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