Facebook is now part of my mission!

Hi Everyone,                                                                                                     Jan. 28, 2015

Well this week was full of awesome things. At the beginning of last week we headed out to ZhuBei for our specialized training. There we received some super awesome pointers of how we can be better missionaries and more effective. I think this was a super inspired training too haha, the temple sister's gave us some advice on small things that will help us have better Chinese which really helped. And the assistants gave the most effective useful training you could ask for: finding in the rain. Especially being in XiangShan where the wind is super strong, when it rains the last thing you want to do is go outside so that was super helpful.

This guy is one of my favorite persons here!

Ward Party...my first experience with digua

 We had our District meeting this week and we are just full of culture! We have 3 Americans and 1 Malaysian, 1 from New Zealand, and 1 from Taiwan so that is a huge party tonight. Also WE HAVE FACEBOOK! We are asked to use it everyday and make contact with our investigators and such. It is really  different and will take a little getting used to. When we set up our new account we had to shut down our old one. So that is why if you want to look on my page it will not be there. FYI.

Love serving here and love this man

 Also this week I went on exchanges with one of my favorite missionaries ever. Elder Huang! He is the old assistant now our Zone Leader out here in ZhuNan. We had a blast and a half. He is a great missionary and really showed me some new ways to do missionary work that are super effective. It was really awesome as well because he is Taiwanese so he was able to answer a lot of cultural questions. Oh man, so much fun.

This says China doesn't it?

 Also we will be having W's baptism this Saturday! I am so stoked and so is he. He passed his interview with flying colors and is ready to enter into the covenant of baptism. I am so proud of him and this awesome decision he is making. Then the week after our other investigator J will be baptized! So needless to say, this is going to be a really awesome couple of weeks. Today we are in Taipei, so we went to the temple which was so incredible! And now we are off to have an adventure.

Our new district!

 I hope that you are all well and that this week is full of some great missionary experiences for you. The work is true and it is hastening! Really fast! I hope that we will all do our part to honor our covenants and do our best to share the message of the gospel with everyone we meet! I love you all and hope that you all are well!

Love,

Elder Roe

Goodbye Father

Hello to you all,

Well this week was super eventful! I lost my Father this week and that was a very sad day.(Mission lingo for his trainer) Elder Illu is now serving down in Taidong. (<-- Lucky) And I am still here in XiangShan. My new companion is Elder Loke, and I love him so much! He is from Malaysia! He has actually been  on a mission as long as I have but since he could already speak Mandarin he has been in Taiwan since the end of July. He is a very good missionary and I will have a lot I can learn from him.

This week was of course once again filled with miracles. The first miracle was at Church yesterday we had 11 LA's! It was so incredible, and nearly all of them are very close to being fully active again! The next miracle was a man by the name of (). He has been meeting with us with a one of the LA's we meet with. He has been meeting with missionaries for a long time but has never really wanted to be baptized. Although he keeps all of the commitments we extend to him and obeys all of the commandments. Yesterday he told me, "I'm ready, what do I have to do to accept baptism?" I wanted to jump on him and give him a huge hug!!!!! But then I remembered he was Taiwanese and would  probably feel really awkward. So instead I told him we would review with him and get him ready. We also had our solid investigator there who will be baptized next month when he gets back from vacation and another member brought their little neighbor who wants to get baptized! yeah I don't even know how all of that happened. During that meeting I could just feel God's love, he loves His children so much. 

Our transfer meeting was really big because we are having visa problems again! Which means we didn't get ANY new missionaries. So we had to close and consolidate area's. So please pray for the visa waiters! We are really excited for them to get here. When they do it is gonna get so crazy! President Day told us he had to give us a fair warning. Many of our companionships could only last three weeks so make the most of it! So that is what we will do! The Church is true and the work is real! I hope that everyone has a great week! I love you all and miss you tons!

Elder Roe

Hello all,                                                                                           Jan 21, 2015

Well this week was super eventful! I lost my Father this week and that was a very sad day.(Father is mission lingo for trainer) Elder Illu is now serving down in Taidong. (<-- Lucky) And I am still here in XiangShan. My new companion is Elder Loke, and I love him so much! He is from Malaysia! He has actually been  on a mission as long as I have but since he could already speak Mandarin he has been in Taiwan since the end of July. He is a very good missionary and I will have a lot I can learn from him.

This culture is amazing

This week was of course once again filled with miracles. The first miracle was at Church yesterday we had 11 LA's! It was so incredible, and nearly all of them are very close to being fully active again! The next miracle was a man by the name of (). He has been meeting with us with a one of the LA's we meet with. He has been meeting with missionaries for a long time but has never really wanted to be baptized. Although he keeps all of the commitments we extend to him and obeys all of the commandments. Yesterday he told me, "I'm ready, what do I have to do to accept baptism?" I wanted to jump on him and give him a huge hug!!!!! But then I remembered he was Taiwanese and would  probably feel really awkward. So instead I told him we would review with him and get him ready. We also had our solid investigator there who will be baptized next month when he gets back from vacation and another member brought their little neighbor who wants to get baptized! yeah I don't even know how all of that happened. During that meeting I could just feel God's love, he loves His children so much. 

 

My new Companion

Rain dance totem pole

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our transfer meeting was really big because we are having visa problems again! Which means we didn't get ANY new missionaries. So we had to close and consolidate area's. So please pray for the visa waiters! We are really excited for them to get here. When they do it is gonna get so crazy! President Day told us he had to give us a fair warning.

 Many of our companionship's could only last three weeks so make the most of it! So that is what we will do! The Church is true and the work is real! I hope that everyone has a great week! I love you all and miss you tons!

Yeah, they sculpted this of me

Our last district pic together :)

Elder Roe

Whoops....Wrong Train!!!

Hello to you all,

Where to start? I have no idea. This week was gone in a blink. But it was really good. Last week on Monday Elder Illu and I had plans to head over to Zhunan with those elders. So we got on a train and headed off. We sat down and relaxed and my companion dozed a bit.

Love the Asian kiddos

 I like looking out the window so I watched as we passed out of XinZhu through XiangShan, QiDing, approaching ZhuNan.... and then passing ZhuNan. I was like, oh no this isn't right. I told Elder Illu we just passed it and he jumps up and is just like no way! We can't figure out why but for some weird reason the train just decided not to stop. We went all the way down to Miaoli! Which is the very last city before you enter the TaiZhong Mission! Luckily we got off there and then got on another train back home. We though that would be a pretty awkward call to the President. "Hi President, so we aren't in our mission any more and we are lost." Probably wouldn't go over too well haha. 

Little mischievous kids! 

This week we saw the miracle of referrals! We got one emailed to us last week, so we called him up and set an appointment up for Sunday. Then on Saturday he called and said he actually couldn't meet on Sunday and asked if we could just meet him right then. Luckily we had an hour that we were just going to find before dinner so we said we could and drove over to his house. He is just a 17 year old kid named Aaron, and he is really awesome! He took us up onto the roof of his apartment which was awesome, overlooking Taiwan and the ocean. We sat up there and talked about why we are here and how this message can help us in our lives. It was really neat to see Gods hand. He had just failed a test and felt really dejected but decided to give us a call. (which we all know is called a prompting) He was really keen to learn more and by the time we left he was for sure in a much better mood. I think his life at home is a bit rough so I really hope he will be able to find some friends here.

I love Taiwan!

My fav dessert

It was also a great week for our LA's. We are really seeing a lot of progression! If we can just continue having them come to Church! Last night we had one tell us she didn't know who was going to love her when we left. It was really cute. We told her that she had a pretty loving ward that would love her forever.

Well I love you all and hope that you have an incredible week! I love you and am praying for you!

Elder Porter Roe

Great Memories from 2014!!!

HAPPY 2015!                                                                                                                Jan 5, 2015 

This past year has been such a crazy one, especially for our little family, lot's of great life changing things have happened. I hope that 2015 is as happy and eventful. As for things in the little island of Taiwan, we are just plugging along. This week was a good week, we got to meet some really great people and make some new friendships.

SOME HIGHLIGHTS OF 2014.... not in chronological order since my computer is giving me fits...I am still pretty computer handicapped! (Jody)

State Champion in both his Individual Events!!! And Record Breaker in Region 50 Free Style!!!

Said goodbye to Grandma LaVene in February

And then carried my Grandma Roe to her place of rest and bid farewell to her in May

Goodbye Buddy, Bye Mom.

Goodbye to Turbo...he was my childhood dog for the last 13 yrs.

Swam with the seals in the ocean!!!

Porter graduated from high school!!!
 Pictured here are Grandma Linda and Aunt Vicki!!!

Porter's favorite holiday.... 4th of July celebration at our house with the fam!!!

 

Saying goodbye to Porter. They are best buddies, Port and Bren!

A long awaited HELLO as we welcomed Taylor back home

BECKETT IS BORN OCT 2014

Trip of a lifetime to Norway

Porter and Eldon took a Senior trip to San Diego

Port and I being silly on our trip to Seattle for Sectionals

(These are just a few of the things 2014 brought to us. Porter was gone before Kait moved into her new home, had a baby boy, we went to Norway to get Tay etc. So he has yet to see his sister Taylor or meet his nephew Beckett or see Kaitlyn's home....so lots of things will be new for him when he returns in July 2016! Who knows what else may happen by then.)

To start off our new year we were able to go with  our very favorite Brazilian family and they fed us a meal fit for kings. I was stuffed to the absolute brim!!! I couldn't even lift the fork to my mouth haha. We were very grateful that they were so willing to invite us into their home and make us apart of their family. We are very blessed. They other part of the week I went out to Zhu Nan with Elder Payne, and we had such a blast together. We did some surface at the beach picking up trash and it was so funny. Every Ama that passed by was just so shocked that the Waiguoren were there picking up trash. We helped they ward mission leader build part of his house which is an american design, at Tie Ban, and taught a Less-Active that I may or may not offended. Hopefully I didn't. Elder Payne said he that it was pretty funny though, I just told her that she couldn't wait for everyone else to come and bring her to Church, if she loves Jesus she will come to Church. So yeah that was interesting. 

We also saw such a great miracle this week! We went to an investigators house who has been trying to get baptized for 3  years! Anyway to weeks ago we asked him to stop smoking and drinking, but unfortunately he wasn't able to do that YET! But we met with him this week and I brought up that I knew he could stop smoking. He looked at us and just said, "I haven't smoked for 2 weeks, every since you told me to stop I did." What!? We were so proud of him! Once we get the drinking under control we will be good to go! So Keep him in your prayers! 

It's such a privilege to see this people making such great changes in their lives and grow closer to their Savior. I hope that you all have an incredible week! I love you all and pray for you always!

Elder Roe