Fun in Anchorage

Hey everyone! 

   This week was good, I was in Anchorage for most of the week so we didn't really get to meet with too many people this week.   But we got to see the Iditarod winners come in on Tuesday night at like 11:30 (we got permission) and we just saw the first two people come in then we went back to the apartment. It was awesome.  Then, when we were getting some lunch at subway before we left to Anchorage on Wednesday we saw Lance Mackey and another guy come in. It was fun watching Lance and the other guy come in, they were neck to neck.  At first, Lance was ahead, then the other guy pulled ahead of him and got onto the last small stretch.  But once he got to the last stretch, his dogs sat down in the middle of the street and Lance was able to get ahead of him and beat him. It was good lunchtime entertainment haha. 

  

  President Beasley told us that were both staying in Nome for another transfer.  And he told me in my interview with him that I'm not going to finish my mission here in Nome. So either this transfer or next transfer will be my last one in Nome.  

  

  We flew to Anchorage on Wednesday (for zone conference)  and got back on Sunday about 20 minutes before church started. Flying back was kinda crazy.  We ended up flying back to Nome twice within like 16 hours and we were on the plane for 8 hours.   So originally we had planned on returning to Nome tomorrow (Tuesday) after transfer meeting.  But the assistants gave us our flight itinerary on Saturday and said we were leaving in a few hours. So on Saturday we left on the 5:10 flight back to Nome.  We stopped in Kotzebue (above the arctic circle) for a little while then on to Nome from there.   When we were about to land in Nome and about 300 feet above the ground the pilotpulled up super fast.  The weather was so bad that they missed the runway and couldn't see very well.   So they kept flying, came on the intercom and told us that were going back to Anchorage because of weather conditions. So we landed back in Anchorage at about 10 pm or so and the assistants took us back to the mission home for the night. Our flight was rebooked by the airlines for the 6 am flight and we landed in Nome at about 9 am and got back to the church/apartment at about 9:45.  We had just enough time to shovel the porch to get to the door and get a few things set up before church started at 10. 

  

  Zone conference was good, the assistants did a neat activity/training on light houses. They taught that light houses have the big light up top that everyone knows about, but they have a lower light as well and this is one thing that I didn't know, but the reason they have a lower light is to more accurately guide ships to shore. When you're trying to be guided by the light house you line up the lower light and the big light straight up and down from each other and that leads you through a safe path. They related the lower light to us as missionaries and members and that we need to be a good example/have the spirit/do what were supposed to because people see that and we have to make sure that were being that light to lead people to Christ and being lined up with the big light. There were lots more good training that we recieved but due to time that's all that I'll share from zone conference with you guys.  We got to go to the temple while we were in Anchorage.  It was us, the Bethel elders, the assistants and President and Sister Beesley that went. It's so nice to go through the temple again, I just love it there.   It was super weird being in Anchorage for a few days and not having an area.  We stayed at the mission home while we were down there.  It was kinda cool/fun being around President Beesley everyday. 

  

  Other than the adventure to and from Anchorage this week, I was able to meet with some less active members that we've had a hard time getting in with this transfer. Then we met with Christine and her family. It was just quick because we had a few things we had to get done that day before we left Nome. But it was good, she's a cool lady.   

  Here's the answers to your questions now :), Il be watching general conference here at the church, unless someone invites us to watch it with them at their house. And the church does have satelite reception to watch all the sessions. Yeah,  I'll for sure send my winter clothing home once it warms up,probably a few boxes of winter stuff once summer hits.

  

  Im glad you guys are doing so good and had a fun trip, St George sounds like it was a fun trip, it would be so nice to have some warm weather even somewhat close to the weather you guys had down there. The warmest weather I've felt in a while was when I was in Anchorage last week end and it was in the 20s or 30s, so nice. Well I'm glad everyone's doing good and staying busy, hope you guys have an awesome week! Love you guys!

 Love Elder Ashton Roney

 Oh and Ill send some pictures :)

The one with missionaries is my district and the two guys in the front are the zone leaders(meadow creek)

And some pictures of the iditarod of the Lance  coming in off the ocean ice

   Enjoy!

deliciouso

Hey everyone! 

  This weeks been good, I had to give a talk on sunday.  Even in front of just 20 or less people I found that I still really don't like giving them, haha. It was good though. I did it on being converted, hopefully it was good. We got the news that we're flying down to Anchorage on wednesday at noon for zone conference on friday.  And then a week from tomorrow is transfer meeting, so I might find out if I'm staying or leaving sometime today or tomorrow. Hopefully the iditarod comes in before wednesday.  We heard that the musher in the lead just passed Koyuk so there's a chance that we'll be able to see the winner come in. It's gonna stink if we leave just before they come in. The town's getting crazy the past day or so with all the people that have come in for iditarod.  

We helped a guy  move his shop.  He owns a native shop with ivory and all sorts of cool, legit stuff that natives from the villages sell him.   We go in there just about every week to look around and stuff.  His sister or cousin or ? is a potential investigator, so we try to see if we can catch her there.  After helping him he gave us some pretty cool small ivory carvings for helping him move. It was pretty awesome. There was a snow sculpting contest yesterday.  It was pretty cool to see some of the things people carved, there was a lazy boy in front of a tv, there was a giant pineapple, a muskox, the red bird on angry birds and a few other things, it was cool. I had a terrifying experience at the senior center this week ha.  We were playing bingo with some older folks and I was the one who was calling the numbers. Well, this one old lady from the village of wales got a bingo and she was asking what she would win.  We told her that her prize was that she gets to play again, haha, because they hadn't bought any more candy since the last time we played bingo.  But then after a minute she tried tickling me, but I ignored her and didn't acknowledge her at all and then she said; "Do I get to tickle you?" and then tried tickling me again.   It was probably the most terrifying thing that's happened to me all week, haha. Next time I'm sitting on the other side of the table. Oh and I finally got a picture in front of the welcome to nome sign, it's a giant gold pan. (They mine gold in Nome) I got the package you guys sent me, thank you so much! the thermals were definitely a big help, we had some crazy wind storms and blizzards this week that were pretty cold. 

  This week we saw I---------- a few times, we had some good lessons with him. For one of the lessons we were planning on reading through Moroni 7, but he accidentally started in chapter 1 and when we told him that he was in the wrong chapter he made the decision to just read all of Moroni haha.  So we read all 10 chapters of the book of Moroni with him and he loved it, it was awesome. 

  So about the reindeer in the back of the truck, (A picture he sent with last week's email), well that's some dudes pet.  He drives around town with it in the back of his truck.  So it pretty much thinks it's a dog and it'll lean its head to let you pet it haha.  At first you think it's like trying to keep you away or kill you or something because it's antlers poke you but it's just trying to get you to pet it when it does that. (Only in Alaska)

  I'm glad you all had a good week, it sounds like some crazy stuff happened this week. It would of been pretty interesting to be Brolin and see that dude in the sweats hanging out in our backyard early in the morning, and Avery declined the Mr.Orem nomination haha, gotta do what you gotta do I guess :),(Avery's been fighting some stomach problems for about two weeks - legit excuse)

Well I gotta go, love you guys! Hope you all have a wonderful week!

 Love Elder Ashton Roney

Upchuck Mucktuck?

Hey everyone!

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY POPSY!!!! I hope you had the most wonderful, delightful, delectable, and best birthday ever! You'll never be 52 ever again. The Iditarod race started yesterday, so I guess they did it for your birthday, they're so nice, i'll tell them thanks for you.  It sounds like it was a pretty good one, I'm glad it was so good! (The Iditarod sled dog race starts in Anchorage and ends in Nome.  Last year, Ashton helped as a volunteer for the Iditerod in Anchorage.  This year, he'll be able to watch the finish in Nome.)

  I ate the eskimo food and didn't get sick! I'll send a picture, but what I ate was mucktuck (whale skin and whale blubber), fermented mucktuck (they let it sit out in room temperature for 2 weeks to prepare it, ew), and I ate walrus meat and walrus skin. I liked the walrus meat and regular mucktuck the best, the walrus meat was like eating steak that tasted a little bit fishy. The mucktuck was alright, it didn't taste too bad but it was super hard to chew. Then the walrus skin was kinda like eating a salty, fishy tasting rubber band, but probably easier to chew than a rubber band might be. And the fermented mucktuck was just something that makes me want to throw up, it was slimy and looked like a loogy and tasted super gross and left a nasty aftertaste in your mouth. I would be perfectly happy never eating it again, or smelling it again. Carol said that she's gonna feed us whale meat, fermented baby walrus, seal oil, cormorant (a sea bird) and all the rest of the eskimo food, not sure when yet though. Oh and every october she comes down for general conference and she's gonna bring down some eskimo food for you guys to try :). It was cold for a couple days this week, it got down to -30, I only got a picture of the thermometer in our car when it was saying -27 though.

 We hiked out to an old mining dredge last week, I'll send some pictures. It was really cool, super big and super neat. Oh and mom, I don't have the song down yet, maybe once I get home I'll be able to sing it. ( He's learning a song in Siberian Yuptik, which is a language native to the town of Savoonga where he's hoping to work.)  But instead of sending a video of me singing it I'll send a video of me eating eskimo food hah. We drove on the ocean this week too, it was super cool, the ice is thick enough now that you can drive your truck out there, so we drove where it was packed down by other trucks and snowmachines. It was neat driving around frozen ice chunks and everything, and don't worry mom, it's safe. 

  So we met with I-------- again, we were only able to meet with him once this week because of his work schedule but it was good. We read over Mosiah 5 with him and helped him understand it better. It was really good, were probably gonna meet with him tomorrow again, it should be good. We had a lesson with M---------, she's a lady who had been taught in the past (about 18 months ago) and it went really well. She's real interested in learning and were gonna meet with her again this week.Theres a lady named J---- that we met with, she's super religious and willing to learn more about our beliefs and a really cool lady. We won't be able to meet with her for a while though because she's gonna be out of town for a few weeks to go have a baby in Anchorage. Unfortunately we weren't able to see G-------- this week, I think she already left to Shaktoolik but I'm not sure. We went back to see if we could catch both Rob and G--------- but when we went back some other guy answered the door and said that he didn't know who either of them are. So well keep looking for them and hope they give us a call haha. Our ward did a mini golf activity that was based around the plan of salvation, it was a really fun activity. The young men each made a hole and had to relate it to something in the plan of salvation.

 I'm glad everyone had such a good week! Good job on getting nominated to be Mr. Orem Avery, youre for sure gonna win! That's pretty sweet that youre growing so much since August Brolin, you're gonna be taller than me by the time I get home, I think I'm probably done growing, I'll never make it to 6ft haha, but whatever I never wanted to be 6 ft tall anyways.. haha.  I'm glad Dad had such a good birthday! That's so good that everyone had a good week! Hopefully everyone has a great week this week too. Gotta go now, bye!

Love you guys!

  Love Elder Ashton Roney

Thermals

Hey everyone!

 This weeks been pretty good, cold but good. Yesterday it was -23 and its been in the negatives most of the week, most of the time around -10 or so, so not terrible but still cold. We went tracting yesterday and we ended up only tracting one house, haha. But not because it was cold or anything, but because the first house we knocked on let us in. The guy who answered the door was completely drunk but let us in right away. Turns out he's inactive, from Orem, and Hyrum Smith is like his great great great grandpa haha. His friend Gloria was there and she was sober, so we were able to teach her therestoration and it was an amazing lesson. The cool part is that he was the one who initiated the lesson and he was testifying about everything we taught and he helped out quite a bit. It was a good tract haha. She lives in Shaktoolik, anative village that you have to fly into so we might not be able to teach her again for a while because she goes back this week sometime to help herfamily with some stuff. She said that shes terrified of flying and will not fly if the weather's bad though, so pray for bad weather this week so we can teach her again haha.

  

  I might be headed over to Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island sometime this transfer or next. We talked to president about it and he told us that if we come up with a good plan and have everything arranged then there's a good chance to go over. So we've been working with a  lady in the ward in getting things set up. President Beasleys requirements are that we have a place to stay, and someone to show us around, and someone to protect us haha (he said that it takes about 6 months for the people over there to like you enough to not want to kill you, but we've heard otherwise from members who are from Savoonga (: and he only heard that from members in wasilla)  So far we've figured most of it out, we just need to double check about the housing arrangement. It'll be awesome to get to go over there if President approves it. And the oldergeneration over there speaks Siberian Yupik so the member we're working with is teaching us a song in Siberian Yupik, it's pretty cool. She took us out for a walk on the iced over ocean, it was pretty neat. We're hoping that through all this we can help her become active again, because I guess its a big step even to be able to meet with her.

  

We saw the Iron Dog come in this week.  It's a 1000 mile snow machine race that goes from Wasilla to Nome to Fairbanks, it was kinda neat to see it come in. In a couple weeks the Iditarod comes in, it's gonna be awesome to be at the finish line this year. (Last year Ashton was in Eagle River and helped as a volunteer with the "Start" of the Iditarod.)  On Monday we went on a hike, probably the coldest hike I've ever done in my entire life but it was good haha. It took like 10 minutes of keeping my hands inside my coat to warm them up from being outside holding my camera for less than a minute, it was pretty crazy.  The wind chill is ridiculous here. I met a guy in the branch this week who's a gold miner on one of the dredges here.  He's on the show Bering Sea Gold and his names Ian Foster. He's pretty cool, he said that he'll send us a text when theyre filming in town so we can try to be in the background or something haha. Oh and today were eating dinner with Carol and she's feeding us eskimo food, were gonna be eating mucktuck, fermented mucktuck, cormorant, and walrus, then I think she said seal oil as well.   I'll make sure to take pictures.  She said that missionaries in the past have thrown up ... pray for me haha 

  So now to answer your questions, right now we get a decent amount of sunlight, the sun comes up around 9 and it goes down at like 7/7:30, so like 10 hours or so of sunlight, it's nice. Um I'm kind of warming up haha, I just wear my winter gear that I brought out with me and I'm good for the most part. Elder Allens cool, he's from Vegas, he's been out almost a year, he came out with Elder Weber, and he's learning russian. Oh and by the way, that guy Mot Mahoni, he's not in this branch, he lives down in Wasilla area so I don't thinkthere's anyone up here that he baptized.  From what I hear all of the people he baptized are active. Hopefully I'll get to meet him someday before I leave Alaska though, I think that would be pretty cool to meet him. And this branch, they're definitely a bare minimum kind of branch, but the people arereally good people. That's awesome that everyones doing so good, everyones getting married, holy smoke. Thats awesome that Avery got a full ride scholarship to UVU, congrats man! 

I have a question to ask you guys. Can you send me up a pair or two of thermals?

Love you guys!  Love Elder Ashton Roney

Frozen Tundra

Hey everyone!

  This week has been pretty good. We had transfers and then all the bush elders and the departing home missionaries went to the temple, then we slept in the mission home that night and left in the morning.

 While we were in the mission home we heard about this member who goes to church out in Willow and we're all pretty sure he's one of the 3 nephites haha. Everything matches up perfectly. He has a darker complection, he's always flying around, he has a job as a bush pilot/regular pilot and he's always flying back and forth to SLC because he works for the church on top of his other job, he doesn't have church records but holds callings, he's baptized tons of people and some of the people he's baptized are like 80 and he baptized them when they were kids, he looks like he's 50 but runs like hes 20 and can outrun missionaries and kids in the ward, no one really knows where he lives or how old he is (but with all the things the missionaries have gathered, he should be like 105), when the missionaries talk or ask about him members get kinda stand-offish and sensative about it, his name is Mot Mahoni (not sure how to spell it),  which is kinda similar to one of the names of the nephite 12 apostles, so with all that and more stuff that I didn't mention we're pretty sure he's one of the 3 nephites haha.

  Anyways, so I arrived in Nome, and my first impression was, wow this transfers gonna kinda suck haha. But I've soon found out otherwise. When I stepped out of the airport doors it was around -10 or -15 with a 10 or 15 mph wind chill and we had to dig our truck out of the snow drift so we could leave the airport. The coldest I've seen so it get here so far is -27, and the winds always blowing. We live above the church (the church makes some crazy weird sounds by the way) and we use the computer in the church to do emails and mormon.org and all that. Nomes a pretty cool place, its a small mining town with about 3000 people. I think they said its like 90 percent native, and aparently there's a sign that says it was the first sin city, haha. Its basically how I first thought Alaska would be when I opened my mission call, cold, in the middle of no where, theres a bunch of eskimos everywhere, and alot of people use snowmachines to get around town. All the buildings here are on stilts because of the permafrost or something like that. We don't proselite after 8, because most of the people are in the bars or sleeping.  So most nights we go to the gym here, except saturday and sunday and on saturday we clean and get everything ready for church.  On sunday we go to the youth home and do stuff with the native kids there. We do alot of service here; we play bingo with the old people, do stuff with the native kids in the youth home.  At the museum we're transcribing a natives journal from the 1800s, we sort books at the library.  Nome's a branch and there was about 25 or 30 people that came yesterday. The members here are pretty cool for the most part. Nome's a pretty cool place to serve, it's a really interesting place.  I can already tell the transfer's gonna be pretty fun and I'll have plenty of stories haha. My first day someone broke into the apartment and ruined part of the door jam, so now it makes a big click sound when you open or close it, haha, but they didn't take anything, so that was pretty weird.   Then a few days ago a drunk native guy stared me down then from across the street he yelled "you should buy me a bottle!" haha. Anyways, this transfer will probably bring some interesting and funny experiences :) My companions name is Elder Allen, he was in my district in eagle river so it was nice to know who my companion would be before I was put with him and to know that we get along. Oh, and I'll be able to send pictures now, because if I forget to bring my camera cord I can just run upstairs to the apartment and get it, haha so I'll attach some pictures today. I got your box this week! Thank you so much! It was fun getting it.   I actually got it at transfers last week but accidentally left it in the mission home.  But then they sent it up to me and I got it a couple days ago hah.

  So that's Nome so far, haha it's gonna be an awesome transfer. We met with one of our investigators this week, he's from russia and hes awesome. Hes only 20 but he's super spiritual and super funny too. At our lesson on saturday he had alot of questions about the holy ghost and trials and adversity. So that's what we taught about that lesson. And then he came to church yesterday and all the talks and the lessons in church yesterday were about the exact same thing that he was asking about on saturday.  So after church he said that he really liked it and enjoyed church, and we asked him if he's thought about being baptized and he said" Oh yes yes! I've been thinking about that, I want to talk to you guys about that next time we meet!" and when he talks he's very enthusiastic about most things, so he's super fun to talk to. We're meeting with him tomorrow, so well be able to talk about baptism with him, it'll be good. this transfer should be good. Oh and I hope you enjoy the pictures! 

Love Elder Ashton Roney

There's no place like home..

Hey everyone!

 We got our transfer call on friday, and Im getting transferred! Theyre sending me up to Nome!   it's pretty far north west in the bush and its a native town. It should be good, I'm pretty excited for this transfer. I guess everynight we go to the gym there because everyone's either drunk (even though its supposed to be a dry community) or sleeping and so there's nothing to do.  So it'll be good to lose some of the weight I've put on since Ive been in Alaska.   This week we helped move lots of boxes of books to send to Tonga. They're building the first public library there and all those books are going there.  They said that they're gonna put all our names (theyre putting everyone's name on the wall who helped out with getting it all together) on the wall because we helped put together the first public library, haha. 

   I went on exchanges this week and went into the other area for the day. It was alot of fun, we did alot of shoveling that day. Oh and I went to the dentist that day too (: so now my teeth are all good to go and you don't have to worry about it anymore haha.  It's a good thing, because they probably don't have good dentists in Nome.   Yesterday was awesome, a members daughter was baptized and it was probably one of the best child of record baptisms i've been to on my mission.  Then, later that day there was an awesome musical stake fireside that the sisters put together.   The spirit was super strong in both of those events, it was pretty good. On saturday, Alaskas area 70 came and did a training meeting for all the missionaries and ward missionaries/mission leaders/bishops. He talked about referrals and how the Lord has his part to help the work and we have ours and we need to do our part because the Lords done his part, it was really good.

   We ate dinner with the H-------s this week and then read a few books with them haha, the short books in the book of mormon, so now they're on Mosiah. We met with L------ and N------ again, it went really well, alot better than the time before haha. We had to set some ground rules though, we told him that were gonna teach him about the lesson and if he has questions that arent relevant to what were talking about he has to wait til the end to ask them haha. It worked pretty well, he only asked non relevant questions once and then we were able to stay on track the whole time. We were able to get in contact with R--------- again, it was awesome, she was gonna come to church but she got called into work at 8. And when we went on exchanges, Elder Sant was able to meet with an investigator, he said it went well. And other than a couple other potentials and less actives and moving stuff and meetings, I just said goodbye to people yesterday. So it was a good week. 

  That's super exciting to hear that Braedon and Virginia are having a baby girl! And all the different cousins either engaged or pregnant, alot of exciting things are going on hah. I'm glad everyones stayin busy and happy!    Well, I'm just about out of time, sorry the emails not more detailed about the week mom.  But I gotta go, Love you guys!  I'll tell you all about Nome next week (: 

Love Elder Ashton Roney

Kinda Nice

Hey everyone!

 This week was pretty decent, the weather's been kinda nice and warm too, its been in the 20s lately and its awesome haha. On Wednesday we did service at the nature center again and we did something we've never done before, they had us snow shoe this week! We were packing down a trail for an extreme bike race that's gonna be on the frozen river. So we ended up snow shoeing on the river for 2ish miles.  It was fun but kinda sketch at first. Every now and then you would break through one of the top layers and the layer would make a whomp sound and crack a circle around you, but you only go down maybe a foot at most and then you land on another layer of ice. 

I did alot of driving this week, the office realized that we have storage at our apartment and so we've been storing couches and stuff that the mission gets for missionaries.  So right now we have 3 couches, a recliner and a table, all in our storage room. And we took two other couches and a couple things up to Wasilla to some missionaries up there.  We get our transfer call this week on friday and transfers are next tuesday, and I'm probably getting transferred out which would be fine. On saturday the area 70 for Alaskas doing another training and all the missionaries and ward mission leaders/ missionaries are supposed to go to that.  It should be good. And I got your package! Thank you so much! And give the Watsons a big thank you from me, it was awesome to get that package from them! 

We were finally able to start reading with sister Hansen again, and we're eating dinner with her and her husband this week. We met with a former investigator, one who I taught last winter while I was in this area the first time. We got to know him a little bit and found out what his road block is, he doesn't know that there's a God. And until he knows that God exists he won't be able to progress, because he's gone through the missionary lessons 3 or 4 times, he's been through all four years of gospel doctrine 4 times and he's been through the gospel principles class a few times as well. So he definitely knows what we believe but we won't get anywhere until he knows that God exists. But the next lesson we have scheduled with him is the saturday after the transfer, so I probably won't meet with him again before I leave:(  

Well,  it's been a good week, we went tracting and we were able to get some potential investigators and got cussed out by some old grumpy guy, fun stuff. We have some lessons set up for this week to meet with a few investigators that we weren't able to meet with this last week, so this week should be alot more productive than last, which would be great.

 Welp, my times running out or else I'd make this letter more indepth and more exciting. but I love you guys and Im glad youre all doing good! Love you guys!

 Love Elder Ashton Roney