Elder Tellez 10-29-12 Email

Hello everyone, Thank you so so much for the emails, haha. All is well. The baptisms haven't been coming as much as I would want, but we have been working with the inactive members and they have started coming to church. The attendance in sacrament meeting has doubled since I have gotten here. I think I already mentioned that they are going to split my ward. On the 11 of November, a Seventy will come and do it. It will be a branch and a ward. Wow, it is about to be November again, haha, time flies when you're having fun, right? Tonight we are going to Xalapa for a zone leader council tomorrow. I need to start exercising better again. So, Bianca got a new car, what year is it? Take pics of the inside please. What is the church attendance in Liberty now. We have been having cold weather here as well, ahhhhh it feels like Xalapa. I need to buy some shoes, could you by chance send me like $50???? My health is super good, well, normal. Was this just the first time Josh has been allowed to play? He needs to get his grades up. I hope your toe gets better Gramma. Thank you for that Halloween joke, haha. It is so exciting here. We have been working with the kid, ok, young adult (he is 22)(he is the person in the pics). Anyways, we have been working with him in preparation for his mission. He just sent in his papers last week. Also, his friend, Adrian (we baptized him in September), is so excited to go on a mission. They are both in mission prep classes but Adrian has to wait until he has been a member for a year. The time has gone and we must move on with our lives. I love you all. 'Til next week.

Elder Tellez 10-22-12 Email

Hello family, How is everything going? Everything is well here. E. Carmona is awesome. This week was good. This Sunday I gave a talk and I forgot to put the phone on silence and it went off, it was a little embarrassing, haha, but I learned my lesson. How was stake conference? What did you all learn? There is really nothing new this week, haha. I'm sorry. I took some photos for you. I love the food here. It's a wonder why I haven't gained weight, haha. I am still enjoying my time. Time is going by sooooo fast. Time to go. It is soo hard to think of words to say. Estoy mejorandome el español. Siempre tengo sueño. Mi vida ha cambiado por la mejor. No soy perfecto pero me esfuerzo a hacer mi mejor cada dia. Ahora voy a aprender hebreo y luego portugues. Les amo con todo mi corazon. Fortalezcan sus testimonios del Evangelio restaurado. Ok, ya me voy. Bye-bye.

Elder Waddell 10-15-12

So yes I have seen the northern lights officially!!!! I must admit they were pretty awesome. You can literally watch them unravel. Then they dance and different colors flash. And if you go in really dark places you can see more color and definition but we live kind of in town. So 2 things 1 my camera is not built to take pictures of the northern lights and 2 it broke right after I got horrible pictures of them. Sooooo my camera is broken .... ha sorry. The lens just won't open all the way. I can hear and see the gears trying but it won't work. sooooo I can buy one up here if that's alright. That way I could probably get one that I could use for the northern lights before I stop seeing them. So I guess missionary stuff. I gave a talk in church yesterday. It's a big ward haha. It was on preparing for a mission by gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon.I thought it was pretty good. But I'm getting longwinded. I spoke for like 20 minutes....We met some people that we hadn't been able to meet for a long time this week. Oh it snowed yesterday and stuck.... winter is here. I'll probably be buying a jacket as well. sorry.... we got parkas from a member that would work great... but they're green... doesn't really fit the missionary look. so we'll see. Um things are going great. Just trying to better the work and myself. the latter is the hardest. ha well that's about it for this week. love you
Elder Waddell

Elder Tellez 10-15-12 Email

Hello all, I'm sure it seems like I just didn't send an email last, but I write to you guys every week. It's just that when I send the email and it says that it was safely sent and all that jazz but they send me an email after a couple of hours after I am already off, to tell me that the email wasn't sent. This has happened 3 times. So, I'm sorry, but I lok forward to Mondays so that I can write you. Anyways, the news, haha. Elder Valdez is getting transferred to a different place called Papantla and my new companion will be Elder Carmona. He is cool, he has about 10 months in the mission. Also, my zone will only have 5 areas not 6, they are closing one of them. I met this 80 year old american from Pennylvania even older version of Jeff Bridges. He has been in Mexico for a couple of years, he doesn't have a home. His reasoning for coming here was to start a business, then he went bankrupt and lost everything. He doesn't know any spanish, it felt weird having a conversation in english. Time to say goodbye. I love you all. Send a bunch of emails and pics.

Elder Tellez 10-08-12 Email

Hello, So, conference was amazing, as always. I enjoyed every minute of it. We didn't baptize anybody this week. But our heads are up and we just keep moving forward. I hope you like the pics I have. I enjoyed some amazing Dominos: a 4 cheese pizza, hawaiian pizza, and chocolatey volcano thing. Did you guys send a package? If so, it taking a while. This is the last week of the transfer, I tell you next Monday of any changes. How are Trinity, Everett, and Sam doing, it has been I while since I've heard from them. The missionary board, how is that looking? How is Bianca doing, it has been a while hearing from her too. I am still losing weight and staying healthy (I work out everyday, haha). There is really nothing new in my life. Still happy, haha. Time to go. I love you all.

Elder Tellez 10-1-12 Email

Hello everyone. How is everyone? I'm sorry about last weeks email. I wrote it, sent it, but it turns out that it didn't send and there was an error. Haha, I guess I have bad luck with the whole emailing thing. My week was met with great challenges and super exhaustion. As I mentioned in last week's email that didn't send, we had 8 PEOPLE with a baptismal date for yesterday! As a zone we were going to baptize 19! It was going to be a bautizona, or, when all of the companionships in the zone baptize which is really impressive. We were so under pressure the week, our leaders called us every night and we called all of the missionaries of the zone every night to see how their dates are going. The ending result: my companion and I baptized zero and as a zone in whole, we baptized 3. What a big difference, right? My head basically exploded when I was calling up the district leaders for their reports of the week and when Elder Holland, the assistant to the president called me for the report on the zone. It wasn't because I was angry, but because it was an epic fail. I guess we had something to learn this week. We were too centered on numbers and not the people. We are teaching souls, children of God, and our fellow brothers and sisters. Throughout the week I was reflecting on true conversion and I was thing about the people that I have baptized throughout my mission; were they God's converts or were they my convert's? And then I was wondering about my own conversion, am I really converted? I have a testimony or am I just saying what everyone else says: "I know that....". That's really what we a need to think about. "Do I have a testimony?" That is the reason why people fall away from the church or become inactive because they haven't obtained their own testimony and when they get offended by someone or something happens they fall away. Obviously, you aren't alone, the are great people with the walls of the church the can help you. These were the kind of things that were running through my mind. Anyway, I am so happy for gramma and the outside of her apartment looks nice. I don't want to be captain obvious but time is flying by and we are already in October and 2012 will come to a close then hello 2013, haha, wow. There are no pics because I didn't take any this week, I'm sorry. I commented in the unsent email that all of my pics on my camera from January up until now were magically erased, like what happened in January, haha. Time to start over. Also I said that Bianca should email me because I haven't heard from her in a long time. Ok, gotta go. I love you all.