Dear Loved Ones,
I forgot to tell you Happy Mother´s day!! I just kind of forgot as soon as I saw your faces and started bawling. It was a little pathetic. But it has been so long for me. I was just overwhelmed! That was the best experience I have had so far on my mission. (hopefully that changes over time, and I know it will) I was so happy talking to you guys. Afterwards I felt sick. It was hard to just walk out of the lab and go back to normal life. But I am grateful for it. But anyway...
Happy Mother´s day Mom!! Talking to you made me so happy. I just love you so much. I have come to appreciate you in so many ways. Oh how I miss you. The good thing is that there is only one more mother´s day where I won´t be with my mother. Only one, and then that´s it and I will always be there. I am writing you a letter. I will talk about how much I appreciate you more in the letter. You look really good by the way. I loved your hair, and you just looked really good. Did you and Dad end up becoming vegans or something??
Well this week has been loads better than the one before it. I was pretty selfish that first week. I told you all about the five stages of missionary work and whatnot, so you know that it really helped me. The Abrupt Reality was so spot on accurate. Conor emailed me telling me about how he doesn´t lack for any comforts in the states and stuff. Which is definitely a blessing. But he will get to experience this when he gets to Argentina. And it will probably be worse for him. I don´t know how Ben and Quynn do it. Spain really isn´t that bad. I have been trying to count my blessings. And I have a pretty decent list going. I´ll share some with you all. This is just me trying to be more positive about the circumstances in Jerez. It won´t do me any good to go around complaining about how much better the US is compared to Europe. Or about how we have a better sewer (forgot how to spell that word) system in the US. Really it doesn´t matter. Anyway.
I have a really clean toilet. Not kidding. I scrubbed that thing with all my heart and it shows. It´s clean. And so is the rest of my bathroom. Everything that should be white...is white. I love walking in there and looking at lots of white, clean stuff. There isn´t much of it here in Jerez. There is lots of porcelain in my bathroom. And it´s all clean. What a blessing. I have this weird water basin thing in my bathroom. At first I thought it was a weird way to wash feet. But it´s actually another way to clean yourself after using the restroom. It squirts water out and you sit on it and...well it cleans you off. I am not a huge fan. I just spend the money and buy toilet paper. But apparently most missionaries love it. Either way, it is white and clean. So I love it.
Another blessing is Elder Pardo!!! Wow what a champ. I talked to other new missionaries about their trainers and I lucked out. A lot of them are disobedient and lazy. And Elder Pardo works so hard. And he obeys exactly. Which is good. I want to learn from someone like that. In the mission field your trainer is your father. (or mother, for sisters). So my padre is Elder Pardo. And when I train, he will have grandkids. I have a step brother. But I have never met him. Elder Pardo also knows how to clean!! A lot of people don´t, but when we clean the kitchen he impresses me. I am so glad that he cleans well. Guess what else, he also knows how to load a dishwasher properly!! He scrubs everything off and then puts it into the dishwasher. I about died when I saw that. Hardly anyone knows how to do it right. I am telling you, we are twin spirits. He is my brown brother.
We have some good music between us. And that is a blessing. We are gonna share music too so that I will have his on my MP3 player for the rest of my mission. Good stuff.
I have a pretty good work out routine going. I only have a half hour every morning, but I make the most of it. And I feel really good about it too. So that´s good. I don´t want to be fat when I get home. But man I am gonna have some wicked tan lines. I was fine with being all white, but my face and arms are gonna get dark. Oh well though. There are worse things in life.
Oh and our electricity works again!! Such a blessing. It started working again yesterday. Which is nice because living without electricity is not fun.
The food here is good. I told you all about the muesli and the yogurt milk. Man I will miss that a ton. I have been cooking pretty well. I make lots of pasta, and I buy lots of spanish sausages. Those are good. Basically just like the italian ones at home. I bought beef but I haven´t used it yet. It is expensive. I am saving it. I buy chicken and jamon. Jamon is really really good. I buy a cheaper brand that is alright because the really good stuff is ridiculously expensive. I bought one slice (thin, like lunch meat) for 2 euros. But it was flipping good. They have nutella here. Which helps me get through this. No peanut butter which is in my top five worst things about spain. I am rationing out the ones you sent me because it is like liquid gold. Oh and mom, the milk here is radiated. Which sounds cancer causing. I figure if I go so far as to not even use anti perspirant because of cancer fear, I probably shouldn´t be drinking radiated milk. The fresh milk is more expensive. Will you research the radiated milk and let me know if it´s dangerous or anything?? I don´t even trust our government/FDA, so I definitely don´t trust the Spanish one. Anyway, the food is pretty decent. I haven´t eaten with members a whole lot, but we have 2 appts this week to eat with them. I will let you know how it goes. Hermana Deere gave me a recipe for making black and refried beans. You have to do it from scratch because they don´t sell beans like they do in the US. So I am gonna buy some dry black and pinto beans and do that. I am excited. I miss beans. I forgot to tell you that I really really miss going to El Rancho Grande with Grammie and Grandpa. Those were the days. Wow. I am gonna take them to El Rancho Grande when I get back from my mission.
I am wearing normal clothes right now!! How wonderful is that!? First time in two months. Usually we don´t on P days. Apparently we are going bowling today.
There are lots of other good things. I just can´t remember right now.
Get this, last night we were teaching the guy that owns our piso in our ward, and he told us that there was ac in our apartment. I was about ready to hit someone. So we get home and I look for it frantically and realize that it is in the mold room. That is the big room that we keep locked all the time because it´s dangerous to breathe that air. So lovely that the only air conditioned room in the house is the mold room. The air conditioning system is different here. It is done room by room with a small little machine on the ceiling. So I am just going to buy a fan. I dunno what to do because President told me to move but Elder Pardo doesn´t to because we need to work and it will waste time. We´ll see what president says. The same guy that owns ours has a brand new piso for rent in the nice part of town. I want it so bad. But the location isn´t very good when referring to our investigators. I need to remember that I´m here for a purpose. And it´s bigger than my personal comfort.
So I forgot to tell you that I have WAY too much stuff. Everyone else has a small backpack and two suitcases, but I have three suitcases and a duffel bag. I would recommend not doing that simply because it makes transfers so hard. I would leave one suitcase in the mission home but we can´t because they get sick of elders using the mission home as a garage for two years. They let me leave my sword there though. Because everytime I would try to get on a train with my luggage, I would put my luggage through security scanners and an alarm would go off and they will look at me and say "¿tiene una...espada???" and I am always having to explain that yes, I do have a sword and I have to pull it out and explain that it is a souvenir. So annoying. So I finally just brought it to the mission home last week and begged President to keep it there. He said he´s gonna keep it under his bed. Which is a little weird. I felt silly. But grateful.
I teach an english class every friday. Which is kind of cool. It was weird at first. But I am used to it. I basically just speak really slow english for an hour. It´s nice.
I really really loved being able to talk to all of you yesterday. It helped me in so many ways. Everytime I think about when Spencer started singing for me, I just cry again. I miss our family so much. I miss everything about it. We have it so good. We have such a wonderful family. I was so happy to hear the voices of Quincey and Lincoln. Oh I just want to hug them. It will be seven months before I get to see you again. And Spencer may not be there. I don´t know how we´ll work that out but we may need to do a three way skype or something. And maybe even a four way skype when Brigham gets out. If that´s even possible. It was therapeutic for me to see your faces and hear your voices. Mom and Dad...I cannot wait to see you again. Some of my brothers were complaining about doing yardwork but I would LOVE to pull weeds with Dad again. Or shovel bark into a wheelbarrow. I miss it. I am not opposed to you sending Brigham to Spain without me knowing it. I would be so happy. Haha. I miss Brigham a lot. I miss just being with all of you. Nothing has changed. Clayton seemed a little down. Which was sad. Hopefully he´s alright. I surprised myself. I did not expect to be so emotional. I have been doing better lately but after yesterday and tear up a lot again. I was glad you guys knew I wanted Grammie and Grandpa there. I just assumed they would be but I panicked when I realized last week during the week that maybe they wouldn´t. But they were. And I was so thrilled to hear their voices. I miss them so much. I really really hope Spencer gets called here and I get to be his trainer. That would make my life. But so unlikely. Haha. A guy can dream though.
I want you all to know that this may be hard right now, but it is getting easier. Like I told you, I am beginning to love my investigators. I truly care about their lives and the things they do. I want the best for them and they are more than just a number. It´s hard right now because the work is so slow in Jerez. But we work hard. And now I just want to work harder. For some reason talking to my family just made me realize that I can´t waste my time being selfish. I have to try and help these people so that they can have what I have. An eternal family. The best thing anyone could ever have. Elder Pardo says that he was just like me in the beginning. He couldn´t stop thinking about his family and his girlfriend (who is now dating the old AP of this mission, she dear johned elder pardo poor guy, but she is serving a mission in the US in a few months, so who knows what will happen) but then after a while he threw himself into the work, and now that is all he thinks about. I have mixed feelings about it. I don´t want to get to the point where I don´t really miss my family that much. But I also want to love the work with a passion. I don´t know. I think with time I will stop thinking about my family so much and start loving the work with all my heart. But I will never stop missing my family. Heavenly Father is in charge. His plan is perfect and I know that he will mold me into what he wants me to be. And that´s all that matters. I can already tell that I am changing. And I can´t wait to change. I want to be a much better person by the end of this. I hope it teaches me selflessness.
Well I love you all. Thank you for yesterday. Thanks for all of the prayers. They helped a lot. Things are going better here. Blisters are healing. Walking is easier. Mosquitoes are pretty much solved. Our washer works most of the time. It´s gonna be alright. And although there is an astounding lack of peanut butter here, and drinking fountains, and toilet seat liners in public restrooms, I think I can live here for the next 22 months. Fingers crossed ;) Just kidding. It really isn´t that bad. I am blessed and I need to be more grateful. I love you all so much.
Love, Elder Sharp
Oh my goodness. The bidet! SO hilarious! How did he not know what that was? Haha. He sounds much more positive this week! :)
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