Elder Tellez 9-16-13: The Last Email From Mexico

Sooo......... I'm super excited to be home. It should all be fun. Everett is the executive secretary, wow!! I hope all is well. I feel like eating Taco Bell. We baptized this Friday. Ok, so I will see you all in 3 days. I will show you the photos then. I love you all........

Elder Tellez 9-9-13 email

How is everyone?? I'm good. We baptized this Friday. We will baptize again this Sunday, MY LAST BAPTISM!!!! I'm super excited. Why is my appointment with Pres. Banks sooooo late? Thank you for the garments Gramma!! Mexico City North!! Awesome, when does she leave?? As you can tell in the pictures, my companion and I have a lot of fun. We are still working hard. Well, time to go. I love you all.

Elder Tellez 9-1-13 email

I'm sorry that my letters have been a little negative. That was not my intention. The main theme of my latest letter was supposed to be hope. It is a normal thing in this life, some people accept and others reject but we must never lose hope because like Gramma said, Satan wants us to lose hope or faith, he wants us to be sad. We cannot let that happen. I am not sad about what is happening but I am working harder than ever to change things. One of my favorite scriptures is in Alma 8. I love how when Alma completely lost hope on the city of Ammonihah, an angel of the Lord appeared to him and told him to return and preach the gospel to those people. I look at that experience and try to avoid turning my back on these people and offer a humble pray in its place. I know that I'm not perfect, but I have been called of God to preach the gospel to everyone I meet. I am completely thankful for the support of everyone. We will be having a baptism this Friday........I am definitely prepared for my talk, I am super excited for it. 17 days left, haha. I was thinking, I will be getting off of the plane at around 2:10, after that I was thinking of Taco Bell or Chick-Fil-A, or both; and after go to the stake president. What time is my appointment with the stake president? I love you all. Time to go.

Elder Tellez 8-19-13 email

John comes home one month from today. Also, he is the last of the "Four Amigos" AKA "Liberty Ward Stripling Warriors" still on his mission. How is everybody? I'm good. We didn't baptize this week. We are planning on baptizing this week. My pant size is 32 or 34. Shirt size would be small. You could buy like one pair of church pants, 1 church shirt, 1 t-shirt, and a pair of jeans. Flip-flops would be nice. I am seriously going to leave almost everything here because almost everything is destroyed. Are you excited?? When does Everett come home? Ok, time to go. I love you.

Elder Escobar's last email!!! 8-12-13

Hey, last e-mail while on the mission!!!

 

It's so crazy, but just like you said ready or not here we come. Well from the phone call that I made to you on your birthday, you already know the beef of my week. You already know the about zone conference, exit interview, and what not. However, there are a few things that you don't know about. So yesterday I was pretty disappointed with the bishop of Avon Ward. So for a few weeks now bishop had been proposing that I speak or bear my testimony my last Sunday here. So, even in PEC yesterday he yet again brought up the fact that this was my last Sunday. However, in sacrament meeting he didn't even acknowledge me or call me up to bear my testimony. And it's not like he forgot, Elder Watson was even performing hand motions throughout the meeting just in case he had somehow forgotten. Okay....the only time that he actually told the congregation that I was leaving was in priesthood, not that it really mattered then. Geez, so much disrespect (I'll explain later.) After church we got a call from President Packard. Turns out that there is a Elder going home on Thursday and so Elder Watson will be taking his place (it's a Zone Leader area). Yep Elder Watson is leaving on Thursday and I will be in a trio with Elder Farr and Elder Boren (the other missionaries in the ward) .So for at least 2 weeks there won't be any missionaries in the Avon/Simsbury area. At transfers they could put Elders or Sisters in the area. So yea that's the exciting stuff that happened yesterday! This coming week, I will be with the Farmington Elders. So let's work and let's go! We went to the temple site yesterday and took some pictures (those pics are on this e-mail). Well I don't want to say too much, otherwise I might not have anything to talk about when you get here :P Just kidding.

 

It's sad to hear that Brother Pate passed away. I was thinking about him this past week. Looks like all 4 of us missionaries from Liberty Ward are getting replaced with the youth. That's good! And Gilberto is going to serve a mission, that's amazing!

 

It has truly been an amazing experience serving my fellow brothers and sisters that reside within the New England area. I am sure that throughout the years as I reflect on my time here, my heart will be filled with even more gratitude. This has been the best 2 years of my life as of right now. The following years should be even better than the last, as more challenges, knowledge, and opportunities come into the equation of life. D&C Section 4 isn't just for missionaries, it's for all of us. We all need to keep pressing forward with an eye single to the glory of God in all that we do. Where one mission ends, another begins. The Lord knows what He is doing and apparently it is time for me to return home. And in so doing I will have to take my discipleship as well as the knowledge and understanding that I have received in this sphere and adapt them into the next phase of life.

I will see you soon!

 

Love,

Elder Everett Alan Escobar

Elder Tellez 8-12-13 email

How are you all? I'm great. I'm sorry to hear about Brother Pate, I will be praying for his family. We baptized a girl named Margarita on Saturday, it was a great service. The other picture is of me with Elder Gontes, the missionary I trained with his greenie, Elder Child. I'm a grandpa!!!!!!!! The mission is soooo fun. We have another baptism planned for this Sunday. All is well in Zion. I love you all and I will be praying for Tio Juan as well.

Elder Escobar 7-22-13

Hello this is Elder Escobar.
Okay so for the schedule, I just need to make a few quick phone calls today and then I can relay the info to you as to where we need to find hotels. I don't quite know how to explain this past week, it was such a rush and it was so spiritual. So on Wednesday we went to Six Flags again, had a blast. But I found myself throughout the day thinking about what I might say the following at transfer meeting. However, as I reviewed the past experiences of my mission nothing seemed to really stick out to me. There was plenty that I could say but most of it just didn't feel right to me. So fast-forwarding to transfer meeting, I still didn't know what I was going to say when I walked up to speak at the pulpit. However, I treated the situation like an investigator. Before it was my turn to walk up to that pulpit I pleaded with Heavenly Father to help me and give me the words that I should utter. I specifically explained that this testimony wasn't for me, I wanted my words to lift, inspire, and possibly to be an answer to someone's prayer. As I finished my prayer, my time had now come. As I made my strides to the pulpit, I still didn't know what to say. But I felt confident and peaceful. Right when I got to the pulpit I took a quick, sweeping look of those that were in the chapel. I saw the missionaries that I've known for quite some time: Elder Shim, Elder Jensen, Elder Lefthand, Elder Soares, Sister Crane, Elder Stone, Elder Martinez, Elder Reid, etc. Then I opened my mouth and the words just came, the Spirit took over and bore the message of my soul. I cannot recount the message in it's entirety, but I know that it was one of the most powerful testimonies that I have ever given. I was at the pulpit for 8-10 minutes, but as I was up there my perception of view changed and a more eternal perspective manifested itself within that chapel or at least to me it did. After I ended my testimony, I made my way back to the pew where I was previously seating. In the duration of time that it took me to walk from the pulpit to my seat I noticed that the chapel was completely silent and that the missionaries were all smiling and staring at me (some were crying), this affirmed to me that I had indeed touched them in some way. Even when I sat down at the pew and looked ahead of me, I found that everyone was still staring at me, even President Packard, Sister Packard, President Haight (2nd Counselor in the Mission Presidency), and Elder Bennett of the Quorum of the Seventy. It wasn't until the next missionary began bearing his testimony that the attention was taken off of me. It was an interesting experience. At the conclusion of transfer meeting, missionaries came to bid me farewell and to thank me for my testimony. After that I along with all of the other departing missionaries went to the temple with President Packard, Sister Packard, and President Haight. Going to the temple alone is always a spiritual experience. In the temple President Haight pulled me to the side and spoke to me in whispers. He explained he thoroughly enjoyed my testimony and was in awe as to how I had captivated and held the whole entire audience. He expressed that other than me, he had only seen general authorities do this. He then went and expressed to me that I have a certain spirit that very select people have. He told me that I would go far in life and that my testimony truly did project what type of missionary I was and he thanked me for even coming on a mission. After my conversation with President Haight, I went to the closest chair to pray and offer up myself to the Lord. As I began to pray I heard President Haight talking to President Packard, my name was mentioned several times. After the temple we went to the mission home where President and Sister Packard hosted a feast for the departing missionaries. In the dinner Elder Young, Elder Thompson, Sister Caulder, Sister Crane, and some other Sisters served us. After dinner everyone but the departing missionaries were excused and President and Sister Packard spoke to us on a variety of topics: transitioning to regular life, careers, dating, marriage, raising families, etc. It was awesome to receive their take and counsel on such topics. I did not have my exit interview with President Packard but I did talk to him about August 17th.

So this is the plan for the 17th, President Packard is trying to make arrangements for you to be present at the groundbreaking that will be done by President Monson.However, if that doesn't happen you will still be able to view the groundbreaking via broadcast at the Avon Chapel. President Packard and Sister Packard will be present at the groundbreaking and after the groundbreaking President Packard will give me my exit interview and after that we will start our travels (: 

I am actually running out of time, probably got to go soon. But a lot has happened this last week, even though you only heard about 2 days out of the week. Anyways, sounds like a lot is happening. The ward sounds ever eager to have us back home in grand reunion. 

Love,

Elder Everett Alan Escobar

Elder Escobar 8-5-13

Hi!

This is my second to last e-mail that you will get from me being out here in the mission field. That seems super weird. I still don't think that it's actually hit me even though I have been making all of these preparations to go home. I've been giving some of my stuff away already to missionaries. I don't think that it will really hit me until it actually happens. By the way, I did get the full amount of msf for this month so that was a relief. So I didn't give my final testimony to Avon Ward, I'm reserving that for next Sunday. This past week we have still been striving to visit everyone on the ward list in preparation for the temple groundbreaking. And we've gone on splits everyday with the Young Men of the ward. No new investigators this week, but that's not our main focus anyways. This past week was interesting visiting with both active and less-active members, just hearing what they have to say (drama, oh boy). The adversary is making his presence known with some of the members (so much pride and selfishness) as the temple is about to begin being erected. I've noticed it just intensify these past few weeks. Yep we got the pride cycle that has been apparent throughout the history of the church going on. Anyways, on a happier note, this past week we received a phone call from the non-profit organization that we do serve at. They knew that we've been trying to get involved with the community more so they asked us if we would like to attend 2 events this week that would benefit charity organizations within the community. Of course, we said YES. So the first event is a golf tournament of which they are having us take part in. Yea, we will be playing golf this week with leaders in the community of Avon, Simsbury, Plainville, and Farmington. I think it's a pretty good proselyting opportunity. We can get a lot done with all 4 of those cities leaders in just 2 or 3 hours in the morning (I think that's pretty efficient, effective work). The second is a Community Cook-Off Fundraiser for a variety of charity services. We will be helping and assisting in setting up, serving people food, and taking down for the event. Ought to be fun. Also this week we have Zone Conference. So last week was busy and I'm pretty sure that this week will be busy too as our days fill up.

 Oh Mom, about the books for school question: It sounds good to me. So I'm pretty sure that we are going to have to watch the temple groundbreaking via broadcast at the chapel. Here's the address: 27 Lawton Rd (Canton, CT)  Telling Danny and everyone else that I say "Hi!" back (I am waving at the computer screen) and tell them that I love them too. Same for me, I can't wait to see you guys, I imagine that's when I'm going to break down. But yes I will keep working hard till the end.

Love,

Elder Everett Alan Escobar

Elder Escobar 7-28-13

Hello,

Farkle!!! I like that game. I've played that on my mission. So what are Samuel's plans? Is he staying in the area for a little while? Things are getting better. I already know that this is going to be the 3-week haul of my life (as of now). I know it's going to be hard, I see it coming. It's the last and final push. This week we have been a little stunted in our efforts. We have had to join ourselves with the other elders in the ward. One of them hurt his ankle pretty bad (they don't have a car) so he can't ride a bike. So they have been with us all through the week. We've been taking care of him, but we have been visiting members this week especially the less-active members to inform them about the temple. We also went on splits with one of the young men in our ward. He seems pretty enthusiastic about going on a mission. The moment he was with us he wanted a missionary haircut. So I gave him one (he and his family liked it a lot). Maybe that's something that I could do when I get back home. Haircuts for $5, I am pretty good at it. I don't know if I told you but I cut my own hair and I cut all of the other missionaries hair. I don't charge them though, maybe I should. Just kidding. So it's looking like we might have to watch the temple groundbreaking at the Avon chapel (things aren't going quite as expected). Sounds like this week has been fairly eventful for all of you. I still haven't heard much about Danny though. So Taylor and McKenna finally tied the knot. So are either of them working? I imagine the reception was nice. Was it held at the Community Center that is in the Dayton Library?

Well Mom I kind of agree on the fact, that I hope that they give me all of this month's msf. If they don't I might have to call and plead my case haha. I read Alma 14 recently and I felt like I could really relate to the whole chapter, even though I'm not quite in the same situation and circumstances that they were placed in. Hopefully the end of my mission does turn out to be somewhat like Alma and Amulek. I have heard from Megan Loveland a little bit. I last heard from her 2 weeks ago. I'm still trying to configure how I'm going to send the rest of my stuff home. I do have a plan though, hopefully it goes through. We all have a bunch of stuff to do and don't have much time, but that's life. I will be calling Sister Needham to see if we're are still good to stay at her place in Worcester. And yes keep me updated on the hotel situation. I love all of you and hope that you have a great week.

Sincerely,

Elder Everett Alan Escobar

Elder Tellez 8-5-13 email

How are ya?? I'm good. Things are going great over here. My companion and I are having the time of our lives and we are going to baptize like crazy!!!! Today we went to the beach to play some soccer, it was fun. The picture of me with the ears is when I was in the house of some converts, it was pretty funny. Can I sleep in the washer and dryer room or the living room at least? Haha. So, I am now in my last transfer and Elder Montano will be my last companion here in Tuxpan. We have big plans this transfer. So, life is great. I hope that everyone is well. I love you all.