Hello from Jerez!!
Things sound good there. I am glad Spencer had a good experience in the temple. I think he was probably pretty prepared for that. I was super interested to learn that they updated the film. How cool!! I am even more excited to go to the temple. I am glad that I was able to see the old film. I miss the temple a lot. I spent a good amount of time there before I left. How is Quincey?? I seriously have dreams about him getting cancer at night. It is not fun. I don´t know why it happens but it really worries me. Just let me know that everything is still fine. Life sounds a little rough for all of you right now. It´ll be just you and Spencer at home now soon Mom. Just like it was with us a few months ago. Time flies. I am at five months today. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with how much longer I have. Time passes quickly and yet so slowly. Sometimes I think about the 19 months that face me and start to feel a little claustrophobic. It´s a really weird feeling. My heart starts beating all fast and I just get nervous. I am not used to 2 year committments. Haha. I´m the kid that looks to the future and likes to live there. But I am working on that. I am getting better at living day to day. Anyway. I miss you so much mom. And Dad. And everyone. I had a really rough day on Friday. I don´t know why. But things are much better now.
We had a decent week. Numbers wise it was ok. I still haven´t gotten back up to where I was with Pardo. But that will come in time. I am not too hard on myself. As long as I try my hardest I know that Heavenly Father is pleased with me. So this week is gonna be much better. The mission has some seriously high goals right now. We are going to find 555 new investigators this week, have 250 baptismal dates the next week, and 100 baptisms in September. CRAZY. That means 7 investigators every companionship, and they want everyone to find 7. We fasted and will pray every day at 4:00 to find new people. It´s a really big deal. We usually find 1-2 every week. And our monthly best for baptisms is 52. So September is double that. I am really excited. I work well with goals like this. I know Heavenly Father is preparing people here in Jerez. We just need to listen to His spirit and find them!!
Jose Sonia Ana Alonso and Paola are doing well. Paola isn´t a new investigator yet, but she will be this week. She is doing well and her baby Lola is perfectly healthy. Which makes me super happy. Alonso will get baptized in September. Ana on August 31st. And Jose is still needing some time. He has told us that he knows and HAS FELT that he should stop participating in the semana santa. Which is awesome. He reads the BoM every night and is just doing really well. I love being with that family. But I am also a little nervous. They want me to confirm Ana which is something that I have never done before. It is usually done by the bishopric. It requires really complicated Spanish that I am still not super good at yet. Subjunctive form. And even scarier than that is that they want me to bless Lola in sacrament meeting too. I didn´t think I would be blessing a baby until I was 24. So I don´t really know what to think. That is complicated Spanish too. Plus the whole ward will be there listening. So yeah. I am a bit nervous. I think that will all go down on the 1st of September so pray for me. I am going to need some serious help from the Spirit. I am pretty good at Spanish. But when you say things in that kind of form it gets really complicated. Anyway. We´ll see.
Pablo went to the temple this weekend with a family in the ward. He just walked around and stuff. He said he really loved it. Which is awesome. We will go teach him tonight. We have some other people too. Julia, Katherine, Juan, Gonzalo, and Andres. And we´re gonna find lots more this week. We had to drop some other people because they weren´t progressing which is always kind of sad.
Elder Erickson and I did much better this week. We worked out in the morning and got up on time. We still don´t do medio dia perfectly with language study and area book and all that. But we will this week. This week has got to be exact obedience if we want to see results. And every other week too. But especially this week. I am not very good at street contacting. I just don´t like doing it. Ideally missionaries wouldn´t do it but here in Spain the church is new and the members aren´t super helpful yet. In time. So I need to be better at that as well. I am kind of being forced to start liking being around people. I am usually a person that keeps to himself and his family but on the mission it´s kind of hard to do that. Obviously. I think when it comes to being Christlike we can´t keep to ourselves. We need to love people and desire to bless their lives any way we can. So that is good for me to learn.
Some interesting experiences this week...
We ran into a pack of teenagers one day when we were looking for this apartment complex. They were on one side of a chain link fence and we were on the other. It was super interesting. We asked them for help finding this place and they came over. A bunch of guys and about three girls. Girls were super immodest and had tats and facial piercings, like everyone here. The guys looked a little intense as well. They all looked about 20ish. They were all doing drugs and they came over and offered me some marijuana. (Totally used to that by now) but unlike other kids we talk to, these kids were super mean. They were shouting at us and swearing and doing really obscene things and trying to totally rip us to shreds. They asked us what we were preaching and ripped apart the prophet and were really just super rude. It was hard for me to be patient and kind cause every part of my natural man wanted to make them realize how bad their lives are right now and how incredibly unintelligent their comments were. But I didn´t say anything. They probably could have climbed the fence and killed us. There were tons of them. But the cool part was that we weren´t even phased. I felt the Spirit as we testified about what we know and told them that they are children of God and that he loves them. And that if they ever want to better their lives all they need to do is find us. So we invited them to the english class and left, while they were just hooting and screaming at us. They were all just feeding off of each other you know? There was one in there that had a different light about him. But I don´t know. I went back and right away found the door that we had been looking for. It was number 2, right next to number one. But before I was POSITIVE that the number two had been a number three, and so we went looking for number two. I don´t know. Maybe one of those young adults felt something when we spoke. I hope so. I do know that God wanted us to go talk to them.
We have more. But I am out of time. Unfortunately.
I had a whole thing written out on paper about my thoughts on member missionary work. I don´t know how the time flies so quickly. I am happy right now. I am eating pretty well. I eat tons of salads and vegetables. I buy tons of vegetables that are frozen and then cook them on a skillet. I eat lots of chicken, pork, and duck. And I really love tortilla de patata. I will make that a lot when I go home. Elder Erickson and I are super close. We irritate each other some times but we are both kind of mellow. Haha. He is so funny. I love being his comp. I hope I don´t get transfered. This transfer has FLOWN by. We are already in the fifth week. Well not much time left. I only send one email the whole time. I don´t know why I am so slow. Probably cause I read all of the emails now. It´s just not enough time. Well anyway. I miss you. I love you all so much. Only 19 months left :) And I get to see you in December. Sigh. Haha. I haven´t switched fully into the Love it stage yet. But I am on my way.
I love you
Elder Sharp
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