Serving the Lord in the Land Down Under: Letter #52 from Australia

July 17, 2016

Dear Family and Friends,

What an amazing week it has been with a lot of new changes and a lot of new work to do in the area! Well first off, my new soa, Samoan for companion, is Elder Swenson! He is from Idaho and is the man! We get a long pretty well and we are so excited to serve with each other this transfer! The work in our area is going really well! We are still working with the Wharemate family and they are doing really well! So a little information about them, so Maya and Shane are the two of their youngest kids who are on date for baptism! They both are 11 and 9, so they will be convert baptisms! But their little sister, who is the youngest, Torro(Toe-doe) is 7 but she will be turning 8 on the 26th of August and then all three of them will be baptized on the 27th! It is going to be a great day! The family used to be less active, but now all of them, except for the Mum, has been coming to church every Sunday for the past 7 weeks! It is really good to see how much they are improving as a family and how happier they are with being active in the church! Our other investigators are doing well! We are teaching a young man named Liam, a Samoan lady and her son, Leah and Patrich and a couple more individuals and families!

We had a couple of miracles this week and a quick one that happened was being able to find a less active member and now starting to teach her and her non member spouse! They would like to have their daughter blessed in the church on the first Sunday of next month! It was a huge miracle and a great one that Heavenly Father blessed us with!

So yesterday, I received a surprise visit from my sister, well practically my sister! Lindsey and Christian Hall, she used to be a Williamson, are here in Australia on their honeymoon! Well one of Lindsey's companions from her mission is dating the Elders Quorum President from our ward! On Thursday, we received a text from him asking us if we had anyone for lunch on Sunday afternoon after church! We said no and he told us to come over, nothing to out of the ordinary! When we got to his parents house, where he lives, he told me to come re-meet his girlfriend and meet some of her friends from her mission! I then walked into the lounge room and saw Lindsey and Christian sitting there! It was a huge surprise and it was really good to be able to catch up with her! So for those of you who don't know Lindsey, she is Elder McKay Williamson's older sister. I am really close to him and his family and so that is why it was a great surprise to see her!

All in all it was a great week! I love serving a mission and it was sad to hit my 1 year mark this past Friday! It was just hard realising that I only have 11 months left! I don't like thinking about it too much, but I know that it will be both a sad and a happy day! I have a new motto for the remainder of my mission! It is Doctrine 7 Covenants 123:17 It is a great scripture verse and I am going to follow what it says and do all that I can!

Thank you all so much for all of the support that you have given me thus far! It means a lot to have such a great support of family and friends! I love you all and hope that you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Wheeler