Time Flies When the Work is Fun

Dearest Family,

 

How is everyone doing?? How was your guys’ week? I hope everyone is doing well, adapting to the new schools and what not. I hope you love it!

 

Things are going great here! It has been such a quick week! It is frightening how fast time is going by! We are already half way through the Transfer! Yesterday, in our Sacrament meeting I had a really spiritual experience. We had the Stake Presidency of our new Stake, Santos (not new for me hahah), and also Elder Carbone from the Area Seventy with us in Areia Branca. The talks were fantastic! As I sat and reflected on the Savior and His Atoning Sacrifice during the Sacrament, I was filled with a feeling of love so powerful. Sunday mornings are always rough emotionally, with our investigators and all, and when I took the Sacrament yesterday I was just overcome. Then throughout the meeting we were fed spiritually by our Priesthood leaders. Elder Carbone said something that especially caught my attention and I have been thinking about it. He asked the question “how can we become a god if we are not willing to pay the price to become one?” We are promised ALL that the Father has! We will become kings and queens, gods and goddesses if we prove ourselves faithful and SHOW our Heavenly Father that we are willing to pay the price to receive His promised blessings. It is a price that we must pay daily, for it is a daily battle. We sang I’ll go where you want me to go and the Spirit was so strong. I got really emotional as I looked around and saw these people sing. I reflected a little and realized how much I love these people. Their faith and love for the Savior is admirable. I love Brazil with all my heart.

 

Anyways, so yesterday was great! We did some divisions this week, we did some surprise visits at some of the houses, and we worked hard in our area. We found a super great family on Saturday evening and we were totally pumped! It was fantastic! We are striving to work hard every single day and make the most of the time we have. This week we will start the zone conferences and we still have to finish preparing our training tonight. Like Grammie and Grandpa said in their email, there is still a lot of work to do here before my time is done! I am tired, but I feel the enabling power of the Atonement. I understand a little bit better what it means to endure to the end with faithfulness ;) 

 

All is well and I hope you all have a wonderful week. I miss you and I love you. I will see you here soon enough ;) I got my last haircut today hahah so that means it’s official.

 

Love ya guys. Be safe.

-- 

Love,

Elder Sharp

Sorry for Yesterday

Okay! So once again I apologize to everyone for not emailing yesterday. Elder Cerqueira and I were in a meeting with President literally all day long. 

This was a great week, we saw a lot of success in our investigators and we found a lot of new people. The problem was that not many of them came to church this Sunday, so we will focus on that this week and put all our forces into getting them to church. Things will start to get pretty busy agian, I am getting stressed. I feel the emotions of wanting to do more than I physically can and I am having a hard time with that. I think sometimes I am a little too hard on myself but at the same time I feel like I have more to give and I'm not giving my all to the Lord. It's frustrating really. 

Zone conferences will start next week and we will be preparing our training. The biggest stress is the fact that these missionaries... idk what is happening but a lot of them are struggling. We need to be better models in our own area and we need to do more. I love the mission so much. I LOVE studying the Gospel and without it, life would be impossible. Literally the key to a happy and successful life is a solid Gospel study DAILY. It is our daily bread and I literally and physically feel that. 

Something that I was studying this week is in 3 Nephi when Christ teaches the people. He tells them to go home and ponder and reflect on the things that were said and to prepare themselves to come back tomorrow. Then Christ looks out at the people and they all just have tears in their eyes because they want Him to stay a little longer. They dont want to leave him even for a day. I found that so emotional and for some reason it has been on my mind non stop this week. I dream of that sweet moment and imagine how they must have felt. It's like General Conference except better!

It seems to have been quite the week for all of you! College started and you all survived through the first week. The little boys switched schools... sniff.. and left my old shool house.. ;) Hope you got that quote. 

We had a really funny experience where we chased after by a dog. I felt like I was in the Sandlot, it was JUST like a movie. Sooo funnyyyy!! 

I love this with all my heart. I love Him with all my heart. 

Have a wonderful week and know that I miss you :)

-- 

Love,

Elder Sharpn