Letter #41 from Australia

May 1, 2016

Dear Family and Friends,

          What a great week it has been! The work is really hastening in our area and Elder Halsey and I are really happy with all of the amazing miracles that we are being blessed with! The ward is helping us out so much and it is great to see the members get excited about missionary work! I am so happy to be serving in this area and to be serving with the man, Elder Halsey! I love him and this area and all of the members here! Okay, so let me tell you why my week was so great!

          So the week itself was pretty basic. Nothing to big happened except for the usual teaching, finding, more teaching and more finding! We did have a lot of work to do this week with the zone and the missionaries in it! Trying to figure out some emergency transfers that had to happen and trying to help the missionaries out in any way possible! The work that we do the most is the work for and with the other missionaries! Our work during the week is about 60% helping the missionaries in the zone and the other 40% is working in our area with the investigators that we have! But the Lord blesses us so much! He helps make up for the work that is lost in our area, by really preparing our investigators! It is so amazing to see His hand in the work! 

          So I thought I would tell you just a little bit about the area that I am now serving in, as I failed to do that last week! Sorry! So our area is extremely diverse! There are a ton of people from the Middle Eastern, Persian, Indians and Iraqi. A ton of Islanders, Samoan, Tongan and Maori. And then the occasional Aussie! And I really mean that! Our ward just got its third full white person yesterday because an Aussie gentleman moved from Sydney! haha So now it is him, me and Elder Halsey! There are about 10 different languages spoken in the area and it is really cool to hear them all throughout the day! 

          Now onto the highlight of my week! Our investigator Sina Tiatia was baptized on Saturday! It was such a great day for us and more importantly for her! She has been waiting for this day to come for months and was counting down the days, hours and minutes leading up to her baptism! It was great to see her enter into the waters of baptism and to know that we were able to help another one of Heavenly Father's children come unto him! It was a great day and such a happy one for everyone involved! Of course there was a huge feed afterwards. And I mean HUGE!!!! Four huge tables filled with Samoan food! The ward was so happy for her and so excited to continue to help us missionaries out! Just on Sunday alone, we had a bunch of members come up to us and tell us that they have a friend or family member for us to start teaching this week! They are all so great at helping us!

          I hope you all have a great week and stay safe! I love you all and appreciate all of the support that you give me! 

Sincerely,

Elder Wheeler

Sina, me, Elder Halsey and Elder Jeramia - before Sina was baptized.

All of us again with Sina's Uncle (on the left by me) who baptised her. Destiny is
Sina's daughter and the one standing in front of her. And then Brother Savea and his son
Luconious, who is helping fellowship Sina! Such a great day for all of us!