Thursday, June 15, 2017

Letter #98 from Australia

June 6, 2017

Dear Family & Friends,

Well, the time has come to write my final words as a full-time missionary. Seeing that I won't have the opportunity to email next week before coming home, this is it. I have so much to say, but with the time constraint and with the time that it will take you to read this, I won't take too much time. I will just say everything that I want to say in about a month when I report in Sacrament meeting! The exact date and time of the meeting will be July 9th at 1 p.m. The chapel is the same one that I gave my farewell at. The chapel on Hwy 89 in Pleasant View! More details will come when I get home, but just so you have it now. 

Well this week has been an emotional roller coaster and has been all over the place! I have had some really amazing experiences this past week and a couple of not so favorable ones. I had to bear my final testimony in MLC, the mission leadership council, and that was pretty hard, but I made it through. The work has been really good over the past week, but sadly to say, Bobby and Nahid won't be being baptized this weekend. They have some more struggles to over come, but they are doing so great with them right now and are really looking forward to their baptism here in the next month or so! Fernando and Jun are doing so great too and are eating the gospel up so fast! They hopefully will be baptized here in the next few weeks and I can't wait! Although I won't be here, it will be so comforting to know that I was able to help them! We found a new investigator though, Matthew and he is so great! He is 18 and has gone through a lot over his life and is just looking for God again! We invited him to be baptized on the 15th of July and he said yes! So all in all we are working with 5 investigators total and all 5 of them are working to be baptized here in the next two months! The Lord has blessed us so much and we are so grateful! 

As I come to the end of my mission, I am so sad to see it pass by and so amazed and shocked at how fast it went by! I have pondered this week about how I could describe my mission, and have come up with this analogy. Serving my mission is like giving a dandelion to my Mum or Dad when I was little. But the only problem is, half of the pedals on that dandelion are squished because I carried it in my hand. When I give it to them, they smile and accept is and say thank you for it, but in all reality, they don't need it. But because of the thought and act of love that I showed towards them, they love my half squished dandelion and me. My Heavenly Father didn't really need my service. To be honest, He could have done this great work all on His own, if He really wanted to. But instead, he allowed me, as imperfect as I am, to serve this mission. I know that my mission isn't that extravagant or beautiful to some people. But only I know just how much my mission has meant to me and to the people that I have been able to help. Soon, I will offer up my imperfect little dandelion to my Father in Heaven and I know that He will smile, accept is and thank me for it. He will love me and my little dandelion for the rest of my life and oh how grateful I am to Him for that!

I am so grateful for my mission and the way that it has shaped and molded me into the man that my Heavenly Father wanted and needed me to be. I will be forever changed because of my mission! I know that I have been able to teach others and help them come closer to their Father in Heaven and Savior Jesus Christ! I have loved seeing the Atonement work in my life and the lives of others! This Gospel is true. This is the only true church on the Earth! Joseph Smith did in fact see God the Father and Jesus Christ. They did commune with him face to face and through the prophet Joseph Smith the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the Earth again once more! We are led by a modern day prophet, Thomas S. Monson and through him, we can know what God wants us to do to find true joy in this life! The Book of Mormon and The Bible are the true words of God! I love them both so much and I know that if we will read, ponder and pray about them both, we can know for ourselves if they are true! God lives, His son Jesus Christ did live, die and now lives again! I know these things to be true and I bear this short and simple testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen! 

I love you all and hope that you have a great week! I will see you all soon and can't wait! 

Love,


Elder Bryce Paul Wheeler
MLC selfie!
​All the Elders and Sisters who are leaving with me! And a pic of all the boys!​

Friday, June 2, 2017

Letter #97 from Australia

May 31, 2017

Dear Family & Friends,

Okay, so just to let you all know that although I will be coming home in 2 weeks, I will not have my homecoming talk until the 9th of July! So look out for the time and address which will sent out through FaceBook!

Now, onto the good stuff! So this past week we saw heaps of miracles and it has been so great! Elder Kaufusi and I talked and set a comp goal to fast every other day for these final two weeks of the transfer and we have been seeing heaps of miracles as a result of it! So we have 4 investigators total that we are working with currently and last week we were able to invite 2 of them to be baptized and they both said yes! So that means that all 4 of our investigators are on date to be baptized in the month of June! Bobby & Nahid are still working for the 10th, Fernando agreed to the 17th and Jun said yes to the 24th! It was such a great thing to see and we are so happy for all three of them! Well on top of that, we were able to do heaps of finding and we have 5 return appointments set up for the rest of this week with people that we met while finding! The Lord has blessed us so much and we can't wait to see all of the other miracles to come as we continue to fast! 

Well with every spiritual high, there is always a spiritual low...well last Saturday we were street contacting and I began a conversation with this really nice guy! Well in the middle of the conversation, an elderly lady asked us where the nearest toilets were? Well he paused our conversation, told me he would come back to finish talking and then walked with the lady to help her find them. About 5 minutes later, he came walking back and was holding two ice cream cones in his hands! He gave me one and we sat down on a bench to talk more about the gospel! Well I hadn't tried mine yet cause I was right in the middle of the first vision and so he asked me if I like it. I then tried it and said, "Yeah, it's alright. It isn't the best that I have ever tasted." He then replied and said, "Well yeah, it's not too sweet because it is GREEN TEA ice cream." I then proceeded to freak out inside while remaining calm and dignified on the outside. Long story short, I didn't eat anymore of it and through it away after I explained the Word of Wisdom to him. I told President Vidmar though on Monday when we had out routine interview and he just laughed at me and told me that I was fine. So I guess I am okay now, and can have a good laugh by saying that I broke the Word of Wisdom while I was a full-time missionary! haha (Please don't be disappointed Mum & Dad, it was an honest mistake! I am sorry...)

Before I finish, I just wanted to give the world's BIGGEST SHOUT OUT to my bro Mitch who celebrated his 14th Birthday this past Friday! I hope that you enjoyed it bro and that you are enjoying all of the perks that come with being a 14 year old and now a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood! I love you and am so proud of the great man you are becoming! Keep it up bro!

Have a great week everyone and know that with Christ, all things are possible! I love you all and am so thankful for you all in my life! Take care and I will see you all soon!

Love,

Elder Wheeler
This is about the only picture that I took this week! ha sorry! 
This is Me, Elder Kaufusi, Elijah, Nora (his wife), 
Christian and Jun, one of our investigators! Elijah and Nora 
has us all over for tea the other night and then we taught Jun a lesson! 
Oh, and there dog Pav!

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Letter #96 from Australia

Read letter to find out why letter came on Thursday not Monday!

May 25, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,

I am still alive and well. Sorry that I didn't email the usual day, we decided to change our p-day to allow us to go to some really cool markets in the city! The markets aren't opened on Mondays, so we took our p-day today, Thursday! I am doing really well and have had a great week and a couple of days with Elder Kaufusi! We are working so hard and too be honest, aren't finding a lot of success in finding new investigators to teach, but we are still keeping our work ethic high and our faith and trust in the Lord even higher! (See Isaiah 55:8-9) We are still teaching Bobby and his mother Nahid and they are progressing so well it is such a blessing to witness! Just this past week, we had two spiritually packed lessons where the spirit was so strong! And they both have gained a personal witness, through reading and praying about it, of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon! It has been so cool to see and I love them both so much! Other than that, not too much has happened over here in Melbourne! I still love my mission and Elder Kaufusi! It was a weird transition going from crazy BFF Elder Wiser as my companion to Elder Kaufusi who is just so chill and quiet! (of course in a good way!) I have definitely toned down my attitude and am a lot quieter myself, if you can even imagine that! haha

Well, there is a little news that I can share. So President Vidmar has changed our p-day as a mission from Mondays to Wednesdays, so if you email me and don't get a reply on my Monday, don't be offended! I will get to it on Wednesday!:) Had some great p-days these past two weeks and have done some really cool things, so look at the pictures for some cool shots and moments here in the land down under!

HUGE SHOUT OUT TO MY LITTLE SISTER NICOLE FOR GRADUATING THIS WEEK FROM GOOD OLD WEBER HIGH SCHOOL!!!!!! I love you lots Coley and am so proud of you! You have matured so much and are so great and I couldn't be more proud to call you my sister! 

I love you all and hope that you have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Wheeler
This is Louis Meurs who is the mother of Peter F. Meurs, the
General Authority. She and her late husband Fred, were two
converts that my Grandfather Jones had the opportunity of finding,
teaching and baptizing while serving his mission here in
Melbourne back in the 50's. I had the amazing opportunity to
go meet and visit with her and her daughter, Julie. It was so
amazing and a huge testimony builder of the power of missionary work
and the effects that we can all have on generations to come!
Me and Elder Kaufusi driving around Mornington Peninsula
looking good!
Some amazing sunset beach pictures that we got! My first beach that I
 have ever been to in Australia! And it only took me 23 months! ha





Some selfies with the boys!





Just some funny random pictures from the week! 



The Victoria Markets in the City of Melbourne today with the boys!
And Elijah and Nora Costigan and Christian Macrae came along too!


Letter #95 from Australia

May 14, 2017

Dear Family & Friends,

What a great week it has been! I have loved this week and it has gone by so fast, as usual! haha Firstly, just a huge Happy Mother's Day shout out to all of your Mother's, Grandmother's and Motherly figures out there! I am eternally grateful for the wonderful Mother that I have and for all that she has done and continues to do for me! Thank you as well to all of the great women in my life who have helped shape me to who I am today! I love you all!

So as far as the work goes, things are going really well in the area! We have seen some amazing miracles this past week and found 3 new investigators! It was a really productive week and we were able to get a lot of work done, despite having a lot of meetings to attend! So to share a little bit of the miracles that we had this week! So one of our investigators Bobby told us on Saturday that he didn't want to be baptized anymore. We were pretty sad about it and weren't sure what went wrong, but we just trusted in the will of our Heavenly Father! Well, the next day, Sunday, Bobby came to church and brought his mother with him! She had apparently been asking him for a couple of weeks to take her to church so she could meet us! Well we taught the two of them during church and the spirit was so strong in the room! We invited both of them to be baptized on the 10th of June and they both said YES! Bobby said that he did some thinking about it after our lesson and realized that he does want to be baptized! It was such a miracle! ha Well another little miracle was meeting up with the brother of a recent convert in our ward! His name is Fernando and he is from Columbia! He told us that he would like to learn more about the church and so we are now teaching him! He has good English, but luckily we have a couple of Spanish speakers in our ward to help! ha

Other than that, things went really well this past week! I am absolutely loving my mission and can't get enough of it! President Vidmar said that I have the option of extending for an extra 30 days past my release date...but I figured my family wouldn't be too happy if I did that! haha I love Elder Kaufusi so much and he is the best ever! He is so good and we are really getting along so well! Blessings! I hope that you all have a great week! Know that I miss and love you all! Take care and keep up the great work that you are all doing! 

Sincerely,


Elder Wheeler
Skyping the family for Mother's Day! I love this crazy crew so much!
A cute Husky that we found while tracting! She loved playing with us!



Got the death letter this past week...haven't opened it yet!
Plane tickets and itinerary are all inside..
​Beautiful Australian autumns! 
On exchanges with Elder Olan, one of our AP's!
We helped to move some missionaries! ha
The companionship unity is too strong!
Matching ties and scarfs! ha
The Zone with President and Sister Vidmar and Zone Conference!
Elder Kaufusi ladies and gentleman! hah
Made us dinner the other night...ha don't think I have improved 
on my cooking skills! ha Plating credit goes to Elder Kaufusi, 
he turned my rubbish looking dinner into something extraordinary!