Happy New Year! Jan. 1 Email

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone was safe and had a blast last night! Not going to lie, I got a little home sick at 10pm Utah time. I miss you all a ton! New Years was fun here tho at the MTC! We got a huge stash of food and had a great time. We were lucky that it was the day before our P day! Got some extra sleep :D. Spanish is still just flying by. There are some workers here in the cafeteria that speak little English. It's pretty cool being able to talk to them in Spanish about all sorts of things! They all have such great things to say about us too which is always good. Nothing really new is happening here though. Every Friday we have Spanish speaking members from the area come in and we give them 20-40 minute lessons about random topics. It's like home-teaching. And of course, no English at all. We have days during the week where they can't even speak English. It was challenging at first, but it is pretty easy now! I'm pretty excited and ready to head out to Spain. There's a new teacher on our floor who just got back from his mission in Barcelona 5 weeks ago. He said President Pace and his wife are amazing mission presidents. Apparently Spaniards are pretty hard to talk to as well. They will get offended if you use the usted form with them...which as missionaries that's what we need to use at all times. We can only use tu with little kids. So...it will be a fun challenge I suppose. He told me there are a ton of Africans and Latinos in the Barcelona mission that are very nice and open people. Also, he said the weather was amazing! So yes...I want to go...NOW! Today the Spanish Consulate is supposedly sending our visas today. In the next few days the first batch will arrive. I may or may not be one of them, here's hoping! I will go when I'm supposed to go. Can't blame me for being excited though haha. I love everyone very much! Enjoy 2013! I'll see you all in 2014!

Elder Sharkey

Here's Elder Sharkey typing emails.

Here's a small part of the line to get into the
devotional with Russel M. Nelson

Here's Elder Sharkey (Brandon) with his good friend Elder Bivens
who's going to Malaga, Spain. Elder Bivens has been temporarily assigned
to New Mexico until his visa comes in. He was at the MTC for 11 weeks.

Good friend Elder Mason--love the shirt!

The group that did New Years!
Brandon is wearing his tag!

with Elder Garcia in front of their party stash

with the drinks they put in the snow

all their food for their party