June 26, 2012

Panaramic of part of my area!

Wasssuuuupppppp!

Sounds like things are going totally awesome, family! Greer, fun stuff, SUMMER VACATION! One day I will have a Summer Vacation again. You are all the bomb and thanks for writing me! Totally hilarious all your stories and what´s going on. YOU ROCK.

Things with me are also going awesome! Nothing really big to report! Vania was confirmed this week and totally happy. She also is going to bring a friend to an activity with all of the young mens and young womens this weekend so now she´s already doing missionary work! I would really like to baptize her mom, but she seems a little hard hearted. We will see what we can do this week, though. 

As for The Octogon (Octaviano), he is all set and excited to be baptized this week! It´s funny because he´s totally seen opposition in his desicion to be baptized, for example, he hasn´t drank for like five years and is actually part of an AA group to help others quit drinking but last week some of his friends tried to get him to go drinking with them. He totally turned them down because he´s not an idiot, but it was funny to see. There was also some lady who came to his house saying that she could stay with him and take care of his house and everything for him (Since his wife passed away and everything) and he said no thanks. It´s totally interesting to see all of this stuff being thrown at him, but he´s awesome, and Satan is going to lose! :D

He´ll be baptized on Friday night and confirmed this Sunday.

As for other things, we have our mission presidents changing! So we will see how that goes! I would expect there to be a lot of changes that will be happening, but definitely will keep you posted. On Thursday we say goodbye to Sister and President Romney and meet the Swapps!

My companion and I are doing awesome! No complaints. He´s a funny guy. We get along great. His Spanish is totally improving. It´s totally getting hot here. As for sending the healthy stuff, that sounds awesome! Totally excitied.

LAMEST WALL GRAFITTI EVER. Have UD Tell you what it says!

Us at Oscar's house and his Nephew Josue has lots of guitars

Us painting Hermana Gloria's house

Us eating at a TOTALLY FANCY RESTARAUNT. Sister Lucia paid for us and told us to eat everything we could! :D

That's about all I have for this week! There are a lot of people who really aren't even humble enough to listen to us, even if they say they're listening. It's interesting. Speaking another language has definately made me a lot more humble and I listen to people so much more.

I know this stuff that I teach to people every single day is true stuff! No doubt about it. And the best part is that they all get to ask God if it´s really true! And then He tells them so. Way cool.

Question!:

Why have you gotten skinnier? Do you not like the food or are you just not eating enough?

I totally eat WAY TOO MUCH here! Seriously, I eat a butt load and I´m pretty sure I´m just getting skinnier because I walk. In the Sun. All day. Every single day. And sweat. So no worries! I drink a ton of water, too, otherwise I´d be dead. 

Love you so much, family! YOU ARE THE BOMB! Thanks for all you do for me! Seriously, couldn´t ask for a better family. On my binder, I actually have four pictures on the front and one is our family picture from like 2 or 3 years ago, one is us by that arch of horns in Jackson Hole (People always ask if Taylor and Elle are my siblings), one of Paula and I before I left, and one of Austen, Sav, Dylan, Reese, and I in Utah before we left. I show them to everyone! And everyone tells me my family looks so white.

Much love,

Elder Wheeler

Me and Monterrey on the most U.S. looking street of all time

Me on a mountainside with a totally Mexican background

Coolest picture ever! Me and all of Monterrey Mexico!

June 19, 2012

June 19, 2012

Familia! Que honda?!

All the free stuff they give us in the streets for the elections here! FREE SHIRTS. (Carly)

How´s it going?? Life in Colinas is going pretty well! We had our first baptism in this area!!!! It kind of took a little longer, but that´s okay! Her name is Vania Lineth Rios Olivos! She´s 15 and totally awesome. She had SO MUCH FAMILY come to her baptism, it totally rocked! She was excited and happy and everything and has a lot of support from extended family. She lives with her mom (Who is like one of my favorite people here, totally hilarious but isn´t a member. She knows EVERYTHING about the church, though, but we´re going to try and work with her), her grandpa (also not a member) and her uncle (also not a member) but she has like three aunts that have served missions and two cousins her age that she´s close with that are members and all kinds of stuff. We´ll see how it goes, but she has been awesome. Never had a single doubt about any of it! So this week she´ll be confirmed.

Octaviano, the guy whose wife died in December, is all set and excited for his baptism on the 29th so we´re preparing him for that. We had two people who had thei baptism goal date set, too, Juan (79) and Maria (also old but I don´t know her age) but because of health problems we have to postpone it, but they are for sure going to get baptized! Just not yet. And we have an investigator named Yasenia who says she goes to the catholic church but she feels like it´s missing something. We told her that if she comes to church with us this week and prepares herself to be baptized, she will find what she feels like she´s missing. Know that´s true!

So it´s been a good week. As for other things, our houseowner found a CENTIPIEDE at our house. SO NOT RIGHT! Those things are gross! Thankfully he totally burnt it and it was all sick but they´re fast! And gross! So now I´m totally on the lookout. It reminds me of after we´d find a scoripion at home and then the next few days we´d walk everywhere with a blacklight looking for those suckers. Totally sick. Anyway, you´ll love the picture.

Me, Hermano Gonzaga, and the SICK CENTIPEDE!

My House (The entry and the kitchen)

Bedroom

The Lou

Our study (obviously my desk is the one with the couch)

That´s about it for new stuff on my end! Life is good out here and couldn´t ask for more! I don´t know if Father´s day is the same day there as it is here, but Happy Father´s Day UD! YOU ARE THE MAN :D

Thanks for all you do, family. Miss you tons and hope things are totally awesome!

Much love,

Elder Wheeler

Me and my companion!

June 11, 2012

June 11, 2012

Heya!!!!

How´s it going?? Sounds like things are TOTALLY SWEET at home! Good news. I´m really glad things are going well while I´m away! Sad about selling the cabin, but it´s not like we´ll be taking less family vacations or anything! :D

Nyal = Awesome. BYU When I get back, definitely happening. Elder Rogers is getting his plans together to go there and a buddy of mine named Elder Johnson, too! We´ll see how it all turns out, but I am for sure going there. Tell Taylor that he´s got to go there, too. No other option!

Anyway, this week has been great! Nothing bad to report! We have Vania´s baptism this weekend and half her family are catholics and the other half members and she´s talked with missionaries like her whole life and knows all the stuff we have to teach, but she decided to get baptized when we first met her last monday! We taught a little about baptism (and she already knew all of it) and asked her if she would be baptized and she accepted! She´s 15 and awesome so I´ll let you know how that goes this weekend!

As for other things, yesterday morning I found two cockraoches MATING in the bathroom. Totally sick. Totally innapropriate. So I killed them both. With a shoe that´s not mine. 

Totally went to the nicest neighborhood of my whole life this week, too. It was gated, the houses were made of WOOD, there was AC, and CARPET. I´m so Mexicanized. It was seriously a totally weird thing though because everything here is cement, sweaty hot, and cement. EVERYTHING. So that was an experience!

THE AMAZING U.S. NEIGHBORHOOD

As for something mildly funny and something mildly cool, this week we had someone get out of his taxi, clearly drunk out of his minds (like 60% of the people in the streets here) and he told us that he needed direction in his life. We were on our way to an appointment and he said God put us in his path. I agreed with him, that it was probably true and offerend him a pamphlet and asked for his address so we could go to his house when we were free later that day. He said no, that he didn´t need a pamphlet, but diection. I explained to him that is exacly what the pamphlet does. It explains things that we need to do in our lives to really be happy and be on the path as followers of Jesus Chrsit. He told me that if we did not get in that taxi with him right then, then we weren´t of God. I obviosuly didn´t want him to think we were not of God because I know we are, so I told him NO. I´M NOT AN IDIOT! I didn´t say I´m not an idiot, but I mean really? So he said then you´re not sent from God, rejected my pamphlet and got into his taxi and left. Then a different taxi driver passed by and told us never to go with that guy because he just gets in taxis and never has anywhere to go. He just gets in and doesn´t say anything apparently. Some people.

This weekend we had a ward activity where the families came together on Saturday morning and we all went out and gave pamphlets to people and knocked on doors and invited people to come to church! They came back with tons of addresses of people who seemed interested and that´s what we´ll be working on this week. Our ward totally rocks! And it was awesome. They all had experiences of getting totally rejected or finding awesome people, and they are so much more excited about the missionary work than they were before (which was already pretty excited).

So things should be awesome.

Your questions!

-What's your favorite thing to eat there?

My favorite thing are the campechanas and hamburgers! But sometimes they go bad with my stomach.....

-What's the nastiest thing you've eaten there?

Hmm...I think it would be fruit with chile. They put chili powder on all of their delicious fruit! It´s so bad. As for other stuff, I´ve never really had something DISGUSTING. Like a whole fish that looks at me while I eat or some stuff that really wrecks my insides, but nothing really gross, thankfully. I steer clear of all that.

-You look skinner if that's even possible…have you lost weight or is it my imagination?

I´m TOTALLY LOSING WEIGHT. I can barely use one of the belts I have and all kinds of stuff, but no worries! I don´t need any new stuff!

-How many missionaries are in your mission?

I think there are about...170? Something like that.

-Why are you so dang adorable?

No comment :D

You are THE BOMB and thanks for everything you do for me! seriously, the mission would be 68465165 times harder if it weren´t for you! I pray for you all the time and I know this church is the one that´s true and stuff.

You´re the bomb!

Much love,

Elder Wheeler

 Me cooking who-knows-what with Juan (A member here)!

Me and a poster. The guy looks TOTALLY LIKE JAKE MCDANIEL :D

June 4, 2012

June 4, 2012

On a bridge in an alley!

Family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey! How´s it going?? It sounds like everything is going totally awesome!! Hawaii, campouts, SWIMMING! I´m totally going swimming. Like 14 months! That´s awesome, though!

Things with me are going pretty well, too! We´re just working hard and just like there in Mesa-town, it´s getting a little bit hot. And then the next day it rains? The weather is super weird here, but I´m okay with it! The work is picking up a little as well and we´re totally stoked about that! We didn´t have any baptisms this week, but we have some good people we´re going to start teaching this week. I have high hopes! I´ll let you know how it goes. As of right now, we had three people in church yesterday, but one is a couple who aren´t married and have like a one year old kid and really have economic problems, but we´re going to see about helping them get married so that they can be baptized. I´m not 100% sure about them, but I will definitely keep you posted. The other was Octaviano, who is awesome. His house is TOTALLY early 80´s. It´s like stepping into a time machiene. It´s because his wife died in December and he doesn´t have hardly any family that visits him, but he came to church. He is the type of person who almost never smiles, I´d imagine because of all the hard things he´s been through, but at church he was totally happy. The only other time he smiled was when he made a joke about Alma (because here Alma is a girls name) so he asked if it was a girl. I told him no. He asked if he was a transvestite, and then started to laugh. Old people are so ridiculously funny. What a weirdo but he is so awesome. He´s going to get baptized on June 29th, his wife´s birthday.

As for other things, I gave Elder Rogers a picture of us on Haloween when he was Hitler and I was a zombie. He put it in a photo album next to a picture of us now. We showed them to Sister Romney and she was cracking up. She´s totally the bomb.

Other than that, there isn´t too much going on! We´ve got a ward activity this week that we planned and the ward is going to go out and knock on doors and invite people to church! It´s going to be awesome. We also bought a hammock, and we´re trying to work out the kinks with it. We´ve fallen a couple of times and made some holes in the wall, but you know. It was like 12 dollars! Mexcio is sweet.

As for your questions!

Are you in an apartment with another set of missionaries? 

Nope! It´s just me and Elder Jesnen! And it gets SUPER hot in our apartment because it´s on the second story. And we have no warm water, which isn´t a problem because it´s Summer. Bathing with cold water is totally cool by me. Also, definitely have to shower twice a day because of how disgustingly sweaty I get...

What is the ward like? 

The ward is totally awesome! they all see that we haven´t had baptisms in this area for 4 months and so they always give of references to visit and are totally getting excited to help out in the missionary work. They seem like an awesome ward!

Has it gotten hot there yet?

Here, it´s gotten up to about 46 degrees Celsius? Not sure what that is in Fahrenheit, but I know that´s it´s way too hot!

Life here is awesome! Thanks for all that you do. YOU ARE THE BEST FAMILY EVER!

Much love,

Elder Wheeler

 

Totally found that chair sitting out in the middle of nowhere. I was a little worried about sitting on it at first because you can´t trust anything here.

May 30, 2012

May 30, 2012

My new area!

Hey Fam!!!

What´s going on?! Hope everything is going awesome with all of you! Everything with me is going great. Well, last week I got changed to Colinas! It´s in Santa Catarina, and still in Monterrey! So it´s totally awesome. This area is a lot...different! It´s right on that mountain that you see in that picture on my blog. The ward here seems totally awesome and totally involved in the missionary work. I´m totally excited to be here and excited to see what happens with the work here. There hasn´t been much success in this area for a little while. No baptisms since mid February but we have high hopes for this place and I know there´s totally people here that we can help. Right now we have one person named Octaviano who has accepted baptism. His entire family has passed away and he lives by himself. He´s 58 and his wife died in December. He says he wants to get baptized on the 29th of June, so in about a month! So in that time we´re going to help him and find other people.

As for my new companion Elder Jensen, he´s a pretty awesome guy! He´s totally excited to work and he´s really new. He´s been here in Mexico for about a month and a half! So he´s still got all this energy to do like basically anything. He reminds me of Nick a lot of times. He´s just super funny and outrageous. I can definitely learn a few things from him. I really think it´ll be a good change here in Colinas and with him!

Hope everything is going well at home! That´s pretty much it for news on my end. If there´s anything else you want to know, let me know!

Thanks for all you do for me and I love you all so much! You´re totally THE BOMB!

Much love,

Elder Wheeler

Elder Sanchez, Elder Sessions, and I on transfers!

Me and Colinas

 Me, Elder Jensen (My new comp) and Elder Mikkelsen (My comp from the MTC) on the bus!

Me and Elder Jensen, a grilled cheese, and a Mountain Dew (Which are super rare)

May 22, 2012

May 22, 2012

Hey Fam!!!

Sounds like things are totally awesome at home! Hawaii again, school getting out, and all of that. How awesome! I totally forgot to say HAPPY MOTHER´S DAY on the call so...HAPPY MOTHER´S DAY!!!!

This week has been pretty good. We set baptisimal dates with two families, and then they didn`t come to church...So we`ll see how that one turns out. But no worries there! Last week we had two baptisms! First, we went to Hector`s wedding so he could get married with his wife because they have two daughters but were unmarried. His wife, Karla, is a member just was innactive, and now he got baptized on thursday and confirmed Sunday. They now have a temple goal of being sealed as an eternal family and they`re totally excited! I sure hope I get to come back in a year and see them there! Then we had another baptism of Dani! He`s Myrthala`s son, the one we first talked to and he`s been to church about 7 times with us, but he had to move out from living with his girlfriend to be baptized. So he did, and he got baptized. He totally is a Mexican version of Kyle Syndergaard. It`s too funny, but he`s a great guy. They were totally happy!

As for the packages, YES I GOT IT! It was totally awesome. I`ve been eating tons of poptarts and mints and the insole things are the flippin bomb. It is way better walking now! Thank you so much! And the monkey I got that one a while back. TOO FUNNY! It was totally a taste of home and it made me laugh. Elder Hemsley always puts it on, too and tells me how the song reminds him of high school.

We have transfer calls tonight! So I`m basically 100% sure I`ll be out of this area, which is fine. I`d love to stay and I`m down for experiencing new stuff, too. Life is good either way! But we all know how changes went last time! So we`ll see what happens. I think I`m out of here, though.

I`m not sure what else you wanna hear about! That`s been pretty much it. We`ll see what happens here this week, I miss you all and you`re totally awesome, Carly, I can`t send your card off until I get an address for you, Maddy and Freckels, I got your letters, you`re both awesome!

Thanks for all you do, family! You`re seriously the bomb!

Much love,

Elder Wheeler

Me, Hermana Blanca and Cesar (Blanca is totally my favorite member here in the ward. She totally reminds me of you, Aunt Steph. She can`t be bothered with anybody but she`s totally a good person and just super sarcastic and funny. Cesar is her cousin who got baptized a few months ago after leaving prison for selling drugs and now is totally different and a hilarious and awesome guy :)

Hector Manuel Garcia Covarrubias´ baptism!! last Thursday!

Elder Sanchez`s birthday!

Me and a soccer champ trophy that`s like the biggest thing ever!

Daniel Garay Mata`s baptism last Saturday!

Hector and Karla`s wedding!

Our district!

May 14, 2012

May 14, 2012

Yo!

It was totally awesome to talk with you all and see you! For real, it rocked. Sorry I wasn`t very clear on the times, but next time (Christmas) I`ll do better!

Anyway, that`s totally awesome that Nyal`s back. Tell him he`s gotta write me. And it`s good to hear everything is going good at home. Tyler`s accent. That`s so funny. I bet you anything when I get back I`ll have one, too. But it`ll go away...I hope.

But yeah! So what`s new in these...two days? Well, Myrthala and Vicky were confirmed and they were crying and everything. Just totally awesome, they totally loved it and I think things will go better with them from here on out with the Holy Ghost and everything. They`re family isn`t really close at all, but I am thinking that has a high chance of changing. One of her sons, Dani, is going to be baptized this Saturday! And we`re totally stoked for that. He`s completely hilarious. He`s already read to Jacob in the Book of Mormon, on his own, in about three weeks.

Also, we have Hector, who is living with his girlfriend and have two daughters. This Wednesday they are going to get married!!! We are totally excited. They are too! And then on Saturday as well, he`ll get baptized (His girlfriend is already a member but was inactive for a while, but now is coming back). 

We also found a family who are friends with Fernando and his family and live like three doors down. We`ll see where that goes this week, but one of the daughters who is 17 seems like she`s awesome. She really liked church this Sunday and everything. I`ll keep you posted.

That`s about it for now, really! Sister Romney told me I should think about cutting my hair again...So I`ll be doing that today. It`s cause even though it`s hot, I am not super down with short hair, but you know. No worries there! 

I think that`s pretty much all I`ve got! Life is totally awesome and I`m excited to see what we can do more here.

Thanks for everything you do for me! Literally, I`m so grateful it`s ridiculous.

Much love,

Elder Wheeler

A sweet storm that totally filled the streets with water and everything. It was crazy.

Us as a zone activity!

Me and Lucha Libre!