november 17, 2014 letter

Wow its crazy to think how fast the time is going, pretty soon here i will be a fourth of the way through my mission and it feels like it just started. i am learning so many things out here and i am growing so fast spiritually and physically! i even have to shave every morning because it gets to long! haha i thought id just add that in, because it makes me feel pretty manly (; but i really am learning so fast and the great thing about getting a new companion is that you learn from them and the analogies that they use for people and the little things they do in there scriptures to mark them and stuff. just little stuff, but it is all really interesting and i love trying to take the best in my companion and incorporate it into myself and leave behind the things or bad habits that i don't want! i think if you saw me now, you probably wouldn't recognize me. you just get a new spirit to you that you didn't have before the mission!

speaking of growing and learning, one of the things that elder perryman and i have in common is that we are both really really interested in deep doctrine so every night we can stay up for hours just talking about the ins and outs of the book of mormon and bible and share the knowledge that we have.

so the other day we went knocking on a house in what we call "la encarseria" (not sure if that's how you spell it) but that means the prison in spanish! haha its like a little town of just 3rd world. its nuts. but for some reason i absolutly love it and want to go there all the time. so i made elder perryman go with me one night and go knock on some doors. not to say the least the people didn't look to friendly and neither did the chickens trying to peck at me, but it was fun! haha the whole time elder perryman had the phone in his hand with 911 dialed, and i thought that it was the funniest thing ever! but it was a fun experience and i cant wait to go back. we also went tracting right next to there and knocked on this house. a guy answered and because it was freezing cold he was like, hurry come in, i dont want it to be cold! so we went inside and there were 7 thirty year old hispanic men sitting at the table eating dinner. we ended up talking them and they thought it was super funny that two white guys in suits could speak spanish to them! so they let us sit down and talk to them for a while and through the course of our lesson literally 20 more guys walked in and out of the house... haha it was crazy! they were all from mexico and guatemala and were here just working on the fields and sending money home to there families. so we talked about families to them and they were so amazed by it and asked us to come back again! so we are hoping to get all of those guys baptized (lofty goal, but still possible) and we can turn our little branch into a ward (:

Yesterday night we knocked on a house of a person that we had accidentally ran into the other day and this time he let us come in and talk to him. come to find out he had 3 brain surgeries 2 heart surgeries and back surgery and is doing super good. he told us about a story that he had where god had helped him and he told us that he was positive that there was something out there that the lord needed him to do or else he wouldn't have survived that many times! we told him that he kept on surviving those surgeries to hear about our message and to help him help his family to accept it as well. the only set back is that he isn't in our area, so we have to hand him off to the sisters! but it'll be so good to see him baptized sometime soon (: 

This week was good, still a little frustrated that baptisms aren't following through like we plan, but we are just trying to help them realize the importance and that is all we can do! I love you guys and i cant wait to hear from you! Love, Elder Romney (:

By a burned house

november 10, 2014 letter

Well i don't have a bunch of time to write today, but i will just tell you a couple of stories that i had this week(: there was this girl that was standing on the side of the road, so Elder Perryman and I decided to pull up to her and give her a card. we immediately started talking and she seemed super interested in what we had to say! At the end of the conversation, i said," pues gracias por su teimpo y tenga un buen dia!" and she looks at us and says, "no se precupen, son buenos"  haha so i said, thank you you too(: haha we drove away and elder perryman starts cracking me up, because son buenos translates to mean that you guys are sexy, but a little bit more inappropriate... haha so that was an interesting thing, and we are definitely going to hand her off to the Hermanas!!

Sad day  because we found out that we have bed bugs in our house... luckily they aren't in my  bed! elder Perryman woke up and found all of these marks all over his legs and found out that he had had bed bugs for the past little while and just never noticed! luckily we were able to get an exterminator out here and get that all figured out, hopefully none of that will happen again!

This week i played a ton of sports!! i ended up playing basketball two times and soccer three times! its all because we contact into people and they want to play us in sports, and it really helps us get investigators, so we always go out with them and play something with them! well in all of this time, turns out that i am really good at soccer! i hadn't played since i was five and i just picked it up on the mission again! maybe i missed my calling in life(; but it was really fun and we ended up playing soccer with six kids and got them to listen to out message and now we have a return appointment with them, and they are all really good potential investigators! i think the lord blessed me with athletic ability not to get a scholarship, but to guys to listen to us (; 

So we had another experience with a guy that wanted to come up and bash on us! we were contacting on the street and this short white guy comes running up to us, and we thought he was a bishop at first, but then he says to our investigators, i just wanted to make sure that you weren't listening to the mormons! haha at that point we stop talking to our investigators and start talking to him and ask him to please leave, and he wouldn't. so he started ripping into us saying we had "magic underwear" and there was no proof of the book of mormon, and nothing was true. by the end of the conversation, we had literally answered every question of his with a logical answer and he finally said, "well, you were able to answer all of my questions, and they make sense... but i have to go." haha the spirit of discernment is true and it is such a big gift!!

oh and i happened to talk elder Perryman into trading me a 400 dollar tie for two of mine, so it was a good week (;

but i love you guys so much and i am so excited for all of the baptisms that we have coming up soon!!

 love elder romney!!

Spencer braiding a tree

This is Spencer's mission family.  He and Elder Perryman were both trained by Elder Ashcraft (far right), who is now also training Elder Joly (far left)

november 3, 2014 letter

Well, after being with Solano for so long, he is finally home!! haha but I couldn't be more hapy and excited to have my new companion! his name is elder Perryman and he is 6 foot 4 and is one of the nicest coolest kids you'll meet ever! He and I hit it off probably within the first hour we were together and we just started to teach a bunch of people! one of the things that he told me about that he did in his past district was something called SAM's it stands for (super awkward moment, super awesome moment, and super awesome miracle) so pretty much when you go tracting you just look for those oppurtunities! haha it was one of the most fun times tracting that I have ever had! We decided that we were going to talk to literally every person that we passed, so needless to say it took us literally 2 hours just to get 300 yards away from our house. It was such a cool and fun experience, and for the most part, people accepted us and let us teach them for a little bit! just a couple of examples of SAMs that we have had so far: This one time we saw a guy riding on his bike on the side of the road, so we literally pulled up next to him, drove his speed and taught him a lesson about the gospel through the window(: haha that was super awesome. And then there was one time where we saw 2 people walking away about a hundred yards away, so we immediately pulled the car over, parked it, and jumped out of the car and ran as fast as we could to catch up with them. obviously they were a little startled but thought it was hilarious that we chased them down and they listened to us! We ended up talking to them for an hour and teaching them a huge lesson about families being together forever! And another SAM was when we met these two girls out of no where and gave them our number and told them to call us when they had read a chapter out of the book of Mormon, and they texted us that night and now they are one of our new investigators! haha but SAMs are some of the funniest things in the world, and I have probably another 20 stories, I just don't have time to write them! oh and with all these lessons we are teaching, we tied the record for the most lessons taught in a week and we got 38 lessons taught in one week!

On the 29th, we had one of the best days ever! We were able to get a family on date and now we have 10 people on date for baptism(: Ahh it makes me so happy to see their lives change and how much the gospel is starting to mean to them(: Then that night right after our lesson with the family we went to the church super late just before we had to go home, to print some stuff of for the next day, and we ended up running into a member who was really struggling with things in his life and how he was addicted to some stuff and he didn't know what to do about it! We read him Jacob 5:66 which promised him that if he replaced the bad thoughts with good thoughts, eventually his roots, or himself would completely change! It was such a cool experience just to see that he was put in our path like that! (and that has happened with so so many SAMs its crazy!)  We decided after the lesson in the car to say a "thank you prayer" just to thank heavenly father for blessing us and that guy that night. and while he was praying I got the distinct impression that the day wasn't over and that there was still someone we had to see even though it was already past curfew. Right as we had finished praying, we both looked at each other and said at like the same time that there was still someone we had to see tonight. I was thinking about it and got the distinct impression to go to the gas station right next to our house and that there would be a female at the cash register and we had to talk to her and just tell her that god is listening to her. So we got to the gas station and open the door and walk up to the counter where there was a girl just like we had gotten in the impression and we just stood there for a couple of seconds. I finally looked at her and said, I don't know why we are here, but we got the feeling to come here and tell you that god loves you. At that moment, another guy walks into the store and I get the feeling that I need to go talk to him, so I leave elder Perryman to talk to the girl and I went and talked to this guy, so we are teaching two lessons at once. Turns out the girls starts bawling and thanking us for coming over to her, and the guy was a less active and hadn't been to church for a year! So we were able to help them and that was one of the coolest things ever(:

Elder Perryman and I have literally been working non stop. we are constantly either texting someone, or talking to someone, or something! We have gotten so busy that we don't take lunch and dinner anymore and we pretty much just fast so we can talk to people! I really do love elder Perryman so much and we are able to work really well together as a team and we try to follow every impression that the spirit gives us! I've never worked at something so hard in my life as I have the past couple days, and I've worked pretty hard at football and weightlifting! It's so crazy! Some other highlights was that I got to go and translate at a doctors appointment and help set up the trunk or treating this week has been awesome and I cant wait to see what is in store for next week(:

I love you guys so much!!(:

Spencer and Elder Perryman, his new companion 

october 27, 2014 letter

sorry that you haven't got any pictures for a while, its because my camera broke, and I don't know how to fix it, so hopefully I can get that up and running here pretty soon! but I am getting a new companion tomorrow and his name is elder lafrance, and he is from Canada, maybe French Canadian? who knows... but I am excited to meet him. hes 5 5, and is a two time black belt, so maybe he can teach me how to kick some guys trash while im with him(:

so this last Monday we went to the mall and just out front of the doors, there is a group of people whose names are the gospel guys. we walked past and the guy came up to me and started talking to me about things. the guy was about 6 foot 6 and had the ability to talk like a car salesman. so he knew how to talk to people. so he came up to me and started talking about my life and all these different things and then he brought in the gospel, and started telling us why we were wrong and why we shouldn't believe in this or this, and how we are wrong and how Christ is god and everything. he had a companion too but it was pretty much just me and him going back and forth, and every question that he had and every rebuke that he threw at me, I was able to answer it back at him and tell him how he interpreted in wrong with other scripture. we went on for about half an hour until I finally just told him that we had to leave. its really crazy how much my knowledge of the facts has grown out here on my mission, both spiritually and factually. before I had left, I would have had absolutely no Idea what the guy was talking about, but with diligent studying and with the lords help, I have been able to grow so much in the gospel! one of my favorite books right now is Jesus the Christ. it is literally one of the best books and gives you an insite into the bible that you would never be able to get, I love it! and I love how much this mission is changing me already(:

i may not be in nearly the shape i was when i was playing football, but i still have some of my speed left (; the other day one of our investigators is the fastest girl in the state and kills everybody when she is racing them, so we decided that we were going to race before i left! so we showed up to here house one night to raise. she had some nice nikies on and i had my  bare feet... hahaha it hurt really bad to run in the road by the way without shoes) but it was still fun(: but i ended up winning! haha i may not be in shape anymore, but i've still got some wheels (; haha hopefully my new campanion and i can get in shape together!!!

I also went on splits with an English elder this week which was an interesting experience! haha it was different because now I had to say everything! so we went to a house and this guy comes out and starts ripping on us in Spanish for about 20 minutes about how church should be on Saturday, because in Spanish, Saturday is sabado, which is also sabbath, so its even harder to convince them that the resurrection changed the day of worship, anyway he was just going on and on about this and that, and I really tried my hardest to answer every question and explain things to him, but I just couldn't say everything that I wanted! that's probably the most frustrating thing on the mission right now, because I can understand people when they talk to me, but I cant always say exactly what I want to, so its like I just have to take a beating all the time! but the language is going to come more and more with time, so I am excited to be able to express myself fully here in a little while!

yesterday, we decided to do something different and just go to every house on a street and try to give them a book of Mormon. haha I almost felt like a salesman, but it was fun! it was pouring rain and we were soaked and so were our books, but we just tredded on going from house to house(: when we got to one house, there was a little dog that run up and bit elder Solano on the leg, haha I felt so bad fro him but luckily it didn't break any skin(:

Fall is so so pretty here and the leaves are starting to change and fall off the trees. and there are literally trees everywhere here! the other day we were driving and a big wind storm came in and was blowing all the leaves off the trees, so there were these red and orange leaves just flying and falling every where, it was like it was snowing leaves for a little bit(:

but things are going well and we are still trying to help our families take the big step of baptism!! love you guys!!!

october 20, 2014 letter

Hey guys! another awesome week in the mission! its pretty sad right now, because elder Solano is leaving in a week, and him and I have gotten really close! I gave him mom and dads number, so hopefully he will call you guys sometime when he isn't too busy at home! oh and he wants to run by and see the family sometime because in January he will be in Utah going too lds business college! so he won't be too far away! and I told him that my mom and sisters would make sure he was fed really well (; but I am excited for him and I am excited to see who my new companion will be!!

The other night for dinner, we ended up having dinner at a members house with all of the sister missionaries too, so there were six of us sitting around the dinner table eating fried fish and tortillas! they had this salsa that was yellow, and the member was like, be careful with this salsa, it is really hot! haha but me and Solano don't really care, so we just piled it on our plate and started eating! haha it was pretty spicy, but wasn't too bad! we asked what kind of chili it was and she pulled it out and showed it to us. it was this tiny chilli so elder Solano and I dared each other to eat it! haha lets just say that was one of the spiciest things I have ever eaten. I was literally sweating and tears were running down my face, not because I wanted too, but because they made our eyes water so  bad! I could feel the spice running from my mouth to my throat and in to my chest and stomach! haha it was a good experience, and now we are going to go eat a habanero this week(: the one we ate is the third spiciest in the world just behind the habanero!

so funny story, this week we went tracting for a couple of hours. it was my turn to go up to the door and do our little spiel. so I walked up there to knock the door. a good way to get people talking is if you talk about some thing else other than just religion at first, like their lawn, or their pictures in the house, or their car, so they get comfortable to you and they aren't just abruptly intruded by 2 young men. so I walked up to the door, and all of the Spanish words are running through my head and I was so ready for a Spanish guy to step out and say hi to me, but this teenage kid opened the door and was like, what do you want?? haha my mind went completely blank, because the whole time I was thinking in Spanish and I couldn't think in English! it was so bad!! haha so I liked paused for a second and saw that they were selling a desk outside, so i was like, hey, I've been looking for a desk for forever, and i wanted to know how much this one cost? hahahaha the guy was like, Oh!! let me go ask my mom! long story short, i almost bought a desk that i didn't want... haha i just had to keep playing the story and slide the gospel very sneakly into the conversation! haha well it worked, and instead of getting a desk, i got an investigator (:

speaking of investigators, we have so many!!! its ridiculous! i was counting the other day and we have close to about 30. and about 15 or so that are super super solid. we just have to help them take that big step of baptism! its super hard to see because we know that they know its the truth, and they want the truth, they just sometimes don't want to make that big change in there life! we are hoping to put a lot of them on date here pretty soon, we just need lots of prayers to help them have the faith and courage to take that big step! Things are going well out here and i cant wait to see our investigators dressed in white, it just makes me smile to think about it(:

I love you guys! know I'm always praying for you!! 

Love Elder Romney (:

october 13, 2014 letter

So this week was super good because we were able to go to the temple, which is like one of my favorite places ever!! it was so spiritual and I loved it so much! we were able to do a session and were in the celestial room almost till they kicked us out, because we just wanted to stay there the whole time. but the temple here is gorgeous and I cant wait to go back there again. we are hoping to take one of our families there soon, so I'm excited for that as well(:

We are teaching this family, and they are a bunch of sisters who all live right next to each other and they all have kids and then their grandparents live right next to them, so they all, about 15 of them are always outside of the grandparents house playing basketball or what not and so we go there and we teach them all the time. The other day we went there and none of the parents were there so we were just outside shooting some hoops and talking to them for a while, while it was getting dark. I told them to all go grab their books of Mormon so they did and we sat on our car and on their grandpas car and turned on the headlights and read a chapter from the book of Mormon! haha they are the best family in the world, and every time we go over the little kids are like, when are we going to read from the book?? haha its the best. One of my favorite little kids always runs up to me and gives me a hug and tells we about what he read in the book of Mormon that last time, hes really such an amazing kid and if we can get them baptized he would end up being one of the best missionaries ever! But it was so cool to see all of the excitement of the little kids, they are from ages 8 to 13, and they always just gather around and go silent when we start reading. It may have been an odd situation to be out there in the freezing cold reading off of the headlights of our cars, but it was one of the most spiritual moments, and I want nothing more than to see them dressed in white. I really do love those kids.  Its crazy how much you grow to love the people that you teach, I just met some of these families a couple of weeks ago, and I already love them with all of my heart. It's crazy how much I care about them, and I can only imagine how much our Heavenly Father loves us.

But my Spanish really is getting better every day and I am trying so hard! its tough especially because everyone else here had at least taken some years of Spanish in college or high school and already knew how to do stuff in Spanish, but I came out knowing hola... haha the gift of tongues is definitely real! I finally feel comfortable with my Spanish and I can talk In preterit, progressive, gerund, future, present, all those things! I just have to make sure that when I get home my Spanish is better than Daniels (; haha that's my goal(:

But nothing really too exciting or different happened this week other than we are still getting lots of people to church which is so good!!

 Love you guys!

 Love elder Romney(:

I bought some pictures at the store and then i hung up  some of the family pictures(: i'd like to think i'm kind of an artist(:

These are a couple of those kids that I was telling you about that we are teaching. at the end of the lesson I gave them all some of the candy that aunt shirley gave me! haha ps, my ears are almost overflowing with candy, and i'm getting fat, so I don't need anymore for now (;

october 6, 2014 letter

Well its finally another week, but the new thing about this week is that I'm super old now! i'm practically an old grandpa that can barely move! haha but that's really how I feel sometimes... but this week has been super good and exciting!!

So this week I went on some exchanges with a greenie who has only been out for 2 weeks. haha so it was me and him out together, me driving the car, and we were out in Salem tracting the whole day while our companions were at MLC. but this was probably one of the funnest days! we somehow ended up at a huge field with all these huge torn down houses and buildings and stuff and we ended up finding a guy to talk to! he was the manager of the place and turns out to be a Mormon! haha but while we were talking to him we found out that this place used to be an insane asylum and that it is in the book of world records as one of the most haunted places in the world! haha of course I asked to go inside, but he quickly said that he would never go in there! haha at least I gave it a try (: 

and then later we tracted into a gangster. no like a literal gangster. haha. he opened the door and I could have sworn that he said hola, and so I gave my little spiel in Spanish, and he stepped out of the door and was like who the crap do you think I am? Hispanic? (with some much not nicer words) haha but then I was like, no sorry, I thought you said hola, and then he went on and on about how cool it was that I could speak Spanish and how he wishes he could have spoken Spanish back in cali so he could have gotten more girls... haha it was quite the experience and he let us come in his house and teach him a bit and he told us all about his life! thought I was going to get stabbed the whole time, but he ended up being super nice to us because we taught about jesus(: and then later that day I got pulled over... hahahaha but its okay, it was just because the back lights were acting funny and weren't working! but the cop was super nice to me and admired that we were our serving missions and let us go(:

so probably one of the funniest days was when we got up at 10 to go to an appointment and then at the end of the appointment we got locked out of our car... so now we have to treck all the way to never never land where the hermanas live and pick up there car and drive it to new berg to get a new key. well on the way, we decided to take a short cut though the field which ended up being the worst Idea ever. we were stuck in grass chest high and it was soking wet from the dew. and then we had to jump a river to get there.  I was able to make the jump, but it was sad for elder Solano because he just missed it and slipped in the river! haha it was the funniest thing ever(:

my birthday was super good and I got to spend it with the rios and they all bought me some presents(: the oldest girl went to a byu game this last Saturday and came back and brought me a jersey that she got!! it was super nice! I love the family to death and we cant wait to get them baptized(:

but I love you guys and keep working hard back at home!! 

Love Elder Romney(:

In front of one of the haunted houses(: Not the main one, but it's still one of them!

This is me just after I jumped over that river(: haha and no im not that fat... my shirt is just untucked(: