Happy Birthday, Elder Sharp!!

Thanks Mom! I´m not sure if I will celebrate today or not,  I didn´t really make a big deal about my b-day for anyone so probably no... but it's cool because today I get P-day and tomorrow I get to go to the Temple! So I´m happy with that!! I cant believe how much has changed in one year!! A mission definitely was and is good for me! 

My new area is really interesting.  I share it with the Zone Leaders, and my companion is District Leader again, so that's really cool! I´m going to learn a lot with them and everyone in our house (6 missionaries) actually want to be obedient, so it is a lot easier to be obedient with them! AND no one is super serious either, so we still have fun and laugh and stuff! It's really weird, though, cause no one in our house is Brazilian! My new Companion is Elder Pina. He's really cool.  He´s from Cabo Verde!  He´s got the cool accent and everything! He´s lives on Ilha de Fogo, which means Island of Fire! He´s really cool and funny! I'm really excited to see how this week will be! 

This week was pretty good with Missionary work.  We did a lot of contacts, but sadly no one wanted to hear our message... but something I´ve learned from studying is that as I work diligently and obediently, God will provide miracles! I´ve seen the miracle of God a lot this week! One, it was really cold and started to rain and Elder Pina looked at me and said,  "Let's pray for this rain to stop."  I said the prayer, and THE RAIN STOPPED!  It really opened my eyes that I really am a representative of Jesus Christ! I love my Savior and I´m honored to have His name on my badge! 

I´ve been learning a lot lately about service and knowledge (Attributes of Christ chptr 6 of Preach My Gospel) And read in D&C 76 that talks about how to gain knowledge, and it was really amazing to see how simple it is learn the "mysteries of God."  I´m super excited for this transfer!  It will be a transfer that I grow the most, and it will have a lot of MIRACLES!  I love you guys thank you for not giving up on me! 

CHIÃO!

Elder Sharp

Elder Matos with me and Cida and Ayuma

Elder Pina and I

Ahhh - Transferred Again!

(I told him about a friend of mine at work and a conversation we had about his family finding a church)

Wow, Mom! That family will be golden for the missionaries in Mt. Juliet! Those feeling he feels while talking to you is the Holy ghost testifying that you´re a great person that he can trust.  Something that we´ve started doing here is tell people before we teach that they will feel something different that they´ve never felt before, and that that feeling will be the Spirit testifying to them. and when people say that they feel great around us, we say that that is the Spirit that they´re feeling....something that you could do too!  :) And if family is everything to them, the best thing is to give them a pamphlet of the Plan of Salvation and asking for their address and give to the Elders in our ward! Thay´re ZLs so they´ll know who to give the address to! Mom! This could be a family baptized and sealed! That's so awesome! Keep up the good work!

Sadly, this week I was transferred again. :/ It's really sad because this area wasn´t in that great of condition when I got here, and the work was just starting to get good here! And we were just starting to get a lot of new people to teach, but I know that since I only stayed for one transfer that I got a lot things coming that God has planned for me because they transferred Elder Matos and I! AND our area what doing the best in our district.(we had a competition that's how I know - haha it's not pride) 

So I'm super excited to see what will happen for me in the future! I´ve definitely learned a lot from the trials here about working diligently, and the success that comes from hard work!

Well that's about all haha.  I was transferred, so I don´t have much to say haha. I´ll miss this place for sure, but I´ll come back one day!

Love y´all 

Elder Sharp

Elder Mato, Nando (a Young Man from the ward), me

The Work Goes On!

That's awesome about the beach trip, and Jess looks great without her braces!  Thanks for sending the pictures! I loved them.  I´ll probably download them and reveal them?  I think that's the word haha! This week was great.  We sadly had to stay in our house this weekend because of the world cup and so we worked 4 days this week, but we found a new family to teach.  It's really cool he said that one day he said to himself that if he was invited, he´d go to that church (LDS Church) and then My DL and his Comp contacted him- haha!  He´s great!  Sadly, he´s not married but has lived with his Girlfriend for 12 YEARS!! So they´re wanting to get married haha! We found a few outro [other] new pesquisadors [investigators] and sadly had to drop the ones that we had :( We´ll pass their house one more time, but it looks like they´ve got a "friend" that doesn´t like the church too much. But that's alright - we all learned and they have The Book of Mormon in their house, so someone one day in that house will be baptized! 

(answering a question of mine...) So when people tell us we don't need anything else but the bible, I tell them we agree wholeheartedly that the bible is the word of God, but sadly its also been translated A LOT, so it has parts that are of men and is missing other parts that were of God and because of this, we have the Book of Mormon - ANOTHER Testament of Jesus Christ. I like to say that we need both to understand both. Like in Mat. 3:13-18, Jesus says "to fulfill all justice" but what does He mean by that? In 2 Ne. 31 it explains why.  It's common knowledge for us, because we´ve always had the Book of Mormon, but for someone who only has the bible they don't know that. There are other ways to help people understand, but it's all based on the doubt of that person, you know?

I´m doing great! This area is great! It's had a few missionaries that aren't too great, but it really is a great area and ward.  The Youth go out with us almost every day! and The leadership is supporting us a lot. The Hard part is getting people to go to church! and the huge Hills and stairs! but ya i´m loving it here! I don't think I need anything... haha I can never remember when I´m emailing!

I love Y'all!!

Elder Sharp

These pictures came from a new member who is in contact with me.  I asked him what it looked like there, and he sent me these pictures.  He said they are right by his house - thought I'd share them.  

This Week

Wow that's awesome about Jessica! God definitely is answering her prayers! I´m glad to hear that ward helped! haha Her tool kit will definitely come in handy! That sounds like a cool 4th of July party. Did Sis. Halladay tell a story? I always remember she was really good at that! I´m glad you didn´t hold me and Jessica back.  I see a lot of members doing that to their non-member relatives....it's really sad because it's always the people who are super ready but then a member does something. There's a Grandma that has been a member for years and she´s doesn´t want her grandchild to get baptized because she only has 16 anos (wasn´t my investigator).  We have an investigator that is a girlfriend of a member and he decided to move in with her.  When she decided she was ready to get baptized, he and her talked that night and they decided that she needs to wait till they´re married because she cant get baptized when they´re living together. It's really frustrating, but we´ll pull through. She´s starting to see what is right! So ya thank you for your support and not being selfish with us! 

And no, it's not really that cold here haha!  It's actually been getting warmer this week- a lot warmer then Embu-Guaçu, but it looks like it´ll start getting cold this week.  There´s so many stairs and hills here that I don't think I´ll need anything to keep me warm.  I have that jacket from Smitty and that will be perfect! It's crazy what pollution does to the weather here...well I thinks its pollution... that what everyone says it is haha.

Oh this week we got to meet our new Mission President - he's from Cali. and he's really funny and really cool.  His poor wife doesn´t speak Portuguese yet haha, but he received new rules from the Presidency of the Church. One is that we have to talk one day English and every other day Portuguese, which is great for retention of my Portuguese.  We also have to teach the 5 Missionary lessons BEFORE and AFTER baptism, which is really different but cool because it's for us to be missionaries with a purpose complete. Before, Baptism was our goal but now it's the Temple which makes sense since Baptism isn´t the end but the beginning of a new life! I really excited about this!  We received an Apostolic Promise that if we do this our baptisms will Increase a lot and more families will be baptized too!!! I LOVE BAPTIZING FAMILIES

Well that's about all for this week!

I love you! 

Elder Sharp

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!