Serving the Lord in the Land Down Under: Letter #11 from Australia

October 4, 2015

Hey all,

What a hot week here in Australia! We have reached about 32 degrees Celsius, which is about 90 degrees Fahrenheit. I realize that isn't that hot, but for coming right out of the winter cold and straight into that kind of heat, it is hot! Haha but all goods, just glad to be able to wear short sleeve shirts. So what a week it has been. We went to the Mansfield Zoo last Monday for P-day with our district, and that was amazing!!! I loved seeing all of the animals and especially feeding them all. I was like a little kid running around the zoo for the first time, with a bucket of food throwing it into any animal cage that I saw. It probably wasn't the most dignified thing that I could have done, but I did it. Haha. I have a lot of very cool videos and pictures so be looking forward to seeing them. I will only send a couple of my favorites so if you want to see all of them, ask me when I get home in 21 months. Haha:)

This week was full of heaps of lessons and tracting, which is great!! Total lessons taught this week was 17. That is the most that I have ever taught in one week!!! But it is still not enough for me to be satisfied, so hopefully we get more this week!!! It was the Australian Football Grand Final this past Saturday, which is basically their Super Bowl, so we did not do any tracting on Saturday. Drunken Australians watching Footy don't like to be interrupted, especially by two young boys talking about religion. So that day we just did a lot of studying and talking at the Senior Missionaries home in our area. They were super nice to invite us over for most of the day and even bought us Maccah's (McDonalds) for dinner.

This Sunday was great!!! Jason and Reagan and their daughters promised us that they would come to church, so we went over to their house Sunday morning to see if they were up and getting ready. Jason told us that Reagan had had the baby on Saturday morning and that she was getting home from the hospital today, so they probably wouldn't come to church. He told us that they would come next Sunday. We said okay, but then asked him if the girls could come to church with us today? He said yes, and made us promise that we would take good care of his three girls. We promised him and told him we would walk to church with them. After about 30 mins of waiting, Telisha(11), Shaye(8), and Lela(5) all walked out in their dresses with the biggest smile you have ever seen. They loved church so much!!! We asked them what their favorite part was, and every single one of them said taking the sacrament. We then asked them why we take the sacrament, and they answered with, "Because it is how we remember Jesus and how He died for us." They all knew that the bread represents the body and the water represents the blood. We are so happy that they came because now Telisha and Shaye can be baptized on the 24th of this month.

I love being a missionary and love being blessed with such amazing miracles and blessings each week. The Lord is truly aware of us all and what the desires of our hearts are. I love this Church and I love being on a mission and being able to do the Lord's work. I look forward to watching General Conference this next weekend and hope you all enjoyed it this weekend. I love you all so much and hope you all have a great week.

Love, Elder Wheeler