Tender Mercies

     This week was a very difficult week. It was however a week that I will remember for the rest of my life because it was a week where I could feel the tender mercies of the Lord comfort me in my time of need. I am so thankful for my friends back home. In the middle of this week it reach the climax of the trails. That very same day I received an a letter from my old BYU roommate Chris. I'd have to say that I feel like that letter was a heaven sent gift from God. Just right when I felt so low I receive a letter from my hero that I have been wanting to talk to forever. A letter that encouraged me to just keep going. I never knew who my roommates where going to be when I went to BYU, but I have always felt that it was part of God's plan to place me with the people I lived with that year at BYU. That year changed my life, and really helped me decide to go on a mission. I don't think that my roommates will ever know how much I looked up to every single one of them, and how thankful I am for all that they did for me that year. Their help is still continuing to affect me to this very day.

 

     Elder McMahan and I are having a fairly rough time getting around in our new area. This area has to be the least bike-friendly place in the the world. There is no place for bikes. The designer of the Georgian roads must've not known there was such a thing as a bike. Because he did not make room for them on the road. People are continuously honking at us, or saying rude things to us to get off the road. There are no sidewalks. There is no shoulder for us to ride on. We are just doing we have to do to get around. I just wish that they could be more understanding.

 

     Like I said, there were many tender mercies of the Lord that have happened over this past week. I also got to hear from one of my favorite members from the Dunwoody ward this week, Bro Beaver! He informed me that Tony is still taking the lessons and that everyone really misses me. I miss that ward so much. I truly didn't realize how much I loved it until I left.

 

     Things with Elder McMahan and I are going really well. We get along great and have a lot of fun. I can tell that him and I are going to be good friends for a long time. I really am blessed for having such a great companion.

 

    That is all for this week, Love you all so much!

 

-Elder Ryan Romero

A Wet Week

   I have never seen so much rain in my life. It just won't stop raining. It has rained more in the last 30 days than it did all last Summer. I am not a fan of the rain here. The rain doesn't cool anything down in Georgia. It is not enjoyable like it is out West. All the rain does is make everything steamy and sticky. It makes the humidity go up like crazy. After it rains all you can see is steam off of the roads. I am hoping that the upcoming week is dryer than the last. But I don't think that it is going to happen.

    This last week has been a pretty difficult week. We moved apartments and I have seen no ghost yet. Everything seems fine. We live with a family in the ward named the Carnell family. They are really nice. Brother Carnell is a great cook and is really teaching me a lot about cooking. Him and I get along really well. He is a business man and works with a lot of franchises. I really enjoy talking with him about business ideas and such.

    I have lost quite a bit of weight since I came into this Ward. There are three sets of missionaries. Two of those being Sisters. So we don't get very many meal appointments. Also I've been on bike this whole time. I do feel healthier and I like being able to control what I eat. My and Elder McMahan's diet basically consists of greek yogurt. I don't know why but it is just our favorite thing to eat. People laugh when they open our refrigerator and all there is is greek yogurt, almond milk, spinach and water. Haha. We don't really want to eat anything else though.

    The best part of the week was that Courtney and his family came to church. His wife came for the first time. She really enjoyed church. Tonight we will be having a family home evening with all of them. I am very excited. Courtney is not going to be able to be baptized this weekend because of some issues that we ran into. Nothing that can't be fixed though. We would really like to be able to baptize him with his wife too so the delay won't be too detrimental.

 

    I am excited for what the Lord has in store for me over the next transfer. I know that miracles are going to happen. I miss you all so much.

 

-Elder Ryan Romero

Changes are coming

 Some changes are occuring this transfer. Elder Mcmahan and I are staying together, and in the Lost Mountain Ward. We are switching apartments with the Sisters though. We are in the Southern part of the area and we are in the North. We are going to be moving apartments on Wednesday. The reason for the move is because the Sisters said that they saw "something" and that they don't want to stay there anymore. They lived in a member's basement. They have been staying in the bishop's house since the incident. I don't know for sure if they saw anything. When the bishop went over to the house that night he said that he didn't feel any strange pressence, he felt like the Sisters were kind of just freaking eachother out. That kind of my feeling about it too. However, if the house is haunted then I'm excited. I've always wanted to see a ghost. Haha.

 

    No baptisms this week. The people that we have scheduled baptisms with this week fell through. We lost contact with Cal for awhile, but just found him a little bit ago. Edythe dropped us... Really hard. He daughter absolutely does not like us around and has stated that, "She does not want her children (Edythe's grandchildren) around influences like us." Her daughter has had some negative experiences in the past with religion. Not the Mormon religion, just religion in general. So she won't let Edyther or her children meet with us while they are living in her home. Very disappointing, but I know God is in control and whatever is suppose to happen will happen.

   On the good side of things we have a great investigator named Courtney. He has come to church the past two weeks and came to the music event that we had yesterday. Oh yeah, the music event, forgot to talk about that. That went extremely well. Elder Mcmahan and I put so much work into this event. It went so well. We got some speakers, guitars, microphones and all this stuff. We had a concert outside the pavillion in the back of the church and had a lot of non-memebers and members there. It was such a great experience. It went so well in fact that the Stake is talking about putting together some sort of event committee to coordinate a weekly activity in the Church geared towards non-members. We are really excited for this.

 

    We got to go to the temple this week for zone training meeting. I love the temple so much. It is so calm and so peaceful. It was such a breathe of fresh air in the hectic life of a missionary. I am really excited for the future of this mission. I feel like this mission is a character building mission. President Harding and his experience in his work is just so educated in how to make people better. He has taught me so much about goal setting, and commitment keeping. I am so much more confident in my ability to change and become better.

 

    Well I have got to get going. Not much time left. Here is my new address. 4300 Bristlecone Dr. NW, Marietta GA 30064

 

Love you all so much.

What? It's been a Year!??

  Time has no substance in the mission. It doesn't exist. It comes and then immediately it is gone. I can remember the day going into the MTC like the back of my hand. I woke up, went to the gym and ran with my Dad, came home and finished packing, rode in the car down to Provo, stopped at the bank to cash a check that a friend's parents gave me, went to Sensuous sandwich to have my last supper, drove to the MTC, got out of the car and my good friend David Graham escorted me into the MTC. It honestly feels like it was yesterday. That is why I can remember it so well. People tell me that the next year is going to go by even quicker, but I don't know how that is possible. This year has already flown by.

     Hitting my halfway mark is exciting, but also depressing in a way. I don't want it to be halfway over. It is very hard for me to look at myself and measure how far I have come. You just get use to how you are. I don't feel like I have really changed that much, and that upsets me. I always imagined the man who I would be at the end of my two years. Now that I am at my one year mark I feel like I should be half the stature of the man I envisioned. I don't feel like I am quite there and that makes me sad. I know very well though that I could be there, but just not notice it. I am going to work so hard over the next year and consecrate myself to this work. I know that God is molding me into who he wants me to be, and maybe that man I envisioned isn't the person he wants me to become. I know that God's vision for me is much greater than any vision I could ever come up with.

     This week has been a good week. I will tell you a bit about some of our investigators since I didn't get a chance to last time. We have an awesome investigator named Edythe. She is an older lady. She has a huge heart and loves Jesus Christ. She has been a member of the Apostolic Pentecostal Church. She loves meeting with the missionaries and has really come to love this Church. She has a baptismal date for June 29th. She came to the Church for the first time yesterday and absolutely loved it. On Saturday we taught her the Word of Wisdom and she committed right on the spot to stop coffee and she has been off it since that lesson. She has great faith.

     We have a couple other investigators but the other one that I want to talk about today is named Kenneth. Kenneth is a nice guy. When we first met him he had a ton of questions for us that didn't really pertain much to the Gospel. Such as aliens, mermaids, GPS tracking, and poisonous atmosphere. Haha. He is a real skeptic, but I was in his shoes not too long ago. Kenneth and I could really relate. Luckily we were always able to bring the conversation back to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The biggest stumbling block for him is he doesn't know if Jesus Christ really existed or what his purpose was. Every time we would bring up Jesus Christ you could tell that it unsettled him a little. We gave him a Book of Mormon and explained that if he knew this book was true, he knew Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and he knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet and this Church is true. He seemed to understand this idea pretty well. The next week we stopped by and followed up and he had a load of more questions for us. However, this time it was different. His whole countenance had changed. You could tell that his faith, even though it was a small amount, in Jesus Christ was beginning to grow. And it was changing him. The questions he asked no longer were wild, but they were sincere and heartfelt. He really wanted to know if The Book of Mormon is true. It was a completely different person we were teaching. No longer when we brought up Jesus Christ did it cause him to fidget in his seat, but it made his eyes brighten and he just wanted to learn more and more. It was a great experience.

 

      Elder Mcmahan and I are getting along great. We are becoming really good friends. We had a pretty crazy experience this week. We were almost caught in a tornado! All my life I have wanted to see a tornado. Not in a city where there are people, but in like a field where there are just cows. Haha. During a lesson the tornado sirens went off and it was just crazy! The wind was howling and the rain was flying. Luckily.... No tornado ever touched down, but it was close! I felt like I was in the movie Twister. Haha.

 

     I love this new area. The members are great and the people are kind. Very religious, and don't really want to hear much about what we have to offer, BUT they are nice about it. Haha. I know God will provide us with new people to teach.

 

    Well I got to get going. I love you all so much. Hope to hear from some of you this week.

 

Fireflies I caught in a jar...took awhile to get a good picture of them!

-Elder Ryan Romero

 

Lost Mountain

  I am in a place called Austell Georgia. It is a small town, extremely small compared to Atlanta. It is West of Atlanta. The Ward I am in is called the Lost Mountain Ward, it is in the Powder Springs Stake. I am so happy to be here. From what I have met of the ward members, they are all amazing. This ward is so missionary minded it is astounding. The Stake President is so on top of missionary work it isn't like anything I've ever seen in my mission. This Stake President, President Owen, is amazing. I see him being a Mission President in the very near future. He just has that demeanor. He is mighty. The place that we live in is the coolest ever. It is a mini house, sort of like a cabin, in the back of a non-members home. The non-members are named the Marks. And they are the kindest people in the world. They are so friendly and so helpful. I am excited to get to know them and become close with them.

    Now to the companion... Where do I start... Ugh. Let's just say I didn't get lucky this transfer. It is going to be a hard transfer. The past couple nights my companion has had night terrors and woken up screaming bloody murder at three in the morning. Then he's punched mulitple holes in the walls. I don't know what to do. President told me that he refuses to take his medicine so I have to sneak it to him in his food so he will calm down. He doesn't like teaching when we're in lesson. He likes yelling at the investigator till they submit and say we're right..... It's tough.... Alright, enough with the joke. Haha. Hope I didn't scare you too much.

     My real companion's name is the Elder Mcmahan (pronounced Mcman). He is AWESOME. We are already best friends. He is from San Diego California. We get along so well. He loves music just as much as I do. He even plays guitar. He actually doesn't just play the guitar, he shreds on the guitar. He is extremely musically tallented. I am so excited to be his companion. We both dress very similar and it is quite funny. When we got called to be companions an Elder named Elder Clements turned to me and said, "You two are going to be the most hip looking companions in the mission." Haha. It is true! We look good together. Hahaha.

     He has been out for about five months now. He is already a great missionary. I am the District Leader here in the Lost Mountain District. It is a small District, and they're are only Sisters in my District. Haha. Besides us there are two sets of Sisters in my District. They are great missionaries. I am so excited to be here. We have been working so hard the past couple of days to get everything rolling. I am going to work so hard this transfer to bring as many people I can into the fold of God.

     There are a couple more things that I would like to talk about but I don't have the time because I don't have a library card. I will fill you in on all the people that we are working with next week. This is a great area and the field is ready to harvest.

 

     I love you all so much. I hope to hear from some of you soon. My new address is:

 Elder Ryan Romero C/O Debara Marks

 4590 Harris Lane

 Austell, GA 30106

 

P.S. One of my favorite missionaries named Elder Parker is in this Zone! That's just good news.