March 28, 2010

s,

We are looking forward to General Conference and the Easter weekend.
It makes us think a lot of home and the traditions that come with this
time of year. We will be thinking of you all as we watch Conference;
we live in a marvelous time that makes it possible for us all to be a
part of the same meetings all around the world. We are so grateful
for our Savior and His plan for us and the infinite sacrifice so that
we may have eternal life if we will access the essential ordinances
and endure to the end. We have challenged ourselves to study what the
Savior did the last week of his life here on earth. It is a beautiful
time of year where you are and it is here also. We have had quite a
long dry spell which was supposed to last through May but we have had
some rain everyday for a week and things are starting to green up
again. This renewal by Mother Nature is symbolic of the resurrection
and this joyous time of year.

This will be a short report of the week as the next three days are
jammed packed and there is much to do. We are having Zone Conference
here and we have accommodations, food, and whatever else comes up to
plan for. I have been cooking every spare minute for a week and we
have another good day preparing food and the Kingstown building etc.
tomorrow. We have had a good week with Thursday being exceptional.
We had literacy class in the morning and it is very rewarding to watch
them progress. It is hard work for them but they are excited about
it. Kashore and Nadine McDowald were married on Thursday afternoon
and that was a great occasion. Nadine's mother is not sure about her
daughter becoming a Mormon but she seems to be warming some to the
idea. So, on the morning of April 3 we should have
wonderful baptism with the McDowald family and the Williams family
being baptized. Jennifer Rogers was baptized on Saturday this week by
Bailey who is an 82 year old recent convert. He is small and she is
not small and we were concerned that the waves etc. would be too much
for Bailey. He did marvelous and Jennifer was all smiles. They are
both part of the literacy class. Elder Tyau confirmed Jennifer today
in the Calliaqua branch and it was his first convert as he has only
been in the mission field for 3 weeks. Good day!!

Another week of wonderful memories. We are being so blessed! May
this Easter season be a spiritual feast for all. We love you!!!

Elder & Sister Wheeler

March 21, 2010

It is amazing to think that Easter and General Conference are only two
weeks away. It is fun to think about spring coming and things
starting to grow. We also are experiencing a dormant time and not as
many things in season. We are having water shortages and there is
absolutely no white sugar available anywhere on the island. They say
that the rainy season will not start again for another 2 months. When
we came in August, we couldn't imagine it getting brown here as
everything was so green and lush. It is fun to think about tulips and
blossoms on the trees. Enjoy!!!

We have had another great week. Kingstown branch has celebrated the
organization of the Relief Society in grand style. The had a walk on
Tuesday, video and game night on Wednesday, pamper session on
Thursday, and clean the Church and cook on Saturday. The Calliaqua
branch had a great dinner on Friday night that was very good and well
attended. So, we have had a lot of activities this week commemorating
Relief Society . We also have had a great week with the literacy
class and they are all so excited. We also taught Seminary and that
was very rewarding. We have not been receiving our Book of Mormon
orders for months and they finally came this week, an answer to
fervent prayer! We have some exciting occasions that are coming in
the near future (marriages and baptisms). So, stay tuned!!!

Thanks so much for your love and support, it means so much to us. We
love you all!!

March 14, 2010

Our thoughts are with family as there are quite a few birthdays and
special events happening right now. We send our love through this
wonderful technology and are so grateful for the time in which we
live. It has its challenges but also compensating blessings. We are
looking forward to Easter and the upcoming General Conference and it
is a joy to think about watching the sessions and knowing that we will
all be watching it at the same time.

There continue to be so many spiritual experiences that help us know
that we are being blessed as we strive to do the work. We had a
wonderful day with the McDonald family on Wednesday . They are the
family we talked about last week and we went with them to town to get
their birth certificates and to apply for a marriage license. It was
a fun day to have five of them with us. We were blessed to have
people that knew Elder Wheeler and I to help us with the process. It
made what could be a tedious job enjoyable. We picked up Elders
Gordon and Tyau in Diamond as we were taking the McDonald's home and
gave them another spiritual lesson about the gospel. We talked about
the wonderful events that are scheduled to take place for their family
the end of this month. Their marriage is scheduled for March 25 and
their baptisms for March 27. They are so excited about all of it.
Kashawna continues to write down everything that is taught and reports
on what was taught in the last lesson. What a smart girl she is.
They made it to Church today a little late as they had trouble getting
a van. Kashawna, Reon and Reonique were so glad to see us and loved
Primary. They all loved their experience at Church. Another
wonderful thing that was started this week was the Literacy class.
The program the Church has is truly inspired and uses the scriptures
to teach reading and writing. Gracie and Jennifer are the first
students and are a delight. We were to start class at 11 and they
didn't get there on time. We held class for an hour and they wanted
to keep going and we would have if we hadn't had other commitments.
We will hold class for as long as they want this next week. We also
had the Lord's help at Immigration this week. We had seven of us
that needed our passports renewed and we thought we had everything
ready. Elder Wheeler had gone around the block to get the airline
tickets showing when we would be leaving the island and the Elders and
I went into the Immigration office to get in line. The first Elder
was at the window and the immigration person was telling us that one
of our letters was not formatted correctly and that we needed our
sponsor to appear in person with each of us. She was pushing our
papers back at us and pretty much dismissing us. We have never needed
our sponsor with us and we had a letter from him with our papers.
About that time Elder Wheeler came in the door with our sponsor who
had seen him at the Liat (airline) office and decided to come with him
to the Immigration office. It took some doing but what could have
been a several day ordeal was taken care of in about an hour. No
doubt about it, we are being blessed. We also took the Tobierres to
the airport on Friday. Brendon and Cardian are originally from St.
Lucia and Brendon received a good job offer in St. Lucia. So, after a
challenging but blessed time here in St. Vincent, they are headed back
home. They were married, baptized and had a baby here in the last
seven months. We have loved them and we are excited for them to be
back where they feel more at home and have a good job. They came to
St. Vincent to help Brendon's grandparents, the Cupids, and Brendon
has not been able to find steady work here. Their baby, Athena, is
adorable. We hope that they will be ready to go to the temple in a
year.

Well, we have pretty much used up another day and we love it. We
realize everyday that reading the Book of Mormon and prayer is the
answer to any doubts questions or concerns that we have. It is indeed
the most correct book and will bring us closer to God than any other
book. We love you all and are so grateful for your support and love.

Much love,

March 7, 2010

Have you had signs of spring yet? Wish we could share a bit with you.
We are very warm and we are experiencing a drought throughout the
Caribbean. We have not had water at night for the last two nights and
did the spit bath thing before going to Church this morning. The
water was back on when we got home so that was good. Apparently, they
don't give much notice before shutting off the water. The rainy
season doesn't return for another couple of months so we will adjust.
We had a wonderful visit with our granddaughter, Kate. Skype lets us
see our grandchildren grow. We love hearing from you all.

We have had another interesting week. We would like to share two
experiences. We taught a wonderful family with Elders Gordon and Tyau
(new missionary from Hawaii, straight from the MTC). The surname is
McDonald and they have four children. They live at the top of a
mountain in a cinder block house with a tin roof, no windows, no
electricity or water and a dirt floor. The spirit was so strong and
they were very receptive to the message. They will need to get
married and so it will be awhile before they can be baptized but they
want that very much. The 10 year old daughter was so smart and reads
very well. She took notes through the lesson and I handed her my
ever-sharp pencil to use. She wrote a wonderful note to me and
thanked us all for teaching them and that she loved us all. Needless
to say, the pencil was hers. We look forward to watching them grow as
they continue to accept the gospel. On Saturday, we attended the
baptism of Marcia (mar-see-ah) Lawrence at Edinborough beach. She
lives in the Kingstown branch and their meetinghouse has a font but
because of the drought the baptism was done in the ocean. Following
her baptism, she bore her testimony. She said her first contact with
the Church was many years ago when she obtained a Book of Mormon which
she started reading. She then made a move to a new area and when she
returned and tried to locate the book she could not find it. Sometime
later, in her new location on the leeward side of St. Vincent, she was
caring for some other people's house. One day, while going through
some books in the house , she found a copy of the Doctrine and
Covenants. She read the entire book. As she read each section, she
agreed with everything that she read and knew that it was true
revelation and that Joseph Smith was indeed a prophet. That truth made
her feel that she should do something about her knowledge, but not
being willing to do anything about it or accept as scripture, she
somehow felt better when she would tear each section out of the book
and destroy it and then go on to the next section. She read one
particular prayer which greatly affected her. She committed it to
memory and made a poster of it which she hung in her home. It is part
of the Kirtland Temple dedicatory prayer found in Doctrine Covenants
109:54-55. Years later, two of our missionaries stopped by her house
and she had a good visit with them but finally declined to have them
teach her. Last December, Elder Findlay and Elder Barker were walking
down her street when she was out in her yard doing her wash. They
said good morning and Elder Barker said, "Washing clothes is like
baptism and hanging them out in the sunlight is like receiving the
Holy Ghost." Something about that comment touched her heart and she
consented to have them come back and teach her. When they taught her
about the restoration and asked her to pray and ask if Joseph and
Smith was a prophet, she said, "I know he is a prophet." It took
three months for her to decide to make the covenant of baptism. Once
she made the decision to accept the gospel, a spirit of peace came.
What a sweet experience to hear her story. We are also beginning to
see success with the Book of Mormon loan program. The members mark a
Book of Mormon with 50 scriptures and write their testimonies in it
and then loan it to a none member friend with their verbal testimony
of it's affect on their lives. Try it you'll like it!!!

We had transfers again; we lost three and gained three new ones. We
come to love these fine young men. Elder Vi has been here for almost
six months and will be greatly missed. Elder White came here from the
MTC and has become a great missionary. Elder Barker was able to say
just the right thing to Marcia. Our new missionaries are Elder Morris
who transferred from St. Lucia, Elder Logan from St. Martin and Elder
Tyau (tee-ow) from Hawaii via the MTC.

We are enjoying good health and our service here. We appreciate the
support and love of family and friends!

Much love,
Elder and Sister Wheeler

Feb. 28, 2010

,

We have had an enjoyable, busy week. We have had the news on to
receive the news about the earthquake in Chile. In our Sacrament
meeting this morning, one of the speakers talked about the "signs of
the times" and said that St. Vincent's disaster would be to have the
volcano La Soufriere erupt. It has not erupted for several years and
nearly wiped the island clean in the early years of the 1900's. It
erupted in 1979 and did a lot of damage but not nearly as devastating
as in 1907 or 08. The Caribbean also experiences hurricanes but St.
Vincent has not experienced a devastating one. Brother Rappley, who
was here from CES this week also talked about circumstances that would
make the people ready to receive the gospel. It is important to be
watchful but not fearful. "If you are prepared, you need not fear."

We had Elder Alvarado, an area Seventy, and Brother Rappleye, CES area
director for the Caribbean, here to train seminary and institute
teachers and coordinator and to have a fireside. It was a spiritual
feast to sit in a room with 7 of us and learn. Elder Alvarado has
been here in St. Vincent twice since we arrived and is a delight to be
around. He has recently been called as the mission president in the
Puerto Rico mission. He is only 40 years old and has been an area
seventy for six years. As we were in a training meeting, Bro.
Rappleye and I realized that we were related through John Lathrop who
is the fifth great grandfather of the prophet Joseph Smith. As the
day progressed we found other connections we share. He is living in
the Dominican Republic and Cindy Acevedo is in their ward there. So,
I hope someone will let Robert and Marlene Acevedo know. The other
connection is that he has served as a stake president and Holly
Bollwinkel was his stake Relief Society president. It is a small
world. We also had the wife of a young medical student from Granada
fly in for the training. We had met briefly when we were in Granada
for zone conference a few weeks ago and it was good to get to know her
better. We also have recently learned that the seminary coordinator
and teacher here in St. Vincent is experiencing a miracle. She is in
her 40's and has no children, neither do any of her sisters. She is
pregnant and is experiencing a miracle. She is absolutely tireless in
serving the Lord. She teaches early morning seminary five days a
week, makes sure that there is a teacher for Calliaqua on Saturday
afternoon (which is usually her) and teaches another group on Friday
afternoon. She and her husband also teach literacy in the Kingstown
branch and she is the historian for the branch. We are so excited for
her and her husband. She is planning to go to the Dominican Republic
before she is too far along to receive her temple endowment in the
Santo Domingo temple. Elder Alvarado and Bro. Rappleye gave a
wonderful fireside which emphasized the importance that the island
youth will play in continued growth her in the Caribbean. Great
stuff. We had a day breather before President Gamiette (Mission
President) arrived for interviews with the branch leaders and temple
recommend interviews. It was wonderful to see the branch members
lined up waiting for the turn to be interviewed and be able to
continue to plan for the trip to the temple. We had great visits with
the members as we facilitated the interview schedule. President
worked from 1 pm to 8:30 pm. straight and was understandably tired and
hungry. We had a quick dinner before he continued to make transfer
calls to the missionaries for this coming week. Elder Wheeler took
him to the airport at 5:30 am on Saturday and if Liat was on time he
had four hours with his family before presiding at the stake
conference in Trinidad. Makes you tired just to read about it,
doesn't it. Elder Wheeler is also very instrumental in helping the
branches here with their semi-annual audit. We also are preparing for
transfers this coming Wednesday. It is hard to get so close to these
young missionaries and them have the fly off to another country in the
mission to serve. We will lose Elders Vi, White and Barker who have
served so faithfully here and are so loved by their converts and the
members.

It is time to go to Kingstown for the audit there so we will call it a
week and send our love to all. We know that the Restored Gospel of
Jesus Christ is true and that we have such a bright future by living
by it's principles and the commandments.