February 22, 2016

Dearest All 

Another fantastic week, the momentum keeps building here in the Great Noke!

so Updates on a few people

C.C. - I mentioned her last week when we met with her at dinner on Monday. She came to our district meeting where I asked her and L.K. to role play with missionaries some teaching situations and skills...they both put my missionaries to the test! It was a great district meeting we all learned from the spirit and especially the investigator and recent convert guests from our ward and a couple other wards. Learning from them what was effective when they were taught and listening to their experiences and conversions.  We also had an incredibly powerful lesson with her on Thursday...C.C. is truly incredible, I am thoroughly impressed by her...we covertly asked her all of the baptism interview questions and the member we had along with us H.H. bore a powerful and pure testimony of the blessings that she will receive from Baptism and the love of the entire ward...She is going to be out of town the next two weekends and following our Sunday lessons about prayer we as a ward felt felt prompted to pray specifically for C.C....we are confident and surely hope that we will see the miracle of this come together, we invited her to be baptized on March 5th (remember she has been investigating for 2 years and been active in the ward through that time!)

L.M. - we met with her again at Virginia Western with L.K. she said "I have been wanting to join the church for a long time but never could" she explained to her parents her hope to learn about he gospel and join the church. To her joy her mother was actually very supportive and happy about her meeting with us. L.M. lives a good deal away from Roanoke actually...out in the county but even having to come the distance she to our excitement came to church on Sunday. We have plans to teach her twice this upcoming week.

D.S. - The guy is thoroughly awesome, we learned a bit more about his family and he came to two activities and is one of the most open and sincere guys, willing to get out of his comfort zone to learn more and find truth. 

M.Z. - A new friend although he doesn't feel all that new, because he has just captured the opportunity to make friends and learn more...we met him via D.H. at the dress shop, Sister H. was waiting in line at the dollar store last Saturday and noticed M.Z. struggling to stuff all his groceries into his backpack. M.Z. had just missed his bus and was going to have to walk home...it was bitter cold outside...So D.H. gave him a ride and discovered He was from New Jersey and had just moved to Salem/Roanoke with some roommates. As D.H. is telling us about this account a few days later on Tuesday at the dress shop...low and behold M.Z. walks by the shop and D.H. calls for him and has him come inside, he is super personable and we got to talking and arranged to meet with him at the Roanoke Stake Center, we taught him the restoration and gave him a book of Mormon, by the end of that day (Thursday) he was in chapter 7 and by Sunday he was in chapter 17...and knew exactly what the speaker was talking about in sacrament meeting when they mentioned Nephi getting tied to the mast of the ship.  he leaned over to me and said "You know I just don't get why Laman and Lemuel are so mean after all that has happened to them"...I was like "What"...I was certainly impressed as was the ward as he continued to contribute to lesson discussions etc...

Well that is only the tip of the iceberg there are many other people I am excited about namely M.N. and S.M....and also excited to watch L.K. and her excitement build toward her own mission, she is certainly satan's worst nightmare and one of the Lord's sharpest tools.

​After district meeting we made a quick stop to "ElderBerry's" a smoothie place...I told the sisters..."Umm sorry sisters the sign says 'Elder' berry's not sister berry's" haha

​We also at last made it to the 3rd and final college in our area, Hollins University, all girls school...so that was weird...#understatement...But the campus is amazing. We met with the Chaplin who as worked with missionaries well in the past. We are getting a tour of the entire campus this Wednesday with our one active member at the university and are going to reach out to the few less-active members that are there as well...it was one of those places that is in the city but once you cross the fence feels like you are in another world...it was very nice.

​Teaching about the fall to our friend S.M. at Roanoke College

​So the H's "the Dress shop folks" the elders in Salem have created the tradition of hiding pass-a-long cards in their dress shop...so Elder Wilkinson had the crafty idea to go to their home, and take it to the next level. So us and the Salem Elders made the trip up the mountain to their beautiful home and managed to get inside before they got home...and used nearly 1,000 of our surplus of pass-along cards all over the house...no worries they are very good sports...so the next day we walked into the dress shop and D.H. said "you know we walked in and it was like we got our acceptance letter to Hogwarts...like lots of little owls had been everywhere" haha A. and S. got a huge laugh out of it as well..."I have never laughed so hard in my life"...but it also had some un-seen positive effects, so they posted our shenanigans on social media, which many of their friends and our other less-active friends saw and mentioned to us...which was nice to hear from them. Love the H's!

Conveniently our YSA ward has our own building to use, and as such we also have our own mascot...of sorts...meet "Edee" one of our member's basset-hound

This was at our angry birds activity, we also have a very creative and outgoing sister in our ward who doesn't spare one tiny detail planning and carrying out activities. This was at our life size angry birds activity.

​ This past week was awesome our friends, L., M. and D. all came to church. D. is the one in the "88" jacket.

That is all for this week

Love yins

-ART

Elder Wheeler

P.S. Thank you for all the Birthday wishes and Happy Birthday to my fellow February Birthday's Carson, Grandma King, Aunt Hawnii and mamajo and others if I forgot:)