THE DEVIL LIVES IN URANUS

(Editors note - Brett did write this week but it only went to Blake. Maybe because Brett knew that he was in for a major ALL CAPS lecture about getting into cars with strangers.)

WELL.....
uh
gah.
So the impressions I have of your letters are as following

1. Mom I don't know what the crap is happenin to your body but I'm sorry. Sounds like a pile of crap wrapped in a bun.
2. The Panama Mailing system is better than Ecuador's. Haven't gotten anything yet.
3. Channing sounds like you're are livin it up my sista! Get em! Bunch of freaks and sheeks. I wish I had a pee bag. I could go all day chugging water! And way to break into houses. Ask Ty and Tara about breaking into houses. They would know. BUH!
4. I'm hungry

But sounds like the life is rocking on. HEY!

Cambria Happy Birthday. You're what? 7? Next year you can be baptized! WOOO!!! (I'm saying that to avoid the thought of you liking boys or anything. If one of them touches you I'm sending small pox in the form of a dead cat to his doorstep.)

Sounds like babies are being born. That's good. Keeps the birth rate healthy I guess.... idk what I'm supposed to say there.

Um, que mas? Somebody tell Smokey I said what's up babe.

Aight so the week started out explosive. In a bowels sorta way. We must have a family connection or somethin cuz a family that sticks together, gets the runs together. The first two days of the week were terrible. I did more contacting the bathroom than the streets. It's a good thing I brought my own toilet paper. The terminal, the market, the house, Plaza Roja. Whew everywhere. I was bad. My new compañero probably thought I was a freak. But I'm good now! I can eat my yogurt and cereal again. We don't have gas to cook so that's all I've been eating this week. Oh and bread. Some with cheese and some with jam. Because I don't have peanut butter. But it´s the good life!

My companion is different than Elder Andrade. He has the same time as me, 5 months tomorrow! So he just has a month more than me in the mission field since I was in the CCM. So he doesn´t always know the heck is goin on either. So it´s good! Cuz he´s not bossing me around and I can actually make the decisions. Kinda like Channing with her divisions. It´s a good growing experience.

But he´s different as in that he likes to do things his own time. Latino time. A little slow for me (who would have ever thought that Brett Jackson would say that? THAT´S RIGHT BROTHER! NOT SLOW OR STUPID!!!) but it´s aight. We're learning how to do things and get it done. He does have the advantage of Spanish of course but I´m still working on it. It´s harder with only 30 minutes to study Spanish. But I still have my little notebook that I write all the Spanish words and scriptures I can find. Just need it to stick. Which it does with time. So yeah! We keep on goin.

Interesting story this week. We had divisions with me and Elder Bloxham and we went to a little town up in the mountains called Santa Fe. The one next to the giant statue of Christ carrying his cross. And they have a giant blue cross themselves in the middle of the town. Made some contacts there, a lot of rejections (Do you believe in the Virgin? We believe she's a great person. I'm Catholic bye.), set up some citas, and headed back down the mountain. The bus only comes by every 40 minutes so we were walking down. A man with a machete contacted me. So we'll go visit him. But as we were walking, a car pulled up and asked where we were going. Guaranda, so he said come on in. We asked how much will it cost. Nothin. Aight let's go!

So we got in and started talking with these two gentlemen. They wanted to know why we were here and yeah yeah yeah. But then we went of the main road. We went bumping down this dirt road through the woods higher in the back part of the mountains. Hmmm interesting route I thought. Then a night club comes into view. Big yellow woman infested night club. My stomach dropped. He looked at me in the mirror and I looked at him. I think he saw somethin in my eyes cuz he then told us, It´s a night club! I looked at Elder Bloxham and he looked like he was trying to swallow a cucumber. I thought We´ve been shamboozeled!!! But then there was another road I didn´t see and we kept goin. Whew. But further into the mountains. By that time my mind was all kinds of paranoid. We just got in this car and we don´t know these fools. They´re gonna kill us cuz they think we´re rich Gringos. Daft. They´re taking us to the back country to kill us! I gotta get out of here!! (Needless to say our contacting dramatically came to a halt). And then we passed a tourist place with a giant beer bottle, and he liked pointing that out to us. yeeeaaaah. Then ANOTHER stinkin night club. What is this man?! He pointed it out to us too. But then we finally got to town, oh it was a back road. We thanked him, wrote down their numbers, and got out. Elder Bloxham and I just looked at each other and kinda did a stupid chuckle laugh thingy. Huh...huh huh huh....... wow. huh huh huh. Crazy huh? Yeah.

But all was fine and dandy. These people are nice here. But I´m not gonna do it again in Quito!

Um we had District Conference, they divided our branch into two branches now. So I have church at 12:30. Walter Segura, one of our converts, received the Melchizedek Priesthood so that was cool to see. And my focus this week on scripture study has been on how I can have greater faith to do the things that the earlier church people did. Because where did the power go?? There were people doing healings and seeing angels and hearing voices from heaven back in the day of Joseph Smith. What happened to our church? I think people just don't have the same faith now a days and we just don't treat the church with the same amount of faith and sacrifice. That's my idea anyway. I dunno but I'm gonna try for it. GET SOME..... FAITH!!!

So that's all folks, I love you all, we'll talk later about calls, and hasta luego!