. Any ideas would help, weve done lots of tracting and trying to help shovel peoples driveways. But were starting to get lots of potentials and hopefully well be able to teach more people, were actually going to see if we can teach a potential we contacted through tracting on wednesday I think, so hopefully she turns into an investigator. But weve been visiting lots of less actives and trying to visit former investigators and the few investigators we have and all that kind of shininigans. {must be an alaskan word?} But thats pretty much where the missionary work is right now here in Eagle River. We just need to get things rolling here and when we do I think well see some success and hopefully some baptisms.
     I have a quick question real quick for dad.Do you remember Wayne Tolman from Lake Arrowhead?? I met him the other day at a meeting and he says he was your neighbor there. Theres lots of weird connections here. One of the sister missionaries here, Sister Brown, was Nedras nanny, I think she said she was Corrals nanny. Anyways, I gotta go now. Ill talk to you guys next week! Love you guys!

Love Elder Roney

Beautiful November

Hey everyone,

Sorry my emails so late, Ive been driving up to soldatna to meet up with some elders to carpool up to anchorage. So I have some news, Im being transferred up to Chugach! And also Elder Butlers being transferred up to fairbanks haha. Theyre whitewashing the area and bringing in another greenie and his trainer into homer. They said its a really good area to train in so theyre having another elder trained there. And elder Butler is going into an area training again and whitewashing it as well. They like whitewashing, its really effective, because it brings a new mind set into the area,so its not because we were bad missionaries haha. So thats kind of crazy, they called on Saturday saying where were each going. It was exciting. But we left the area good I  think, theres some investigators we picked up last week and got a bunch of referrals from  members there lately so I think the area will do good. But Im excited to go to Chugach, my companion is going to be elder McPhereson. Hopefully the elders coming into homer can get Julian back on date and get him baptized. Also, I sent all my fish home. I couldnt really take it around the mission with me because theres too much so I sent it all to you. Theres alot of halibut, king salmon, and white king salmon. White king salmons super good, its the best salmon and its kind of rare I guess. And all the salmons labeled, the halibut isnt. All my things I have are good and keep me warm. As for that christmas package, I dont have anything on my mind right now that I need or want specifically. If I can think of anything specific I want or need Ill tell you in the email next week. Oh and a couple weeks ago we were at the salvation army thrift store and guess what I got for $15?!? A brand new suit that fits!!! Just thought Id tell you guys that haha. You guys know how much I like thrift stores haha.  Thats a big bummer that they got in that crash!!  {4 of his cousins were in a serious car accident in Wyoming on Sat. But they're mostly fine and recovering well}   Thats crazy! Anyways, I gotta go, we need to get up to Anchorage, sorry this letters not super long.

Love Elder Roney