Week 76: A November to Remember

November 3, 2014

Dearest family and friends,

It's been a WONDERFUL week! Miracles are just pouring out over the MBM (that's Massachusetts Boston Mission in non-acronym). :) We had an incredible mission conference on Friday with Elder Larry Lawrence of the Seventy and it was exactly what I needed.

Sister Lawrence spoke first and taught us the doctrine of the gathering of Israel which I don't know why I didn't really understand before, but it was AWESOME. After lunch, President and Sister Packard got up and spoke with the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders and presented our mission goal for November.

Now, you should know that President Packard is not a numbers kind of mission president. We've never been given "standards of excellence" or quotas we have to meet and I love it. It takes a lot of stress away and helps us be more unified across the mission because let's be honest, this is a huge and diverse mission and what happens in one area is not necessarily what can happen in another area. President has left the burden of seeking that revelation for what needs to happen area by area to us in our individual areas. But, a few months ago when I was serving as a Sister Training Leader, we talked in MLC about setting a mission goal for the number of baptisms we wanted to see happen. President had been feeling for a long time like the mission is running way below it's capacity. So, we set an ambitious goal of 70 baptisms. There were 95 people who had dates for that month. Unfortunately, it didn't happen, and I was a little bummed about it. I sort of don't have the greatest testimony of goal-setting and it's probably because I'm severely lacking in faith. I should probably fix that before I end my mission. :)

So back to the November mission goal. President recently went to a mission president's conference with Elder Holland #jealous. They met for 4 days and got to visit the Sacred Grove together. Incredible. Elder Holland at one point asked, "Presidents, what do you dare promise your missionaries?" and he left an apostolic blessing on them that what they promised their missionaries would happen. President and Sister Packard returned from the conference and after seeking revelation felt strongly that this was the month we could hit 70 (we have 110 people on date for November). They felt that that was what the Lord wanted for us. Sister Hobbs is serving as a Sister Training Leader in Providence right now and she bore her testimony that she knows we can do this and she knows that this goal is the Lord's will and that we can do all things through Him. It was so powerful! And we are all so excited about it. President has asked us to do a few things to show the Lord our earnestness, including sacrificing something as well as asking all of our members to pray with us that we can accomplish this goal. (PLEASE PRAY THAT WE CAN REACH OUR GOAL!)

The miracles that have already happened are just incredible. For example, Sister White and Sister Gropp in our zone had no one on date, but they told their investigator Bob about our mission goal of 70 baptisms and he now wants to get baptized this coming Sunday. OUTRAGEOUS! And the digital mission had a baptism on Sunday... of someone they've been Skype teaching that lives in UGANDA!!! It's just so exciting!

I feel like we could see similar miracles here in Cromwell, even though we have no one on date for November. (Well, we've got Herbert on date, but it's not looking too promising.) And my little missionary heart wants so much for a baptism to happen in Cromwell in November. I am willing to give up anything! But I'm not sure if I have enough faith. I'm a bit of a doubter. :/ And I don't lack faith in the Lord- I know He can accomplish His purposes with or without me. I think I just lack faith in my ability to do what He needs me to do or in my ability to recognize His will. But like I said, I am willing to do anything to help it happen! We will do our best this week and see what happens!

Elder Lawrence gave some great counsel on exercising faith. I took awesome notes on it, but for the sake of time, that's all I'm gonna write. But it was awesome!!

We did experience a miracle this week when we started teaching Fannie! She is the friend of Maggie, a recent convert, and she is amazing! She took the discussions 40 years ago and only stopped because she was called into active duty in the Vietnam War. And We've taught her the first two lessons and she accepts EVERYTHING (believes the Book of Mormon is true, believes Joseph Smith was a prophet, she TOTALLY gets personal revelation and has mastered it) and she started a stop-smoking program. We're a little stumped as to what could be holding her back from baptism (we invited her but she gave us a "not yet"), but she's awesome. And I really feel like she could be baptized this month! We will see! She's only visiting Maggie until Thanksgiving. In any case, she wants to continue meeting with missionaries when she gets to Florida and I feel strongly that she will accept the gospel now or later and that is what matters most. :) Please pray for Fannie!

I'm sorry this email is so incredibly long! There is so much more I want to write, but I'm going to leave it at that!

I hope you all know how much I love you! And that I know that this truly is the Restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We are children of a loving Heavenly Father who is aware of us and wants more than anything for us to be happy and to return to live with Him. Our Savior has made that possible through His Infinite Atonement. The Book of Mormon is true and it is another testament of Him. I am so grateful for it! And I am so grateful for the prophet Joseph Smith who sacrificed so much that we may have restored all things necessary to return home to our Heavenly Father.

Much love!
Sister Wheeler Jr.

P.S. This week also included the most disturbing lesson of my mission where we realized too late that we were teaching someone in a mental hospital. A story with which to regale you all in the future. Nuf said. :)