March 11, 2013

Dear Family and Friends, can you believe that it's transfers week already? And that I've now been out over a year? Mom, when you said that Carli's pictures would bring back some good memories from a year ago...blew my mind. Crazy! Anyway, transfers meeting is this Thursday, and I'm excited to see what's going to happen. Elder Oakeson is definitely out of here since he's been here for almost 6 months already. I'm kind of thinking that I'm gone, too. There's just been some drama in the ward, and I wouldn't be surprised if Pres. Senior yanked us and put in Sisters or something. We'll see what happens. I wouldn't mind staying here, but I actually wouldn't mind going back to the Isan (can't believe I'm saying that) or going up north somewhere. That's some of the prettiest country. But I'll go (or stay) wherever the Lord wants me to be. This week FLEW! You're right Mom, time just isn't the same anymore. Me and Elder Oak stayed busy, and we're making a lot of good progress here in Thonburi. Our 4 investigators are all doing great. I'll go through them all. We met with Fuse once this week on Friday. It was the first time that we have ever met with her on a day other than Sunday (hallelujah!). We finished up teaching the Plan of Salvation, along with repentance. It was what you would call a "good lesson," but it's hard teaching a quiet 15-year-old girl. Neither me nor Elder Oak know how to relate. We usually would take another young woman to teach with us in a situation like this, but there's just not really any who are willing. But because Soda is getting so close to baptism AND wants to be a future missionary, we're probably going to start asking her to come along. We threw the idea out to her yesterday after church (we wanted to teach Fuse, but she had to leave) and she was down for it. Good idea? I think it'll really help. Soda herself is doing awesome! We were actually really contemplating on moving her baptism up to the 17th, because she's ready, but decided to wait and make 100% sure she's good to go. I think she is though.  We met with her twice this week. On Wednesday she brought her little brother, NamKeng (which translates to ice. Ha, Soda and ice). He was really shy and quiet, but said he's interested, so he'll definitely be taught in the future. We met with her again on Friday. She was really stressed with school and some other stuff, and I felt impressed to give her a blessing. The Spirit was completely directing every word that came out of my mouth. It was an awesome experience. Boss, as you might guess, is still a boss. But even more so now (if that's possible). We met with him on Thursday and Saturday. Thursday, we followed up about how keeping the WofW was coming. Come to find out that he is a smoker...and smoked A LOT. We were a little worried, but he told us that he had cut it down from 20 to 5 cigarettes a day since the Saturday before. Oh yeah! And he committed to be totally clean by Sunday. When we met with him on Saturday, he still had the same commitment. He was also in Alma in his 2nd read through in the Book of Mormon, and had finished reading the Gospel Principles book. It's so easy to teach him, because he already knows everything! He'll be a future Bishop or Branch President. Dukadan is doing good as well. Met her on Wednesday and Saturday. She's been asking a lot of questions on the difference between the Book of Mormon and Bible, and also the difference between our church and other Christian sects, so we cleared those up for her. She's been wanting to share the 10 commandments with a French-speaking friend, so I ordered a French Book of Mormon for her. We introduced the WofW to her as well, and her problem is coffee. She's committed and is going at it cold turkey style. She had to leave church after Sacrament meeting yesterday because she had a terrible headache, but she didn't drink any coffee, so I'll take that any day. We still haven't felt prompted to give her a date yet, but it should be coming soon. Ah, the worst part about the possibility of leaving Thonburi is having to leave all of these awesome investigators. But as long as they get baptized in the future and come unto Christ, I don't care who teaches them. 

The rest of the week was pretty solid. On Thursday (my year mark) we went out to eat at a Japanese restaurant, but were quite disappointed. Not a huge fan of half cooked pork and chicken with blood oozing out haha. We did some more house-hunting on Friday morning. We went back to the Lumphini, the one we've been focusing on. At first the guy there wanted to make the church pay under the table to avoid taxes, but we weren't taking that. So we had a guy talk to him and kind of "scare" him since it's illegal. So he agreed to talk to the owner this past week, but never called us back. When we walked in there on Friday, he looked like he needed an adult diaper, with a death grip on his laptop. For some "mysterious" reason he hadn't been able to contact the owner. We were done, so we left and checked out another place that's WAY nice. We're hoping for that one. Oh Mom, a lady in the ward bought some silk for me and Elder Oak (she made sure to let us know how expensive it was). I don't know what to do with it, so I'll give it to you. For some reason, people are ALWAYS giving the Elders stuff, whether it's food or whatever. Weird. We've tried to tell them to stop, but nobody listens. Funny story of the week: after church each Sunday, the members eat lunch together, and we eat with them. Sometimes the food isn't...wonderful. Anyway, yesterday they dished us up plates long before we were able to eat. One of the side dishes was kind of an egg omelette thing, and it was cold. I could not stomach it, so I decided to get rid of it. Me and Elder Oak took our plates outside, and when nobody was looking, I threw the egg over the fence. It's a tall fence so I couldn't really see where it was going to land, but I knew there were some garbage cans on the other side, so that's what I was going for. Well, I threw it pretty hard on accident, and I'm pretty sure I hit someone's window. We bolted inside, and I was sweating the entire time, expecting some angry tie person to walk in the church holding some fried egg. But don't worry, nothing happened.

Love you all!

Well, gotta go! The Church is True!

Love, Elder Sharp

เอ็ลเดอร์ชาร์ป

Matt. 22:36-37

March 4, 2013

Hey Family and Friends! How's it going? It's going pretty good here in Thonburi. Yes, I had a "banner week" last week, and no this week wasn't totally the same, but it was still a really good week. Can't expect that many MAJOR miracles from the Lord every week, he expects us to do at least some of the work, right haha? Anyway, like I said, solid week. Monday night we were invited to the bishop's house for dinner. His wife really knows how to cook, and made us tacos. Legit tacos. Reminded me of the steak fajitas that we used to have at home a bunch. So good! I miss some good Mexican food, but this gave me my fix. Tuesday was a good one, and English class was SO much better than last week. I had a smaller amount of people in my class than usual, but that's better anyway. I started off by teaching them some grammar and vocabulary from the instruction book, but then switched it up a little. I've been begging the students to tell me what THEY want to learn, and one guy finally did. He asked how to say "Can I go get a drink?" and some similar phrases, and it just kept on going. Other people kept asking stuff, and they were really interested. I had made a kind of back-up plan, if we ran out of stuff to do, to teach them how to order from a fast-food restaurant (specifically KFC and McDonald's since those restaurants are huge here), and since the sentences were rolling in that direction,  I rolled with it. It was way more useful that the things we usually do, and they liked it a lot better. I'll probably stick with stuff like that. Wednesday was a really slow day. Tuesday night, our A/C officially broke, so we were DYING. We spent 3 nights with no A/C. The 3 most uncomfortable nights of my mission (even worse than the first night in the MTC). Luckily they were able to fix it Friday morning, so we're good now. Gosh I hate our apartment though. Wednesday afternoon we called our landlord to figure out what to do about the A/C and she said that our office had called and given a 30-day-moving notice. We had no clue about that, so we called the office to confirm, and yep, we have to move by the end of March. Probably a good thing, but please pray that we can find a house! We had a lot of errand-style stuff to do on Wednesday, so we were only able to teach one lesson to Soda, but it was solid. Thursday was a good day as well, but there was some very...unfortunate news that I'll share in a minute. We had District meeting and discussed some of the things that we learned in the fireside with the members of the Seventy (p.s. it was David, not Richard, F. Evans). One of the promises we received was that we would be able to baptize with more quality and more quantity if we apply the things we learn. What a great promise! It truly is amazing to see the changes that are happening with this mission and in all of the missions in Asia (and I'm sure all over the world). The Lord truly is hastening his work. Thursday afternoon and night, we were able to teach Run and Boss. Friday was our "less-active" day. We had to really good lessons with less-active members. One was with a lady named Atom. She hasn't been to church for about a year, and says she feels really bad about it. We committed her to go to church this Sunday, but unfortunately she didn't show up. We'll keep in contact with her though and keep encouraging her. We just gotta get the ward involved as well. The other lesson was with Sis. Mon (I told you about her already right?). She's awesome, and has come back and is a strong member now. We felt like we should talk about tithing, and it turned out great. The Spirit was very strong. Saturday we ate lunch and started our fast. Fasting is a great blessing that I really took for granted back home. It has a lot more meaning out here. We taught 3 lessons that day to Jiab, Boss, and Soda, which were all really good. Kind of an awkward moment in the lesson with Jiab though. First I just gotta say that she is a great member and really respects and honors Deity. Anyway, we covered the Restoration that day as part of her recent-convert lesson. Something that I do a lot to explain the Great Apostasy and show why there are so many Christian sects is take two pass-along cards that have the picture of Christ standing on the steps when he visits the Americas. I say "When Christ and his Apostles died, the Priesthood was lost" and I tear out the figure of Christ from one of the pass-along cards. Then I explain how there were disagreements between men, and tear up with rest of the card into several pieces to show why there are so many sects. And then I bring out the whole, new card when I talk about the Restoration through Joseph Smith. Anyway, as I was ripping the first one, Jiab all of a sudden busts into uncontrollable tears. At first I thought she was crying because people had disagreed so much and split off, but that wasn't the case. She was crying because I was ripping the card up. I had no clue what to say. The member there, Bro. Joe, came to my rescue and explained that it's not disrespectful, it's just a teaching tool. Gotta be careful who I do that with in the future. Sunday was good. 3 investigators at church, and yes I did get to bear my testimony. I shared about temples. I cannot wait for the day that they have a temple in Thailand. Taught Fuse after the meetings. 

The investigators are doing great. We met with Soda twice this week. The first lesson we taught the Law of Chastity and then focused on missionary work. She's been showing a lot of interest in being a missionary, and we're all for encouraging her. We challenged her to give a Book of Mormon to her little brother, and she did. The second lesson we finished up her pre-baptism lessons by teaching tithing and fasting, and then talked about switching her date. She took it a little differently than expected, and was really nervous, saying she thinks it's too fast. We helped her see that she's ready, and had her go home and pray about it. Sunday, she told us she is ready to go on the 24th of March! We met with Boss twice this week, and yes, he's still a BOSS! He's going through the Book of Mormon a lot "slower" the 2nd time (and he's already in Mosiah or something). Over the two lessons we covered the Restoration and Modern day prophets, along with the WofW. He is 100% willing to follow, and we gave him a date for the 24th as well! Dukadan wasn't able to meet this week because she went back to her parents house because her mom was in the hospital (she's doing good now). We did have some good phone follow ups though and she's strong as ever. Fuse's lesson was alright. Covered half of the PofS along with WofW. We switched her date to the 24th as well, but we'll definitely have to meet more than once a week if she's going to make it. Please pray for us and her! So, the unfortunate news from Thursday had to do with Run. We had a great lesson with her that day, covering the Restoration and prophets, but then she told us that she actually is going to Singapore. She left Friday and won't be back for probably 2 or 3 months. We were so bummed! I guess she just didn't get that the complications with going the first time were a literal sign from God. God isn't going to give two miracles where two miracles aren't needed. She had her chance. Please pray that she'll eventually find her way back to the church. 

Can you believe that I've been out a year this coming Thursday?! And my Twin is gone! I'm glad that it was a good setting-apart, I'll bet the Spirit was really strong. The advice I gave was for Carli, but everyone can apply it. Every time you pray, thank Heavenly Father for the Gift of His Son and the Atonement. Leatherby's...feels like that was just yesterday. And although I was pretty nervous then, I would just like to remind everyone that I got all of my meal and ice-cream down haha. 

Well gotta go. The Church is True!

Love, Elder Sharp