Almost Christmas (12/24)

Hey Everyone. Merry Christmas. So to start off I hope to see you all tomorrow on Skype. I will be Skyping from the Eyre's home at 11:30 AM tomorrow so 2:30 PM EST. Don't be late!! She will be calling you guys and just asking which Skype account and other things before hand so she will be calling 4845421234 and then if that doesn't work 4845426344.

So we had our first baptism yesterday of Julianna. It was a really great day. She asked me to confirm her and it was a really great experience. After everything was done Pres Watkins was there unbeknownst to us and he came up and said Great job Elders, keep it up. Pretty big deal coming from our Mission President. He met Julianna and gave her a picture of the Savior. Really was a great day. I was truly humbled by the experience!

Today was the Christmas Devotional we started off with breakfast of Steak and Eggs! Yes it was very very good. and then we had a gift exchange in which I received a plastic shark that grows in water and a picture frame. Yep. and then we had a little devotional afterwards and we just got home and now we're here writing emails. It's been a pretty quick week, been getting a lot of Christmas cards from people back home so it has been nice. Not really any letters from anyone else though so a little sad, no letters from Taiwan:( either, but I guess that is expected around this time of year the mail system goes to a halt almost.

I'm not really sure what else to write except I did get your guys' package and it's still sitting unopened in our apartment, so i'll open that up tomorrow morning after breakfast with a member. Looking forward to seeing what's inside.

Hmm, what else to write, we have another baptism this Saturday at 11 am, so that's exciting. I'm sure you'll see picture of that next P-day.

Here are the pictures from the baptism!

Love you all and miss you all, use this time of year to serve those around you just as our Savior did.

Elder Sanchez

(p.s. I really did have a 'white' christmas)

Weekly Correspondence (12/17)

ey everyone, this week has been another incredibly successful week, we have 2 new baptismal dates i'll have to tell you about!

So we had to drop one of our investigators Betty because she just doesn't want to meet with us anymore because she doesn't have much of a interest anymore, so that was sad, but the good news is that we have 2 new baptismal dates, this is going to be a good start for the new year! I'm so excited and I'm really excited for all of their progress!

Dec 23- Julianna, she has been investigating for a little less than a month before I came out (for about 3 months total) and she has been really hesitant to set a date because of some outside and unrelated problems but she really is so so ready for it, we're so excited for her!

Dec 29- David G, his wife is a recent convert and are currently looking for homes in the Warm Springs area here in Fremont, we had dinner with them at the Eyre's about 4 weeks ago and he mentioned and I quote "I would really like to convert to the Mormon Church, this seems like the right thing for me." His mother was an active member but since his Father wasn't he never was able to attend church, so he's finally making that choice to come unto Christ.

Jan 5- Ryan G. He is really great, he is so ready to get baptized, we just need to get him out for church. He has exercised his faith so much, and is setting such a great example for his family, he has totally quit drinking coffee and alcohol and is really trying to meet all the baptismal commitments that he needs to.

Jan 19- Yang Chen Chen (Alexander)- He finally had a chance to talk to his dad about getting baptized and he asked him to wait until July, but he was like "but dad I know it's true, so i'm going to in January" so here we are! He was my first lesson in the field and back then he was just barely understanding the gospel and now his faith is so exceeding. It's really quite amazing that just a few short months ago he had no belief in God at all.

Jan 26- Paul B. This is kinda a sad one because we might lose contact with Paul and have to refer him to another mission, which we really don't want to take that chance on him. Paul is a foreign exchange student from Berlin, Germany that is currently staying in with a less active member in the ward named Michelle W. Paul is supposed to be moving to San Ramon which is in the Oakland Mission at the start of the year, so we're frantically trying to find a host family in our area so that he is able to continue going to Irvington High School and stay in our area. Paul took the first lesson 2 weeks ago and he LOVED it... he was like wow the whole time. This past week we taught the Plan of Salvation with a member that recently moved into another ward that spoke German, and he was like "Wow this makes sense, really does" and he committed to be baptized on the 26th. We asked him after the lesson how his reading had been going and he said "Oh it's not going too well, i'm only in 2 Nephi Chapter 5" and we were like wait what? You read from 1 Nephi 1 all the way to 2 Ne 5? and he was like yeah sorry and we were like oh no that's seriously amazing.

So yes, we have some really exciting things going on here. I had Advanced Training at the mission office with 12 other missionaries on Friday and it was really good, talked about difference teaching methods and how to study in the morning without falling asleep at your desk and other things and it was a really good day, I got to see my friend Elder Woodbrey from the MTC for the first time since we left almost 7 weeks ago, it was good to catch up.

Saturday we had the Ward Christmas Breakfast at 8 AM and it had a huge turnout! I was able to participate the the primary's Nativity and also in the ward Choir on Sunday for the Christmas program. It was a great weekend, but very tiring, I feel asleep last night at like 9:50... soo tired. The Ward Christmas program on Sunday went very well, and the Gamboa family came and it was a really great time to have them come. Bro Gamboa's countenence has changed so much since when I first met him, he brought his "Libro De Mormon" to church and as he came up to me he said "Let me tell you, this is a good book"

We had service after the Breakfast on Saturda at a less actives house,  digging up cement blocks from old fence posts with one of the huge breaker bars, took us like 2 hours to break up two of them, Donald would have been proud.

I really miss you all, and I hope we're all skyping next week? I'm not even sure if I'll be able to email next week, so if you guys aren't on Skype i'll have Sister Eyre call home to you guys and get you on Skype. haha

Love you all, here are some pictures from this week,

Picture 1: Shepherd and Inn Keeper

Picture 2: Elder Giles' sniper (he was in the Marines before his mission)

Picture 3: The last big chunk of cement from service

Elder Sanchez

I love Fremont (12/10)

So this week has gone by pretty quick, as usual. We have exciting news that you'll hear about later in this letter.

So we are now meeting with Ryan Gamboa seperately since he is progressing the fastest, he currently has the only baptismal date set among his family, his whole family is hard to teach because it's almost like have 5 single investigators in one lesson, but things are going well with the entire family, we just need to focus on Ryan since he is progressing the most towards baptism.

David Garman is set up to be baptised on the 29th still, and Ryan on the 5th... and guess what Julianna finally has a baptismal date! December 23 at 3 PM at our building!... also Yang Chen Chen will have a baptismal date by this week, he is talking to his father today or tomorrow and he will probably be set up within the next few weeks.

You heard it here first but Mission Peak Misisonaries have 4 baptisms in the next 3 weeks. It's an exciting time here for sure.

This week has been a faster week than this past Thanksgiving, people have been staying at home more, so it's been good.

I'll answer some of mom's questions.

How did your week go?

Very good! We're always busy!

Any new investigators?

Not this week, but we have 2 new potential investigators.

Did you get the translator on the 29th like amazon shows? Is it meeting your needs?

It's really really nice and I like that it's small.  It works very nicely! And it helps with Spanish when i need it too!

Have you been affected by floods?

Nope we had a lot of rain earlier this week and last week but nothing really here.

What time do you get home every night? When do you go to sleep?

We get home different time every night, usually around 9... I get to sleep almost every night at around 10:20.

So have you received any letters from anyone in the ward?  

Not really no, I got one from Lauren Munk the other day though!

When will you find out when you will call home on Christmas?

Christmas Day, Afternoonish I think?

 Do you already have apps for that day?

That day is basically just visiting people/having christmas dinner for like 2-3 hours with a family, i dont know who yet, maybe the eyres

 Does the mission have a Christmas meeting?

nope! 

How are the investigators doing?

everyone is progressing well!

Do you do tai chi?

no but we do english class every friday at the senior center!

 Do you iron your shirts?

i dont really need to they are usually pretty wrinkle free when I take it out of the dryer.

Any problems keeping socks paired up?

I've lost like 2 pairs out of the 20 that I have but that was at the MTC in the public place, we do laundry privately here and it's hard to lose track of things.

Who has written you from Easton /nazareth?

nobody really, marina and kaity are the only ones who write me reguarly.

Love you all! Hope everyone is having a good week, talk to you on Christmas (and next p-day too)

Elder Sanchez

Another Week in Fremont (12/03)

So it's another week here in the field. Everything has been doing well here, it's still not cold at all, and everything is doing well. As far as this week it's been pretty busy busy busy.

So it's a new transfer... i've already been through a whole 6 weeks here, so new missionary planner. Already finished 3... 14 more to go. So progress on our investigators.

Stephen: We had a pretty decent lesson with him on Wednesday this past week, he's working step by step for sure since he doesn't have much of a background in religion. Invited him to be baptized on the 5th of January but he's not ready yet to commit to it so we're waiting a few more weeks to see how he progresses.

Su man Qing: Can't get a hold of her!! Why! :(

Gamboa's: We have a baptismal date with Ryan... none of the rest are 100% sure yet but guess what... Bro and Sister Gamboa came to sacrament meeting yesterday! So good! We meet with them in about an hour @ 6 pm. We're talking about the importance of prayer in conversion and watching a little video.

Julianna: We are also meeting with her tonight @ 8 with one of the counselors in the stake presidency here... she's ready for baptism and she wants a date she's probably setting one tonight... so it's probably either this Saturday or next Saturday... we'll see! She's done with every lesson and everything she just needs to be interviewed.

Yang Chen Chen: He's also ready to set a date, we're just waiting on his decision for what day he wants to be baptism. It's really excited because him and his Aunt (Sister Wang; member) came to the Missionary Departure Fireside last night and I really think they enjoyed it a lot. He loves any fireside haha.

Nitin: He's progressing sorta... we're seeing his expectations tonight with him to see what he expects out of meeting with us.

So yeah everything is going well, we'll more than likely have 3 baptisms this month alone, which is really crazy to think about but it's going to be great. All I want for Christmas is 3 Baptisms! (ringaling)

So yes thank you mom and dad for that Translator!! It's soooo great seriously. It's a small little think and it's a very simple interface, but it's a powerful little machine.. I've been contacting in spanish a few times this week and it's been great. Gave two referrals to the Newark Spanish Elders just north of us. (Yes newark, california haha)

So how has everyone been? I'd like an update! Feels like no one is updating me this week haha.

So i'm going to attach some pictures... these are all from the MTC... I'll send more from the field in another email.

The first picture is my district's name tags and all the places we were going :)

 The mandarin zone on 10/28/12... I MISS THEM!!!

the 3rd is Elder Gummow, Sister George and I. Miss them too!

Anyway i'll send another set of pictures in another email.

Love you all!

Have a good week,

Elder Sanchez

Losing track of What Week It is (11/26)

So been here a month practically. Things have been a little slower this week due to the holiday, but still busy nonetheless. So this week has been pretty slow as far as our investigators go, all of them have been busy with Thanksgiving or out of town so we're hoping this week is changed from that. We do have one new investigator, English speaking, and his wife is a recent convert/less active... his name is David, he's Catholic but we had lesson with him on Thursday and he is going through a lot... he is PTSD and he was in Desert Storm so he's been through a lot. We had the first lesson with him and by the end of the lesson he said and I quote "I know that this book is anointed and is scripture..." and then we asked him to be baptized on Dec 29... and he said "Absolutely"... he's a really nice guy but he's going through a lot with his PTSD and other health problems. We're meeting twice a week... he's been to church twice already too.

So we spent Thanksgiving at a family called the De Lory family... charming family really. It was a 2 hr dinner appointment, we had hor d'oerves which were very good and had a very traditional meal with all the same things you would expect at a Thanksgiving dinner. It was very good. Afterwards their tradition is everyone plays music so my companion plays guitar so he was able to play that and I played some silly piano stuff too. Brother De Lory is an accomplished guitar and banjo player and he played some really amazing stuff. I was impressed and it was a lot of fun. Afterwards we went to see the Gamboa's and ate even some more there... it ended up being another meal. We had brisket and ribs with vegetables... they had tortillas and salsa and all the mexicano fixings too. Sis Gamboa is from Vera Cruz and Bro Gamboa is from Ciudad Juarez. We see them tonight after our dinner appointment.

We did a lot of service this week, we did 4 hours at Abode Homeless where we unloaded most of the truck of canned/other type of food donations in big garbage pails and sorted them and dated with a permanent marker... a lot of work, we had the senior couple with us the whole 4 hours and then afterwards they treated us to dinner since our appointment (rare...) fell through at Carls Jr... wasn't too bad!

So this pastTuesday we had an appointment with Yang Chen Chen and we taught the law of chastity... he was pretty open to it and is already living it but afterwards we had been wondering why he hasn't wanted to set a definite baptismal date and we got him to open up... his parents are in China and he hasn't really even talked to him about it yet so we asked him about it and he's going to check with his dad and then after he talks it through he "wants to get baptized as soon as possible"... so that's great. We're excited to see him prepare even more for this covenant.

 On Saturday we had a baptism for one of the little girls in the ward Niah... we invited all of our investigators but only one said he would try to come... the night before he cancelled and we were bummed but at 9:40 (the baptism was at 10) he called and said he had time so he came to the church and walked in literally 2 minutes before the ordinance... good timing. He stayed the whole time, had a meeting with him and the ward mission leader Brother Li afterwards and answered his questions. One of his questions was "Why do Christians believe that each person adopts their parents sins?" and we explained to them that we don't believe that and had explained it in a little more detail and he was like "... huh... that makes sense." and so it was a very good minilesson.

So i'll answer your questions mom and to granny as well. And yes granny I read your emails every but this email takes a good 30-40 minutes to write so it's ver difficult for me to respond to everyone since my limited time.

How was you thanksgiving? This is the first time in 40 years that I didnt cook anything and I survived

Muy bueno.

Did you get the pictures

I think so? I didn't get any this past week but I did 2 weeks ago.

So are you feeling more mature now that I don't try to run your life.

Not sure yet. This isn't the real world haha

Are you used to going to bed and waking up early? Do you get sleepy during the day?

I'm pretty used to it, and yes every missionary is sleepy during the day.

Do you and your companion speak English or mandarin to each other?

We do both, it's hard to speak 100% of the time since we do have a lot of situations where only english is appropriate.

Are their mandarin elders in other wards in mission?

There's 2 in Dublin Chinese Branch and 3 in the Cupertino Seven Springs Branch, then there's us here in Mission Peak Ward...

Are you losing weight ? Have you been offered fish to eat? Eaten real Chinese food?

Chinese people really don't eat that much fish... like really. So too bad for all of you thinking i'm eating fish at every meal because I have only had it once and it was salmon pasta. You cynical cynical people thinking i'm eating my least favorite food all the time. I am not really losing weight... I feel like I might be slowly. We run 2 miles every morning though so that is going to help. We have  had real real Chinese food about 10 time's since i've been here. It's super good stuff. Like I remember sorta liking it in China but I appreciate it so much more now. It's delicious. Tofu rocks!

Do people like living in in that area?

I love the people here seriously! The Chinese people! The English speaking people! They are all great.

Granny's Questions:

Speaking of dinner appointments....what kind of food do the members serve you??

It's a mashup of everything... members usually never take us out to eat... most of the Chinese people serve us Chinese food... just everything! I can't even specify... last night we went to a Filipino home and they got Filipino restaurant takeout... it was fried chicken and hamburgers covered in gravy... supposedly in Los Angeles Phillppines this is a very common thing to eat haha.

  I know that Chinese people eat a lot of fish. Do you eat the fish or what??

Not really. Haven't been offered it much.

Do you always get your 20 contacts every day?

20 contacts is easy... it's as simple as giving someone a mormon.org card and inviting them to visit it. We usually get between 20-30 a day anyway.

  What do you say to get their interest?

All you can do is plant that seed. Bear testimony, and invite the spirit and they will remember you.

  Who does most of the talking....you or your companion?

It's either 50/50 or 60/40 on his end. No biggie.

What is the weather like there? Coat on yet?

We never wear suit coats unless it's Sunday or district meeting. It's fair here... 45 in the morning and 65-75 in the day time. We wear dress sweaters just in case it's cool in the night time :)

So that's it for this week, we're heading straight to a dinner appointment right now at the Jarvis home. No fish i'm going to guess, sorry mom.

Love you all, have a good week everyone.

我爱你们。有好的星期！

Elder Sanchez

Week 3 in Fremont (11/19)

o this week went by pretty fast, the work here is good. Keeping really busy. Still miss the MTC though. Kinda stinks.

So this week let's see... what stood out? Well we have 5 progressing investigators still and no new investigators. No new baptismal dates either but we are challenging the Gamboa family to baptism. We'll see how that goes because they have been challenged to baptism before, and they didn't take it seriously. So yes we are expecting Yang Chen Chen and Julianna Huang (jessica needs to add her on FB!!!!!) to be baptized in the next month or so. Both of them are solid really and seriously, they both come to like every church activity and sacrament meetings and all are being fellowshipped very well. Julianna fellowships herself into our Ward... she invited all the YW to her house for a movie night exactly a week after she was taught the 1st lesson. We finished the last commandment/lesson/everything with her yesterday and it's just a matter of waiting until she's ready for baptism. It's complicated.

As for our new investigators Su Man Qing and Steven, they are doing well, Su Man Qing has been really busy with school and hasn't been able to meet with us at all in the past week or this week so on Saturday we have an appt with her at our building. Steven is doing well too, I think we have an appointment with him this coming Wednesday. This will be his 3rd lesson this week, and he really likes the lessons we teach him. He agreed to baptism as well.

So we go twice a week to different Chinese members homes to practice our chinese and get feedback and stuff. I feel like I speak Chinese about 40-50% of the time every day. There really is so many opportunities to speak the language here just so many Chinese people, most people are from Mainland or Hong Kong (learning some Cantonese too)... not many from Taiwan... we only have like 2 people from our ward from Taiwan. Northern Chinese accent is the most understandable, then I'd say Southern is ok, Taiwanese is a prett weird accent compared to the rest of them. So yes, when I get home I think i'll learn ASL (American Sign language) our district leader is ASL missionary and I already know quite a few signs just from learning from him and his companion Elder Giles.

So yes the work is progressing! A lot of our time is focused on investigators and inactives... the rest of the time is serving. We really don't have anything to plan at 9:30 when we are supposed to mostly it's just planning lessons because all of our hour slots are already filled with appointments before we even start planning. We still haven't missed a dinner appointment since i've been here, they are always filled. Yesterday I think we had more food from different people in a single day than ever before. It was crazy... soo full.

Anyway what else can I write about? Just realized I forgot my camera cord again to send pictures :( I printed out some today to send to some friends in the mail from Walmart.

So contacting is pretty fun I figured I'd write about that. We usually go to the Lion Market, the Warm Springs Community Park or the BART Station here in Fremont. Lion Market and BART are always packed and the park has a lot of families which is good. Our goal is 20/day contacts whether just random walking to your car contacts or whatever else.

So yeah. I think that's it for this week. Got a random letter from a little kid in Virginia on Saturday. That was weird but it was cool. One from Marina and Kaity too. None from my MTC friends though although one of my friends from the MTC's mom fwd'd her sons weekly letter to me so I could see how it was in Taiwan.

Anyway I hope everything is going well with everyone.

Here is my address incase you don't have it whoever may be reading this:

Elder Nathan Sanchez

46703 Crawford St #14

Fremont, CA 94539

Love you all see you next monday,

Elder Sanchez

单长老。

Week 2 in Fremont (11/12)

So it is 11/13/12 and it's not p-day. But here I am emailing you all. I hope everything is well and I hope the efforts in NJ/NY are helping out the people there. All I hear about here is "Oh how are you parents? Were they affected by Sandy?" either that or "Why is your last name Sanchez? Aren't you white?"

But I digress, off to Gospel-related topics!

So this week has been pretty busy, I honestly think we are the most busy pair of missionaries in the zone but honestly I have no idea. I feel like my "MTC" bubble has burst and I'm in the "California San Jose Mission" bubble of comfort finally. I feel accepted by the ward here which is one of the most worrying things for a missionary the first few weeks, everyone seems to know me now, since the first sunday I bore my testimony and this past Sunday I was actually assigned to give a talk. (I'll send the sacrament meeting program to you through the mail next p-day) So we have 2 new investigators now. So thus far we have 4 progressing investigators (ones who keep commitments, etc) and no investigators with baptismal dates, sad, but we are working hard! In total we have 14 investigators, 7 of which are Chinese speaking. Yang Chen Chen is our progressing Chinese investigator, he is going to get baptized we just don't know when yet. His faith is incredible really and truly, he went from not believe in God and now having the most amazing faith. So here are the story on the two new investigators we got this week.

1. Steven Sun: He was a referral by a pair of English missionaries. He went up to them in the BART station (Bay Area Rail Transit) and a few years ago he was investigating the church is Maryland and moved to China after 2 lessons and lost contact with the church, and then found these two english ones here in San Jose area at the BART station, referred him to us and we taught him last Thursday in his home. Taught the entire first lesson, really liked the church a lot, set a return appointment, no baptismal invite yet. Promising. His name on our phone is "Steven Potential"... I think i'll change it to "Steven Promising"

2. Su Man Qing: So me and my companion last Thursday went street contacting at our favorite contacting spot for Chinese people, a shopping center with tons and tons and tons of Chinese/ Asian shops. We call it the "Lion Market" so we are just getting no after no (bu yong! bu yao!) from these people and we get to the end of the centers sidewalk... make a 360 and we both see this young woman just walking back and forth sorta, and I had the most overwhelming prompting of the spirit saying like "GO CONTACT HER!!! GOOO!" and so I look at my companion and we start almost speed walking down like 200-300 feet to this girl in a white puffy coat. I go up and ask her (keep in mind this is in Chinese) Hey! We're missionaries. Would you like this card? You can learn about Jesus Christ and how he can help you on this website. Actually, we're missionaries (and this was weird that I said this because at this point she couldn't even get a word out of her mouth since I talked so fast) would you like to sometime meet with us and learn more about Jesus Christ and how he can help you? and she was like hmm (I don't think she understood me 100%) and then I asked her again and said "would that be something you would have interest in?" and she she said "You xingqu(yo shing chuu)" which means "have interest" in Chinese and we were like no way. We got her phone# and set up and appointment for Saturday at 1 at our Church building. So we went and it was a 2 hour lesson. It started off soo sketchy and shakey... (we had a member there that spoke chinese luckily) she was asking about multiple gods and how much does a soul weigh and weird stuff like that but we really shaped the lesson back up... taught her the whole 1st lesson and i invited her if she found out for herself if it was true if she would be baptized... she said "ruguo wo zhaodao zhege shi zhen shi de, wo yuanyi" which means if i find this to be true, i'm willing. awesome lesson!

We had our first English class at the Lake Elizabeth Senior Center last Friday and there was 37 age 60+ Chinese people there just ready to learn some English. Our lesson was on Car parts and how to navigate the auto parts store. So chaotic at first but it was really fun. Old chinese men are so funny, they remind me a lot like dad they just are always happy and just have fun.

So literally right now as I was writing this, one of the members of the Gamboa family comes up here at the Milpitas Library... hahaha! So funny. They're a part member family where just the mom is a member. They're doing really great but they've been out of town at least some of them have so we're taking that slow for now.

So anyway what else? They feed us really well here. It's nice, not too much food either. Medium portions and it's been good. The people in this area are super rich. It's really nuts, huge homes. We had p-day sports at a members home yesterday where they have a full gym/tennis court/etc on their property. Full sized basketball court and all that. We actually played pingpong and knockout with yang chen chen there. He was like all wide eyed thinking wow why is this house so big. Yang Chen Chen is such a stud.

So we have 5 hours of scheduled service every week. We are supposed to have 10 total hours each week. One is at Tricity Food Bank (which we did today from 1-3) where we get carts of food for homeless people and bring them out to their car. It was cool, but people are seriously in bad moods. There was this lady trying to steal onions out of another ladies cart. It was out of control. She was calling her racist and stuff for not letting her have it. I couldn't really do anything since i'm a missionary. I just told her to step away from the car.

Our other 3 hours of scheduled service is on Thursdays from 2-5 at a place called Abode Homeless Shelter where we just do random tasks for Sister Stacy (a member that works there) we do things like restocking the fridges and resorting things in the attic like toothpastes and shampoos etc.

Both the service opportunities are super fun. Really good to get out in the community.

So on Saturday from 3-7 we had a big service thing with members in the ward named the Montalvos... their daughters wedding reception. The theme was (they're mexican, and white mix) Fiesta Night... so they had carne res and frijoles and arroz mexicano etc etc for dinner very fancy reception at the chapel... we helped cook and serve food. I cooked about 200 corn tortillas for them and served food. My favorite part was the mariachi band they had!! Brought me back down in the valley again.

So anyway I need you guys to get me more letters!! Advertise my new address here in CA. Give this to the bishop at church ;)

Elder Nathan Sanchez

46703 Crawford St #14

Fremont, CA 94539

let me friend shawna noyes know my new address please she's been asking for it through email and i can't reply to her

Oh yeah jessica one of our investigators added you on FB, she's 16 and she loves the church!!! she wanted to talk to you... her name is Julianna Huang. ADD HER!!!!!!

So yeah I hope everyone out in PA is doing well. To answer your questions mom, yes I can open letters on non-pdays ...as long as it's after 9:30 and after planning. I'll send some pictures here next week. I'm developing some next week so maybe you'll get some physical pictures in the mail next week.

I love you all, I expect Inbox (7) again next week too! :) Hope you guys all are doing well.

LOVE YOU!!!

Love, 爱

单长老，（dont try to translate my name... it doesn't work like that)

你的最喜欢的传教士 (you can try translating this though.

First Letter in the Field Week 13 (11/05)

Hey so P-day is Monday now, eh? Yes it is. So this week has been pretty tiring. I am assigned to the Mission Peak ward in Fremont, CA. My companion and trainer is Elder Irvine and he's a really good guy. My ward in English but there's like 40% chinese people in the ward so it's really cool. This week has been pretty crazy, so we currently have 12 investigators, 6 of which are Chinese speaking. None of them currently have a baptismal date anymore, we have one (Julianna) that had one but she is waiting to be baptised because currently her boyfriend isn't able to the Baptism. Right now i'm at Milpitas Public Library which looks like a small fancy mall, all the whole thing is made out of glass and has it's own 4 story parking garage, the weather here is really nice, it's about 65 in the day about 45-50 at night. We don't have to wear our suitcoats here so it's nice. But anyway i've been here 5 days and it's just been really tiring. My first letter was with a guy named Yang Chen Chen and we taught him about fasting, they met him about 2 months ago through his aunt who is a member of the church and he did not have any belief in God at all, but now he's getting ready to set a baptismal date, he's a really nice guy. Everyone here is pretty rich, it seems like 80% of the people I met are software engineers for various companies around here, supposedly. The ward building I am in holds 2 wards with seperate chapels but was designed for 8 wards (it's huge) about 15 years ago it was made to hold 8 wards but everyone moved out because it was (and still is) too expensive to live here. So yep our building houses the Mission Peak ward and the Milpitas ward. So yes we do have a car, we don't bike because our area covers nearly 1/3rd of the mission here, we have a huge area to cover. We're the only pair of Elders that serve in the Mission Peak ward. There are currently 7 Mandarin elders in our mission, 3 serve in Cupertino, 2 here in Mission peak, and 2 up in Dublin that also serve in the YSA ward there.

The ward i'm serving in takes missionary work super seriously, we have had a lot of success here in the recent months so i'm excited to get started working here, we've honestly seen miracles here already since I arrived 5 days ago. 3 Investigators/inactives came to church yesterday which was super awesome. Oh and guess what? There's a calling in this ward Called "Missionary Dinner Coordinator" we literally have a dinner appointment at a different persons house every night for the next 2 months. Saves money!! I went to WalMart and got my weeks(or more?) worth of food. guess what i found!!!! big red yea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i got a picture of it but i forgot my camera cord to send it to you guys. So let me tell you guys about my investigators so you can get to know what i've been up to lately.

Julianna: She's a 16 year old chinese girl (she doesn't speak a word of Chinese) she's really super rich and she got introduced to the gospel through her boyfriend about 2 months ago, her baptism was set for the 17th but we had to push it back because of her boyfriend. She's a really sweet girl and she loves the gospel so much. She has a lot of friends in the ward so she has been fellowshipped tons already.

Yeng Chen Chen: He's 25 years old and he's currently looking for a job in software/programming. He lives with his Aunt and he's originally from China. He speaks chinese better than english.. his english is so-so but he prefers we try english before we speak chinese. he's reall a very nice guy.

Wang Tong Tong: his dad is a member (inactive) of the church and his son is 17 and is currently on a student visa (hedropped out of school though) he and his father are from Henan, China and right now we aren't really allowed teach the lessons since right now technically he's not supposed to be in the US. So instead we have been teaching him english until he gets a real visa to be here.

Shao Nan: Not sure abot her  bc i haven't had a real lesson with her yet but she's Chinese and I think she speaks english

Nitin: He's from India and he's been investigating the Church off and on for about 2 years now.

Paul: paul isn't an investigator, but we feel like he wants to take the lessons from us, he's actually a foreign exchange student from Germany that is living with a family at the ward. he's ready!!!!!

Gamboa Family: Part member (mom is member) with 4 kids and a dad all the kids are older like 16-22 and they are great... we actually teach them tonight at 8!!!!!

Anyway any questions about the field? For anyone that wants to write me this is my Apartment address here in Fremont.

Elder Nathan Sanchez

46703 Crawford St #14

Fremont, CA 94539

Not sure what else to write... I miss the MTC and all my friends there a ton... but the field is pretty great just been tired all the time.

Anyway love you all send me questions to this email and i'll write back.

我爱你们， 谢谢你们的努力。 下隔离拜见。 你可以问我问题透过这个。

爱

单长老

Last Day in MTC (10/23)

 So this is the last week and last day here at the MTC. Pretty excited to get out of here, and really really excited to get some decent food.

Some things i've learned at the MTC:

Studying efficiently is key.

Teach by needs... with doctrine.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is central to our purpose

Chinese is a hard language.

I really loved the MTC, but at the same time it's time to get out of here I think. 12 weeks is just about enough. I miss you guys and i'll talk to you tomorrow right? I'll be calling around 7 Am my time and 9 AM EST... I'll have about an hour so we'll see. Anissa do you want me to call you as well?

Anyway there really isn't much to write about this week. All the Taiwan and NZ/Aus Elders and Sisters are gone so it's literally just 3 elder left in my district. I'm on Splits right now with newer generation elders Elder Noll and Luke and we're about to go to the temple for a 10 oclock session. That should be nice to end off at the MTC. As for packing i'm pretty much done with all my packing, I just need to pack my carryon and i'm ready to go. Tomorrow should be an interesting day. I leave for the Airport at around 5 AM and then I should be with my president at 9 AM CA time so it's going to be a long day. I have no idea what to expect when I get there, or if i'll be thrown into the field right away or not. We'll see, because the Taiwan elders have a 3 day orientation before they even get into the field, I doubt it's the same here stateside. There's really no culture shock in California.

Anyway I don't think I need anything right now, my black suit is kinda dingy and I don't know why, I just got it dry cleaned last week. I'm wearing my brown suit tomorrow to the airport instead of it.

Any queestions for me at all? Any concerns?

Love,

Elder Sanchez

单长老

PROVO TEMPLE

                                                                           

 DISTRICT 39E

Almost Done! One more P-day! (10/16)

So one more P-day until I'm out of here... been here 10 weeks tomorrow and it's been good but i'm ready to go go go. Oh and by the way mom the 62$ was an ATM withdrawal I needed for my dry cleaning... sorry. I hope you all got my letters. It's been an interesting week to say the least... besides the normal stuff everything has just been winding down and everyone can definitely feel that we are just about done here... 9 more classes to go total and that's it. 15 days for me and 14 and 13 for the rest of them until we're done. I've really gotten to know the 'new generation' a  lot this week and they are some really nice people, we have so many sisters it's almost more than Elders. Everyone really likes talking to me because I'm known as the outgoing and 'able to talk to anyone about anything' Elder so i've made friends with people that I barely have crossed paths with before just from the fact that I say hello and how are you to just about everyone here. I think people appreciate that I'm pretty upbeat and positive, because a lot of people here just don't understand or just don't know how to be that way so that's how I'm known here at the MTC.

The "Senior" Elders

So we did have President Bednar speak this past Tuesday night, it was pretty good and it was just about effectively watching Conference and what we can do to really understand the principles and apply them to our lives when we watch conference, the good thing about this talk is that not only did it apply to me... it applies to my investigators as well, and to just about everyone. The way us missionaries work is We Invite... They commit... We follow up, and this talk was about how from every talk we should gain three things from the talks. 1. Doctrine 2. Invitation and 3. Promised blessings if you follow up to the invite and this really hit me this week that that's all we do, we teach the basic and simple truths of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ in a way so that they understand, and then based on their needs, we invite them to do something that will help them come closer to Christ and then we promise blessings to them that they will receive not CAN, but WILL (hui, not keyi sorry I always think in Chinese on these letters)  and that I have stewardship and the ability to promise blessings to those I teach if they do do the things we invite them to do.

So my mind is pretty Chinese centered now... i'm starting to  thinking in the grammar pattern STPVO in my mind and I even 'accidently' say prayers in Chinese in my head before I eat. So that's good, I'm just excited for the time when I think in Chinese and not just English--->Chinese and translate it that way. I hope that makes sense? Anyway, so I get my travel plans this Thursday or Friday so I get to know when and where I am travelling to get to San Jose (there's a good chance i'll have a layover is somewhere random just to save the church money) so we'll see. I think i'm leaving from here at the MTC at 5:30 AM on Wednesday Oct 31, so I'm hoping I can call all of you before you go to work and what not. I think i'll have around 40 minutes? or so so that will be good.

Elders Gooch, Sanchez and Schleede

So how has everyone been doing this week? Haven't received barely any mail this week besides two letters. Stop sending letters through Dear Elder on Oct 29... Sound good? Marina has been in Canada all week and she gets back Thursday so i'll be looking forward to getting a letter from her. She sent one right before she left to drive up there last Wednesday or something so that was nice.

I'd like a picture of my car if you could find it on Google... if you can send me all the ones on the VWVortex site "flat blue jti" just google that. I know dad was/is planning on sending me something soon so if you could get those out that would be great.

Other than that i've been doing ok here, the days are going just as fast as always and just as tiring but getting through them. I'm losing weight little by little, i've been working out on occasion but since our time has been running quickly here we have all gone and done 'fun' gym activities like basketball and foursquare. Oh and by the way mom there's an elder named Elder Tiu that goes to the same ward building that the Seven Springs Branch is located in there in Cupertino and he told me all about the Chinese missionaries in that mission, there's 6 elders 2 sisters. Most of them serve in the Greater San Jose area and in Cupertino in general. The Seven Springs Branch is no longer a branch as of a week before he came on a mission and is now on "ward" status. So that's exciting. He says that the Chinese Elders don't bike all too much that they mainly use their car so not sure what to think of that yet. San Jose Mission is a non-door to door proselyting mission and he explained what he meant by that. I guess we never knock on doors, we only do street approaches, and that all the investigators that we get are from service projects and street approaches. He told me that they do at least one 1-2 hour service project a day like Tai Chi class or going to old folks homes and playing bingo or just helping local charities and what not with sorting boxes or whatever, there are Chinese people everywhere you go and that's where 80% of the investigators come from. I'm really exciting to go out and do that, at first I was like wait why can't we go door to door? But I understand totally now that this is a more effective method to help others. He said that I'll more than likely be living across the street from DeAnza College and Safeway there in Cupertino, since that elder is just about done with his mission( oh and by the way DeAnza college is like 40% Chinese from Mainland so street approaches there will be pretty interesting.

Anyway so I'll wrap up my email here, I hope everyone is doing well, if you want to talk again like last time I could be on here at 4 PM sharp my time... 6 pm your time. Let me know by like 3 so I can hop on.

Love you all, talk to you soon.

Elder Sanchez

单长老

Week 9 (3 to go?!) (10/09)

Okay so it's October 9th 2012 and here I am in the computer lab writing you guys again in what seems like 2 or 3 short days but actually was 7 days. So 3 weeks left guys!!!! This week has been so great and I think this is the first time in my life I watched all 5 general conference sessions. 10 hours of sitting woohoo! But no seriously it's been fun, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Oh yeah and i've been gone 2 months already?!? It's been going too fast!

So this week has been a pretty normal week, besides conference, but there has been an interesting "miracle" according to my district, there was a story shared last Sunday (Oct 1) about a little 7 year old boy his mother told him he could get any answer from general conference, so this little boy wanted them to talk about "killer bees" so anyway the boy got his wish... President Hinckley at the time mentioned killer bees in his talk about how the media is like a bunch of killer bees... I took that story to heart that we can get any answer from conference that we want so I got all my questions written down that monday (Oct 2) and I shared one of them with my whole district... I really wanted to hear something about Praying Mantis... yes the bug. I knew it was a long shot but we were really hoping for Praying Mantis at conference to be mentioned... but to no avail... we paid attention for those 2 special words... praying...mantis... please!!! just say praying mantis...! But nope... there was none... The last session came and we were so looking forward to the closing prayer to contain praying mantis because we knew that we had faith in these two words... nope... sorry. We were all crushed... so we left the auditorium... we were the first ones out and guess what was walking across the ground direct below my feet? A PRAYING MANTIS... A REAL PRAYING MANTIS... I honestly can't remember the last time i've seen one of these little guys but we could not believe our eyes... I actually have a picture of me with it that I'll have to send sometime next week. Anyway just a fun little story we had from conference this week.

But on a more serious note, I did get a lot of my burning questions answered and I thoroughly enjoyed it this year, I hope all you did as well. I liked Sister Dibbs talk the best from the Women and probably Bednar's talk the best from the mens.

So family I leave in 3 weeks, and don't worry I already bought a phone card. Sorry about all the transactions on my card the other day... I needed more shampoo body wash and a laundry bag plus I was asked to do dry cleaning a few weeks before I leave so I did that.

Oh yeah and Shawna I wrote you back today... sorry i've been busy (include this on the blog for her to read)

So what's wrong with dads hip? I put his name in the prayer roll today and been praying for all of you daily. Hope he is okay.

My chinese is doing much bettel, my grammar is improving and I feel confident that in the field I will be able to thrive with learning the language. My main concern for this week (and yes there's a main concern for every week) was applying the doctrine to their needs. I've been working tirelessly practicing and I think we are actually doing it really well now... it's just a matter of time and patience with all this. I still have 22 months to go to get this language and teaching down. I'm really exciting to get out in the field. I start packing up my stuff this time two weeks from now and make sure everything is in order. I don't really need anything right now, although I would like to have some sheet music... don't worry about that though not much time left here anyway.

I think i'm singing solo "How Great Thou Art" in Sacrament next week with Elder Gummow accompaning me... we'll see not sure yet.

Julee there's an Elder that's going to Houston Mandarin speaking, doubt he'll ever get close to Kingwood but his name is Elder Quigley just in case... as for Granny's request to find Elder Bell... I never found him... you gave me a room number but I wasn't sure what building... there's 20 huge buildings here so I wasn't able to even start finding him, it's just too busy here.

Let's see what else? Any questions for me? I sent a letter to mom dad and jessica on saturday so you'll probably get that sometime this week. look forward to the letter to angel and moroni as well, that's a good one.

Anyway I love you all and since I'm a little bored waiting for Elder Edwards i'll assign family names to everyone's different families... i already did the Telle family..

Sanchez Family　单　Shan Family

Hodges Family　黄   Huang Family

Tate Family　陶 Tang Family

Taylor Family (rachel and matts email address is what?) 遢 Ta family

not sure who else to include... if you want a family name let me know :)))

Anyway love you all, talk to you next week.

Elder Sanchez

单长老

Week 8 (Less than a month left here at the MTC, woohoo) (10/02)

Hey everyone. It's Week 8 at the MTC and we got 13 new elders this past wednesday mandarin speaking and 6 new sisters. So we have a pretty small district right now, but it's been going. Still at a stride of learning this language, my vocab and tones are very good, it's just this grammar that makes my head wanna explode. It's been a headache trying to get this grammar down, it's so backwards and just weird, but I'm doing the best I can to try to learn it. it's been a tough thing. my teachers brother anderson and sister morey have been very good this past week and we're doing really well. it's been almost 2 months here at the MTC and people are starting to feel like it's winding down with less than 4 weeks left (4 weeks seems like a lot, but it'll go by quick for sure) i'm pretty ready to get out of here, I can understand the speakers pretty well, and my vocab is expanding each and every day so it's been really good, I just need to work on SYL'ing more and just work on grammar, my grammar is more english based so i'm trying to weed out bad habits of putting things in the wrong order.

To answers your questions mom:

I did get the flags, yes. we're using them everyday so it's been nice

what percent of mandarin do i understand?

i'd say 40-45% of what they say I can use to my benefit of just using context clues... I can speak pretty well and do the normal missionary things like praying, bearing testimonies, asking questions, and what not. It's been fun going into lessons and just having 40 minute "real" conversations in Mandarin. It's been improving but fluency comes with time and most missionaries that serve mandarin even with past experience say that they don't feel 100% comfortable with saying everything that they want to say until about 8-10 months out into the mission so i'm looking forward to that. I think i'll probably be along those same lines.

I'm not sure exactly when i get my address to my location yet... I get my travel plans including iteninary on Oct 19 so just 2 more weeks and i'll know all the details and all that. I leave around noon on the 31st so I won't be in the field that night because of halloween haha :)

Elder Gummow is a nice guy, he is a good friend of mine here at the MTC, jessica should write him back, and write me back too lol

The food is okay, I haven't eaten much lately, it's generally a hit and miss everyday... the quality differs everytime you go.

I'm not sure how much i weigh, there are no scales here really besides in the gym, and i never go to that gym...

Do I go outside much? Yes... i've been playing soccer this past week every day... no goals yet by me but i'm a good defender

it's pretty cold like 55-60 in the mornings but it's generally warm in the afternoons here still

i'm pretty excited to finish up here, i've made some good friends here but I feel like 9 weeks would be enough haha, guess we'll see how i feel like 4 weeks.

i hope everyone is having a good week out there and keep sending those letters, they make my nights better when i read them before bed. you guys can send pictures to me through this email also, it works just fine so if you wanted to send me some that'd be great.

Have a good week everyone,

Elder Nathan Sanchez

Hey mom. Week 7 (09/25)

How's it been going? How's the new job? What's everyone been up to?

Anyway this week has been pretty good, really nothing too much to complain about here... there's 4 to a room now in the MTC so it's nice having the extra space. I just switched my laundry and all that and I'm gonna wrap it up and get started on writing letters... no one has really been "consistantly" mailing me besides like you anissa and marina...

anyway so whats been up? we have like 5 weeks tomorrow left so it's getting down to less than half left... the older generation told me the last 5 weeks goes by like it's 2 weeks so it's exciting that soon enough I'll be out in the field already.

it's great to hear that your are working hard, i hope not too hard though... get this stage overwith so you can manage people instead of doing it yourself... that's exciting.. whats happening with the presidential race?? anything special? what about crayola how is that doing?

I still have like 15 minutes of time to write emails today so please write back and see if you can get jessica to write me back through this email address too... did you know you can send pictures through this??

 also would like to make sure you are updating my blog... marina said you haven't updated in a few weeks.

also anything special on my facebook? that'd would be nice to know if i got any messages or comments or whatever that would pertain to me.

well anyway elder edwards' laundry is about to finish so we gotta go and get it and bring it back to the room before it gets wrinkled...

love you and talk to you later i hope.

elder sanchez

Week 6 "It's heckin' P-Day Elders... shenme donxi?!" (09/18)

Well today has been a sorta sad day, the older generation left and so it's just the 'new' generation for the next week until next Wednesday. We have 19 new Mandarin speaking Elders and Sisters coming so that'll be cool. I went to the temple for the 6:20 session this morning and once again it's always nice to start of P-day with that. To explain the title of my email, there has been a joke in our district that the weeks fly by so quick so that we can say on Friday... "Hey everyone can you believe tomorrow is p-day?!" and it really does feel like it is just a day away even though it is several days. The "Shenme dongxi" part is like a chinese saying for like "What the heck?" it literally translates to "What stuff?" or "What the things?" and it's pronounced "Shenmah dong-shee" so that has been an often used phrase by everyone from Elders to Sisters to our teachers in the past week so that's been memorable. I got all your guys' package, and I really appreciate them especially the pictures and cereal... Cereal is a life saver on Sundays when the line is out the door before sunday meetings. To answer some of your questions my bishop here isn't a bishop it's a branch president and he is President Baker... he speaks Chinese and all of his counselors except one speaks chinese as well. They are just the ecclesiatical leaders and do not (and aren't supposed to) teach us any Chinese, we have Sacrement meeting in mostly Chinese but the talks are sometimes in English... everything else is in Mandarin. So that's been good. I'm more than halfway done with my time here at the MTC and I'm really looking forward to getting out to the field. My Chinese is levelling off, but still improving daily! My lessons are more fluent and I don't need note helps anymore, we have TRC where we teach volunteers on Saturday mornings but our teachers just started a new "Beta Test" where we teach members over Skype in Taiwan so we did that yesterday night and it was quite comical actually. But it went very well. I enjoyed it thoroughly. So anyway this week has been a good week, and by the way if anyone wants to reply through email I have found that using 20 minutes of my time now and 10 minutes later that I can respond to people that way instead of having to wait for the Dear Elders to come in and just responding next week.

Mom I appreciate the pictures you sent, they have brightened up my bad days and kept me going... I've been really under the weather lately since there is a lot of the cold going around so it's been a longer week than usual but I'm trudging along as best I can so that I don't have to miss any classes. We had a speaker for the Sunday fireside that was the director of Proselyting for the entire church and he showed a clip from the Tony awards of the "Book of Mormon Musicals" opening number and related it to how the church has kinda accepted the press whether good or bad from the show by plastering "I'm a Mormon" ad's all over NYC for the whole 3 months after it debuted in NYC and about how the lead Media directors of the church couldn't sleep for the whole week before that show debuted, and 4 days before it opened, they both called eachother in the middle of the night and rolled out this media blitz within the weeks end before it debuted. Now the show is opening in Vegas, LA, London and guess what? The church has 3 ads within the first 5 pages of the PLAYBILL of the show... amazing stuff really. I love how it ended up. His talk was really wonderful and he talked a lot about how the Book of Mormon helped him through the toughest parts of his life including when his toddler son was killed in a car accident. What a shining testimony of someone that has faced trials in his life and relied on the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine of Christ that lies within it's covers.

Anyway I would like to know what's been up this week, and I would love to hear from everyone sometime this week, especially Jessica and Dad... heck I even got a letter from Blake this week, and not even Jessica responded to my email. So I would like to hear back from that.

Oh yeah and during Sacrement I found out a cool little thing we can do on the way to our respective missions... we are allowed (yes allowed!!!) to call home at the airport... this is a church wide policy for missionaries that when you are travelling to and from your mission you are allowed to call home so I'll be getting ready for that in a few more weeks.

Anyway I'm gonna wrap up this email, and if you have any questions!! anybody at all I can respond to them tonight at 9ish when I have more free time... I still have 15 minutes on the clock, so this will work out nicely. Mom how did the job training go?? Jessica how is school? Dad how is work???

Love you all,

and I changed my chinese name to the one I had in HS... it's now Sen Zhong Lao... not Shan Zhong Lao

Sen means forest... Shan means One or single... I think I like forest better.

Till tonight,

森长老

Sen Zhong Lao

Elder Sanchez

Hey Everyone... Week 4... (can you believe i've been gone a month? (09/11)

Hey everyone, it's week 4 at the MTC and i've been doing great... i'm not district leader anymore!!! so it's been pretty "less busy" in district meetings and stuff and just focusing on the language..

Everything has been really clicking when it comes to the language and to answer everyone's question yes the investigators are fake... but the spirit is real either way... they act like a real investigator would act like and there are little rooms with couches and stuff so it simulates a home pretty well.. both my investigators are progressing really well and just a note the lessons are all in straight up chinese... no english... so it's been challenging but i'm doing very well with elder edwards on them... they both are coming to church on sunday and commit to different things so yeah..

My language is progressing really well so that's been really something. I have gone to the temple every single week since i've been here and I have a little bit of a challenge that I have felt to share with all of you family members of mine... the power of Christ's atonement is real, it really is, now along with this my challenge to all of you is, that if you have a burden of past guilt or anything that you wish you could change about what you have done then just pray pray pray... don't necessarily pray like Enos all night long but pray with a real devotion to changing your past ways and generating new better ones that are more towards Christ's teachings... the repentence process is real and it removes the burdens just like that. We can all be forgiven... well that's my little challenge, i just felt inclined to say that..

Elder Cheng is leaving us next week for the NY-NYC South mission... he already knows Mandarin so it's a shame we are losing our "native speaking urim and thummim" so to say, but he will have a great mission I know it. A week from today the older generation Mandarin missionaries are leaving for the respective areas and we will be alone as a newer generating until the week following until 19 new mandarin speaking missionaries come in, so this is going to be an interesting next couple of weeks...

I really appreciate your emails, Dear Elders, and so on... they keep me on my feet and keep me motivated... keep in mind I can only read emails on Tuesdays and I can read Dear Elders whenever I want... it's same day delivery if you do it before noon... I don't get Dear Elders on Sat or Sun though. Keep them coming and mom see if you can get James, and Kameron and Caleb my email address so they can mail me since they are all busy with college it's a little inconvenient for them to mail me..

Anyway I won't ramble on too much this week... i love you all and I'll bare my testimony in Pinyin (romanized chinese) without the accent marks since i dont know how to do that on these locked down computers...

Wo zhidao Yesu Simi shi shen de xianzhi he touguo Shen de liliang Yesu Simi hui fanyi Mo'ermenjing, he wo zhidao Mo'ermenjing shi Shen de hua. Wo zhidao zhege JiaoHui shi Zhenshi de... Feng Yesu Jidu de Ming... Amen

love you all! talk to you next week... keep the dear elders coming!!!!

Week 3 at MTC (9/4)

                                                       Elders Sanchez and Edwards

                                                            Elder Sanchez Provo Temple

                                                          Elder Sanchez nametag

Yesterday was labor day so i haven't been able to get any mail at all since Friday... how's dad doing? Wish him a happy birthday for me and also let everyone else who has a birthday this week I say Happy Birthday from the MTC.... anyway so this week wasn't bad... my chinese is getting better and my two investigators (Chun Jie Mei... or Sister Chun) and (Wang Di Xiong... or Mr Wong) are doing pretty well... Chun jie Mei is progressing but her husband isn't sure about her learning the gospel... she really likes the message we share and she has prayed vocally with us twice... as for Wan Di Xiong he isn't progressing at all because it's difficult for him to understand our gospel since he comes from a Taoist background... so we're trying to work at him from behind and just really teach him the basics of basic and teach him as if we're teaching a primary child... i have a lesson with Chun Jie Mei tomorrow so wish me luck... we're teaching about prophets and more about the restoration...

can you all let me know how everyone is doing and what you guys have been up to? haven't really heard back from anybody in a few days and would like an update...

The MTC is hitting it's stride and i'm beginning to feel like the weeks are going by really quickly... I felt like I emailed you all yesterday. anyway i started a quartet with Elder Wesemann, the other Elder Wesemann and Elder Gummow and we're maybe going to be singing at one of the devotionals hopefully in a few weeks (We're gonna sing acapella 'Brightly Beams, Our Fathers Mercy' it's in the hymn book page 335) so anyway what has everyone been up to...? would like an update on mom dad jessica anissa donald bethany connor granny julee and everyone else that might be in PA that I would be interested in hearing about... The older generating mandarin speaking missionaries leave this sept 18 and we get new missionaries (19 new mandarin) on sept 26... exciting stuff that we won't be the newbies anymore... 58 more days here in the MTC, we have a calandar in the room and we X off every day until oct 30/31...

As for this week I'll break it down for you so you can get a feel for what i've been up to...

Wednesday we had a pretty good day and I learned a lot of Chinese (but that's every day...) wednesdays are always rough because we have to be in the classroom all stinkin' day... it's really hot and cramped but it's okay. i've been working on Rowing a lot in the gym and i really like it a lot... been using the rowing machine i think i might want to join a rowing team in whatever university i'm in when i get home hopefully they have one

thursday is always a good day, we have been focusing on the investigator so much more and it makes studying a lot easier because you have focused topics to study. i have this little 3  inch keyring that I keep these flashcards on for vocab but i found that carrying around 300-400 vocab words are ineffective and it's just a plain waste of my time so i've just been getting 20 vocab words a day and memorizing them by the end of the day and that's really helpful... planning is the most important thing in missionary life and planning the night before is key because if you don't have a plan you won't be motivated or accountable to do anything so my goals the past week have generally been: "Study 1 grammar principal" 'memorize 20 vocab words" "4 new phrases" "Speak you language" and 'bear your testimony at least twice a day" so i feel like i'm starting to hit my study stride and really being effective, there are just times i need to focus more, but it's difficult when it gets monotonous in the classroom.

friday is always interesting... friday was a bad day for our district and i'm not sure why, i think everyone woke up on the wrong side of the bed and you felt it... the spirit was absent for most of the day and focusing was the least of peoples worries and our inspired and wonderful teacher Sister morey clued in on that and instead of doing coaching missionary study for the third hour we did a testimony meeting and it helped immensely... i'm still not sure why friday was such a bad day but she really did make it a lot better with her advice.

Saturday we taught Wan Di Xiong and it went well as far as the chinese and me and my companion felt the spirit but he just isn't progressing at all...

Sunday and it's also my last sunday as district leader hooray (as much as like being district leader... the 3 hours of extra meetings are a lot) as you guys may or may not know the district leaders here are only leaders for 3 weeks at a time so this week is my last week. can you believe i've been gone almost a month know this sunday? weird stuff eh?? for our sunday fireside we watched Pres monsons 85th birthday broadcast WOW so much culture for a missionary... it was pretty weird hearing real music again

monday funday but not really.. yesterday was pretty decent and i got some rowing in in the morning and we learned more chinese grammar principals. i didn't teach at all yesterday due to some conflicting plans the teacher had so I teach tomorrow...

now today we all woke up at 5:30 to get to the 6:20 endowment session at the temple and it went very well... wasn't too packed and we got done by 8:30... we even had FRESH FOOD at the cafeteria there!!!!!!!!!! 5 dollars WELL SPENT on a fresh belgian waffle and a fresh ham and cheese omelet,.... this mtc food is killing me!!!!!!!!!!! if you could send me a care package with wegmans snacks that would be great ;))) 

send any questions through dearelder.com... the more letters i get the more productive i am in chinese... just a thought

love you all and hope you guys have a good week... did you guys go to that carlos bake shop in hoboken?? any good??? i had a gyro the other day for lunch and it was way good for mtc food anyway seeya later everyone

LOVE ELDER SANCHEZ