Brandon's Ecuadorian Tales

Hey everyone! first off, Thanks for the package with the pictures and candy mom!!!! That was awesome!!!! I love getting any type of mail or packages or whatever. as far as what kind of stuff I want.... well snacks would be good... like as close to real food as you can get. I don't need candy or anything like that. oh and could you send my a cheap watch? mine broke. possibly the one you gave me for Christmas a while ago if you can find it on my desk and figure out how to set it. And yes mom I got the copy of my blessing! thank you for sending that!!!!!!!!!!
Whats this I hear about getting a new bishop? thats kinda sad. Bishop Lindsey was one of my favorites! He was un hombre de dios (a man of god). you'll have to write me and tell me who the new bishop is when you find out!

So this week has been pretty good! Elder Noe and I had an interesting experience at the TRC on Monday. We were supposed to go do this whole situation where we pick someone up for church and get to know them in Spanish on the way to church. after we did that we were supposed to go back and teach them the plan of salvation in english. But when Elder Noe and I went back to teach our investigator he wouldn't let us speak english. He was an RM and spoke perfect english so I don't know why he wouldn't let us speak english. it was kinda weird. But anyway, We ended up just teaching for 45 minutes in spanish. It was pretty sketchy but we made it through ok. I was suprised at how much spanish we already knew. I'm sure we made a lot of mistakes but it was cool that we were able to get the point of the lesson across. We're not even suposed to start teaching in spanish until week 5 and that was our 3rd weeks so we got a jump start i guess. Hopefully this monday we'll get to teach someone that will let us speak english.

After this monday everything switches to spanish though. Like our teachers will start only talking to us in spanish and we have to answer in spanish and all that jazz. I can't believe that next week i'll be half way done with the mtc. its kinda crazy.

On a lighter note, I saw Betsy last Sunday. She was helping out in the referral center and I saw her leaving just as I was walking back from the temple. I yelled at her and said hi and stopped and talked with her for a bit. it was kinda cool to see someone I knew.

And on an even lighter note, When BYU has football games its pretty much the biggest distraction ever for missionaries because we can hear all the noise from the stadium. They were playing on Saturday and we saw some elders standing by the fence just listening to the game. And then a little kid on a bike pulled up and told them the score. apparently they recruited this kid and were paying him to ride back and forth and get the score of the game for them. I thought it was kinda funny.

Mom, An elder in my district got a letter from his mom this week asking "is there an elder Messer in your district because his mom just joined the missionary mom website" or something like that. haha
anyway, I hope you guys are doing awesome! your in my prayers everyday! I love you all!

Hola familia! Como estan! espero que todo estan muy bien!!!
Mom gracias para los cinnamon rolls!!!! fueron muy delicioso!!!

This week was pretty good!!! last weekend I was feeling really frustrated because I have so much to do and not enough time to do it. I've been finding out that missionary work is really hard. Its non-stop work all day. I think its probably the hardest thing I've ever done. last weekend i was feeling like i wasn't learning Spanish fast enough and like i wasn't learning all the lessons fast enough and like i wasn't teaching good enough and it was really frustrating and i was wishing that it wasn't so hard. Then on Tuesday we had a devotional and there were rumors going around that it was going to be an apostle so we went like 2 hours early and got really good seats. It ended up being elder Holland and his talk was exactly what I needed. He started explaining how missionary work is always hard and there is never an easy mission. He said it has to be like that because salvation has never been easy. When Jesus Christ performed the atonement that was in no way easy and as missionaries we are his disciples so it shouldn't be easy for us. Elder Holland said that everyone on their mission has to go through there own Gethsemane and carry their own cross to calvary, otherwise how can we say that we are really disciples of Christ? It made me think about how hard salvation really is and i started to consider how hard it was for the savior to do what he did. then elder Holland said that when we go through our own gethsemani and carry our own crosses it gives us a small taste of what it was like for Jesus and helps us grow closer to him. Anyway, the talk was really good and it helped me a lot!

On Monday elder noe and I went to the TRC and had to make contacts in Spanish and teach the first lesson again. we ended up teaching to this old Latino man named Napolean. but long story short, he ended up teaching us the lesson. he was supposed to be an investigator but when we started talking about prophets he just went off and started bearing his testimony to us about how he knew Joseph Smith was a prophet. and it was like that the whole lesson. we would teach for like 30 seconds and then he would bear his testimony to us for like 5 minutes. He was a cute old man that was really excited about the gospel but he didn't really let us teach that much haha.
We went back to the referral center this week but instead of making calls we did online chats. it was interesting because some people would come on with real interest and we would kinda teach them but some people would come on just to insult some of our most sacred practices (temples and other stuff like that) and try and talk about really deep doctrine with us and try and prove us wrong. when people do that we just have to either steer the conversation the other way or if they're really bad we just don't talk to them at all. I did a few calls too and I talked to one guy that said he was having struggles in his life so i testified to him of how the gospel could help him and he agreed to let me send missionaries to teach him. I hope it all works out for him!!!!

I can't wait to actually go to Ecuador and start doing real missionary work all the time!
Can you guys send me some pictures of the family and jojo and stuff? I don't have any and I want to use them to 1) show to people when I teach about families and 2)hang in my room so I can remember you guys!
mom- if you want to send me any packages I would love them but you definitely don't have to! The cinnoman rolls were really good! thanks again!

I Love you all! Dad, Mom, Lindsey, Jason, Desi, and of course jojo!

Hey!Mom, Happy birthday!!! I hope all your birthday wishes came true!!!
thanks for the letters dad and desi!

ok let me try and answer all your questions real quick:

i ussually just feed the mice about every other day but i dont think it really matters much if you feed them everyday. just as long as they have enough water and dont go too long without food.I saw tanner today just as he was coming out of the temple and i was going in. It was way cool! we talked for a bit and i wrote him a letter so he's gonna write me back and we'll have to talk mostly through letters. I haven't seen boyd johnson yet. idk if i will. we'll see. i saw andrew kinney the first day i was here and i think i saw sam later that night as well. I get to practice the piano every once in a while when we have free time. luckily my companion doesn't mind listening to me for a few minutes! my companion (elder noe) took two years of spanish in high school so he knows a lot. we try and talk to each other in spanish as much as we can. and my p-day is on friday so you can expect emails from me around 4ish on fridays. i'm not allowed to write on anydays except p-day and i can only email on p-day for 30 minutes.

ok now let me tell you about my week:

-on monday we went to the trc for the first time. we had to talk to a bunch of people in spanish and get to know them and teach a short message and ask if we could come back later and share more. it went pretty good. one guy that we talked to was amazed that we had only been there for 5 days and could already speak such good spanish. after we made teaching appointments in spanish we had to go back and teach them the first discussion in english. It went sooooo good! the spirit was soooo strong!!!! Elder Noe and I were really nervous at first but we trusted that the spirit would guide us and it definitely did!!!! its crazy how much help we're getting!!!

-on wednesday we went to the RC (refferal center) for the first time. we had to call people that had ordered stuff from the church and confirm that they got it and ask if they would be interested in learning more. we were there for an hour or so and all i did was call person after person but no one answered for like 55 minutes!!! then right when we were about to quit I called one more person and someone finally answered! I started introducing myself and right after i said my name she said "hold on" and went away from the phone. I was on hold for like 8 minutes but i didn't want to hang up because I really wanted to talk to her about the bible that we sent her. everyone else was already packing up and ready to go back to class but i just waited for her and she eventually came back after like 8 minutes. I asked her if she had recieved her bible and she said yea and we talked about it a little. then i started telling her about the book of mormon and how it was a second testament of jesus christ and i asked her if i could send some missionaries to her house to share a message about jesus christ and she said yes! it was awesome! her name is shiela and shes from georgia.

-i went back to the RC on thursday and once again no one was answering. but i kept calling and eventually got someone to answer. i asked for the person that i was trying to call but he wasn't home so i just started talking to the person who answered. it turned out to be the guys brother and long story short i asked if i could send missionaries to his house to share a message about jesus christ with him and he said yes! his name is zak and hes 17 and from ohio.-we had a devotional on tuesday and got to her from president hinckley's son and his wife. They were so bold with some of the stuff they said!!!! it was so crazy! dad, all that stuff we used to talk about as not being offical doctrine- they just flat out talked about that! it was sooo cool!!

-so i definitely have the gift of toungues!!! its sooooo crazy!!! yesterday i swear i was almost fluent for like 15 minutes! it was so wierd cuz i was speaking perfect spanish for like 15 minutes and then all of a suden i couldn't anymore. and i was saying words that i didn't know and then i looked them up and they were right!!!! it was soooooo cool!!!!!

-one last thing, i official hold the mtc juggling record now haha.anyways, my time is almost up so i'll write again next week, oh and it would be easier for me if you would dearelder me your responses as well as email them to me so i dont have to try and read your emails and respond during my 30 minutes of email time.

I love you guys!!!!!

Here's his first e-mail!!!

Familia!!! como estan?!?! how are you all?!?! i miss you all so much! mom, dad, lindsey, desi. I hope you guys are doing awesome! i only have 24 minutes left to write this so i'm gonna use bullet points so i don't have to organize my thoughts...

-The past 3 days have been crazy!!! all we do is go to class, study, eat, and play in the gym for an hour a day. we're always doing something and theres never any time to rest.

-my companions name is elder noe. He's soooo cool! we get along great and hes a hard worker so its awesome! we always quiz each other on spanish and practice bearing our testimonies in spanish to each other-so far we've learned how to pray and bear our testimonies in spanish. we're not very good but we're working hard to get better! the gift of tongues is already kicking in though and its awesome! I keep remembering random words that i haven't even thought of since i took spanish in high school. its sweet!

-our district is made up of 9 elders all going to quito and we're all becoming best friends. one of them is named elder hirschi and hes really good at soccer. we practiced juggling today and got up to 617 together. i think thats a new mtc record.... maybe.

-i've learned that time in the mtc is like the lords time... that is, every minute seems a thousand times longer that it is. the days go by so slow. but we're doing good stuff so its all good.

-all the elders on our floor are spanish speaking elders and they all speak in spanish a lot and its really funny because 1)they have horrible accents and sound SOOO white! and 2)they always try to say things in spanish and think we can't understand becuase we're new, but the stuff they say is super easy so i always understand it. they do some pretty crazy/wierd stuff too. like today they were playing "super ninja". its some wierd game and i dont really understand how its fun but whatever floats their boat haha.

-if anyone wants to write me letters they can send it to:
Elder Brandon Messer
MTC Mailbox #95
ECU-QUI 1102
2005 N. 900 E.
Provo, Utah 84604-1793

me gustariacompartir mi testimoni. yo se que dio nos ama y jesucristo nos ama. porque dios nos ama, El restauro el evangelio y el sacerdocio a traves jose smith. el libro de mormon es la palabra de dios y recibimos bendiciones cuando lo leemos. la iglesia de jesucristo do los santos de los ultimos dias es verdadero!!!!!! digo estas cosas en el nombre de jesucristo amen.

I love you all!

-Elder Messer

Hello!

I'm Lindsey, Brandon's sister and I'll be the one posting his e-mail updates on here.

I picked Brandon up from the airport today at 7:30am and took him everywhere he wanted to go around Provo before dropping him off at the MTC. It was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do...just drop him off and he walks off one way while I drove the other way, crying, and knowing that I would not get to see him or hug him again for 2 years, knowing that a lot changes in two years and who knows what kind of life I'll have or person I'll become during that time. Even though I'll miss him more than words can express, I'm incredibly proud of him and I KNOW he'll be an incredible missionary!

His specific MTC address is....

Elder Brandon Scott Messer

MTC Mailbox # 95

ECU-QUI 1102

2005 North 900 East

Provo, UT 84604-1793

You can send letters for free through http://www.dearelder.com/

If you attend BYU they have a same day delivery service for packages to the MTC at the pack-n-ship in the basement of the bookstore for a reduced rate. Take advantage of it while you can cause once he gets to Ecuador there's a weight limit and no guaruntee that it'll get there.