There and Back Again: a Missionary´s Tale (Please read all)

Today I want to talk about the principle of receiving a calling from God.

God loves us, and He wants as many of His children to succeed as possible. Because of this, He asks some of us (any who are willing, able, and worthy) to look out for our brothers and sisters. Sometimes, He even calls us to do specific jobs and tasks, knowing that we are the best for what is required. Often times, we know the general outline of His plan for us, but more often than not we are blind to the specifics until we are experiencing them. For this I have always said that I will never be ready, but I will always be prepared- because God will not give us something that we can´t handle, even if it is so startlingly different that we get lost thinking about the implications.

Every once in a while, we receive a little bit of guidance in terms of our own paths and callings that help us to see ahead and prepare for what is next. That does not always mean that we will be ready for what happens- to the contrary, God gives us the warning because He knows that we will not be ready when the time comes. Such has been the case with my mission. Allow me to share the story from the beginning, that there may be no question in anyone´s mind as to why what is next for me is exactly what needs to be.

While I was living on my own, and for a few years before that, I had slowly given up the principles and guidance of the Church to "figure things out for myself". I made many choices that were unwise, that have affected many lives- and ultimately I put the potential of a mission in near-Jeopardy. Fortunately, God continued to guide and direct my paths through the people around me, and eventually I started to figure it out. I cleaned up my life, and had the goal of making it back to the temple and then leaving on a mission. I had almost achieved that when I became outrageously sick with a virus that took over my body, wasting my immune system and eating my muscles.

After 8 months of being basically confined to bed, pain meds, and a cane, I was preparing to receive the Melchezidekal Priesthood, with the understanding that the doctors would not allow me to serve a mission with the state that I was in. As I was studying one day  just before my interviews with the Bishop and Stake President, I received the distinct feeling that I was to ask about getting my papers started to apply for my mission. I was still in bed 5 days a week, and on a cane and meds when I wasn´t there, but I decided after reflection that I was to act on what I had received, as it was from God. As I entered my interviews we began talking pleasantly (as you always do before the interview proper) when suddenly they stopped and asked, "Have you thought about putting in your papers?" Had this only happened once it would have been strange enough, but in two separate and uncoordinated interviews the same experience passed and so I was set on the path in which I had been directed to act.

As I struggled to prepare my papers and get my affairs in order, my health continued to decline and problems continued to happen. Finally, three days before my final doctor´s appointment, I woke up and miraculously felt none of the pain that had been plaguing my body for almost a year. After being hardly able to walk for such a long time I got up and ran 2 miles. A real, Christ´s-Ministry style miracle had occurred, and as I visited with the doctor and the tests were run they returned beyond healthy- as if I had never been sick in my life. The Lord had opened a way through my obedience and the prayers of those who loved me.

I prepared for my mission, getting out of $6000 dollars of medical debt and through many more small miracles was ready shortly before I was to enter the MTC (I will pass all of these in my personal record, but for brevity of the email today I must cut them out.. sorry.). During this time I received various priesthood blessings of counsel and comfort, and an interesting pattern that had emerged inside of my patriarchal blessing began to be noticed- that I was not going to be serving a full-time mission in Chile. This was an impression that I had felt from the time I was 5, but I pushed forward all the same, knowing that God doesn´t make mistakes, and that He has a plan for me and what I am to do. This was reaffirmed quite plainly in the MTC where I was told that I would be able to perform miracles in Chile- I received even some details on the people that I have met- but that my time was to be limited and that then I was to move on to another, greater calling. Where and what that is was not specified, but the time has come.

Over the last few months my health has steadily started declining. It started with problems sleeping in the MTC, progressed to a combination of insomnia and exhaustion in Lo Prado, plus nausea, head- and muscle-aches, various skin problems, anxiety, a flare-up in my Bi-polar disorder, and a slew of other problems that I do not wish to bring up as part of this general email. We have worked with 4 doctors here to try to treat things the best that we can, but after some more severe drops and poor reactions to medicines (the most severe of which put me in the hospital for a night) I will be being released honorably for medical reasons from my mission here in Chile. I will be under treatment and observations for a number of months, and if my health is sufficient and the Lord calls me back to another mission I will be allowed to reapply for a part-time or full-time service mission.

I am extremely grateful for all that you have done for me- your prayers, love, support, and faith. Please know that this is one more step on the path that God has prepared for me, and that I do not fear what comes next. I am promised that the calling that I go to is greater than that from which I come, and that the blessings that are prepared are so great that I will not be able to receive them. Know that I love you all.

If you desire to find out more information or see what you can do to help, you may either email me directly or (preferred) contact my Father, Troy Wheelhouse, at troy.wheelhouse@gmail.com to be in contact with us. If I may serve you or your families/associates in any way, PLEASE do not hesitate to ask. I love you all, and I will be going to my next calling with gladness and joy, grateful for the time that I have had here and ready to serve in the capacity that the Lord has prepared for me.

I love you all.

Les Amo.

¡Nos Vemos!

-EW


--
-Elder Wheelhouse

Night in the Hospital

To all those who don't know, Elder Wheelhouse was very sick this week.  The mission president, President Essig, is making a decision this week whether to keep him in Santiago, send him home to recuperate, or send him to a stateside mission after a period of recuperation.  Please keep Alton and President Essig in your thoughts and prayers.  Alton would love to stay and serve.

Pumpkin cookies... I forgot how much I love pumpkin chocolate chip cookies...

Hello all!

First, I want to give a huge thank you and shout out to the Eaglecrest 1st Ward for the AWESOME care package that I received the other day. I am savoring (along with my companions) the various peanut butter bars, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies, and overall goodness of that package. We will also be playing a game of trouble as part of our p-day today. ¡Muchísimas Gracias!

On that same note, there doesn´t appear to be rhyme nor reason to the amount of time it takes mail to get to or from here.. I received one package that was postmarked the 18th of November, then 2 days later one that was postmarked the 25th, then a letter that was marked the 17th. I really have no clue.. But thank you all!

The biggest thing that happened this week were some various things happening in the office.. We had some major injuries happen in the mission this week, and so I´ve been back and forth from the hospital a good 10 or 15 times, plus midnight pain med runs, plus tranquilizing alternatively doctors and concerned companions.. It´s been fun. I also went out with Elder Durrant and talked to a cell phone company that has continued charging us for a full year and 2 months after we terminated the contract. It was very exciting, because it opened up some money to purchase new equipment within the mission. Finally the week culminated in a four-day crunchfest of reports that nobody knew were coming until they were here, including moving up the end of the year report 3 weeks. We´ve mixed in a few visitas here and there, but unfortunately I have been in the sector a total of 3 hours this week. The good news is that we´ve had a steady supply of sick and/or injured elders coming into the office, so I´ve been able to plug away at the sudden influx of end-of-the-year paperwork. I suppose it´s not good that the elders are getting sick, but we´ve not had anything super super serious. What doesn´t kill you makes you stronger, eh?

For those of you that saw the bonus email this morning, I encourage you to turn your minds back to that subject as I talk about one more cosa chiquitita. For those of you that did not read it or are joining the emails for the first time, you can check it out at elderwheelhouse.blogspot.com <http://elderwheelhouse.blogspot.com>  .

In brief summary, we talked about noticing the presence of God in the world around you. I would submit one more step to that. The whole purpose of us even coming here was to gain experience and become like He Is, to expand our intelligence and capability so that one day we can return to live with Him and receive our own glory and dominion. He has given us various tools to be able to do that, one of the greatest of which is the Holy Ghost, in it´s many forms of Divine Inspiration.

The awesome thing is that as we seek to feel, receive, and follow the Spirit in our lives, we slowly are changed. Our thoughts become more in line with where they should be, our actions become more like we want them to be, and we receive greater light and knowledge. One of the beautiful things about this process is that as we progress, God gives us more ability and opportunity to excercise our agency and choose for ourselves. We have the opportunity to begin to come to where He is in this life- and while we may or may not rise to the same level of glory or perfection that He has attained while we are here, we can begin to rise to the levels of perfection within our own spheres, and excercise that ability to decide righteously for ourselves. As we strive to seek and follow the will of God, slowly our will turns to be more and more in line with His. This is the great Plan- not because of a controlling God, but rather that of a loving Father who knows what can bring His children the most happiness because of His own experience.

This is the testimony which I wish to give today- that as we seek to become like Him, He will guide us further and further until we are receiving the blessings that He has for us without restricción. Les amo, y ¡le vayan super bien todos!

Mucho Amor,

-Elder Wheelhouse

P.S. for those of you that know, 42.

Woohoo! Pre-letter Bonus letter!

Hello all!

So, according to the clocks in Utah it should be about 3 in the morning right now, but it´s 7:07 here and I just finished an all-nighter number crunching party! ¡Que Divertido!

I figured that I´d tell the story really quickly before I crash for a few hours. Then on to P-Day proper, and the regular letter like normal.

At any rate, I´ve been staying late in the office preparing a whole bunch of numbers and reports, including an end-of-year report that I originally thought was due in 3 weeks. Well, last night I got a call at 11 at night from the President. He, very embarrassed, informed me that he had forgotten about a meeting that he is having on Sunday with four of the Seventies and all of the Stake Presidents and general priesthood leadership of the mission to discuss the year´s numbers. We were already on a late night run to save another Elder who was having some medical issues (he had a seizure and hurt his shoulder and back pretty badly), and so we came back to the office and I sat and crunched numbers to my heart´s content.

Now hold on, I can´t let you get away without some sort of spiritual thought- and what do you know, I learned something from this experience!

Primarily, let´s establish the obvious. No one of us is perfect- we do our best, and many of us are most definitely admirable, but no one is perfect. God knew that before hand, and He decided to create a system for us to receive direct help from someone who knows. Many people know it by names such as "inner knowing" or "gut feeling", but we know it to be the Holy Ghost.

A few days ago, I began to sit down and do a project that was dealing with a lot of the numbers in terms of proselyting. I noticed that the numbers that I was using had correlations to many other of the processes that I was using, but merely could not be used interchangeably because of some small formatting errors. Something within me said to pull up all of the other databases of information, and suddenly inspiration struck- and I saw a way to unify all of that information into a central database with an easier interface (have you noticed the similar trends in this thought process? Start thinking!). I happened upon a function that I had never seen inside of Excel before that allowed me to create database interfaces, and coincidentally enough I discovered that the main internet database with which we report to Salt Lake has an Excel output. Luckily there was already a partial process for working with the raw information, and by good fortune I had already stumbled upon it a few weeks earlier during a happenstance sweep of the networks, which I had felt impressed to clean (have you seen it yet? I´m almost to the climax, here!). I connected the information with the powerpoint that I had felt I should start a week ago, and magically it all came together. What a miracle, to have so many things go right in a row!

Ok, here is the pattern- and absolutely everything that I said above is true. Did you notice the following words?
"I noticed that", "Something within me said", "Suddenly inspiration struck", "I happened upon", "Coincidentally enough", "Luckily", "By good fortune", "I had felt impressed", "I had felt that I should", "Magically", "It all came together", "What a miracle", "So many things [went] right".

All of these things are phrases and little parts of our day that we often use without thinking- but they all are SO much more interconnected than we realize. There are too many wonderful things that happen in life for it to be simple coincidence, and yet we constantly run into unexpected blessings and inspirations that lead us to happier places. How often do we push it off on circumstance or good judgement, and forget the Lord who sent those blessings to begin with?

I submit as my testimony to you this fine Santaguinian morning that God does know us and guide the little things in our lives that make us happy! I know that if we will look for the little miracles that pass, our lives will be SO much more enjoyable. What an awesome blessing to be known and loved by One who has created all things. I promise that if you will look for Him, you will find Him.

Talk to you all in a few hours!

-Elder Wheelhouse

Bonus Letter! (Kind of...)

Hello all!

Once again, sorry for the confusion last week. I had a few other letters to write that ended up taking more time than I thought, but it was important to finish my thoughts from last week (if you have not read it yet, go ahead and read it, I´ll wait!)

At any rate, kind of a crazy week this week. Not much to say, actually- my health took another dive and I wasn't able to get out all week. Most of my energy was spent in the office generating reports and trying to update our cell phone system- mostly excel spreadsheets and occasional moments of exasperation where I was just tempted to chuck the keyboard out the window- but it was good fun all in all.

One exciting adventure happened yesterday. Here in the office we have a van for use when we need to move missionaries and things like that, and it´s started throwing fits lately. It´s near the end of it´s replacement period anyway (the church has very specific policies on Vehicles), but suddenly everything started giving out within 48 hours. It started with a dead battery, which we replaced easily enough- but then it started having problems with the electrical systems, including occasionally throwing on the Anti-lock Braking System in the middle of the Freeway. Finally last night it culminated in having a tire fly completely off in the middle of Vespucio Norté, one of the main Tollways here. Elder Metcalf and Elder Durrant (my new companions) were bringing a sick Elder home from the doctor´s while I was with another Elder who is spending a few days with us (a Latino from Mexico, who doesn´t speak any English at all) when I suddenly received a phone call from them telling me what happened. The great news is that Vespucio Norté has a wonderful traffic control and response team, who by divine intervention was about 60 feet behind them in the next lane when their tire flew off. No one was hurt, and we´re going to be getting a new van soon!

Hemos sido muy bendecido por Dios recién. We are seeing a lot of miracles happening within the mission and even within the ward here.  One of the zones had set a monthly baptismal goal of ten last month and it turned out 17, and another zone passed their goal by 11. Plus, I encountered about 60 unentered references the other day, so they´re all going to be contacted within the week here. I was checking up on Lorena (my first baptism from Lo Prado), and she is still staying faithful to everything that she committed. I even received a letter from her the other day, unsolicited, and what a blessing to hear from her! Her son is beginning to investigate, and we hope that her entire family will be returning soon. We had a lesson with the familia Huaman the other day that was fantastic, and they are asking for permission to be baptized next Sunday or the following. Pray for them!

Thank you all for your support and prayers, and know that I love you all. It´s interesting to think about the little blessings that we see every day- sometimes it could even be something as little as a child smiling and waving at you. Know that all of those little things come from a loving Heavenly Father that knows exactly when we need Him most- and sometimes we need to be the one who smiles for someone else!

Another short one, but more next week!

Nos Vemos-

-Elder Wheelhouse

Feliz Dia de Acción de Gracias!!! (or, "Oh Palvo, How I love thee..")

(I began this message last week and then ran out of time, but I wanted to make sure that I said what I needed to- so enjoy two letters this week!) -EW

--------------------------

(Palvo=Turkey)

¡Hola, todos!

What a week! I have not seen my sector much, but I did teach an awesome lesson yesterday and gave some blessings earlier in the week. Hopefully I´ll get out tonight, but it doesn´t look likely. I discovered a ton of back paperwork that never got done by the last Historian, as well as another completely different kind of paperwork that never got done by the last Pensionista, but is now my responsibility. Hence, I´m serving in a different way for now!

Some awesome things did happen this week though.. Primarily, last Sunday our companionship brought 8 Investigators to church, plus three reactivated families. all of them but one of the investigator families were people that I contacted personally, and so I felt awesome to watch the Capilla fill up for a special fast and testimony meeting. Two of the most exciting parts were when Hagapito(ah-gah-PEE-toe), the father of the familia Huaman (Luis is his son, to whom I have been giving piano lessons) walked in (we haven´t seen him at all in two and a half months and we´re waiting for his permission to baptize his family), and when a new dear friend of mine, Nicolas, stood up and bore his testimony. I´ll go ahead and tell you a little more about him.

Nicolas is a wonderful man of 19 years of age who was baptized when he was 8. Within a few years, he had inactivated and fallen away from the church. He investigated many other religions, but none of them seemed to be right as all of them taught that each man has his own way to heaven, as long as he believes in and "comes to" Christ(NOT true, by the way, those are only the first two steps). We had been following up on some instructions from the Bishop to go and visit one of the older men who had become less active, when Nicolas and his girlfriend showed up. Nicolas, now 11 years older and about 7 years completely away from the church, came in covered in piercings and began to talk with us on his Grandmother´s insistence, occasionally cursing and talking about all of his bad experiences with the church. We taught about the restoration of the gospel and bore testimony of the divinity of this work. He asked if he could ask a question, and I answered it. I would like to share that conversation with you as my spiritual thought today.

The question that he asked was, "If all churches bring me to Christ, why should I choose to be with a church when I already believe in Him?"

This is a very real question, and one that I thought a lot about and struggled with for a long time- and I was so glad that Heavenly Father guided me through my struggles to be able to understand it as it is. The question I´d like to pose as a response to you is, "What next?". I of course, answered him much more bluntly- and I will show you the answer too- but to really understand it, you have to start at the beginning.

God is our Heavenly Father- our creator and the person whom we chose to follow before this life even started. He loves us, and He wants us to attain the same level that He has- Immortal and Glorified. We agreed that in order to become like Him, we needed to have our own experience and opportunity to choose- to the end that we would know for ourselves how to act and what would bring us the most happiness. This is what we call "Salvation"; it is the manner of life that will bring us the most happiness, or save us from the most grief. Unfortunately, we are not perfect. We knew that we would make mistakes, but we also knew that nothing impure could return to His presence and obtain this higher level of existence. Our Father knew this too- and as any good father would, He created a way for us to overcome these small weaknesses and begin to obtain that Happiness in this life.

This was and is the purpose of Jesus Christ- to provide a way that we can make our own mistakes and still return through our work to overcome them. He led the Prophets of the old testament and taught them standards of living that would allow them to be the happiest they could in this life, and obtain that unending happiness, or Eternal Life, after their time of probation was over. Moreover, Christ gave them two things- Power and Authority. He gave them Power to do the things that He would do- to heal, to bless, to create, and to perform every variety of miracle imaginable- and He gave them the Authority to act in His name- to be leaders, teachers, revelators, and to help others gain a remission of their sins and errors. Unfortunately the weakness of humanity is such that while these prophets did many wonderful things, after a time they would be rejected, and a new prophet would need to be called after a period of darkness. Ultimately Christ Himself came to the earth and established His church on two continents- but even He and His disciples were rejected after a time, and the precious truths and teachings that He had given were changed to the whims of the people or rulers, lost, or forgotten. Thus, the world plunged into a time of spiritual darkness we know as the Dark Ages, where even professors of Christianity warred one against another without the Power and Authority of Christ to guide them.

Much time passed, and eventually the preachers of Christianity began to realize and call for a restoration of the original truths of the gospel. People began searching for the truth, and for the same wonderful blessings that were found in the Church of old. Finally, in 1820 God the Father and Jesus Christ Himself appeared to a boy named Joseph Smith and announced that He was to be the Prophet of this restoration. Over the next few years, the teachings that Christ originally taught and the Power and Authority that He originally bestowed were brought back- and God once again spoke through a Prophet on Earth! Through this restoration we finally received the fullness of His Plan for us- that not only are we to be happy, but that He wants us to live with our families forever; that He wants us to gain the power that He has; and that each of us has a specific role to play in helping all return to Him. This is why we needed (and need) a restoration. This is why we need the church and priesthood of Christ on the Earth. I know for myself that many churches are good churches, and teach true principles. I know that many of them teach us to believe in Christ, and many more in God- but the question is, "What next?". When we believe in Him what are we bound to do, and what do we really know? This is a question that can be answered only through Him, and in the manner that He has used since the beginning of time.

I know for myself- not because of anyone else, but by my own studies and my own personal petition to and answer from God Himself- that His power is on the Earth, and that it is found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. If I sound like a religious fanatic, so be it- but I KNOW for myself, and you can too. You are God´s Child, and He knows you. When he ceases to be Heavenly Father because of where He is and becomes Heavenly Father because of who He Is is when we can begin to attain His glory in this life. Ask Him if what I have said is true, with the intention to act upon the answer you receive- and when you know, act. I promise you that you will not be forsaken nor ashamed. You Will Know.

I love you all. Sorry for the delay. It was important that I finished this.

-Elder Wheelhouse

In mil quatrocientos noventa y dos, Columbus sailed the ocean... gross? (some things just don´t translate)

¡Aló!

For those of you that are still scratching your head at the subject line, I have been officially called to be in the office as the mission Historian. According to the records (which, coincidentally, I have now) that makes me the youngest Elder ever in the office, in terms of mission weeks. Basically I am in charge of all of the records of the mission, including inputting all of the convert records and generating reports and powerpoints, cell phones, Computer and Software support, Weekly letters from the office, and being the general record-keeper/type monkey. It looks to be a pretty fun job, and because of all of my previous experience we are already automating a lot of it. I´ll also be in charge of taking over the brunt of the responsibilities of the Pensionist (we´re reducing the office size) and a gigantic end-of-the-year mission journal record that is kept in the granite vault at Headquarters as a general Journal of the mission. Finally, I´m also keeping all of my jobs as ECM (Especialista en Cuidado de Misioneros) and whatever random projects the President throws in. All in all, I´m excited to take something new on, and it´s a blessing to be able to continue working with the ward here as we´re moving forward with various things.

As for the work here, we are working with a whole bunch of really fun people. Right now it´s mostly members as we´re trying to get this ward functioning, but we still have various investigators with whom I am really having many wonderful experiences. Primariamente, tenemos Hector. El es un hombre de 80 años con quien estamos compartiendo. He learns kind of slowly, but he is attending church and knows that it is the only true church on the earth (he told us without us needing to prompt him, so that´s bakan..) so we are working with him to prepare him for his baptism. I love him so much for his effort- it really is inspirational for me to work with him, and SO easy to bring the spirit into his home.

I also received a letter from my dear hermana Lorena, from mi primero sector. She is still doing really well and staying really strong, and after talking with the elders from Lo Prado the other day I really feel good about her and about all that she has done and is doing to stay strong. She even said that her son is becoming more and more interested in the Gospel- and quite a few of the contacts that I made in my last week there are progressing towards baptism these next few weeks. I am so blessed to have been a part of something that big. If you have not experienced the thrill of watching somebody´s life change for the better, get out and serve- because there is nothing better.

The other day we were out proselyting when a rock flew past my head and hit a wall. Suddenly it was followed by another and another, and as we came to the top of the stairs we saw two teenagers with their faces covered chucking rocks at us. I felt like Samuel the Lamanite as rocks whizzed past, and I felt no fear as I began walking towards them. Even though my companion and I were getting closer and closer, the rocks would always miss us- and finally the two kids got scared and ran away. It was one of the coolest physical protections I´ve been part of so far- and upon further reflection, as always, I have some thoughts to share.

Samuel the Lamanite was a prophet of the Book of Mormon who was sent by God to prophecy to the Nephites about the impending birth of the Savior on the other side of the world. He began to teach once and was thrown out of the city, but God told him to go back. He climbed the city wall and stood to prophecy as the people shot arrows and threw stones to try to kill him. He stood his ground until he was finished with the work he had been directed to do, and all of the stones and arrows miraculously missed. When he was done, he left to continue on his way, and we do not hear more of him.

In my case the other day, it was a literal manifestation of this same miracle- however, we are also afforded another protection by applying the same principle. Samuel prepared himself, and then received the will of the Lord and acted on it immediately. We must do the same. Many times we feel fear because of the things that appear to be coming our way- the fiery darts of Satan have never been easy to resist if we are doing what is right- however we have the assurance of protection from the Lord. Each of us can experience this same miraculous protection physically, emotionally, and spiritually if we act in the same way, with perfect faith and the intention to endure to the end regardless of the cost. I can promise, as do the scriptures and the prophets of our day, that as we do what is right we will receive and be witness to that protection.

I know it sounds like I´m lecturing you all or writing a book, but this is really how I think when I write- and it doesn´t make it any less true!

Go Fight Win Take State!

Vaya Con Dios-

-Elder Wheelhouse

Side note- I also solved a rubik´s cube for the first time the other day- I feel really good about life right now. :P