Monday, February 27, 2012

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

Monday, February 20, 2012

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

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

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

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

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!