May 20, 2013

Hey Family! How is everyone doing? From the e-mails and skyping last week, it sounds and looks like you are all doing great.Thanks so much everyone for being there and supporting me and Carli. It really means a lot to me to get that much support from family (and I'm sure I'm speaking for Car as well). There isn't another missionary out here who has a family like ours. So things here are great, but a lot different than they were about 3 days ago. I am now in a new area with a new companion! Since all of the missionaries came down to Bangkok on Saturday for the meeting with the Apostle, Pres. Senior thought it would be a lot smarter to just do the moves business then. Of course I knew and President Senior knew I was moving, so I started packing a little bit each day starting Thursday so that I didn't have to stress about it the last night in Thonburi. I'm really glad I did that. The meeting with Elder Andersen on Saturday was awesome! He focused on being a Witness of Christ (since that is his calling and ours), and I learned a lot of great stuff. L. Whitney Clayton (Presidency of the Seventy), Larry Y. Wilson (1st Quorum of the Seventy), Elder Watson (2nd quorum of the Seventy), and Pres. Senior (plus their wives) also spoke to us, so it was a really great meeting. After that, we all gathered at the Bang Khen church and received envelopes with our new assignments. Ready for this?...I am now serving in Khon Kaen, an area out in the Isan (the country), my new companion is Elder Angkham, a Lao missionary who came into the mission last transfer, so I'm finishing up his training this transfer. Hopefully this helps out my language skills, because I'm going to be speaking Thai 90% of the time (maybe I can learn some Lao too). I'm also the District Leader here. There's two companionships in Khon Kaen and one in Kalasin, so a District of 6 total. It'll definitely be a little tougher than my first time being DL, but I'm excited and ready for the experience. We left for Khon Kaen right after the meeting and got here around 8:30 that night. Sunday was awesome. Elder Clayton, Elder Wilson, and Pres. Senior all came to Khon Kaen to have a kind of conference with the Khon Kaen and Udon Districts, so we got to learn a lot more from them. I also got to see a lot of familiar faces from Udon, so that was really cool. I was sad to leave Thonburi. Once you're in an area for four transfers, you almost want to stay longer, but I'm ready for the next experience. The bummer thing is that I couldn't tell any members I was leaving because we couldn't risk any of them showing up at the meeting (a bunch of them already wanted to go to the transfers meeting to say goodbye to some missionaries who were finishing). I'll have to go back to that ward for sure when we come back to Thailand to visit. The branch here is a little weak right now I think, but hopefully we can get some stuff going. Pray for me (us)! The house is the 2nd nicest in the mission, so no complaints there. Just a little dirty from not being cared for, but I'll take care of that. 

Well, gotta go! The Church is True!

Love, Elder Sharp