Brandon's Ecuadorian Tales

Hey everyone!Thanks for your letters and packages this week! Thats for the jerky mom! I have a few packs now so i should be good until I leave. If you send something this week could you send some type of healthy snack food. maybe like wheat thins or something.The swine flu is gon from my floor so i'm not at any big risk anymore. But i'll keep taking precautions like you said mom! Thanks for all the info about it and all the herbs and stuff.

Jason, I have an assignment for you. fing the aug. ensign and read the article starting on page 46. its about WOW haha

Dad you seriously worked 174 hours in the last 2 weeks?!?! Thats ridiculous! Thats pretty much working all day everyday with just enough free time to sleep! Hopefully your proposal will go good and you'll be back to normal hours soon!

My flight plans should come in about a week from today. either on thursday or friday, Hopefully. They might let me call you when i get them but i'm not sure. I'm not sure when i'll be able to call your from the airport either. I dont think it matters. I might even be able to call you from salt lake and from wherever else we stop at. I'm not sure though so i'll let you know when i find out. as far as the length of the call, I think i'll be able to talk for at least like 30 minutes. But once again i'm not sure so i'll have to let you know when I find out for sure. I"m way excited to talk to you guys though! I miss you all! and mom, I miss your cooking a lot. The food here is getting so old. I can only take cafeteria food for so long.

Dad, yea spanish is different wherever you go and it will definitely be difficult to understand and talk when i first get there. I've talked to a few people that have been to quito and they said that everyone in quito speaks really slow and pronounces everything very clearly so thats a good sign! Apperently in the jungles and by the coast they speak super fast though. But I'll probably be lost wherever I end up serving when I first get there.

This week we did calls in the RC in spanish. It was pretty scary. I would introduce myself and then they would say something back to me and I would only understand parts of it. I think its harder to talk over the phone because you can see body language or anything. We're going back this week to practice some more.

Oh and i'll be gone before bernie gets here. New missionaries come in on wednesday and old ones always leave on monday or tuesday.This week was pretty good for me. we went to the trc on monday and taught lesson one in spanish. The lady we taught was kinda mean at first and we weren't sure how it would end up going. We just went in and did our best to teach with the spirit. Then when the lesson was almost over she just opened up to us and told us her whole life story about how she used to live in california and drink and spoke but then the missionaries taught her and changed her life. Then she said that she had never felt the spirit so strong as when we were teaching. It was cool becuase I actually got to make a difference in someones life and help them feel the spirit and make there day better. I can't wait to get to ecuador and do that all day every day.

On wednesday we got to host new missionaries. We had to stand out on the curb and help them with there luggage and take them up to there room and then to there class. When they were teaching us how to host they made sure to emphasize that we needed to be really kind and friendly to the parents when they were getting dropped off so that they felt good about letting go of their son. A couple times I had to stand there and watch whole families cry for 10 minutes. It was pretty sad. I almost shed a tear at one point. This whole missionary drop off is brutal. Its just like pull up to the curb, get out and say goodbye, and get back in the car and drive away. It was definitely better that we just said goodbye at the airport.We got a new district in our zone on wednesday. They're going to texas, denver, and paraguay. Elder noe and I got to talk with them and take them on a tour. It was basically the same thing we did last week. one of our districts is leaving on monday so we might get another new district on wednesday but i'm not sure yet. I think Grant is coming in on wednes day so maybe he'll be in my zone. that would be cool.

Hey mom, can you send me everyones shirt size? I want to buy you all some ecuador shirts that you can wear and when people ask you about them you can tell them about me and it will be a missionary opportunity.
Thats so cool that jason gets to go to sea camp and desi gets to go to washington dc. Make sure and tell me all about those trips!
anyways, my time is almost up so i have to rap it up. I love you guys! Dad, mom, lindsey, jason, desi, and jojo. Write me and tell me about your lifes!

-Elder Brandon Messer