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