Elder Tellez 9-17-12 Email

This week was good. We had stake conference here in Martinez. President Lopez came and spoke. We also had 5 baptisms in our zone. We baptized 1 in my area. We had a baptismal service Saturday and another Sunday after the conference. There were 60 or more people in the baptism on Sunday, 15 of which we investigators. We have a goal of 8 baptisms this week as a zone. In my area(s) we are going to baptize 2 or 3. I say areas because we have two wards now, Ejidal and Martinez, because Elder Sulzen (the elder without a companion) is now our companion. I'm loving it here, it is just really hot. It is just a small town, but I know like 6 people who speak fluent english. My direction is the calle articulo (I think) 27 between the calles Martinez de la Torre and Lopez Mateo in the colonia Ejidal. It is the great and spacious building (the only one). I have climbed up the hill, now that was that slow and hard part. Now, I am going down and that is the quick and easy part, haha. The year mark has come (finally), but I still love the mission. I'm so happy for you gramma that you are moving into the apartment, I can't wait to see some pictures. Mama, 2nd counselor in the young womens, haha, that's cool. I love Joshua's section shirt. My favorite part is the "Little John", haha. What is the name of his band director, is he old, does he have a family, is he cool? Yay, General Conference is coming up in a couple of weeks. Happy early birthday to Bianca "the old lady" 23, wow. This will be the last birthday she has with me on a mission, haha. Can you check when the enrollment is for BYU Hawaii in the winter 2013 semester or spring 2014 semester, like when the money plan and application deadline are? Depending on that I might come home a couple of weeks earlier. But I don't know. Ok time for me to go. I love you all.

Elder Tellez 9-10-12 Email

Hello family. How is everyone? I'm great. I'm loving my new assignment as zone leader. My companion is awesome. In fact I have another companion, Elder Sulzen (the tall american in the baptismal photos). I count him as a companion bacause he doesn't have a companion so he stays with us or goes with youth from his ward. Gramma: My mission president is President Lopez. You would send packages to the address of the new mission office that I sent in one of my emails in July. I'm not sure what the location of my house is yet but I will get that info for ya'll next week. Martinez is relatively small. There is no Walmart or anything like that. There are two stores: Bodega Aurrera and Chedraui. Aurrera is a branch off of Walmart but not as cool. Chedraui is a mexican store equal in size to a Walmart supercenter but obviously doesn't a whole bunch of american things. I actually like Chedraui, so that's good. There is a Domino's and it delivers to my apartment, haha, finally. The city is too small to have a whole bunch of awesome restaurants but big enough to have it's own stake. My zone has two district leaders. In total, my companion and I are over 5 companionships (not including us but including Elder Sulzen) or 9 misionaries. There are two sister misionaries in our zone (as you can tell in the photo). The taller sister is brand new in the mission and she speaks really good english (she is from Mexico). My companion is working really hard to learn english so that he can go to BYU. He knows alot already so we talk a lot of english. He ends his mission in January along with Elder Sulzen. That is all the time that I have. I love you all.

Elder Escobar and Elder Jensen went on a 10 mile up and down hills bike ride to Block Island with the Narragansett Elders. Pretty nice scenery!

Elder Everett Escobar 9/10/2012

Hello,

Sorry if there is not too much in this letter. I am writing it in a hurry and so yea that's why. But it does sound like you all had fun this week, except for Aaron's Subway incident. So this week has been busy busy busy with meetings and will probably be that way for the remainder of the month. Please pray for one of our investigators, Michael, he bore his testimony last Sunday and said he is ready to get baptized this month. However, a few family conflicts arose on Tuesday and his adult son, Justin went missing. They don't have any leads as of right now on where he could be ): So Michael is under a lot of stress and I don't know how he is going to handle it. Other than that we are strengthening our relationships with the members and helping them with their callings which helps us in return, find more less-actives and potential investigators. So we haven't done too much teaching with investigators this week but we plan on teaching plenty this week and the coming week after that. We were having a ridiculous time with members feeding us, so I have pretty much spent all of my msf on food that is at the apartment. However, the members as of yesterday started feeling bad for us, because the bishopric complained for us and so now we have 4 families signed up to feed us this week. 2 weeks ago we went on P-Day to Block Island with the Narragansett Elders, we had to take a ferry, it was fun and we had a good time. Rode a bike for 10 miles up and down and up and down hills, my thighs were crying in agony, but it was good exercise though. Today I am on exchanges with Elder Munson, so that's why I didn't e-mail earlier. Well gotta go...

With much love,

Elder Everett Alan Escobar

Elder Tellez 9-3-12 Email

Hello, how is everyone doing? I'm great. So, I found out that there was a Pizza Hut in my area. But, I'm being transferred, haha. Tomorrow I will be going to Martinez de la Torre. I will be a zone leader. Now, I will explain what a zone leader does: there are two zone leaders in a zone (my companion, Elder Valdez, and me). A zone consists of a couple of districts (I was district leader). The zone leaders conduct zone conferences and zone meetings. We do baptismal interviews for the people that our district leaders are going to baptize. There are six zones in the Xalapa mission: Xalapa zone, Poza Rica zone, Papantla zone, Tuxpan zone, Teziutlan zone, and the newly opened Martinez de la Torre zone. Up until tomorrow, the Martinez zone has been a part of the Teziutlan zone. I'm really excited for this new assignment and for a new area. I will truly miss Xalapa for the weather. Martinez is super hot like Poza Rica so I'm trying to get ready for that, haha. Today I had the greatest burger ever, a Carl's Jr burger, ahhhhhhhhhh. We also had some Dominos. There aren't any Carls Jr's in Houston are there? If there are then that is awesome, if not, then we need one. That's all for today, haha. I love you all.