Mostly about Utah

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.

Daniel (left) with Elders Hardy, Hodson, and Draper.

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.