The Awesome Adventures of Elder Wheeler

Feliz Lunes from the tropical land of the Republica Dominicana! This past week has been pretty dead as the work is concerned but it was all because we spent our entire week preparing our investigators for baptism! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!  I’m happy to report that our work paid off!  We had 2 baptisms this past weekend! Sadly, we were unable to get one of our investigators married before her fecha [date] and so she was not baptized... But the other two were super solid!  Their names are Jeanette an Leo!  They’re super cool and have a lot of enthusiasm for the gospel of Jesus Christ! This past week Elder Portillo had to go to Gazcue to renew his visa, so I spent Friday morning in the office cleaning and organizing packages.  The rest of our Friday then consisted of studying and talking with our investigators preparing them for their baptismal interviews.  Thursday, the night before, we had our ward Christmas party!  It was supposed to star...

Buenas Lunes from the tropical land of the Republica Dominicana! Since this land is very tropical, it’s obvious to know that we won’t actually have snow!  This White is a little different!  This white is the image of hundreds of people in white jump suits!  For baptism of course, because there’s no other reason to wear white jumpsuits; it’s a bad fashion statement!  Not that I really care about fashion. Anyway, this week is going to be awesome because we have 3 baptisms this weekend and they are definitely happening!  This is super awesome because we are on track for another baptism next weekend as well!  That’s 4 baptisms this month and there are plenty more that we need to work with, too, who have amazing potential!   The sad part is, this is the end of the transfer and so I don’t know if I will be in this area for the others.  If not, I don’t mind because the Lord will need my expertise in another area!  My Hope and goal as a ...

Buenas Lunes from the tropical land of the Republica Dominicana! All is well here in the nice hot sun provided for us by our God. A couple things happened this week... First off, I forgot to mention in my last letter that my companion cut my hair! It’s kind of like a bowl cut, but with it I could pull off almost any 80's hair style! This has been a hilarious experience for me. My Mission President saw it too but he had no comments about it and so it meets the mission standards. No worries there. Anyway, this week we were privileged to have a Zone Conference with Elder Gonzales Of the Seventy. He taught us many great points of the gospel that we need to make sure we teach in each of our lessons. It was a very inspiring meeting and I took a lot of notes! I also had the privilege of seeing my mission father [the missionary who trained me] Elder Smith once more! He laughed at me because of my haircut and thinks I look ridiculous. My Companion is an amazing missionary and i...

Feliz Lunes from the tropical land of the Republica Dominicana. This Week is all about the adventures of Elder Chu, but before we get to that a quick update.  2 of our 4 people to get baptized this past week were.  The others were pushed back to the first weeks of December.  Also, we have had many miracles in our area which include finding gold! (Investigator) The name of this Gold is Jennifer. Jennifer has been attending the church for quite some time now, and has a testimony that it is God's church on the earth but she has not been baptized.  This is because she's moved a lot and never talked with the missionaries before.  We found her while looking for someone else.  We stopped by her home to see if she knew someone who had been contacted during the Cosecha in the previous week and she then proceeded to search for this person for us for 15 min.  It was an amazing find. Now to the part with Elder Chu!  The Wonderful big yellow stuffed P...

Feliz Lunes from the tropical land of Republica Dominicana! The title of this letter may lead you to believe that we’ve had more baptisms this past week. Well... you’re not wrong but they’re not ours!  We had a baptism this past weekend in our ward and they really didn’t plan it so us being invited to said baptism put it all together in a 30-min time period. Boy was that stressful. We also had many interviews for the Hermanas (Sister Missionaries) in our district this week and also lots of cosechas! Which means that we have not been in our area very much this past week just like the week before! However, this week the stress is real! We have four people with baptismal dates for this upcoming Saturday and there’s a lot we need to do to get them prepared for it! Two of them are young girls Juliani (9) and Jennifer (11) who are super excited to be baptized and they learn very quickly!   We also have two adults Nadia (30´s) and Rafael (30´s) This week we are rushing t...

Here are some more pictures to go with Rhys letter from Week #13 Rhys' new companion - Elder Portillo - He's from Honduras The stack of Book of Mormons they took from the Mission Office - They're almost gone already! Just chillin' at the Mega Centro Mall waiting for Elder Horsley and his companion  Elder Portillo with Chu at the Mega Centro Mall Soaking up some rays and the view at the coast. Rhys and Chu at the coast. Catching the Breeze

Feliz Lunes, from the tropical land of the Republica Dominican where the sun is always shining and the Air smells like... well... not like warm root beer... 😐😁 . Anyway, this past week absolutely nothing happened!  Except for the undeniable fact that every single morning our mission we make us a big ol’ bowl of missionary meetings for breakfast!  We had transfers on Tuesday, meeting for district leaders on Wednesday(my companion is a district leader), District meeting on Thursday, Cosecha (harvest) on Friday, and a broadcast from Elder Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve, who was in Santiago on Saturday and church on Sunday!!!!! In short, we had very little time to proselyte this week!  YAAAAAAAAAY... NOT.  But on the bright side a couple of things happened.  With the little time that we had between weekly planning Thursday afternoon and ward council Thursday night, we were able to teach an awesome young man named Louis! He’s pretty cool and has a soun...

Here are some pictures from Week #12 of Rhys' Mission.  Enjoy! Rhys' Zone before Transfers Working on a clean up service project in Rhys' area.   What a fantastic view! From L-R - Elder Smith (Rhys' Trainer), Rhys, Elder Malone (His friend he went through security with when he flew out of SLC), Elder Dayton (the Zone Leader & Elder Malone's trainer) Elders Smith, Wheeler, Malone, and Dayton Who knew Elder Chu could glow? Rhys' Kitchen - What's for lunch? Their tiny stove.  Wonder what's cooking? The Cosechas schedule for the month.  Rhys' area is LA2 (Las Americas 2nd)

Feliz Martes from the tropical Island of the Republica Dominicana! Yesterday we were unable to write because there was some sort of fiesta or holiday that caused every place to close down for the day...  But today, we got permission to write. Also, I got a new companion!!!!!  His name is Elder Portillo (portiyo).  Elder Portillo is from Honduras and has 16 months in the mission.  I’ve only been with him for a couple hours, but he’s still a pretty awesome individual.  The language barrier between us is pretty decent but it won’t inhibit our ability to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ! This past week we had what we call a perfect day! On Wednesday, we didn’t have a single one of our appointments fall and all of our discussions were impactful and helpful for our investigators!  Also, our previous P-Day we had the opportunity to go to the coast of the island that was in our area!  It was so awesome to see the light as it shines on the sea. ...

Feliz Lunes from the Tropical Island of Republica Dominicana! This Week was a whooooole bunch of Crazy!!!!!!  So Monday was your standard P-day:  get up, work out until my companion kills me and drag my feet back to the apartment.  Afterward we went to Agora Mall with Elders Dayton and Malone. These guys are cool, BTW. Elder Dayton is our Zone Leader and Elder Malone came with me on the plane on my first day, so we’re pretty close.  Anyway, this is where I had the chance to eat the awe fantabulous WENDY'S!!!!!  It was super awesome!  I got a huge frosty for only 100 pesos! (about $2 US)  Also, we had the pleasure of walking past a Maserati dealership.  It was pretty cool. Anyway, Tuesday, was awesome, but not as interesting as the next day!  Here's where the amazing title of this letter comes in. In this mission, we don’t set goals; we make promises.  This has everything to do with the concept of the Eye of Faith. ...

Rhys has finally figured out how to get his camera to upload some pictures. So here are a few highlights from the past 3 weeks in the field.   Please note that the date format on most of these pictures is DD/MM/YYYY. A missionary training in one of our meetinghouses in Santo Domingo. On the boat at  Los Tres Ojos (3 eyes) from Week 8's letter Turtles on the rocks at Los Tres Ojos Elders Wheeler and Chu at Los Tres Ojos How would you like to run into this web?  (At Los Tres Ojos) Have some fish!  Anyone got a pole and some line?  Not sure how they'd feel about fishing from this walkway, though.  (At Los Tres Ojos) Beautiful, calm view at Los Tres Ojos Elders Smith, Wheeler, and Chu Just a few minutes later, the rain began to fall. The other Elders who were with them at Los Tres Ojos. Trying to stay dry in the downpour. Just a short while later, it's clear and calm once again. Note...

Feliz Lunes from the tropical land of Republica Dominicana! Sadly I can’t really remember all that has happened this week though I have it written in my journal, which happens to not be with me right now :-)  So, I’ll just talk about the things that are most memorable! This past Saturday, WE HAD A BAPTISM!!!!!!!!!!  It was a cool young man named Brian.  He's 11 and has been attending church on his own for quite some time now.  Anyway, it was such a cool experience to go to the service and perform the baptism.  We actually showed up late, sadly, because my companion Elder Smith, also being our district leader, had to go to Ozama at 3:00 to do a baptismal interview for the Hermanas [Sister Missionaries] in that area.  They’re super cool, by the way, and there’s a picture coming in with some photos that I’m uploading as I’m typing!!!!! YAY! Finally, Photos!!!!!!!!! We also had to do a couple more interviews these past couple days too, so basically...

Felice Lunes from the tropical land of Republica Dominicana!!!! Shout out to my mother who turns the big 5-0 this Wednesday! You can take that out if you want Mom. Happy Birthday!  I know I’m 2 days early but what can I say?  I guess I was just born like that!  Well on the bright side you get to eat twice as much cake usually!  Not anymore though 😏 . Anywho... This week has been Legen... wait for it..... Dary!!!!  We had some pretty amazing miracles happen this past week.  Before that, we found out that the church is going to be making BOOK OF MORMON VIDEOS!!!!!!!!! You know like they did with the New Testament ones of Christ’s ministry. Now that that’s out of my system, here’s the low down.  This week was pretty crazy because we were supposed to have 2 baptisms this past weekend.  I’ll start by saying they got postponed to this weekend.  One of the investigators we were preparing could only be taught in the mornings and she st...

Feliz lunes (Happy Monday) from the tropical land of the Republica Dominicana! This last week as been crazy awesome! Last week during P-day we got to go to the Mega Centro which is a 3-story mall that’s full of very interesting things. We went into a couple clothing stores and made fun of the weird fashions and bizarre choices of tie designs they had!  We also had the opportunity to go into a sportswear store and check things out!  We heard American music and it was awesome but at the same time really weird!!! After, we went and had the pleasure of eating Taco bell!  However, I don’t think my body liked it very much because while I was emailing you all last week it hit me like a truck!  And for this purpose, I had to sadly cut my email short because I could not focus at all on what i was saying!!!!!  If that’s too much info, I’m sorry but suck it up and deal with it! LOL JK. Anyway, this past week was really standard apparently.  Our entire sc...

This is Elder Wheeler reporting from the tropical land of Republica Dominicana! I stopped using que lo que because its slang and the Lord has asked us not to use slang in even our letters home.  I pray that he will consecrate the effort I’m putting towards gathering his sheep! The First Week in the field has been AMAZING!  There are so many people wanting to know about the gospel and getting to teach them keeps us busy. The hardest part is getting them to church! On the bright side were always busy! We do a lot of walking and taking the cabs everywhere! It’s really interesting because they have this amazing system where you can fit 8 people in a little 4 person sedan!  It’s not for those who get claustrophobic! We had a lot of meetings this week too so I haven’t had much time to study or proselyte for that matter. On Friday we had a fun time cooking for an investigator named Jenni. Jenni is awesome.  She has been taught by the missionaries before and has...

[Editor’s Note:  Because of the difference in P-days between the MTC (CCM) and the field, this letter, which is actually the 5 th real letter we’ve received, written at the end of week 5 is labelled Week #6.  Going forward, the letters will be numbered by what week number is BEGINNING instead of ENDING.  You have NOT MISSED A LETTER! Rhys will actually go out into the field next Tuesday at the end of 6 weeks from when he reported to the MTC.  He will be unable to email home next week.  When he picks up the emails again the following week (on Monday), it will actually be the end of 7 weeks, but the beginning of week #8 and will be numbered as such.  Now that this is all clear as mud, I’ll leave you to enjoy the real reason you’re reading this.] Que lo que from the tropical land of Republica Dominicana! This week has been full of fun and excitement for almost no one! Well... that’s only partially true. 6 weeks have gone by soooooo fast!!!!! I ca...

YOOOOOOOOO! So this Hurricane Maria right?!  Yeah.  Same deal as last time, got a generator, plenty of food and water and we're on a hill top.  Sooo, yeah, todo bien en la Republica Dominicana!  Have a fantastic day and I'll be emailing at 1 pm EDT tomorrow afternoon!  Catch you later! Elder Rhys Wheeler!

Que lo que from the tropical land of Republica Dominica! Upon request, here's a little more info based on what happened to us from the hurricane. WE DIDN'T GET HIT! YAY! However, all the elders that were supposed to go to Puerto Rico got pushed back a week.  There wasn’t much change in our own schedule or what we did except we went to the temple right next door on Wednesday instead of Thursday. I've heard that my last email seemed a little "canned" like a pack of sardines and for that I do apologize but there isn’t really much that’s gone on the last 2 to 3 weeks that’s made them stand out!  It’s much like school.  You come home and Mom's like "How was school today?" and the only thing you can say because it’s just the same day basically over and over is " It was good." ... I suppose that could be my fault for having an outlook on that but there's not much I can do to keep things interesting without sacrificing some line of ob...