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