Serving the Lord in the Land Down Under: Letter #39 from Australia

April 17, 2016

Dear Family and Friends,

The ending of a transfer brings miracles, blessings and sometimes, sad news. But I will let you all know the transfer news at the end of this email!;)

This week was amazing! We were able to catch up with a lot of our investigators and continue to help them progress towards baptism! It has been really exciting to see them all progressing and coming closer to their Savior, Jesus Christ! We finally were able to meet up with Jeremy again this past week and we were surprised with what he told us! He told us that he has wanted to come to church for the past two weeks, but forgot the address to the chapel and so he hasn't been able to come. He is still as keen as ever and is ready to continue to learn and progress towards being baptized into the Church! We were so happy to hear about that and it was a HUGE miracle!!!

Mark is doing all right. A lesson we had with him this past week, didn't go to well. We were teaching him about repentance and baptism and he was under the impression that he didn't need to repent until after he was baptized. When we told him that that wasn't true and that he needed to repent before baptism, he got upset at us because we were asking him to be perfect after he was baptized! We reassured him that we weren't asking him to be perfect, but that we were telling him that he needed to do his best to live worthily after he was baptized. He then kept going off at us and to make a long story short, he kicked us out of his house. So we weren't sure if that was his way of telling us he didn't want to continue to meet with us, because before he kicked us out, he said, "I hope to see you again." But yeah, that is what happened with Mark this week.

The Fulton family is doing great and is progressing towards their baptismal goal date! We will have to push it back, again, because they didn't come to church yesterday! We will continue to work with them thought, because they are so prepared!!! Burt and Marian are doing well, but we weren't able to have a lesson with them this week because they have been so busy planning their wedding!! But all in all, the work is going really well!

So now onto the transfer news! Elder Zimmerman will continue to serve in the Yarra Valley area, and will now be serving with Elder Higham! I...will now be serving as a Zone Leader in the Cragieburn Zone. I will be serving with Elder Halsey in the Greenvale area. We both are the Zone Leaders for the Zone! I got a call from President Maxwell on Saturday afternoon asking me to serve as a Zone Leader! I was really surprised and did not see it coming at all! I am really excited to be serving as a Zone Leader, but am surprised because of how early in my mission it is. I have been out for 9 months, last Friday, and have been serving as a District Leader for 4 1/2 months! I was really surprised at how fast I was asked to serve as a District Leader and now I am even more surprised at how fast I have been asked to serve as a Zone Leader! I am really humbled at this assignment and I have a million emotions running through me, but over all the biggest one is humility!

I am really sad to say goodbye to the Yarra Valley area, all of the amazing members here, the missionaries in my District and my companion Elder Zimmerman! It has been an amazing 2 transfers here and my companions and I have gotten a lot of work done! It would have been great to see one of our investigators enter the waters of baptism while I was in the area, but I know that I have been able to help them, even if it was just a little bit! I love this area and have gotten to know the members really well, so that is always a hard thing to say goodbye to when you get transferred! Elder Zimmerman is the man and I have truly enjoyed serving with him! I hope you all have a great week and are enjoying the sunshine in the springtime! I love you all! Stay safe and stay happy!

Love,

Elder Wheeler