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