The MEGA family!!!!

It's a New Year

2012-01-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

Yes there is a gremlin in the picture.

So much to do and so little time. I wonder where this little blog will go this year. I haven't made the time for posting lately. We've had a very busy December - recitals, parties, crafting, quilting, and other sewing projects. Boy's Group & Girl's Group along with our regular schooling routine - this year I will have 4 college students, 3 public highschoolers. 3 homeschoolers, and 1 private schooler. Thats a heck of a lot of schoolers! Loving most of it, tolerating the times I don't love.

Happy New Year from our family to yours!

Retrieving Hermana Roney part 3

2011-12-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

We visited lots of families Hermana Roney had taught. They all loved her! Hugging and kissing her. *Oh Hermana Roney* they would say. Then they would get teary eyed when she said goodbye. They liked to serve us drinks. Kenzie told me I had to accept it. So I did. But I didn't drink that yucky hot one. I did eat the crusty hard bread though. It gave me a stomach ache.

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Retrieving Hermana Roney part 2

2011-12-10T09:45:00.000-08:00

We attended change meeting. Many bore testimony and Brooke and I were asked to give our testimonies too. Brooke did great with his Spanish. Of course, Kenzie did awesome. Kenzie translated for me. Oh man, I need to learn Spanish!

We took some missionaries out to lunch. I asked, "where can we go?" and they talked about Taco Bell, Wendy's, etc. I was already so sick of fast food. I asked - where is a place that is nice and yummy, but you never go there because it's too expensive. One elder immediately chimed in with the name of a nice restaurant. So thats where we went. The food was delicious and I tried not to freak when a cockroach ran across the table.

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A Mama Who Loves to Quilt

2011-12-08T15:31:00.001-08:00

One thing I've learned recently. Find a good, quick, quilt pattern, make it, and repeat. In anticipation for heading to Guatemala, I started a quilt for Kenzie's Mission President and his wife. I used the same pattern as I did for President and Hermana Heaton. Turning Twenty. I grabbed fat quarters I already owned and went for it. When the top was done, I didn't really like it. No time for starting again, so I just continued on. I paid some else to do the quilting this time. Not enough time for everything. Kim had it quilted up in no time.

The backing came from Corn Wagon and I had a different binding I was going to use, but decided I had enough prints going on, so I just used the same as the back. I started calling this quilt the ugly quilt. When I showed it to a few friends, they were honest enough to say *It's OK*. Thanks girls for not lying to me, I would have never been able to trust you again :) When I had it completely finished I kept telling myself - It's not so bad. But it really was. The thing is, this quilt was going to Guatemala, where everything works there. And when I got it there, it totally was fine. Funny thing though, I carried it around and it was so stinkin' hot there, I just laughed to myself. That quilt will never be cuddled with. At best it will lay across a chair, but most likely will sit in a closet. Oh well. So much for the ugly quilt. Karly loved it when I showed it to her. Love that girl!

My favorite part? My new LABELS!!!!

They are the wrong color (I ordered gray & red), but I still love them. I've used several on my latest sewing projects and I get giddy everytime I see one.

Brooke told me not to use labels because then people won't think I made it. I still love them.

Don't you?

Retrieving Kenzie part 1

2011-12-03T16:00:00.000-08:00

Our first stop in Guatemala was Guatemala City. We spent the night in a hotel where I enjoyed a warm shower. Little did I know that would be one of the few I would get. Our driver, Miguel, took us to see the Guatemala City Temple. Halfway across the country our daughter was waiting for us to come see her, we didn't even know. We thought pick up day was tomorrow.

Here she is waiting patiently for us. She waited 5 hours thanks to our driver who drove about 30 mph all the way there. Her companion wasn't so patient - Tearful and pacing.

Here I am surprising her. Funny thing is she thought she was surprising us. A mix up of communication I guess.

Happy (HOT) parents and daughter. Oh my, I really do still have a daughter named Kenzie.

The Last Missionary Mail from Hermana Roney

2011-11-21T20:04:00.001-08:00

Hola! This week was wonderful. I cant not believe it is my last week to be a missionary. ever. It breaks my heart. Lots of things have happened this week and I have been trying to keep myself very busy. Tuesday and Thursday we spent in xela. I love it. On Tuesday we got our own private tour with an hermano and I have never felt the spirit so strong. I loved being able to be in the house of the Lord. Then after we got to talk to the people as they came out of the temple. That was an experience I will NEVER forget. Everyone came out so struck with the spirit it was incredible. People came out crying and describing to us the things they felt and asking us how they can know more. I cant even describe how amazing it was and i met so many awesome people. What better way could I finish my mission? I dont think there is a better way.

Yesterday we had a stake conference by sattelite. Which was also incredible. Elder uchtdorf, elder clarke, hna cook, and holland all gave amazing talks. I will be honest I was expecting a boring stake conferemce but I was blown away. Elder holland amazingly spoke in spanish. When he first started everyone laughed cause his spanish was horrible but he finished by bearing his testimony in spanish and I was blown away. It came out so powerful and so perfectly the spirit was definitely talking right through him.

Also yesterday a hna we have been teaching and her son got baptized. Unfortunately her husband didnt join in, but he says he is going to get baptized next year. we told him that means in about a month and he said ok. At first the little kid was terrified of the water and I will be honest I was really frustrated cause he wouldnt come so i told him to come but he didnt have to get baptized. He walked in the room with the batismal font and told me all by himself that he changed his mind and was going to do it. cool.

The other family we are teaching are really close to baptism. they will be getting baptized the 26th. too bad I wont be here. We have spent a lot of time at their tortilleria this week helping them make tortillas. they teach us quiche and we attempt to talk with the hna. She mostly just pees her pants laughing at us the whole time.

Last night I couldnt sleep i was so nervous. I stared at the ceiling, read the book of mormon, and even filmed a video of my comp snoring up a storm. she was not happy when I showed it to her when she woke up. Oh and the reason I am so late writing today is cause i got to spend my last pday in a training meeting for my comp. lucky me. a dream come true for my last pday. no but i had fun cause we snuck away with hna nelson when nobody was looking. I have been filled with lots of emotions this week but it has mostly just come down to being terrified. Goodbye Hermana Roney. I will miss you. Its a hard knock life for me.

I love you all and thank you so much for all the love and support you have given me the last 18 months. I couldnt have done it without all your emails, letters and prayers. I have learned and grown so much I feel like I am a new person. For all of you thinking about serving missions.... do it. you will NEVER regret it. and It will change your life forever. I know I could never pay him back for all he did but I hope I have given the Lord my all and he is happy with my work. I did my best.

I know with all my heart that the church is true and that miracles exist. I have lived through several in the last 18 months. I know the book of Mormon is true and its the most perfect book that exists in the whole world. I also know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and through his giant faith and his tiny prayer we have the gospel on the earth again. I know God loves us and that he listens to our prayers and wants us all to be happy. Your example is the most important thing for the gospel. SMILE and be happy and you will change peoples lives.

I LOVE YOU ALL AND I AM SO EXCITED I WILL BE SEEING YOU ALL SO SOON!

Happy Thanksgiving. I am very greatful for a lot of things this year and I am excited to be spending my thanksgiving with FAMILY :)

con mucho cariño,

Hermana Roney

Panes con pollo

Fiesta

Fiesta #2

Hooligans

I love to see the temple

Child labor

This way please

Templo

Bautismo

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Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-11-15T06:15:00.001-08:00

Hola!! This week was super great. thank you everyone for the birthday wishes! Lots happened this week. But my favorite was that on saturday we went to the temple!! It was so pretty and I loved being able to be in the house of the Lord. my bday was pretty awesome. got my face smashed in cake two times by the elders. thanks guys. great tradition. im definitely bringing it home with me. I have some awesome pics but this computer is not cooperating with my memory card.

We have some great and not so great investigators. We had an awesome family that was supposed to get baptized saturday but unfortunately satan knocked on their door the night before their baptism and when we went to pick them up on saturday they said we arent going to get baptized thank you so much for everything because thanks to you guys we are going to start going back to our catholic church. oh... you're welcome.

But the good news is- one of our investigators actually went to church with his whole family and actually liked it. even though the bishop stopped everyone from singing in the middle of the opening hymn and pretty much yelled at everyone for singing the hymn bad in sacrament meeting they still liked it.

turns out no one in our ward knows how to sing so i pretty much got elected as the primary music director for the primary program. apparently I am really talented cause now the primary can sing the song.

this week we had interviews. I received a temple recommend for the open house. too bad I wont be here.

The most crazy thing is I will see you NEXT WEEK!!!!! YIPEE!! I can hardly believe it. But its gonna be rough.

Proverbs 17:22 a merry heart doeth good like a medicine but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

I love you lots and lots.

couldnt be more excited, nervous, happy, scared, sad.

Love,

Hermana Roney

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Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-11-10T23:36:00.001-08:00

HOLA FAMILY! This week couldn't have been better. every day just gets more and more amazing and I cant even believe it. The biggest most exciting news is we (the hermanas) got asked to serve in the temple for the open house! I couldnt think of a better way to finish my mission! We were informed on saturday and then on sunday they shipped us off to xela for a training meeting with Elder Martino and the people in charge of the temple dedication. I am so excited and I know i will never have another chance like this in my lifetime. We got to see the temple yesterday and it was amazing and the weather felt like a fall day. it felt good to get out of the burning heat. The moment we have been preparing for our whole mission starts this week. The temple open house starts on the 11th and the missions gonna explode. We have put a lot of work into this so Im hoping all our plans come through. anyways for the next 17 days we will be working triple time running back and forth from our area and the temple. I couldnt be happier.

We had a multi zone conference this week and it was great as usual. Its weird cause things are actually starting to hit me that im going home. Its a weird feeling. Pretty much a little bit of everything. I like being Hermana Roney. So its gonna suck going home.

as for investigators all though a lot of people have punked us and rejected us we´ve got two families that should be getting baptizing in the next two weeks. yipee! we have been praying and fasting despretely. the members have been helping us a ton and weve gotten a ton of references. All I can say is when you are doing what you are supposed to be doing the lord is a lot more willing to help you. My companion hasnt quite mastered the do your part and wash your hands part of missionary work yet. she gets really upset when the people reject us sometimes.

Me and my comp were the compañerismo maravilloso last month. The first companionship of hermanas. cough. cough.

today we watched one mans treasure so I got to see charan all morning long.

As tradition all the sicknesses have been hitting me now that I am finishing. My toe got infected so they gave me meds but it turned out to be a blessing cause not only did they heal my toe but they got rid of all my infected mosquito bites. Pretty much the whole mission has colds too. its real fun.

also i got your package mother dearest thank you. Thanks for the birthday cards... Also Openshaws thank you for the package too!! I also got some letters but too bad I couldnt read half of them cause they got soaked in the hurricane. Guatemala is awesome.

congrats on your baptism saucy! I love you!

I love you all. Thanks for all your prayers and support.

love,

Hermana Roney

pioneers of mision retalhuleu

burger king

hair wrap time

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Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-11-06T09:24:00.001-08:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Hola. Family. This week has been super duper. We have been working super hard and it makes me extremely tired. But thats ok cause thats why im here. I keep telling my companion i can sleep in three weeks. and she just gets furious cause shes just starting. sorry for you. As for having a newbie as a comp she just doesnt know whats going on so I have to tell her everything to do. sometimes its cool cause she does whatever i say. sometimes it sucks cause i have to tell her everything to do. but shes super cool and I like her and shes a hard worker.

as for investigators after 2 long days sitting in the renap fighting, begging, and crying for the papers of hermano, they finally gave them too us and friday he was married and baptized. Another hermana finally got baptized as well. she makes me laugh really hard. when we first went to change into her white clothes she was just terrified and I had to drag her out of the bathroom. literally. when she got baptized everything was completely see through and you could see her polka dot bra. I guess she lied when I told her to put a white tank top under her shirt and she said she did. Also I guess she lied when she told me she brought a towel cause she definitely didnt and just had to put her clothes on soaking wet. then after she got baptized shes like what now I am just supposed to go back out there and act like nothing happened? we were laughing our heads off and had to drag her out of the bathroom again.

Weve got some new investigators that seem somewhat positive. we will see how that goes. Oh and Another hermano punked us and didnt show up for his baptism. we havent been able to find him since.

Outside my house there is a one legged man who sits on the curb everyday and blows his whistle really loud and writes something down in his notebook every time a bus drives by. I havent figured out why yet. but I dont think he knows why either. so I probably wont ask.

Our bishop is super awesome and he really enjoys having audience participation in sacrament meeting. I feel weird everytime he asks someone to stand up and give their input or answer a question.

This week I ate cow nerves. They werent that bad in flavor. But its just like this nasty chewy thing so i wouldnt really recommend it. I stopped there though and decided not to eat the cow eyes that the hermano was eating and was just laughing his head off at me. yum.

Tomorrow is november first. That means fiambre. Oh joy. As for those of you who dont know what that is just picture every kind of meat you can think of mixed together with beets and vinagre. delicious.

happy late bday kriss. happy baptism karter.

D&C 64:33-34 be not weary in well doing. out of small things proceedeth that which is great.

remember its better to look up!

Love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xoxo,

Hermana Roney

baptism

our beautiful wedding and baptism

we love futbal

young mens camp out

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Still Here

2011-11-04T07:33:00.000-07:00

Yep, she's still here.

It's so hard to write about.

It's one of those things where I feel like it's her story to tell, not mine. Although, I talk to everyone about her, I don't hardly write anything about her. It's not fun, or funny, well, OK, sometimes it is funny. Like the time she hid her walnuts in her underware so she didn't have to eat them. They fell out all over the stairs when she went up to bed. We laughed. And laughed. She didn't laugh. She was angry. Really I'm sure she was embarrassed too. But at that point in her life she only knew angry.

Things have changed around here.

We went to an intensive therapy session last week in Colorado. It was just that - INTENSE! Her therapist, James Dumesnil, was amazing. I love him. I really do. Nancy Thomas was also there. She is amazing. But it was the therapy that cracked my little radsters heart. Cracked it open wide. She cried, she screamed, she yelled. And it was real. Can you believe that? I said REAL!!! She had real feelings. REAL!!

I didn't know if I had anything left to give her. She had turned me away so many stinkin' times, I just wasn't sure if I could be there for her. Then Kasey (Harmer) gave me some advice. And then, Nancy gave me some similiar advice. Pray that she can see the love her Heavenly Father has for her in my eyes. She is a child of God after all. He loves her. He made sure I had all the tools I needed to heal her heart. And He made sure she saw His love for her in my eyes. It really worked. And it wasn't that hard afterall.

She not all the way better, but I can see a huge change in her. It gives me hope. Someday she might be a girl we all can like.

It's pretty easy to follow God's plan for us if we know what his plan is. As long as we have that conviction, we can always keep going.

That's where my strength comes from. Heavenly Father

A Really Dumb Thing

2011-11-03T07:28:00.000-07:00

The other day I did a really dumb thing.

I got a painting project all ready and then I took a shower.

Do you know what happens when a mama leaves paint on the table unattended?

Yep, Little Buddy found it. And painted.

He mixed the colors so nicely. See mama? It's the perfect colors.

Yep, it sure is Little Buddy.

Can you believe I was so lucky as to not have a drop of paint on my carpet? Only a little on his clothes. Summer shorts at that. They were on their last leg anyway.

Someone upstairs is really looking out for me.

Our fall leaves painting project.

Now hanging on our schoolroom walls.

Grape Juice

2011-11-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

We only had one box of grapes from our vines this year. I think the birds ate them. Dang MagPies. Next year we are going to cover them with some netting.

We made yummy grape juice though. Only about half a dozen jars. I didn't even bother canning it, I just put it in jars and put it in the freezer.

Easy peasy!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T07:14:00.000-07:00

We've been having a blast crafting some Halloween fun around here.

Ideas from where else, but Pinterest, of course!

2011-10-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

que onda mucha?? This week was super. After a gloomy week and a half of rain the sun finally came out!! I couldn't have been happier. I finally have dry shoes which were wet for a week and clean dry clothes. It was so stormy our clothes wouldn't dry so luckily the sun come out cause i was on my last articles of clothing.

on Saturday our investigator got baptized! When we passed by his house on Saturday to go to his baptism we were waiting him to get ready and his mom just yelled at us for like 30 minutes cause she says her son has already been baptized, it was really fun. Hes super cool and super smart. In church he answers all the questions as if he has been a member for years. unfortunately his brother couldn't get baptized cause it turns out hes playing for the other team. if you know what i mean.

we found a lot of new investigators this week so we are pretty excited. Its amazing how when you are doing what you should be doing things just seem to fall in place. this whole week we have had amazing experiences of members chasing after us in the street telling us that their neighbor has been asking to talk to us. Or other things like that.

We found a family and if all the paper work turns out ok they will be getting married and baptized on Thursday. yipee.

We also found this sweet old man and we taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ and then asked him to be baptized and he said he had already been baptized so then i asked him if he was baptized in the same form as Christ and read it out of the bible and then when we finished he said wait could you explain to me this baptism thing again? so we explained it again and he just goes oh ok then I need to get baptized again. we couldnt believe it. I think we even asked him to be baptized like 3 times after that cause we couldnt believe our ears. he will be getting baptized on sunday.

We also have another baptism date, but she yelled at us yesterday so we will see what happens with her.

Also we are teaching a super cool family and the mom only speaks in quiche so the dad has to translate for us and its awesome. I love it. We are currently desperately searching for a book of mormon in quiche because I have this super strong feeling that we should give them the book of mormon in quiche but the only problem is we cant find one. I dont know why. we are in Guatemala you would think they would have one around here somewhere.

It feels super good to be with a companion who wants to work hard and share the gospel. I couldnt be happier or more tired. Every day we come home and crash and then next thing I know it is 6:30 am again. Time is passing quickly.

The church is true. The Book of Mormon is true. And I love being a missionary.

I LOVE YOU!

LOVE,

Hermana Roney

bautismo

the first time i saw the sun in my area

my comp and crocodile shaped bread

Who doesn't love spray paint?

2011-10-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

We have had this white wooden box sitting on our school table for 3 years now.

It used to be cute, but after 3 years it had been doodled on by way too many pencils.

I removed the hardware, bought 2 cans of red spray paint, and let the kids go at it.

It isn't perfect with its drips and blobs of spray paint, but it is adorable.

And they love it.

And I love it!!!

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-10-24T11:46:00.001-07:00

HOLAAAAAAAA!!! So this week was probably the best week of my life! I can´t even believe it! I had probably one of the best spiritual experiences of my whole life which I cant even begin to explain but I am super happy! This week we had changes and guess what... I dont know why I continue being surprised every time but I got changed! I am now in a place named mazatanengo with my last companion where I will be dying. My companion is amazing. and shes nice and a super hard worker. Her name is Hermana Estrada from Nicaragua. I love her. Pure revelation. Thank you presidente Maravilla. The day of changes he pulled me into his office and told me some things and I couldnt even believe it. But I now know without doubt that that man is definitely called of God.

The day of changes was CRAZY. So I dont know if you have heard but the past week we lived through a hurricane. It was awesome. Tuesday night it started raining really really hard and there was a super strong wind when we woke up wednesday morning it was still the same. It was kind of scary. But we were then infromed that instead of going to change meeting we had to go to the stake center and bring our emergency kits (which lets be honest no one has) and wait. So there we sat. All day. It was super boring. Missionaries were lost all over guatemala. and president was really worried. All of the bridges here flooded so no one made it to changes and they were just stuck all over the place. It was crazy. Finally at like six at night it calmed down a bit and my new comp finally showed up at the church and we left and didnt get back to our area until about 10 at night. It was pretty crazy.

We have super cool investigators that I love. We have two baptisms saturday for elder and nicolas and they are both super cool and very smart. we have another investigator but she ran away from home so we havent been able to find her.

I havent seen the sun for a week.

I feel like I can finally apply my mission scripture. Alma 17:11

scripture of the week:

Mosiah 2:41 If you are obedient you will receive NEVER ENDING HAPPINESS... How cool would that be?

I love you all.

Love,

Hermana Roney

Sauce helped me make Sauce

2011-10-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

Only some of you know Big Boy's other nickname is Sauce. It came from him, as a toddler, saying *t* in the place of *k*. As in Tarter, instead of Karter. That became *Tarter Sauce*, shortened to Sauce. OK. I'm sure you get it.

He picked the apples. He got Kody and Dad to help him get the higher ones. We cut, steamed, and

strained the red beauties.

His favorite part was squishing the steamed apples into the electric strainer.

This is what comes out the other end.

Commonly know as apple poop at our house.

I know, gross.

Normally I only fill quart jars, but these pints are for College Girl - Kortni, and Sister Missionary - Kenzie. Aren't they cute?

I had some green apples and the sauce is so yummy all by itself. The red apples were a little blah, so I added cinnamon and sugar. Just a little. What kid won't eat cinnamon and sugar applesauce?

I also had a box of pears from the barn, so they got made into sauce too.

Yummy!

Canning is such a mess!

Burned on, dripped, sugary mess.

Sticky floors and counters.

I hired someone to come clean my kitchen the next day.

I'm a smart mama :)

I Think Science is the Favorite Subject

2011-10-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

I like to leave a project out on the table and let the kids discover it.

We have several books - this one is by Usborne

The have been building structures for several days.

They are learning all about needing support pieces if they want to build it taller, shapes, sizes, and 3D.

For the cost of a bag of marshmallows and a box of toothpicks, they have been entertained for days.

I love this kind of learning...

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-10-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

Hi. So guess what... Today is day one of my last change in the mission!! I hardly believe it. Six weeks from now I will be in my casita. Yipee. Wednesday we have changes and I will see my doom of who will be killing me. Pray for me. I actually have a good feeling about this one. I´ll let you know my destiny this week. Although I am almost 99% positive I will be staying in my area with Hna Acosta. I hope so cause she's the bomb.

As for this week. It rained. A lot. Surprising I know. But seriously. It rained harder than ever and when it rains the streets floods and turn into rivers. I made my comp work in the rain and she was ticked. haha. Then we had to cross the street and I was terrified cause the water was way strong and I thought I was going to get swept away. and no I am not exaggerating. We got soaked. It was awesome.

Also good news. We finally got a new fridge! Now we can actually buy food. Hallelujah. And not only did they bring us a new fridge but they brought us a blender. The mission is really improving. they will probably have ovens and a tuc-tuc for each companionship by the time I´m outta here.

As for investigators we pretty much got shafted this week. Turns out our most positive investigator, said she doesnt really have a religion or anything totally punked us. One day we were sitting outside of the church waiting for the bishop and we saw her walk by but she didn't see us. So I stood up and watched her... yep walked right into the church across from our church called principe de paz. and there she was sitting there all into it. Now everytime we walk pass we pay attention and sure enough there she is sitting there without fail every time. awesome.

Our other family is very hard to find. They are never home but seem somewhat positive. And yesterday we went to their house and their daughter said "my dad said to tell you hes not home" and I said oh ok go tell him we want to talk to him. yep sure enough walked out. haha. Little kids always say stuff like that. Theyre not that good at lying.

Theres a lot of work to do here but I have just been trying to survive this week and praying for a good comp if you know what I mean. pray for me please.

Thanks to everyone for writing me. aka mom and dad the only fieles. and kort for the second time in her life.

Love you lots.

sorry cant send pics cause this place almost destroyed my memory last week.

BE GOOD LOVE YOU BYE

LOVE,

HERMANA RONAY

Was the Disneyland Hotel on Fire?

2011-10-06T04:54:00.001-07:00

This week I spent a few days visiting my daughter in southern California, along with enjoying the Halloween Decor at the Happiest Place on Earth with my youngest 3 children. Was it the Happiest Place on Earth? I'll let you decide.

We took an early morning flight, which meant getting my kiddos up at 6am. They were excited and happy, so not a problem. When we landed, Kortni was in class, so I headed to Disneyland. Why not?

Turns out the early morning flight/Disneyland combo wasn't the best choice for my crazy in the head 4 year old. He was tired, which equals naughty in his book.

This is where he lost his Vinylmation. He had a huge fit about it and even though we retraced our steps, it wasn't to be found. I'm sure I could check lost and found, but I'm exhausted. Not worth it. I bought him another one, on a different day. He spent the day kicking, hitting, bumping everyone around him. Pushing, crying, laughing, smiling, singing, and more crying. He LOVED small world the most. He does love music. Always.

I wanted the kids to see the decor at night. I saw it a few years ago and it was way cool. The park closed at 6, when it was still light outside, for a pay extra Halloween party. I wasn't in the pay extra (like $30 each kind of extra) kind of mood, so we left and went shopping with Kortni and had BJ's pizza and pazookies. Fun stuff. I directed some furniture rearranging in Kortni's room and headed over to Target where I bought lots of containers. So many, everyone had a pile on their laps on the way home from the store. I wish I'd taken a picture! Karson wanted to swim in her apartment pool. But then he didn't. *where's all the kids?* he wanted to know. We went to bed too late and had a hard time getting up in the morning. Which was a bummer, cause it was early morning magic or whatever they call it at DL. Meaning hotel guests can get in an hour before the park opens to the public. We headed to the monorail at 8am. What? It doesn't open until 10am? What's that all about? The monorail was the main reason I chose to stay at the hotel, the thing they claim in their advertising. Luckily we still had a little *I'm so excited to be at Disney* adrenaline going on, so we headed to the main gate through downtown Disney. It's not so bad on the way there. On the way back, it feels looooonnnggg. Especially when you have tired little kids.

It started sprinkling, then poured rain. I'm ok with rain, it empties the park out and the rest of us drippers can walk on all the rides. Except the first store ran out of adult rain ponchos, I discovered after waiting in line for 10 minutes. It's ok, right? Keep the kiddies dry until I can get one for myself. After a few minutes of me not having a rain poncho in pouring rain, we headed to another store. Another 10 minutes in line and I got one and out we went.

3 little monkeys in a cage. Cuteness! Now the park was empty and we did enjoy walking onto Splash Mountain. Normally I'm not one for jumping right on that ride, but already being wet and wearing a poncho we decided why not? This was definitely on Karson's top favorite ride list. The thrill of the wild ride, plus music, put him over the top - let's do it again!

We also walked right on to Haunted Mansion, which was awesome. This time of year usually requires a long wait or a fast pass. One bummer was a couple with 2 small girls decided it would be a fun ride for them. The girls were screaming before even walking into the mansion. The parents kept telling them - it's not a scary ride. Um, really? I think people shouldn't lie to their kids.

Since it was raining, there weren't too many characters, which is fine with Karson, since he has costume-phobia. Karly's favorite character currently is Winnie the Pooh. Lucky to have found him, close to his regular spot. Conveniently located next to the Tigger Tails bakery. The whole pooh corner thing is under rehab, so it's a little crazy back in that corner.

Kortni joined us Tuesday afternoon. It had stopped raining by then and the crowds were pouring in. We rode a few rides, visited Innovations, and headed out of the park. The kids wanted to ride Screamin' so we headed to California Adventure. It's such a mess over there. The construction is on the main entryway and we had to walk down a boarded up corridor almost all the way to the back of the park. It took a long time and only find Screamin' was closed. Bummer. So we rode Toy Story, which is my favorite, but also had a ridiculously long line. We were all done with the madness after that and escaped through the Grand hotel to avoid the construction craziness. Again I was hoping to enjoy the decor at night, but again, Disney closed at 6 for a private party.

Kortni tended the kids while I went to a parent orientation meeting at her college. There I was told, after a month, if my daughter drops out, I won't get any of my money back. I was also told it was time for me to step back from raising my daughter and let the school take over. Time for her to go through hard times and do some growing up. If she shows me some of her work I shouldn't show great enthusiasm. I'm sure you all can guess how well that went over with me. I just kept my mouth shut though. Took my free bottle of water, took myself on a tour of the school (wow, the sewing machines!) and took my kiddos to The Cheesecake Factory. Banana cream with hot fudge sauce!

Our room was cool! The carved castle, with fireworks going off was a great touch. Until it's time to sleep. Took me a few minutes, but I did locate an off switch. Had to do it a few times for fun, and when it's first turned on, a music box plays *when you wish upon a star* in a tinny, music box sort of way.

The 3rd day meant pouring rain all stinkin' day. I had already decided we wouldn't do the park again. Taking Karson there exhausts me. I have to constantly apologize to everyone he bumps/kicks/runs into. I just want to hang a sign around his neck that says - excuse me, my brain doesn't work right. I took the kids to see Dolphin Tale in 3D. Such a cute movie, and the girl in it is homeschooled! My kids were thrilled with that little mention. I was thrilled with the mom, who fights the teacher to let her son follow his interests to get school credit. When the teacher says no, she let's him do it anyway. THAT right there is what homeschooling is about for me - learning to love learning. I had some teary eyed moments with that movie. We had a great day - movie, snacks, cartoons, jumping on the bed, dinner with Kortni at El Torito Grill and a few games of UNO at her apartment. After returning to the hotel, I tucked the kiddos into bed and spent some quiet time with myself. The view from my hotel room is spectacular. I sat and enjoyed the clear night and Pinterest.

Now time to explain the tagline:
My hotel (Disneyland Hotel) was evacuated for fire in the middle of the night last night. An alarm went of just before 1am. I looked out in the hallway to see if it was real. Everyone was coming out of rooms. I could smell a strange smell and there was water pouring out of the room two down from mine. I got my sweatshirt, flip-flops, eye glasses and cell phone. 1 out of 3 kids got shoes and I grabbed their sweatshirts. On the way out I grabbed a room key from my purse, but I didn't take the purse. Kinda funny. I carried sleeping Karson down 9 flights of stairs with hundreds of other people. Everyone was calm, a few parents were assuring worried children. We sat in the lobby of a different tower for an hour, then most of us were cleared to go back to our rooms. Many people hardly dressed, babies, kids, grandparents. My hallway was buzzing with people. I wasn't about to sleep without knowing what had happened and if we were really safe to sleep here. Luckily the kids went right back to sleep. I'm not so lucky. The hallway was noisy. Security, firemen, clean up crew were talking and working. They were trying to get the water sucked up with big, loud machines, and I over heard someone say the sprinkler is bent which made the water go off. Why the strange smell? I don't know. Can't believe I didn't snap a pic of any of it, but this:

Carpet machine and a bin full of soggy bedding.

You be the judge- Happiest Place on Earth?

What would you grab from your hotel room if you were evacuated in the middle of the night because of fire?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-10-05T23:43:00.001-07:00

First of all... I CANT BELIEVE THEY ARE BUILDING ANOTHER TEMPLE IN PROVO!!! I couldnt believe it when I heard it and i think I cried 3 tears. Looks like that is where I will be getting married in the year 2050. Also I got a laugh out of when the prophet talked about the quetzaltenango temple cause he totally butchered the name. Dont worry President Monson I know exactly how you feel every day of my life. amen.

I got to watch all of conference. In english too. except for we missed the last two speakers saturday afternoon cause it started raining really hard and the signal went out. I loved it. Conference is so much better on the mision. We decided that maybe its the best week of the mission cause christmas and all that are not that cool. some of my favorite talks were by Boyd K. Packer, Pres. Uchtdorf (i think he was talking directly to me), and Elaine S. Dalton. I hope all you boys learned something from her. And one of my favorite parts was when our converts from peru showed up in a dress all ready for conference!! last conference I will watch in the mission field!!

as for investigators. Our most positive, we went and had a lesson with her and we felt the spirit really strong and it was amazing and she committed to coming to conference with us. We were so excited but then we called her the night before and she said her husband said she is not allowed to go to a different church and she couldn't go..... Another hermano didn't show up either. The good news is we did find a family yesterday.

Also this week I was able to witness a pig give birth. Kody dont be jealous. It was awesome. I even got live footage which i will probably send to national geographic.

We also had a multi-zone conference this week and we had a really cool spiritual experience. Maybe I will share it with you sometime.

Oh and I got your package this week. Thanks. and thanks for the moldy corn dog kyler shuko cochino jiote ishto feo.

Yesterday someone told me I go home next month and I got furious and said no not yet and then realized it was true! I cant believe it.

I love the church and I know it is true. I also know the Book of Mormon is the most true book on the whole earth and we can never read too much of it. And God answers prayers if you pray with a sincere heart and have a desire and faith.

I love you all and see you next month!!

con amor,

Hermana Roney

Matthew 23:11 "the greatest among you shall be your servant"

me with my dl and his comp who love kortni (kort what do you say?)

lady gaga and her piglets

boxoma

a rainy day in Reu

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-09-30T06:48:00.001-07:00

Hello.

This week was great as usual. Except that NO ONE wants to go to church with us. This week we should have people to go to general conference which I am really excited to watch.

Our most positive investigator, we both have a really good feeling about her. The only problem is she is never home. She is praying about the church but she says she hasnt received an answer yet. So we have explained to her the forms in which the holy ghost talks to us but still nothing. she says she is going to come to church this week so i think she will probably receive her answer there. Also we still havent been able to talk to her husband yet cause he is never home but she says she always tells him what we say and he is in acuerdo.

everyone else just says they are waiting for God to call them to church or strange things like that. So we pretty much just walk around condemning people all day.

Nothing in our house works. We have two broken refrigerators, a broken blender, our tiny stove that never works, and our mattresses just have big holes in them. We ask for new stuff every day but they never bring us anything. its a fun time. and since the fridge doesnt work we cant buy any food that has to go in the fridge and all the food we did have went bad. we had a ton of apples that were starting to go bad so yesterday I made apple sauce. It was delicious. I love apple sauce. and all the latinas were so impressed and loved it. it doesnt exist here.

We went to boxoma again. It was a good time as always except they gave us a million things to eat. first we were given two giant tamales then we were given a tortilla with chipilin which is pretty much some bush they found outside and boiled and then we eat it, then we were given an orange, jello, soda, watermelon, and about four glasses of different drinks. I was dying but I kindly took it and ate it all with a smile. We both had stomach aches on the way home. Also everytime in boxoma everyone just stares at me cause it is this tiny town and I dont think they have ever seen a gringa before and my comp just goes wow it must suck to be gringa. thanks.

This weeks weather has been strange. There was a huge earthquake up by salvador these week. we didnt feel it here but there was a ton of wind and weird weather then ever since it has just been really really hot. hotter than normal. and since we dont have pisto since it is the end of the month we have to walk everywhere cause we cant afford the tuc-tucs. so pretty much i am just black now. cool.

mom just told me i have 2 fast sundays left... weird. remember when I had 15? I do. Time flies.

D&C 136: 31-33 Here we are going to be tried in all things and those who can not bear it will not have a place in the reino celestial

I love you all and miss you.

con mucho amor,

Hermanita Roney

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-09-25T12:26:00.001-07:00

Hola cuates,

we did some good finding this week. we found a family that is a family of about 7 and seem fairly positive. We have only been to visit them one time but they dont go to any church or anything so we will see how that goes.

We also have an investigator who has two kids and ahusband. we havent been able to talk to her husband yet but she seems fairly positive and has the perfect investigator questions.

Our baptism date this saturday fell so we are pretty upset about that. We went to bring him to church yesterday and we had a very interesting experience with him and he didnt end up coming. So he wont be getting baptized.

I feel like now that we are starting to have success satan is working extra hard with us. But I know he cant get me.

I ´know the church is true and it is the best thing that could ever happen to me in my life. Even though things happen in life that maybe we dont like we are made stronger and it helps us to grow. And its through Jesus Christ that we can become perfect.

I love you all and I cant wait to see you soon.

con mucho amor,

Hermana Kenzie Nicole Roney

ps this computer scares me so im not going to attempt to sent photos.
im sorry for you.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

8 is Great

2011-09-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

This Year Big Boy spent alot of time making his own birthday sign. He told me it was camo. So cute!

Isn't it cute?

Isn't he cute?

Happy Birthday Big Boy!

Loved your Star Wars slash Camo party!!!

The Sounds of Learning to Read

2011-09-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Little Buddy (formerly known as baby man), is learning his alphabet sounds. I have a great program I use called Sing, Spell, Read, and Write. It uses many methods to teach kids. It works really well. We sing a song everyday, point to the letter while singing the sounds.

Karson does 4 worksheets involving coloring, cutting, pasting, tracing..... He LOVES the cutting. The writing, not so much. I don't really push him. Boys. No need to make him hate it. We play a few games if he has the attention span. At first I thought, this is a waste of time. He isn't getting it. Not being the mom to push the kids if they aren't ready, I thought maybe I should put the program aside and wait another 6 months. Well, he is starting to understand it. He asks everyday when are we going to do preschool.

He is starting to recognize some letters. He is really starting to understand the sounds. While quizzing him one day I asked if he can think of something starting with the sound *a* (as in ahhh). He lit up and replied *AWKWARD!*. Umm.., ok, that works. He sang the song all day, filling in his own words. a a awkward. m m mission. k k kenzie, b b butt. As the kids giggled at his words, he got worse and worse. Garbage mouth is what we call it around here. Words taught to him by naughty teenagers. They need to be spanked.

We read a few picture books that may, or may not, coordinate with the letter of the day ;) Then he does a craft. Today it was supposed to be a carrot cut like an apple on the bottom and used like a stamp. He just used it like a paint brush and asked if he could eat the carrot when he was done ;)

Sunshine

2011-09-22T15:33:00.000-07:00

We are enjoying the last little bit of sunshine. One of Karters bucket list items was to play in a splash pad. I had every intention of hitting up the Scera Splash Pad, but they closed right after labor day. What's with that? Lucky for me, right outside Marley's door is a FREE slpash pad.

When do we get too old to lay on the warm sidewalk?

Oh the SHAME she carries

2011-09-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

Another glimpse into the life of my RAD child.
Here she is with what is left of the food she stole and hoarded. All I could say is I am glad I now know what she likes to eat. I let her eat it until it was gone. Of course she didn't want it once she had permission to eat it.

So Much Football

2011-09-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

Too much really, for a girl who isn't really into the sports thing.

But I am into the kid thing and playing football makes these boys sooooo happy!

And this boy too. I mean, if he makes a (good) sack (sac?) he is in heaven.

Beating Provo was just the icing on the cake for him.

Not to worry - the parents are there cheering our boys on!

(thx Karly for taking the pic)

and the (little) kids are always there. Where else do they have to go?

These girls came along too.

Go Team!!!

BLUE vs. RED.

Were you here?

Man oh man was this game painful.

It's not really that the RED was so good. It's just that the BLUE was sooooooo very BAD!

At least I had this patriotic moment to remember ;)

Fall Sports

2011-09-18T16:18:00.000-07:00

Like I've said before - we aren't an organized sports kind of family. But here we are this fall in the middle of sports. Karter wanted to play flag football, so he is playing flag football.

He is LOVING it!

Especially with his dad and big brother as his coaches, cause for some reason, no one wants to be coach.

Sand or Soil?

2011-09-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

We enjoyed the sun again today. Our assignment was to see if plants grow better in sand or soil. Lucky for me, I had run across some growing kits in JoAnn's clearance bin. It made this project so easy.

We planted

Karson watered

And Karter enjoyed writing on the sticks. It's those permanent markers. Works everytime.

He labeled what we planted and what it was planted in -

sand or soil.

Stay tuned for the results......

A Hat for Robin Hood

2011-09-16T06:30:00.000-07:00

We are studying Ancient History this year, but Karter found a craft book for Middle History. He begged for me to help him make a hat, which quickly turned into Robin Hoods hat.

I am not tutorial girl, but basically you cute a long triangle out of felt and sew two sides. Turn up the back, slit two holes with scissors, add a feather and.....

TADA!! A hat for Robin Hood.

I felt like Karters was a little too small, but he was happy, so I was happy. Doesn't take much around here to make us happy ;)

My RADlet

2011-09-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

I don't blog much about this child. She has PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and RAD (reactive attachment disorder). She is no fun, so no fun to blog about. Actually there is alot of funny stuff that happens with her, but I'm not sure all of you would think it's funny. So I don't blog about her so much. Recently I took her to the eye doc. Last year she went to the eye doc with the rest of the kids. It was hectic and I wasn't in the room when she was getting her eyes checked. She came away with a prescription for glasses. I never filled the prescription and have carried a little mommy guilt around about that. One day she was in Costco with me and I thought - GLASSES! So she chose a pair. That darn prescription was expired! I called the eye doc and he got us in a week later for a re-exam of Ari's eyes. As we sat in the office, the doc examing her eyes, I could tell she was lying about not being able to see stuff. The doc has a machine to test the eyes, so he used that. You can't fool the machine. She swore up and down that she could see so much better with the glasses on. The machine said her eye sight is 20/25. Oh the life of living with a RAD child.

See... not sure you all even get that part of my life. The living with a RAD child part of my life.

Button Racers via Pinterest

2011-09-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

Yep, I've found another fun idea on Pinterest. This idea came from Almost Unschoolers. We made so manny button racers! Karter loved it the most.

Yeah, race time!

I'll admit they didn't race too well, but it didn't matter to the boys.

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-09-13T07:30:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone.

This week was interesting. I feel like my life has been ripped apart and put back together 29 times. So remember my special assignment I told you about? Yeah tuesday night the hnas got in a big fight and had to call president and we had emergency changes. Like four times. The first day we got put in a threesome and we were not happy. the next day we were by ourselves. then after that they put us in a threesome with another Hermana, who is super cool and I was super happy cause she was helping me a lot. then the next day they called us early in the morning and told us they were bringing another hna to the house and now we are living with four hnas again. good thing the new hna is super cool and there is a spirit completely different in our house.

Yesterday were elections. I am glad that they are over cause the people get really into it which makes the work a little bit difficult. Everyone was in the streets like crazy people yesterday so we had to go home at six thirty cause apparently it gets really crazy and people start killing people and stuff. and everyone voted for the same president so now its just the same. really exciting.

we went to this little town. its teeny tiny and I love it. we found a few really positive people there that are very humble but the problem is there are no buses this week cause theres only one bus that goes there for the school and they dont have school this week for independence day. which should also make a very exciting productive week. usually they lock us up in the church. I took some pics with the pigs and getting water out of a real live well.

weve got some investigators. we found a family that is not a member of any church whatsoever (which is very rare here) but they said its because they dont think religion is important and they dont want to be bothered with compromisos. so we will see what we can do there.

we also found a lady that has a million kids and it turns out one of her daughters that doesnt live here is mormon. she seems pretty positive only when we went back to find her the other day we got lost and then when we finally found the house she wasnt there.

today we made pupusas as a zone. it was a good time.

Right now I am developing lots of faith and patience. Just when you think you have been through everything you find out there is more.

I think about every clothing item I own is dirty. Which is why my clothes dont match today because it was all i had left. Looks like I will be hittin up the pila today.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KARTER!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE GETTING TO BE A BIG BIG BOY!! LOVE YOU!!

I miss you and love you all. See you in 72 days.

LOVE YOU!!

con mucho amor,

Hermana Roney

Pupusas. Yes, I know this pic is upside down, but I have no way of flipping it on my iPad, lol

Feet. I love the tan marks on their feet. I love the purple nail polish. It means she got the package I sent!

Our happy trio for the day.

lady gaga cochina

Wishing well

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

TGP Children's Garden

2011-09-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

To me this is one of the best kept secrets of the valley. With our TGP family pass we can get in FOR FREE! I am guessing during the summer it may be crowded here, because I'm probably the only one who didn't know about this great place. We decided to hit up TGP again before the weather cooled off.

I love following the boys through the hedge maze. I let them take whichever turns and twists they wanted. With the difference of opinions between the two, they worked a little on compromise. We did make it out of the maze. We did get quite a bit of excercise.

This is one of my favorite parts of the garden. No one else seems to like this section, which suits me fine. It seems like other kids enjoy throwing the blocks into the woods, rather than building things. It suited my boys just fine to be able to scour the woods for the building pieces.

Karter was mostly in charge, since Karson seems to be the type of boy who would rather throw the building pieces into the woods ;)

There is a learning classroom where they have storytime and crafts. We skipped the storytime (too crowded - hmmm... I sense a theme with me), but we enjoyed the craft. Well, Karson mostly enjoyed eating the fruit loops. How many kids have touched those fruit loops? Funny that doesn't bother me.

Both boys enjoyed the stream. They collected small boats, which were really pieces of foam and wood, and floated them down the stream.

Yes, there was a sign that said *no swimming*. Funny this didn't bother me either. Or bother Big Boy who was so concerned with Mom following the rules earlier this summer at the library.

The highlight of the Children's Garden is the Noah's Ark. When we first arrived it smelled strongly of chlorine and it was too cool to get wet. After exploring for awhile, we went back to the ark and it was perfect. There were alot of kids, but not too many. I sat and enjoyed Pinterest on my Ipad, while the boys got wet. There is a sign that clearly states *No Food Allowed*. Everyone around us was enjoying snacks and lunch, so I shouldn't feel guilty about our uncrustables, should I? This is only a guideline, right? I told Big Boy this rule is there so we don't leave trash around, so we didn't.

Karson loved Noah for some reason. He wanted to know *who is this guy?*.

A drinking fountain is always such an amusing place. Especially if you are in a swimsuit and mom doesn't seem to care, because she is pinning on Pinterest.

After a little time in the water at the Ark, an employee came and told us the Ark was closed. Apparently the health department had been by, tested the water, and deemed it not safe to play in. ICK! I try really hard to not be a judgemental mama, but one of the mom's continued to let her 3 yo play in the water. She had a sippy cup and was filling it - drinking the water and dumping it on her head. I wanted to gag. We gotta go home, my boys need a shower......

Oh Yes! It's Cow Season!

2011-09-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Which means it's time to strap on our boots and haul our 1200+ lb. cows around the state for shows. Of course, I don't do a bit of the hauling, so I've got nothing to complain about. Those who love the cows, get to haul. Those of us who don't even like kittens (did I really just admit that out loud?), let alone large type animals just watch. And eat the homemade corndogs the fair always offers.

I get a kick out of watching the judging.

Just like sports, which I don't understand either, I don't understand the rules

(can someone get me a handbook please? cause every judge seems to have different rules. referee?).

Can you see the snot running out of this cows mouth? Or would you call it drool? I watched one dad wipe it with his hand, do a shake of the snot glob to the ground, then wipe the remainder on his jeans. Yuck. You know what else they do? They use paper towels to wipe the cows butt. I mean, I've wiped plenty of rearends in my life, but you will never catch me wiping an animals butt.

I sit in disbelief. Why do I let my son's think they can train and show a 1200+ lb. cow. Why do we think these cows will obey? The last show I saw a 1200+ lb. beast rise up and kick his 16 yo female trainer in the head. She was knocked out cold and went away in an ambulance. Yet, I still allow my (little) boys to walk a cow around an arena. All for a blue ribbon.

I think it's all for this smile.

I think it's because they love it so much.

And so far we have received less injury's then the football players at the highschool.

We cow watchers are an interesting crowd.

That's me in the brown & yellow. Waving. No, I am not dressed like a cowgirl. Can someone please help me with that?

I am so not cool in that way.

My younger Cowboy won himself a second place red ribbon!

Congratulations!

Apparently he can make his cow stand just right,

with the hooves perfectly apart and the head held just like so.

This grandpa was sitting in front of us. He was coaching his grandson on getting that cows head held just so. I could see Kody's life flash before my eyes. My heart felt tender to know in 50 years this will be him, coaching his own grandson. Maybe, just maybe, I'll still be sitting on those bleachers. Watching my great grandson show his cow. I'm going to live a long life because I only eat hormone-free, grass-fed beef. And lots of it!

Marble Racers via Pinterest

2011-09-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

While I was at target, I picked up 2 pool noodles so we could make these cool marble racers. I love Pinterest! I can keep all my favorite finds right there and the picture helps me to remember all the cool ideas. The boys loved, loved, loved them and played with them for days. They made many variations. So fun to see them be creative.

Birthday!

2011-09-09T07:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Keely!

(Now you are as old as all your friends)

Science Like a Caveman

2011-09-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

We are studying Ancient History this year.

Ancient Science to go along with it.

Our first experiment was to study ancient tools. First we needed to stick ~~a dowel~~ an unsharpened pencil into the ground to see how, not so easily, it goes in.

We marked the depth with a marker. Then sharpened the pencil. It went in much easier.

The kids then decided they needed something to pound the pencil into the ground. The ancient hammer was created. Love when they discover the rest of the lesson on their own.

Those pencils are in the grass for good.

(yes, pajama's and a backpack. it's great to be a homeschooler!)

Welcome Back to (the) School (room) Kids!

2011-09-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

Well, the day finally arrived. It was time for us to get back to the books. We homeschooled year round this summer, but the little kids had taken the month of August off.

Just like the rest of you, we enjoy a good deal on school supplies. Love those .99 cent markers and .25 cent notebooks!

I did not invent this, although I did color this beautiful sign.

Jealous of my graphics skills, I know.

Hi kids!

Hope you like your teacher this year :)

Hope she's nice ;)

Yes, she is wearing her pajama's.

Of course they needed new backpacks.

Funny isn't it?

It Was Cold and it Was Hot

2011-09-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

The first half of summer was cold and rainy. The second half of summer was hotter than hot! We enjoyed the library. They had a *world tour* going on. We carried our passports back and forth in our orange backpack and collected a sticker for each Summer Craft and each Canopy Caper we attended. The little boys loved it. I enjoyed it too, but if I have to hear *John Foster's Underwear* one more time, I might hurt somebody. Luckily, the song is no longer being chanted around here, due to the new ABC song that Karson is learning being the favorite chant (more on that later).

Little Buddy is learning to use scissors. It's a pretty difficult task for someone who is really good with his big muscles, not so good with his small muscles. He is determined to get it right. The OCD in me had a real hard time not helping him to stay on the lines ;) Let's hope these scissors just stick with paper. Scrap paper.

Of course Big Boy can do it all. He is a little disturbed I let his little brother do the craft for kids 5 - 10 years old. *See, it says right here on the sign mom, for kids 5 - 10. Yeah, I know buddy, but he is tired of crayons and stickers (which is what they had EVERY stinkin' week for the under 5 group). That's just a guideline, right? He felt like it was a hard and fast rule, and his MOM WAS BREAKING THE RULE!

This is it, right here, where I heard pretty much every week, *John Foster's Underwear*. It's a song about a kid whose grandma buys him a pair of underwear at a garage sale. The previous owners name is written on the waistband. The kid goes to gym class..... OK, you get the picture. I hate Junior High. And I don't care if they change the name to Middle School. It's still the same and I hate what our country does to our kids at this most crucial age. Did I digress? Sorry. Ahem.

Luckily, this week, this mama was able to keep the rules and keep her 4.5 year old at the under 5 table.

I knew you'd be proud.

While big brother went solo at the 5-10 yo table.

So proud!

At the end - although I don't know why they call it the end, cause it was only July 28th, and in my mind that isn't anywhere near the END of SUMMER! Anyway, at the END of Summer Book Club the kids got prizes. Tickets to a free magic show. Which I declined. I can't imagine how many kids would be there and how I would not enjoy sitting in that room watching magic. Although, I would have probably enjoyed it more than The Underwear song. We also could have gotten free tickets to the local community pool. Which I also declined. Have I ever told you about my phobia of public pools? I grew up being dropped off pretty much every summer day at the Public Pool. Man, my mom had it soooo good. The thoughts of all those bandaids and hairballs floating around at the bottom of the Public Pool. I'm dry heaving now just thinking about it. Shhhh... don't tell my kids these were options. We just accepted the free book. I shoved my *I want my kids to read quality literature* intuition way down and let them choose their own book. They chose Home and Game Day. Two books that are no where near the top of my list. They did enjoy reading them a few times. You bet these books will go bye bye on my next book purge. I like to share ;)

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-09-05T17:48:00.000-07:00

Hello. Lots of things have happened this week. First of all yes I did have changes. We got a "special assignment" and yes it is very special. I got sent with my same companion down the street to Reu 1. We now live with two other hnas that hate eachother. Our job is to prevent them from fighting and hitting eachother. yes they really told us that. so we have 4 hnas in a tiny area and its a fun treat. But lucky (for them) its working. and they seem to be a lot more calm now that we are there.

Now I will tell you a story. So the other day we went to the supermarket and we were heading back in a tuc-tuc. I was having a good time eating a churro filled with dulce de leche which I had just bought when all of a sudden my companion just yells HERMANA!! when I look to the right just in time to see a big suv headed my way and nail me on my right side. I dont really remember what happened but I do remember my churro went flying and I was just sitting there frozen with the napkin from it in my hand. then I looked at my companion and the first thing i said was my churro! and I was just furious that my churro had gone flying. then my comp goes maybe we should get out. so we got out and my comp just looks at me and says shuka! which in englsih would be something like disgusting you are so dirty. and I look down and i was covered in head to toe in dulce de leche. then we were like wait are you ok? one we had established that we were both ok we started laughing our heads off cause we were just so worried about the churro and nothing else. we tried to talk to the taxi driver but he was busy fighting with the other car so my comp said lets go. I was a little hesitant and i said well shouldnt we talk to someone like the police or something? then she just looked at me like I was crazy and goes hermana por favor we are in central america. oh right. so we just walked the rest of the way home.

Now for those of you who dont know getting in a tuc tuc accident is kind of a big deal. they roll and people fly out of them and stuff. So pretty much it is a miracle that nothing happened and I dont know how I am still alive cause my whole right side got nailed by a car. I was a little sore that day but we called the zls and they came and gave us a blessing. It calmed me down and I just felt a little sore. I thought I would wake up the next day hurting. But the next day I woke up and guess what. NOTHING. I did not feel sore one bit and all i had was a tiny bruise on my arm. I couldnt believe it. I know that there were angels there protecting us that day. and that my heavenly father loves me and was wathching over us and because of that I was able to walk away from that tuc-tuc that day.

Sorry but as for today that is all I am going to share with you. Sorry so short.

Love you all.

read your scriptures.

say your prayers.

Luke 1:37 for with God nothing shall be impossible.

LOVE,
HERMANA RONEY

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-09-01T21:13:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone.

another week gone.

I forgot to mention a couple weeks back I got a package from gma. thanks you old skeleton! she sent me this little octopus toy that grows when you put it in water. I gave it to our neighbor kid for his birthday and it was maybe the happiest day of his life. and not just for him but for his whole family. seriously they think it is the coolest thing ever. they keep it in their pila to grow and every time we go over the mom gets so excited and says have you seen the octopus recently? and runs over to the pila and fishes is out then makes me hold it and touch it. haha.

my comp got sick this week. she spent a whole day in the bathroom with boo. fun time. It was probably the most boringest day of my whole life. Seriously I wanted to get out of there. I read like half of the book of mormon that day. I believed her the first day. but then of course she tried to milk out her sickness for about 5 days.

Every morning all the neighbor kids just sneak into our house at the crack of dawn and love it. so the other day we told them if they were going to be in our house we were going to teach them about the gospel. so we taught them the word of wisdom. They loved it. Only now they want to come over every day. So we have to hide from them and pretend like we arent home.

Due to my companions "sickness" we werent able to work so effeciently this week. We did find a girl named jackeline who seems pretty positive. All of our other investigators signed up for sunday classes and now cant come to church so they are pretty much out. Lorenzo read just about the whole book of mormon. we just cant get him to come to church.

Changes are wednesday and rumor has it I will be getting changed. why am I not surprised? I should know my destiny/fate tonight or tomorrow. Im praying for Masate!

D&C 123 12-14 "waste our lives bringing forth the light"

sorry this emails so short.

I tried to attach some pics but its doing something funky so im not sure if it will work.

Miss you guys.

I love you lots.

adios,

Hermana Roney

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-08-26T15:39:00.001-07:00

Hola! Happy first day of school suckers! and to keels

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! YOU ARE GETTING SO BIG!!!

This morning I was cleaning the bathroom and I came across some draino type product and I thought I would pour some down the drain since the water wasnt draining so well. when I poured it out it immediately started smoking and it smelled like burned hair. Definitely effective. We should invest in some of that in the states. Im just curious as to if the pipes are still there. or if they got melted too.

Last monday I went to buy a watch because my watch broke. once again. which makes watch number four for the mission. We looked everywhere and all we could find in existance were hello kitty watches and dora. Now hello kitty is like a big deal here and everyone loves it. I dont know why. I thought it was for little girls. So in the end I decided to go for the cheapest which turned out to be hello kitty. The lady was pumped and shes like oh we have this in lots of colors too and pulled out a silver, a shiny pink, and a shiny purple. wow what a great color selection. of course I went for the purple. I was not too excited about it and me and my comp were just laughing about it all day long. But then something funny happened. This whole week everyone has been freaking out telling me how cute my watch is and how much they love it and if I will give it too them. I just laugh and tell them thanks.

We also had interviews this week. Pretty normal. President said this is probably my last interview before I go home. weird. Turns out I will not be dying here in Reu and They will probably be sending me to masate to die. Couldnt be happier. He tried to send me back to the "tierra fria" I told him NO. No gracias.

This week we went on our quest to get permission for Lesly to get baptized. One day I felt we should go to her house so we walked up and there was lesly in the street looking distraught and right then her mother walked up and started chastizing her. Turns out she got a fungus on her feet from playing in the streets and was itching it and then itching her face so thats why her mom was mad cause she didnt want her to get the fungus on her face and the mom then went on to explain (in much detail) how her other daughter had the same thing and itched certain parts of her body and then got it there too. We then found this as a perfect opportunity and offered to bring her a cream to heal it cause she could hardly walk. so we peaced out of there and headed to the pharmacy. We were worried because she told us it cost 75 quetzales and we did not have that much but we decided to risk it and go anyways. On our way there I said a prayer in my head praying that everything would turn out ok. We got there and the guy charged us 22 quetz for the cream. Awesome. When we were driving away my comp looked at the receipt and saw that it cost a lot more but the guy had given us a big discount for some reason. I told my comp how I had said a prayer and it turns out she did too. And everything turned out ok. God answers prayers. we brought the cream to the house and the mom started crying and went on to tell us how her husband had recently kicked them out of their house and now they built this little house house out of laminas and dont have water, electricity, and barely have food to survive. I felt so bad for them. and we didnt end up asking the mom for permission because we didnt feel it was right. A couple days later we found the mom walking down the street with a ton a huge sugar sacks and she said she was going to wash them and that she had 2000 to wash. I told her we would help her and grabbed a load of bags and my comp looked at me a little terrified (cause she is kind of prissy and doesnt like to get dirty) but realized there was no going back and grabbed a pile of sacks as well. we went to a pila and got to washing. while we were washing it started pouring rain and we finished soaking wet. While washing we did have a conversation about her daughter getting baptized and she said no. But hey I feel like I did something good in the world. and maybe right now is just not her time. But I can see the gospel helping their family a lot in the future.

we also had a baptism this saturday for sergio. He was super pumped and his gma said he waited all day with the cell phone looking at the time and they came at exactly four o clock. a miracle. I think that is the first time in my guatemala existance anyone has been on time to anything. All his friends came and they were all so excited. Yesterday he got confirmed and he was so happy in church.

I cant get this computer to read my memory card so no pics for you.

The church is true and the gospel can change lives. Sometimes your example is more important than anything. so be a good example.

Love you!

Love,

the first and only Hermana Roney (sorry Hayden)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Day One Has Just Begun

2011-08-24T22:18:00.000-07:00

and we are having fun!

We always do something fun on the day everyone goes back to school. This year the kids chose painting. I surprised them with a movie, Spy Kids 4, or whatever it was called. It was good, for a kid movie. A little cheesy, but hey - it was for the kids. We were the only ones in the theater. It was perfect for a little buddy who never stops talking. He had to come - he has joined our homeschool this year, as an official homeschool preschooler. After eating popcorn and Sprite for lunch (what?!), we headed to the new ceramic painting place. It was ~~nerve wracking~~ fun. Karson couldn't keep his hands off the ceramics and it made me a little crazy to find him "flynig" the ceramic airplanes around. We were also the only ones there. Good thing because little buddy dumped the popcorn all over the floor. He had plenty of time to pick it up - kernal by kernal. The last stop of our First Day of School was The Sweet Tooth Fairy. The kids each chose a cupcake, I tasted each flavor, and Karson was disapointed to not actually meet the Tooth Fairy.

In the meantime, these two were welcomed to the big school as the little freshmen.

and this guy, who is aparently too tall and too old to pose for a photo, also headed back to school.

Summer Fun

2011-08-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

and what we've done....

Feeding the ducks on Park Day

Quilting.
(This one is a beauty, I must admit)

Oh my gosh! Isn't this boy the cutest?
This little boy had endless lemonade stands.

Girls Camp!
Rock Canyon girls Rock!

Birthdays.

Childrens Parade.
Karson thought he was so cool actually riding on the parade route.

Another birthday.

Outdoor movies

Melo Shrimp Salads
(MARLEYS!!)

Fireworks

Baby Showers

Rockets

Culdesac of Fire

Painting

Freezer Jam

Weddings!

Girlys lighting a fire WITHOUT MATCHES!!!

Sewing - these turned out pretty ugly, but not bad for using kid chosen fabric and no pattern.
My little guy is SURE the blue dog is a boy and the pink dog is a girl.

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-08-08T06:50:00.001-07:00

Hello Family,

I got your package last week. Thank you. Couldnt believe my eyes
when I saw those wheat thins.

You are never gonna believe this but this week I baptized a family!!
We spent pretty much the whole week preparing for this. Hna Veronica
wanted everything perfect and so we were all stressed out the whole
week. then every day she invented some weird new thing that she
wanted at her wedding and we just had to keep saying no no no. every
time we went to her house shes just like im gonna start getting ready
tomorrow so finally on wednesday we ripped her out of her house and
went with her to buy some clothes for the wedding in the paca. that
was fun. not. We were nervous all week they werent going to go
through with it because every time we went to their house they had a
different excuse. and we had to talk them back into it. it wasnt too
hard but everyday something happened then saturday she was freaking
out cause they hadnt bought the rings yet and didnt want to get
married without the rings so we spent the whole morning searching for
rings for them. we finally found some that they could have ready for
that day and she was pumped. I felt bad that something so ghetto could
be so expensive and that she could love them so much. Saturday they
got married and hna alberto never showed and we waited and waited
finally we went to his house and there he was basically naked and hes
just like oh im about to shower and we were like oh take your time
youre not like an hour and a half late or anything. but they finally
got married and got baptized and they were super happy. they even
showed up to church 45 minutes early yesterday.

Yesterday we went to visit a little village in our area. we had to
first cross a river. thought for sure i was gonna biff it. But I
didnt. then we walked like an hour through a field of sugar cane,
which I ate along the way, then like 30 minutes through corn then we
finally got there and it was this little tribe that all lived in these
little wooden houses. It was awesome. there are a lot of members
there but they are all inactive. probably because it is so far away
and they dont really have buses or anything. The church was paying a
pick up truck to pick them up and drop them off every sunday but they
stopped so the people stopped coming.

we also went to another place named xula. this place was awesome it
was like a jungle with huge lizards and stuff. my comp also biffed it
and scraped up her knees and hands. haha.

my bruise on my forehead is finally starting to go away so people can
stop making fun of me.

Today we got to go play mini golf. pretty exciting.

They just opened a subway here. I ate there. they had funyuns. and
its in a mall. a mall. couldnt believe my eyes. every area i have
just keeps getting more and more civilized.

Looks like I will be having a child and dying here. Fun.

Im glad you are all partying without me! enjoy.

The church is true. Even when its pouring rain and you are soaked.
The spirit will always help you if you let it. and God answers
prayers. Serving the Lord makes me happy.

Love you and miss you.

Love,

Hermana Roney

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-07-31T17:34:00.001-07:00

Hola. This week was good. I had changes!! I am now in an area
called Peru. In Retalhuleu. My new companion is Hna baca. My new
area is very very hot. very. Its like double than coatepeque and my
whole body is just shimmery all day long. cause its not sweaty its
shimmery. ok. everyone is. its just normal. my favorite is when
you give everyone their little besitos your face just gets plastered
with their sweat. mmm. yummy. I cried like a nina when I left
coatepeque. I love that place. My new comp is cool. She likes to
work. and so do it. and when you both like to work it makes all the
difference. seriously. Its a miracle. why did I have to have such
evil companions my whole mission?? There is a lesson to be learned
from that right. We have already had lots of success together and I
have been here less than a week.

Saturday we had a baptism. We baptized this little devil named
daniel. his whole family are members but he is just a rebel. my comp
has been visiting him for a while but he always says no he doesnt want
to get baptized. then friday we went to his house and hes just like
tomorrow I am getting baptized at 11. and we were like ok fine if you
insist so we baptized him the next day. the sad thing is his mom
didnt show and we went and asked her why later and she said she had to
go to the market. ok yeah cause thats more important. he didnt seem
to care though.

We are also teaching a family. Veronica and Herberto. Apparently my
comp has been "teaching" them for a while but never asked them if they
wanted to be baptized. so we went and visited them last week and
asked them if they wanted to be baptized and they said yes but the dad
is married to someone else so he couldnt get married and baptized. so
we went and checked out all their paper work and turns out the
building burned down and all the paperwork got messed up and his
paperwork now says he is single. Yipee. So saturday we are marrying
them and baptizing them. we just have to teach them all the lessons
first... what exactly have they been doing here?

We have an investigator named bryan. He is scared. of everything.
us. water. passing the sacrament. elders. everything. because of that
he doesnt want to get baptized.

Also we are teaching another family dominga and lorenza. They are
like 60 years old and have lived together for 33 years. they cant get
baptized because they are not married. why arent they married?
because they feel to young and arent sure about it yet. As if 33
years together is not enough.

we had a really fun ward counsel yesterday. two of the ladies in the
ward freaked out at us in front us everyone because we didnt invite
them to the baptism of daniel because we are "fighting" with them (or
because he told us the night before and we didnt invite anyone because
of time). also i guess her and my comp had gotten into a little tiffy
before and was still mad about that so she just ripped on my comp for
like 5 minutes while my comp was just crying. then the bishop stood up
and shut her down in a very calm way and the lady left the room
bawling. right after that the ward secretary thought it would be a
good idea to sneak my pepper spray and try it out. not a good idea.
he then left the room crying as well. hahaha. the night ended with
the crazy lady pulling us into the bishops office and having a big
dramatic apology. fun time.

Here are some adventures of the week for you. while walking through a
gate my comps skirt got caught on a piece of metal and ripped a big
whole in it. Our investigator was nice enough to sew it right up
before we left her house. Yesterday I was eating my "meat". which
meat here is basically just a big ball of fat on a bone so i was
struggling trying to bite it off and the whole bone went flying. The
whole family died laughing at me. This morning nailed my head in the
shower. I know have a big goose egg. enjoy.

D&C 6:36 (or is it 36:6?) "look unto me in every thought, doubt not, fear not."

I now have 112 days left in the mission. how do I know that?
Presidente told me to start reading doctrine and covenios backwards
one chapter every day and when i am done I will be home. I am now on
chapter 112.

I love you all. Have fun partying without me and traveling the
universe. Let me know when you visit the moon.

Miss you.

Love,

Hermana Roney

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-07-26T15:59:00.001-07:00

Hiiiiiiii. this week was fun. we found out we have a creepy stalker.
He is the one who slapped my booty one night in the street. I dont
know if I told you about that. but one night some dude flew passed on
his bike and slapped my butt. well this week he talked to us. he
came to our activity and confessed his love to my companion. in front
of everyone. he even cried. poor guy. so looks like my companion is
getting transferred. and I will be staying here. to rot. we will
know tomorrow. Mom dont freak. I am fine.

I forgot to tell you some exciting things I learned from the hna
conference. The president taught us When you get married it is
important when you get married when you wake up you need to go
straight to the bathroom and put on makeup or else your husband wont
like you anymore. Also dont shower at night cause it will make your
bones hurt when you are old. and best of all dont sit on anything hot
because you will get hemrroids. Its a dangerous world. be careful out
there.

For those of you hair fanatics (karissa) reason 54432 I will continue
cutting my own hair while in guatemala. I went with my comp to get
her hair cut. they took the thinning scissors and cut her whole hair
at the roots. half of her hair ended up on the floor. she now has
long hair and a buzz at the same time. when I touch her hair it feels
like she has a buzz.

We had our activity this week. every ward member was told to bring
two families (investigators). they brought two 9 year old children.
thanks guys. and our stalker of course. Success.

Familia cuellar didnt show up for church. apparently their "clothing
didnt dry in time" . Good excuse. None of our other investigators
want to get married. and our most positive just turned out to be in
love with my companion. cool.

Im with kelsey. why didnt I pay attention in seminary? as well as my
ten hours of religion classes at byu? what is the bible talking about?
The more I study sometimes I just get more confused. The more I
learn the less I know. But hey we are here to learn.

A couple days ago I was reading the book of mormon. I was reading in
mosiah. I cried when I read that king Benjamin died. hahahahhaahhaha.
He was a cool guy.

John 14:15 - its that easy. you dont have to make things complicated.

misssss you.

Love you.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoox,

Hermana Roney

PS FELIZ CUMPLE KEATY

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-07-18T22:35:00.001-07:00

Yoohoo! This week was pretty awesome.

Tuesday we went with familia cuellar. They are SO close. and are progressing slowly but surely. I mean he said the first prayer that
his wife has heard him say in the 13 years that they have been
married. Thats saying a lot. Unfortunately they didnt come to church
this sunday cause they already had plans so they wont be getting
baptized this week. But I have faith that they will be there next
sunday. They already know everything even things that we havent
taught them because they have been studying. seriously. they started
following the word of wisdom before we even taught them. Keep them in
your prayers.

Thursday we had our weekly planning and all the elders were just
goofing off not planning but since we are so obedient and spiritual we
went into a classroom with the other hnas and started planning. We
finished planning and I was like hey lets go ask the elders what time
we have to be in Reu. so we walked out and there was dead silence and
im like hmm. nobody is here. Yeah they definitely peaced out and
locked us in the church. so we had to stand in a window and yell to
people on the street. we finally got the attention of some dude and
ask him to call the zl´s and gave them their phone number and hes like
well i dont have any minutes so we told him we would buy him a
recharge of minutes and pay him when we got out. so he walked away to
buy more minutes walking probably one centimeter per hour and then ten
hours came back and was like I sent you the recharge. He had send the
recharge to the phone of the zls. we couldnt believe it. so he had
to go back and do it again and ten hours later he came back and said
they were coming. finally the zls showed up laughing their heads off
and let us out. so that sucked for us. not to mention we were
supposed to be in reu at 4 and they let us out at like three.

why did we have to be in reu at 4 you might be asking? for the hna
conference. Now when I heard we were having an hna conference I was a
little skeptical. If you can recall my experience from the last hna
conference. but reluctantly I went. and now im glad I did. It was a
lot better planned out this time. we had 2 spiritual days and one
afternoon of play. of course we learned about marriage. Im never
getting married and Im living at home forever. We got to watch how to
train a dragon. and best of all we went to XETULUL!! Xetulul is the
theme park they have here. It was pretty fun. And I felt like I was
in america. Even strangers were speaking to me in english. weird.
Now I am very tired from two long nights of P.J. parties.

Since we spent most of the week in Reu thats about all I have to talk about.

Genesis 31:16 "whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do"

I love studying and I have recently become an addict of reading the
Book of Mormon. I cant put it down. We are reading it in three
months as a mission. Every time I read it I always find something
new. Its like magic.

te amo.

te quiero mucho.

con amor,

Hermana Roney

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

DC Random Funnies

2011-07-12T15:14:00.000-07:00

We stopped at this major tourist trap gift shop.

Then we stopped for ice cream.

Are you even kidding me?

I Love to See the Temple....

2011-07-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

The Washington, D.C. temple...

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-07-10T22:11:00.001-07:00

Hello! First of all Happy Fourth of July!! I cant believe I am
missing my favorite holiday! hope you all enjoyed it for me.
Although my last 4th was pretty bomb in the mtc so I think i will be
able to last until next year. Its weird that I am starting to repeat
holidays in the mission field. I have been here too long.

Tuesday we had a conference with the president. It was really good.
I loved it. We had a really cool experience as a zone. The president
sent us to a room to pray for our goal for the month. we all prayed
in a circle then waited for a minute then the zl started asking
everyone what they thought. Everyone said the exact same number. Not
one person didnt have tears in their eyes. It was pretty cool. Then
that night we went and taught familia cuellar. We were stressing out
cause we didnt know what to teach them. we had planned to talk about
temples but then studied some other things that we thought they might
need. But we still didnt feel quite sure about it. But we said a
prayer and headed out. When we got there we started talking about the
sabbath day and the sacrament. which we did not plan for at all. But
it just flowed. At the end we had the dad read a scripture but put
his name in it and he could hardly read it because he was so emotional
and the mom said wow i feel something in my heart. It was pretty
cool. and at the end they were like wow you guys really planned and
studied for us today didnt you. haha. Actually quite the opposite.
Oh and they gave us ginger ale and hot dogs when we were done. Yummy!
You know how I love a good old american hot dog. Tuesday rocked.

Thursday we all went and did a service project where we cleaned an old
abondoned park. It was really grown in and had a ton of trash. we
weeded it all and painted. Of course I got a kick of the "tools" they
decided to use. As I was weeding I was thinking wouldnt it be nice if
gardening gloves existed here when next thing I knew my comp was
strapping some plastic bags to her hands. that works I guess. We had
some machetes to do the weeding. I personally chose to work with a
stick I found on the ground. While we were cleaning a million news
stations and newspapers showed up and of course they all wanted to
film the gringa. They were all just yelling gringita look over here
gringita. And laughing their heads off cause I wouldnt look. Like I
know I slicked my hair back way nice today and Im not sweaty and red
as a lobster at all but no thank you. Word on the street is we were
on the news painting. Cool opportunity for the church.

heres a good fact for you. four fast sundays until I am home.

I had a scripture for you. But I lost it.

The church is true. God answers prayers.

Miss you.

Love you.

xoxo,

Hermana Roney

photos:
1.slushie time
2. firecrackers for every holiday
3. park before
4. clean up clean up every body every where
5. painting
6. finish

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Museums and More Museums

2011-07-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

Air & Space Museum

Amelia Earhart's actual airplane

We had studied a little about The Wright Brothers. Karter knew this was way cool - the original airplane flown at Kitty Hawk!

The Wright Brothers and The Roney Brothers

A REAL space capsule!

Daddy couldn't help but buy these space suits for the little boys. They wore them for the rest of the trip. Days.... The stinkin' cutest thing I have ever seen!

Museum of American History

REAL Muppets

Dorothys' Ruby Slippers

There was a whole science section. Everyone could have stayed there all day long.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing

2011-07-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

Right there is a MILLION bucks!

Everyone had fun seeing how tall they were in *money*

Love this tour, even though no photos were allowed of the printing. Great tour for kids and parents.

Go ahead, fight over cartoons and show mama you're bored. Have worksheets, will travel :)

Love the Lincoln Memorial the most I think.
Speculations is that he is making his initials in sign language with his hands.

After watching dozens of DC Cupcake episodes, we made sure to make a stop. Rumor is the line was 1 1/2 hours long. Not for us though, we are too smart and we pre-ordered online the night before. Pre-orders get to hop to the front of the line. I'll admit, they were yummy, not too expensive(about $2.50 each) and we went back the next day for another round of cupcakes AND carried some home to share.

Do I remember correctly that this is the National Church or National Cathedral? Lovely.

Washington, DC

2011-07-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

We arrived in DC on the most horrific flight, of which a few of us (ahem) lost our cookies. It was pouring rain and we were soaked from head to toe when arriving at our hotel. Luckily our hotel had better service than the cars dad arranged and we were shown to our rooms right away. I decided to take the kids swimming to burn off some travel day energy. I wasn't the only one with that idea, and the tiny hotel pool was packed. We were spoiled from lovely Cayman swimming and didn't last long at the pool.

The White House. This is the fence we saw on TV about a week later as the USA celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden and sang *God bless America*. History in the making.

An interesting church, a converted grocery store.

Natural History Museum. The kids remembered all sorts of stuff from the movie Night at the Museum.

Really, REAL dinosaur teeth?!!!

Go ahead, call me a dork, but I loved this exhibit SOOOOO MUCH!! It was a crochet Ocean Reef! I took a dozen photos and marveled at the craftsmanship. There were little starfish, shells, fish.... It was arranged in color order and simple amazing. No, I'm not going to start crocheting jelly fish, but I do love it.

Of course the Metro. Big Boy - Hey mom, how come we don't have to wear a seatbelt? You mean I get to stand? Cool!

The Capitol Building. Thanks to Jason Chaffetz we got to go on the floor of the senate. No pictures allowed. We had nice added commentary from Uncle Greg who conducted tours of the capitol building for year(s?). Thanks Greg, sometime I would like to leave my kids behind and get a tour without them.

Each state has at least one statue. Here is Utah's statue of Brigham Young. I loved the statues and would have liked more time to see them all.

This is how much the kids liked the tour.

The Washington Monument

A Mama Who Loves to Quilt

2011-07-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

At the last minute I decided I needed a quilt to give to the Mission President and his wife. I had to just guess at the colors and so I went pretty neutral. I used stuff I already had in my stash and made a Turning Twenty quilt. I made the top in just a day. Then I quilted it over two days. I then carried it around with me to handstitch the binding. I wrote on a piece of tan ribbon for my label and hand stitched it to the back. It didn't photograph too well in my hotel room, and I promise it isn't as ugly as this picture. I actually was quite fond of it when it was finished, even though it isn't my usual colors. I was really happy with my color choices, by the way, when I got to the mission home and found that it matched the home quite well, and also matched the mission mom. Maybe I had a little divine intervention when choosing the colors. Do you think God cares if I get the colors of a quilt right?

Finally Home

2011-07-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

We stopped at Marley's on the way home from the airport. Weird that we didn't even own Marley's when Kyler left. He ordered a triple combo! The kids tried to get him to buy some new clothes at Called to Surf, but his head just wasn't able to wrap around that. I think he bought a tshirt and a pair of gray shorts. The kids had banners and balloons to welcome their brother home. The stake president met us at our home to release Elder Roney as a full-time missionary. We were all able to share special memories and Elder Roney gave a sweet testimony. I am so proud of him and the way he has served the Lord. It does a momsheart good to see him become a man with his own testimony, to have the Love of Christ in his heart, and to be a true messenger of God. It was pretty hard for him to take that missionary tag off his shirt.

But don't worry, everyone was happy to join in a welcome home dogpile!

It was time for Kyler to share his gifts from Uruguay with everyone.

Alaforjes

Soccer jerseys for all the boys

And shoes for all the girls

Kyler reclaiming his spot on the top of the food chain in our home.

Kyler wasn't allowed to drink Mate while a missionary, so he brought some home. Everyone tried it, everyone thought it was nasty, except Trini. I thought it tasted like grass.

ICK!

Welcome Home Elder Roney

2011-07-05T20:54:00.000-07:00

Getting closer to home. (yes, Kyler and Brooke passed alot of time laying Carcasone on the airplane)

Getting ready to get off the plane and greet all of Kylers siblings waiting for him. What I love about this photo is the guy staring at Kylers name tag.

Meeting the People

2011-07-03T12:37:00.000-07:00

I will admit I don't remember everyone's names. Kyler does. He loved visiting these families one last time before he left Uruguay. Who knows when(and IF) he will ever return. I LOVED meeting these families and feeling the missionary spirit my son shared with them (and me :)

This was a family with adorable kids. Kyler helped reactivate the mom, and baptized the daughter. The smallest boys name was Peter. He gave me *besitos* when I left (a little kiss on each cheek) We brought *crazy bands* (the little rubber bracelets in shapes) and gave them to the children. They loved them even though the words were in English.

We visited Delmar and his mom. They offered us Mate (a tea they all drink). We sat around their table and chatted, of course I have no clue what everyone was saying.

We visited this young man. He played a church song on the guitar for us and sang. He said, *sorry, it's a little messy*.

This is the Stake Presidents home. The nicest home we visited in Uruguay. This family regularly fed the Elders. One sister did the elders laundry every week. The other sister told me Elder Roney carries a special spirit about him. They all spoke English quite well. They had a swimming pool in their backyard!

This young man spoke perfect English. He is looking for a sponsor to bring him to the USA. Anyone interested?

A cute single mom. She has the missionaries help her build her home. Kyler did lots of work here.

Quiet, sweet couple. They served us cake and she said, *I made some cake for you. It will give you a stomach ache*. I did eat it and I did not get a stomach ache. They would like to be sealed in the temple, but the husbands job prevents him from attending church regularly. They also would like to have kids, but can't get pregnant. They are going to a fertility doctor to figure out why. (yes, I learned all that even though I can't speak Spanish)

The grandma had alot to say and her son is dating the bishops daughter.

Due to a sticky divorce situation this couple can't get married, and therefore, can't be baptized. Kyler baptized the oldest daughter. The mom has cancer and is receiving treatment for that. Such a nice, sweet spirit in this home.

The youngest daughters name is Alba. She drew a picture of a princess in church, wrote my name on it and gave it to me. Even though I didn't speak Spanish and she didn't speak English we were still able to communicate somehow and she followed me around at church and invited me to her primary class. She thought I was way cool. I love her :) The mom gave Kyler a pair of hand knit socks and an orange doily.

Missionary Pictures

2011-06-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-06-24T09:04:00.001-07:00

kenHola. this week was just wonderful. We have been busy looking for
free clothing. Our whole zone is doing an activity called paca
gratis. We are collecting clothes from all the pacas for free and
then all the members have to invite two families and we are going to
give them free clothing and watch a movie and stuff. should be pretty
sweet. and we should get some sweet family references.

Oh I also got a load of mail this week. must have got stacked up
somewhere. I got letters from karly, karter, our christmas card and
some other stuff. Oh and a couple of weeks ago I got a package from
the openshaws. thank you openshaws!!

This week we have also been doing a lot of service to try to get
references. One of the families we are teaching has a cafe so we have
gone twice to help them cook. They just laugh at us the whole time
while we chop up stuff. They had us cut up a bunch of onions and my
eyeballs were just dripping tears and everyone was laughing off their
heads at me so i waved the onions in everyones noses and we were all
just crying. haha. I also squeezed like a thousand tiny lemons for
lemonade.

The big news for this week is I hit my one year mark! wahoo! I cant
believe I have been out for one year. I still feel like I just got
here but Im almost going home.

Fathers day here was thursday. We were woken up at 4:30 am by some
dudes cruzing around in the street with a huge giant marimba playing
songs and announcing happy fathers day. then several more cars passed
by playing music and congratulating the fathers. and of course you
cant forget the fire crackers. Fun time. as for dad FELIZ DIA DE LA
PADRE!! TE AMO!

We´ve got some good investigators. we are teaching three families.
Which is a miracle. We are teaching familia cuellar which has the
cafe and they are looking very positive. when we first started
teaching them they wouldnt pray or read or anything. Now they are
praying and reading. They even invited us to eat and they were all
sitting waiting to say the prayer before eating and then they didnt
drink their coffee and they left it on the table. that was pretty
cool.

Hna Martha came to church again. Shes looking pretty positive we just
have to work on getting her husband activated then marry them then
baptize them.

we are teaching hna carmen and hno oscar a huge family of 10 that we
found knocking on doors. Turns out the sister of hno oscar is a
member and he went to church a lot with her but she died and he got
upset and stopped talking to the missionaries and stuff.

Hna Rosio is still waiting for her answer. I think she is waiting for
an angel to appear.

the other day the elders called us and told us they needed our help at
their baptism. when we got their they announced that we would be
giving talks and directing the music. thanks elders. you could have
at least given us a warning. then they assigned me to lead hyms while
they were waiting for them to change out of their wet clothes which
turned into me singing solos by myself in front of everyone cause no
one wanted to sing. and my comp was just sitting in the back laughing
her head off. thanks people.

My comp bought an mp3 player so thats been really fun

The church is true and can change lives. Sharing the gospel with
others can make you super happy.

LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU!

Love,

Hermana Roney

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Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-06-19T18:12:00.001-07:00

hellooooooooo. For all you peeps asking about my parasites. Its
pretty much just a normal thing and now they went away. So you can
stop worrying about it. Like in the u.s. we go to the dentist every
six months. Here they have never heard of the dentist but they get
deparasited every six months. Everyone has been giving us their
techniques for getting rid of parasites but i think i will stick to
what the doc prescribed me. thank you. but im perfectly fine. mom.

yesterday during the sacrament on of the little kids starting singing
a shakira song called "loca" aka crazy, and all the other little kids
started to join in. so that was pretty fun that the whole primary was
singing loca loca loca during the sacrament. haha.

This week we had changes. I didnt get changed. Its a miracle. this
is longest i have ever stayed in one area and with the same companion.
three changes. luckily my comp and I have grown to like eachother.
but also its just torture to stay with the same person so long.

thursday we had a conference and amazingly we didnt just get macheted
the whole time and we learned some really cool things about the book
of mormon and stuff. so that was good. also on the way back on the
chicken bus i gave this old grandpa my seat and he just kept yelling
thank you thank you in english for like 10 minutes and the whole bus
was just laughing. haha. oh not to mention waiting at the bus stop to
go to the meeting i was waiting with my comp when suddenly i felt a
little something splatter my whole backside and my comp who was facing
me was suddenly covered in white specks. some lady had dropped a
pitcher of atol and just our luck we were covered. we just looked at
eachother like what just happened and then laughed our heads off. my
clothes were covered but my comps hair was covered so sucks more for
her.

as for investigators we have hna martha who was progressing nicely
until she decided to go to the beach yesterday instead of go to
church. but we have good feelings about her she just needs more
teaching.

familia cuellar is doing well. this week they have promised to read
the book of mormon. the kids are coming to church with their grandma
but the parents arent. so we are debating on wether to baptize them
or not cause they parents arent assisting.

we did a lot of contacting this week but only found some dude that
just has a bunch of scripture memorized from the bible but has no idea
what they mean.

also I biffed it this week and my knees are all bruised. so sucks for me. ha

Love you miss you.

adios!

love,

hermana roney

ps HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIAN BURR!!!!!
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Missionary Mail

2011-06-12T21:00:00.001-07:00

First of all I cant believe no one sent me pics of the big homecoming.

second of all. I got parasites! what a terror. Turns out those
things are a beast. On Tuesday my comp and I started to feel sick at
the exact same time so Im guessing it was something we ate. but both
our stomachs got huge and bloated and it looked like we were like 6
months pregnant. And that is not a joke. then it felt like something
was eating the inside of my stomach. me and my comp both went to the
house and just layed on the floor dying. we called everyone we knew.
but no one even cared. the elders were like we will bring you
medicine in ten days so dont even worry about it. so we just took
some pepto and drank some water. cause apparently that is the
solution to everything. In the morning i woke up and my whole tongue
was black! so I called the nurse. apparently that is a side affect
of taking pepto bismol. Turns out parasites suck the life out of you
so our week kinda sucked. turns out my comp has a parasite that is 2
metros long which is like 7 feet or somehting. so that sucks for her.
but we got meds and now we are starting to feel normal again. so
thats good.

The other hnas in our zone got robbed and they stole all of their
clothes. even their garments. so that sucks for them.

also i ruined like four of my skirts. so that sucks for me.

We have a new investigator named rocio. She has been looking for the
real church forever to get baptized and has even prayed about the
mormon church but says she never received and answer. so we are
trying to help her recognize her answer.

Kendy came with us for a lesson with hna Rocio and she shared her
conversion story and her testimony. She shared a cool story that she
hadnt shared with us before. she said after she was baptized when she
came out of the water she felt a peace come over her and she could
smell a bunch of pretty flowers. so she looked around to see where
the flowers were and she realized their wasnt any and it went away.
Pretty cool. and pretty exciting to hear one of your converts have
such a strong testimony.

we also have hna martha whose husband is an inactive. they are
deciding if they want to come back to church. Hna martha says she
doesnt want to get baptized cause she is a rebel. but that will soon
change.

also i found out something else interesting this week. turns out
there is a nuskin store in xela not too far from here. one of the
members daughters used to work there and she started talking about
nedra. I just listened. haha. Turns out nedra wasnt kidding when she
said you will be hearing about me in Guatemala.

Hope you are all doing well.

Love you!

Miss you!

con amor,

hna Roney

1 peter 3:15 always be prepared to give an answer

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We drove for miles and miles......

2011-06-10T21:43:00.001-07:00

A typical street in Uruguay

A farm home

Yes, they have Harley

The dividing line of Uruguay and Brazil.

Yummy food in Brazil

The tomb of their leader (dang- what was his name again?)

Another Harley. Closed. They told us to come back later. What?

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I Love to See the Temple

2011-06-09T06:40:00.001-07:00

Kyler and I in front of the Montevideo, Uruguay temple.

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Sleeping quarters

2011-06-07T15:59:00.001-07:00

Some rooms were fine. Some were....ummm.....fine.

Kyler said, "This isn't even bad mom. I lived in worse missionary apartments."

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Flea Market Shopping

2011-06-06T20:33:00.001-07:00

The streets of Argentina

Uruguay. Socks anyone?

Kyler choosing souvenirs for his brothers and sisters.

This is the perfect one for Kody

For Sale

That backpack has traveled many, many miles ( you should see the shoes!)

We wanted to much to pack this stuff up and take it home. It would be so cool in Marley's. One man's junk is another man's treasure. I should have bought the keys. They were so cool.

Grocery shopping. Not much was the same as home.

Except the Oreos! Expensive.

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The Potty

2011-06-06T19:48:00.001-07:00

I'll admit I had an obsession with the bathrooms in Uruguay. Here in the USA we are so used to our modern day comforts. It was like an Easter egg hunt every time I needed to flush the toilet. Sometimes it was a pull string, sometimes a lever, one time it was even a button on a total different wall then the toilet. That was a tricky one. I got pictures of them all! Bummer is I lost my phone in Argentina and all those lovely public restroom photos were also lost. But I still have my hotel room bathrooms, not to worry.

Ok, this one was a public restroom. Absolutely lovely.

You bet I wore my flip-flops in this shower.

And this one. I was not taking any chances.

I LOVE America!!!

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Retrieving Kyler - Day 3

2011-05-28T15:36:00.001-07:00

After flying a short flight from Argentina, our plane touched down in Uruguay. My stomach was doing flip flops, knowing we would soon arrive at the mission home where our missionary son was waiting. We had 3 extra bags stuffed full of missionary supplies. Plus our own 2 bags. Not to mention the bag of iPods and cameras I kept with me the whole way. Our bags were throughly gone through in customs. Apparently no meat products allowed. Oh my! You can only imagine how much beef jerky my missionary mom friends crammed in those missionary packages. Bags and bags. The customs guy didn't even know what it was! In the end he allowed us to keep the beef jerky, for our own consumption. But someone had put some Hillshire Farms sausages in a package. That was not allowed and I have my suspicions that someone had a yummy breakfast ;) I hope so.

After being released from customs, we headed to the rental car desk, which was still in the customs area. once leaving this area, we could not return, so I just waited for Brooke. It took a long time. I scanned the crowd through the glass doors, thinking to myself, wouldn't that be awesome if Kyler was out there waiting for me? But no, I didn't see him and knew he was waiting at the mission home. The whole rental car thing took soooooo long! I just wanted to get in that car and go hug my boy! Finally the paperwork was complete and we could push our carts/suitcases through those glass doors and be on our way. Getting closer every minute to our son. THEN - out stepped a man, I recognized really well, with a camera to snap a surprise photo of his mama. Yep, my missionary was hiding in the crowd the whole time! My eyes became teary, the anticipation was over. I got to hug that boy turned man. FINALLY!!!! I was one happy mama!

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I Love to See the Temple

2011-05-25T15:13:00.001-07:00

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Under major remodel. I'm not going to deny I was disappointed. There was a secure fence and dogs surrounding the entire property. But it looks like it's going to be wonderful when it's finished. Maybe an extension of the temple, and definitely a hostel. The CCM was being worked on too and Brooke was sure it was also closed. But I know, because of the missionary moms group I belong to, their are missionaries inside. Studying hard, learning a new language, building their testimonies.

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Retrieving Kyler - Day 2

2011-05-25T15:02:00.001-07:00

It turns out today is a big holiday in Argentina. Equivalent to the 4th of July in the states, as far as I can tell. We watched parts of a speech on TV this morning during breakfast. It poured rain all morning long. Most everything was closed. We met two elders this morning, both from Utah. They delivered a package we are going to take to a missionary in the Uruguay West Mission. Such cute guys!

Brooke at the famous plaza where the speech was held earlier.

We walked around all afternoon while I fought jet lag. I wanted a nap soooooo much. But I resisted. I'll sleep well tonight!

Protesters. Notice the chains on their ankles.

Me with one cool dude!

The Obelisk of Argentina. They say this is surrounded by the widest street in the world. Ummmmm....not sure about that one.

This one is for my missionary mom friends. The Argentina CCM. Yes, this is the best pic I could get - the whole thing is under remodel and there is a fence all around.

Argentina Temple. (under major remodel)

It is the eve of picking up Kyler from his mission in Uruguay. I can't believe we are this close. It's been a very long 2 years. Whoever says the two years flies, lied. That's like saying to a pregnant woman - you are already about to have that baby? Everyday there has been a little piece of my heart in Uruguay. Missing my son terribly. I am so proud of him for choosing to serve the Lord these two years. I am giddy with excitement. I can't wait to see his face again and give him a big hug. Time is crawling by tonight....

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Retrieving Kyler - Day 1

2011-05-24T17:00:00.001-07:00

After packing a ridiculous amount of bags (much to Brooke's dismay) we headed to the airport. I felt like Santa on Christmas Eve. We checked those bags at the curb, no questions asked, no fees incurred. Yeah! I knew all the missionary moms, who sent packages full of love for their missionaries, were counting on me. It was a long, long flight. On our layover, we ran into lots and lots of missionaries. They were all headed to missions in Argentina. Calling their mama's, eating food, joking, laughing, tearful, excited. I knew I was on a safe flight, because I was flying with the Army of Helaman. The flight left way late, and we flew all night long. I slept pretty much the whole way. A tired mama can always sleep. We got through customs easily, I was glad I brought along my personal translator ;) As I waited with the bags while Brooke got the rental car, I saw two elders waiting on a balcony, watching for the new missionaries. I felt that little reassurance in my heart that the Lord is always watching over our sons and daughters. As the first of the Elders came through the custom doors, the missionaries on the balcony gave a little whistle, the new elders looked up and one said, *yeah, someone we know!* I watched them all embrace, wondering if they actually knew each other, or if it was just the brotherhood of the gospel that brought them together. I believe it was the later. One thing I noticed, *don't burden your missionary with a third suitcase. The missionaries with two suitcases and a backpack were able to be mobile. The others struggled.

We navigated the roads with a GPS. We headed towards a tollbooth and I realized the money I had exchanged was in the trunk. We were let through without paying a toll! Brooke had to run to the back while we were in line for the second tollbooth.

The view from our window.

After showering and ordering room service, we did exactly what we are told not to do in order to fight jet lag. We took a nap. A tired mama can always sleep. We read Kyler's last missionary email. He made me laugh. He made me cry.

I can't believe my missionary son is just right across the river. I can't believe I will see him in 2 sleeps!

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Missionary Mail from Kyler

2011-05-24T14:52:00.001-07:00

The End

well to start off we had a sick week. this is the first week in a long time that we havent missed work days due to conference or other things so we got a solid 7 days in of work. i set a couple mission records to go out strong so that was good. we found 20 investigators this weeks and tons of them are super solid. we worked a ton with members, we left early and got home late almost everyday...oops. i feel very good about the last week and i feel like we helped a ton of people

these were some of the highlights- on saturday i hit 2 years in the mission so i made a 2 year happy day cake. see photo
2 missionaries in my ward here came home on saturday. it was like seeing a preview of whats about to happen
i had a 30 year old member with 2 kids confess her love to me in front of all 4 of the elders here at lunch she then said she would never forget me that i was burned into her heart forever and that she hopes that i return quickly to uruguay.
we played some bball today.
i went on divisions on sunday with a 19 year old kid named fransisco that i have been working with for 6 months to reactivate. he now is back in church and ready and stoked to go on a mission.
we went to do a house check at the hermanas house in the zone with one of our district leaders. he asked if their bidet worked they said we dont know those are for men. apparently they thought it was a urinal so elder hammond then gave them a demonstration of how to use the bidet step by step.
also another bidet story a member got shot in the face by our bidet because he didnt know what it was hehe.
i had a sponge in the shape of an airplane and i flew it around my apartment all day yesterday

theres the last weekhighlights

on sunday was ward conference here. they asked me to give a last testimony and i cried like a little girl in front of everyone. that was when it really hit me like this is the end. that was hard and it made me want to stay. i love being a missionary i put on my plaque everyday i know what i do and who i am. sadly that has to end now.

also yesterday i just happened to have some crazy reference for the other mission and happened to dial a phone number and it happened to be elder brassfield. good luck finding that reference hehe. that was cool he is doing well.

i really cant believe its all over. it makes me sad to think about but i get excited thinking about coming home. ITS NOT OVER YET THOUGH BABY! i got 3 more hours left. all you missionaries out there take advantage of this time! THE MISSION IS SOMETHING AMAZING!

Love you all! NOS VEMOS URUGUAY!!!!!!!

Elder Kyler Roney

2 John 1;12

(forward to all)

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Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-05-23T12:06:00.001-07:00

Bonjour.

This week was somethin special. We had a lot of crazy experiences and
lots and LOTS of rain. We´ve got it calculated down and the rain
starts at about three fifteen every day. So I´m pretty much just sick
of being soaked all day, every day. But its an adventure.

So I told you about hna johanna we found last week. We have had quite
the week with her. The assistants called us on wednesday and told us
they were going to come work with us in the afternoon and wanted to
meet all of our investigators. It was good stuff. They showed up
right in the middle of a huge rain storm. Once they got here they
were like umm.. its raining pretty hard... and we were like yep lets
go. And much to their dismay we got going. when we got to hna
johannas house we were all soaked. and we taught her a lesson then we
put a baptism date and a marriage date for last saturday. They were
all really excited. we showed up the next day and they were a little
iffy about it cause of things there family said about it but we
assured them it was the right thing to do. then friday we went to
their house with the zone leaders to straighten out all the legal work
for the wedding. when we got there the hermano was there and he said
hi to us and then went into the house. he didnt come back out so we
decided to go in and talk to him. we walked in and the house was
completely empty. we were way confused. even the children were
confused looking for their dad under the beds. we then asked hna
johanna where he was and she was like oh he had to go work and we
arent going to get married. Like it was no big deal. and the zone
leaders took off in the street to find him. But they didnt find him.
The only thing we can figure is he dove out this tiny window in the
house. cause there is no door or anything just this teensy window. So
it was pretty hilarious but we were also upset cause now hna johanna
cant get baptized. but she keeps showing up to all the meetings so we
are hoping to work more with the hermano. not to mention her daughter
is the most annoying ever and thinks we are her aunts and just yells
tia at us all day long. and she tries to touch us.

we have another investigator named jackeline who one of the youth
brought to an activity and then she came to church on sunday. she
lives her with only her brothers and sisters and her parents live
inthe u.s. she seems pretty positive.

It has been raining a ton here. two days ago was a huge storm. Like
we pretty much just have hurricanes everyday. The other day we were
in the street when all of a sudden it just started to pour rain and
the house next to us all the sheet metal went flying off the roof into
the air so we booked it to the nearest members house. we shared a
lesson with her and all the power went out but it wasnt calming so
much to the members dismay we decided to head to the house. so we
booked it to the house in the pitch black. our only source of
lighting was the huge lightening bolts. and then we sat in our house
and did nothing. cause there were no lights. and we couldnt eat
cause our stove is electric. haha.

also this week the zl´s called us and said the next day the president
and his wife were coming to check our house. so we stayed up cleaning
that thing till it shined and we finished at about 11 just in time to
receive a message saying they werent coming anymore. sweet. but turns
out hna maravilla had some sort of accident so at least they had a
good excuse. Oh and right when we were done my companion went to the
bathroom. when she was in there she started screaming so I thought
there was a cockroach or something. She opened the door and a whole
bunch of poo had come out of the shower drain and our shower was full
of poo. and she only went number one. Apparently this is a problem
in coatepeque. when it rains a lot the sewage rises. We are currently
looking for a new house.

We also found a house that has a pet monkey. named poncho. He hides
from us when we walk by. Even the animals dont want to talk to us.

ps mother I searched for a nativity set for you last week. they only
had creepy scary looking ceramic ones. they said if you want wood you
have to go to xela or the capital.

as for kyler QUE LE VAYA BIEN. BUEN VIAJE. SUERTE BUSCANDO SU EXALTACION!!!

Love you all.

enjoy the guay.

adios,

Hermana Roney

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A Birthday Every Month

2011-05-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

(except February)

This month it's Karly's birthday. Daddy asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday. She had a long, fun list. *first, me and mom are going to get our nails done at Juicy Nails. Then we are going to Jamba Juice for lunch and buying a piece of bread at Harvest Bread next door for .50 cents.....*

It was a great birthday Karly, thanks for letting me be a part of it!

yes, we still do the spanking machine. not sure where this tradition came from, but the kids would NEVER let us skip this part of a family birthday party.

Easter with a Mega Family

2011-05-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

We boiled 6 dozen eggs. Dyed them lots and lots of pretty colors using 3 dye kits.

We can't just have traditional dyed eggs. We get creative!
and messy

I took a twist on our traditional Easter cake this year.
The rainbow was a huge hit.

Little boys love collecting eggs and candy, but are satisfied with just a few.

Big Boy's need to get more than they can ever fit into their Easter baskets.

and you are never too old to search for the big $ egg.

Farmer Kody is back at it and made sure we had our new Easter chicks.

Missionary Mail from Kyler

2011-05-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

So this week was pretty sweet. First off we had zone conference. That was good. I had to give my final testimony there with the rest from my group. That was pretty rough. I'm going to miss this place. It was weird giving it, cause every zone conference they do it and its always like *that's so far away* and this time it was me.

On Wednesday I went on divisions with Elder Barton. He's a funny guy from Utah. We had a good time, but didn't get to much work in, due to the zone conference we had that day. We did have a good lesson though, so that was good.

On Thursday we went to Bella Union, a small town like 2 hours from here, to do a baptism interview. We had a bunch of extra time there, so I went on divisions with Elder Shaw. He's a really chill nice kid. We had some good success and found some good people. That area reminded me of the old days, in my area in Dolores. A tiny town full of farmers and poor people. Good times.

We had stake conference this week and so we had a stake baptism set for the conference. At the end, we had 8 people get baptised, so that was sweet. Unfortunately everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. haha. We got there at 9:30 to make sure they had turned on the font. The conference started at 10 and the baptism at 12:15. We got there right on time to see that the pump was broken and that they didn't ever take out the water from our last baptism, 3 weeks ago. So the font was already full... of mold, dead bugs, and brown water. We then, in our suits, got to empty the font using buckets. That took about 1000 buckets. That was great. President Heaton came to watch, so he got to witness all that haha. Next, after the conference the missionaries starting running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They were all flippin out about everything, some of them didn't even bring clothes. Nice haha. That was exciting, it was like dealing with a bunch of kids. Then finally the baptism went down. It went really well and Alison, our baptism was really happy.

These are my stats for the week
motorcycle crashes witnessed-3
ripped clothing-2
hours on a bus-6

Oh yeah, one day our neighbor came over and told us she took pictures of us in our towels and got someone naked. haha sweet. I'm not sure why she told us, maybe she wanted to clean her conscience.

Well crackers see ya later!

Love, Elder Roney

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-05-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

Howdy peeps. This week was toasty and rainy. surprise surprise. You would think the rain would cool things down. but no it makes it even hotter! You can pretty much feel the water evaporating off of the sidewalks and you are just wet. not only from the rain but from the humidity. It gets pretty cool at night. Too bad we don't have windows in our house to invite the cool air in. But oh well.

So mothers day here was just a blast. They celebrated on Tuesday and started off by a million cars with big megaphones announcing it was mothers day and wishing all the moms happy mothers day. Even pizza hut drove by announcing for mothers day they were have 2 for 1 on pizza. good to know at the crack of day. Oh and of course you can't forget the firecrackers. They lit those off at the crack of dawn too. Which they do for pretty much every holiday. and then they all played songs about mothers. really loud. so pretty much mothers day here is way cooler than in the u.s. sorry all you mothers reading this. but I am thinking off bringing the traditions home with me. so mom I hope you are excited for next year! Our ward also planned a mothers day activity but of course it fell through since we refused to help. haha.

Ever since they killed osama bin laden everyone has just been pumped and they all come up to me and talk to me about it wherever I am. My companion has been singing Miley Cyrus Party in the U.S.A. ever since. Cause she saw all the pics of people celebrating in the capital and new york. hahahah. and no I am not joking.

We did some pretty sweet contacting this week. We found a family that we are really excited about. Familia Soto. They all live together so really its three families living together. They don't have any religion and the dad told us he wants to be baptized. Unfortunately they didn't show up to church yesterday but we are going to go find them this week.

we also found a lady named Johana. We contacted her Saturday and invited her to church. she said she was going to come but we thought she was tricking us. cause everyone always does. But we went and picked her up and she came with her kids. The best part is in church they asked if anyone could share a parable in Sunday school and she said she could and she went in front and said I don't know what a parable is but I am going to share something else. She went up and started telling her whole life story. all the details. and then she ended by saying and then this two senoritas showed up at my house and now I want to change my life. so that was pretty sweet.

Our assitance flew in sacrament meeting so we are pretty excited about that.

we´ve been doing some hardcore cleaning since hna Maravilla is coming to check our houses tomorrow.

The church is true.

Love you.

Miss you.

CTR.

Love,

Hermana Roney

The Last Day....

2011-05-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

More cousins came to Cayman the last week for their Spring Break. I didn't see much of my kids after that and no school work was accomplished. I did entice them with a few crafts though.

We filled small bottles with our colored sand and made necklaces. This was a great activity for all ages and we did it outside, so there was zero mess as little hands tried to pour colorful sand into tiny necks of fish shaped bottles.

Big Boy shows off his necklace

And last but not least, some lovely underwater pictures. Love when I find this sort of thing on my camera!

Good Bye Cayman! Hope to see you soon!!!!!

This is a Test...........

2011-05-18T21:27:00.001-07:00

In anticipation of my big trip coming up, I am learning how to post from my iPad. Trying to travel light and not bring my computer. But today I found out that's not going to happen, thanks to Ginger who handed off the most packed suitcase I've ever seen. My husband is already grumbling and we haven't left yet, lol.

Where are we going? In one week, this boy (man) will be picking me up at the airport in Uruguay. Can't wait to get my arms around him. My stomach is doing flips!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A Mother's Favorite Day

2011-05-18T10:24:00.000-07:00

I was awakened on the morning of Mother's Day by my two little boys and Brooke. They had made breakfast in bed for me. It was Yummy. The card that accompanied the breakfast, made by Karter, brought tears to my eyes.

Tears of laughter. In my head. Hehe.

I love that boy!

Missionary Mail from Kyler

2011-05-15T12:36:00.000-07:00

Hey doods

So big news this week is.... my retainers broke. uh the rest I told you yesterday on the phone. Have a great week!

Chau, Elder Roney

ps. This week we had to go to deo for zone leader conference. That was fun. Sleeping in a bus 2 nights. yay! What more can a missionary ask for? The conference was good. Bad news is that they are cancelling sports and zone activities due to injuries and so on. The good news is it starts next change when I'm in my house hehe. It was pretty funny when they announced it, cause all the zone leaders in my group just laughed and everyone else was pretty devastated. Hermana Heaton gave a legit talk about work and taking the easy way out. That was good stuff. its always a good powerful meeting.

We had a rad ward activity put on by the missionaries here in our ward this week, that we have been trying to do since I got here in December. Every week they cancelled it and pushed it back, cause the bishop was busy and so on. This week it went down and no old members showed. That was pretty lame of them. The great part was a huge group of recent converts showed up that have been baptised in the last few months. We had like 20 people there and like 18 of them have been baptised in the past 6 months. So that was fun. It was cake and games night. Between musical chairs and the human knot, things got pretty dangerous with a couple 90 year olds in the group.

Oh yeah I witnessed yet another epic one man motorcycle wreck on my wonderful street corner. This dude thought he was racing Nascar or something, came flying around the corner 50 miles an hour, slid and layed on the ground and when his bike hit the curb it did a little flip. He stood up looking around like nothing happened. Good stuff! He then tried to ride away and couldn't get his moto to start, so he left it and walked away. I love our street corner.

This week, the few hours of missionary work we got in went great! We found this old skeleton named Alba, who then came to church on Sunday. She told us on Sunday, *Hey, you gringo, the people in my neighborhood say you are annoying, but I say that if you don't come to my house I will kill you.* Alright, looks like we will be going back by! We also had a girl named Alison in church who wants to be baptised. We got her mom in church yesterday, who's a less active member, and she even brought her husband who wasn't too interested, but hopefully we can get something going with him.

Remember Waldo I told you about? Yeah he sucks haha. We went by this week and he told us that we didn't know anything, that he was leaving his wife who he has been cheating on, and he's going to move. Basically he did the exact opposite that we told him. I feel bad for his wife... kind of. Although she is probably better off now. She gave him the chance to repent and marry her, but he refused and now is running away from the monster problem he created. That's a great example of what I never want in my life haha.
That's all clowns, you guys better enjoy my last few emails. Good to hear your voices yesterday. Kody you sound like a true cowboy and Keaton you sound like a bum.

LAKERS!!! that's close to the joy it talks about in the scriptures.

Love you all!
Elder Roney

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-05-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

Hello! I don't have much to talk about since we talked yesterday. But it was super good to hear your voices and talk to you all! It seems like a just talked to you for Christmas and I already got to talk to you again. and then next thing I know I am gonna be home. yipee!

Yesterday we had a pretty sweet stake conference. You could feel the spirit very strong there.

For investigators we have hna Rosalinda who wants to be baptized, but she can't cause shes not married to the guy she lives with, so we are trying to work on that. I feel bad for her cause the guy doesn't want to marry her and her oldest daughter just ran away from home and hasn't come back.

We did some good finding this week so we will see how it goes with those investigators.

We also did divisions this week and the other hnas house doesn't have a shower. So that was fun showering with a bucket.

Oh also, I don't remember if I told you this or not, but this lady in our ward gave us this mooshy smelly ball to eat and we asked her what it was and she said cow heart and then laughed. My comp was like no, really and then she said its pantsa, which is like the insides of the cow and then laughed again. So we don't really know what it was. I wrapped it in a tortilla and ate it. delicious.

I think that's about all I have to tell you.

I love you all and I miss you.

Don't have too much fun without me.

Love,

Hermana Roney

niña

mmmm fish

naughty elders had this sent to our table

Missionary Mail from Kyler

2011-05-14T19:31:00.000-07:00

To answer your questions, I weigh 77 kilos, my phone says that's about 170 pounds... also as for the service/ mission help you want to bring when you come I'm not sure. Email President or Hermana Heaton and ask them what they could use. The mission email is urugoest@gmail.com. I'm not sure the hermanas or presidents email, but you can send it there with the heading President Heaton or Hermana Heaton. Actually mom probably knows, remembering the time she emailed 5 times cause I was sick. Oh yeah the high adventure and Harley show, count me in. As for what I'm going to do after the mish. good luck suckas! I'm going to move in and never leave. You clowns can support me for e ver for e ver!

This week... was sweet! On Friday I turned 21. I had 3 birthday cakes. One with the stake pres and his family. They love me. Then with the Mazzoncini family, they are the ones we baptised/reactivated. And last with Elida, a pretty legit lady, who loves missionaries. That was pretty rad! Also tonight a kid in my ward is having us over for cake for my bday cause he was gone. Popular!

Other thing I found out about was Veronica Irigoite, the family I love in Cerro has cancer again. We baptised their daughter, but the parents never got the divorce/ wedding worked out, so they never got baptised. Anyways, her cancer came back so, I talked to them a bit. That's pretty hard on the family, so hopefully things will go well for her.

Also we got this 70 year old cougar to church, named Ester. I'm pretty sure she is looking to marry an American or an Italian. Every time we go there, she tells us how good looking we are and asks us if we are single. I finally just told her I'm married, so now she's after my comp hehe. We actually had a drop lesson with her last Tuesday, then on Sunday she showed up to church giving us the looks. yikes! Actually it's just what I'm looking for, a 70 year old smoker who lives in Salto, Uruguay who depends on selling tortas fritas to live.

We found some good people this week, unfortunately it rained once again here in Salto Sunday morning. The rain is really killing us here and the zone too. We're finding tons of people, but no one is going to church and they all use the rain as an excuse. A little water may or may not kill you, I'm not sure yet.

We're setting up a big stake baptism for our stake conference on may 15th. That's like rocket science here in the guay. How can 10 people all get baptised on one day, after stake conference? That's what they keep asking us. Uh... you put water in the font, then you put people in and put them under. Luckily the stake presidents wife was really pumped on the idea, so the stake president also likes it, so we have that on our side. Elder Liccioli and I are going to baptise Alison on that day, a 9 year old girl from a mom we just reactivated and hopefully a lady named Jacquelin, a lady I've been working with here for 4 months. We will see, but its looking pretty good.

Too bad, so sad Nico left Kortni. You may as well just find someone new now, as the world is going to end in 2012 before he is back.

Also I went on divisions with Elder Wilson this week. An elder from Kansas. That was fun. We had some good lessons, found a couple people and caught the last 2 minutes of Lakers Hornets while waiting for the other elders to come back. Unfortunately it was a blowout and they just walked the ball up and down the floor the whole time... speaking of which no updates this week. losers

Well that's all folks. Have a great week! love ya

elderrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroney

oh fetch forgot about the mothersday call... uh ill call you on saturday to set it up.

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-05-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

hola cuates,

This week was toasty warm. With no snow. yipee! It seems that we have one cool week and then one burning week. This week was a burning week. One morning we left the house at 9 a.m. and immediately starting dripping sweat. We worked the whole morning and when we were done, we were just a sticky mess, so we ate lunch and ran to the house and showered again, then peaced, only to return to a sticky ball. But hey, I like it cause I'm not even complaining right now. I'm just sayin. It has also rained a TON this week. The streets just turn into rivers and the power has gone out several times because of it. Last Monday it rained the hardest on pday. We went to the house and fell asleep, then we woke up to the biggest rain storm in the universe and no power. But it eventually came back on and we could leave the house ( cause its a rule we aren't allowed to leave the house when there's no power, cause it's pretty dangerous out there) . It also went out one night when we were in the street and it was pitch black and all the freaks here started screaming and going crazy. haha.

I forgot to mention our activity we had last week. We planned an activity with water balloons and the game where you try to catch the water balloons in a towel. Of course it turned into the whole ward against the missionaries and they soaked us with water. We were drenched from head to toe and then it started pouring, but it didn't even matter, cause we were already soaked. Don't worry, we got them back. There was not one person that left the church without being soaked. Of course they all thought they were going to die from getting wet, cause the people here think stuff like that, but miraculously they are all still alive and perfectly healthy. Weird I know. Also for Semena Santa, it's a tradition that they all have these round loaves of bread and everyone in the ward gave us 2 or 3 loaves each and we ended up with about 20 loaves of bread in the house. haha. So we started regifting.

We also had an activity that was a treasure hunt this week. One person showed up. ha.

This week we have been trying to help get everyone to all their meetings, so we have been waking up at 5 am and bringing all the youth to seminary. We put on our tennys and run door to door. Hna Maravilla told me I am getting skinnier. Cause she tells us when we are fat or skinny. So that's good.

We have an investigator named Rosalinda that we found and she has been reading the Book of Mormon and everything, and she even came to church with her daughter. The only problem is shes not married and she lives with a guy, so she can't get baptized and she can't get married either, cause the guy is married to someone else and he can't get divorced, cause of a whole huge story, so we are trying to work that one out.

Most of our other investigators aren't very positive, so we are trying to find new ones.

Oh and surprise, I didn't have changes for once in my life. yipee!

I have been getting eaten alive by mosquito's and I don't even know why since I load on the repellent all day long. But I think I am allergic too, cause they get all big and swollen and sometimes they hurt. So I will probably get dengue and die. Not. But if anyone has any remedies. Let me know.

As for Kort. Nico's gone sucka!!!! Boys suck, so don't even worry about it.

As for Jenessa you better let me know when you get your call! And thanks for the letter and thanks for the letter from aunt Andrea too.

As for kendis. congrats!! you are getting so big!

Well that's all for now. TALK TO YOU SUNDEE!!!

LOVE YOU

Con amor,

Hermana Roney

water activity

creeps during the semena santa

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-05-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

Ahoy. This week was jam packed with planning an activity for the ward. The ward supposedly planned it, but some how we got stuck doing everything with a couple of the young men and young women. It turned
out pretty sweet, but definitely never doing it again since it took up a lot of our time. But we decorated three rooms in the church to be different kingdoms of glory and then we had a bunch of games set up and according to whether they picked the spiritual games or the wordly games they were sent to a kingdom. Of course all of the children got sent to the telestial kingdom, which was a tiny dark room all black and they were all screaming and trying to escape. After that, the adults were all terrified to go to the telestial kingdom in real life, cause of all the devil children. haha It was pretty funny. Unfortunately, the rooms were destroyed before we got any pics.

Yoselin finally went through with her baptism. We had a lot of opposition from her bf (who, might I add, is a member). She keep trying to change her date, but we finally found out the real problem was she didn't want to do it this week cause she was on her period. haha. We told her everything was gonna be fine and she went through with it and now she is happy as can be.

Kendy peaced out for El Salvador and said she is going to dedicate this week (semana santa aka holy week) to her baptism. We told her great. Her mom told her she is not allowed to talk to us anymore, but she still comes to church, institute, and all of the activities, and she meets with us once or twice a week. She's ready to be baptised, she just has a lot of opposition from her mom and sister. But we will see what the semana santa brings us.

We have another investigator named Silas. He likes talking to us and participating in church things. I don't think he understands what we are telling him. And all he ever asks is why are there people in the world that see things happen, such as earthquakes, and don't do anything about it. He also thinks Jesus was white, cause the sun wasn't as strong as it is today and that is why everyone is brown today.

Speaking of Semena Santa, apparently its a really big deal and everyone is gettin pumped up for it. Its pretty much they celebrate Easter for a week with all sorts of crazy traditions. Its big like it is in Cayman. So this week should be interesting. Word on the street is we are going to be having a bunch of conferences and stuff since no one will be home. Oh and they are all building these doll things that look kind of like scare crows and we asked them what they are for and it is Judas and they are going to all burn him on Saturday.

We went to visit a less active in the hospital this week. All I know is I hope I never get sick. That was a humbling experience. Its pretty much just a big room with a million beds lined up. The cool part was all the wheel chairs are donated from the church and everyone kept saying *hey thats you guys*. The elders came and gave the hna a blessing. We went back to visit her the next day and we couldn't find her and none of the nurses knew where she was cause apparently they don't keep track of their patients. But it turns out she got released, So we went to her moms house to find her and we ended up finding her inactive brother and talked to him. All I know is everything happens for a reason especially here on the mission.

Oh, I also found out there was pretty much an ant hill living in my clothes. So that pretty much sucked. I had to clean out my whole closet thing. I don't know why they thought that would be a good home. Then, like two days later, I opened up my suitcase and they was a whole other ant farm living in there. So I was just ticked and had to clean out my whole suitcase, then I put it out in the sun and know they are all just shriveled dead in there. I will probably dump them out sometime soon.

Hope you have a great holy week and a Happy Easter! Also I hope you remember the Savior this week. There is a study guide thing in the Liahona aka the Ensign thats pretty cool that you can study each day about what happened the week before the resurrection, so I'm starting to study that. Hope the Easter Bunny finds you, cause I don't think he will find me. Seeing as my comp doesn't even know what the Easter Bunny is. Oh and I got your package. Muchas gracias, thank you very much. Thanks for the skirt mami, I love it, it is super cute. Oh and also everyone has been trying to rob my Uno game you sent me for christmas. One girl in the ward even offered me 200 quetzales. I don't want the quetzales. Just the Uno game.

Love you.
Miss you.
Peace out.

Love,
Hermana Roney

as for the smoothies, they put everything in a bag here.

like if you get a drink, they don't put it in a paper cup,

they put it in a bag and hand you a straw.

thought you might enjoy that.

Missionary Mail from Kyler

2011-05-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

What's up punks.

First off, there is a family in my ward here in Salto, that is going to Provo, cause their daughter is getting married at BYU. I'm sending with them a full camera card and maybe some other stuff. I gave them dads phone number, so maybe take them to dinner or something... don't show them the house haha. They will have a heart attack! But yeah, when you get a call from someone speaking Spanish don't hang up. They will be in Utah for like the next 3 weeks so yeah.

Good news this week. We Baptized! BooYeah! It was a super legit baptism for many reasons, but especially these. Familia Mazzoncini. (they are to the left of my comp in the photo), we reactivated the hermano a while back and now he baptized his son and mom, named Fabrici and Elsa. That was legit and by far the best reactivation I've ever seen. Next we baptized Delmar's mom, named Delcia. We have been working with her for 2 months and she finally got it! She is the lady behind my comp and her family is to the right. Delmar was super excited now to have someone in his family a member and plus his sister came to the baptism, so we're hoping for something there. Other great things were that the ward took care of everything from the font, to the clothes, to the program, which has never happened in my mission, but they actually pulled through. Great baptism. I realize that the Lord has blessed me with some legit baptisms everywhere I've gone.

Next up, Waldo. We have now become his marriage counselor. We found his wife. Well supposed wife and got a curve ball thrown at us. Turns out Waldo is not married. Snow his wife also wants to be baptised. They fight like crazy, they want to marry each other, but they don't, at the same time and they want us to solve all their problems. However, it's very complicated. A. because marriage dates in Salto are pushed all the way back till June. B. this week is holy week in the Guay where 90% of the population doesn't work and everything is closed. So we have got to try and figure out how to get them married asap (before I leave hehe) then they are in the clear for baptism. Good news, is they both came to church yesterday. It was kind of like the story that was told at conference about the couple that wasn't getting along and wanted a divorce, so he took them to a sealing. Waldo and his wife Rosa started the gospel principles class by sitting on opposite ends of the room of each other. Then in sacrament they tried to sit apart, but we forced them into sitting by each other. At the end, they were both super happy and are doing alot better now. So hopefully the gospel can help these too. haha Cause I sure cant! They fight like little kids in lessons and I just laugh at them cause it's like a showdown between Karter and Ariana.

Today we played dodge ball. We taped up my 2 year old crusty socks into tight little balls and got some serious action going. That was sweet! Got to love American sports. The best part is all the Latin's who kick our butts all day in soccer, can't throw a ball if their lives depended on it, so it's like throwing dodge balls at a bunch of little girls. Great stuff!

Sunday it rained big time, so tons of baptism's fell in our area and the zone. It kind of jacked up our month of April, but hey, what can you do? We've still got hope!

Love you all. Enjoy your lives on the road!

chau mis negros!

Elder Roney

Technical Difficulties

2011-05-08T20:33:00.000-07:00

Just as I was having fun things to blog about, she died. My computer, that is. She spent a week in the hotel safe, another few days on my desk, with me doing wishing spells that she would feel better. But nothing I did helped. She was sick, Frozen. Uncooperative. I called the Friendly Computer Guy. He kept her for another week. He made her all better. Although she was empty when she returned, just full of documents, but no programs. Who knew I needed programs to do what I do with her? You should know my saying is - I don't have to understand it to be able to use it. It's amazing though, what I can get done without the distraction of the computer. It's also amazing what I can't get done without the compter. Missed ya' girl!

Here she is. Back from her vacation and ready to rock.

Expect good things soon!

Cayman Turtle Farm

2011-04-14T18:02:00.000-07:00

OK, so this was an interesting place. At first glance, it is a fun ecology tour. We snorkled with the fish and turtles. They told us to not touch the turtles because they were going to be released soon into the ocean. All 3 of them.

Then we came upon the tanks. Hundreds and hundreds of turtles were in the tanks. Oh. Turtle FARM. It's exactly what the name says it is. We ate lunch in the diner. There were turtle burgers & turtle stew offered. This is a turtle FARM. As in for eating. Oh. We did NOT eat the turtle stew or burgers.

Kody was good at catching the turtles because he has long arms.

Karson was thrilled to get to hold the baby turtles.

There was also a shark tank. Cool.

And a bird aviary.

This baby turtle is 5 months old.

Little buddy LOVES to snorkle!

Missionary Mail from Kenzie

2011-04-13T05:33:00.000-07:00

Familia,

This week was good. Lots of work. Lots going on. Lots of pressure.

We did lots of contacting this week. Unfortunately not a whole lot of finding. One fun time we had contacting, we knocked on a door and an old chubby dude came to the door in teeny boxers with cartoon characters and some tall socks up to his knees. He invited us in and said one sec, then he came back with sweat pants on up to his nips. hahaha. He kept telling us he had a Mormon Bible, then he finally went to go get it and he came back with this sweet ancient Book of Mormon from 1975 and he traded my comp for a new one. haha.

Its been raining out of control this week. The people keep saying its hurricane Katrina again. ha. The fun part is the water seeps into our walls in our house and it gets all humid in there. I attached a pic of my bedside. I'm sure its really safe and stuff. Also the other day we had a mini earthquake when I was sittin on the pot. hahahha. I have been thinking about it, cause in the u.s., they tell you if there is an earthquake to stay in the house under the door frame, but I don't think that is a very safe bet around here. So I am not sure what I am going to do if there is a big earthquake, cause mainly the people here run in the streets like crazy people, but I'm sure that's not safe either.

Our assitence in sacrament meeting flew this week, so that was pretty exciting. It went from 55 to 89. Pretty much a miracle. We have been working a lot with the inactives, so hopefully they keep coming.

Josselin is getting baptised on Saturday. Her mom wasn't going to give her permission until finally she asked the real reason why and her mom said *because you are going to get baptized and go on a mission far
away just like the hermanas that are teaching you*. haha. But she got permission, so we are good to go.

Kendy freaked out and she disappeared for like a week, but we talked to her yesterday for phone and she said a few odd things, so we are gonna meet with her this week and figure out what happened.

We have another investigator name Silas. Yesterday we were teaching him and we asked him if he could name some of the attributes of Christ. He went off describing how he thinks Christ looks, but no one
really knows and he thinks he is white because back then the sun wasn't as strong as it is now and so everyone is brown today cause they get burned by the strong sun. haha. Me and my comp just stared at him
for like one minute when he said that. I know why some people are white and some are brown, but he is not ready to hear that yet.
Miss you all. Glad you are livin it up without me. Not. Miss you. Love you. Talk to you in a week. Or as they say here in 8 days. I don't know why they think its better to say in 8 days and not a week. Whatever.

Love,
Hermana Roney