{"id":5519,"date":"2019-07-31T14:08:55","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T19:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/family.pep.org\/estes\/?p=5519"},"modified":"2025-05-03T22:55:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T22:55:03","slug":"week-18-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/family.pep.org\/estes\/2019\/07\/31\/week-18-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 18"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t\n

Monday, July 22, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today was the beginning of a\nbrand new week for us and only 10 days away from graduation. This morning, we\nbegan class with the graduation walk. It\u2019s fun but not so fun to do over and\nover. Before you knew it, we had already done the walk seven times, and the\nclass still kept walking some more. After we finished the graduation walk, we\nacknowledged the top 10 GPAs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The remainder of the class we\nbroke into small groups and finished decorating our Coats of Arms, which will be\ngiven to our family members when they come to graduation. A Coat of Arms is\nbasically a superhero with your face on it. You\u2019re able to decorate it to your\nliking and go all out on it. They brought out the markers and all sorts of\ndifferent colors while we listened to relaxing music. After lunch, we came back\nand we decorated a special gift that will be going to our children, using all\nkinds of different paints and markers to decorate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There isn\u2019t really much going\non this week except for pitch panels for Phase Two and practicing our\ngraduation walk. After class, we went back to the pods to practice more\npitches. We are already at the end of this great class, and we will begin\nleading the next class on their own journey. This is a great accomplishment for\nall of us. Thank you for allowing us to share our experiences with all of you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel\nD. (a.k.a. \u201cSweet Jelly Roll\u201d)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuesday, July 23, 2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Graduation is only days away,\nand we are eager and glad to sing It\u2019s\nAlmost Over<\/em> \u2013 for we are legendary, and the time spent has been a song. No\nother group can claim it, as it was written by our hearts meeting through love,\nanger and faith, but also hope for a brighter future. We are always willing to\ngive a helping hand to each other whenever someone needs it. Today we practiced\nthe graduation walk, and with each pass we could see the progress we have made.\nWe have to be honest and display integrity over and over again as we continued\nto walk over and over again. We are past ever trying to cheat again, and we\nwould never think to take another shortcut again, as they were just possible\npaths we didn\u2019t want to explain and others didn\u2019t want to understand. All we\u2019ve\nhad is each other in this program, and we have truly helped each other grow to\nwalk down a new path in life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sound of horn and drums came\nfrom the speakers because that\u2019s what they are going to play when we do our\nreal graduation walk. We practiced it eight times today! It fills us with joy\nas we are all daydreaming about for the big day and how we have put in so much\nwork up to this point. God is a dreamer who never sleeps and the dreams he has\nfor us are always gracious. He has allowed us to dream and live them out. PEP\nis a place where people who have made mistakes can go and fulfill another, better\ndream. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also handed out items for\nus to decorate for the kids who attend graduation. It is heart-warming that\nthey get to receive the item that their fathers took the time to design. It\u2019s\nan awesome sight to see. \u201cWhat\u2019s in front is the future of our mind,\u201d and our\nfuture at this point is to lead everyone behind us to a better future. God\nbless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott\nD. (a.k.a. \u201cMissing Something\u201d)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday, July 24, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today was very productive for\nthe Legendary class of 2019 as next week is our big Business Plan Competition and\ngraduation. For the past nine months, we have been trying to perfect our business\nplans to 12-minute pitches, so to get some more practice we broke into four\ndifferent groups, with about 16 people in each group. Each and every one of us\nhad to give our pitch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Days like this are days that\nevery participant should enjoy, because it shows how much love we show to one\nanother, due to the fact that there is never any negativity. Even if a brother\nstumbles, we as a brotherhood encourage him to do his best and push through it.\nOne of our brothers said something throughout the day that goes along with how\nmuch love we show to one another. He said, \u201cThroughout this journey, I lost my\nbrother; but I gained 64 more brothers.\u201d That shows how close each and every\none of us has gotten throughout this PEP journey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the morning class came to\nan end, we got the opportunity to finish adding our last details to our items\nthat we get to hand out to our kids at graduation next week. Every one of us\nhave been taking our time and putting in a lot of love into every single one of\nthese. So overall, Wednesday turned out to be one of the better class days we\u2019ve\nhad since there was nothing but good and positive attitudes. Now it is time for\nLegendary \u201919 to walk the stage and make all of our family members proud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dylan\nD. (a.k.a. \u201cLittle Turkey\u201d)<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thursday, July 25, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has\nbeen a long ride, and it\u2019s almost over. As we continued going on with this\njourney, we did a lot in class today. It started off as a simple day \u2013 most of\nus wake up at 4 a.m., and about an hour later they call chow (that\u2019s what we\ncall breakfast). After that, we were able to relax before we got ready for\nclass. About 7 a.m., we were called out for Phase Two. We all arrived and put\nour badges on and took a seat. Next we all prayed in and called our Emcee to the\nback of the room. Then we got right into doing our pitches that we\u2019ve worked so\nhard on. We also practiced our graduation walk for the big day. After a couple\nof times of messing up, we finally got it down. We have all worked so hard for\nthis moment. Believe me when we say that this program is no walk in the park \u2013\nyou really have to put in your time and effort to get through it. We are all\neager to be able to walk across that stage and get to see all of the smiling\nfaces that are so proud of us. This will really be a great moment in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Issac\nD. (a.k.a. \u201cBallin On A Budget\u201d)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expressions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLots\nof people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who\nwill take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

~\nOprah Winfrey<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nquote is very inspirational because in life, you will come across many people who\nwant to befriend you, and you will get most of these friends when you are doing\nyour best and everything in your life at the time is going right. Then as soon\nas things start going wrong or in the opposite direction, these so-called\nfriends will begin to evaporate, and when you ask for a little help to get you\nback on your feet, no one will lend a helping hand or even an ear to listen to\nyou and let you get things off your chest. Those are not true friends, but what\nthey are is more like leaches that will suck you dry of everything you have,\nleaving you for something better. If you do have those type of friends, then I\nsuggest that you get rid of those people as soon as possible because they are\nnot healthy for you. The real friends will be there for you no matter what you\nmay or may not have. They will be there to listen when there is no one else and\nwill always be there to help out. Real friends will have integrity, and when\nthe limo breaks down, you will see them on the bus with you until the limo\nstarts working again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Darius D. (a.k.a. \u201cTootsie Roll\u201d)<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday, July 22, 2019 Today was the beginning of a brand new week for us and only 10 days away from graduation. This morning, we began class with the graduation walk. It\u2019s fun but not so fun to do over and over. Before you knew it, we had already done the walk seven times, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essm19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/family.pep.org\/estes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/family.pep.org\/estes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/family.pep.org\/estes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/family.pep.org\/estes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/family.pep.org\/estes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/family.pep.org\/estes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/family.pep.org\/estes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/family.pep.org\/estes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/family.pep.org\/estes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}