I quite enjoyed your talk mother. You really are one wise woman. A ¨mother who knows¨ to be sure. You may say that I can deliver them better than you (which I strongly disagree with- I have learned in the mission that expressing myself and communication in general are NOT my strongpoints, although that has a lot to do with spanish), you have a gift of writing talks. Searching and finding counsel from various sources and relating it all together with your own testimony- you do it in a very powerful way. Hopefully one day I might be able to do the same.
I am doing well. It´s been a rather boring week. I can´t even remember what I did. All of our progressing investigators are unable to meet with us :) So at this point we are left with working with people who are progressing VERY slowly. (I had to delete a large section of his letter because he gives too many details about his investigators to put on the blog.)
We have other investigators. We are working with tons of less actives. But no one is progressing. It´s all passing so slowly. Nobody in our zone baptized this month, so I get to go to concilio and report a big old 0 baptisms as a companionship and 0 as a zone. Our zone is absolutely tiny, only seven companionships. Smallest zone in the mission. But still. It´s hard. I am trying to be more positive and faithful. Hopeful. And I know that May will be better. I just get frustrated because I am working hard. We really are helping people. But our numbers just don´t show it. Sure we are teaching 20-25 lessons every week, which is the standard of excellence in our mission, but we don´t have any baptismal dates, progressing investigators (in order for them to be ¨progressing¨ in our mission, they have to come to church every week), and so far we haven´t baptized here in Elche. I have had a really interesting mission. Jerez was a golden paradise, and then I was sent to Almería which was just insanely hard. It´s just flat out a hard area. And then here in Elche which is supposed to be a good city, but it turns out then all of the four areas that are here in Elche are just dead. None of the missionaries have anything. I don´t know what to do. I will be honest, being a zone leader isn´t the greatest thing in the world. At all. I basically just get to feel guilty for the fact that the whole ZONE is doing bad when it comes to baptizing, and not just because my companion and I are. Anyway. I never wanted to be responsible for a zone, but I am. And I know I need to do the absolute best I can to help it in every way. So I am going to spend some extra time on my knees this week to find out what we need to do differently. As I learn more about the way that the church works and experience the responsibilities of leadership, and especially as I work so closely with church leaders, I am seriously amazed at all of the challenges and trials that I never before had thought about. Being a bishop would be SO incredibly difficult. Getting the members to respect your authority as a bishop, even if they don´t see you fit for the job, having to deal with all of the immature adults that have so many problems in their lives, having to be the authority in charge of everyone else, trying to run effective ward council meetings, worrying about all of the financial aspects as well, trying to keep unity between all of the organizations, listening to everyone confess their sins and trying to listen so closely to the spirit to try and give them counsel that will actually help them in their life, and praying to know when someone has actually done enough to be forgiven because it affects your own salvation as well, WOW. The list goes on and on and on. I don´t know why anyone would EVER want to have that responsibility. Seriously. Some people are literally crazy. Actually WANTING to have that kind of responsibility?? Yeah. NO, THANK YOU. It´s a good thing that God is there helping all of His faithful bishops, because they couldn´t do what they all have to do without divine guidance and assitance.
Personally, I like teaching. I do not like leading. I want to be the gospel principles teacher for the rest of my life, and nothing else. And I am very glad that I love teaching, because in my blessing it tells me that a Teacher is my role. No matter what I do in the church, I will always be teaching. It´s my personal calling :) So I lucked out on that one!!
Right now in our mission we are having a ¨week of consecration¨. I am super stoked for it. We are all going to be exactly obedient and we will work with urgency and eficáz. Even elder tudela recommitted himself to the work, and is now back on track. Which is a tremendous blessing for me. Pray for us that we will be able to consecrate everything this week, and then keep doing it even after the week of consecration ends. I am starting my ten months of consecration today, actually :)
We had a really awesome lesson this week. Several, actually. We are teaching this romanian girl named S. She´s an evangelist. Baptist or something. But we contacted her and are now teaching her. We had a really good lesson about the book of mormon. It was incredible. It was so good that it could have been on the preach my gospel training videos. It was Elder Christiansen status, even. I felt the spirit so strongly as I testified about the book of mormon. She promised to read it, and she understood! She understood our message, which is something that happens less often than you would think.
I also had a really cool experience as we were giving a blessing yesterday. We were in the stake president´s office (the stake president, aka my hero, wasn´t there) with A and her cousin J, and tudela and I were giving her a blessing. She is struggling right now in her life. Anyway. Tudela was giving the blessing, and I was standing there with my hands on her head as well, and I just started praying for tudela that he would be receptive to the spirit and be able to give her the words that God wished her to hear. Instantly after I had started praying in my heart for him, I felt SUCH a strong feeling of the priesthood power. It felt like Tudela and I were in perfect unity during that blessing. As I prayed for him and he strived to listen to the spirit, I felt Heavenly Father´s spirit there. It was one of the most amazing feelings I have ever experienced. The most powerful spiritual witness I have ever felt was in the madrid temple, but this one was strong as well. It was so specific too. Total priesthood unity. I felt the power of the priesthood channeling through us, and I was filled with feelings of unity. It was like I knew what he should say before he even said it, and then he said exactly what I felt. It was cool.
I am doing well. I am happy, even though things are hard right now :) That´s what matters. I love this place, and I would say that I am enjoying my mission now more than ever.
I am grateful for your prayers and for your support. I love you so much!! I pray for you every day and I am so thankful for you all. I can skype whenever. Tudela doesn´t skype until the end of may. Mother´s day in Sweden is different. So let me know!
Clayton, THANK YOU for emailing me. I will respond next week because I am out of time today :( I love you so much! One question, why are you saving up for a new guitar?? Hahaha. Didn´t you just get a super nice one last month?? I am proud of you for your musical endeavors. You are seriously such a stud. And you probably have the same voice as me. Because I have rythym issues as well. So I can sympathize with you. We´ll sing all the time together when I get home, and mom and dad will be so annoyed!!
Still haven´t received the package. I don´t know why. Could you guys track it?? It won´t come today because it is ANOTHER fetching holiday today. I swear, every other day here is a holiday- and then the Spaniards wonder why they are in crisis?? Yeah. It´s not that complicated sherlock. It´s because people have holidays every other day and then when they DO actually work, they take a three hour break during the middle of the day. Crazy.
Anyway. Love you all
elder sharp
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