Because of recent mission rule changes they have asked us to knock on every door we see. They have told us to wait for someone to come to the door before we leave. At one door we were there for a while so we took a picture of it.

This week was absolutely incredible. Possibly the best week of my mission. We had several situations a day where we followed a thought we had or a feeling and recognized that it was a prompting from the Spirit. We felt like we went where the Lord would have us go and do what He wanted us to.

I usually don’t care much at all about numbers, but in this case I’ll talk about them for a bit. This week we were able to teach 19 lessons to investigators. Only a couple were repeat lessons, which 12 of those lessons we had a church member come with us to the lesson. Along with that we were able to teach 9 lessons to less active members and a few of them we hadn’t ever met before. That is a total of 28 lessons which the standard of excellence in the mission is 20 lessons a week. With all that we had accomplished we were grateful that the Lord blessed us.

We also had the opportunity to have a mini missionary come with us for 2 days. We were excited and ours had fun biking with us the first day, but the next day his stomach was upset and couldn’t come. It was fun to have him with us. I don’t think they let priests go with the full time missionaries for 2 days in Utah because there is simply too many priests. So it is a wonderful opportunity for the members here.

I hope Grandpa goes through tests alright and things. His story was really great and inspiring. I laughed when he drove himself to the doctor, but it makes sense to do that.

So we got to work in Rick’s (one of our investigators) yard and helped him trim some bushes. He is always very grateful for the help and said, “If we could get you to come back every day for 2 hours I could put my yard on showcase.” He was joking and we always refuse to accept money from him.

Thanks for all emails and support!

Love, Elder Willoughby

Elder Daniel Willoughby is serving in the Washington Kennewick Mission. If you want to communicate with Daniel, write in the comments or use one of these addresses.

This week went very well. We had some of the best work I’ve had since coming to this mission. The Lord really blessed us and we were grateful.

There are many exciting stories to share, but I’ll just mention one. We have been meeting with an investigator that has been thinking that he doesn’t have nice enough clothes to come to our church. We didn’t really know that was his concern, but we left him with a commitment to read Alma 32. He read the chapter and when we returned he mentioned to us that it talks about people being kicked out of the churches because they were poor. It teaches that it is more important to have faith.

He said, “Did you know that was in there? You hit it right on with that chapter you gave me to read.” We were again grateful for the guidance of the Spirit and were able to resolve his concern. It opened up the opportunity to resolve other concerns as well. We are hoping he will come this Sunday.

This coming preparation day will be on Monday. We are having a 4 day mission-wide leadership training from Tuesday to Friday next week. It will be exciting. The elders currently in my district are great and I’m glad to have them. Thanks for everything you do, I love you all.

Love, Elder Willoughby

Elder Daniel Willoughby is serving in the Washington Kennewick Mission. If you want to communicate with Daniel, write in the comments or use one of these addresses.

So Wednesday we picked up our new companions. My companion is Elder Hardy from Atlanta, Georgia. He lived close to where I served for three weeks, so that was really cool. He plays the guitar and had a job working at a pest control company selling door to door. He has lots of good ideas that work for tracting, but we keep in mind that following the Spirit is most important. We have had many great experiences already, which comes from working with new missionaries. They are fresh from the MTC full of faith, desire, and excitement which does wonders.

I was prompted to turn down a street that I’d never really noticed before. As it so happens we talked to a man and he allowed us to teach him about the restoration. We gave him a Book of Mormon and said we could come back. The road also was a shortcut to where we wanted to get to. I was grateful for the guidance of the Spirit and it strengthens my testimony that the Lord uses us as instruments. I think rarely do things happen by coincidence especially in the mission field.

At church there is a girl that has been coming to church for about three months. With family problems etc it has prevented her from being baptized and meeting with us. We hope to meet with her soon and she’ll be baptized. That should be exciting.

With the push to have effective plans for each hour and increased desire to find people to teach I expect great things to happen. The Lord has blessed us already. Thanks for all the emails. Good job posting on Mormon.org Dad. It looks like its getting really high-tech. Where are you going on a cruise again? Ask Matt if I’m still vice-president of Fence4u too. Thanks.

Love, Elder Willoughby

Elder Daniel Willoughby is serving in the Washington Kennewick Mission. If you want to communicate with Daniel, write in the comments or use one of these addresses.

Transfer calls created chaos (kind of). Every companionship in my district is changing. Only three Elders (including me) are staying and the rest are going to be different. It was quite surprising. Elder Draper and I are sticking it out in the apartment with two new missionaries to train. We were both humbled by the call and excited at the same time. We’ll get to meet them tomorrow.

The hike last week was really fun and it was nice to be with the whole district. The picture in front of the waterfall is with Elder Draper.

My bike had an interesting experience. The back tire’s bearings fell out making it out of commission. That is okay because today is the best day to fix it. It’ll be good to go soon. We decided to ride some scooters around while it wasn’t working (see picture). The person on the training wheels is Nathan in the ward leaving on a mission soon who likes to go around to lessons with us.

Church was great. We were able to have five investigators there. Mostly the ones that have always been coming regularly. Hopefully they will make the commitment to baptism soon. The members are sad to see Elder Derges leave. I am too, we did lots of great work together and had lots of fun.

Thanks for all the support and letters. Keep up the great work.

Love, Elder Willoughby

Elder Daniel Willoughby is serving in the Washington Kennewick Mission. If you want to communicate with Daniel, write in the comments or use one of these addresses.

The 4th of July was lots of fun. We got to watch a few fireworks from our apartments backyard. We were completely surrounded on all sides with people launching fireworks into the air. Since they are legal here they are everywhere.

We were riding our bikes at the usual quick pace that we do and we were coming up on a driveway that leads down a slight hill. I was just about past it when I glanced over and saw a lady washing her car. I slammed on my brakes causing my companion to almost hit me and went and talked to her. She happened to be a member who’d been less active for 20 years. She was married and sealed in the temple, but now is divorced. We invited her back and we’ll see what comes from it. It was great to have the Spirit direct us like that.

We met our new president and his wife. I sent a picture of the zone with them in it (see above). He is really cool and seems like he’ll do great.

Elder Draper and I worked on a fence while I was on an exchange with him. It was fun to get back into fencing. We got the hang of it and got a lot of work done.

I included pictures of the dance festival and also with Sister Cook. It was a good week and today we are planning on going hiking. It should be a hot day. Thanks for all the great emails and support. I’m not sure if Elder Od Bayar got his gloves yet, but I’m sure he’ll let us know soon. The lawn we mowed was not for a member, but lived right next door to one.

Rickety Note: See last week’s email for a full account of the Dance Festival.

Love, Elder Willoughby

Elder Daniel Willoughby is serving in the Washington Kennewick Mission. If you want to communicate with Daniel, write in the comments or use one of these addresses.

The baby looks great and I’m glad the vacation went well.

So we mowed someone’s lawn this week for service. I took some before and after pictures. It was really exciting and was fun to have grass flying everywhere and all over us.

We also got to participate in a dance festival that was held for all the youth that live here. Over 1,800 of them had prepared for six months working on dances to where they performed three times. Once on Friday and twice Saturday. We were ushers for the shows and were also able to be part of the youth conference on Saturday morning. At the end of the show while all the 1,800 youth were on the field singing “How Firm a Foundation” we walked out with white flags on both sides of them. There was about 80 missionaries that walked out in two lines of us on both sides of them and it was a very powerful effect on the crowd.

There was many non-members that danced in the festival and many that attended to watch. In youth conference we were the main event and the youth stood and cheered as we came out on the field. We recited the “Standard of Truth” in unity and powerfully. Afterward President Belnap spoke followed by Sister Cook, First councilor in the General Young Women Presidency.

We also had many opportunities to talk to the youth between performances and youth conference. That was a great and lots of fun to get to know them and for them to interact with missionaries. Overall the festival was really fun and a great influence with everyone that went. Even though it took two days from normal missionary work, we got a lot of missionary work done among our own church youth and non-members that came. They say that a movie of the whole event will be made, but it probably won’t be out till September sometime. Hopefully all missionaries will get a copy.

I talked to Sister Cook after youth conference was over because she told of her experience while she was in Mongolia. Her husband was the first mission president there. She talked about a very tall, sail looking building in Mongolia that had a poor foundation and couldn’t be used (all the missionaries there called it the “taco building” — see picture). She went right along with the theme of the dance festival of “Firm Foundation.”

As she was talking I showed missionaries near me a picture of the building which I just still happen to have on my camera (no worries, I have made picture backups). I showed Sister Cook too and she was excited to talk to me about Mongolia. She told of how she had just been there and how the members and missionaries have been stepping it up. Their goal is to have a temple there and they are still headed in that direction. And many other things did she say unto me. It was wonderful to hear about it.

It was a great week and we look forward to meeting our new president on Thursday. Thanks for all the support.

Love, Elder Willoughby

Elder Daniel Willoughby is serving in the Washington Kennewick Mission. If you want to communicate with Daniel, write in the comments or use one of these addresses.