may 30, 2016 letter

Dear Family:

It has been an awesome week! I have had some really cool experiences and I am going to miss having these on a regular basis! I got to interview someone the other day to be baptized on June 11th for one of the sister companionships in my district. I had known these people from over a year ago and loved them a lot and was happy that they had made the decision to be baptized. After I interviewed them I had this weird feeling and it went in through the night, but I kind of ignored it because I didn't exactly want to known what the Lord wanted me to know because I knew it was going to have to be something about postponing their baptism. Their interviews went pretty well, so I kind of just brushed it off until the next morning when it was bugging me enough that I finally said, "Okay Heavenly Father, I'm ready to listen to you." I was instructed to push her date back a week. We had a meeting with the sister missionaries that same morning about being accountable for their goals for the month of May and I brought it up with them. The Hermanas told me that they were actually feeling the same thing, but didn't want to say anything, either. So I learned, that whenever you are feeling that weird feeling, you can't just talk your way out of it and ignore it, because it will always come back. I felt the spirit as I talked to the Sisters and knew that was what the Lord wants accomplished. I also came to know even more that this is His work, and not mine. 

The mother and father that I interviewed that I told you about before, asked me if I would baptize them. They said that they just felt the need that I baptized them. So I plan to baptize them on June 11th and I am so humbled and grateful for that oppurtunity as it will be the first time that I personally will be able to baptize someone for themself, and not for someone deceased. It will be an awesome oppurtunity and we will see if that is still what the Lord wants me to do and if they will get baptized that day. So, that's really cool.

We also had 7 people at church which was awesome! We are teaching the niece's cousin and her mom. The cousin's mom told us the other day how grateful she was that we came and taught her about the prophets and how excited she was to come to church. We also had someone else new come to church who I just really love.  She will probably be baptized this month. There is so much success going on in this area I can't even explain it! I know I probably won't see a lot of the fruits, but as I have seen in the past, the Lord will always keep his promises and bring His people unto Him. 

I am also excited for this Saturday. Saturday from 10 am- 12 am President Russell M Nelson will be visiting our mission and having a special meeting with all the missionaries. He wants to shake all of the missionaries hands personally and then he will spend 2 hours teaching doctrine to us. Ahh I'm super super excited. The whole mission is fasting the day that he comes, and president promised us that if we spiritually prepare and look into his green eyes as we are shaking his hand, that we will receive a confirmation from the spirit that he is an Apostle of God. I also get to be part of a 27 missionary choir that will be singing "I'll go where you want me to go" to President Nelson and the entire mission. It is going to be awesome!  It is such a huge blessing that he is coming just before I leave! The last time I shook an apostle's hand was at Aspen Grove when president Monson was the senior apostle. And now I get to shake another senior apostle's hand who very well could be the next President of the Church!  I was reading about Elder Nelson's accomplishments and he has accomplished a ridiculous amount of things and is very successful. I look up to him a great deal and can't wait to meet him! We will also be taking a mission picture after, so it will be nice to have a picture of everyone just before I leave. 

This last Sunday President Aguiar, who is the 2nd councilor in the mission presidency, went out to teach some lessons with us after he had spoken in our sacrament meeting. He wanted to stay with us for 2 hours, but we ended up spending 4 and a half hours with him. We had a ton of awesome lessons and saw so many miracles. It was awesome to be with someone who loves the gospel that much and is willing to take of his own time to be with the missionaries. It was a true example to me of how to keep the Sabbath Day Holy. He didn't just rest, we went and taught and visited the lonely and the sick, and lifted the hearts and hands of the downtrodden. It was awesome. We even drove out to a hospital and taught someone who had just had a baby and wanted to learn more about the gospel. At the end of the night we were waiting for the Abuelitos (they are a senior couple that I can't wait for you guys to meet. She is the only person in the mission who has been given permission to hug elders. They have taken such great care of me and we will have to make a stop to see them when we come back to Oregon) to enter in to a home of an elderly double-leg amputee.  When they arrived, we went and gave the sacrament to this man who had lost his legs and gave him a blessing. It was such a powerful little meeting and humbling to all who were there. 

The last cool experience that I had this week was with a council meeting that we were holding as leaders in the zone. The objective of the meeting was to find out our strengths and our weaknesses as a zone and figure out how we could correct them. We went on for about a half hour and it just felt wrong, like we weren't getting to the root of the problem, so I kept quite and waited for an opportunity from one of the zone leaders to speak. They asked me what I thought and I told him that what we were talking about just wasn't right, and we were just skimming the surface. I told them that I felt we were missing the spirit and unity in the council. We all knelt and prayed for the spirit to be with us and the spirit immediately entered into the room. I think that often times our sacrament meetings are like that. Ill prepared on both the bishoprics part, the people who are speaking, and the people who come to attend the meeting. I have sometimes found the rest of the church meetings to be even more spiritual (except the sacrament) than sacrament meeting, and that's not the way it should be. I think that the prophet's putting an emphasis on the sabbath day is so inspired, with the worship within the home and the worship within the church. It such a different meeting when everyone comes prepared and we are all able to be spiritually uplifted. I don't know where I was going with that, but it was an awesome opportunity in that meeting to figure out the real problems within the zone, and we needed to be unified in the spirit. 

I know this church is true without a doubt, and I am dreading the day that I have to take off my tag. 

Love, Elder Romney

By the railroad tracks in Woodburn.  Ever since I was in Albany, I have always made sure to have a Book of Mormon in my hand whenever I am out. It is one of my "things"

Elder Carbajal, Elder Gessel and me at zone conference. It was awesome!