Preface by Travis's Mom -   I noticed that Travis had a debit card transaction from Kansas - But he was getting transferred to  Castle Rock, Co - so I asked him about it. 

Family!! Hola!
Yeah so about the Kansas thing haha.. funny story. Last Tuesday, I went new missionary tracting. Which, by the way, went pretty successful. Even for me being a new missionary myself. We got several return appointments, we handed out a Book of Mormon, and got someone to come to church! :) It was sick.  It felt nice actually being able to talk! A lot of the times my old companion dominated. But yeah so after it was all done, we met back at the church for like a brief overview/close. As everyone was leaving I was writing down information for the AP's from when we went tracting. A lot of people had left at this point. President Anderson walks up to me and puts his arm around my shoulder. I thought he was just going to tell me that everyone was leaving and that it was time to go. Nope. He then called over one of the AP's...? I didn't know what was going on haha. I was like, am I in trouble? In my head of course. But yeah he told me that they were switching my transfer call from Castle Rock to Ulysses, Kansas! WHATT? haha YES! I really wanted to go to Kansas! And now it was happening!
It's a 50% spanish area so its pretty epic. President was just like, go pack your bags, you're going to Kansas! haha sweet. I was/am super sad about leaving the Oakwook and Indigo Ranch wards. I met some really awesome people there that I will miss for sure. The drive to Kansas was 5/6 hours.. it seemed like forever haha. Passing cornfields and cornfields...dang.  But I was still stoked. So I'm serving in Ulysses, Kansas! (Pronounced like You-Liss-Us) My address is:

710 North Sullivan; Ulysses, Kansas 67880.    I wouldn't recommend sending me anything straight here unless you need to get it to me fast and as long as you don't send it too close to transfers (or September 18th). 

So yeah, our apartment is this tiny brick building like in the middle of trailer homes..It is SOO hot here and super humid. It's pretty miserable. + it smells like cow poop all the time! We had to walk a few miles the other day because we are low on miles for the month. We can literally walk (slowly) from one end of the town to the other in 20 mintues. haha yup. It's a freaking SMALL town! I'm just loving it here though. The people are so nice and humble! I'm probably going to be eating sketchy foods here though. I heard occasionally you get served roadkill..awesome! I'm stoked. All of the members are farmers and they will gladly hook you up with food and stuff if you ask. We got the hookups right now with fresh eggs and homemade grape juice. One of the members here went and picked like a couple hundred pounds of grapes and then made all juice out of it. It was awesome. It's like legitimate juice! Yummmmm The one thing about being in a small town is that there are like no grocery stores. The closest Walmart is like an hour away in Liberal, Kansas. The only stores we have here are like small corner-store grocery stores. Everything is expensive here. It's over $5 for a gallon of milk! You would think it would be way cheap because of all the cows out here! Water in Kansas is nasty..like NASTY. So we buy water jugs here. The big things here are like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Subway. That's it. I'm diggin the small town feel actually..but on the other hand it reminds me that I belong in a big city haha 

My spanish is slowly starting to come back. It was a shock at first, but its getting better for sure. Thanks partially to my companion. His name is Elder Wilde from Kaysville, Utah. He's pretty cool and we get along great! He is 9 months out on his mission and this is his first transfer going senior comp. But he's doing a pretty good job though.    

   

There are members here in the ward like 20-30 miles out. We also cover this city, Johnson. It's about 30 miles out. There are dirt roads and it seems that most of the people are spanish only, which is sweet! I'm kinda scared to speak spanish though to real people. This is something I really need to get over or else I will never improve or learn. My first spanish lesson with a native was in a trailer home haha. I didn't really know what going on a lot of the times. But I could follow some! Everyone seems to know everyone in this town. That's what happens when the town is like 1.5 miles long. The first time we met with the bishop, he like chastised us about following the rules. He said if we're seen doing anything wrong, someone will call him and he will literally know about it within 30 minutes. Cool. haha I was like..we plan on following the rules, don't worry. A couple things I learned from church yesterday: 1. its acceptable to pass the sacrament in blue jeans. 2. Fasting for rain or "moisture" (what they call it) is real and it happens all the time. Everything is just a little different out here. There is a lot of potential in this area. I think we will definitely see baptisms! :) We're already working with people and one person even has a baptismal date!

Thanks for Logan's address! I'll be sure to send the letter his way!

 It's funny, when I see things like chocolate and other good foods now, I think of them as like a delicacy. haha I don't know why. This small town thing has gotten to my head. Like we went to a members house for lunch yesterday and she made brownies. I was like wow this is so nice and rare , they have brownies in Kansas! haha it's funny.

I'm in Central Time Zone! I'm literally in the middle of the united states. Sometimes our district meetings are held in Guyman, Oklahoma too. That's how far south I am. Well, that's all for this week! I love you guys and miss you a ton! :)

Elder Wheelwright

Pictures: I'm holding a giant meat log that one of the members gave us, I've started rocking out cowboy hats to fit the part in Kansas,  Me experiencing my first sarsaparilla and it actually rained once since I've been here. what a miracle! haha.. but it rained SUPER hard! I wanted to go run out in it, so I did haha. I got soaked! literally. It was so worth it though.  The other is like a wheat field, basically what I see for miles and miles in every direction that I look.