Last week with Trainer

It was a very successful week for our little group of missionaries; we had 3 baptisms and a lot of promising progressing investigators.

An RM came home to our little area and we were in his house having açai when he came through the door so that was a little awkward. We got to know him really quick and he set up an appointment with his girlfriend for the next day. She’s very timid, but it's easy to feel the spirit because she's humble and unobtrusive. He served in Sao Paulo and he's having trouble getting used to the heat and the food.

We had some thirty people more than usual at church yesterday and I blessed the bread for the first time in Portuguese.

I also witnessed another RM propose to one of our members at lunch after church. Interesting string of events, right? RM gets home and six days later RM proposes. There seems to be a wedding coming soon.

Working along well, but my companion is 7 days from going home so I don't know how this week will go.

Elder Willard

Hospital tests

So, the week started with a surprise, we went back to Manaus to do an exam, but no one told me or my companion that they would be attaching several wires to my body and that I could not sweat or shower for 24 hours. Incidentally I used too much of my money on a battery they said I needed and then did not use insomuch that I was left with insufficient funds to return to our area. As a result I did not eat, we walked in the sun instead of using the bus system. We had to borrow 5 reals from our zone leader because my companion spent over 250 reals in less than a week, and I had to pay his fare.

But it's all good now. So they found a small rock somewhere near my diaphragm and they are going to pulverize it with lasers sometime in August.

We've got a really promising family in our area. Moderately wealthy, public servant, has his own car, wants to learn English, and the craziest thing, HE'S ALREADY MARRIED!! His name is Wilker and we taught him with our bishop which is very special and we gave a blessing to his little 8-year-old. Incredible experience, he asked all the right questions and I’m confident I’ll see his baptism.

Everything is just right. I can easily converse with the Brazilians without thinking about it and we have no trouble baptizing. Had three more this week.

Hope everyone is doing as good as me right now,

Elder Willard

Happy Birthday

I was really hoping you had already sent my birthday package and I might get it tomorrow when we go to Manaus, but thank you for waiting for my input.

I collected some ideas over the week to write. The three principle things that I would like are a Frisbee, a camera, and some contact solution. Through some strange circumstances I ended up partly responsible for the loss of elder Ashby’s contact solution and I kind of owe him for that.

If you have room in the package after that here are some things I might need:

arctic zone old spice deodorant

mike and ikes

body powder

sweet baby rays

socks

a smaller belt

blueberry poptarts

my golden tie for special occasions

more medication for diarrhea and sore throat

peanut butter m&ms

jelly bellys

If the grandparents send any money for me, could you send that along to my card?

If there's anything else you should ask dad, he knows the things that I want that I don't know that I want yet. And you can use your motherly intuition.

Thanks a lot!

Elder Willard

Still Sick

I can't say that very much has happened recently except that the illness I contracted turned out to be much more antagonistic than I first thought. The baptism of our mission leader's children was Tuesday but I missed it.

We finally got a functioning washing machine so everyone has been clamoring to use it. Really nothing has been happening for the past week, I’m sorry I can't tell too many stories right now.

Hope everyone is well,

Elder Willard

I Finally got sick

For two months I’ve been wandering around in the amazon jungle without any kind of problems. I guess I was kind of asking for it. Just some extreme stomach pain sometimes in the bathroom.

More strange things here:

-There's something in the water that makes twins really common. There are three sets of twins in our 90 person ward.

-People say sabe to mean "you know?" but it just sounds like Jack Sparrow’s, "Savvy?"

-The energy grid here is very fragile and everything will shut down for a few minutes every other day or so.

-Everyone wants to speak English.

-An Xbox 360 costs over $600.

So there's a lot of rioting in the major cities of Brazil right now. It was lit off by a large hike in the bus fare but now everyone is saying it's about corruption. They are principally upset about the fact that all this new revenue is being spent on stadiums for the world cup next year. They are hosting the fifa confederations cup right now, world cup next year, and the Olympics in 2016. They will be broke well before that I think, especially if the citizens continue to destroy public property. There was even a little riot in our town with 300 people or so, no damage though.

Everyone is coming to church and getting baptized. We have plans to visit a faraway land that is still in our zone where no missionary has gone before because everyone gets stabbed if they stay out past 6.

It’s getting better all the time and I am even enjoying the sun sometimes.

Hope all is well,

Elder Willard

Slimming down in the heat

Not much to report for this week, pretty slow.

It turns out I can speak the Portuguese I know pretty easily, but if I try to talk to anyone my tiny vocabulary is very apparent. It's getting better all the time but everyone is saying that summer is about to arrive which only means that we don't have rain with the heat.

I have been washing my clothes by hand for over a month now and I think it's better.

I’ve lost about 30 pounds since I left home so that makes walking easier.

Our landlord really likes missionaries because they don't cause problems and he took us to his other house for a visit today. It’s right on the coast of the River Solimões, but some 400 feet above sea level. Incredible view and we ate some enormous fish.

I gave a talk in church about temples and it was surprisingly easy to put everything together. I think it went over very well.

I ran into Sister Riding at a meeting with a 100 or so other missionaries and she seemed to be quite delighted. It was great to see her again; she was the only American sister there of 12 and we exchanged some broken Portuguese before saying goodbye.

Everyone talks about the missionaries that leave early, but that just doesn't work for me. No matter how hot or difficult it's been that has never occurred to me as an option. I’m here to work and that's what I’ll be doing for the next two years.

Nothing to complain about,

Elder Willard

Marriages and Baptisms

It seems like a pretty fast week, just going from p-day to p-day. I can't hardly remember what I do every day.

We had an awesome time for just a few minutes at a youth dance held at the church (I’m pretty sure I’m still able to go to those because I’m 18) after a meeting with a couple who wants to be married.

I had an opportunity to "fazer contatos" (make contact?). We met two very nice ladies who were chilling in front of their house and they listened to us for 20 minutes or so and asked a lot of good questions. I didn't have any trouble understanding what they were saying; I was so excited about that. I explained very simply about the Book of Mormon and they accepted one.

We had a marriage Saturday for a family that was being taught by my companion for nearly 6 months. It was a very classy affair and the cake was mind-blowing. The three baptisms that took place afterward were done in the glow of the emergency LED flashlight that the bishop had. Electricity is a very delicate thing here. It was still very cool.

We had four confirmations yesterday and we walked for 30 minutes in direct sunlight to get to our next appointment. I was sure I would die.

The members here continue to astound; everything is moving along well.

Hoping everyone is well and good at home or abroad.

Elder Willard

Trip to see the President

Hi everyone!

Sorry I didn't email yesterday, the internet in Manacapuru just stopped. There isn't mass internet access in Brazil, the only way to operate here in the north is by LAN houses which charge a dollar an hour for rather slow service.

Anyway, this week began with a trip to Manaus for training and the first interview with President Klein. I went on splits with a local companionship and we did street contacting in central Manaus. I met another missionary that had two months left who had baptized over 500 people and 100 of them in the same 6 week transfer! He let me baptize 4 of his investigators while I was there. My companion was a Tongan named (get this) Elder Tonga. He lived in California and speaks three languages, also he weighed over 300 pounds when he arrived in Brazil, but now he's my size, which isn't too small, but better. President Klein made it very obvious that we are not to use Facebook and if we do we won't use a computer for the rest of the mission.

When we got back we walked past a man who asked us to enter his house. He told us he wanted to be baptized and follow Jesus Christ. I baptized him three days later. That was miraculous.

I witnessed a low-speed collision between two motorcycles right in front of us. We watched a soccer game where the Manaus team Princesa won the Amazonas state championship. It was LOUD. A less active member fixed our washing machine for us for free. I’m the only one with money at the end of the month. We moved to a much fancier apartment today that has air conditioning. We heard a talk about soccer in church yesterday. One super cool thing: they called the new mission leader a week ago and yesterday they called his wife, an RM sister, and a priest that's helped us a lot already as ward missionaries! All the elders wear the same shoes, some ugly boots that all the Brazilian construction workers use. Everyone uses this word that kind of sounds like "portia" the way you would use dang or wow.

Trying to speak with everyone and share the gospel maybe it will get easier, but if not, it's ok. I miss you all!

Elder Willard

Greetings from the Amazon

Greetings from the amazon,

 More of the same this week, there isn't a very regular schedule so it's difficult to keep track of when things happened.

Nonetheless we have been teaching families the restored gospel. Yesterday was very eventful. We arose early and I learned I was to give my testimony in church that morning. That went off without a hitch of course. I tried to tell them all that I cared about them and that I love all the members I've met so far and hope to meet them all. I may have grievously insulted their families because a few were crying when I finished, but I have no idea. We walked in the hot sun for a long time until we came to a home we visited before where I learned we were not eating there but at another house, that steak smelled so good!

We literally blazed a trail through the jungle so we wouldn't have to walk a really long distance around on the road to our lunch appointment. We returned to the same house by way of a VW Voyage which is just a cheaply made CC. My companion and the other two missionaries in the district watched a soccer game on a member's TV while I talked to the two recently baptized kids. We were picked up by our ward mission leader and we went to an executive priesthood meeting I think. I couldn't understand a lot of what was being said and we left early and arrived home 2 and half hours early. The other companionship came back and told us that our district leader had lost his streak of baptizing weekly for six months. It’s all good and p-day is fun.

Hope everyone is enjoying themselves, I'm almost out of time here. Hope to have lots of emails to read next week.

Elder Willard

Arrival in Manaus

I arrived in Manaus on the 7th of May after a thoroughly useless orientation for new missionaries in the CTM where it was entirely in Portuguese and by the end of the day I had a splitting headache and it hurt to try to understand it.

After that very long day we were sent to pack our possessions and get ready to leave. We got up at a ridiculous hour to a chocolate bar and a ride to the airport. Sat next to sister Riding on the plane again and a few of the other missionaries were speaking English just because it would be the last opportunity.

We were picked up at the airport by President Klein, his wife and two companionships with two Americans in the midst. We went to their home and ate lunch before we were given some very direct instruction from the president at a stake center nearby. From there we were sent our different ways. I am currently in a small city called Manacapuru around 80 miles south of Manaus. 

A few missionaries were sent to the jungle by bus and boat and one was sent to most easterly part of Acre, another state in the mission, by biplane. It turns out President Klein does not speak English so that was a fun surprise. It is so hot here all the time and the humidity makes you sweat, but it does not evaporate ever. In our apartment there is no hot water but that is totally okay with me. The weird thing is that the bathroom is still stuffy and humid as if you had a hot tub in there after every shower. I met my companion and the district leader with his companion at the bus stop at 10 or so. My companion is the only one that is not American. Elder Emílio is a native from Fortaleza. He is headed back home at the end of June. Elder Drake is my district leader and another Washingtonian. He is a four-star chef so he does his best with our propane oven most of the time. I have met a lot of really cool members here and a missionary who came back to tour before he went home. I went in half on a hammock with elder drake. It will be his for a month and then I will bring it along with me. 

All of the mission homes have massive load-bearing hooks specifically for hammocks so I will not have to sweat into a mattress every night. Everyone wants me to pick a soccer team. It is either the Sao Paulo futbol club or the corinthians. I received over 200 hundred bug bites in my first week. There are not any laws here in the interior and there are not any police to enforce the non-existent laws so people drive however they want, let off fireworks whenever they want, sell or buy whatever they want, it is Anarchy. Everyone here rides motorcycles, even the people who do not own a motorcycle ride motorcycles. The most people I have seen on the same bike is 5 if you do not count children under the age of 3. There are a lot of Volkswagens in shapes I have not seen before, a lot of minibuses though. 

The first time I saw a Gol I thought they just lost the “f” from the Golf. Most of the cars are very small and then you will randomly see a charter bus wandering through the streets. Every building is built out of these ceramic blocks that kind of look like this when they are on one side 8888 because they are kind of like 8 toilet paper roles strapped together. I helped a member build a house the other day with these brick like structures. The church is under construction and will not be ready for human entrants until June. There is not internet here for popular consumption so people who have it charge 2 reals an hour for it and it is very slow.

All is well here see you all in 2 years or so.

Elder Willard