Weekly Letter (01/28)

Hey everyone, another week has gone by and it's been a good one, we have 3 new investigators! woohoo!

So to tell you about the three investigators

Darren: Referral from LDS.org... tried to contact him a lot but he wouldn't answer the door, we finally got him to answer and he said "Finally, I've been waiting 3 weeks!" and so we meet with him on Feb 1... he's chinese so it's great

Clark: He's from China, and a less active members nephew, just barely moved like 3 weeks ago and we went to the members home and asked her if we could practice our chinese like we do every week and she said of course... except she said kinda sneaky "Let me get my nephew he just moved from china so he's a clean slate you can teach the first lesson" so we taught him the first lesson and his concept of God is non-existant, so he couldn't fathom a God let alone the restoration, so we'll give him time for sure.

Sophie: This story was a miracle I think, it was just crazy really. We met Sophie walking down the sidewalk near Lion Market in Milpitas and we contacted her and she was like "Hey I know you guys" and we were asking her questions  and all that and she mentioned that her next door neighbor is a member of the church and how they are really close friends and she mentioned her name, and so we asked her if she wanted to be taught and she said of course and so we got her number and immediately after we got done contacting there we called the sister that knows her in the Milpitas ward and asked her about her and she was like "Where did you contact her?" and we told her the Lion market, and then she was like hmm okay... we I just gave her a book of mormon 3 days ago and said that she could find the chinese elders in the milpitas library sending emails to look for us... haha so we were really like wow... then we went to the milpitas library directly after and she was there too! we had just saw Sophie an hour ago in a totally different location! so crazy!

Ryan is not moving forward well at all, it's really hard to get him to move forward with marriage and it's just a big hurdle

Also this week Yang Chen Chen gave me a full Chinese name... My name is Shan Jia Cheng... 單嘉誠. Jia Cheng is a pretty famous guy in Hong Kong so it works out well.

Also today we hiked Mission Peak just a few minutes from our apt with Brother Hu (I LOVE BRO HU!!!) and Elders Giles and Horlacher. It was tough, it's a pretty steep hike.

 

Other than that this week has been pretty busy as usual.

Love you all.

Elder Sanchez

單嘉誠

Weekly Letter (01/22)

ey Everyone. It's another week gone by. How is everyone doing?

Thank you for the many letters and everything else. I appreciated the card, especially since this weekend I was pretty sick.

 So this weeks highlight was the baptism of Yang Chen Chen, he was baptised on Saturday morning and confirmed on Sunday! It was a great experience. He is really doing well, we had a lesson with him last night with Nancy at her home (his aunt)

So yes, this week has been interesting as far as our investigators go, our investigator David is doing okay, we are having a lot of trouble with him, we often go on tangents and it's hard to bring it back in, it's just a difficult situation, so this Friday we are going to go on exchanges with the zone leaders and have one of them there with me in a lesson to see where we need to go from here, because it's just hard. We've had 3 lessons with him thus far. So pray for him please.

Also, the Gamboa's... it's just small small steps with them, it's just hard but they are progressing slowly. We visited them last night and it went really well, we were supposed to come over for dinner, but Sis. Gamboa wasn't there but we were fed anyway and then afterwards we had a lesson with them reading from 1 Ne 5 and watched a video with them from mormon.org. It was really good, I bore my testimony and expressed how I loved their family and Bro. Gamboa blurted out "Well, we love you too" so that really made my week.

Other than that it's been a good week, i've just been sick off an on since last week. I was dizzy after Yang Chen Chen's baptism so I had to get some rest, I asked the mission doctor what to do and she just said to rest some. Later that day I got a letter from you guys to get well soon so thank you.

Also thanks for the salsas and the letters dad, almost 1/2 way done with the first bottle. yum

How is everyone else doing? What's been going on? I appreciate the letters from you dad, it's just about the only letters I get still. I haven't gotten any from anyone else really, Taiwan takes too long.

Love you all,

Elder Sanchez

Weekly Letter (01/14)

So this week has gone by pretty quick, I'm not even sure where to start...

So my companion is not getting transferred, he's been in Fremont for 6 months, so this transfer will be 5 weeks long instead of 6 since the MTC transfer scheduled changed one week, so we need to cut off one week in order to accommadate.

Also this week has been pretty busy, we haven't had much success is finding or contact this week, but we did get 2 new investigators... one is good and one not so good.

the first is Brandon Gamboa... (remove the last name for the blog)... he is the youngest son at 17 and he seemed to be very interested, and now he is reading the book of mormon, which is great. he is progressing pretty well and we are going to ask him if he wants to take the missionary lessons next time we see him..

the second is David P... we met him through the homeless shelter we volunteer at... we had set up a lesson and we were excited to have a lesson with him because he seemed to know the church very well, we got into the lesson and he was so strong in speaking we barely said 10 words in the hour that he literally talked at us... seriously gave us his life story for the first 40 minutes and the last 20 minutes got into how he doesn't believe faith and how he is a duality of man... how he thinks on two different paths in life... believe in god and not believing god... at the same time. I didn't feel the spirit at all the whole time... we meet with him tomorrow and I'm pretty scared because I don't want to have to sit through another hour of spiritually draining and false doctrines, but we'll see.

We are moving forward with Ryan G.... his baptismal date was the 27th of January but we moved it to the 23rd of Feb, because he does need to get married before he gets baptized. So we're moving forward with that. We went by their house tonight and he was the only person there, so we had a little lesson with him and see how he has been doing and it was a pretty good lesson. He's definitely getting there we just want him to be prepared for his baptism on that date and I think that was a better date for him so that he doesn't feel so stressed out about it and all that since he does need to prep for a wedding and propose to his girlfriend and everything.

 We have a few more potential investigators we want to move forward with it's just a matter of meeting with them. Also tomorrow is my 5 month mark.

Pray for me to feel better, been a little sickly, not as much as everyone else but I feel as if I may be getting a cold.

Also, just as a side note, it's been weird but before last week I didn't see a single PA license plate, but in the past week I have seen 6... is there some sorta PA festival here in Fremont?

Love you guys, keep it going

Elder Sanchez

Weekly Correspondence (01/07)

So this week has been interesting! It's been a busy week again, another 30 lessons we have had a few lessons with investigators this week, definitely the highlight was going up to the Oakland temple, but i'll write more about that later in the email :)

First of all, both of our recently converted investigators are doing very well, we haven't been able to seen Julianna in like a week, but that's because she went to Florida (she said she was going to try finding Jessica, but turns out Jessica left the day before her) so she just got back last night, and we have an appointment with her on Thursday, she went to the Temple in FL with her family even though the aren't members so that's really great.

David is also doing very well, I was on exchanges this past Saturday with Elder Hays and we were in my area, so we had a lesson with him Saturday talking about the basic structure of the Aaronic and Melchizedek preisthoods and he's excited to get the Aaronic priesthood.

So how is everyone else doing? How's life for everyone?  I hear everyone is sick, everyone here is sick too.

So I was talking to one of our favorite members (I won't say who) but he lives in a very small house with 3 kids, probably around the size of the Townhomes near us in Easton, and he said Fremont is one of the most expensive places in the US to live, his small home was about 850$... I was like wow no way compared to some of the other members homes which are like 5 times bigger than his. His house is 1800 sq ft... so 850k for 1800 sq ft... do the math i guess?

No new investigators this week, it's been a dry-spell, but we have 4 potentials that are promising and we're hoping for the best with all of them. Only 1 is Chinese. It's amazing how much Chinese I can speak, I was able to translate decent translations on Saturday when I was on exchanges with Elder Hays. I'm rather proficient, but never settle, even when you feel like you can converse with Chinese!!

Brother Hu and his family fed us twice in two days! BROTHER HU IS THE MAN!!! I'll have to get him to take a picture with me, he really is one of our best "ward missionaries" he is in the bishopric, and his wife is white but he moved from China when he was 18 and went to BYU and got converted there haha. He is hilarious.

So my companion and I have been singing/guitar this song Brightly Beams and we have to give back the members guitar soon so we also went out today to try to buy a "campfire" guitar for under 100$ so we'll see how that goes.

Help pray for more investigators, our teaching pool is shrinking slightly so we really need some more.

So i've been rambling, but I will tell you about the Gamboa's taking us to the Temple Visitors Center. We were super late leaving (almost 7 oclock and it's a 45 min drive there) and we were nervous we wouldn't have much time at all, but we got there and the Sister missionaries there took over (one of the Sister's looked exactly like Marina almost, it was crazy) and they were so inspired, everything they taught and testified about was exactly what they needed to hear. Brenda came with her boyfriend and she really loves the church, she just "doesn't have time to commit right now, but in the future for sure" but she saw the pictures of inside of the temple she said "I really need to get married in the temple" and the sister missionaries were like O.O wow and it was a good moment. I asked Bro Gamboa and we were walking back to the car what he thought and he said "I felt a peace I haven't felt before, I like it" and I told him that that was the spirit telling him that this is true. and he said "I think so too" We're excited because we see them again tonight.

The work is tough, but the work is great! I hope everyone is doing well, my companion may be getting transferred next week, so we'll see I might be with a new companion this time next week.

Love you all, get well soon!

Elder Sanchez

Happy New Year everyone! (12/31)

Hey everyone! It was good to talk to everyone last Tuesday! This week has been long since we had 33 lessons this week, it's been super busy!

So Mission Peak ward is more than likely getting another pair of missionaries and they will probably be Sisters... so we'll see! Probably not this transfer but next transfer. My companion thinks he may be getting transferred which is the week of Jan 6, so if he does then I will be taking over this area with another missionary. I know all the Mandarin missionaries and all of them are really good guys so we'll have to see about that.

I got a message from President saying the spanish materials are just to "brush up on your spanish" for contacting. No word on spanish areas at all but we'll see later on down the road. You never know! They put Mandarin speakers in the English program for a bit every once in a while they say.

So we had 33 lessons this weeks, like I said, so that's crazy considering we're suppose to only get 20, we had some amazing experiences with less active members this week!

Experience 1: We had a lesson with a guy named Frank S. he was in the bishopric for years and him and his wife left the church out of nowhere. We have been visiting him about bi-weekly since I got here and we've have had 4 lessons with him to date, he is a really nice guy, but he was offended by people at church (something about hypocrisy within the church) but this lesson was special, he really has softened up a lot and really opened up to us. We shared a message about New Years and how we can move on from our past and having a brighter future, and he shared with us a personal experience and then we ended and asked him who he would like to say the prayer. He said "Well, I should do it then" and he said a wonderful prayer! He asked to bless all the missionaries of the chuch and to watch over them and also to watch over all the members of the Mission Peak ward! It was great!

Experience 2: We have a member in the ward that is an outstanding missionary, she's a single sister in her 30's and she is a school teacher, her name is Aparna. She gives away DVD's and pass along cards like nothing all the time! So she is a very faithful visiting teacher and one of the families that she visit teaches is on our "Do no visit" list because they were hostile towards missionaries before, but Aparna had a visiting teaching lesson with her family and told them "Well the missionaries in our ward now are very nice, and they sing Christmas carols on the guitar, would you want next time I come and visit to see if they would like to come along?" and she said Yes of course. So we went and we found out that her husband Bro Evans is from the same town in Utah (Riverton) and they really connected. My companion plays the guitar and sings very well so he sang "O Holy Night" and she started crying, and we sang both of us an arrangement we whipped up for them of "Brightly Beams, Our Fathers' Mercy" and they loved it, we didn't teach them, we didn't invite them to church, but we felt the spirit, and at the end of our visit she asked that we come back again soon.

Both very good experiences, this mission really focuses on "The Rescue" and helping those people who have already made those convenants with Heavenly Father to come back into his fold once again. So we are asked to visit less actives a lot.

This week really has been a great one, I had to great opportunity to baptize David G. and it was great, David is a combat veteran of the Army, and served in Desert Storm, he has a lot of depression and has PTSD, is on a lot of medications, but when we introduced him to the gospel, he was readily accepting, he even quit smoking! He was well prepared by our Heavenly Father for sure. His countenance has changed from sad to completely happy in the span of one month and now he is a member of Christ's true church, and he couldn't be happier. 

On a sadder note, our investigator Paul moved the San Ramon (in another mission; Oakland Mission) so we can't teach him anymore! :(

I've been in the field for 2 months today, and I never want to leave! I hope I am here for the rest of my mission!

I miss you guys a lot, talking to you all was great!

Love you all,

Elder Sanchez