Our Mother's Day Call from Brett

Brett called home at 1:00 p.m. our time. We had Erin and Justin on Skype and the rest of us were on a cool speaker phone that Glen had brought home. It worked great. We were all able to hear him and ask questions.

It is amazing how fast time goes when we are talking to him. In our conversation he mentioned that he will probably be home for next Mother's Day. He said his mission typically releases missionaries two weeks before their entrance date - and that would put him home around the first part of May. That means we'll only talk to him once more before he's home - at Christmas time. Wow, time is flying by!

Brett said that he's eaten tons of ethnic food. He usually has African, Jamaican, or Indian food, with some good old English food thrown in now and then. He said that one of his favorite dishes is a vin daloo from India. He said it has curry in it and is extremely hot (spicy).

Brett also said that one of the things he thinks he'll be blown away by when he comes home is how big everything is. Cars, houses, yards, streets - they're all small in England. He said that a Ford Focus would be a "family car" in England. We thought that was funny!

Michelle thanked Brett for her Mother's Day present. Glen had Brett record 116 words that the GPS uses. Then he put it into the GPS unit. On Saturday night Glen and Michelle were driving to U. Albany for a concert and the GPS was giving directions. The first was "Turn Left" and Michelle said: "What voice is that?", because it was a male voice when before it had always been female. Then the GPS said something else and she asked Glen what was going on - Glen asked Michelle whose voice she thought it sounded like. She said she thought it sounded like Brett. And Glen told her that it was. Once the GPS said more than just a few words it was easy to hear that it was Brett. So now every time we use the GPS it will be Brett's voice giving us directions. If we put it in the back seat we might even think that he was in the car. It was so fun to hear his voice after not talking to him since Christmas. And then to get to talk to him the next day was amazing.

He'd love to get letters from anyone who wanted to write. Hint, hint!

Brett expressed that he is learning the value of work, and that it's taken on a whole new meaning since being in the mission field. It's fun to hear how he's maturing and learning lessons that will benefit him for the rest of his life.

Erin and Justin were able to tell Brett that they're having a baby boy. We also told him that Suzanne and Evan are having a baby boy as well.

It was great to talk to him. It made us realize just how much we miss his sense of humor. He said some pretty funny things and made us all laugh.

If you haven't heard Brett's voice in a while, you can hear it below. This is how he answered the phone.