June 26, 2016

How are you going? is also an Australian term! I think I have told you before but I just think it is really funny! They actually say "how are you going mate" and you say "I'm going great".

This week has been really good! We had some more miracles. This week we found a Liberian family that is really excited to learn and after we started teaching the mother (Diamond) we figured out that her father and sister are less active members of the church! So we found a part member family from door knocking! and they all took a copy of the Book of Mormon and have been reading! They are excited to come to church this next Sunday! and also we are still teaching this investigator named Laura! she is living with a former investigator named Manuel and she called us last week and said that she needs direction and she needs something to grasp onto? . . . . . . .that's exactly what we talk about! So we taught her the message of the Plan of Salvation! To help give her life direction and explained the importance of prayer and gaining a relationship with Heavenly Father! She wants to be baptized but doesn't feel ready yet and so we invited her to pray about a date! We will update you next week on how it went! 

I know that this gospel is true! It can change any life of those who will soften their hearts and accept it! We don't try to change peoples faith, we try to build on the faith they already have and help them to know that God loves them and is willing to help them! We can learn all of these truths through the words of the modern day prophets and apostles! 

I invite you to continue to study the conference talks! and can promise that they will bless your life and help you to receive an answer to the questions on your mind right now! 

I love you all have a great week

 

love Elder Wiser!

my comp! he is the man

June 19, 2016

"Gooday all Yous"

Fun fact "yous" is a Australian term and it is the plural form of "you."  Example: "how are yous doing?" or "I hope all is going good for yous."

     This week has been so amazing! We had a baptism, His name is Adam, he is twelve years old and he is very smart. he lives with his Nan and she sat in on all the lessons and helped him to be baptized. He will make a really good missionary some day. The Dandenong area is doing really well. I love it here! this last week we had a miracle, we met with the "Savage" family. Yes, that's really their name they are the Savages. haha! and they are from New Zealand! Most amazing family ever. The son has a girlfriend (Shanay) who is a non-member and so the family invited her to take the discussions. We taught the restoration and the family bore their testimony and then the boyfriend named Kharsle (Castle) bore his testimony of how the gospel has changed his life and the spirit was there. Shanay is now working to be baptised on the 16 of July! The Gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ has already affected her, she came to Church yesterday and she wants her family to be as happy as the Savage family! The Gospel truly blesses families, when the foundation of a family is the teachings of Christ (praying, reading, gratitude, forgiveness, love, etc) that is when the family will be the happiest! and its so cool to see it work in these families lives. 

      In class on Sunday on of the men stood up! He has a big old beard and has tattoos up his arms but once he started speaking you could tell how kind he was. He told the story about how he just started coming back to church after being away for 13 years. His wife and children kept going to church without him and after thirteen years he decided it was time. Once he started coming back to church he said that the spirit was finally in their home and the children stopped arguing and they grew closer together! To some people in the world it might seem crazy that going to a building once a week can make a families love grow that much but to me it just makes sense and I have seen it in my family! But everyone has to put in a some effort, we all have to be seeking to improve. 

       We were able to have our last zone conference with President and sister Maxwell. its going to be so sad to see them leave! But I am very excited to Meet President and Sister Vidmar! We have seen some of his Olympic clips and talks at general conference and he is an absolute power house! If you have  the chance to look him up you should. He is a very motivated man! I love this gospel, I almost feel selfish that I get to experience all the joy and miracles that come from it while others have never even heard about God! I invite you to share some of the blessings that your family has seen because of the gospel with another person who is struggling! and I promise that if you do it will change their lives. It might not be today but it will make the difference down the road! 

 

I love all yous

 

Have a great week

Love Elder Wiser

This is probably the last time I will get to see President and Sister Maxwell, they leave in ten days. this is at zone conference.

This is the largest pair of baptismal pants I have ever seen in my life! so I took a picture haha

This is Adam, he is the 12 year old that we have been working with. He lives with his Nan who is a member and he was baptized this week! He is super clever and funny! Nativity is the one who baptised him! It was an amazing experience. Adam will be getting the priesthood this next Sunday!

June 12, 2016

Wow what a week! So Elder Jensen and I had one of the most miracle packed weeks ever! we had so many people this week come out of the woodworks and desire to learn the gospel. Our teaching pool tripled this week. The Lords work is hastening. 

     So this last Sunday we had such a special privilege Sister McConkie, the first councilor in the General Young Womens and Elder Dudfield of the area seventy came to Dandenong ward just to train and teach. It was incredible. Her husband, Presidnet McConkie, is a stake president in Utah and so him and I talked for a minute and when I said where I was from he asked if I knew Tim Wheelright, and I definitely do. They just bore their testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and of the divinity of the Restoration, and then trained the ward on how to help others and get the most out of the sacrament! They are such spiritual people. 

     On Monday we had a missionary meeting at the chapel next to the temple and we received trainings from Elder and Sister Neilson of the area seventy, Elder and Sister Dudfield of the area seventy, brother and Sister Reeves (Second Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency) and President and Sister McConkie (first councillor in the general young women's) and President and sister Maxwell. They covered so much but I would just like to share two experiences out of the many. All of them bore testimony of the Book of Mormon, and that really stuck out to me because of the special promise that goes along with it. Everyone everywhere is invited to read the Book of Mormon and try it out for themselves with the promise that if they ask sincerely they WILL receive an answer, and that answer will help them know that Jesus is the Christ and that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that The Church of Jesus Christ is the Lords kingdom on the earth today! All of that is found in the last two paragraphs in the introduction. This Promise is true! I invite everyone who reads this to read the introduction to the book of Mormon, with the family or by your self, and ask again or for the first time if it is truly the Lords book! and if you do it sincerely I can promise that you will receive an answer! I received an answer when I was 8 or 9 years old and again very recently, no matter how many times we ask it will still be true! I love the Book of Mormon.

    Elder Neilson asked us a very bold question, "are you in or are you out?" and he explained that we are living in rough times, their is no time to waste. We are ether in the game or out of the game. We are ether engaged or disengaged, and we have to actively choose. It made me really think, am I giving my all to the Lord and trusting in Him or am I holding just a little back? Do I strive to follow every spiritual prompting or do I Trust just a little in the arm of flesh? These questions are very important to ask ourselves. Elder Neilson said that if we are in the game than stay in it and continually improve, and if we are not in the game than get in it. It is never to late for us to start. None of us are perfect and God knows that, so He provided the Atonement so when we are not doing our best we can recommit and start again. Repent and start now and the Lord will forget everything that you did in the past. It is only Because God loves each one of us that it is possible. I know that this is the Lords kingdom on the earth today. I know that it is never to late to start again. and I know that God loves me.

 

Have a great week! 

Love Elder Wiser

and this is Elder Chapel, Wheeler, Bennion, myself and Sister Johnson

This is our zone! We were about to sing a song as a farewell gift for President and sister Maxwell. They leave on the 1 of July

This is Elder Jensen! He is so fantastic!

June 5, 2016

Hello everyone, it has been another amazing week in the great down under. 

I am still serving in Dandenong and my new companions name is Elder Jensen, he is awesome! Everyone we meet thinks that he is from New Zealand and that he is mouri because he fits into the culture so well. but he is a very powerful teacher and he is amazing and discerning the needs of investigators and applying the gospel to help them! so I feel very blessed to have him as my companion! he is from chandler Arizona. 

    We are lucky because right after emails today Jordan Balmes is taking us out to lunch! He is so kind to drive all the way to our area just to buy us lunch and talk with us.  He is so amazing! He compliments all of you that he met back at home so much! 

       So this week we saw so many miracles, people have been coming out of no where to talk with us, infact a random guy just stopped us named Jeff, we were just emailing and he asked If he could have a minute. He said that he was a RM and that he has been less active for a very long time and that he feels its time he needs to come back, and so he asked if we could say a prayer with him. So we gathered our chairs in a circle and said a vocal prayer infront of everyone in the library. We gave him a Book of Mormon to read and just like that he was gone. It must have taken a lot of courage to come up to us and ask us to help. but the thing that stood out to me is that its never to late for anyone to return to the gospel, its never to late for anyone to make changes and increase the quality of their life! satan will set a trap for us and say that we are not good enough to be forgiven or that the Holy Ghost cannot be with an imperfect person! but it can, we are all imperfect and the Holy Ghost is for imperfect people to help guide us back as we make mistakes. I read a talk by Anthony D. Perkins called "The Great and Wonderful Love" it talks about Satan setting traps for us to keep us in our self pity, and what we can do to break the cycle and feel of Gods love. He says that their are five things that we can think about to help us! I would invite you to listen to that talk it is a short but powerful one! my favourite line was "you can more fully experience joy in life when you eradicate adult-onset pessimism and substitute childlike optimism" God loves us, and when we trust in him we will find joy! I love you and I am so thankful for you! keep up the fight for good! never give up! have a great week

love Elder Wiser 

I cant remember if I sent this last week but this is the lomu family they are great! their tongan and the mom is not baptized yet. . .yet she is waiting for a visa!

May 29, 2016

So this week had so many miracles! But I will start of with the transfer news. My companion, Elder Ferris will be leaving :( and he will be going back to the area that he started his mission for his last two transfers. and I will be staying in the Dandenong ward, I will be joined by an American named Elder Jensen. He has been out for just over a year! and from what I know, he is a very hard worker and he loves is American football (grid iron). so I am really sad to see Elder Ferris go but I'm really excited for this next transfer!

      As you saw in the pictures our zone had a mini mission this week, and that means that young men go and stay with the full time missionaries for the weekend to help them prepare for their missions! There were three of them for Elder Ferris and I named: brother Bergess and brother Aberahama and brother Yau. The first two were my companions for the weekend. When they were first dropped off on the Friday evening it was just really awkward, they were nervous and we didn't really know what to do with them and so we all had these little pride barriors up! They had mentioned that they didn't know if they wanted to serve missions because they didn't like their last mini missions and that their parents had pretty much pushed them to come on this one and so I kept praying that we could help them have a good experience. haha Saturday morning during companionship study we were able to practice and role-play teaching the restoration and they did pretty good! and they were a little more excited about the work. and we went to this less active family first and asked this man if we could "practice teaching the restoration to him" and he kinda hesitated and said that it had been over 30 years since he had listened to any of the lessons but he agreed. I led out on the lesson and every once in a while would stop talking and just look at these two young men until they would talk hahah even though they were really nervous they did very well and all of us felt the spirit and we know that the man the we were teaching felt it! so that's a miracle in itself. but bit by bit I started to see a change in these two young men! They started to feel more confident about talking with people and they were more happy they laughed more and we started to get along really well! We taught a few more lessons on Saturday and we had our last lesson after church on Sunday! It was with a South American family, and right before we started to teach the lesson I told brother Bergess that it was his turn to lead the lesson (asking for opening prayers and introducing the lesson etc.) and he just smiled and said that he was nervous/excited but what happened was so amazing! 

The sprit totally took over and brother Bergess and Aberahama taught such an amazing lesson! and then at the very end they looked over and I was able to bear my testimony of the truthfulness of the message! They did so amazing, I was so proud of them! and they had completely changed! They went from not knowing if they wanted to even serve missions to speaking about how they wanted to prepare for a mission so that they could fulfil all that God has planned for them!!!! They were so much happier and they asked if they could stay for three more days. yyayay the gospel really does change lives! and not just investigators or people that have absolutely nothing, but it changes everyone's life who live its teachings! it has changed my life and it has changed these two young mens lives. All we have to do is keep the commandments and repent whenever we mess up! The teachings of the gospel don't hold us back from experiencing life, but they build us up so that we can gain the most experience in life! I know that this church is true! And it can help EVERYONE!!!. So I would like to invite you to look at all the ways the gospel has blessed/changed your life, and then see if your getting the full experience by living all of the commandments! 

I love you all and have a great week! 

love, Elder Wiser  

this is the Dandenong district minus my companion because he goes in with the other district every week!

just kidding this is the real Dandenong district with the APs Elder Steele and Eyring.

more minni missionary pictures

this are two minni missionaries that were with us this weekend! brother bergess and brother aberahama! bergess is Australian and aberahama is cook islander

the picture of us all standing is with brad and josh, they are investigators and we just had a huge islander feed at the 2 counceler in the stake presidency, president Lavaka's home! it went very well!

 

and this is the savage family! they are all so amazing! they treat us so well!