Being Transferred

Man, Guilherme!!   This kid will be a friend after my mission for sure! I´ll miss him a lot for sure! These 4 and a half months here have been great!! All the youth here have been a huge blessing! I`m really grateful for every thing I´ve learned, but we are to meet the people God has prepared for us! And I guess I´ve already helped the ones I need to here. I have met a lot of less active members here, and on Sunday we had almost all of them at church! I couldn´t stop smiling with the joy to see God´s children back into the fold. I wanted to take pictures but I didn´t have my camera.   Tonight we have a Family home evening with everyone so I´ll take pics and videos there! haha It was really funny this week because you had asked for pics of me from the members here, and like 10 people came to me ask for photos! Thanks for talking to these people, it means a lot that I`ll be able to come home and stay in contact with them! 

This week was also really great because we finally have a group of people to teach! (yes again the area has baptisms ready and I´ll be somewhere else.) I´ve learned a few techniques I'm trying that are working out great! Something I´ve learned a lot about this week is applying the things I learn in trainings, study, or splits with other missionaries. Once I started doing that, I felt different about the work.  I finally felt like I´m starting to be a good missionary! Something else I re-learned is that God will help/bless you after you start trying to help your self. Man did I see that this week!  It looks like our area exploded with Part-member families, new investigators, and lots of other successes!

 

I love y'all!

Elder Sharp

Pictures sent to me this week from members of the ward:

Elder Sharp and Claudia with her son

Elder Sharp and Guilherme

Guilherme sent me this picture of Elder Sharp at the last Family Home Evening with this family before transfers. 

UPDATE:

Guilherme went with Elder Sharp to transfers Tuesday.  I received this message from him:

Hey Jen. Elder Sharp was transferred to my area in the mini mission. He is in Interlagos ward, in Interlagos Zone. His new companion is Elder Richins. They were in the MTC together and now, are companions!!

Promises, Miracles, and a New Focus

Mom, your email really helped me a lot.  (note: this past week 3 different young men and a young mom in Brazil sent me the sweetest messages about how much Elder Sharp has helped them and how much they appreciate him being there... I forwarded those to him so he could see what a positive impact he was having there in that ward.)  Something  I´ve discovered this week is that I´m really hard on myself.  I literally don't think I´m that great, but  I´m having to start looking at myself through other's eyes because mine aren't seeing that clearly.  So thank you very much for sending me that. I´ve been really stressed out this week about not baptizing. I think that's why I´m not seeing what I´m capable of because there's that voice in my head saying "You can't actually do this.  You aren't doing good.  You haven't even helped anyone.  You're not having any success." 

So this week I've been trying figure out what Heavenly Father wants me to do because I´ve been promised a few things.  I wasn't seeing God's side of the promise being done, so I was looking for what I needed to do for my part to be complete.  I realized the joy I feel when I help less-active members come back to church and realized that this is a success for a missionary, too.  Then we had a meeting with President Dalton, and he said a promise that really helped come to the conclusion that I need to work with the members more. (active and less-active)  He said "I promise you that if you reactivate a less-active member, you will baptize, too!  If you don't have anyone to teach, go to a less-active member's house and rescue them!" I was like alrighty then that's what we´ll do!   Elder Aguilar and I talked, and we both made a plan to work with only less actives and active members this week! I can´t wait to see the miracles and people coming to church again.  It´s gonna be great!

This week we did something called a blitz where we go to different missionaries' areas and just work - talking to everyone on the road, getting referrals, and then all the numbers and the results (numbers, new investigators, etc.) go to that companionship! It's really fun to do - like opening a new area! Well, we started to do that but it started to rain at 3:00 and we planned until 5:00, and with rain the blitz wouldn't have been as great.  So I thought to pray for it to stop, but I thought that'd be really ungrateful.  We've been praying for rain here... (we´re having a shortage of water here because of the heat and lack of rain) and now it had come and I´d ask it to stop... So I decided I´d ask for a pause till 5:00. Well, it stopped! And we had great blitz!!  Then at 5:00 on the dot BAM! the bottom dropped out!!  Haha it was a huge rain storm!!  It was really cool!!  I loved it!!  It really shows that God really does answer prayers. He´s our loving Heavenly Father... Why wouldn't He answer?!

I love y'all!

Elder Sharp

Craziness

I can´t believe how old everyone is getting! It's so weird! hahaha its so strange! Ya I love the people here!  They have the strongest testimony - it's so great to be here with them! 

This week was really interesting - you remember Milena? Well we passed by there again and couldn´t talk to her (her family doesn't like us).  So one day we were walking and saw her on the road coming home from school and she explained that that Sunday her brother (who´s the adult responsible for her legally) was really mad because when he got there she wasn´t there and was at church.  So we had all that drama... then we went and tried to talk to the family there to see if we could help them understand - but Milena's ex-sister-in-law started to get mad at us and started saying stuff like "If you talk to Milena again, I'll have to call the cops for pedophilism." That made me mad but we knew we couldn't do anything so we stayed calm and I explained our purpose why we´re teaching her and she got calm and I was like "YES!  She´s calming down maybe we'll be able to help her out too."  Then she started saying that Milena only went to church because we sent a young man to be her boy friend.....I had to believe a bit when she said that because I knew that she knows that it isn't like that, and she knew I didn´t believe it. So she went to go get Milena and at the gate the young man that was with us said he say her say ex-sister-in-law say "You say anything and you'll see what'll happen" and so Milena said it too and we saw her expression and she didn´t want to say a lie but she had too because of her ex-sister-in-law.... so ya we had that this week it was really frustrating.  Elder Aguilar and I  talked a bit and we felt that for sure that she will one day she will be baptized! We planted a seed in good ground - it´ll just have a lot of trials to grow through! 

I'm excited for this week though because we´re praying for a miracle this transfer that we can have a baptism before the end of the transfer (in 2 weeks) and it´s gotta happen through a miracle too! 

I love you guys so much cant wait to see you in Natal!

Elder Sharp

Weekend of Loucura!

.....Kody cant be 12! That's not allowed! haha Wow time is flying by so fast! 

Anyway this weekend was crazy awesome!  First, we had a Testimony meeting really powerful on Sunday where we had an investigator that visited for the first time....and she BORE HER TESTIMONY!  She said that she could feel the Lord's presence in the meeting and that she know that this church is true! I couldn´t stop smiling!  After that, it was such a huge testimony builder about testimony meetings! Her name is Milena, and she´s had so much adversity with church in general and her family! But she´s a fighter and we´re gonna be able to help her a lot too!

We also went to another investigator's house and she sadly couldn´t go to church because she had her tonsils taken out. But we taught her and she´s really interested!  She asked if we could come back and teach more but when she can talk so that she can ask us questions! 

Because of these experiences, I know that God answers our prayers.  That we just have to ask for the blessings we need and explain why we need them, and He´ll respond!  Something I´ve learned is that He will respond as fast as we are prepared to receive the answer.  Sometimes He´s gotta teach few other things to get to the point where we can understand the response to our original question.  In other words, He´ll give us milk until we´re ready for the meat! 

I love y'all! And I love this gospel!

Elder Sharp