Week 57 :)

Whats happening,

1. Did you get some pictures from me? I hope so. I don't know what type of Internet speed you get there, so I sent them medium size. 

Thanks for the awesome pictures Mom and Dad.  My comp and I are both very jealous of the view from your hotel room.  Soooo sweet.  

View of Niagara's Horseshoe Falls from Canada side - 23 stories up!

One thing I really miss is grass.  There is hardly any patches of green grass.  (the natural man in me just starting humming ´´Where The Green Grass Grows´´). 

This week was good (if you haven´t noticed yet, every week is good). Unfortunately we lost one of our best investigators, Aaron.  He´s been on the verge of getting baptized for so long.  We taught a great lesson about the atonement, and he still didn´t budge.  We had to drop him.  But I´m confident he´ll come to his senses.  In other news, its not really that hot anymore. 

I played some more soccer this morning, I gotta admit it's really fun.  Of course you guys know that my favorite sport is whichever one I was playing last.  I´m obsessed.  I spent my language study today asking my companion to teach me soccer terms.  ha.

Dad - You pegged it on the Book of Mormon.  Its a copy in Tzotzil.  

It's not complete though, it's only about 170 pages.  My companion was in a place called San Jose Tepeyac before he came, and he learned Tzotzil.  The only problem is that it isn't a written language, they improvised a way to write it, but most of the Tzotzils can´t read.  I´m glad you´re enjoying your vacation.  Too bad the Cougars lost, but at least the score is far less embarrassing than last time.  If I had been there I´m sure they would have won. 

2. Are you still able to get fresh fruit at reasonable prices? How would you grade your nutrition?

2. The fruit is pretty cheap, at least the fruit that comes from Chiapas.  Most of the apples are from the US so they are a bit spendy, but I buy them anyway. My diet is pretty good.  I eat lots of rice, beans, tortillas, lentils, chicken, sometimes I eat cereal for breakfast sometimes eggs.  I try to switch it up as much as I can. 

3. How much difference do you find in tortillas?  Are they still your main dietary staple?

3. Most tortillas are created equal.  There are taco tortillas, which are a bit smaller and oval shaped.  I had some a few weeks ago that taste like the ones from the mexi store near the house.  Those are the best!

4. How do you anticipate the 5 visit rule will impact the Missionary work in your area?

4. Hopefully with 5 visits before baptism there will be fewer less actives.  We are hoping it will improve the quality of missionary work.  I think it does. 

5.  Tell us about your companion

5. My companion is Elder Torres from Oaxaca.  We've been together 9 weeks and we get along great.  He is a convert, the only member from his family.  He got baptized  2 years ago.  He´s super funny and sounds like Steven from Nacho Libre.  I love him!

Enjoy the rest of your vacation.  Love you dad.

Mom - I laughed out loud when you said you bailed on the Stake Conference haha.  Classic.  It's sweet that you were in Joseph Smith's house 190 after Moroni´s visit.  I´d really like to go see those church history sites.  I´m sure you´ll enjoy Kirtland.  I´m sure you two are a bit more prudent than Roy and I.  Our trip to Nauvoo was pretty funny.  We got lost about 20 times, and were about to take a gravel farm road, but Roy babied out haha.  It was good fun though.  I haven´t gotten any Dear Elders for a while but they usually come in bunches.  And then all the other missionaries get jealous.  haha.  Have a wonderful week.  Love you mom!

Well I guess I don´t have too much to write today.  Things are pretty much the same as always.  I´m super tired, but that's ok. 

Love you guys.

Elder Roth :)

Week 56 - God Bless America

Dearest Family,

How´s life?  Mine is good.  Today I played some soccer with my companion and the elders from my old ward, Vista Hermosa.  It was really fun, but my foot hurts a bit.  I wasn´t as bad as I thought I would be, but I´m still pretty bad... OK, lets be honest, I was an embarrassment to the Roth name.  I´m really loving my mission.  Everyday.  I hope you all are enjoying everyday as well - it's the best way to live. 

This week has been really rewarding.  On Wednesday we were informed of a change in the mission; in order to be baptized all investigators have to attend at least 5 sacrament meetings (instead of 2).  That change gives us a bit more time to teach the lessons and this week we taught some really good ones.  I have no doubt that I teach the truth. 

Dad - Wow 3 emails in one week! You´ve outdone yourself.  I´ll be sure to take good care of my grinders haha.  The trip to Izapa was pretty cool.  We saw the stone which supposedly has Lehi´s dream on it.  I wasn´t too convinced, but it was cool anyway.  Afterward I played a bit of soccer, ate a bit of pizza, and hitchhiked my sunburnt hindparts back to Central ha. September is proving to be the wettest month so far - but that means its a bit less hot so I´m happy.  :)  Poor Tim Tebow - I was rooting for him.  I´m super excited for General Conference, even though its not as good in Spanish ha. 

Questions:

1.  What is something you have used your multi-tool for lately?

 - I´ve used the multitool to punch holes in a piece of paper, cut a little piece of plastic off a button thing, and it has served as a nice decoration on my desk. 

2.  What do your feet look like?  Anything growing on them?

 - My feet look pretty normal ha.  They are super white though and the right one is a bit scuffed up.  Nothing too gross. 

3.  What is a scripture that you helped you this week?

 - This week I´ve read Mosiah 28 - Alma 7.  I really liked it all.  After I read Alma 5 I thought about all of those questions that Alma asks.  That really helped me evaluate how I can improve.  It sobering to think about the 2nd coming and judgement in the light that Alma describes it.

4.  We ate at Five Guys Saturday and I thought of you, when did you eat your last Hamburger?

 - As a matter of fact I ate a hamburger about an hour ago.  ha.  The ward had an activity and they made some hamburgers and were kind enough to hook me up. 

5.  Tell us about a Hymn you thought of this week?

 - I´m a big fan of Lead Kindly Light.  haha  And this week we sang Carry On in sacrament.  Total trainwreck.  haha.  Apparently no one knew it...Oh, also I heard Cielito Lindo for the first time.  It's Mexico´s unofficial national anthem haha.  Listen to it!

Love you dad!

Mom - Sounds like a pretty intense weekend.  I really wish I had a bike, it would be fun.  Although riding it though downtown would probably be lethal. The 3 cars eh.  M3, M5, X5?  I hope Otto ended up in good hands.  Don´t worry about my clothing (by the way my shirts are yellow not grey haha).  I´m fine with the clothes I have.  My socks are doing fine and my shoes are surviving.  (the Eccos have impressed me, they are practically like new.)  The tough actin Tinactin would be much appreciated.  I can´t really think of anything else that I need.  A hand written letter would be nice!  Love you mom!

Andee-Dawn - Life is b-e-a-u-tiful!  I am so proud to hear that you are hyper-mileing.  It does my heart good.  (I´m sure my mom can hear me yelling ´´SHIFT´´ in her head as she reads this).  Hope things are going well in school.  Have a good 'un.  haha :)

Roy - Did you drive the much coveted BYU mint green minivan again?  ha. Stanford huh.  I can dig it.  I´m rooting for MIT though haha.  I was thinking about The Narrows for some reason the other day.  haha. Oh yeah, it's because walking it the street is similar to walking in The Narrows (or the shallows as Dad calls it ha :))  I had forgotten about ´´Up the rapide!!¨´ hahaha.  Good time.  Love you bro. 

Steph - Alma 26 is the bestest.  :)  How are TY and RY?  I miss those little guys.  Thanks for remembering me :)  Have a super fantastic week.

Well, my Spanish keeps getting better, my English keeps getting worse, and the mission keeps getting better.  I love you.  Bye!

Week 55 - Just Keep Smiling

Hey,

This week was...interesting.  Last Monday after emailing you guys I went and got the worst haircut of my life.  haha.  I forgot my camera so I´ll send you the pictures next week.  Everyone in the ward was calling me baldy and the like, so its been a good opportunity to learn humility.  ha.  Recently we have been working with our members a ton, since there are lots and lots of problems in the ward.  It's been rewarding.  We have had some very spiritual lessons with some ward members that are feeling like they´ve reached the end of the rope. 

We had stake conference this week which was pretty cool.  They called a new Stake President - he´s a young guy; probably no older than 30.  He was a Bishop for two months and then got the call to be stake pres.  Pretty cool. Elder Valenzuela from the Seventy and Elder Walker, an Area Seventy, came to reorganize the stake.  They gave some pretty awesome instruction.  In other news there are apparently 2 people in the stake that play piano and I´m one of them.  So I got to play in the conference - it was fun. 

A missionary´s life is somewhat interesting.  There are so many ups and downs. It's been a bit of a rough week.  But extremely rewarding.  I love being a missionary.  Which reminds me - I try to avoid paying attencion (Clark's Spanish spelling!) to the calendar, but sometimes I realize that a good chunk of time has passed in other ways.  Ex. - today I finished off the last of my 5 jars of peanut butter.  I also realize that I´ve been here a little while when I see how white a new missionary´s shirt is compared to mine.  But I digress.

Thanks for your emails.  Its always a pleasure to hear about your weeks.  You guys never fail to make me chuckle. ha. 

Roy - In your FACE Texas!  ha.  I´m confident you and Andee have kept the ´´KILL!!´´ tradition alive.  ha.  It's a bummer that you guys won´t be there next year.  But all is well.  You destroyed the GRE!! holy cow! I hope you get into your preferred school. (btw what is your #1 school?)  Advanced Probability sounds pretty legit, but then again it sounds pretty tough . But, then again the only spot on your record came from a freshman level geography class ha. Love you bro.  Thanks for the email. 

Dad - Taysom Hill eh? I approve.  I´m glad to hear the Braves are Rocking, and the Jaguars are embarrassing their fan base, as always.  11 punts in a day is pretty impressive.  haha.  How´s Dunn Avenue doing?  I liked what you said about preparing yourself for spiritual things.  You really have to get in the zone, so to speak.  Let faith overcome your doubts and follow the admonition of Christ.  ´´Be not afraid, only believing.´´  That's awesome that Tom is on a Indian reservation.  Hopefully he´s been able to resist the cheap liquor haha. (is that racist?)  if it is, my apologies.  Anyway, on to the questions.  

1.  Tell us about the streets flooding.  How does that happen. It looks like there are hills. Doesn't the water keep moving?

The street flooding is amazing.  Within a minute the streets can do from dry to covered with 6 inches of water.  There are hills indeed.  Which function similarly to the endless wave on cruise boats.  Its genuinely impressive.

2. Tell us about an investigator.

We have a ton of great investigators.  One of our harder cases is Roberto. He is from Honduras (he´s an illegal here) and lives with his girlfriend (uhh! why!?).  He believed from the first second we started talking about Joseph Smith and can´t stop talking about how much he likes what the church teaches about families.  But...He has to get married.  Which is going to cost a ton of money (he either has to go to Honduras and do it there, or become a Mexican citizen first - a short, 7 year process).  But I´m sure he´ll stick in there till he finds the way.  I won´t be baptizing him, but someday he´ll get dunked ha. 

3.  Tell us something you either learned this week or something you know that was reinforced by experience.

One thing that never fails to surprise me is how willing less actives are to go to church.  In many cases all they need is an invitation.  I´m confident that with a relatively small, yet diligent effort to rescue the less actives, most wards could improve their attendance by 15. 

4.  You may have told me this before. But the self cooling sweat rag we bought at Home Depot and sent in your package with the peanut butter.  Does it work?  Is it amazing?

The cool rag isn´t really a miracle, but it's nice.

           5.  Do people have Internet there?  Do you have people look things up on LDS.org?  That            kind of stuff. 

Very few have internet in their house, but they all go the the cibers.  We always invite people to check out lds.org and mormon.org but they never do. haha.

           6.  What can we do to help you?

What can you do to help?  Pray.  Be member missionaries.  I would encourage you to do all that you can to participate in this great work.  If every member of the church invited 1 person to receive the missionary lessons this year, and 1 in 15 went on to get baptized, there would be over 1 million convert baptisms this year.  It can be done.

Have a great week Dad. I love you!

Mom - haha, I can totally see myself having a mission contracted disease for the next 10 years ha.  That was a cool insight from the Samaritan woman at the well. The words from Henry Eyring senior come to mind, ´´Hal, I wasn´t there for the weeds.´´ Have fun on your trip to New York.  I gotta say that I´m a bit jealous.  But I´ve got a Mexican Visa and you don´t so in Your face! ha.  I love you mom. 

A to the D - your singles ward story made me laugh out loud.  I can totally see that happening.  Luckily our bishopric was formed of older men so I never got that shocker ha.  Keep on rocking and scream your lungs out at the football games for me.  You rock, never change haha. 

Times Up!  Until next week Godspeed.  And Brethren, pray for us.

Elder Roth

Week 54 - Every Day I'm Shufflin'

Greetings.

First things first.  I`m staying in barrio central.  I`m going to be the ol man in the zone, but that's cool.  I really like this area, but I`m going to have to buy some rain boots.  The streets fill up with water and I`m tired of walking around with wet feet 10 hours a day. 

This week was a bit rough, but all is well.  I´m pretty good at not getting discouraged.  I just love to work.  My companion is staying here too, so we´ll have a bit more time to strengthen the ward. 

Thanks for all your emails.  It's always lovely to open up the inbox and see your names.  I love you all. 

Andee - I`m glad to hear that you survived the long board trip.  I`m sure Roy will hurt himself before too long ha.  Holy cow! 17.5 credits!  That´s nuts.  I hope it goes well for you.  Pretty cool that you got to help a Danish lady in the temple.  I´ve become obsessed with languages.  They interest me so much.  I totally want to learn German, but the length of those words scares me haha.  MULAN!! ha.  You know I love me a good Disney movie.  :)  Have a great first week at school and catch the spirit!

Roy - I hope the GRE went well.  I prayed for you.  That schedule seems pretty bomb.  (I feel like that would be a cool thing to say in 1990).  Hopefully one of those math classes is taught by Dr Grant, or the one whose name escapes me.  haha. I love the BYU math faculty.  DAUD!  Dr. Daud is his name. haha.  I think I`d go for tennis, but it's a bit of a Roth family tradition to take bowling ha.  Have a good week.  Love you bro. 

Mom - Rise and shout the cougars are in your backyard.  ha. That's pretty sweet, if you get lucky maybe you`ll see a showdown between a bobcat and a gator.  The creation is an interesting subject.  In Preach My Gospel there is a very short section on the creation.  I´ve always brushed over it in our teaching.  But the other day I decided to study it a bit more fully.  After my analysis I didn´t really learn anything... ha.  Sorry I don´t have any grand thoughts on that.  I hope Institute is going well.  I love you mom!

Dad - 
 1.  Do they celebrate Labor Day in Mexico? 
        - No. Yes. Kinda. May 1st is their labor day.  But they just get a bunch of people to stand in the middle of the street and complain that they don´t make enough money.  It's not the best holiday. 

2.  What is the result of transfers?  Staying or Moving?
       - Staying. As a matter of fact our entire district is staying. 

3.  Do you want to know what happened to the Cougars in Virginia?
       -Yes.

4.  I did not see the game, but they ended up on the wrong side of a 38-35 score.
       - That's not a question.  Who is the quarterback this year? 

5.  How are your clothes holding out at the 1 year mark?
       - haha. They don´t look too bad, but they´re pretty bad.  My white shirts are becoming yellow.  I started with 2 grey slacks, 1 pair of navy slacks, and 2 black slacks.  I now have 2 grey slacks and 3 navy slacks.  And my brown shoes have been garbage candidates for the last 8 months, but I keep wearing them haha. 

6.  Can you hold a conversation in Spanish on most any subject, or do you know mostly Church/Missionary stuff only?
      - I´m a lot more capable if we are talking about church stuff but I´m not completely incompetent in other subjects.  In the MTC a guy talked to us that served his mission in Taiwan.  The NFL network asked him to announce the Superbowl in Mandarin, and he realized that he only had a missionary vocabulary.  So he testified that Tom Brady threw true passes.  haha. Thats pretty much how I feel about my Spanish. 

7.  Tell us what you did last Thursday.
      - Thursday is always my least favorite day because we have weekly planning.  It's boring and somewhat discouraging because all you do for 2 or 3 hours is think about what's wrong with your area.  Then we go out to work. This last Thursday was pretty rough.  I think we only taught 2 lessons.  We were walking around all day.  But that's how it goes sometimes. 

Well the time is far spent.  I hope you have great weeks. 

Elder Roth