Letter #16 from Australia

November 8, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

          What a great week it has been here in the deep bush of Australia, also known as, Wangaratta. We have done heaps of service this week and it has been rewarding, amazing, and exhausting. We have set a baptismal date with our investigator Laurence and are very excited for him and for his willingness to be baptized. Due to the warmer weather, there are more spiders and they are getting bigger and coming out more frequently. (Just a heads up, I do have pictures and I will be including them in this email, so if you are scared or do not want to see them, DO NOT LOOK!) 

          Service has been a huge part of our week and it has been great to get out and do a little manual labor for a change. We planned to do about an hour of service for a member of our Branch Friday morning, but it ended up turning into a 7-hour service project that took up the entire day! But it was so great!! I am not complaining at all! Since he has so much work to do at his property, he asked us to come back the next day (Saturday) to help him out some more. We accepted and told him we would be there at 1 p.m. After getting home Friday night and preparing for bed, we received a phone call from Elder and Sister Murray (the senior couple in our area) and they asked if we could come tomorrow morning (Saturday) and help do some service for a member who lives up in Beechworth. We told them that we could as long as we were back in Wangaratta by 1 o'clock. I will just say that we were completely worn out by Saturday night. I love doing service even if it means I am sun burnt, exhausted and dirty. 

          We set a baptismal date with Laurence for the 21st of November! He was very keen and excited to set the date and work towards that goal. He is doing amazing and continues to keep his commitments for reading the scriptures and praying about the church and what we are teaching him. Heavenly Father has definitely prepared him over the years and I am so happy and excited to see him become a member of the church and make that sacred covenant with his Father in Heaven.  

          The spiders that we have found are a Huntsman, White Tail and heaps of Red Backs. We decided to go look in our garage the other day, because I have never been in it before and have no idea what is even in it. As we opened the door and walked in we saw a lot of dead spiders and a lot of alive ones. We found about 8 Red Backs and they were all very very big because it is nesting season. So pretty much we found a bunch of pregnant spiders...haha! We found a Huntsman too and then later on in the week we found another White Tail in our flat, but it was just a baby one...which is either a good or a bad sign. We haven't decided yet. Hah. 

          I love this work so much and love serving and being in this area. The people are great and the work is really picking up here in Wangaratta. I am so excited and grateful for all of the blessings that we continue to be blessed with by our loving Father in Heaven. Thank you so much for all of your great support and letters and emails of encouragement. I am sorry if I don't reply to your emails for a long time, but just know that I will reply to them as soon as I can. I miss all of your wonderful smiling faces and I love you all so much. Be faithful and remember to serve God, by serving your fellow men. 

-Elder Wheeler

Celebrating Shaelyn's 22nd Birthday with another Twinkie, candles and a
cute sign made by me! Happy Birthday Shaelyn!! I love you so much.

Celebrating Colten's 22nd Birthday with a Twinkie and some(22)
candles! Happy Birthday Brother! I love you lots.

This is the "baby" Huntsman spider that we found. This picture
is zoomed in. He is about the size of a small role of tape. 

We decided to keep him...his name is Helaman the Huntsman.
That is how big he is compared to my hand.  

One of the "Pregnant" Red Backs that we found in our garage we think???

Yes...we kept him?...her?...too. Named it Teancum...but I am sad
to inform you all that Teancum died days after we got him/her...R.I.P. Teancum.