World Cup Blues

Hey Mom, so here in Brazil I don't fit in either, but I always think about Jacob 5 that talks about taking a branch and grafting it to another tree, but then the tree was changed and became a great tree with good fruit! That would apply for you, too, at work - haha!   

I´m great here in Reviera Paulista. We´re teaching that family still; they´re really anxious to get married and be baptized! We´re also teaching a Jehovah´s Witness that we´re going try to baptize this Saturday! She gave a bunch their deep doctrine to us! and the family we taught gave their alcohol and coffee to us--  it was a great day for us haha!  We took a pic of it! 

This week we had to stay indoors for two of the days! It's really interesting what we ended up doing after staying in our house for so long.  We started to sing hymns in four different languages (English (me), French, Portuguese, and Spanish) at the same time which was kinda cool. 

This week was great we are helping this ward reactivate members (about 400) or take them off the ward list because they don't want anything to with the church.  I love my companion.  He and I are really great friends, and we´re working great together with the Spirit.  It's really strong when we teach!

That's about all that happened this week.  There are a lot of Snakes (girls or women that want missionaries) here, too.  They always run up to me and say "speak English for me!" or "Wow, Elder Sharp!  Your eyes are so pretty!"  haha really weird!

Love ya´ll!

Elder Sharp

Me and Elder Matos

The View from my house!

Me, Elder Matos and Elder Bravo

Pizza!!

Donetellos! (pizzaria)

Taco bell + Pizza

(We sent him a pkg with a bottle of Taco Bell salsa!)

Our Zone

Alcohol and JW Books

"Vi Um Pilar De Luz.."

Free Pizza! ,

Awesome I´m glad Bruno wrote you! He´s really cool and is super anxious to leave for his mission (he has to wait till he´s been a member for a year).  He and I and Elder Matos work a lot together during the week.  To answer your question, "kkkkkk" is "hahahah" because in Portuguese "k" makes a "ka" sound so it is like the laugh of Popeye.  And there is not really anything specific with the thumbs up in pictures - it's just something everyone does because just standing there for a picture is really boring so gotta do something different haha!

I´m loving reading the Book of Mormon with y'all, too! I haven´t read it completely in Portuguese yet, and I´m studying it slowly for my personal study to receive personal revelation and inspiration I need for my Pesquisadors, so it was going that fast, so I can read it with y'all fast and still study for my investigators during personal study.  It works out pretty great! What are some thoughts that you all have received while reading?

That's awesome about the baptisms in Murfreesboro.  The best thing for those membros novos is to be their friend! The missionaries will love this ward if they integrate the members well. Something that President Gordon B. Hinckley said:

“Every new convert needs three things:

1. “1. 
    A friend in the Church to whom he can constantly turn, who will walk beside him, who will answer his questions, who will understand his problems.
2. “2. 
    An assignment. Activity is the genius of this Church. It is the process by which we grow. Faith and love for the Lord are like the muscle of my arm. If I use them, they grow stronger. If I put them in a sling, they become weaker. Every convert deserves a responsibility. …
3. “3. 
    Every convert must be ‘nourished by the good word of God’ (Moro. 6:4). It is imperative that he or she become affiliated with a priesthood quorum or the Relief Society, the Young Women, the Young Men, the Sunday School, or the Primary. He or she must be encouraged to come to sacrament meeting to partake of the sacrament, to renew the covenants made at the time of baptism” (Ensign, May 1999, 108).

And that's so true!  I saw it with a lot of my recent converts - that when they had these three things they stayed active!

This week we had a challenge in our Zone to see who could have better numbers (no, it's not the numbers, but I cant think of better way to describe it).  Each Key-indicator (lessons w/ members, new investigators, etc) had a point value, and it was really great for me and my companion.  We are both a little competitive, and we did a lot of great work.   I turned a lot of my weaknesses into strengths, and because of our work WE WON! So me and my companion we got BIS (chocolate with some other thing I don't know) and the Zone gave us money for Pizza! (Donnetellos, of course).  

We also have a Marriage-tism (baptism with a marriage before) marked in July and another 2 baptisms for next week! I´m super excited because one is a really young family! (I would send a pic, but my comp said this computer already destroyed 2 other USBs so I´ll have to wait till next week) ;/ Sorry! 

So this week was GREAT!  I´m loving it here in Riviera Paulista!

I love Y'all

Elder Sharp

(These were pictures that Bruno took from the District meeting today)

World Cup Woes...

Well, we didn't get a letter today from Elder Sharp because of the World Cup.  **sigh**  Anytime Brazil plays they have to stay in their apartment, so I have to wait until tomorrow to hear from him. 

HOWEVER, yesterday after church, I received a Facebook friend request from someone who is in the new area Elder Sharp is serving.  We ended up having a conversation through Facebook (Thanks to Google Translate!!).  It was so awesome!  Brother Bruno Cesar is the one kneeling, who this conversation is with... 

 

In this photo, a couple is that Elder Sharp is helping to get married and be baptized

This photo I did today after sacrament

Next time you see him give him a big hug for us!

Yeah ... I like him very much, we are very good friends, he helps me. very soon also I will be a full-time missionary

When do you get to go on a mission?

I'll send called in October I think in January or February 2015. I'm already serving

I received a call to be a ward missionary, So Elder Sharp and Helder Matos are helping me to preach

I love this gospel never imagined known brothers from around the world

How long have you been a member of the church?

I am a member of the church to 6 months

Before I was a Jehovah's Witness

That is great to go with the missionaries and learn from them!!

Yes I'm loving visit with them, to learning a lot

Now we are here in the winter and is very friu, we have a lot of clothes to preach in the streets

How is Elder Sharp's Portugese?

He speaks very well, many people praise and are impressed to see an American speaking Portuguese as well

I LOVE THAT!!

I go now make visits to the Elder and Elder Sharp Matos. Want me to tell him something?

ahhhh! Tell him we LOVE him and are proud of him! He is in our prayers. We will remember you in our prayers, too! Thank you for helping him.

Ok I give the message, thank you brothers. Good Sunday and a good week.

Thank you thank you thank you I love you brothers thrilled that the Heavenly Father bless you.

Serving in The Flavelas Finally!

Hey!

So I´m in a place called Paulista Riviera, and my Zone is called Guarapiranga.  It's a lot different here!  haha My other area had a lot more trees, and people would say hi back to me when I´d say hi to them, but here it's more like how I´d imagine a city (well duh, haha, it is a city!) but ya, I love it here!  I have a companion that has 3 months on the mission. He´s a really great missionary, and I think he listens to my counsel.  He´s really cool, though.  He´s from Rio Grande do Sul and has a really different accent; where he says tu ibstaead of voce and tua or teu instead of sua or seu.  Kinda interesting, but ya It's really awesome here, only flavela and I´m loving it!  haha It has a lot of people who REALLY need the message of the gospel!  The membros here are poor but some of the happiest people I know! I´m super excited to work here!

I´m glad I started on Nephi Chapter 1 haha. I wasn't sure if y´all would read the introductio first or not haha! It's really awesome for me to read with y´all, too, because I get to read in the morning right after I workout, then I get ready for the day, then study where I was reading for so in effect I´m going to be reading the Book of Mormon twice at once haha! I start the day with Nephi and then during Personal study I learn from Jacob! I´ve also been studying Preach My Gospel a lot; there is so much information in that book! It's really interesting to read, and then I go out in the field and try it, and it usually works really well! 

So this week was a little bit different.  We had to stay inside our house on Thursday because of the World Cup starting and Brasil was playing!  Today I´ll be working after lunch and tomorrow, because Brasil is playing, we´ll have the rest of our p-day!  HAHA and on Tuesday next week I´ll be emailing because Brasil plays again on Monday and everyone will be closed to watch it.  It gets really crazy here! 

That's all I really have for now.  I´m still getting use to the area so next week I´ll be able to talk about my investigators more.  I would send pics, but I don't trust this computer.  I´m a little paranoid that it´ll burn my memory card, so I´ll send them next week! 

I love you guys! 

Thanks for your support and prayers! 

Elder Sharp

P.S. I finally got your package!  Thank you soooo much!  The Texas sheet cake sadly didn't stay fresh :´(  but everything else was great!  Thanks for the letters from you guys, and the ones from friends that were sent to my old mission!

Transferred - but Here Comes a New Adventure!

(Elder Sharp asked us to choose a book of scripture to read and tell him, and he would read the same thing everyday we were reading - so it was like family scripture study across the world.  We decided to read a chapter from the Book of Mormon every day starting today, and this was his response to it.)

Awesome on Livro de Mórmon. I´m only in Jacob now, but I think I´ll read it 2 times per day, because Jacob is when it starts getting interesting haha, but I´ll be with y´all and start today! This time I´ll try to actually understand the Isaiah chapters haha!  You think they´re hard in English - it's worse in Portuguese, haha, because I read it and translate and then read in English and still don't get it haha!  Sometimes I just start laughing during study because of this, and my comp. is like "your laughing at Isaiah?!"  haha.....that joke was funnier in my head.... but ya I´m glad ya´ll didn't decide to read pages because in Portuguese the pages wouldn´t be the same. 

Anyway, this week was really great!  We had a mission-wide conference and Presidente Pinho gave a really great training about how things will get hard and we don´t pray for a change of circumstance, but a change of perspective - like in D&C 122 where God changed the perspective of the imprisoned Prophet, but didn´t take him out of the prison itself, and that our circumstances are for our growth and good. It was really cool for me to think about that.  I hadn´t ever though of praying for that. Presidente also asked us, "What is your disposition to make the sacrifice to do what the Lord asks of us?"  I really liked that because he said that God never calls us for tomorrow or in a week but TODAY and today is the day that change has to start it cant be tomorrow. He also said that a lot of Missionaries (or member too) have desire to do things but he said the Desire and the willingness to work and sacrifice have to match. Then we watched the movie Ephraim's Rescue.  I love that movie now! It's a really good example of how we should ALWAYS be ready to do as the Lord calls. I highly recommend watching it! 

The Movie ended with a quote from President Thomas S. Monson that said, " If you have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to feel, you can help others." 

I learned a lot more, but this is all I´ll talk about for now haha!  I gotsta send pics and respond to letters. But ya I don't know where I´ll go, but I know that I´ll be in a different place on Tuesday!

I love you guys!

Elder Sharp

I'm going to miss this family!!

My District

Elder Jesus and I

Sister and President Pinho and I

The whole mission!

June 2nd

Everything was resolved with my companion and DL, so I have the same companion.  So I´ve visited a lot of less actives that served a mission and you really do learn a lot on your mission... but what's important is what you do with what you learned when you get back.  Something I learned in 2 Nephi is that if we learn something and receive it, then God will give us more or we can reject it and lose what we´ve already learned, but we cannot stay in the same place.  You either progress or don´t progress  - kinda interesting for me. :) 

This week was a really good.  We worked a lot more diligently and received a lot better results.  We have a lot of couples to marry and another that could be baptized my last Sunday here! (a family of 7)  It really helped me strengthen my testimony that if we really do our best, we´ll get blessed.  We can know we did our best by how we feel after the day is through.  Every night we pray and talk to Heavenly Father about our day and haha trust me, He lets you know if you didn´t try your hardest.  It's a really cool thing to learn.  I finally feel like I´m doing my best again! 

Our attitude is so important, too!  Once it was raining and I was singin' and super excited and my old companion just complained that he was cold...(just an example)... but ya, a mission really is what you make of it. and if you want to learn something - study it or try it out.  Something my mission pres always says is that really God doesn´t need us to serve missions... it's us that need to serve missions, to learn what we need to learn and be prepared for our future!

That's about all I got this week 

I´ll be transferred next week - June 9th! 

I love ya´ll!  Hope all is well!

Elder Sharp

Me and Elder Jesus

This lady is a saint!  When our lunch falls through, she always helps!  She also mends our clothes.

A family we helped reactivate.