Week 18

Happy Thanksgiving :)

Transfers tomorrow!! I'm super excited and nervous...President Called
me this morning and told me I'm going to train someone :D I'm honestly
really sad about leaving Elder Flynn, but so excited to train!!

A lot to tell from this week, and not a lot of time to tell it...again...haha

Monday- made pies with the Zone Leaders at the Cathcart's home (none
of which we actually got to taste...) and hung out after.

Wednesday- Juan, a young man from the stake, spent the day with us. We
had a lot of fun and contacted a lot of people. Cool story! We were
biking down a street, and a minivan cuts us off and pulls over and a
Navajo lady jumps out and starts walking towards us. She says they
just moved down from Flagstaff where they were meeting with
missionaries, and they want to finish the discussions and be baptized!
We set a return appointment for later that night! Her name is Jennifer
and she and her husband Kirby are super cool and really just need to
get married to be baptized! (Again, waiting on marriage...)

Thursday- Thanksgiving!!! We had the whole day off! We joined the zone
leaders at the Cathcart's home for breakfast, then headed to the stake
center for some turkey bowl flag football. Disclaimer: I'm really bad
at flag football. Haha but it was a lot of fun. We had a huge
Thanksgiving lunch at the Wright's house, a huge Thanksgiving dinner
at the Brewster's house, and some really good pie at the Schafer's
house. Then we went back to the Cathcart's house and watched the
Testament and ate more food and played headbandz and had a ton of fun.
I have never felt so full in my life. I weighed myself that morning
and that night. 9.5 pounds of food consumed. Yesss

Friday- we spent all week making calls and getting ready for Aiyanna's
baptism! We were so excited! Then, at 9:30 Friday night, exactly 13.5
hours before the baptism was supposed to start, we get a call. They
want to move the baptism to next Saturday the 5th. SWEET. Haha so that
was fun. That was a crazy night, canceling with everybody. But now
their family will be able to come to the baptism, so it all works out
:) Now my trainee will get to have a baptism his first week in the
mission!

Saturday- we got up super early and went to the Temple! It was a great
way to start the day :)

Today- went to Buffalo Wild Wings for the first time ever (danggg that
place is good) then our whole zone went to president Cathcart's
Chiropractic office and got free spine adjustments. He's super cool
and does a lot for the missionaries.

Great week! Lots of people contacted and lots of good lessons. Side
note: Elder Flynn almost ran over a cat with his bike. Missed it by an
inch. That was definitely a highlight of the week.

Christmas lights and trees are starting to show up!!! It makes me so
excited :D I actually broke down and wore my coat this week. It gets
pretty cold at night! I never would have expected that...

Read Preach My Gospel! I'm learning so many things from a serious
study of this book. I promise that alongside the Book of Mormon it
will strengthen your testimony and give you a greater understanding of
the gospel.

That's all. I love you all! Have a great week!
-Elder Wheeler :)

Week 17

Hi everybody!!! :)

This week was awesome! Except We spent all day helping Elder Stott
make pies for thanksgiving, so I don't have a ton of time to write
about it.

Tuesday was a ton of service! We helped serve lunch to the homeless,
and then helped organize toy donations for a Christmas drive :)
(Christmas is around the corner!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah :D)

Wednesday was cool too. We installed Tiwis in all of the mission cars!
They monitor our speed and report bad driving to the mission
president. A lot of missionaries aren't too happy with them, haha.
That night I also did a half day exchange with my district leader,
Elder Dennis, which was super fun. He's a stellar missionary and I
learned some good things from him :)

Friday we also did exchanges, and I was with the District leader's
companion, Elder Bradley. It was also a ton of fun, and I learned some
great things from him too. It made me really grateful to be in the
Glen Lakes area though. They are both super hardworking missionaries,
but their area doesn't have nearly as much work to do. Every area is
different, and I'm really lucky that I was able to be trained here :)

Aiyanna is on track to be baptized this Saturday!! Super exciting :)

Also super excited for Thanksgiving! We might have 3 dinners. :D

Our Mission President challenged us at the beginning of November to
finish the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. Im trying to be
better at studying and reading in my free time, and I think that was
his purpose in challenging us. I'm already in Alma 7 and I'm on track
:) I love the extra measure of spirit that I've felt, even here, as
I've been more diligent in my studies. I know the Book of Mormon is
the word of God. It will invite the spirit, open the doors for
revelation, and strengthen your testimony. I invite all of you to
study it or study it harder :)

Next week is transfers so I won't write til Tuesday. Have a great week!!
Love you all :)
-Elder Wheeler

Week 16- Clowning around

Hello!! :)

How's everybody doing? Is it getting cold up there? I had to wear a
sweater and gloves almost every night this week! That plus a few
houses already putting up Christmas lights, it's exciting! I love
winter :D

This week was awesome!
We did some service on Tuesday for a charity kitchen for the homeless
(Haha I really don't know what else to call it) and it was pretty fun!
Lots of nice people and lots of leftover cookies :) also that day was
our zone leader, Elder Stott's birthday! Which doesn't actually mean
much on a mission, but ya know. Haha :)

Wednesday was cool. It was 11/11 which was cool. Then we had a lesson
with a lady who happened to live in apartment 1111. We were running
late to our 1:00 appointment, so we knocked on her door...at 1:11.
Completely coincidental. Awesome!

Haha also, that night we had probably the best lesson of my mission so
far. We met with Ainsley and Cory, who are both under the age of 30
and MARRIED. That's hard to find, but makes it so much easier on us
missionaries :) But yeah, they were completely open and honest with
their questions, and they accepted an invitation to read the Book of
Mormon! I'm really starting to feel more confident in my teaching, and
it makes lessons wayyy more fun when I can rely on the spirit and work
with elder Flynn :)

Saturday, we spent the morning clownin' around. Literally. We helped a
family move into our ward, and to make a living, he is a legit clown!
We got to move unicycles and costumes and juggling pins and all sorts
of things that serve some clown purpose! Also, he served his mission
in Boise, ID! Really cool guy. I connected with a clown. Hmmm...

Haha anyway, I'm almost out of time. I taught a discussion this week
on Alma 48:17. I love captain Moroni. I think there's so many
qualities that made him who he was, but the one I focused on was
preparation. He is always prepared to meet the lamanites. As we
prepare ourselves, through church attendance and scripture study and
prayer, we can have our spiritual armor on, and be ready to shake the
powers of hell. Just like Moroni.

Love you guys! Have a great week :)
-Elder Wheeler

Week 15

Hi guys!

We went on a super cool hike today! We hiked about 3 miles up to
Indian Mesa, and saw some legit Indian ruins (for future sake,
coordinates: 33.965034 - 112.226551). We woke up at like 5:00 and just
got back, so I pretty much have no time. I'll send pics later!

This week was crazy busy, but not with a ton of missionary work. Our
roommates moved in with some members, and that took a few days. Plus
we had district meeting and zone meeting and interviews with
President, all awesome. Then, we had state conference Sunday, which
was really good. Elder Oaks and a few others spoke, and it was a great
broadcast :) The different schedule threw our investigators off
though, and none of them showed up to church...

We have 3 solid investigators on date! Aiyanna, a 9 year old girl. Her
parents are some of my favorite people ever! She should be baptized
the 28th of this month, if all goes well :) We also have Kohonna and
her 13 year old son, Dante on date for the 21st of this month. They
kinda just disappeared off the face of the earth for a few weeks, but
we finally got a hold of them and now they're taking lessons and on
date again like nothing ever happened. Haha they're really cool
though, and Dante has some crazy questions and we love meeting with
them :)

My Ponderize scripture for last week: 2 Nephi 31:20 I feel like there
is a lot more meaning to this scripture than I have time to share
here. I love this scripture! Feast upon the words of Christ. There's
really not a better way to draw closer to Heavenly Father :)

Gotta go, have a great week everybody!
-Elder Wheeler :)

Week 14

Happy Halloween!!!

How was everybody's Halloween? I hope it was good!
Ours was awesome! Our ward did a trunk or treat, and it turned out
really cool! Sadly, none of our investigators showed up. Why would you
not show up to get free chili and candy?? I don't know, but they
missed out. It was really fun! There was some really good chili there,
and I convinced bishop and a few other members of the ward to eat
ghost peppers with me. Ouch. After I could almost taste again, we
risked a walk through the young men's haunted house, which was
actually super cool! President gave us all an early curfew that night,
so we had to leave before the actual trunk or treat started. But that
didn't stop us from bringing home pocketfuls of candy! Haha back in
our apartment, we sprawled out on the couch's pull out bed and watched
the new Joseph Smith movie. Also ate a lot of candy. The other Elders
weren't in the mood for carving our pumpkin though (I was a little
bummed) so we had some journal/study time and hung out in the
apartment. Pretty great night :)

This whole week was a little crazy. Tuesday was normal, and we
contacted a lot of people. Wednesday through Saturday consisted of
helping members of our zone move apartments, helping members of our
ward move apartments, helping investigators with yard work, and a
great district meeting (elder Flynn did an amazing job on his
discussion about the great apostasy). We also had a LOT of cancelled
lessons...kinda disappointing, but we contacted some new people
because of it :)

Other news:

Our upstairs neighbors, AKA the ones who share their wifi with us,
moved on Friday. So, no more wifi in the apartment :( I guess we were
a little spoiled, now we have to go to the front office to send emails
again.

Our roommates, Elder Gardner and Elder Stott are moving out on
Wednesday. They are going to move in with a super awesome member of
the stake presidency. Side note: his wife makes the best chocolate
chip cookies in the mission. Only a little unfair.

I got a little brave today and cut my own hair. Not that I don't trust
Elder Flynn, but I wanted to learn how, juuuuuuuuuuust in case I don't
trust my future companions. Haha I cut Elder Flynn's earlier this week
too, and we both look fabulous!

Apparently we had an earthquake here last night? We didn't feel
anything, but we heard a lot about it today on the news!

Spiritual thought: we have a new transfer scripture! Alma 7:11-12.
This goes hand in hand with the scripture I talked about last week. I
think I may have even shared this scripture before, but it's that
important. The atonement is such an incredible thing. I know it can
help us change into better people. Ive felt it every single day out
here, and I'm so grateful for it! :)

I hope y'all have a great week!