Letter #79 from Australia

January 22, 2017

Dear Friends and Family,

          This week has been an extremely hard one for me due to some personal trials and challenges that I have been facing. Satan lately has gone NUTS and has been working his hardest to get me feeling down about a lot of things, including myself and some of my weaknesses, and he has won some days, but others he has failed in his attempts! The reason why I am sharing some of these personal things with all of you is because of what I am starting to learn from them. The power of personal communication with our Father in Heaven, or more commonly referred to as "Praying". Heavenly Father does hear our prayers, he truly does. Now that doesn't mean that as soon as you ask Him for something, He gives it to you immediately. Yes, that is the case some times, but overall, He wants to see how bad you desire what you asked Him for. I know that there might be some of you out there who are going through a lot of worse trials and challenges than I am, but I just want you to know that our loving Father, is just a prayer away! I don't ask for much from all of you, but as my support team, so to speak, and my friends and family, I would just please ask you to keep me in your prayers. I know that all of you already pray for me and for the missionaries, but please send some prayers my way, if you can. The biggest thing that I need right now is peace and strength. So if you can all please do that for me, I would really appreciate it. I love you all so much! 

          Now onto some more lighter things and some miracles! Friday morning we wake up to find a text for the Church's headquarters. It was a referral from LDS.org and the gentleman's name was Dale. In the text, it briefly mentioned how Dale had gone online and chatted with a church representative about his desire to learn more about the church. So we made it a priority to make contact with him that same day! So Friday afternoon we made our way to Dale's address. When we got there and knocked on his door, he opened it up right away and the look on his face said it all. He said, "Please come in, I didn't expect you guys to get here this soon! I just asked for you last night." Well long story short, he is a GOLDEN INVESTIGATOR who has been so prepared by the hand of God. We taught him about the Restoration and then he committed himself to be baptized! In the middle of the lesson he told us that this is exactly what he wants and needs in his life and that he would like to take that next step. We invited him to be baptized on the 4th of February, yes that is in 2 weeks, and he said yes!! Saturday night we had a baptism in the ward of Oliver Fuentes, a child of record, and so we invited Dale to come to it. He came early to the baptism and we taught him another lesson, he stayed for the baptism and loved every minute of it! He read all of 1 Nephi between our visits on Friday and Saturday and he has told us time and time again that he knows the Book of Mormon is true and that he loves it so much! He came to church on Sunday and loved it all! He has some solid fellow shippers and everything is looking so great for him! He even wanted to meet this morning here at the library for another lesson, so we just finished teaching him not too long ago! 

          The Lord is blessing us so much and it is so humbling to be able to meet people like Dale! We are so happy for Dale and so grateful towards our Father in Heaven for this HUGE tender mercy! I love this work so much! It truly is the work of the Lord. Like I said earlier, Oliver Fuentes was baptized on Saturday after he turned 8 last Tuesday. He is the son of a less active family that we have been working with and helping to come back to church. The family has been coming to church now for the past 3 months and they are preparing themselves to be sealed as a family in April! Oliver asked me to baptize him and it was such an amazing experience! Being able to have experiences and miracles like these make up for all of the rejections and hardships that we face as missionaries! I love this work, I love my Savior Jesus Christ, I love my Father in Heaven and I love all of you! Have a great week and keep up the great things that all of you are engaged in! 

Elder Wheeler

The Fuentes family on the day of Oliver's baptism! Such a great day! 

Bowling last Pday was super fun!

Stacked some bowling balls on top of each other! hah
(Bryce liked to do this before his mission whenever we 
went bowling.  I guess he still has the touch.) 

Letter #78 from Australia

January 15, 2017

Dear Family & Friends,

          The work is exploding in the area and the Lord is blessing us so much!!! We have had a lot of success in these past couple of weeks with the investigators that we are working with! Last week, as you know, we found a lot of new people to teach and so with that, this week we taught so many lessons! We were really busy though and had to move swiftly and with purpose as we moved from one appointment to another so that we weren't late! The Lord continues to bless us and I am so grateful for all that He helps us with! It is truly humbling to recognize how much His guiding hand helps us everyday! 

          Our investigators are doing really well! We are trying our best to learn Nepalese and so far it is going all right! Hah It is definitely a lot easier to speak than read or write! If you want to know why I say that, look up some Nepalese words online! Hah so far, we know how to teach the message of the Restoration in broken Nepalese! The Nepalese families that we are teaching crack up whenever we say something in Nepalese. I haven't figured out yet if it is because we are butchering it or because we are two white guys and a Fijian trying to speak their language! Hah But it is amazing to watch how the Lord helps us! We had an amazing experience with one of our investigators this week named Moni. We were praying so hard and so specifically that we would be blessed with the gift of tongues and that he would be blessed with the gift of understanding. As we taught him, a sweet and peaceful feeling entered the room and we were able to teach him in a way where he understood exactly what we were saying! It was amazing and we were so grateful to Heavenly Father for His help. 

          Pretty cool statistic that I counted up the other day. Over the course of my mission, I have taught people from 25 different countries! From Nepal to Ireland to Uruguay to Ethiopia! Melbourne is such a diverse place and it continues to blow my mind! I am doing really well and besides trying to learn Samoan and now Nepalese, the mission is going really well! I love you all and hope that you are doing really well! Keep up the great work and shoot me an email if anything cool or funny happens! Have a great week!

Sincerely,

Elder Wheeler  

Just hanging out with the local Nepalese kids! haha 

So this happened to our car this week...ha just kidding...but
feeling sorry for whose car this is. ha​

Just a great photo with an even greater family! The Uili family in our ward!

Just the boyz...haha and check out the gang sign that their youngest
threw up during the pic! (He is in the red shirt) hahaha I love this family!  

Letter #77 from Australia

January 8, 2017

Dear Family & Friends,

Once again, I am pressed for time and so because of that, this might be a little all over the place. But lets try anyways because I have a lot of amazing miracles to share with you all! 

So this past week was amazing in so many different ways! We started the week thinking that we wouldn't have a lot of time to work in the area due to meetings at the mission home and zone interviews with President Vidmar, but boy were we blessed! So all day Tuesday was spent at the monthly MLC meeting with all of the other leaders in the mission! We had our interviews with President on Thursday and to be honest, I didn't really enjoy the topic of my interview. It started with President asking me, "So Elder Wheeler, when do I loose you?" A.k.a. When do you go home? I replied by saying "hopefully never"...but it didn't work. Ha We then talked about my release date and how it has been changing lately because of my visa and transfer dates. So as of now, my official release date is June 15th...which is a whole month early! My visa will let me stay till July 15th, but transfers don't match up! I asked him about extending my visa so I can stay a little bit longer...sorry mum...but he said that if we extend it, I would need to stay until October or November just because of how expensive it is to extend a visa, the Church would want me to get the most out of it. But he said that would interrupt my plans for school in the fall, so he said no...haha But all goods! 

Well, back to the work, so we spent as much time as we could this week teaching our investigators and trying to find new people to teach! Well we taught heaps and I mean HEAPS of investigators this week! And on top of that, we found 10 new investigators to teach just this week alone! It was amazing. So to share a huge miracle that happened, Elder Lawler about two weeks ago, while on exchanges with another missionary, found another investigator to teach. His name is Deo Kumar and he is from Nepal! haha Yes, another Nepalese investigator! Well they found and taught him at the home of one of our investigators and so they wrote down the address of his house! Well a day later, two weeks ago, we put the address into our GPS and didn't find the street! We were SPEWING!!!! We tried everything and still couldn't find his house. Well we of course were super sad, but moved on. Yesterday, as we were driving to an appointment with some investigators of ours, Elder Levaci pointed out a street sign with the same name as the address we wrote down! We were so happy and couldn't believe the small tender mercy of the Lord to actually find the street! But the miracles didn't stop there, when we visited his house later last night, we didn't find him home, but we did find 10 of his family members home, all Nepalese, and so we taught them! They are all Christian and were very welcoming to let us in and teach them! Only 6 of them were above the age of 8 so Heavenly Father blessed us with 6 new investigators! ha It was so amazing and we were so beyond grateful! 

We now have an assignment from President Vidmar to learn Nepalese! haha So funny huh? Come to Australia with the calling to speak English, but then just in this area alone, receive two assignments to learn Samoan and Nepalese! I love Australia! haha 

Well I hope all of you are enjoying 2017! I know I sure am! I love and miss you all! Stay safe and happy! 

Love,

Elder Wheeler  

Just your monthly picture for the Weber High School Alum
Missionary Model Calender! haha

MLC with the MTC district crew!!!

Went to the wedding reception of our Elders Quorum President this
past week! Look who has a VIP seat!

President Tassie Metusela and his new wife Sasha!

Yeah...it was kind of a big wedding reception...Samoans
do not hold back...over 500+ in attendance! 

Letter #76 from Australia

January 1, 2017

Dear Family & Friends,

To begin, I just want to apologized because this email will be a smaller one, and because I won't have anytime today to email all of you individually. Today is a public holiday for the New Year so all of the public libraries are closed. We are currently at the chapel and we don't have too much time. I just wanted to let you all know a little bit about this week and how it went! We had a great week and were able to see quite a lot of our investigators! We spent a lot of time in the area this past week and we had a lot of success! One of the highlights of the week was a lesson that we had with John, one of our investigators. He is on date to be baptized next month and he has been struggling lately with the decision to be baptized or not. We had a lesson with him on Saturday and decided to focus on Repentance and how through Jesus Christ, he can be cleansed from his sins. We were a little hesitant at first because we didn't know how he would take it, but we felt prompted to teach him still. He really needed it and he took it all so well. It was probably one of the most spiritual lessons that I have ever been in! My companions and I were so unified in what we were saying it was crazy! Like a couple of times during the lesson, John would ask a question or make a comment, and I had an idea come to my head on how to reply to him and answer his questions. Well my companions started to respond to what he said and they said exactly what the spirit had told me to say! It was crazy to experience and such a spiritual lesson! 

I failed to mention this last week in my email, but we got transfer news on Christmas Eve, and all three of us will be staying in Greenvale together for another transfer! It was crazy to hear the news because first off, this is my 7th transfer in the area! I have already been here for 9 months, but now at the end of this next transfer, I will have been in the area for 10 1/2 months! My longest area by far! And because usually a new missionary, like Elder Levaci, usually never stays in a zone leader area more than one transfer, when being trained by zone leaders. But apparently he is different! haha.  We are all so excited to stay another one together and can't wait to see what Heavenly Father has in store for us this coming transfer!

Well it is a new year, so HAPPY NEW YEARS to all of you! 2016 is officially in the books and it was sad to see it go, for a couple of reasons, but overall it is exciting to see a new year come in! I can't wait to see what 2017 has to offer me and all of you! It is weird thinking that it is already 2017, considering that this is the year I will be coming home. I am looking forward to the remaining time on my mission and all of the people that I still need to help. I am so grateful for all of you and the great love and support that you have given me throughout last year and that you continue to give me this New Year! I love you all and it is my hope and prayer that God will continue to bless and protect you in this New Year! Have a great week and stay safe! 

Love,

Elder Wheeler

What our freezer looks like after Christmas! Thanks to all
of the members for the lollies! ha

It bucketed rain here the other day! Like it flooded in some areas!
Well this is what we looked like, all of us soaked completely
through all of our clothes...ha 

Our flat was repainted this week as well as we had a hole in
our wall fixed. Long story short, Elder Lawler and
Elder Levaci learnt that throwing a rugby ball
in the house isn't a good idea...haha massive hole in the wall!