Email 12/10/12

Family, The weather has made a big change and is freezing. No snow, just freezing wind. Didn't help with my cold, but it is all good now. We had a busy week. I was a little behind with me being sick and it took a bit to recover but lots of visits. One of our investigators that had a baptismal date, we found out, is having a concern with reading the Book of Mormon and praying. That is something I have gotten a lot better at recently to answer questions and focus everything on the Book of Mormon and helping people read it. So we have been visiting lots of people and simply just reading the scriptures with them. It has been really fun. I really like reading the scriptures. I have also recently done bible quizzes with people. It is kinda funny because I don't know the bible very well but we have lots of fun quizzing people on basic bible questions on the life of Christ, it being Christmas season. In general conference, there was a stat saying that members of the church know more about the bible than any other group of people. It's true. But it is really fun having casual talks about the bible and letting people know that we read the bible as well. Really fun. We are working to stay warm in the cold but we are doing good. Thanks for all you do. Love Elder Roe

Email 11/26/12

Family, Busy thanksgiving week for us. Lots of people to see with very little time. Productive week though. We had a busy thanksgiving that went rather well. We had a good meal and pie and all kinds of food. An El Salvadorian family gave us some duck. That wasn't too bad. We had really good discussions with this guy who is wanting to be baptized. We discussed his concerns and questions that he has and went really well. We see him and his familiy everyday to read scriptures with them and talk about what we read in preparing him to be baptized. It is really awesome to read the scriptures with invesigators and I really enjoy it. Then we also started to teach another spanish guy from Florida. He is pretty cool. He and his family lived in Miami for like 25 years. So we talked lots about Florida and found out he talked with missionaries in the past in Florida and wants us to teach him and his wife. That was really cool. So things are doing pretty good around here. We stay really busy which is really good. Awesome to be here in Marshall. Loving it. Thanks for all you do. Hope thanksgiving was sweet. Love Elder Roe

Email 11/19/12

Family, This has been a really busy week. I have noticed we have lots of people who want us to see them and just not enough time in the day to see them all. So very busy week. Really cool to see all those members I remember and those who I was working with before I left Marshall the first time. We are teaching a lot and getting things done so we hope to have some baptisms here soon. I am excited for Thanksgiving this week. Thankfully, we have people to have us over and should be a good day of spending time with the members and eating some good food. This past Friday, the branch had a Thanksgiving dinner and it was great. We had lots of people there and lots of our investigators. It was a great opportunity to have them get together with those that we are teaching and get them to create friendships with the members of the branch. There were lots of people that came and I wasn't expecting to come so that is really sweet. Having already been here, I am really trying this time to have a better relationship with the spanish members and investigators. Having served here with Elder Perez, who is fluent, I didn't need to speak much spanish but I'm definitely speaking a lot now. It is working great right now and really enjoying translating and having a better contact with the spanish members. We had a cool experience this week in teaching this investigator from Micronesia. We went to stop by and see him and he was outside talking to 2 of his friends (also from Micronesia) that live next door. They were a little hesitant at first to talk to us but we warmed up with them and the investigator invited us to come in and teach him a long with is 2 friends. We had an awesome lesson about scriptures and prophets and the power of prayer. The spirit was there and really helped testify to them that what we were saying was true. It went really well and gave everyone a Book of Mormon and all agreed to have us over another time to learn more. It was really sweet and they loved the chance to learn and grow from the scriptures. Past Friday we also had zone conference over by Kansas City and that went really good as well. Lots of travel but it went really good and happy to go and be uplifted and trained on what to do. So this was a really good week. Thanks for everything! Have an awesome Thanksgiving! Love Elder Roe

Email 11/12/12

Family, Not a whole lot of time this week to talk. But I do have some good news. I got transferred and....I am back in Marshall, Missouri!!! It is really cool to be back in the area and see all the members again. Everyone is excited to have a familiar face and move on in teaching and baptizing people that I had previously worked with. It is also really awesome to see the people we helped baptize some time ago and see them continuing to progress and grow in the gospel. I am hoping to stay here long enough to see some of these awesome converts and go with them to the temple to be sealed as families. That is what I am really excited for. But other than the crazy transfer, not much stuff other than seeing all the people I taught and the rest of the members. It is really cool also to now be teaching the last nonmember in this part member family that we had worked with in the past. Right before I left we baptized their daughter, Ale, and now we are set to baptize her dad in December or early January. So it is awesome. Gotta go for now. Thanks for everything. Love Elder Roe

Back in Marshall....Home of Jim the Wonder Dog!!

Email 11/05/12

Family, Past week has been a really busy one. Lots of driving and interviews and meetings. All really good though. Our week was really slow but really productive. We talked and fellowshipped with lots of our investigators and members which was really handy. We had a trunk or treat at the church Wednesday and it went really good. There were so many people. The ward did a really good job on inviting their friends. We had fun running the donuts stand and making kids race each other to eat the donut on a stick w/o using their hands. Funny stuff. We are getting a better connection and friendship with the spanish families which is helping us meet more of their friends and we have lots of potentials to follow up on this week. Yesterday we had a pretty good day. We went to have dinner with this spanish family (they have been coming to church more which is really sweet) which we were hoping to get to teach the wife's brother who is not a member. We have met with him a couple times and he came to church last week and we have talked about him being baptized but never really set a date or goal for him to be baptized. We go to dinner though and he wasn't there which was disappointing. As we were about to give a quick message before we leave, he walks in the door and sits down to join us. It was pretty sweet. We talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ with them. Then we talked with the nonmember and set him for a date of baptism for December 1st. Very sweet. So we were excited to help them out and see him commit to a goal or date to be baptized. Other than that, a rather quiet week. Weather had been really nice. Cool today but really nice the next week or so. Doing good here though. Thanks for everything. Love, Elder Roe

Email 10/29/12

Family, This past week has been pretty good. Our area is starting to pick up so we are working really hard. We also had interviews with mission president which went all good. Lots of traveling past week. Lots of interviews and meetings. All good of course. Had a baptismal interview to do and also have one this week too. We were able to have an awesome church tour with a spanish investigator I have been teaching for awhile now. It went great. I was able to solve a lot of concerns he had and went thru the church and where he would sit and all that. He hasn't been to church yet so I really thought that if he would go on a tour with us then he would feel a lot more comfortable. It worked out. He didn't come to church yesterday but he really enjoyed the tour and said he wants to be baptized and just needs to study and read and pray a lot more before he decides to do it. So it was great to go thru that with him and solve concerns he had and questions he wasn't sure about. Church tours are great ways to get people in the church and see how it is and more times then not, people walk away a lot more comfortable to come to church because they have already see where to go and interacted with members and the building. So that was a big highlight this past week. At interviews we also got the cultural celebration dvds which was way nice to see it again. Weather has been cooling off a lot and really windy but it is a really nice change from the past really hot weather we have had here. Other than that' things are going great. Thanks for everything! Love Elder Roe

Email 10/22/12

Family This has been a good past week. Lots of work and progress. We got a nice family we have been trying to work with to come to church and better fellowship for them at church. So they have been doing a lot better, just need to continue to work with them on reading the Book of Mormon. That is the focus of our work the past few weeks: helping people see the importance and motive to read the book of mormon. So far it has been really good and really seeing an increased testimony on my part and the Book of Mormon affecting ppl's lives which is awesome. We have also had a lot of success with this part member family that has started to come back to church again. This is the 9 yr old girl we had on baptismal date but fell thru since they weren't coming to church, but they are now' so we are hoping to work more with them soon! That is pretty sweet. We had exchanges with the zone leaders which went really good. I went to Wichita and that is sweet. Always fun to go to another area. Saw lots of miracles there and then Elder Stagg and the other zl had lots of good stuff here in Newton so that was fun. We are doing better. Things looking up and working more which is always good. We have seen lots of more activation of the spanish members here. Lots more are coming more often. More then I've ever seen. So it is really sweet to see the spanish members come more and have a more involvement in the ward. One spanish sister gave the opening prayer in spanish for sacrament meeting and I am working with the bishop to get the spanish members to get callings and home teachers. Really happy for that. Warm weather which is nice but not cool when we are in suit coats lol. Other than that, we are doing pretty good. Thanks for all the love and support. Love Elder Roe

Email 10/15/12

Family, This was a really decent week. We had some really rainy/bad weather the past couple days but it has been fine. Lots of rain which we needed and thunderstorms but nothing too serious. We already broke out of the cold snap and looking for warmer weather which I don't really look forward to. Besides the weather, things have been pretty good around here. We weren't able to teach a whole lot of lessons but the people we were able to see went really great. We are working really hard with this nice family. We just recently started working more with his kids who are 9,8,7,1 yr old. They are getting more involved with us in reading the book of mormon and listening to what we have to say. We also went over this past Saturday with a ward missionary that went really good. He actually served his mission in Fort Lauderdale speaking spanish. So that lesson went really good. We are also working with a couple other people and helping them progress more. Things are doing really good though. We have interviews with the president next week. I think so that should be good. Trying to work hard as a district leader. Lots of meetings, interviews to have, and phone calls and account abilities. But it is going good. I enjoy helping out. This coming week looks like it will be good so I am happy for that and looking forward to do good then. Other then that, nothing much going on. A lot of work, no pay lol. Thanks for everything. Hope all is well. Love Elder Roe

Email 10/08/12

Hola, Conference weekend was way sweet. Interesting announcement from Prez Monson. Big news for everyone. I liked seeing the shocked looks on everyone's face and the guys when they lowered the age for guys, then the girls when they lowered theirs too. Crazy stuff. I really liked conference a lot. I thought that Elder Holland's was way good. He have a very similar one in the MTC when I was there but it was a little different then the one he gave for general conference. Very good talks and thoughts to keep in mind for the next 6 months. We had an awesome time looking to invite everyone we could to the general conference. It was a really good time. We were able to get a few investigators to see it which was nice. They thought it was really nice. Lots had questions on family and how to help them in this kind of world so I think that general conference and reviewing the talks they missed would really help them. Kinda slow week though trying to see people. Not horribly great week in finding people but we had a few really good lessons with people and they are beginning to increase their faith which is our whole purpose. Really enjoying the time here though. We are trying to work better with the few members we have here in Newton. Most of the members live in areas outside of Newton really far away. All good though. So we are trying to work better with everyone. It is starting to be rather chilly which is sweet so I am enjoying it minus the crazy wind. That's about it though. Thanks for all the love and support. Love Elder Roe

Email 10/01/12

Family, We had transfers this week. I stayed and Elder Haws got sent off to Lenexa. I'm with Elder Stagg. He is learning ASL so that is pretty cool. He just served actually with Elder Decker who I also served with. His trainer was actually an elder that came out with me so that is pretty cool. So we spent this past week introducing him to different members and the investigators we have. It is going well. We need to do lots of finding new investigators and some more solid, prepared people. It is easy to find but not as easy to find those whom the Lord has already prepared. The weather is starting to cool down which is really nice. Looking forward to the cool weather again. Unfortunately that means that we have to wear suits coming up now. All good tho. We also have general conference this coming week. I am pretty excited for that. Should be pretty sweet. So this week is the inviting week where we invite everyone to come to hear a prophets voice. I noticed on lds.org that they have a really great video and resources on the home page on how members can invite people to general conference and how to do hard stuff using facebook and all that jazz. Pretty cool stuff so you should check it out. Pretty quiet week so far tho. Not much going on. Thanks for everything. Hope the Utah trip was all good. Love Elder Roe

Email 09/24/12

Family, We had a pretty slow start to the week but we ended up doing pretty good this week. Lots of traveling and no different for the next couple days. Pretty much all of our appointments with people have been falling through which isn't fun but we are able to make up for it later on. We are really trying to work with a cool part member family. This is the guy that just came from Honduras. He is interested in coming to church with us and everything and he asks lots of questions. A funny experience with them: yesterday we had some time and wanted to stop by and see them. We got to talk to him and his member sister and brother-in-law. Pretty funny because I could barely understand what they were saying. People from Honduras talk very fast, abnormally fast actually. Then since there was 3 of them, it was even worse. My poor companion who doesn't know spanish really struggled no doubt on what was going on. Then there was me going back and forth in spanish, trying to answer serious questions in the best way with my broken spanish. In the end it all worked out and it was all good. Most spanish people I talk with now understand I am still learning spanish and so they speak slower for me but when all 3 native Honduras people get together, they just go off. I don't know how I understood anything but way awesome that I can even respond. I really enjoy spanish and hope that I get more areas with opportunities to speak more spanish. I hope to teach english to this Honduras family because they don't understand anything really. They don't even understand their little kids (who are learning more english then spanish). So hopefully I can get to help them learn some english more. That would be awesome. Other then lots of spanish, not a whole lot going on. We have general conference coming soon which is exciting. We also have transfers this Thursday so interesting to see what will happen. Thanks for all you do. Love Elder Roe

Email 09/17/12

Family, How is everyone? We are doing pretty good here in Newton. We had a couple rainy days and cooler weather which is awesome. Kinda of a slow week and we had a lot of cancellations of appointments. Not too bad otherwise. We got a couple new investiagtors this week which was great. We went to visit a LA spanish family this week and we go by and turns out a family member just got here from Honduras like the other day and will be staying here for quite some time looking for a job. He isn't a member but really interested in being baptized and has been involved in the church whenever he has been here in the united states so we are hoping that we can help him out and get him to progress and get a spiritual confirmation. Way sweet that we found him though. We had stake conference here which was pretty sweet. Good stuff happening. Also found out that Gladys Knight is coming to the mission with her choir and everything. I think it is the same thing they had in Orlando some time ago. Meant to invite investigators and all that stuff. She will sing, bear her testimony and all that jazz. Pretty cool. We were really excited. Coming in October. Then came the bad news. Everyone in the mission will be able to go....except Wichita zone. That is where I am. Lame. So we won't be able to participate in it unless I get transferred or something. Other than that, we are doing pretty good. Thanks for everything. Love Elder Roe

Email 09/10/12

Family, All is well here in Newton, Kansas. Surprisingly we have had a nice little cold snap so it has been really cool and only getting up to like the 80s. So it has been really awesome. So much better when it is cool. Although that also means that suit jacket season for us starts soon with general conference coming up. Hope it stays cool during that. This past week has been pretty good. Up and down. Elder Haws messed up his neck so we had to go to the doctor and everything and he has been resting it for a couple days. So that took us out of commission for a day or two so we are starting to move into gear more the past couple days. Should be all good here in a few days. Week went good otherwise. I had my first baptismal interview on Friday and that went really well. The guy was baptized all good and everything so that was exciting for the sisters that taught him. Yesterday, Sunday, we had 2 of our former investigators come to church to our surprise. We were able to talk to them and see what got them to just get up and come to church and everything. They have had serious trials and everything the past month or so so they are looking for understanding and wanting to increase their faith by coming to church. Both expressed their desire to have us meet with them again and they have awesome fellowship. We were also able to give them both blessings at their request. They were really looking to learn more and they are showing it by their actions. So, I was really happy about that. We also got to go thru a lot of spanish and all that. I have noticed my spanish has been getting better. I gave the closing prayer in sacrament yesterday and the whole time I wanted to speak in spanish so I had to translate (in my head) all I wanted to say from spanish to english. I have noticed that I have been more comfortable in speaking and teaching in spanish then in english. Rather interesting. I think that is a good thing though. We are looking forward to this coming week to work hard. All is good otherwise. Thanks for all the love and support. Love Elder Roe

Email 09/04/12

Family, We are doing rather good these past few days. Although we need to work more with the part member family that we had on date. They are starting to back off so we are going to try to work with them more. As for the spanish work in the area we are starting to teach more. I have a lot of support with the spanish members here and they want to go out with us to see their friends. I'm pretty excited. We have dropped a lot of investigators and kind of at a stand still in the area of work so we are trying to find more people to teach and more support in helping them from the members. So a lot of the work recently has been the spanish which I love. I noticed that I teach better in spanish then in english. I can answer questions really good in english and whatever but when it comes to actually teaching a lesson, I prefer spanish since that is what I studied my whole time in the MTC. We had a really hot couple days so that is not fun but we are staying rather cool. Plus one of our tires has a leak so we have to deal with that too now. We are doing good other then that and just getting used to being a district leader. A lot of more meetings, travel, and phone calls, trainings etc so a lot more work then just being a normal missionary. All good though. Not much other to report this week. Thanks for everything. Love Elder Roe

Email 08/27/12

Family, We finally had rain in this area. Although it is far too late to save crops and the other fields out here. It rained for about 2 days straight and within a couple hours the ground sucked it all up. Very quick because the land is so dry. We were able to teach a good amount of people this past week and really get to know the ward more. It was really great to have a better relationship with the members. We also had zone conference on Tuesday and that went really good. Learned a lot and good to see other elders and hear from the mission president. We have a baptismal date for a 9 yr old girl that we may have to push back some because the family struggles to come to church often. That is really the only thing holding her back but we have talked a lot with the family and to their relatives who can hopefully just pick up the girl and take her to church if the parents can't or something. We are praying things work out with them though. I have been able to speak some more spanish which is really fun. I have noticed that I am a lot more comfortable in speaking spanish then in english when it comes to teaching a lesson about the gospel. I can teach really good in spanish but I can better answer questions and concerns obviously in english. But all is well in the area and we are doing good. The weather has been less intense so I am grateful for that. Thanks for all you do. Love Elder Roe

Email 08/20/12

Family, It has been a rather interesting week. I am now a district leader so I am in charge of a couple missionaries in the area. I am over an area called Hutchinson that has some sister missionaries. It is a way good area and they baptize a few times a month usually so it will be great to work with them all. We went to a different town north of our area for 2 days and stayed at some members house for the night which was not too bad. Not a whole lot of work in the area and always tough since we are only there for a couple days every month so we are just fellowshipping the members and the people who don't get seen by missionaries much. Plus we get fed more which is awesome. We do have one person with a baptismal date. A nice little girl in a part member family. They are excited for it and it will be really good for the family. It could help them come back to church more. School started now and it is getting harder to meet with people since they have little time and the kids are doing sports or other stuff. We are still hoping all is good though. I will be starting an english class for spanish members and investigators can learn english so I am really excited and stoked for what is going on. I feel that I will be here for quite some time. I might just spend half my mission in Wichita. Pretty funny. Mission is going good so nothing to complain about. All is well. Thanks for everything. Love Elder Roe

Email 08/13/12

Hey, This has a been a pretty decent week. We worked really hard to get back into contact with a lot of our former investigators and other people we haven't seen in awhile. We were able to start teaching a part member family again which was really great. They want one of their daughters baptized and the father is interested in taking the lessons again. So we are excited for that. I have really been pushing for more spanish work so I was able to contact a few referrals for spanish speaking people and that is doing pretty good. It is pretty easy to teach and talk to spanish people but very hard to get them to progress. I am working with the spanish members to help me fellowship with the spanish investigators. It is doing pretty good. One of the spanish families here knows like every spanish person in Newton so that is really helpful. This coming week is transfers but we are not expected to change anything since Elder Haws got here the same time. Tuesday and Wednesday though we will be in a city called McPherson. About half of the members here in that town so we are going to spend 2 days working in that area. We are staying in a members home and going to work around that area that never sees missionaries. So we are anxious for that and hoping we can contact a lot of people in that area. Long trip since like the city is like 45 min away from the apartment. All is good here otherwise though. It is starting to cool down here so we are really doing rather well. Thanks for all you do. Love Elder Roe

Email 08/06/12

Hola, This has been a pretty decent week. We had interviews with the mission president and that went well. Also the past 2 days we have had a serious cold front come thru. We only got up to 97 degrees. Pretty awesome. Mostly trying to stay cool. I have been able to speak more spanish the past week. I got a few spanish referrals of people for me to see. We are also going to go see this part member spanish family this week with some spanish members and see them. So the spanish work around here is doing pretty good and not too bad. We are also working really hard to get back into contact with a lot of investigators. We have kinda lost contact with people for the past week or 2 so that leaves a lot of room for those we teach to either progress or move on. So we are going to be working with them again and get more people to come to church which is something we have struggled with so far here. There aren't many people coming to church mostly with the excuse that it is "too early." Other than working hard and trying to stay cool, we aren't doing a whole lot new. Doing good. Hope all is well. Love Elder Roe

Email 07/30/12

Hey This past week has been a rather slow, hot week. We are averaging about 109 degrees or so around here and hit like 121 a week or 2 ago. We have been bearing the crazy heat and thankfully we have full time car. Our mission president even advised us to avoid going out during the heat of the afternoon and try to get out earlier in the morning to see people then come back for lunch and studies while it is the hottest of the day. As for the work in this area, it is doing okay. We have a goal for someone we are teaching to be baptized Aug 18th and we are working with her to quit smoking. We are working with some other people too but mostly focusing on helping out the ward and getting to know the ward better and work with them. We still dont know like half the ward since both Elder Haws and I came here at the same time and we didn't see a lot of the members with Elder Jensen. We are managing though. As for the spanish in this area it is doing okay. I am teaching a couple people and really working with the spanish members to make them feel more comfortable. The spanish members have been coming to church more which I am excited for. I have talked to them a lot and they don't really want a spanish branch here but rather learn more english. That is why they come here to Newton instead of traveling like 30 min to the closest spanish branch. So I am going to start an english class for them to learn the basics of english and basics of the church like learning to say a prayer, have a conversation, bearing their testimony, etc in english. I am excited for it because it is an opportunity for them to invite their friends to the class and learn english even if they are not really interested in learning more about the gospel. It helps the community at the very least. So I am stoked for that and working to get all the books and stuff to have the class. Other then that everything is doing pretty good here. We are trying our best to keep cool. Thanks for everything. Love you all. Elder Roe

Email 07/23/12

Hey, This past week has been pretty good. We shipped off Elder Jensen on Tuesday and he was on a plane Thursday night. Elder Haws and I are doing good though. We are getting adjusted to the area and really learning so I think we will be fine in the area. We did get into contact with part member family that Elder Jensen didn't know anything about. The Nicholson family. Sister Nicholson is the sister of one of the spanish members in the ward but has a girl and her husband who are not baptized. We talked to them and they want the 9 year old girl baptized and the husband is okay with it and wouldn't mind learning more. Not sure how interested the husband is but we are happy for the family and this can really help the family be more active. The Murua family (ones related to the Nicholson family) were so happy that I came and I speak spanish and had been waiting to tell the missionaries about her family who is a part member family so it was awesome to help out the family. I am trying to continue to gain the trust of the spanish families here. I am slowly working and just need to actually do service for them and it will help. Yesterday at church we had a lot of spanish families there which was a first in a long time for the area. It was great. Plus there is spanish drama here similar to my last area and families that don't get a long but the families involved both showed up at the same time (never happens) for sacrament AND stayed so I'm hoping that we are making progress with them. Good to hear. Other than that we are doing pretty good around here. Enjoying the area and think we are going to be working hard. Thanks for everything! Love Elder Roe

Email 07/16/12

Hola, SO Newton is turning out to be a pretty nice area. I really enjoy the spanish potential we have here. I am working really hard with the members to gain the spanish trust and it is working great. We have found really great spanish investigators and the members are taking us to go see their spanish friends. I am the first spanish missionary in Newton in over a year so they are happy to have another one again. I am trying to build a spanish branch here and I think we are really close to having our own here. We had a great few lessons with a guy I met named Jose. He is searching for truth and wants to go to a church to seek help from God in his problems he faces with his family. He was so happy to meet with us because he said he really feels we can help him and the gospel can answer his questions. I am having a good time here and look forward to the next couple weeks here. Elder Jensen is going home in 2 days and it was great to serve with him his last bit before the end of his mission. He really worked hard in this area to gain back the members trust after a very long stent of bad missionaries destroying the area. I knew Newton while i was serving in Rolling Hills and it was known as a dead area and that no one wanted to go there. Great to see Elder Jensen turn it around. It is pretty crazy that I have been out for a year now. Doesn't really feel like it at all. I appreciate the packages and the half-way boxes and the tie. It was pretty amusing. It's been a busy week of going around everywhere and seeing people and been a great time. Not much other to say than I am pretty happy for the new area and second half of my mission. Thanks for everything. Love Elder Roe

Email 07/09/12

Family, So we had transfers. I'm back in the Wichita area. I'm in a city called Newton. I remember the area from when I was in Rolling Hills. Newton was a way lame area and always had a tough time but recently has been getting better. Some other crazy news is that I am in a tripod.....pretty weird. I am with Elder Jensen and Elder Haws. Elder Jensen is deaf, which is pretty interesting. But he has cochlear implants so he can talk and it's all good. He is a great missionary and maybe I can even learn a little sign language along the way. We are in a tripod because Elder Jensen goes home in 2 weeks so he is teaching us the area so that when he leaves, Elder Haws and I can take over the area. Elder Haws has been out for 6 months now and is from Utah, as is Elder Jensen. President Keyes told me that I am here in Newton to create a spanish branch in this area. Elder Haws doesn't speak spanish so I am on my own in that regards. There are a few really active spanish families and they have been waiting to have spanish missionaries in this area for about a year. So I am going to work to get all the spanish active then work on getting more spanish to come and be baptized so we can have a spanish branch in Newton as well as an english ward. The area is pretty good and I love the zone. I know a lot of missionaries in this area. Elder Miller, who I served with in Rolling Hills, is still there; Elder Haws' last companion was Elder Peterson who I knew in the MTC; Elder Haines, my MTC companion is in the zone; Elder Blake, my old district leader in Marshall is here; Elder Lusk, friend from the MTC, is the zone leader. Crazy connections in the zone. Then there is also Elder T Jensen in the zone is from FT Lauderdale, so crazy! Neither one of us have met another elder from Florida or even SE United States. Pretty sweet. Well some really sweet news, A.M. was baptized. Even better, we baptized her the day before I left Marshall instead of doing it this weekend like we were planning. So she was baptized July 4th, because spanish people don't celebrate Independence Day. They don't even know what it is lol. It went really good and she felt great. I was really happy. She recieved the gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday and all went well with that. I talked to her yesterday and she is doing well and is now applying to go to BYU or UVU. I told her to call if she needs help so it would be awesome if our recent convert could go to BYU and I see her there. I have also been calling some old members in Wichita to say what's up and hopefully I can meet with some of the old members I worked with in Rolling Hills. So, this has been a pretty busy week and really good week. We met the ward and I have talked to most of the spanish members and I think that there is a lot of spanish potential in this area so I am excited to work in this area. I think that I will be here for awhile. Found out that Saturday hit a comfortable temperature of 114 degrees. Pretty hot. We had the car thankfully. This area is normally part time car but President Keyes told me that we will have fulltime car so I can work with the spanish and help the Valley Center spanish elders cover all of Wichita speaking spanish and assisting the spanish-speaking investigators. So a very eventful week. I did get the packages and the shoes so thanks a lot for that! Thanks for everything. Love Elder Roe

Email 07/02/12

Family, This has been a pretty decent week. An update on the branch. The sister that was airlifted, is back home now, but just a waiting day for her. She wanted to pass on at home and with her family. Sad. Then A's mom (guy we baptized a few months ago) now has 5 weeks to live. Not good. He is taking it really hard. Then another member in the branch is also having complications with health. All 3 are survivors of breast cancer and have had it coming back now. Tough time on the branch members but we are trying to keep positive attitudes. As for the work in the area, we finally have A.M., 18, on date for July 7th. That is exciting. We are going to try and work with the father now who is the last nonmember in the family. We have that this weekend, then hopefully the following weekend, Bro U will be baptized. We still have to work with him some more and get more info on him and his readiness. We are going to have the branch president interview him and the member wife. We are teaching a lot of good part-member families. The branch mission leader is really great and getting us to gain member support and have us teach the less-active and part-member families with the hometeachers. It is really going great. I am loving the area now. Transfers is this week, so I think I am going to leave. I am really interested to see where I go because there is going to be a lot of changes in the whole mission come Thursday so I am really excited to see what is happening. It has been crazy hot out here. To make things better, the other day we walked into our apartment beat, from the heat, and it was hotter inside our apt then outside....and our a/c was on. Our room was like 99 degrees. We had a miserable 2 nights and the a/c man cleaned everything and its all good now thankfully. But crazy. We needed it bc it is pushing 110 with the heat index now. Way hot. We haven't had any rain either. But we hear that Florida is under water so shoo some rain over here for us. We desperately need it. The stake has asked that people fast and pray for rain. Thankful for full-time car. I will not be riding a bike in this nonsense. It isn't even humid, courtesy of no rain, so its just dry heat. Lame. Other than that, we are doing really good. Thanks for the shoes and everything. Love everyone Elder Roe

Email 06/25/12

Hey, This past week has been pretty eventful. Rather stressful. We just had the baptism just over a week ago which was great. Then a few days later we found out that one of the widows in the branch, J.H., passed away at 64. Funeral service was really nice to have lots of family there. She was the only member in her family and her sister came up to us and said she wanted to see us more and for us to stop by anytime and talk with her. Nice lady. It was good for the whole family to see what church Jessica went to and what we are all about. Then to add to more bad news, the day of the funeral the branch president told us that another woman in the branch was just airlifted from the local hospital to a more advanced hospital an hour away in really bad shape. Last we heard she was still not doing good at all. Her husband, Bro A is the one who baptized Bro S this past week. The S's are doing good. Sis S had really scary surgery to fuse her back. Thankfully she is doing good and surgery went as planned and she is healing great. As for the other work we have been doing this past week, we are working with Bro U and A.M. Both are progressing toward a baptismal date. We just need to check up on a few things with each and A should be baptized here soon. Work is doing really good and we really being blessed in this area. Marshall hasn't seen this kind of work or blessings in work in quite some time. Really great to be apart of it. We have transfers in just under 2 weeks and I think I will be leaving so I am trying to make the most of it in this area while it lasts. Other than a lot of things going on with the branch, not a whole lot else to say. Thanks for the prayers and support. Love Elder Roe

Email 06/18/12

Family, We had a really good week. The S's baptism went well and confirmation on Sunday went according to plan. So it was a really good experience and they even had some of their family there which was really nice. They are really excited and doing great. Now we are going to try and work with the rest of their family. The branch was really excited to see them get baptized and I think it got everyone excited about missionary work again. After the baptism, one of the part-member family's that came to see it, the 18 yr old girl said she wants to be baptized now. So that is pretty sweet. We are going to be working with them (M, spanish family) and also the Ussery family. When I first got here, we baptized the 3 kids. Now the dad wants to be baptized. We just started teaching him and reminding the family about their baptismal covenants. Overall I think it will be good for the family. They are trying to revamp their excitement and activation in the church so this is exactly what they need. Besides the U's and M family wanting to be baptized (both part member families which is always awesome) we are working with a few more spanish people. We are doing good in reactivating the spanish members and they are doing a lot better and wounds are being healed from past drama amongst the spanish families. Besides that we are doing pretty good. The work is picking up in the area and we are teaching a lot of people. Our mission leader is doing sweet and really helping us out in being more organized and everything. The weather has been pretty moderate this week. It actually rained pretty good for a day or 2. This area is longing for more rain. Apparently the crops and farms are really struggling with the little, well no rain we have had this season. Everything else is doing really good. Hope everything is good with you guys. Love, Elder Roe Picture from Schildmeier's baptism.....suh-weet!

Email 06/11/12

Family, This past week has been pretty good. We are excited to have our baptism for the Schildmeier's this saturday. They are really excited for it too so it will be really good. We had great lesson with them and the branch loves them already. They are totally ready. Then this week we were able to get into contact again with a spanish referral from church HQ and he is doing well. His name is V.C. and we are working on a baptismal date with him. He had met with missionaries in the past and after he moved he wanted to learn more so we are starting to teach him. He still has some ways to go and we need to work on some things but he is doing good and really wants to follow Christ more in his life. V said that he was talking with a preacher a while ago and he happened to mention that he was learning and taking lessons from the mormons. The preacher told him all this false stuff about the church (which we cleared up with him) and V responded by "That can't be true" then said "You know I have learned more from the mormon missionaries then I have from you or any other preacher I've talked to" Big slap in the face for the poor guy but V is right. The only thing really holding V back now is the word of wisdom and he needs to get married lol. Pretty much all spanish investigators all have a problem with drinking, coffee (big especially with El Salvador), and they just never got married to their "spouse" of like 15 years. So once we figure out how we will get them married, we can start getting somewhere. We also started working with a couple part member families that we have been finding thanks to our new branch mission leader who is awesome. Things are really picking up in the area and we have better support with the branch president and other members here. Change is good and I think that is what this branch needed to get excited about missionary work again. Other than that, all is well here. It is brutal hot but we had a good rain last night which was far overdue and the farmers have been praying for it but still looking out to be a rough summer. Thanks for everything. Love Elder Roe

Email 06/04/12

Family, We have had a really good past week. We worked really hard with the branch to get more of the less-active people to come to church and everything. We were able to work with the Astorga family and got them to church for the first time in a while which is great because we are working to get the husband back in full fellowship again and send him off to the temple to be sealed with his family. So it is really exciting to work with them and see the spirit work in them to increase their desire to come back to church and eventually go to the temple. We also got a new branch mission leader which we are really excited to work with. He came back from his mission a few years ago and still has a urge to share the gospel. I think this is exactly what the branch really needs right now. So we have been working a lot with him this past week and with the branch president to have a better relationship and progress to meet the needs of the branch. So this past week has been a lot of adjusting and helping the branch out more. As for the spanish work in the area, it has been really lagging. It is easy to get new spanish investigators but really hard to actually get them to progress and fulfill committments and return appointments. But we were able to find a few new people to teach. One is a part member family that recently moved in. Only the wife was baptized a long time ago and doesn't even know she is a member and who Joseph Smith is. So the hometeachers of the woman have been teaching her and we were just introduced to them awhile the other day and are going to start teaching the whole family and to remind the wife about what she joined all these years ago. So that is exciting. Plus an update with the Schildmeier family. This is the older couple who the wife had her name removed from the church some time ago but wants to be baptized and she has been coming to church with her husband (never joined) for the past few months. We had a great conversation with them yesterday and have a baptism set for them both on June 19th. Which is really sweet. We are also going to hopefully work with their other family they have in Marshall who aren't members. So we have some real potential in this area. This past Friday we had zone conference in Kansas City. It was really good. Learned a lot of new things and a great time to be instructed and trained by President Keyes and the leaders in the mission. Overall we are doing really good here. Thanks for everything. Glad to hear about Keriann's graduation. Love Elder Roe

Email 05/29/12

Family, This past week was transfers. I stayed here in Marshall with Elder Perez again. Because of the transfers though it was a slower week. We did get to talk more to the families and I think we have a good relationship with all the members here. We also had a few really good talks with this less active member in our branch. He is not in full fellowship in the church and we have been trying to really help him out and change his current standing. His family along with another spanish family in the branch have a big feud going on for the past several years so we are also trying to mend some wounded feelings. It has been a rather difficult time especially since neither family wants to go to church if the other family is there. So we have been at a stand still with neither one of the families going to church. But we had some good discussions with the branch president and with the other members to find out how we can help them. The Schildmeiers are doing really well. We had a great 2 hour conversation with them after they met with the branch president this past week. They are progressing and it is great that Bro S has a lot of questions because the gospel has the answers. He says that everything just seems to make sense which is what is so great about teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ because it really does just "make sense." Even though we didn't get transferred, we went with the Sedalia missionaries to pick up their new companion and then go shopping in Kansas City since Marshall has no shopping lol. We also found some time to go into the spiral Community of Christ temple right next to the Independence visitors center. It was pretty interesting. We walk in and everyone is staring at us. The workers didn't want to look at us and tried to avoid us but we made sure to say hello. We kill people with kindness. They weren't very hospitale towards us. They gave us a map and said to go look at the places instead of giving us a guide like everyone else. But it was a nice experience to show that the church loves all churches and isn't prejudice toward anyone. We are trying to find more spanish people to teach since everyone that we have now aren't really progressing and starting to avoid us. All the spanish people here are very catholic or pentecostal and like meeting with us but then they get pressured by their friends to not meet with us anymore. Really a shame bc there are people we meet that want to learn more but bc of pressure or other influences they back off. Other than that not much going on in Marshall. We did get invited to a Jehovah Witness convention in KC but we have zone conference. Maybe we could catch a bit afterward. Thanks for everything. Love Elder Roe

Email 05/21/12

Family, This past week has been pretty good. We found a couple more people that we could teach that look really promising. Unfortunately we ran into some problems with the Haro family. We got a phone call from the wife saying that her husband said to ask us not to come over anymore. She is upset about it and didn't want to have to tell us that. So it was disappointing to get dropped by them but we have passed by a couple times just to say hello to them. The husband likes to drink and felt uncomfortable being around us and is still stand offish but the wife is still really nice. I think that we might be able to get back in to meet with the wife but just not the husband. We had a really good chat with the branch president on how we can make things better in the area. We have been working a lot with this family in which the father is disfellowshipped. We have really been trying to help them progress and improve in coming to church and eventually be welcomed back in full fellowship in the church. We also got to see 17 Miracles with them and Axel. It was really awesome. Amazing movie about the pioneers and they really liked the movie too. I feel good and think that we helped establish a better relationship with the branch president through talking about the needs of the area. He is also meeting with 2 investigators this wednesday to evaluate their desire to be baptized so hopefully we will have the Schildmeier couple baptized in the next 2 weeks or so. We are also working with the Martinez's to baptize the husband and 1 daughter they have that aren't members yet. But we want to help the whole family start coming to church more before we get them baptized. We really don't want them to just fall off the face of the earth after we baptize them. We have transfers here this week. I am not sure what is going to happen with me. I might be leaving but I am sure I will just stay here. I like this area so I would be okay with that. That's pretty much it around here. Have a good time with Keriann's debate thing. Thanks for everything. Love Elder Roe

Message from Lorraine

If you are up to date with Elder Roe's emails, then you know about the Kansas City Temple and about the Cultural Celebration that occurred the evening before the dedication. Well, as a family we watched everything that we could find online to watch, so that we could see what Elder Roe (and 200 other missionaries) were able to experience. While searching and watching various videos for hours, Jeff came across something that completely surprised all of us. It is a personal blog I am inviting you to look at...http://kcldstemple.blogspot.com/2012/05/no-words-to-describe.html Go to the May 7th entry titled "No Words to Describe", scroll down to the 9th picture! It's Elder Roe at the Cultural event! Here is my comment that I added to that blog: "Speaking of "No words to describe"....my family spent an evening searching online for clips from the Cultural Celebration. We had the laptop hooked up to a bigger TV, gathered everyone around and watched everything that we could find. We were so interested because our son, Elder Roe, had told us that he had participated in the event. In his emails, he had described the event. I cried when I read his email. It sounded like an amazing experience. As we watched clips from LDS Newsroom and Youtube, we knew that spotting our missionary would be next to impossible, so we were just thrilled to watch such a spectacular event that he was able to be a part of. When the missionary melody began, and the youth parted down the middle for the missionaries to enter, tears streamed down my face. I thought about how blessed these missionaries were to be serving in this temple district and how they would be able to teach their investigators in this area and maybe one day, those families could enter into this beautiful temple and have an eternal family. At one point, we thought we saw a glimpse of Elder Roe, so we slowed it down and realized it was another Elder and maybe his family would spot him in the crowd. As we finished watching everything we could find, we all went our separate ways in the house. About 30 minutes later, my husband calls us back in to the room....my heart started racing because he called us with urgency in his voice. When I entered the room, I saw on the TV a picture from your blog. It was my son, his companion and his two zone leaders. I could not believe my eyes! It was absolutely amazing to me that my husband stumbled upon your blog AND out of over 200 missionaries, our missionary was in one of your photos! I had not seen a picture of my son in a very long time. I just stood there and cried. It was the night before Mother's Day....the best one ever. The next day, I was able to talk to him. He called us from a members home and they allowed him to look up your blog and see the picture. He remembered having his picture taken. He again told us about the Cultural Celebration and how amazing the experience was. Thank you so much for having this blog. Our family loved all of the pictures, although we have our favorite! We consider this one our many tender mercies. Sincerely, Lorraine Roe"

Email 05/14/12

Family, It was good to talk to everyone yesterday. Next time we'll skype. This past week has been kinda slow. We have been busy going around to the spanish families. We are really pushing to get them to church. We even made our rounds Sunday morning to pick up some spanish investigators but they all flaked out. We are going to have to work harder on finding more people to teach and helping the people we teach to keep committments. That has been a tough part in our teaching recently. The Schildmeier family is doing really well. We hope to see them more here soon. They live like 50 miles away so we don't have the miles to go way out there so we have to wait for them to have the time to drive to the church building to meet with us. This coming week should be a busy one for us. The McClintock family is going to be going with us to drive to some of the smaller towns and see the members that live out there and don't come to church bc it is too far away. So we are excited for that this Saturday. Nothing else really going down soon. Pretty much told my last 5 months over the phone yesterday. lol. Thanks for everything you do. Love Elder Roe

Email 05/07/12

Family, This past week has been pretty sweet. We had a few really good lessons with spanish investigators. The Haro family is doing okay but really are going to push for them to read the Book of Mormon. We invited them for baptism and the husband wants to but wants to wait to do it with his wife, who needs some more time to read and pray. We did make progress so we now know how we can help both of them progress together. Then we had a great lesson with the Schildmeiers. Brother S had a lot of questions and he is really interested. We have to wait to hear from Salt Lake on when they can be baptized since sister S had her name removed but we should be able to baptize them both by the end of the month. We are excited for them and they have perfect fellowship into the ward. As for this past weekend, it was amazing. Friday, Elder Perez was in Independence for a meeting so I went with Elder Ofa from Hawaii into his area and had a blast. Really good time there. Then Saturday was the Cultural Celebration. It was awesome. We practiced for awhile then drove to Olathe so Elder Perez can confer the priesthood to one of his recent converts who is about to go on his mission. Pretty cool. Then we went back to hang out with the missionaries (all 200 of us came) and practice more. Then the actual event. It was so cool. 3,000 youth from the temple district all singing, dancing, cheering, etc in front of President Monson, and Elders Walker and Hallstrom from the 70. It was so neat. Then at the very end they had a missionary melody of "I want to be a missionary now" They had all the youth singing. Then in the middle of the area, they split up and opened the way for all us missionaries to walk thru. All the youth went to bended knee, and all the audience (around 10,000 total) stood to cheer and clap us in as we sang "We'll bring the world his truth (Army of Helaman)" It was so awesome. Once we stopped and were singing, we look up and we are singing directly to the prophet who is standing up to see us all. It was an amazing experience and really cool to sing for him. The whole time there, as we were walking around, people come up to give us a hug or high-five or just clap and cheer when they see the missionaries. It was really neat. We didn't get home til really late then had to wake up early again to go to the stake center an hour away to see the temple dedication. It was really awesome. President Monson was really funny. Elder Holland showed up for it all too, which was sweet. Already 27 marriages set to be in the temple the very first day tomorrow. So crazy. So now we are able to go to the temple sometime as long as we try to get a ride. It was really a great experience the past couple days. We have traveled like 500 miles the past 4 days but it has been really cool. At the dedication President Monson actually said "We got a taste of heaven at the cultural celebration last night" That was pretty sweet. I was really hoping for a conference with President Monson for all the missionaries but that didn't happen. He was supposed to talk to us and have a picture/shake our hands thing before the event but he was too busy. We did notice tho that he had a little boot on his foot and is walking a little slower/harder for him. His wife wasn't there because she was too sick as well. But we pray they will be okay. So this week has been really busy but awesome times. I really enjoyed it. Hopefully we are able to get a dvd copy of the celebration. Thanks for everything Love Elder Roe

Email 04/30/12

Family, This past week was pretty good. We couldn't get any investigators to go to the temple with us so we went with a guy and his nonmember son from our neighbor ward. Really cool guy who doesn't really like going to church but loves the missionaries and has been helping them for a couple years, feeding them and taking them places. It was a really cool experience. I think the final stats on who went to the temple open house is around 100,000 people went thru the tours. That is pretty sweet. As for the area, like every lesson we teach is in spanish. All we have are spanish investigators. We are really pushing for a spanish branch in this area. We found out that we need 20 active, including 6 Melchizedek priesthood. That is pretty reasonable so we should be good. We are just really struggling getting them to church. It is like all of them don't believe that we have spanish members that they can interact with. Most spanish people in Marshall all go to similar churches but really just to socialize and hear the gospel in their own language. We are trying to just trick them all into coming to church one day and they can see each other and believe they aren't the only spanish people interested in the church. It doesn't help that the spanish people that are already members, don't go to church. Plus there is a major fued between 2 spanish member families that has been going on for awhile and neither are willing to drop it. That definitely puts a blockade in our reactivation process. We are really working hard with the spanish investigators and especially the part-member spanish families here. We are really progressing in this area. One family is the Haro's. We have been working with them for awhile, but now with Elder Perez we are able to communicate better with them. They went to the open house with another family from a different ward and really liked so we are going to follow-up on them. They have had dreams of being in all white in the temple with their kids and hope that the open house was an answer to their prayers. We are really praying for them. With the temple open house done, we are now allowed to take off our suit jackets and just wear white shirts when we go out which is really nice now that the weather is warming up and everything. Other than that we are doing really good here. I think that I will stay here in Marshall for a while longer. The spanish work is growing here so we really need to keep 2 spanish elders here. Thanks for all you do. Love, Elder Roe

Email 04/23/12

Family, This past week has been pretty good. We got a few new investigators that look pretty good. Pretty much all of our lessons have been spanish. It is amazing how easy you get in to talk to a spanish family when you have a companion that isn't white and is fluent in spanish. Really helpful. We also met a really nice old guy who was a member and now wants to come back and be baptized again. Really interesting because this is the second person that we've come into contact with that wants to come back to church. Really sweet because it means that they are ready to repent and change their lives. We also are working to help the investigators we already have, to start progressing. We were really sad that none of our investigators came to church yesterday. But we are working really hard with a couple part-member families that we hope will start coming to church together. There is the Martinez family. Only the mom and 1 of the daughters is a member. They struggled coming to church but one of their friends, like family, just came from Mexico to live with them. He is a convert too and we hope that he can help us really get them to come to church. We are planning on going to the temple open house with them this saturday. This is the last week so we gotta go. As of last sunday, 40,000 ppl have already gone thru the temple, so the church is really getting their name out there. Our whole mission is looking forward to a surge of new converts and progressing the whole missouri/kansas area bc of the temple. My spanish is improving which is good. It is actually really funny when we knock on a spanish persons door and they immediately look to Elder Perez and talk to him and when I speak up and say something or whatever they are like super suprised and like "Oh, habla espanol su companero?" Although I have noticed spanish getting rather difficult since Elder Perez is fluent they talk like super fast and stuff to him and I struggle to keep up. I get like 70% at least tho. But all the time they are like "asdhflkjasdljk fadkfjhadfhdfhaksjd h hahahahahahaha".....a bunch of blended sentences crammed into like 3 words it sounds like then they laugh at the end. Really amusing. But everything has been really good around here. The weather is calming down to be a cool/warmer feel which is nice. We are excited for the cultural celebration on May 5th, I think. It is really sweet sounding. We will be practicing all day then performing it in front of President Monson and Elder Holland. All the missionaries are hoping that they hold a conference to just talk to all the missionaries here or at least we get to shake his hand and stuff. All good here. Thanks for everything. Love Elder Roe

Email 04/16/12

Family,

Transfers were this past week. I stayed and Elder Decker left for Liberty area. I have Elder Perez now. He is from Cali but parents are from Mexico and he is very much fluent. I am really excited to work with him. It will be very helpful to have a native spanish speaker as a companion to help the area and improve my own spanish. I am looking forward to seeing the spanish people more and being able to have a better contact with them all. I think we can eventually have a spanish branch here some day. Unfortunately we couldn't go to the open house with the Salmeron family this past Saturday. We have to set up a different time the works better for them. Luckily the open house has been extended thru April 28th so we have a little bit longer to get a reservation and get them up there. I really want them to be able to go. We are also trying to go with some other less active spanish members here. We have already gotten into homes we haven't been able to with Elder Perez fluentness. We speak spanish a lot and I am learning a lot of vocab and phrases to help. Now I have some help with translating as well. Elder Perez also likes to cook a lot and I am getting a bigger exposure to spanish food and learning myself how to cook some. I still like my chicken nuggets tho. That won't change. We got to talk to the branch president for a while to correlate missionary efforts in the area as well. That went really well. I am optimistic that things will be getting better in Marhsall and people can start progressing, especially with the spanish work. In other words, a quiet week.
Thanks for everything.

Love
Elder Roe

Email 04/09/12

Family,

We had a pretty good week. We talked a lot with the Salmeron family. We are going to the temple with them this saturday. Pretty stoked. We also got to contact this referral we have had for a while but never been able to contact. It is a girl that is going to the college. Her name is Charlique. She is from the Bahamas. She ran into some members in some competition and started talking and wanted to learn more. We took Miguel with us and we had a good chat with her. She is pretty interested in learning more. This is like the first referral I've received that has gone anywhere so it was nice for once. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon which she was really interested in. She was really appreciative of our visit and we look forward to working with her more. Not a whole else going on this past week. We have transfers this week but I am pretty sure that I will be staying. My spanish is the same. I have been doing okay with it but I am going to be working pretty hard this coming week the work on my temple vocab and everything since we will be doing the temple tour in spanish. There is actually so much demand to go (they sold out like a couple weeks ago for english) that they extended it for a week. So now it is until April 28th. That is good for us because we still have a chance to invite people to it. We will be going to the stake center to see the dedication. President Monson is going to be the one coming so we are all really excited. Still haven't heard if we will be a part of the group going to the cultural event. Love everyone. Be safe at the guard championships.
Elder Roe

Email 04/02/12

Family,

This past week was pretty good. We got to see a few people and help them out. The Salmeron family is doing well. We got Miguel to watch all the sessions of General Conference. I thought general conference was really good. Always pretty sweet to see the difference of things you learn from conference as a missionary. I liked the general theme of rescuing others. I felt that conference was perfect for everyone, member, lessactive, nonmember. Plus the emphasis of eternal marriage which we are trying to help the members in the branch work toward. Think it's always interesting the way some members in judging others we bring to church or "lessactive" people that they don't think are worthy to come to church because of their past or whatever. There is a problem with judging others in the church and some of that came in with conference on we have no right to judge because we ourselves sin. I like the talk that mentioned the bumper sticker that said "don't judge me because I sin differently than you" or something like that. Pretty funny. I have met lots of members who don't come to church because someone offended them or didn't feel welcome, etc. The only thing we can do is emphasize to them that the gospel is perfect, the people aren't. The speakers talked a lot about welcoming everyone back home. I thought it was really cool since we have family who aren't members or "lessactive" in the church. I thought something interesting was in the priesthood session Richard Edgley, i think, mentioned that we should pray for those we know or are in our own family that don't come to church or have something holding them back from partaking of the blessings in the gospel. It was a new thought that I hadn't really done before. I think we need to pray for all of our family and friends that are struggling spiritually, physically, etc so that they too can come back home. Our investigators are doing well. We have the Haro family still that we are trying to see more often. Really nice spanish family that I think just need some more spanish fellowship from the branch. That would really help them. Then we have the Schieldmiers or something who are a really nice older couple but hard to get a hold of. They usually come to church every week which helps a lot. She was a former member and is ready to come back along with her husband. We are excited for them. And I am excited for the temple open house with the Salmeron family. I really think that this is what they really need to start coming to church more and keeping commitments to increase their faith.
Good to hear everyone is good. Good luck with all the guard stuff and everything. Love you all
Elder Roe

Email 03/26/12

Family,

This past week has been pretty good. We did get to set up a day to go to the temple open house with the Salmeron family on April 14th. One of the kids won't be going but otherwise it will be really sweet. I am pretty stoked. We even got Miguel Sr to go to church Sunday. He didn't realize that I translate sacrament meeting (he didn't believe me when I told him) so he was pretty happy. Good testimony meeting so he liked it and wants to come more. Exciting. Almost as exciting as the 7 nonmembers we had show up at church yesterday. 4 of them were from the local university. They were in a religion class and their professor wanted them to go to a church they have never been or know about so they came to our little branch. It was pretty sweet. At least one of them was really interested. He was like "I feel more comfortable here than my own congregation." So we'll see how things go. The other nonmembers included a nice couple. One of them was a former member but she wants to be baptized now and her husband too so we are looking forward to working with them again. So things are doing pretty good here. Looking forward to the next couple weeks. We have been inviting lots of people to the temple open house and it is filling up really fast. They said they already have like 60,000 reservations or something. So crazy. Hopefully I get to be in the cultural event. Still wont know for awhile. The weather here has been really good. Warm and feels great. Really sweet to just sit outside and talk to people. I decided that I would update my long list of new food I've tried on my mission. I can't believe I even touched some of this food.
chinese food (general suh & stuff) - really weird tasting sauce and not a big fan, pepper steak is good.
meatballs - disgusting
pasta - not a fan
Lasagna - the worst dinner of my life, especially the veggie lasagna
fried pork steak - pretty good
pie (reeses) - okay
meatloaf - pretty bad
mexican bean & something mix - pretty gross
lots of weird salads - horrible
pie in general - i usually barf down
cow tongue - I cant believe I put this in my mouth. I could still taste the taste buds.
fajita - good as long as it is meat, lettuce, and tortilla, not this guca junk
heated fish sticks - a lot better than frozen fish sticks
cholula hot sauce - AMAZING ON EVERYTHING
mexican rice with veggies - really good as long as no carrots
pupusas - not too bad
peppermint candy ice cream - an abomination
mexican candy - not a fan
So that was a few more things that I tried. Definitely different than my tyson chicken strips. Keep praying that I will continue to bear these foods ppl keep feeding me.
Love ya'll
Elder Roe

Email 03/19/12

Family,

This past week was pretty good. On Tuesday we had a zone conference in Independence with like 5 other zones. pretty big bc the speaker was Elder David F Evans of the 70. He is also the executive director of the mission department. Elder Evans talked a lot about having a good desire to serve. Pointed out that our desire has to be within God's will, and our actions have to reflect our desire. Pretty sweet. He had us read Alma 17-42 b4 we met with him which talks a lot about missionary work and how to serve and be the most "successful" on our missions. Then Elder Evans talked about finding, how to ask for referrals, how to use the temple open house in KC to start conversations. Really good. Our mission as a whole is very excited and pumped for the temple in Kansas City. We are inviting ppl like crazy to attend the open house and go to the visitors center in Independence. The whole month of April will be a busy one for us missionaries in inviting and attending the open house with people. We should be going with this really cool spanish part member family that wants to go with us. The Salmeron family. Pretty sweet family. Only one of the 3 sons is a member and the parents aren't members either. We helped the whole family paint these apartments he owns & they love the missionaries. So hopefully the temple open house can boost their interest in the church and can progress. We also really want to take the Haro family who is a really cool investigating family. We are setting up a fellowship with them so we can all go as a big group to the open house. To help boost the excitement, Sister Keyes, the mission mom, bought all the missionaries a little pin to put on our suits with the Kansas City temple on it. Pretty sweet. The weather here has been rather warm that its too hot to have jackets on. The temple cultural event is like in the beginning of May which we should be going. At the very end, they will start with 1 deacon singing "We'll bring the world his truth" (army of helaman), then progress thru all the different quorums and groups of YM/YW til they get to like 150 missionaries led by President Keyes and Sister Keyes. Should be pretty sweet and hopefully I am close enough to go and be there. That would be pretty sweet. Not all of the missionaries will be able to go, only those that are close enough. President Monson is supposed to be the 1 dedicating it so it should be sweet to see him there. Then the dedication is on May 6th so that will be a first for me. Pretty exciting.
Thanks for everything. Hope all is well.
Love
Elder Roe

Email 03/12/12

Family,

All is pretty well here. We finally got to meet Bro. Eilers (part-member family). He is pretty cool. He is the head football coach here in Marshall but he says that the team is pretty bad. We talked a lot about football. Pretty funny bc he actually has video of apopka playing us from a couple years ago. Anyways, Jay is a pretty cool guy and we have been talking a lot with the kid who isn't baptized. Hopefully that goes somewhere here soon. We haven't had a whole lot of success in seeing the spanish people this past week. It was really good though this past sunday in translating. That went pretty good. I didn't have any spanish notes so it was all on the fly but worked out alright. Pretty funny to see Bro Boehner. He took us out to Applebees so that was fun. Saturday morning we went to play soccer with some other missionaries and a bunch of members and a few investigators from another area but that was really fun to fellowship with them by playing soccer. I told the spanish member who took us that I was a soccer champion and could do rainbow kicks, scorpion, etc bc he is really good but he quickly found out that I was just joking. Good week though. We get to have a zone conference tomorrow with a member of the 70 Elder Evans I think so that should be pretty sweet. Thanks for all you do.
Love
Elder Roe


Picture of Elder Roe's district



Elder Roe.....Tebowing in his apartment

Email 03/05/12

Family,

Transfers was Thursday, but no changes here. I am still with Elder Decker in Marshall. This past week was actually not too bad. We did get a snow day but didn't last more than a couple hours. It is starting to get kinda warm again here. We did here about all the crazy weather and everything in the Midwest. Everything has been fine here so far. There was a couple days that we were expecting to have tornado's here but nothing thank goodness. We finally got into contact again with the spanish family that I had met with. Got to meet the husband this time which was really good. Jose and Mercedes are a really nice couple with 3 kids. They speak all spanish so it was up to me to translate for Elder Decker and to take the lesson by myself. It was really good though. They were really happy to see us and I re-established the missionary trust again. Not sure where things will go anytime soon but I am really hoping that I can get them to church bc they already know a few of the members. They were really grateful that we could stop by and look forward to more times for us to come over. We also had like this random couple show up at church.... friends of some less-active ppl. We met them and they really enjoyed church and gave them a book of mormon and everything. They started reading it already so I think that they will be good family to follow up with later. We also had a spanish lady come that is a member we have been trying to get into contact with. That was pretty sweet sunday. I translated yesterday and it went better. Testimony meeting so I know my vocab for that pretty good. Not bad week. Good to hear all is well back home.
Love you guys.
Elder Roe

Email 02/27/12

Family,

What's up?
This past week was kinda lame. I was pretty sick with the cold/flu bug or whatever for like 5 days. Still have the lingering cough which stinks. I didn't translate this past sunday because it was a branch conference and none of the spanish members showed up on time anyway. They have a real tendency to do that. Really couldn't do a whole lot because I was sick but we did get to finally meet this cool part member family. They have a kid who hasn't been baptized yet. The family is really less active because the father is the head football coach for Marshall High. I haven't met the dad yet but we talked to the kid about faith and getting his whole family involved and everything. Did get them to open the door tho since I played football and we like sports and all that. Hopefully that is a connection that sticks. We haven't been able to get into contact with the Haro family tho which doesn't help. They are a really cool spanish family that have been taught by missionaries for awhile so I really hope that we can get back into contact with them again. This Thursday is transfers but I'm not expecting anything to change with me. My comp might leave tho. Not sure about this one. I really cross my fingers that I will stay in this area for awhile. I really enjoy the people and speaking some spanish at least. That's about it this past week.
Love ya
Elder Roe

Email 02/20/12

Family,

Past week went pretty good. We had interviews with our president. Plus we also had a training on the temple open house for Kansas City. They really want everyone to be able to go which is really nice. Us missionaries are allowed to go a total of 3 times. Pretty sweet. Then we found out that they are planning to have missionaries involved in the cultural event thing that the youth in the temple district get together to do. Don't know a whole lot about it but if I am in the area when it goes down, I might be able to go. We also had exchanges this past week. I stayed in Marshall and my comp for the day was another spanish elder so we got to go around to all the spanish members and talk to them. Went really well. I also got to stop by this family that I saw in our teaching records that had been investigating for a long time but once they got english elders they stopped being seen. So that went really well. I hope that we can really be able to teach them more and get somewhere again. They are the Haro family. Super cool family. They have a lot of faith despite tuff stuff. Really looking forward to meeting with them more. The wife was so happy to see us, she was also really appreciative that we try to speak spanish and could stop by and see her again. She said she missed "los elderes." I also got to translate again Sunday. Went a little better so that's nice. I am having whoever is speaking, run their talk thru an online spanish translation or if its from a general conference talk then on lds.org which has the correct translations. I also recruited the help of other spanish bilingual to help me out with translating. I am really working hard on the spanish lately so I am helpful that I can improve even more and not need to use online spanish translations (which are usually way off anyway) and can just hear and translate.
Thanks for everything. Hope everyone is good
Love
Elder Roe

Email 02/13/12

Family,

We just had a pretty nice snow storm here so we got a couple inches today. About time bc we have had a really mild winter. This past week has been alright. Little slow but that is all good. I did however translate sacrament meeting for the first time this past sunday. That was pretty sick. It didn't go very well bc the headsets weren't working very well and since the older members of the branch don't like me translating in the chapel, it was hard for me to hear outside. Overall tho, it was a lot better than I thought it would be. The spanish members appreciated it which is the main point. They might be creating a small little branch here sometime in the next couple months so that would be really cool for them to have everything in spanish for them. We did get some more info on the branch and who is part member families so i really hope that things can get easier to find and we can better learn the area. Besides more finding and trying to keep up with learning spanish, not much really going down here. I did have a pretty good birthday out here. Quiet which was nice but really enjoyed the letters and hearing from people.
Thanks for everything.
Love,
Elder Roe

Email 02/06/12

Family,

This past week was pretty good. We baptized Axel. He was so excited. Really enjoyed it. He also bore his testimony in church the next day. Rock solid dude. Saturday night we went to a spanish family to meet a bunch of them and really talk. I think my spanish is slowly getting better. Improving little by little. We also got to meet some of Axel's family which was neat. I can say that I went to Miami on my mission. There is a small town in our area called Miami. A whopping population of 160.....probably includes animals. They even have a "beach" or the banks of the Missouri river. We also met this super crazy guy at McDonalds. I've noticed that wearing a namebadge automatically qualifies us to always be approached, sometimes that is awesome and we have an opportunity to share the gospel, others just have a really good story to tell. This I feel is just a really good story to tell. At McDonalds with some other missionaries after a meeting, this older gentleman came up to us and started going off on these conspiracy theories. He claims that the Zodiac killer, Anthrax guy, and unibomber are all the same person and he hasn't been caught and lives in Marshall. He also told us about some confederate union stuff and they have a hidden tunnel under some farmers plot filled with guns and ammo ready for another rebellion and civil war. He handed us some little notecards with his name and title of a book he wrote and everything. Dude said that McDonalds was his church and he was the preacher and thought that everyone should go to church 3 times a day. Gave us a good laugh. Gotta love the people in this area. Tracting is the best. That is when you really get the good stories. Well besides Axel, and the crazy guy at Mcdonalds, nothing huge happened.
Thanks for the Love and support,
Elder Roe

P.S.-From Lorraine. Elder Roe's birthday is this Thursday, Feb. 9th....in case you can send him some birthday wishes!

Email 01/30/12

Family,

This past week was alright. We have another baptism this coming Saturday. It is Axel, he is the husband of a member in our ward. His wife speaks like zero english so that is interesting trying to communicate with them. But so my first day we went to go see him (he had taken discussions in the past but recently wasn't progressing or sitting in with his wife anymore so the missionaries dropped him as an investigator) and as we were sharing a scripture with him he was like "I want to be baptized." I was like sweet. Axel feels he is already ready for baptism and wants to do it asap. So we started teaching him and have him ready to go for this Saturday. So that is pretty exciting. There is a pretty good spanish support for them and his ultimate goal is to go to the temple with his family so Axel is a rock solid dude. Luckily he prefers english so he doesn't have to hear my broken spanish. I was supposed to start translating sacrament meeting yesterday but the equipment doesn't work so I'm off the hook for awhile longer. I am not ready and I get the feeling that the spanish members get that. I sit in the spanish doctrine class and all, but it is pretty tough stuff. They speak super fast and everything blurs into one word. But the spanish members are nice to me and really patient with my lack of spanish skills. I though I understood spanish pretty well but, I was way off. But this is a crazy legit opportunity for me to get my spanish up and running. This area is about to be a spanish branch so we really need spanish elders here. I have realized more everyday how small this place is. The marshall branch too has like a bunch of other really small towns outside of it that we cover as well. I have never seen or been in these old school towns. Pretty neat. Being from Orlando, I don't understand how people can survive without a Publix or any civilization. There is a small town called Slater, we have a couple members in that area. But like the only place to get food there is a general store where they buy everything, a thrift store for clothes and "gifts", and 1 gas station. That's it. SO crazy. But not a whole lot going on this week. I need to study spanish more and speak it as much as possible.
Thanks for the prayers and support.
Love
Elder Roe

Week of 01/23/12

Hola,

This has been an interesting week. I am in Marshall, Missouri now. It is a crazy small town. I love it. We actually have a really big ward boundary that includes a few little towns. We do have a walmart and a couple restaurants. Then some athletic store. That is about it. I die laughing at how small this place is. I always wanted to go to a really small place to serve, so my wish is granted. My companion is Elder Decker. He is pretty cool. This past Saturday there were 3 baptisms. One was a child of record, but the other 2 were convert baptisms. They are a cool part-member family. We are going to start working on the father who recently has become a little more interested with his kids being baptized. So apparently Marshall has a ton of hispanic people. I noticed that real quick and didn't understand what would bring a large spanish community to Marshall, of all places. Anyways, I am going to be rather busy working in this area (my companion is english speaking) and working with the many spanish people in our branch who don't come to church, some in part bc of the language barrier. I was sent in this area to help build up this area to be ready for a spanish branch by March. I also realized that I don' know spanish very well. My first sunday was pretty neat, and overwhelming at the same time. The building is a branch building (didn't know they had them) so it is super small w/o a gym. I think the chapel doubles as a cultural hall bc there are no pews, only chairs. Kinda strange. There are like 5 young women, 1 priest, 1 deacon, and an elder planning on going on a mission here soon. I almost died laughing when I heard how big the youth were. The primary is like 7 or so, including nursery. Pretty much everyone is related. I went into the spanish gospel doctrine class to pick up my spanish. Not as well as I had planned. There are like 6 or so active spanish people. One is a nonmember who's wife is, but he told us the other day he wants to be baptized so we are going to start working with him. He is like more active then many of the members themselves! I love their family. So in the spanish class, they were talking way fast and I understood the first 15 mins really good, then after that I had a tough time listening and translating in my head what they were saying. Pretty tough. Then in Elders Quorum, the 2nd counselor in the branch presidency asked me in front of the priesthood group how my spanish was.......I just looked over to the spanish members there and one of them said in his spanish accent "ehhh, fair." So it is not too bad according to them!!!! Score! Well my plan to take a couple weeks to get my spanish back up before doing a whole lot, failed. The branch president caught me after church and wants me to start translating sacrament meeting to the spanish members starting this coming sunday! I am not sure if I am ready or not but the members are really nice to me and patient with my poor spanish. There were a couple spanish members too who said they could help me out and switch on and off on translating. That makes me feel a little better. There is only like 5 or so spanish families who don't understand any english at all, the others can at least understand and a few are bilingual. That really helps a lot. I have been studying a lot in spanish and hope that I can get things picked up before too long and can help reactivate the spanish members in the branch and baptize a few more spanish people. Spanish are really good on giving referrals and are even more excited to hear the gospel in their own language. Most in this area just go to the local spanish catholic church whether they are catholic or not, but it will be huge if we can get a spanish branch and help encourage the spanish members to bring their friends to help build up the area and help them learn even more about Jesus Christ. So I am pretty excited about this area. I hope I can stay here for awhile.
Hope everyone is doing well. Love you all.
Elder Roe



hey this is the pic from the baptism on Saturday. I don't really count it bc I inherited it, but still a cool experience. We are now working with the father who is next to my companion.



I forgot to tell ya. Just to show how small Marshall is, the main attraction here is a memorial garden for Jim the Wonder Dog. Yeah......it is some dog in the 1920s who could understand several languages, obey any command in any language, and predict the future(?)......gotta love marshall.

Week of 01/16/12

Family,

A lot has happened in the past week or so. We had a total miracle. There is this awesome family in the ward, the Thompson's. Tory was a total punk with over 50 tattoos, he married Wendy who was a convert but had been inactive for a few years. The missionaries stopped by and long story short, Tory fell in love with the Book of Mormon and was baptized about a year ago. He is a super solid member. Now they are both really active and planning on going to the temple together next month. Wendy has a few kids, none who are baptized. None are really interested and don't live with her anymore. So we were out and about trying to see people and Wendy calls us saying that she saw us drive past her house (forgot we were in the area) and to stop by if we have time. So we went there and turns out her son Jordan (23) had to move back with her bc of some issues. We started talking to him and the family, then Wendy said "Jordan hasn't been baptized, what does he have to do to be baptized?" I about fell over. I said "uhh, what did you say?" She repeated and we started to discuss the lessons and introduce the Book of Mormon to him. We met with them again last Friday and he wants to be baptized so we set a date for the 28th of this month. We were totally excited. Our area has been seeing a lot of good stuff and we have been teaching and finding really solid investigators. Then I get a phone call from our mission president this past Friday. Went like this: "Elder Roe, how are you doing?" "I'm doing great president, how are you?" "oh, just wonderful, Elder Roe....how is your spanish?" I about died. Long story short he explained that there is an english area but the ward has a few spanish people and they want me to teach sunday school in spanish to them. I was pretty shocked, then sad bc i don't want to leave this area. I found out last night that I am going to Marshall, Missouri. They are planning to open a spanish branch in the area in March so I might be there for a while. So I am sad to leave this area, I have met some really cool people and sweet memories and stories. But this is a chance to boost my spanish skills. I will be missing the baptism we have next week but that is the life of a missionary who leaves at the worst times. Other than the unusual warm weather here, it has been a good week. We are setting records of how hot it is here.
Well I hope that all is well. Miss everyone. Pray for me and my new area.
Love,
Elder Roe

P.S.-From Lorraine
If you plan on writing Elder Roe a letter, be sure to use the address on this blog. Do not use the Wichita address anymore.....and thanks for writing him. I know he appreciates the love and support!