Elder Everett Escobar  06/24/2013

Hello,

In like manner this week has just ridiculously zoomed on by. Everyday reminds me that my days are short (and I don't know if I like that idea.) Anyways, this week I spent a good part of our weekday mornings fixing the two bikes that we have. We are currently out of miles, so we need to use our bikes (: So the bikes are all set and in working condition now. We have lots of biking to do!

Yes I do hope that this family does get baptized before I go, that would be sweet. They still don't have a baptismal date yet but we will be meeting with them this week.

This week I started re-reading the Book of Mormon, I am currently in Enos. I want to finish the Book of Mormon and possibly read it again before I go home. By the way, you never answer my question; when I asked you if it would be alright if I went with you to seminary.

By the way, I saved you bukoos of dinero on my stuff that I sent home. I was going to send my stuff in flat rate boxes but I found a better way. Since the majority of my stuff that I was sending home was media, I was able to classify it as media mail = discounted price. So instead of using the flat rate boxes I grabbed my stuff and put it in a big box. All in all, the box weighs 51lbs 4oz which at first would have cost $256.00 but with the media mail discount the price became $26. So yes I saved you BUCKOOs of dinero (: However, you might want Aaron or Dad to pick the box up and bring it into the house, because it's a little heavy haha. So I didn't procrastinate, I sent it on Friday. So for our flight back home are we allowed to have 2 carry-ons? And the 2 other bags what is the weight limit? Is it 50lbs? Let me know so that I can plan ahead. And you still didn't tell me if you wanted to do anything while we are in New England /:

By the way, for the Hartford temple the planned ground breaking is set for August 18th, but that may change. They still have to demolish a building that is currently on the land, President Monson will be here for the ground breaking. That would be awesome if we could attend. Has Bishop Thomas said anything about me speaking in church the following Sundays that I'll be back?

You'll be happy to hear that I'm back to not playing sports. However, I only came back to this conclusion because of another injure (yes I am having the greatest luck at the end of my mission) haha (: I didn't get hurt playing basketball. I was barefoot and I was taking one of the bikes down to the basement to fix it up. On the way down the stairs, I slipped and lost control of the bike. I got my big toe caught in the chain and I fell down the remaining steps. I must say that some words did slip out of my mouth as blood was profusely spewing out of my toe. I was so angry, because I had been trying to be cautious. I stopped the bleeding at looked at my wounds of war, I had a few gashes in my toe (not deep enough for stitches though), part of my toe nail had been sliced off, and about half of my foot was bruised. So I cleaned everything up, made good use of the Neosporin, and put a ziploc bag on my foot to set it in ice cold water. After that I went right back to fixing up the bikes again.

Since then my toe isn't as swollen and my toe isn't infected, but it's still very sensitive. So for the past few days I've walked with a slight limp and as you'd guess members noticed and asked me about it. I guess it didn't pull on their heart strings enough because only one family signed up on our dinner calendar for this week. However, they signed up for random days next month. Why couldn't anyone sign up for this week? I don't know. That 2 or 3 weeks without that many meals, but next month looks promising, the Ward Mission Leader realized how few dinners we had and started getting on member's cases.

Well that Book of Mormon Quest Youth Conference sounded amazing. I wish that I could have seen it. You didn't send any pics and I don't see any changes on the Stripling Warriors blog, but I know you're busy. Hopefully Drum Major Camp is fun for Aaron and that Sea Base Camp is fun for him and Dad.

The world-wide training was cool, I wasn't surprised by anything that was said because it has alrighty been initiated within our mission. Previous to this world-wide training our mission was the only mission that had developed a massive internet database that would make it easier for people on the internet to be referred to mormon.org and other blogs that could answer their questions and refer the user to missionaries. Our mission released a pilot run of the database for a space of time prior to the world-wide training, so that the general authorities could determine whether it would be well-worth the change to digital proselyting (such as facebook and other databases). And as you'd guess it was indeed worth it, many baptisms have come from it especially within the urban areas of our mission. We were the fore-running mission in this development and similar programs to ours will be given to missions throughout the world. There are currently 6-8 missionaries that have been called as 'digital missionaries' (computer geniuses). They are in charge of running and making changes to this database on a day to day basis. I didn't tell you this previous to the world-wide training because it was semi-confidential at the time. By the way, I haven't knocked on a single door for 1 year, other than trying contact less active members and yes knocking on doors can be dangerous.

At one of the dinners that we had this past week I did a little bit of networking with a member that was there, who is a healthcare administrator at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and he said that he can hook me up with another administrator who is lds and is in Houston. We have a few more dinners with the family so I will be able to talk to him a little bit more about the matter. Dad you would have been proud of me haha.

Have you been in good contact with the Stones? You should send the missionaries over there, maybe the Sisters. People seem to be more open to them in first contact.

That stinks that Aunt Jean broke her foot, hopefully she gets better soon.

I wonder when the Spanish Branch will be approved, hmmm.

Anyways, I love you all. Hope you have a great week.

Love,

Elder Everett Alan Escobar

PS I need to get some new socks and garments sometime soon, so could I use my debit card for that? No pics sorry. I will take some this week.