Serving the Lord in the Land Down Under: Letter #69 from Australia

November 13, 2016

Dear Family & Friends,

What a great week it has been! I feel like I saw that a lot in my emails and you probably are thinking that there is no way that every week is great, but you would be false! Every week is so great when you are serving our Father in Heaven and sharing the best news ever! The news of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ! Well a lot of updates and changes happened this week and so there is a little bit to inform you all with! First off, Elder Halsey made it home safe and sound this past week! He left on Tuesday and although it was sad to see him off, it was great because Elder Lawler came into the area! He is the man!!! He is a full blown, true blue Aussie! He is from Brisbane, Queensland and is a bogan! For those who don't know what that is, it is the Australia term for what we call a redneck. But like I said, he is way cool! He has been out for about 9 months and was trained by Elder Richard Long, from North Ogden! He is my first Aussie companion and so I am keen to learn all of the Aussie lingo from him! If I have a full blown Aussie accent for my Christmas Skype call, you will know why!

We found out transfer news on Sunday morning and I am staying another transfer in Greenvale with Elder Lawler. But sadly, Elder Wilson will be leaving us and heading to a new area. I am so keen to stay in Greenvale another transfer, especially with Elder Lawler. This will be my sixth transfer in this area and so by the end of this one, it will be a grand total of 9 1/2 months in the Greenvale ward! I love it here, so it doesn't even seem like that long! We also were asked by President Vidmar to train a new missionary! So that was exciting news! I have never trained before, let alone trained a new missionary while being a zone leader, but overall, I am excited! Our new "greenie", or "golden" as they call them in this mission, will be getting into Australia on Wednesday and so we will pick him up then! All in all, I am so stoked for this next transfer!

The work is going extremely well in the area and we have 4 investigators on date for baptism within the next month! We started teaching Gabrielle again this week, and we invited her to be baptized on the 17th of December and she said yes! Michael is really making some solid progress and is super excited for his baptism. All that needs to happen now is he needs to come to church! Moni and Bhim are doing really well and are now on date for the 31st of December. They too just need to come to church! All I can ask is that you pray for our investigators to keep commitments that we leave them to do. I know that that is something that you all already do, so I am so grateful for that! I will inform you all on the new companion and stuff next week! I love you all and hope that you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Wheeler