I'm still alive and mostly well

Hello,

So this week I had a huge wipe out on my bike. Turns out trying to race on a road bike with skinny tires on a gravel trail is not the best idea. the tires slid out and I skidded on the gravel for at least 15 ft. No permanent injuries. I just wrecked my shirt and pants. I'll try and get my slacks repaired, but we'll see what happens. The white shirt is still usable. 

I think I forgot to mention that one of the sisters that came out with Elder Hills is in my zone and she is from Washington. I think she said she was in the Hylabos ward. She is Sister Mietus. We knew some of the same people. 

Also my previous companion's family (Elder Hardman) lives in Warden Washington, not too far from where Alisha and Braeden just moved to.

The other day I saw a pretty sweet meteor. Elder Hills was in the public restroom and missed it, but it was sweet. It was super close and it almost touched the ground, but it burned up in a nice array of colors.

That guy Michael didn't come to church, but we were able to catch him home again, and we set up a return appointment. We are going to meet with him again this week. We also found a new investigator when we were tracting last Wednesday. His name is Tony. He is a super nice guy and he loves to talk. He is just meeting with us because he is nice, but we will show him the right way. He is the most humble person I have ever met. 

We were finally able to have a meeting with one of our investigators, Lars. He is like 16-17 years old. He has lots of drug problems and he has gotten into the wrong crowd, but he wants to change. He said he is neutral as far as religion goes, but we will see. 

Happy Halloween! We have to be in our apartment by 7:00pm tonight so we don't meet any of the crazies. 

Boo,

Elder Wheelwright

I have a blog??

I have a blog apparently. Hello bloggers.

This week has been fairly lame in some ways. All of the appointments we had scheduled with our investigators canceled or didn't happen. We had lots of bike troubles, and by we, I mean Elder Hills. He got flats on his front tire daily. Luckily on Saturday he got his own bike, and he is ecstatic. He got it from craigs list and payed $650 for it. Its a full on mountain bike with full suspension, and has phat wheels. Horrible for roads, but you know, he's happy. Well one day we were walking because right after dinner the tire was popped, and we had an appointment with our investigators, so we walked all the way there, only to find out that they have company over and that we should have texted before we came. As if it was our fault. People these days. 

To all out there: Please be responsible adults.

Good things happened this week too. We taught this guy named Michael. He is the coolest kind of African (not racist). He is fluent in french too. He had tons of good questions that we were able to answer about the "Mormons". We taught him the restoration among all the questions. He is super busy, and only said we could talk with him for a half hour, but he kept talking to us for an hour because he found it interesting. No return appointment, but he said he would come to church. But alas, he didn't. We will give him a real talking to this week. 

We also talked with this really awesome Lutheran guy named Ronald. He is an outstanding guy. A go getter, do-it-yourself personality. Much of the time, it felt like he was very subtly cautioning us to rethink what we believe, because the devil still gets you even though you may have 97% of the truth. He was talking about that scripture in the bible about judgement, and how Jesus said "I know ye not" even though the people did all kinds of service in his life. Ronald is super smart, but all he focuses on is the scriptures. He doesn't take revelation from the spirit.

Have a nice week!

Package time 

Thank You Nikki (for the package)

Another surprise text message.....

Hi Sister Wheelwright-
My name is Tara Kay. I'm in the Colorado Southlands ward where elder Wheelwright is now serving. My family had them over for dinner this week and I thought I would send you a couple pictures. He is a stalwart young man and doing a great job serving here. We really enjoyed visiting with him and his companion. We will have them over often. :)   Have a wonderful day.

Hey Y'all

Something cool happened this week. We got to watch the Fort Collins Temple Dedication. That was yesterday. Dieter F. Uchtdorf dedicated it. It was a really cool thing. What I liked the most was the talk Uchtdorf gave. It was just different from how it would be in general conference. It was great. First Temple Dedication I've seen. I wasn't there. It was just broadcast to stake centers. Still cool. 

The work here has been better than it was last week. We were able to meet with some of the existing investigators. Dave and Christie, and Sharon. Dave and Christie, it's hard to tell how much potential they have. Dave doesn't seem too interested, but Christie is a lot more religious than Dave and she seems to have more potential. Sharon is a bit of a special case. She has had lots of rough times in the recent past. A very messy divorce is the bulk of it, because she can't see 3 out of 4 of her children right now. And this creates the problem of her not wanting to go to church. When she goes to church she sees all the happy families and children, and that kills her. The other problem is coffee. She drinks a lot of coffee. She would be baptized, but she doesn't want to unless she feels she could be 100% committed. So we challenged her to drink 50% less coffee for now. I don't know how that is going. We are going to check with her today. 

We did however find this lady named Amy a park. She has a little girl named Hannah. She seems pretty interested. She has lots of potential. She said it was good timing that we talked to her. Something happened in her life recently. So we gave her a BoM and our number, but we forgot to get her contact info. So we for the next 5 days kept swinging by the park to maybe find her there, but no luck. Then one day we were contacting some potential from the area book, and we go to find this guy named Mike. Mike turns out to be Amy's husband. What a miracle. We haven't had a chance to get sit down and teach her yet, but it's in the process. 

Good stuff. Have a nice week.

Sayounara,

Elder Wheelwright

Fort Collins, Colorado Temple

Columbus Day

Hola mi familia. Soy un misionero de la iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días.

Transfers happened. But jk, it wasn't that intense. It's just me training in a new area. Me and my companion Elder Hills are in the Southlands Ward in the Arapahoe stake. Lots of changes. Everything is so different than from my last few transfers. I have never swept into an area. It was "white washed" as an older generation would call it (sorry guys). It is indeed a biking area. We are currently borrowing the Assistants' bikes. I do believe that I should buy a bike this transfer. Not only am I in a bike area, but Elder Hills is a bike expert. He built bikes back home and he did downhill mountain bike racing. He is from New Hampshire. Last Wednesday I went and picked him up on his first day here in the mission field. That was the longest transfer day ever. We got to our apartment in Southlands at like 8:30pm. The Ward Mission Leader fed us dinner then. He and his whole family are some of the best people on the planet. 

We do live in an apartment. It is so different than living with a member, as I have been my whole mission. I miss having members. Especially the ones I was living with previously, the Macabes. There is also like nothing in the apartment. I mean, it's furnished pretty well, but the kitchen is where I find it lacks. And it sucks. It sucks to have an empty kitchen. The previous elders (Elder Christensen and Elder Holtry) left no food. Nothing but half a loaf of bread, a tub of butter some old grapes, and a bag of whole garlic. (Elder Christensen loves garlic, and I will gladly make use of it) We made an emergency run to Walmart across the street. (across the street is a huge shopping center, "Southlands Mall"). Even then, we still just lived off of PB&J and cereal for four days. #MissionaryLife. We bought $120 of food stuffs yesterday, so we should be good.

The work has been pretty dead in this area for the time we have been here. But this week is looking up. I think we have like four appointments scheduled for this week (two of them tonight). It is weird leading an area and training a new missionary. Though Elder Hills is pretty awesome. He is better than me some areas. He will be an outstanding missionary soon enough. Hopefully I can contribute in that regard.

Shout out to a certain newly engaged couple. Congratulations.

Y'all have a great week. 

Buenas Noches,

Elder Wheelwright

Bro and Sister Macabe

Southlands is in the southern part of Aurora

Surprise text!!

Received a text tonight!  

"Had your sons over for family night tonight! They're wonderful missionaries.  You should be proud! Thank you for letting them serve us here in Colorado."

Transfers... Happened (Oct 3, 2016)

So things are a bit interesting this coming transfers. I'm moving areas ... with a new Elder. I am training. He will be straight from the mtc. This will be an adventure. Sweep training. It will be an experience. And I'm fairly certain that this area is a bike area, unless it has changed this transfer. 

It has been a busy weekend. We had a tight schedule what with our appointments and General Conference. General Conference was pretty great. I don't have any favorites yet. But is was great. The Saturday sessions we were able to watch with our ward mission leader and Armando. And between the sessions we helped him with his family history. It was cool. 

Yesterday we went tracting to find this one member's non-member girlfriend, but we instead ran into (at the first door) another girl who was super nice and she met one of the missionaries in our mission like 1.5 years ago. Growing up, she had lots of bad experiences with religion, and had most of the bible memorized (she's only 19). We invited her to the primary program this week and she seemed interested. We will see.

Nothing else of much note has happened this week. 

Your favorite elder,

Elder Wheelwright