{Aug 30, 2010}

Dear Family,

Everything is going really good here. This week was good. One thing that we did was we helped Jairo paint the back part of his house, the same part of his house where we helped cement. What else happened, we taught a lot, and sweated a lot. We were blessed to be able to baptize one girl whose name is Edileide. She is 17 and we have been teaching her for like 6 weeks and I dont think she ever missed church in that 6 weeks and we were finally able to baptize her. We found her like this. We were walking and a drunk person came up to us ( and I dont know if you guys know this but drunk people always come up to missionaries, always! and we usually just try to ignore them) and talked to us and told us to come back. I dont even know why we came back but it was because of this girl. She accepted everything that we taught and is really awesome. She really wanted to be free from the errors she committed in the past. She is always really excited to go to church. We also baptized this week a girl named Joyce. She is Eryka´s friend and when she saw Eryka´s baptism she said she wanted to be baptized too. That is a testimony that the Spirit of the Lord is manifest in the ordenances of the priesthood. Anyway she was baptized too.
Last night we had a family home evening at the house of a man named Luis. He is the YM Pres and really awesome. He has a huge heart and he is like a big teddy bear. He looks like a little boy and I can always picture him with a pinwheel hat on. Anyway we had FHE at his girlfriends house, who was baptized also yesterday by Elder Nascimento´s companionship, and Luis and this girl are going to marry!! And he is always like I want you to see my marriage. What else that is it. I will just write some in Portuguese so you guys know that I am not lying about the whole being in Brazil thing.

Eu sei, com certeza, que essa igreja é a igreja do Salvador Jssus Cristo. Eu tô aprendendo muitas coisas aqui. Ontem a gente teve uma noite familiar na casa do Luis bem especial. A gente cantou É Tarde A Noite Logo Vem e O Elder Nascimento tocou o violão. Depois eu deixei um pensamento sobre o Espírito Santo e li a escritura 3 Néfi 11:3. O Espírito tocou bem forte no coração da gente. Eu nunca esquecerei dessa noite.

Oh yeah and I am learning a little bit of guitar!

Elder Willoughby

From freetranslation.com this is their translation for the above:
I know, with certainty, that that church is the church of the Savior Jssus Christ. I tô learning how many things here. Yesterday the people had a family night in home of the Luis well special. The people sung IS Afternoon THE Night Soon Comes and THE Elder Birth touched the double bass. Afterwards I left a thought about the Holy Spirit and I read the scripture 3 Néfi 11:3. The Spirit touched well fortress in the heart of the people. I never will forget of that night

{Aug 23, 2010}

Dear Family,
How are you all doing? You guys are probably enjoying the heat there, and so am I here! Well anyway this week was really good. I am trying to think of what all we did. One thing we did was help Jairo (a man we baptized last transfer) pour concrete in his back yard. And it is also interesting that the top part of Jairo´s house is going to be rented to a woman we baptized this week named Paula. Paula lives in Missão Velha, another city, but she is going to move here. Three weeks ago at church she came to church with some members and was like I want to be baptized. But the hard thing was that she only is in Barbalha on Saturdays and Sundays and so we had to teach her just on the weekends. She is dating a member and they intend on marrying. We also baptized a girl named Eryka who is a friend of Andrea and Fernando. She is really a good young woman and the gospel will bless her life greatly.

One cool thing that we did today was go on a hike with the YM pres and Jairo and some of the young men. It was basically in the middle of the jungle and I took a lot of pictures. But the thing is that I spent a lot of time trying to send the pictures but it didnt work. THe2 pictures are us on the way back. Here things are a little bit different, they dont have busses to the place we went, just trucks that you ride in the back. Sorry the email is short.

Love,

Elder Willoughby

{August 16, 2010}

Dear Family,
How are you guys doing? I am doing well here with my new companion. Elder Oliveira Santos is basically the man and we are working hard. He is from Sao Paulo and is pretty funny. One interesting fact about him is that no matter how much he shaves, he has like a permanent 5 oclock shadow goatee. Elder Nascimento´s new companion is Elder Landskron who is Gaúcho and is beginning his mission here. So I am trying to think of things that happened this week. My companion got in Juazeiro Tuesday and we met at District Meeting and afterward we took a taxi to Barbalha. Sometimes in our house we run out of water, (I am not sure how that is possible, but we do) and when my companion got there there was no water to take a shower, which stunk because he had traveled 12 hours to get here and was not able to take a shower. Well anyway this week we worked hard and have good people preparing to be baptized. For example, there is a girl named Paula that will be baptized this next week. She was like I want to be baptized so we were like.........alright, lets do this. She is the girlfriend of the brother of a member. She lives in another city Missão Velha where there isnt an LDS church or members or anything, but she comes to Barbalha every weekend, and so we taught her on Saturday and she accepted everything. We also have one young man named Rafael that we are preparing to be baptized. He is the brother of Andrea who we baptized last transfer. Also it was cool because we brought Dariane´s brother to church who also knows Rafael so that was awesome, and we are preparing both to be baptized. Well that is cool that you guys talked to my mission president. I called him on Tuesday or Wednesday and he wanted to know your telephone number.
Love,Elder Willoughby

{July 9, 2010}

Dear Family,
Well how the heck are you guys doing? How is the summer heat doing? I hope you all are doing really great. I was sorry to hear about the water line breaking at Ben and Jessica´s house, just get some duct tape on that puppy and patch her up.
So this week was pretty good. Elder Magno´s parents were still here. One cool thing that happened this week was that we had a talent show. The missionaries do all the planning and everything and it turned out really good. There were 90 people there! Me and Elder Gomes and Elder A Mendonça did this theatrical peace skit type thing that was really funny. Elder Warn played guitar and sang Aint no sunshine when you´re gone for Elder Magno. Elder Nascimento played guitar, Elder Magno sang, and there was a young man here that played the drums, and their little band was awesome. Everybody loved it.
Every Thursday night we have a ward activity called Integração. They have it in almost all the wards in Brazil and its to let people have fun and integrate the investigators. Usually when there are a lot of people at Integração, a lot of people will come on Sunday also. And at Sacrament meeting this week there were 100 people! That is exciting because every Sunday this transfer the frequency has gone up. It started at about 46 and yesterday was 100.
So we had transfers and it was hard because its like this. Elder A Mendonça was a secretary in the mission office for 7 transfers and so like he has a bunch of connections and is really influential with the President. So like everyday this week he knew what the current transfers were. But the president always changes them and tweaks them until Friday. So it was really hard not killing Elder A Mendonça and trying to firgure out what was going to happen. So the transfers are like this.
Elder Magno is being transfered to Sao Paulo to his house and his companion will be his girlfriend that waited faithfully for two years.
Elder Warn and Elder A Mendonça will continue to be companions here in Barbalha.
Elder Gomes will be transfered to Fortaleza, Nova Aldeota, and will be companions with Elder Boyer
Elder Nascimento is the new district leader and will train a new missionary.
And me. For the first time in my seven months as a missionary I will stay! And my companion will be Elder Oliveira Santos who I already know. He is from Sao Paulo and is the man. He is 1 transfer younger than me. So this will be his 4 transfer and my 5th. I am a little nervous to be senior companion so you guys gotta pray for me that I dont screw everything up!
Oh yeah and yesterday we baptized one girl named Teresinha. She is the younger sister of Dariane who we baptized this transfer. She is really cool because she always came to church with her sister and really wanted to do all the right things. I think yesterday was her 6th time coming to church and also she always comes to church on Thursday´s also.
So yesterday I went with Elder Gomes and he said goodbye to everyone and I swear everybody loves that man that we call baby. Everyone cried when they were saying goodbye to him. And I felt like a jerk because I swear I was the only one that didnt cry. But then I was talking to Elder Warn who saw Elder King in Juazeiro (because Elder Warn and Elder Mendonca had to go leave baby at the bus station in Juazeiro) Elder King said that same thing happened to him. His comanion was leaving and everybody was crying except for him. Are we bad people? I think so.
So I think I am going to burn all my pictures on a CD or DVD and send them to you guys. I think that would be a good idea. Yeah I am going to do that.
Well I know that this church for which I am a missionary is the church of the Savior Jesus Christ and I know that we can be forgiven of our sins no matter which they may be.

Much Love,
Elder Willoughby

{July 2, 2010}

Dear Family,
How are things going there? I hope really good. So I was helping
another elder send photos so now i dont have very much time but quick
recap of the week. it was good. elder magno´s parents are here and
yesterday elder magno and i went to crato because he has cousins and
an uncle and aunt there and we had lunch with his family and this is
his last week! This week was good we baptized Jairo and Andrea. Both
stories are cool. Like the first Sunday here we were brining
investigators to church and we were already really late when this one
lady stopped us in the street and asked us to talk with her son, and
we were like we are really late we cant talk right now and she was
like no it will just take a minute, so we went and marked a day to
come back. Jairo is cool and is 23 years old. At first he had a lot of
doubts and he started asking really weird questions and he had been
reading anti stuff online and so we were like great thats too bad we
will just cut him, but then he started reading the book of mormon and
knew it was true and he said he used to go to a bunch of different
churches but our church was the only one he felt good at. he is
basically the man. he has already read to alma in the book of mormon.
 Andrea we met like this. Elder Magno had to do an interview with an
investigator of Elder Nascimento and Elder Gomes. But we kinda wanted
to stop by Nei so we had to do a division Elder Gomes and I went to
see Nei and Elder Nascimento and Elder Magno went to do the interview
(Elder Magno and Nascimento are cousins and they do a lot of divisions
which is cool for them so Elder Gomes and I spend a lot of time
together) well anyway we were coming back to meet our companions and
this girl yelled elder and we went back and she said she had already
been taught and so we got her name and number and adress and stuff and
said we would stop by and we just started to teach her and she
accepted everything and was baptized yesterday. She is 18 and we are
teaching a lot of her friends and family members too.

Alright gotta go, love you, the church is true,

Elder Willoughby

{July 26, 2010}

Dear Family,

How are things going with you guys?? I hope everything is going super well. Is it really hot there right now? So this week has been pretty good, I am trying to think of a story I could tell you guys. Well the worst thing that happened is like all six of us missionaries got sick.It started on Tuesday Elder Mendonça got sick and then on Wednesday I got sick and then on Thursday Elder Nascimento got sick and on Saturday Elder Magno got sick. And Elder Warn was sick before that so the only one that didnt get sick was Elder Gomes so we are pretty sure he poisoned our food.Jking. So yeah that happened, what else, we are teaching this one guy named Jairo who is the man and will be baptized this next week. Yesterday we were just passing by the church at like 8am just to fill up the baptismal font and he was already there at church which is awesome. So we had to fill the baptismal font because someone was baptized! Someone opened the door to heaven. The man that was baptized is named Luan. He is 19 and is the man. At first we were teaching his brother Marcondes who is also in the picture. Also Nei, the man that we baptized last week, had been bringing Luan to church so that is totally awesome. One cool thing that Luan told us is that like that first Sunday that he went to church, after church some people asked him if he wanted to go out drinking and he was like no I dont, and when we heard that we were like ELECT!!!!!!!!!! SO yeah, but on Saturday the ZL´s were coming here to interview him to be baptized and he wasnt there he had left for a soccer game or something so we were all worried, but he talked with him later that night and it just so happened that the next day, Sunday, was the Barbalha Branch´s first branch conference and a counselor to President Batt, President Cabral, was coming. So we just had Luan come to church and he was interviewed by Pres. Cabral and was baptized and everything was alright. Oh yeah and in church Nei told another São Paulo story. What else....here they have really big avocados, and there is a picture of me with one. I made suco de abacate, or avocado juice. It doesnt sound very good but it is. Alright remember I love you guys and thanks for all you do for me and know that I am doing good. I know that this is the work of the Lord.

Elder Willoughby