Letter #72 from Australia

December 4, 2016

Dear Family & Friends,

          It is officially the Christmas Season and I am so happy to be in December! How fast has this year gone!? Insanely fast if you ask me! We had a great week in our area and were able to get so much work done! We spent the first couple of days doing some finding at the local train station, which turned out to be a huge success! We found 13 people who were all interested in meeting with us this week to learn more about Jesus Christ! We made contact with almost all of them during the week and a couple of them are now investigating the church! One of them was a gentleman named John! He met with missionaries over 20 years ago with his wife and daughters, and the whole family was 2 weeks away from being baptized, but then something happened and they were never baptized. Well when we met with him and had a lesson, he told us that he is trying to find the "true church of Christ". We taught him the message of the Restoration and he remembered a lot of it and accepted our invitation to be baptized! It was such a great miracle and confirmed my testimony that Heavenly Father really does have a plan for all of us!

          Our other investigators are doing great and Dyon is ready to be baptized this coming Saturday! It will be so great to see him enter into the waters of baptism and make that sacred promise with his Heavenly Father! We have a "flat out week" (as the Aussies say) full of meeting after meetings and then some more meetings! Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday are all booked with meetings that will last the entire day! So we pretty much have Friday and Saturday to visit all of our investigators, so we should be really busy on those days! I can't wait!

          I just want to say thank you so much to all of you who emailed me, sent me a letter, or a parcel for my Birthday! I am not officially out of my teenage years and it feels so good! hah My companions pulled a surprise for me by decorating the entire flat! Because we are in a trio companionship, Elder Lawler planned an emergency exchange with another companionship in an area right next to ours. So he went with the other missionaries to visit someone and I went to teach a lesson with Elder Levaci. After our lessons, we planned to meet back at our flat to exchange back and when I opened the door to go inside, they had decorated the entire place! It was a nice surprise and I really enjoyed it! We had a lot of lessons on my Birthday and after every lesson, Elder Lawler and Elder Levaci told the person we were teaching that it was my Birthday and that they should sing to me. Haha So after every lesson we taught that day, we ended it with a prayer and the song "Happy Birthday". Ha But I really am grateful for all of the nice and sweet Birthday wishes that you all sent me! I am so grateful for the great friends and family that I have in my life! You are all the best support team ever and I love you all!

          Also, I need to give a huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a sweet and special Best Friend of mine, Grandma Jones! She celebrated her Birthday this past week on the 2nd and I hope that she enjoyed ever minute of it! I love you so much Grandma and I am so grateful to have a best friend and Grandmother like you! 

          I hope that you all have a great week and keep up the great work with school and work! I miss you all and love you all too!

Sincerely,

Elder Wheeler

Ward Christmas party with Santa!!

Thanks to my awesome family for sending me the Birthday Parcel that beats
all other ones! I love it all, especially my Notre Dame shirt! Thanks heaps!

Birthday lunch from Subway with my crazy companions! haha

Came home to all of this mess! haha My companions are the best!