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