Your "independent" adviser gets a commission from the funds he/she recommends if you aren't paying them for advising you (a fee only adviser would expect a few hundred for sitting down with you and figuring out a good plan and recommendations). You didn't really think they were doing this out of the kindness of their heart, right? ;)
Most of the fee structure is built into the funds themselves (they get a chunk of that front load, and probably a little taste from that expense fee as long as they keep you as a customer) so you won't really see the money coming out, but they are most definitely getting a cut. This means they have a big incentive to push you to invest in funds that are going to pay them, and those funds may not be the best choice for YOU. I wouldn't use this adviser again, as American Funds in general are not a great investing choice. They tend to push their front load (class A shares I believe) on most of their offerings, so you're paying a crazy amount up front to buy into the fund, and then getting hit with a high expense fee many times as well, and they just don't perform well enough to justify that expense.
To see what you're paying for expenses, look for the "returns and expenses" link, and then the "Expense Ratios" section. One I used to be in was called Washington Mutual Investors Fund. The class A shares have a high expense ratio of .62%, but it's better than their class B at 1.37%, but I sold off as soon as I figured out that there were much better options at other financial institutions. Still felt like an idiot once I realized what the stupid front load was in reality - paying for the "privilege" of being in a fund is a bad idea, even if they say it is better performing or lower expense, it's all relative - lower than sky-high is still high.
Start figuring out your investing plan, and think seriously about rolling that Roth over to someplace like Vanguard or even Fidelity (using their low cost Spartan series) where you can invest in index funds with really low expenses.
And if you haven't already seen Jim Collins' stock series, check it out:
http://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/