Email between Elder Wilhelm's mission President and parents

From: pkretly@ldschurch.org
Subject: Leadership-Assistants
Date: May 22, 2013 7:04:01 AM MST
To: cswilhelm@hotmail.com

 Elder Spencer Harvey Wilhelm has been called as Assistant to the President.  In  this calling he will assist the President on his duties to plan, train  and teach all other missionaries.  He was called in this position because he has been an excellent missionary worthy of our trust, he has had many fruits and much success in his missionary work, and has also been a great example for other missionaries.  Besides helping in the mission office he has his proselyting area and he will continue doing the work of a normal missionary: finding, teaching, baptizing, confirming and helping people endure to the end.  This experience will help him develop many skills that are not used only for the mission but for the rest of his life.  Thank you for preparing such a wonderful missionary.  Your continued support and prayers for him and his work are greatly appreciated.  Thank you very much.

With love and appreciation,

 President Paulo V. Kretly

Mozambique Maputo Mission







Dear President Kretly,

We are thankful that Elder Wilhelm has been entrusted to serve as Assistant to the President. He loves the people of Angola.  When he was set apart, he was told that he would see many changes there, including new areas opened.  We are grateful he was called to serve in the Mozambique, soon to be Angola mission.  We are also grateful for your and Sister Kretly's service and for teaching Elder Wilhelm the skills he will needs to accomplish this task.  We have no doubt he will be obedient in this calling and serve with all of his heart. We know the Lord has watched over him and the other missionaries and guided them in safety and to those that are ready to hear the gospel.

Sincerely,

Christine and Spence Wilhelm

christinedwilhelm@hotmail.com
cswilhelm@gmail.com

On May 25, 2013, at 1:41 PM, "Paulo Vicente Kretly" <pkretly@ldschurch.org> wrote:

Thanks for your e-mail.

Sister Kretly and I loves Elder Wilhelm. Today we are together in Huambo, a city about 500km from Luanda, as assistant he will be in charge to lead a Training for other missionaries and be a wittiness of a opening of a brand new branch in this city.
Thanks for prepare this wonderful young man.

With love and appreciation,

Paulo and Sister Kretly

Paulo Kretly
President
Mozambique (Angola) Maputo Mission
www.mormon.org.br
www.presidentandsisterkretly.blogspot.com




Wow!  What a wonderful experience to be able to visit, help train, and see a new branch open in Huambo.  We haven't heard much about Huambo, but it sounds like the church is really growing there. We appreciate you letting us in on Elder Wilhelm's experiences.  We know he loves you and Sister Kretly.

May 20, 2013

Ola querida familia!!!!

Hey y'all!!!! Thanks for letters. I just love hearing from you guys it just gets me so pumped to hear from you all every week!!! It sounds like Yosemite was way cool! Thanks for the pics dad!!!! And I can't believe that school is almost out!!! wow time is just flying by so stinkin fast.

Wow what a week for us though here. So my new companion, as you all know, is Elder Mariquelle. He is a Mozambican that I had lived with for a while when I was with Elder Dredge.  He had helped me out so much during that time and I am so grateful to have him as a companion!!! And if is not obvious, YES HE IS BLACK! Well that's what he likes to say anyways:) ha ha I am so excited to work with him, he works so hard!!!

We got moved to an area that was white washed that is called Futungo. The Elders that were in it before didn't leave us with a big investigator pool, but the people that we did inherit are super prepared to hear the gospel and be baptized. I think there are a total of 4 houses that they left us to teach:) so to say the least we have a wonderful task ahead of us to find a lot of new people. The nice part about our new area is that it has a lot of people in it that have nicer houses, but aren't rich so we will be able to fine a lot more humble people where we are at. The area also isn't just extremely big ether so I don't think that we will be getting lost in it any time soon. I went on a division with one of the elders that worked in this area for a day to get a jist of the area and literally I think that I can find my way around the whole area.

This week we also had a couple of meetings in preparation for the arrival of President Kretly who will be staying with us for 2 weeks to help us get organized for the new mission and will open a new branch in the providence of Huambo!!! While we were in the meeting, we were talking about the needs of our part of the mission here in Angola. The meeting went so great and I know president Kretly will be able to help us out a lot more. Elder Mariquelle and I were invited to give part of the training. So we will be have a few more meetings to get some more info on what the training is about.

President Thompson will sadly be going home on Wednesday this up coming week... We are pretty sad, but they are way happy to get to go home to see their family once more. I love them so much and am so grateful for all that they did for us this past year or so. They will always have a special place in my heart. Today we kind of had a last hurrah with them at their house where president destroyed me in ping pong as well as many others:) ha ha

Well I think that is about it for this week, sorry nothing just supercalifragelisticexpialidocious happened:)  I love you all and hope you a wonderful week!!!!

Elder Wilhelm

May 13, 2013

Dear all y'all!!!!!

It was so great to hear from all of you!!! Man It just always gets me pumped to see you guys!!!! Life just seems like it is just passing by so fast. And my mission also seems like it is disappearing right before my eyes... I didn't exactly know how long I had left till mom told me, ya I have a lot more to do:) I love you all so much!!!

Oh by the way we got our transfers today.... Not a whole lot here on the mission will be changed, but I also have so sad news... I wont get to kill Elder Harper... I am pretty bummed about that.  He and I get along really well, but I will still be living in the same house as him. So Elder Harper will be staying in our área and Elder Hobbs will substitute me. I have been moved to a new área in the same branch with Elder Moniquelle (a Mozambicano) as Assistants to the presidente. Its going to be a lot of work and I am not all too sure about serving in this position, but I am way excited to be working with Elder Moniquelle because he is just a work horse from what I have seen. So together we will have to figure all of this out. The transfers were actually done by presidente Kretly for the first time and not by presidente Thompson. And fyi I don't know if you remember who elder Walker is, but he was my trainer and he will be going home on Wed. because he finally finished up!!!!:)

This week for us was kind of crazy. Elder Harper and I were running around like crazy going to meetings and then going back to our área to pros-light some more. So on Wed., we were over in the Luanda 2 district to give them a training about the chain of command and humility. It went very smoothly with out any problems and the missionaries are way pumped for the arrival of the new mission presidente!!! We also did the same training with the Viana district and had similar results. So know we only have one more left which is our own district. So we will do it tomorrow before all the transfers happen.

Today all the missionaries kind of went out on a last hurrah with Pres. and sister Thompson to the national museum of natural history of Angola!!! It was awesome to have a last bit of fun with them before they take off. Getting to the museum, we had to get up earlier than normal hours at 530 am so that we could make the long trip over there filled with traffic all along the way. Elder Harper and I ended up having to separate from our district while hailing táxi because of the lack of táxis that morning so we were the last ones to make our way over. But anyways after we were in traffic for a good hour or so presidente and sister Thompson drove right along side us:) We took the opportunity and call sister to see if we could jump in their car to dodge a few táxis.  Of  course they were alright with it. So we, Elder Harper and I, had to jump out of our táxi really quick and chase down pres. and sis. and jump in there car. há há It was a lot of fun. Once we finally got there we couldn't find any parking anywhere, so Elder Harper  got out with sis. Thompson and accompanied her into the museum while pres. and I drove around aimlessly trying to find a parking spot. It was quite a bit of fun talking to presidente about his plans and all for when he gets home. He is way excited and has help us out so much here in and Angola:) I am so thankful for the Thompson's. We ended up finding a parking space in front of the museum after circling around for awhile:) há há but the museum was way cool!!!

Well I love you all so much and wish you all a great week!!

Elder Wilhelm

May 6, 2013

Dear family,

Hey thanks everyone for all of your letters!!! It just does my heart good to hear our family have fun together!!! Those little kids probably wont even remember who I am by the time I get back but I can't wait to be hanging out with them.

 Well this week has been quite a week to tell you the least!!! But it was very rewarding to have a couple of baptisms at the end of it all!!!! Joia and Meuri were so excited to get baptized! It was probably the easiest baptism that I have ever participated in. They were mormon long before they were dunked into that water:) After church they were talking to us about all the people they wanted to invite to hear our message:) New converts are the coolest people ever!!!!

So this past week we received notice from the APs in Mozambique that we were going to have a meeting with all the other ZLs in the mission. I am not exactly one for meetings, but it was just what we needed to hear. The APs had a really cool training on the line of the leaders. such as how information passes between the president all the way down to the companionships. It is kind of a thing that we need to get better at here in Angola. So after the training Elder Harper and and I decided to do a training with each one of the districts in our zone in the next couple of weeks. We will be talking about pretty much the same thing that we received from the APs but each training will be different for each district. This morning we talked with the other ZL's to see if they had any Ideas.  We hope everything will work out well.

That was pretty much our week though:) Well I love you all and pray for ya every day!!!! have a great week!!!

Elder Wilhelm