Halloween email

Hey!  I'm glad you all got my letters. And you enjoyed the cat story, it’ll be a good memory of tracting. They changed our schedule for P day today because it's Halloween. We proselyte from 4 to 7 and study at night so it'll be a little different. But today is beautiful and clear so we're hiking and I'll send the card today so you'll get some good pictures hopefully. The baptism went awesome and it was his wedding reception after so he was just giddy all day haha. After I baptized him one of his sons tried to jump into the font with us haha it was interesting. Elder Dean confirmed him yesterday and he's super excited for this change he's made. It's amazing. He'll baptize his son on the 12th I think so that'll be awesome! And we still have others with dates they're working towards so Ketchikan is still awesome ha. Wednesday we had special training and it was awesome and Pres. Beesley more or less said I won't be moving before Christmas but there's no guarantee on that ha. Thursday we were sooooo sick so we slept from 3 until 6:30 the next day. But then we were just kind of queasy so we still got stuff done. But this week has been tuff. We've only really had 3 days of real missionary work. But it was awesome with Morgan. Ummm yeah It's back to trying to make things happen this week so it'll be good. Before we know it Christmas will be here ha. I miss football stuff happening. Almost nobody cares about football here ha and their high school season has been over. So keep updating me on that ha.   Well I think that's about it. I love you all. All is well in Zion!

                                                             Elder Waddell

Elder Tellez email Oct. 27, 2011

I waited all day to get an email from John and resigned myself that it was not coming today. It came at 10:00pm our time. I was so happy. I didn't realize how sad I was that I hadn't gotten one until I saw it. This is the best letter I have gotten from him and I am so full of joy at what he has written that I can't stop crying tears of joy. It is amazing how the men can change and grow from one week to the next.

¡Hola familia! ¿Como estan? I am doing well. This letter is for everybody (Mom, Josh, Nyah, Gramma, Aunt Becca, Uncle Brent, Lysie, Logan, Kaylee, y Max). Thank you all for the letters, they were magnificant. To gramma, thank you for the dearelders. I am always happy when I recieve mail. To Nyah and Josh, thank you for the mail as well (that kind of rhymed). To mi madre, te amo, muchos gracias por su letters tambien. I really miss every single one of you, pero, I am so feliz aqui. I know you are and will recieve muchos bendiciones porque of what I'm doing. Lo siento por writing muy pequeño. Emailing is so much easier for me, and from what I've heard, I might need the stamps in Mexico. My time is running out!!!! I am getting so much better at spanish, some words I even forgot how to say in english. Well, I have 2 1/2 weeks left at the MTC and then it is off to Mexico!!!! YAY!!!! Ohhh, to Aunt Becca, thank you tambien for the dearelder. To Uncle Brent, thank you for the scratch &sniff spaghetti stain, it still smells like spaghetti. Thank you for all of the advice you have given me. Everyday I learn something new. I am definately more humble since being here and understand what charity really is. My study is so meaningful to me. I focus on the doctrine in the scriptures as opposed to just the stories. I am definately here to invite the Lord's children to come unto Christ, but ultimately I am here for me. Have you heard the talk about the fourth missionary. Well, I am striving to be the fourth missionary. I love you all!!!!!!!! Keep sending me letters and love.


Love,
Elder John Tellez

 Elder Escobar  10/24/11

 

 

Hello Mi Familia,

I have received a few letters from people in the Liberty Ward. It is good to hear that Brother Farrell is now Stake YM President and that the Hair Family is now moved into their new home (By the way what is their new address?)! 

 

Everything has been great here in Massachusetts, we have been extra busy or at least busier than usual this week. Elder Yim and I taught a total of 17 lessons (to less-active, recent converts, and investigators) this week! However we have had some difficulty in obtaining new investigators, a lot of people on the streets have been remarkably rude to us haha, but most of our success right now is coming through the members of the University Ward. I feel and have felt that this past week was pretty successful.

So Aaron has my ipod, huh? Haha just make sure that he doesn't delete any of my music. He's turning 14, hormones are kicking in, there's jr high dances, oh my! Yea good luck with that, but Church Dances are way better than the schools' anyways.

Well I gotta head off...and yes, let's all persevere through our challenges and all of us come together, returning with honor on September 6, 2013.

Love ya'll so very much, have a good day,

Elder Everett Alan Escobar

Baptism, Bears, and Kitty

10-24-11

Hello! Yes I got the letters and the package on the same day thank you!!! It doesn't matter when you send a Christmas package but send it to the mission home because I might be leaving Ketchikan before Christmas. I'm not sure that I really want anything ha maybe a nice watch or that InsideOut CD Reverence. But I don't know. Just whatever. I don't think I need anything right now just more people to teach! Oh yeah I was wondering if you saw that on the news haha that's right down the road from our house. Somebody in the ward shot a bear with a bow and arrow on his porch just the other day because it kept coming back.  Oh and a guy in our ward takes some photography. He has a website it's pretty cool. It'swhalepassphotographyzenfolio.com or zenpholio..... I’m not sure what that is other than the host server for his pictures. But they're almost all taken here. This week wasn't as amazing as last week but the weather was better!  Two whole days were partly cloudy instead of rainy!!!   Hopefully soon we can hike up Deer Mountain.  That’ll make some cool pictures. We have our first baptism on Saturday!!!! Morgan has been amazing to teach. I'm still waiting for him to break it to us that he's already a member and this was all a sick joke ha. But that means Saturday will be a good day no matter what cause we have to start filling the font at like 1:00 because it takes foooorrreevveeerrrr to fill up and we have to stay with it ha then they have their wedding reception after the baptism! What a good day. He asked me to baptize and Elder Dean to confirm so we're super excited for that!  And we have 4 other people on date and another 1 who is conditional so that's pretty exciting. We went on splits the other day and I took two elders who are about to go on their missions and our appointment fell through so we went tracting. One of the guys is allergic to cats and when we were tracting this cat was just following us around. The other one was knocking at a door when all of a sudden I see the cat pounce at the one who's allergic to cats haha the cat landed on his chest and got all in his face and he started yelling and trying to shake the cat off and he finally got him off and threw it like 5 feet haha definitely the best tracting moment so far especially since it wasn't raining haha. Thank you for the emails from John and Everett!  Well I'm gonna write letters to everyone today and clean a lot since the AP's and Pres and sis Beesley and the missionaries from Prince of Whales are all coming Wednesday so that'll be exciting! So yeah we’ve been working hard here and we're being obedient don't worry. And we're already seeing the fruits of The Lords work here in Ketchikan! So I love you all and all is still well in Zion!    Love, Elder Waddell

Elder Tellez email Oct. 20, 2011

Hola. How are things going? Time for my weekly email. Spanish is definately getting better, I speak it most of the time. It is really easy once you really think about it. How come nobody sends me emails anymore, or even letters. I will write people but I can only write them on thursdays. Richard G. Scott spoke at the Devotional on Tuesday, it was magnificant. I only have 3 1/2 weeks left here at the MTC. Thank you for that dearelder that I got the other day, I enjoyed hearing from gramma, Josh, and Nyah. I promise to write back. If you end up sending me an email today, I won't be able to see it til next week. If you could, could you email me the might before. I can't send pictures through the computer and I don't want to spend money on getting them developed because money is scarce. You should send me a Christmas package, you know what I want for Christmas, money. Oh, and if you do send it send it early in November because of all of the Christmas traffic, it would be much appreciated. How is the ward? I honestly know nothing, haha. Keep me posted. Haha, most of my clothes hardly fit me, including my suit, and no, I am not getting fat, haha. I work out more than I eat. There is a nice gym here and they are about to open a second one. I really wish I could send pictures, there are some really cool ones, but I can't, sorry. I will be able to once I get to Mexico, though. OHHHH, time is running out. I carry on plenty of conversations in spanish. This cheap watch I have makes me rash so I hardly wear it. I know you think i'm complaining a bunch, but I'm not, I'm good. Don't worry about me, I'm doing the Lord's errand. Well, I think that's all. Love to everyone!!!!

Elder Escobar, October 17, 2011

 

Hello Escobar Fam,

First I want to apologize, last week I wrote a letter but forgot to send it and I realized Saturday afternoon that I still had it in my possession, it was hidden in my backpack.

 

I did receive your package, I really like the electric razor, it works very nicely and yes I did get my medication, etc. Today, I plan on writing another letter to you and mailing it either today or tomorrow. Tell the Bishop and Stake President that I am still in the process of writing their letters (I really dislike how little of a time we have to actually write letters, I guess that I just have to write them faster). This week was a little rough, most of our appointments got cancelled and we got rained on all day Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. It's very hard to either tract or do street contacting in the rain. And OH YES we have definitely heard of Pastor Jefferies, our whole district was actually eating at Subway and the tv was on and the volume was pretty turned up pretty high. We heard Mitt Romney's name and so we kind of listened to the report and all of the sudden we heard, "Mitt Romney and the people of the Mormon religion are part of a cult!" Then everyone in our district just kind of gasped and then we looked around, there were quite a few people staring at us after that announcement was made. It was funny, but sad at same time! But you know if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was actually a so-called "cult", I think a lot of people would have figured that out by now in its approximately 200 years in existence. Oh well, at least its getting the church's name out and people are more likely to ask us questions. 

 

But yes there has been a lot of protesting going on here in Downtown Boston and there's always police around. Elder Yim and I get by food-wise, this week miraculously we are being taken out to eat dinner with a member every night, so I think that we are pretty good so far, but I do think that some simple recipes will come in handy. Aaron an outdoorsman, no way! Come on I thought he was basically an outdoorsman when I left, but the MACHETE is new!

 

Today Elder Yim and I are going to the aquarium and yes I will definitely take some more pictures of not only the surroundings but of myself and my companion, be ready for pics next week.

 

Okay gotta go LOVE YOU,

 

Elder Everett Alan Escobar

 Elder Escobar, October 11, 2011

Well one of our investigators, Blake, dropped us. But I guess that's alright because we gained two more investigators. Oh I wasn't able to e-mail you yesterday, because it was Columbus Day, therefore the library was closed and as a result I didn't have access to a computer. So we get to e-mail today instead. YEAH! By the way I want to write people in the ward and stake but I can never find time, I barely have enough time to write my own family, it's hard. There's just too much to do and not enough time, it can get pretty ridonkulous. So, they've already had Homecoming at school? Wow! And Emily looked like a "Greek Godess"? Double Wow! My oh, my time does fly by. Yet again it's ridonkulous! Yet again, is the Hair's house done? How is Brother Kiethley doing, is he progressing fairly well in the church? I'm going to try to send Bishop Thomas, President Banks, and Brother Farell a letter pretty soon. Well, it's still cool and windy here and no Aaron it's not freezing or snowing yet, haha. Oh hey yesterday our district went to see an organ recital at the Christian Science Cathedral (Tom Cruise's church), it was pretty interesting to see how close their beliefs are to ours surprisingly. We also went to the Boston Temple for the first time and the temple theme is 'the tree of life'. It's very pretty and I learned a lot in the 3 hours that we were there, it was a really good experience. Well I gotta go, time's a'ticking and there is other stuff to be done ): oh well, it was good to hear from and write to mi familia. By the way when I get home, I"M LEARNING SPANISH/ESPANOL! For realz..I will take more pics of myself and send them to you next week.  

Love,

Elder Escobar

10-17-11

Hey! I'm doing great. we have a PO box 6321 but it would probably be best to not send stuff to that after December 8th or so because my 12 weeks training ends on December 18th so I might be getting transferred out of here a week before Christmas.... which would nooooot be fun at all. This week has been busy busy. It's been crazy how many people we've been talking to. We have 3 baptismal dates and one conditional one and another soon to come. We had 6 investigators at church yesterday... it was crazy. We got a new investigator last night who is a native and he's his tribes historian and he's spoken to Harvard and met with the Pres. a couple of times. It's cool hearing about their culture and cultural beliefs and differences. We actually just got invited to be witnesses for one of our Investigators marriage. I'll try to attach a couple of pictures to this email but I haven't taken too many here because it's been so busy and it's aallllwwwaayyss raining ha. So there are like constant waterfalls down the mountain and on the side of the road it's pretty cool. But we get very wet. We had splits on Friday and I taught a lesson with just me and a member and it was interesting. I felt like I talked sooo much ha but it went well. I get to teach the Sanchez family in Spanish once a week and a Recent Convert who only speaks Spanish I’ve taught a few times recently. But he's way hard to understand. He chops off words and stutters and stuff. We taught almost 20 full lessons this week which is our mission’s standard of excellence so we're getting close to getting there. I can't believe it’s still ,wait...I take that back I can believe it's still warm in Texas but since I’ve gotten here it's been like a steady 40 and raining ha. It’s so different down in SE Alaska than even in Anchorage where I’m pretty sure it's freezing now. Ice here will present quite a problem in driving. Everything is a hill and everything is parallel parking down hills. I've never even heard of studded tires but we're putting them on the car soon. Oh and you know rain boots are called Ketchikan tennis shoes here ha. But anyways this place is awesome, the people are awesome and I have no idea what Pres. Beesley was thinking sending me here first. I’m feeling soooo spoiled ha but I’m grateful for it. I love you all. All is well in Zion.

                                 Love,
                                        Elder Waddell

Trinity's letter 10-10-11

Hey! Yes my trainer is Elder Dean he's a great missionary and I heard a lot of good things about him even before I met him. And yes Ketchikan is awesome. It rains A LOT but other than that it's amazing. The people are awesome too. We have two baptismal dates set and like 6 or 7 other investigators and a few probably aren't too far from baptismal dates. We get plenty of referrals so we don't have to tract all too much except when things fall through. I still don't really enjoy tracting all too much especially when it's a windy rainy day.... which is most of them ha but it has its purpose I guess. Yesterday we taught a recent convert who only speaks Spanish and Brother Taylor who's pretty fluent and Hermana Sanchez who is a native were there and helped us. His name is Joel and he speaks too fast and jumbled and choppy for Hermana Sanchez a lot of times haha, we're always like "ai! mas despasio por favor!" ha but it was a good experience. Well it's normal missionary work now, knocking doors finding old investigators finding referrals and such. We have our first double dinner appointment Tuesday ha so that'll be good. Well congratulations to Emily, that’s pretty cool. I guess she hasn't been quite mean enough these past few years haha. bien hecho. Oh yeah our dryer doesn't work so I guess we hang dry or go do laundry at some members house....the missionaries we replaced didn't tell us anything. Oh pres and sis Beesley are coming down on the 26th for some special training. I think this mission is one of the most expensive because of housing and travel and such. There are so many "bush" areas that people have to go by boat to get to, it's awesome, ha, oh and how did you guess I was going to Ketchikan??? Annabeth and June have been here right? Oh yeah i do need something! I'm not sure on which computer but I know for sure the laptop I brought to college on ITunes has a church playlist and I need some music ha. Definitely the InsideOut Acappella "Reverence" CD. and then whatever other church and Motab you want to send but we need something for the car ha. Oh and i got a little letter from somebody that was on a thank you card and it didn't have a return address on it and I could not read the signature to save my life. If you could figure out who that was from that would be nice ha but that's not on the urgent list like the music ha. And well I’ll be praying for everyone and thanks for the messages! I'll send some letters today. All is well in Zion!

                   Love,
                        Elder Waddell

Trinity's 1st area....Ketchikan!

Ketchikan is awesome. so i'm way down south so it won't be so ridiculously cold but It rains sooooooo much here. It's considered a "bush" town since you have to go by boat or plane to get to it and it's a smaller town. But it's not too "bush" ha The day we got here we pretty much got a new investigator and we have a baptismal date and everything ha it's hard because we whitewashed the area so neither of us know anyone or where anything is. But the people we've met are awesome! and all willing to give referrals we actually already have a ton. We're not quite settled but we're getting there. oh guess what we found out while doing laundry? our dryer doesn't work ha so that'll be annoying. We're still trying to find out potential investigators, the roads, and the members but it's been awesome so far. so some rules... i can still only email family. the rest has to be handwritten letters. well i don't think there are any other rules that have to do with you at all.... oh and the plane i took from anchorage to ketchikan was a milk/mail plane so it stopped on like 5 different islands which i thought would be cool at first but then each stop was like an hour and a half and i had a huge headache from all the take offs and landings but it was exciting when we got to Ketchikan and had to take a ferry over to the main island. I haven't really used spanish at all.... so i'm a little bumbed about that but there are some potential investigators and a recent convert that only speaks spanish. so maybe that's my purpose here ha. our heater stopped working so we're gonna have to get someone to come fix that soon. before it starts freezing hopefully ha. we ate muktuk at the mission home. it wasn't toooo bad but it pretty much tasted like fish oil oh and i never knew people canned/jarred fish. we found a ton of jars of what looked like raw fishmeat but it turns out it was smoked. but one of them is over a year old.... sooo we're not gonna be eating that. Oh! lastnight we ate dinner at some members house and ate rice and meat out of a pumpkin! they cooked it all together like that. it was pretty darn good. I'm not sure how long the mail takes to get here cause i haven't gotten any except one from emily when i first got to Anchorage so we'll have to figure that stuff out while things are happening. so yeah the work is going quite well here and the members are awesome and it's beautiful and as far as we can tell there are people that are ready! but this winter you don't have to worry about me freezing or anything and there aren't any moose on this island  about the only thing we're worried about is the road freezing because the entire town is on the side of a mountain. which is awesome but not so much when you throw ice in the mix. But my trainer as awesome and a hard worker he's also the DL which is strange when a trainer is a DL but it hasn't hurt us yet oh and district meetings are held over the phone and baptismal interviews. and the island that the airport is on is a native reservation called Metlekatla and there are some members over there that call in for different meetings and gather around a speaker ha it's crazy. I'll start taking some pictures of the area when we get a little more familiar with it. yep. well i'm excited to hear from everyone whenever that might be. I love you all. and all is well in the zion community of Ketchikan....
oh yeah we live on the corner of cedar and revilla it's a two story place and we live on the bottom. it's pretty big for a missionary appartment there are two rooms we don't really use except as closets a kitchen bathroom and huge other room. it's pretty cool. and it's pretty high up. oh and the ward building is made entirely of cedar. the members built it it's gorgeous. i need to take some pictures it's way cool ha anyways.... my time is about up later.

Elder Everett Escobar
Monday, October 3, 2011

Hey it's me again General Conference was pretty much, amazing, but I feel like Elder Boyd K. Packer was saying, 'farewell' ): President Monson was funny, I enjoyed it though. As you may know I am serving with Elder Yim, he is from Hong Kong, China and is a hard worker. I learn something everyday. He and I are assigned to the University Ward in Cambridge, Massachusetts but we don't really have any boundaries so that's kind of cool. We go to Harvard just about everyday, so I guess that you can technically say that I "go to Harvard". We work mostly with the Young Single Adults, we have dinner appointments every now and then. The people here are so diverse not only in ethnicity, but in their mannerisms and attitudes (I'm not talking about the members, just the people here in general). 

 Things have changed a lot here, when I arrived in Massachusetts it was warm and humid and now it is cool and windy, oh and the leaves on the trees are turning yellow. It is currently 54 degrees, it feels good to me, I know that Mom would disagree with me ha ha. Aaron, I'm happy for you being able to start band and I miss both you and Danny, I love you both, and we are going to do something fun together when I get back home on September 6, 2013. I hope that you two are behaving for Mom, don't give her a hard time, that includes you too Dad (: My mindset on just about everything has changed, it's weird, but yet again not really I guess it's expected from going on a mission. But yeah, I really like it here, yes it's different but I am enjoying myself. The winter season here is well on it's way, I have heard that the first few days that it snows here it's beautiful, but after that it's apparently ugly because it becomes a muddy sludge of ice and other debris. We'll see and I will definitely take pics and send them to you. Oh I also mailed a letter to grandma and grandpa (don't tell them though it's a surprise, I want them to be shocked when they get it from the mailbox). So yea you should send me pics too, otherwise it wouldn't be fair that I send you pics and I don't receive any in return, well I gotta go...

   

    Love you all so very much,

        Elder Everett Alan Escobar