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

Elder Escobar's First Letter from Boston
Monday, September 26, 2011

Hey Fam,

It's me, today is P-day.  So far I have done a lot of cleaning, washing, and studying.  It is very humid here, I always come back to the apartment drenched in sweat and wearing a backpack all day long doesn't help either, but it is all good.  My first day was great, I rode the subway, the bus, met some interesting but rather weird  people, did some contacting, and got cussed at multiple times, it's funny (but in a way I find people cussing at me quite entertaining, because it's as if they have nothing better to yell at my face).  I like it here so far, even though it may rain too much.  By the way, while going to an appointment in downtown Boston, in the financial district we ran through a movie set for Universal Studios upcoming hit movie 'R.I.P.D.' (Rest In Peace Department), Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges were there.  It was cool, they were filming a section of the movie when we walked by, it was pretty sweet.  We saw explosions, gun fire, stunt cars, helicopters and the celebs.  Unfortunately the appointment that was set up at that time was a no show, we later found out that his kid got sick and that is why he wasn't able to make it. We are currently teaching 4 investigators, 2 of them want to be baptized soon. Elder Yim and I have been meeting and following up with all of them throughout the week.  I like contacting because I get to see so many different reactions, it just makes me laugh.

So it was grandma and grandpa's 49th anniversary? Congratulations! Tell them that I love and miss them!  I hope things go well for Wally and Laurie, they need the gospel. Tell Brother Morales that I said congratulations about his new calling! Tell Brother Farrell thank you again for letting me work for him and enabling me to go on my mission.  Oh and mom, just to let you know there are no Walmarts in Massachusetts!!!! But they do have Target.  Tell everyone I love them!  Tell Bishop Thomas that I'm sorry that I haven't been able to email him at all, even though I've tried to. Is the Hair's house done? Are my little bros still doing fine in school?  How are you and dad? How are grandma and grandpa?...How is everyone in general?  Well gotta go, write me whenever you get my letter.

LOVE Y'ALL!!!
Elder Everett Alan Escobar

Elder Escobar emailed quickly to let us know he is serving in the Cambridge area, by Harvard University.  His first companion is Elder Yim and in their area they travel by walking, taking the bus and using the subway. Elder Escobar's words are that "these people drive like maniacs".  : )

Just 4 more days in the MTC for Trinity

Hola!
I think it would probably be better if I just got one when I got there. It's not gonna be freezing or anything I don't think so i'll be able to handle it until I get to go get one. oh and man I didn't bring my letter here but the mission address changed.... so i'll send a letter with it in there. and we did get our travel plans last friday! my flight leaves to seattle at 8:30 monday morning so i'll be calling before 9:30 your time in the morning. I'm not sure exactly what time and if I don't call then then it'll be around 1 or 2 your time when i can call from seattle. It's crazy we only have 3 more class times. one today and 2 on saturday! tomorrow we have in field orientation allllll dayyy. yesterday was our last gym time which was sad. especially since I doubt i'll be playing soccer anytime soon in Alaska ha. thanks for the letters and such it's always nice hearing from home about what's going on. I'll try to write everyone today. i think i'll have more time than normal. Oh yeah so octobers ensign is dedicated to The Book of Mormon. It's awesome. and guess who came to our devotional to talk about it? Russell M. Nelson! we got lucky with 3 apostles! He just talked about the history of it and the importance of it. he talked about the purposes of it and what a great blessing that we're not taking advantage of it is. it was great. His grandaughter is here preparing for a mission right now and he interacted with people and she was one of them it was funny. I decided that i'm going to start getting cheap Books of Mormon and only mark one or two specific things in each. My first one is just going to have all the blessings and promises and everytime it calls people to repentance. hopefully by the time i'm old i'll have a whole bookshelf of them ha. and maybe i will have learned some things by then. We're all getting better at teaching and speaking spanish. we had to door contact and that was weird and didn't go so well ha but we'll do over 14000 of those if we just do the minimum daily. soooo i'm not toooo worried about that. I tried to teach something in english yesterday and it was kind of hard. I had to make a conscious effort not to say a lot of things in spanish and it just didn't feel organized and didn't flow ha. maybe it was just because i had a bad lesson but who knows. So our last sunday is a fast sunday so nobody will have to give a talk but i'm pretty sure we're all bearing our testimonies and we're singing a song for departure. elder smith and i have to be at the travel office at 5 in the morning monday.... i'm gonna be tired ha does adam pretty much speak spanish now? or has he been doing most things in english there? cause i'm still worried about not having anyone to bail me out when i have no idea what a door contact or investigator says. everyone else will have senior companions to help them with the language and such but i guess i'll just have to look like a fool most of the time until i figure stuff out. pero esta bien. estoy atezado. oh i got my hair cut today because it's mandatory before we leave. i think it looks better now. oh john is in the laundry room with me right now.... kinda weird but cool ha oh when i send my next card back i'm going to have pictures with john and i at the map and separate ones with everett and i at the map. we need to crop one of them so there's one with all three of us haha well i'm out of time i love you and all is well in zion
 
            Love,
                  Elder Waddell

As of 4:07 eastern standard time on Wednesday, September 21, 2011, Elder Everett Escobar has been in Boston Massachusetts, along with 7 other missionaries that traveled with him to serve the Lord in this mission.      

Elder Escobar's Second Letter in the MTC
Sept. 14, 2011

I'm sorry that I haven't sent much mail home, supposedly we're not supposed to send of write letters throughout the week.  By the way, Tuesday is p-day for me.  I went to the temple the other day, it was a great experience.  Afterwards we saw a peaceful protester outside of the temple grounds. So for fun we took pictures with him and talked with him for a short while (I will send pics later).
 
The days seem so long here, it drives me crazy, in a good way. I'm going to be a Host Missionary this Wednesday, so I may be able to John (or soon to be Elder Tellez) as he arrives at the MTC.  The food isn't that great here, but yet I still stuff myself with each meal, I usually eat 3 plates and 2 bowls of food.  I know I that I have gained a little bit of weight, especially since I have been working out 5 days a week with some of the other missionaries in my district.


As of right now I am washing my clothes and writing this letter, and I am going to the temple later today.  I miss all of you and I miss Liberty Ward, so please tell everyone that I love them.  My companion and I have been successful in teaching all of our investigators, so I hope that we can keep it up.  I have had a lot of great experiences here at the MTC. Today Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve spoke at the MTC Devotional, he gave a lot of awesome insights on missionary work.  And on top of that the choir had their musical number (btw I'm in the choir), but anyways while we were singing the camera zoomed in on me and so everybody after the meeting was like, "Hey you're that Elder who was singing tonight!" So yeah that was cool.

I like p-day, it is the "only day out of the week that I get to write mi familia" or at least that's what our Branch Presidency has told us, therefore I must be obedient and also be that example to the members in my district.  

             Love you all and miss you,
             Elder Escobar

Elder Escobar's First Letter in the MTC

Sept. 2, 2011

I just wanted to let you know that I made it to the MTC and thankfully I have all of my luggage.  My first day was great.  I already caught up with Trinity and my companion is Elder Michael Lawrence Morrill.  So far my comp seems like a pretty good guy and guess what?!  He's from Utah...go figure haha.  The MTC is a busy, happy place, I've enjoyed it so far.  Hope everything is okay at home, because everything is 'A-okay' here at the MTC.

Sadly, President Bank's challenge didn't work out.  When I boarded the plane, the young lady that was next to me was asleep and she slept all of the way to Salt Lake City, but there was another Elder on the plane right across from me. But, anyways I wanted to tell you that I am now District Leader!!! And I am so busy, but I  enjoy it, the Lord is so good.  And Aaron it's  not cold right now, but it is cool with a high of 85 degrees, I'm enjoying it.  Well I gotta get back to studying.

              Love y'all so much,

              Elder Escobar

PS   I think that I'm going to get fat ( :

 

John's First Written Letter Home

Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011 Day 2

This letter is for all who wish to read. I am mainly, however, going to talk about you. I am seriously just kidding! It is ok to laugh. All is well here at the MTC. Tell Matt Jamison that he was right, the food is delicious. But that isn’t the reason I’m here, right? I have seen Elder Escobar, but he didn’t see me. I know, it is crazy, but there are so many people here, elders and Sisters. I am excited to be learning Spanish, it is truly a magnificant language, and I look forward to fluently speak it. I also ran into Elder Waddell on numerous (I spelled that wrong) occasions and he actually saw me. We talked for a bit. I haven’t seen Elder Stotts yet, however, but I will try to find him somewhere here. In just the few days that I have been here, my testimony has grown so much. My two companions, Elder Coleman and Elder Herron, are so amazing. I couldn’t ask for better companions. Elder Herron is actually going to Veracruz as well and Elder Coleman is going further south in Mexico. You know how I didn’t cry when we were saying goodbyes? Well, I did have a mini emotional breakdown last night, but all is well. This is a letter open for everyone to write back. Mom, Grandma, Josh, Nyah, Aunt B, Uncle B, lil cousins of mine, everyone needs to write. Megan Waddell you better write, that was random, but do, haha. Bianca needs to write to. By the way, I had a good time with her, Lizzi, and her family. My pen just broke so I’ll just end with love you all and WRITE!

Love,
Elder Tellez

Elder Tellez' first email home

Hi, how are things going. I'm doing fine. I have learned so much in just these couple of days. You will probably get my written letter soon. I have talked with Elder Waddel y Elder Escobar, they are doing fine. I have two wonderful companions, Elder Herron y Elder Coleman. Mi maestro, Hermano Leishman es muy interesante. I don't know if I did any of that correct, but I'm learning. Don't worry about me, I'm having the time of my life, it is truly a wonderful spiritual experience. My P-day is on Thursday, so I will send you pictures then. I really do miss everyone. Please, please write me. I'm not one to write, but I will make an exception. My schedule is really crammed, but that is the only way to learn. I feel like I've been here for more than a week, yet this is only day 4. Elder Waddell, Elder Escobar, y yo will be posing in a picture pointing to the map of where we are each going. I miss you all, but I love Utah weather. It is so nice, and the was rain!! Have you had rain yet? I hope you have. How is everything going? I would love to know. Well my time is short. I love you all.


Elder Téllez