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