In spite of this good start, progress was slow. So at the invitation of J. F. Rutherford, who was then president of the Watch Tower Society, Alston Yuille arrived in Brazil in 1936 to help the Witnesses there to benefit more fully from the spiritual provisions that Jehovah was making through his visible organization. With him was his wife, Maude, as well as Antonio Pires de Andrade, a fellow worker who, at least at the start, also served as his interpreter. Three years later, Otto Estelmann and Erich Kattner were sent from Europe to serve as pioneers, devoting themselves to calling at the homes of people to show how Bible truth could benefit them. Then in 1945 two missionaries from the first class of Gilead School came: Charles D. Leathco and Harry Black.

“I used to read the Lord’s Prayer to such people,” recalls Fern, a longtime missionary. “Catholics knew that prayer by heart but were surprised to see it in the Bible.” In many cases, surprise led to interest and interest to the request: “Could you get me a Bible?” The Witnesses would gladly obtain an affordable version from the Brazilian Bible Society.

The ten missionaries then in São Paulo were frequent visitors at the Bible Society’s outlet in that city. The outlet’s Protestant clerks, though, were not happy that the entire stock of the Tradução Brasileira—a Bible version containing the name Jehovah—was moving from their shelves into the missionaries’ book bags. One day the clerk told the missionaries that she could not let them have any more of those Bibles. Shortly thereafter, the Tradução Brasileira was out of print.

[Picture on page 126]

Charles Leathco, of Gilead’s first class, still serves at Bethel in Brazil