Elder Roney

Hey everyone!
  Happy 23rd Birthday Braedon!! I hope it was just wonderful and everything you hoped and dreamed for! :)
  We got our transfer call on saturday, we're both staying in Nome for another transfer :) And we're both happy about it, we're actually going to be able to see Nome when it's not all white everywhere! Hopefully I get sent to Fairbanks or Juneau next, that would be awesome! We're going to be driving out to a couple of the eskimo villages as soon as they open up the roads all the way. In Teller, the eskimo village north of Nome there's one member who lives there and has been stuck in Teller for the winter and we're going to make a trip up to see him. We've been in contact with him and he seems like a super solid member, it'll be good to go visit him. Today were driving out one of the roads to go see the train to nowhere. It's a super old rusted up train that they were building the tracks for to go from Council to Nome and they never finished. We heard it's pretty cool so were gonna drive out to see it today. The weathers been good lately too, it's been in the 20s and got into the 30s once! All the snows starting to melt away, I love it, alot of the snows supposed to be mostly gone by the end of may so that'll be awesome. We had the game night activity and it went well, alot of people showed up and brought games and food, it was pretty fun.
  This week was good, even though I got sick one of the days and we had to stay inside all day. I got pink eye in my right eye and it was the worst. Luckily the head doctor of the hospital here is in our ward and he got me some eye drops which helped a ton. So I was stuck inside all that day because I was contagious and didn't want anyone to get sick and be the cause of their illness. But we were still able to teach alot this week so that was good. We were able to see A------------, she's been reading from the book of mormon and we gave her a plan of salvation pamphlet to read while she's out at her cabin for the weekend. She's awesome and told us that she'll read it on the way to the cabin haha.  It was a short visit but a good one. When we got there they were telling us about walrus' and killer whales, then showed us some walrus tusks that they got and a killer whale tooth that Angelas dad found on the beach. It was pretty cool, the walrus tusks that they have are tusks from a walrus that ate humans, they said you can tell because if it's a walrus that attacks humans their tusks are a different color, kind of brownish, they call them rogue walrus'. (what??? sounds like a myth to me) Its pretty nuts. But A---------- doing awesome and doing good.
  We met with I---------------- this week, and he's still doing good. We weren't able to teach him about the law of chastity this week though. When we got there he was in a good mood, then after a few minutes of being there his dog went into the other room and made a huge mess which put him in a very bad mood . But other than that he's doing really good.
  That's awesome that everyones doing so good, exciting stuff that Braedons graduated! Congratulations!!!! And hes 23 now! Thats a pretty good week for him haha, and a super good birthday present from BYU! :)

  Thats pretty cool that they had Peter Clegg come back to give a talk. I didnt realize that I was one of those kids who would jump on you when you come over to home teach haha.
  Anyways, I gotta go! Love you guys!

 Love Elder Roney

4/22

Hey everyone!
 
  Happy 18th Birthday Avery!!! You're now an adult, that's some pretty exciting stuff right there.  I hope it was everything you wished for and dreamed it would be.
  Things have been pretty good up here in Nome, we get our transfer call this saturday so well know whats happening. We're pretty positive that Elder Allens leaving and we think that I might be getting transferred too, but we'll see what happens. The weather's been amazing this week! It's been so warm and sunny and all the roads are mostly clear of ice and snow.  There are so many people that walk around and do things outside now, it's awesome. Spring's actually finally here! Yesterday some people spotted a polar bear and two cubs a few miles out of town.  The natives say that this is the time of the year that you see polar bears come around if they do. It's pretty crazy, maybe if I stay another transfer I'll be able to see a polar bear, haha. I got to see a herd of muskox this week too, I'll attach some pictures of them. It was cool to see them, we could only get so close though because the people we were with told us that if you get too close they might charge you and tromp you. So we took those words of advice and didn't get very close, haha. We drove out one of the roads that they just recently plowed, in some places the snow was three times as high as I am tall, it's crazy the amount of snow some places get.
  This week we met with A-------- again a couple times, the first time we went over there we were only there for maybe 5 minutes because she was leaving to go to court haha, but it was for something dumb. She got in trouble for selling some of her smoked salmon.  I guess that's illegal to do up here, she didn't know that you couldn't do that either haha. We went over a few days later and found out that it went well, they only gave her a $100 fine. When we were over there the second time we taught her about the restoration/book of mormon and gave her a copy. She said that she's gonna read it and pray about it. It was really good that we were able to teach her about the book of mormon because she told us that until we came over and taught her about it she thought that it replaced the bible, not go along side the bible.  So I was happy that we were able to clear that up, and I think she was too. Shes an awesome lady and a solid investigator too.
  I------------- doing good, he came to church yesterday and we were able to teach him a couple more times this week. We taught him about baptism and we taught him about how things get difficult before something good happens. The next lesson were going to be teaching him is the law of chastity haha.  We just learned yesterday that his girl friend is now moving in with him.   So hopefully that (lesson) goes well, cross your fingers.
  It sounds like you all had a pretty good week, it sounds like Averys birthday was good. That's awesome that you guys got his paperwork finished the night before his 18th birthday haha. Hopefully his board of review will go well.  I'm sure he'll pass with flying colors. Pretty exciting that he's getting his partiarchal blessing too, I love reading mine. That's pretty sweet that Braedons graduating this week!   Fun stuff
  Thanks for sending me stamps and my backpack! I'll probably get the letter with the stamps in the mail today.

 I gotta go. Love you guys!

 Love Elder Ashton Roney

Ill attach some pictures too, one of the muskox, one of me in front of the wall of snow, and one of me on the ocean ice last week(on one of the packed snowmachine trails though)

snow again

 Happy 15th Birthday Brolin! I hope it was an amazing day for you! You can get your permit now!
   This week was good, it was a pretty eventful week. So for 3 days there was a big Kawerak conference, Kawerak is a regional native coorporation, it was awesome! The conference was to celebrate the coming of spring and to start off the whale hunting season or something like that, they do it every year around this time. They did alot of native dancing everynight while it was going, we were able to see some cool dances. There was one that was kind of spooky though but still super awesome to watch.  It was a shaman dance and there was alot of screaming involved, haha.  During the conference, they announced that the people in Savoonga killed a whale, which is pretty exciting I guess. A lady in the ward is from there and she said that she's gonna be getting a good amount of muktuk from the villagers over there.  So I might be eating muktuk again soon haha, yum...   It was pretty cool, one of the nights at the conference they were feeding the community reindeer soup and it just so happened to be on the night that we didn't have dinner.  So we stopped by and ate some yummy reindeer soup for dinner, it was super good.
   We had a bowling activity on saturday, the ward rented out the bowling alley for the night and alot of people showed up, it was an awesome turnout. Most of the people there were either less active members or non members, and all the active members that werent out of town were there too. When we got there we discovered that we ran over a big chunk of metal sometime during the day, so we had to change our tire before we went in, and since it was muddy out we got our clothes kinda muddy, I dont even know how many times I was asked when we got into the bowling alley "what happened? Why are you muddy?" Then me and Elder Allen joined in on one of the games towards the end, I won :)
   We were able to teach I---------- a couple times this week, we're in the process of teaching him the Gospel of Jesus Christ, each time we go over there we teach him one or two principles. So far we've taught him about Faith and Repentance, next were going to teach him about baptism and the Holy Ghost and hopefully get him on date for baptism. He's coming along really well, he's doing awesome, and he's still keeping the word of wisdom too which is a huge step forward for him!
   We picked up a new investigator this week, her name is An------. She seems pretty solid and lives like 2 houses away from the church haha. Shes a subsistance living native too, so on the weekends she snowmachines out of town and hunts and gathers what she needs for the week. She's a really cool lady, she ended up giving us raspberry jam that she made and gave us a jar of smoked salmon too.
  That's crazy that you guys got more snow, unfortunately we did too. Everything was melting and making such good progress towards spring and there were even spots that you could see the ground, and then it snowed again a couple nights ago. This weather really likes to get my hopes up and then smack them right back down haha.   Wait, we have missionaries in our ward now?? Thats awesome, have there ever been missionaries in our ward while we've been there? That's exciting that Kaedon got his mission call to Guatemala! He's gonna love it.
  Anyways, I gotta go now. I'm glad you all had such a good and fun week, love you guys!

 Love Elder Ashton Roney

Somewhat eventful.

Hey everyone!

  This weeks been somewhat eventful, mostly just busy, crazy and ridiculous though. So last p-day we went out to Ians mining camp for a little while, he showed us around his camp and gave us a tour. We got to meet the tv crew who was filming everything and all the other miners there. It was pretty fun, we got to see them film some of the show too. (Bering Sea Gold reality t.v. show)  It was just a quick thing, they just zoomed in on the gold and scuba mask in the background and all that fun stuff for like 2 seconds. Yeah, reality tv is definitely not reality, they filmed it like at least 20 times over and over and over again and did a bunch of stuff to make it look cooler til they got just the right shot. And after a minute or two they wanted it to be smokey in the background so they had Ian light some paper towels on fire and stomp them out to make smoke haha. But it was cool, they showed us a big pan full of gold, he told us how much it was worth and it was worth so much, and it was just from one week of mining!   But on the way to his mining camp we were walking out on the ice and we were walking around on these big chunks of ice and I stepped on this one spot and I fell through the ice/powder! luckily I only fell armpit deep and luckily there was more ice underneath and not water hahaha. (Oiy, Angels were watching over him.)

  Another crazy and ridiculous incident happened this week while we were eating dinner at subway. So we were on our way to subway and we saw a very intoxicated eskimo lady walking down the street flailing her arms above her head as shes walking, kind of funny to see. Then when we got to subway and were ordering our $10 footlongs(theres no such thing as a $5 footlong here) she and her son and his friends walked into the store. She starts yelling at her sons friends because I guess she thought they were just trying to get free subway and werent really his friends and I guess it was his 12th birthday. Anyways, after we start eating our food her son and his friends go and sit in one of the booths behind us and start eating their food. So she starts walking over to their table but before she gets there she stops when she gets to our booth and looks at us, and we both think, oh no something weirds about to happen. hahaha so basically she starts off by tells us in a very slurred eskimo accent, you boys are very handsome, we tell her thanks, then she asks us what our ages are, and we both say 20 and think, oh great is this really happening? Then she asks when were planning on getting married, and in an attempt to stop the weirdness I say, not for at least another year or two haha, but that doesnt stop her, she then continues to ask us to marry her.  But it turned out okish because we gave her and her son each a book of mormon and left hahaha. Theres your crazy and sad Nome story of the week, theres more but Ill just share that one :)

   General Conference was awesome, I really enjoyed it even though not alot of people showed up to the church to watch it besides priesthood session. haha but for the last session we had Iskander there, and for the afternoon session on Saturday a less active person showed up to watch it with us. The talks were awesome and the spirit was pretty strong during it. It was a good last general conference on the mission.

    Iskander's doing really good, we taught him the word of wisdom and he committed to do it for at least a week. I guess the missionaries in the past taught it to him and he said no to everything in it, so it's good that he's going to do it and accepted it, it's for sure a big step of progression. The only thing that might be hard for him to give up is his tea and maybe coffee, but he said that hes going to try it.   He's our most progressing investigator so I won't talk about anyone else today :)

    It sounds like you guys had a pretty good week, those hikes and different adventures in southern utah sound like they were pretty fun. Im so jealous that you guys have been able to enjoy the heat, it's down at 0 degrees plus wind chill again, I just really want the cold to leave and go away for a long long time. Anyways, gotta go! Love you guys!

 Love Elder Ashton Roney

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