Hey everyone!
   This week was good  I have a question for Braedon that I forgot to ask on skype, was your mission presidents name president Donaldson? President Donaldson from the missionary department did some training and he was talking about how he served in San Diego as mission president, and I think he was talking about the Preach my Gospel DVDs that they were making while Braedon was there.
 
The work started picking up this week here, we met with Kodie this week again just before basketball. We taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ, hes still awesome, he had some good questions and definitely is searching the truth. He accidentally got into some anti mormon stuff on the internet, so that brought up most of his questions, but we cleared those right up so it was good haha. And were gonna be teaching him on Wednesday and Thursday this week, should be good. We also got in with a lady that weve been trying to see for a while, shes usually not home, and that went good. Kind of a bummer though, she takes care of her parents and the state is trying to take her parents away from her. She was out of town and she hires some people to come stay and watch her parents while she was up in anchorage, and her dad had some seizures, I guess they happen alot, and the person called 911 because she didnt know what to do, so now the state is saying shes unfit to take care of them and is trying to get them out of there. So that was kind of a crazy visit, but it was good to finally get in. Also today we had a lesson with a lady we tracted into last week, thats why I didnt email earlier today. It was good, she belongs to the Seventh Day Adventist church and was curious what we believed in. So we started teaching her about the Restoration and I shared Moses 1:35 and that brought up a whole other discussion about the book of mormon. Haha so we only got through one point in the first lesson during the whole 30-40 minutes we were there, oops haha. Shes got a really firm belief that the bible is the only true word of God, but the lesson was good because it helped her understand why we use the book of mormon and that its not a replacement of the bible, and she wants us to come by again. So that was good, it ended up being a good lesson. And we saw Willard, that native guy again hes still doing good, hes waiting for the test results about his lung cancer, he didnt have much time or I was gonna see if he would share some of his peoples history that his grandma taught him but we didnt have much time with him. So hopefully next time Ill find out more about his peoples history and how it goes with the book of mormon like he was telling us.Oh and last night we saw this less active guy, he lives on a tiny sailboat on the docks. We just stood on the docks and talked to him while he was sitting in the boat. Kind of a weird visit haha, he was drinking when we got there and im pretty sure that he was on some drugs too. Like 5 minutes into the conversation he started talking about how the rebels over seas steal the supplies that the church sends to help with humanitarian aid stuff, and how the ones with the guns (and does shooting actions and sound effects while hes telling us the story of how the rebels do it) get the supplies and win. Then started mumbling stuff and got gradually quieter at the end of each sentence. Then he pulled out a lighter and started snapping his fingers and making a funny face for a minute then played with his beard, it was weird. Then when we were walking away he had us stop and said hey wait a minute I wanna show you something, so we stopped while he got something out of his little boat. Turns out he wanted to play his trumpet for us, and he started playing taps and kept messing up and told us how it wasnt his favorite mouth peice. Then when he was done we left and he kept playing while we were walking to the car. Very strange way to end the night haha.
 
It was good to see you guys yesterday on skype! Everyone looks a little different, but good. You guys are lucky its so warm there, I wish it was warmer here.   Elder Weber loves it cold and cloudy, hes crazy.  That was an awesome song on the ukulele Brolin, good job, keep it up! And Averys so flippin tall, oh my heck, howd you get so tall anyway! Braedons lucky that he gets to fly for free! Congrats to Virginia for getting invited back to teach another year! And Im glad Britts doing good still, hope youre liking your job! And hopefully you win in that upcoming tournament Dad! Thatd be sweet, And Happy Mothers Day Mom!  Hope it was just wonderful for you. Oh and I'd use one of the ukuleles if you sent one up. And I got those birthday boxes and card today! Thank you guys so much! I just love getting mail! It makes me so happy to see mail in my little po box. So that was pretty much my week, it was pretty good and pretty interesting haha. Well I gotta go, I hope your week will be as good as last week! Love you guys!

  Love Elder Ashton Roney

Hey everyone!

 So this week was pretty good, tons of rain, but good. When we woke up yesterday it was raining pretty hard, and it hasn't stopped since. And right now the rain is going sideways, the weather here is crazy. We had some training that we called into.   it was about feeding the light and the dark wolves inside of you and making sure you're doing your best to feed the light wolf. So  that was good, and it was stake conference for us on sunday. President Beesley spoke and he talked about the snake river. He was talking about how it's a calm enough river that it makes you think that when your river rafting it you could put down your paddle and lay down but if you don't pay attention you might drift off to the side and get stuck with all the drift wood, so you need to constantly be lightly paddling and making sure you dont drift off to the edge and get stuck. And he related that to life and how we need to constantly be checking where we are and not letting ourselves drift off and get stuck. Stake conference was good.   Oh, and there's a summer worker here from Heber.  He said that he was in uncle Burkes ward. His name is David Horne (I think that was his name), and he wanted me to say hi to uncle Burkes family for him.

The cruise ships started coming in, the carnival came in yesterday and another one came in today. I guess there's gonna be a new cruise ship everyday, I'm excited for that. The cruise ships are taller than the houses on my street, its pretty sweet. (Ashton's apt. is a block away from the port and on a hill) and we are allowed to make contact with the tourists coming off the ships.  It was fun to do that when I was in Homer. So I found out that haircuts are at least 20 bucks here, so since we have some clippers in the apartment I decided to cut my own hair during lunch the other day. My hair's alot shorter than I wanted it to be though haha, I used these left ear and right ear attachments and I thought, "awesome I don't have to worry about messing up around my ears", so I used it, and I didn't pay attention to how short the attachments are, and they're pretty short, so I had to make the rest of my hair look normal with it. So now I have a short buzz haha. And as soon as I walked out to the car with all the rain and cold wind hitting my head I decided it was terrible timing to do that haircut haha.  But hey, I saved 20 bucks!  It's so nice to have a car and not have to bike around in the rain, my head would freeeeze if we didn't have the car!   Oh and we went out to Saxman city last monday, it's the native village here, there are some sweet totem poles.  It was a neat place.  So that's the exciting news of the week hah.
 
We taught Kodie this week, we taught him about tithing and fast offerings. The lesson went really well.  We had a kid from the ward join in the lesson and he shared some experiences about tithing and bore his testimony of it.  Kodie says it all makes sense and he agrees with it. So that was good.  He wasn't able to come to church though, he had to work. But he's been coming to wednesday night basketball. we do basketball every wednesday night and kids invite their non member friends and all that stuff, it's fun.  Also, we set up a lesson with this guy named Archie, we met him tracting at the end of last transfer. We're teaching him today at 6.   We're gonna teach him about the Book of Mormon and invite him to read it, it should go pretty good, I'm excited for it. We've been trying to set something up with him the past two weeks or so and we just haven't been able to catch him at home, but we tried again yesterday and he was home! He said it wasn't the best time but we could come back today, and we set up a time. He seems pretty interested, it'll be good. And we met with Willard, the native guy yesterday, he's still awesome.  We shared a message out of ether 12:27, it was good.   So that's basically the week, it was pretty good.
 
It sounds like your week was great there at home! That's pretty sweet that Brolin got a ukulele  There's alot of missionaries that play the ukulele up here, and some of them are ridiculous. Keep it up Brolin and youll be amazing too!  Averys 6 foot 4 now?!   Oh my heck, how'd you get so tall, and why am I not taller then?!  That's sweet that he had his prom, thats always fun, it looks like you had a fun group. And congrats on the win in tennis.  And it sounds like the golf tourney was fun, that'd be nice if the weather here was like it is there haha. It sounds like everything's going pretty good down there, and everyone had a pretty good week. I hope this weeks just as good as last! Love you guys!

  Love Elder Roney

 And here are some pictures of the cruise ship and some of the totem poles. enjoy!

Short and Sweet!

Hey everyone!
 So Ill start by answering those questions you guys sent me.  yes, I do live super close to the cruise ship port, weve only had one come in so far but this next month there's cruise ships that stop everyday.  Oh and my comp, his name is Elder Weber, he's from Rigby Idaho. Hes a big boy, alot bigger and taller than I expected. Hes like 6 foot 4 and a big farm boy. We get along.  And yes mom, it does make me senior companion, its not too hard, I just have to make sure Im setting the best example that I can at all times. And I take the lead in teaching, planning, studies, tracting, most things we do and I drive the car.

So this week was good, I got my new comp and we were on bikes for one day and he already hated bikes here. It was pretty funny, because hills and everything that I got used to biking and walking up he has a way harder time than me. Then on Thursday we finally got a car! Yaaay, the zone leaders sent down one of their cars, they sent us their black 2011 subaru impreza. I quite enjoy driving it around instead of a bike.  But on nice sunny days when theres lots of tourists and people walking around Ive decided that we'll use the bikes, because I like riding around when its sunny (its not super sunny that often).

We found a couple more people that said we could come back to teach them. One kid we met on the street, he came up to us actually and asked us if we teach religion and if we could teach him. It was pretty sweet, 1st time that's happened on my mission to me. Then most of the people we tried to see this week weren't home or couldn't meet or were showering when we stopped by. But then we had a super less active guy ask us for a book of mormon, he lives on a tiny sailboat on the docks, so we ran it down to him and talked with him for a little bit. Then we met with this native guy who was telling us that the more he reads the book of mormon the more it goes with what his grandparents taught him growing up. So we shared the scripture out of 3 nephi 16:1-3 about Jesus going to visit the other people in the world.  Pretty sweet, he's the one that we gave the blessing to. He also told us that he started getting and feeling better right after we gave blessing to him (he called it the prayer for him) and ever since then. So definitely a testimony booster for sure.  And then the Jones family talked to me and told me yesterday that they stopped by and talked with you. Im glad you got to meet them and talk to them for a little.

 Well I better get going, but it sounds like your week was just wonderful, and I hope this week is just as good!

 Love Elder Roney

Spring has Sprung!

Hey everyone!
  So this week was pretty good. We got our transfer call on Saturday. Im staying in Ketchikan and training a new missionary, I dont know his name or anything about him yet or I'd tell you, and Elder Satini is going to Juneau to be a district leader. So that was pretty cool I guess, I'm glad I'm still going to be in Ketchikan. And I'll be here for at least 3 more months because of the 12 week training program. And a member is going to get me a free fishing license that lasts a year. I'm super stoked about it since I'm gonna be here for the summer during fishing season. Oh and I helped set apart this kid in the ward as a missionary, it was awesome! So he ended up studying with us one morning, it was pretty good, I wish I would of studied with the missionaries or something like that before I came out. And they're bringing down some stuff for me, they asked me if I wanted to send anything down with them to give you since they knew we live so close to the MTC. So I had them take a bag of stuff, just a few presents for Brolin, Avery and Braedon for their birthday. So don,t be surprised if some people from Alaska show up on the door step with a bag of things. They're the Jones' btw, hes gonna be a good missionary. And guess what?? We get a car on Wednesday!! So even though I have been building up my man child legs just like Braedon was, that's gonna come to a well welcomed end haha.  Since the car we crashed hasnt even been worked on at all were getting a car shipped to us from Juneau, I'm so excited, now I don't have to get all muddy from biking in the rain, yay! So that's pretty awesome, it's probably gonna be a subaru too! So we taught Kodie twice this week, once on Monday like usual, and we taught him about the plan of salvation, then on wednesday we taught him again about the word of wisdom. They both went super good, and we got Kodie to come to church on Sunday too. It was good. Then we picked up some good potential investigators that have return appointments, one seems super interested, and I'm not sure how interested the other one really is. But still, return appointments are awesome, haven't had too many of those so far here in Ketchikan. So that was pretty exciting, things are starting to pick up this past week. Its funny, the ward has been doing this ward 40 day fast where who ever feeds us that night fasts that day for missionary work then breaks their fast with us. And we haven't really gotten any referrals during the fast, but now that its over the works starting to pick up and we've got some good potentials and some referrals, its kind of funny how that works. So thats pretty much the week, its been a good one.

   It sounds like yours has been pretty good, Happy Birthday Avery! Hope it was pretty great for you, sounds like it was crazy  though. So for your questions real quick, Kodie had a bunch of the lessons before he moved up here, weve only taught him the restoration, plan of salvation, and the word of wisdom so far. And well probably the him the gospel of Jesus Christ next time, or maybe tithing or something. No idea how his family is reacting, they're probably fine with him looking into the church. Thats how it sounds at least. That guy youre talking about with all the cool stuff was in Eagle River, hopefully theyre still working with him.  And my man child legs are definitely being built up haha.And Ill send pictures next week, I have to get some stuff done before elder Satini and elder Denison(prince of wales island missionary/previous district leader) fly out. Love you guys! Hope you have a good week!

  Love Elder Roney

Metlakatla

Hey everyone!

 So this week was good, weve been able to see some people that we havent been able to get in with. It was awesome, we taught this less active samoan guy in the ward last week and we were able to teach him the restoration. He hardly remembers anything that he learned growing up. It went really well, and were hoping to teach him again pretty soon here. So that was awesome, and we were finally able to get into these potential investigators apartment. Ever since Ive been here weve been trying to get in with this guy and on saturday we stopped by and visited him and he actually let us in! Hes a super nice guy from the phillipines, theres tons of phillipinos here for some reason, and we were able to teach him about the book of mormon and give him one, and he told us he will read it! So we were pretty excited about that. Also, we were able to eat with a potential family, super nice people, they are catholic and do these recited prayers before they eat. They want to feed us again sometime, and hopefully we can really start teaching them, we just shared stuff about our religion and about what we do as missionaries and all that kind of stuff, it was super good. Oh and were teaching Kodie today, so that should be good.And then other than that weve been doing alot of less active work and trying to see people.

So last tuesday someone loosened all of my spokes on my back tire, so we had to go get that fixed by a member in the ward. The member said that I was lucky since my tire didnt break on my and make me crash, but now its all fixed and good to go. Then yesterday we were on our way to an appointment, and theres a short cut we often take, its a dirt path that cuts to the church parking lot, and elder satini ran into a big rock and crashed pretty hard. He ended up getting all cut up on his arm, he did something to his hands and scratched his forehead pretty good haha. He ended up messing up his rim and popping his tire haha, so now were back to walking and taking the bus for a day or two until he fixes it today or tomorrow sometime. Oh and today, like right when we got to emails some lady whos sitting behind me right now started trying to bash with us. I hate when people do that, she started telling us how theres no evidence that Christ was on the Earth and all that nonsense, and she asked me if we know were in a cult. Haha, shes speaking nonsense! Oh well. And the first cruise ship came in this week! Pretty sweet, and the members were telling us that it was a small one, so now Im stoked to be able to see the other ones that will be coming in during the summer. Then on Metlakatla, the population isnt very high. I think theres like less  than 2000 residents, so its a small island/community. And in the past they have had full time missionaries over there, but most of the time they were just doing service for people over there or something like that. And once the car is fixed I will be the driver, and by the way, the car is still sitting in the same spot its been in since it got to the car shop.

  But it sounds like you guys had a pretty good week, Happy late Birthday Brolin! And Happy early Birthday Avery! I hope your birthdays are everything you hope and dream for hah. It sounds like Brolins birthday was pretty good, im glad for that! And I hope Avery has a good birthday too! Kendis' talk sounds like it was awesome! And Im sure Keiths talk was good too. Anyways, Im glad all your week was good and I hope you have a good week this week! Love you guys!


Love Elder Roney

Hoppy Easter, late..

Hey everyone!
 Happy late Easter! So this week was good, I'll start off with answering your questions. So with the car, they're not getting us a new one, were waiting for the car to be fixed, which will probably be another couple weeks or so.  Every time we ride past the body shop on the bus we see our car in the same spot its been since the crash. So we''re just walking, riding bikes that members let us use, or use the bus. Man, riding bikes in the rain here isn't so fun, the rain's super cold, but i'm sure the rainstorms there are warm.  The ward here is awesome, super nice and love the missionaries. Lots of missionary minded people, and there's a good amount of members here in Ketchikan. There's a good amount of helpful members, we take one kid who is going on his mission this month to lessons. A lot of good people here. We're fed almost everyday, the days we can get to their house on bikes or bus we go eat with them, the rest we have to cancel dinner because we can't get there. But there are lots of members that will feed us if we ask them to. So were fed almost everyday. If we aren't we just eat like macaroni or top ramen or soup or something in the apartment. So we're well taken care of here.   And there are tons of totem poles here, some really cool ones. I'll have to take pictures of them. And we are working with some people here. Our main one is Kodie, a kid whose a golden investigator. He used to be taught before he came to alaska, then he was praying about the church when he got up here to know if it was true, then the next day Elder Satini and his previous comp ran into him at Subway. And he told us he wants to  be baptized and all that good stuff. So hes our main one. Then we have a few others that are hard to catch at home, and a good amount of less active work here. And so we just need to get things going here, its hard to find people that are interested here.And we havent done to much brainstorming as a district to find new people, the only thing weve done is a fast and district tract. So for the tract wed all tract at the same time, since were all on different islands. And I dont know why people arent really interested here too much, its gotten pretty warm to the point where were sweating pretty hard from biking. Its like 50ish here right now. So nice and toasty and sunny. But people are in such a better mood when the suns out, it changes people I swear. But patience is definitely a virtue, Ive definitely learned that on my mission, with the people in wards and areas. That's awesome that youre having such good weather down there! Its been great weather here lately too, lots of sun and not much rain!
    So the island of Metlakatla was awesome! Tons of natives there, its actually a native reservation so natives were everywhere. I was definitely the minority there, at the church there were some natives one day and I was the only white person there, same with the senior center. So, the people in Metlakatla are part of our ward, so that's why there were no bishop/branch president at the priesthood session. They call in and listen to our sunday service every sunday. We talked to the guy that was with us in the picture about yesterdays meeting, he said there were 11 people that showed up, then left after sacrament meeting. And I guess that's alot of people for over there. And only about 5 or so people each week that show up normally. So that guy and his family, then a couple more people haha. I don't know how they got a building over there anyways. So Im not sure how many members are over there, mostly less active members, I don't know tons about the members over there. I guess there are priesthood holders there, we met a few return missionaries that are less active. Apparently not alot show up for anything though. It's pretty much just one active family then a couple more members, and primary is the mom teaching her kids every week, and I don't know about the rest of their sunday. They call in every week though, that would be the worst. But there's definitely lots of work to do over there. So hopefully we can get over there again soon. I wish I could tell you more, I only know what I experienced over there when I went. Ill give more info about Metlakatla next time I go.
   Now I'll tell you about the week haha. So it was good, lots of walking, biking and bus riding. You meet some interesting people on the bus, super interesting people. And Easter was great,we ate dinner with 2 families, one of my favorite families in the ward and with the ward mission leaders family. Super fun! Not many interesting Easter traditions, same as everyones back home. We went into jail to go visit a guy. Super cool and nice guy, too bad he's in there. His 3 kids were just recently baptized while he was in there. So Saturday night we went and visited him.  Hopefully he gets out soon. Also, weve been setting lots of stuff up for this week, lots of visiting people. And we've been able to see lots of people who we haven't been able to catch at home, so that was good. Biked/walked up lots of hills, I despise hills now. And yea, we tried to have another lesson with kodie but he was working, we're gonna have it with him this week though. So this week was good, hopefully things start picking up. Anyways, sorry it's not more detailed, but I gotta go, Love ya guys!
 Love Elder Roney

another week

Hey everyone!

   So this weeks been pretty eventful haha. So Monday was alright, didnt get to do a whole lot of stuff. So we went sight seeing after I sent you last weeks email, then on the way back when we were driving on the highway the day turned no good. We got in a crash on the highway, so we were driving back from a waterfall and the guy in front of us slammed on his brakes for no reason at all, and we didnt really have any time to stop and we slammed into the back of his truck. There wasnt even a turn off or anything and he slammed on his brakes! Elder Satini was driving, and no one was hurt. So  that kind of limited what we could do that day, and we were out of service range when we got in the crash, and the other guys truck was fine so he gave us a ride to where we had service, which was like 3 miles towards town and we got everything sorted out there. So from there we called a member to come pick us up after the tow truck came by. And we pretty much sat in the apartment until we had to go to dinner. So weve been walking around town in the rain and up and down the hills and lots of stairs since then. Ill send pictures of the car, all the damage was to our car, none to the guys truck.
 
Then on Friday we got to go over to Metlakatla and we got back yesterday. It was pretty cool over there, alot less hills over there. And we got there by a float plane, it was awesome! Super pretty flight. And Metlakatla is an indian reservation for the natives, it was fun. We met some crazy people over there. One guy was like "see those two purple mountains? in between there is the best water in the world! Those two purple mountains(voice fading quieter when he says mountains) We have the best water in the entire world! Its even better than the... ummm, Oil! and, what do you call it? ...oh yea, and even better than gasoline! But we cant make it so we cant sell it, but its the best water Ever! Do you guys want a pop? But its the best, but remember, supersonics! Dont forget supersonics, theyre not around anymore but remember them. Are you sure you guys dont want a pop? And remember Metlakatla, and move back here after your missions!" haha it was pretty funny. But theres lots of work to do over there, we were pretty much just contacting people the missionaries over there in the past taught and found out if they still want to be taught, and we have a few people that still want to be taught, so next time were over there were gonna have some lessons with them. We didnt get to do as much because of general conference, but for how many people answered their doors in the time that we had we had some good success. And the church building was tiny! Ill send pictures of Metlakatla and the flight.  And I took pictures of the prices of milk and cheerios in metlakatla, ridiculous.
 
  And general conference was great! we watched it with the member who we stayed with. And priesthood session was interesting, we used the polycom(conference call) and listened to priesthood session that was happening here in Ketchikan. There were only 3 of us that went and listened in, me, elder satini, and one other guy haha. Metlakatlas a cool place, I hope I get to go back soon. And were borrowing some bikes from ward members so we can actually get around easier. So this weeks been pretty eventful.  
 
It sounds like you all had a pretty good week. Thats awesome that Tannons going to Spain! That would be an awesome place to go to! Congrats to him! Its crazy how much things are changing and how many people are leaving on their missions and getting back. And it sounds like you guys had fun in St.George, in the 80 degree weather! It was cold windy snowy and rainy here so enjoy that weather! Oh and guess what?! The sun comes up at about 7 now! I love the sun so much when its out. Anyways, I hope you guys have a sunny, warm, and wonderful week!

Love Elder Roney