april 11, 2016 letter

Dear Family:

It was another crazy week!. We had MLC last Wednesday and it was awesome, as always. I was thankful to be able to sit back and relax and just soak in the Spirit! haha Previously, I had to always be attentive and alert to things that go wrong so we were able to fix them, but this time I could listen for personal promptings. We talked about standing in holy places, and we talked about being grateful. I loved the training on being grateful and the power that comes from being grateful for the things that you've been given, especially from your Heavenly Father. Sister Samuelian challenged us to make our prayers more about being thankful, rather  than just asking for things. I had noticed that many times my prayers were predominantly asking for blessings, and not enough for giving thanks. I would often times say, "please bless this family to be able to do this", instead of "thank you Heavenly Father for giving me such an amazing opportunity to teach a family that will allow me to come into their home and be willing to act on this message." It has seemed to even liven up my spirit and I've been able to see great and small miracles from changing my prayers. I know that He hears me and I know it fills His heart to know that we are grateful for Him.

The best thing that happened to me this week was teaching this family. Ever since I left Woodburn last year, I prayed for an opportunity to come back and teach the entire family. They are one of the families that I have become the closest to. From speaking with previous missionaries, it sounded like they had become a little bit shut off from listening to the gospel, so when I went over to the house yesterday, it was probably one of the most nerve wracking lessons I have taught on in my mission, probably because I knew how important the lesson was, and I just love the family so much. We taught from Matthew 16:19 about the sealing power that was given to Peter. We testified that they could be sealed together as a family in the temple by the same keys that were given to Peter. We set up a lesson with them on Tuesday, so we will see how it goes. 

It has been an awesome week, and I can't wait to see what this week holds in store!

Love, Elder Romney (:

It was fun to see old missionary friends again!

The former Sister Hedges (who was in the Mexico MTC with me) and her new boyfriend, the former Elder Clem, who is from this mission and was a zone leader when I was!

MLC