Photos Elder Sanchez and Elder Giles (American Sign Language)

Looks like they were having fun.

每周信函2013年3月25日

Hey! This week has been crazy. Pretty crazy.

So we have 3 new bapismal dates, which puts us at 9 baptismal dates total. Our  new investigator Bao Ping, and his wife Selena, and also their daughter, we taught them the first lesson (actually, I taught them,pretty scary, because I was on exchanges with an English-speaking elder) and invited them to be baptized, before I even ended the sentence. 你愿意效法耶稣基督的榜样让持有圣旨权柄得人为你洗礼吗？ Don't try to translate that, but that's the invitation to baptism. I asked them to be baptized on May 11th, and they said, no. The reason they said no was because it was "too far away" and so they said they wanted to be baptized April 27th. They really want to learn and are willing to commit, it's really quite amazing. They wanted to meet more than once a week, so I suggested twice a week would be suitable to prepare them for the 27th of April, and they said no, 4 times a week. Well... we can't do 4 times a week, too much. But we are willing to for twice a week.

In other news, the "G"' family are moving along pretty well I guess, some of them won't be able to be baptized April 13, they haven't come to church some of them, so we are working closely with them making sure that they are going to be ready on that day.

We were supposed to go to the temple yesterday with Sophie and her family, but she got unfortunate news saturday night from Taiwan that her grandmother was dying, so she went to Sacrament meeting (seriously) and then went to the airport for a flight at 2 PM. What faith she has! It's amazing. She will be back in 2 weeks time, and then at that time we will continue to work with her.

So I'm pretty much not getting transferred at all this transfer, probably next transfer I will be transferred up to the Dublin branch in the pleasanton area with Elder Fisher. Sounds good to me.

So yes, pray for all of our investigators, we need the help, and we need the prayers. 9 is a pretty large load for a pair of missionaries.

Love you all,

Have a good week,

Elder Sanchez

每周信函2013年3月18日

So it's been a pretty good week, it's been productive, but not much happened.

We had some good lessons with our investigators, including Brenda, Darian, and Sophie. Everyone is on track for their baptismal dates, including Sophie. We weren't able to go to the tmple this week due to her husband had to go work, but we are going this next Saturday (probably Sunday) after Elder Holland comes.

So yes, this email is going to be short because

1. There's not much to talk about today!

2. We are allowed to email friends now, as per a new policy put out church wide for missionaries.

One thing I can talk about is our great new investigators, Mao Bao and his wife Selina, they are both from China, and Mao Bao used to investigate the church, but he dropped the missionaries because he had a ton of things going on. But we had two lessons with him this week, and in the second lesson he got pretty nervous because his wife got home, and he didn't just want to have her walk in, but she met us and she really was amazed, she really liked everything we had. So we invited her and their family to take the lessons and so they did. We didn't invite them to church, but they came, all of them, including their 10 year old daughter. Pretty cool experience. We'll see him with Bro Li on Thursday.

 Pray for everyone, especially Sophie.

Thanks for all that you guys do, including your prayers.

Love,

Elder Sanchez

单嘉诚

每周信函2013年3​月11日

ANOTHER WEEK! Woohoo. This has been an incredibly good week.

So we set another Baptismal date with Sophie and are putting all the prayers and faith in it as we possibly can. The date is March 30th and we are going up to the Oakland Temple with her and her whole family this Saturday, and we hope that that will help her husband realize that we are a good church, not a bad one! He is making small steps but we really do think that this will be it for her! Pray for her please and her husband as well.

We are also doing well with the G Family, Ryan is not progressing very well, he keeps cancelling our appointments, but the rest of them are following through, including Brenda who is actually calling us to set appointments with us. Her boyfriend broke up with her this week, so we probably won't be teaching him anymore, we'll probably refer him to the missionaries in the area in which he actually lives in, so yes, the Gamboa's are doing very well.

So I keep forgetting to tell you guys, but since it's 2 weeks away, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland is coming to our mission to speak to the missionaries directly, so i've been trying to prepare myself for a few lashings from him verbally, I guess that's expected with anytime he speaks though, but this will be a lot more direct than what it usually is in General Conference, my companion is playing the Organ for the meeting so i'll sit really close to him on the stand, which will be cool.

We went biking in Milpitas today, if you want to check out the road we did it was from

49515 Green Valley Rd Fremont CA

TO

 2272 Piedmont Rd, San Jose, CA 95132

Cool bike ride!

Thanks for everything that you guys have been doing, all I would like you to do it pray for our dates, especially Sophie and her husband.

Love, 

Elder Sanchez

每周信函2013年3月4日

Hey everyone. Another week, some more missionary related stress induced by spouses not letting their wives getting baptised.

So yes, Sophie won't be baptized on the 9th. Which is incredibly sad, but we think that we should give her and her husband a few more weeks to think it over a little more then I think she will by the end of the month. I'm not even sure how to put it in words, but I have never loved someone outside of my family as much as I do which Sophie and her family. I constantly worry about them day in and day out and i'm not sure if it's a blessing or a burden.

We got the news of her not being able to be baptized on Friday when we had exchanges (Elder Butcher was down in SJ doing some leadership training) and I got the phone call from Sister Plumber (her neighbor; member) that her husband was like not sure if she should be baptized, I was pretty heartbroken all of Friday night. She came to our ward on Sunday (instead of the Milpitas ward) so she could try out the Chinese translation and she really enjoyed it. I was able to try it out as well so she didn't feel like she was the only one haha.

She was able to to come to the full Chinese gospel doctrine class, and she enjoyed it as well but she was whispering back and forth with Sis. Lau (I think about her husband not allowing her to be baptized right now) and she came up to us afterwards, and asked us if we could meet with her (because she thought we didn't know about her situation with Dominick her husband) and Sister Plumber met with us out in the hall outside of the GD class, and she told us about her husband is not really wanting her because he feels like it was too quick. So yes, Sister Plumber was really trying to comfort her, and she was asking, well why do YOU want to be baptized, why is this important to you? Why don't you share that with Dominick? She started crying and explaining that this belief in God and this spirit that she has felt is why she wants baptisms, and that she wants her family to be together forever.  If that isn't 'real intent' I really don't know what is.

She asked us if there would be a time we could come by for dinner so that Dominick could get more acquainted with us. We let her know that we didn't have a dinner that night because the Hansen's cancelled, they cancelled because they couldn't fight off a cold. I'm convinced God keeps people sick to bring forth his righteous purposes.

So yes, we went to dinner at Sophie's house, and let me tell you it was the best dinner appointment of my mission. We were there for almost 2 hours (not disobediently, I promise) we really got to know Dominick really well, it was a truly inspired time to be with them. We shared a message about faith and why we need it, and the spirit was so strong, I think Dominick really pondered what we shared. I love their family so so much.

This week was a very successful week besides that. We have 4 new baptismal dates (seriously) 

Darien G. - April 13

Brandon G. - April 13

Brenda G.  - April 13

Jacob W. - April 13

The famous G. family. Ryan will be baptised March 23rd I think still but the rest of his family agreed to baptism! Brenda's boyfriend also agreed to it. We have been meeting with them individually all of them (Except Brenda and Jacob together.) So it was really amazing. They all are ready to make this commitment, and we are helping them every step of the way.

Also I got two packages this week, Thank you Granny and Papa for the package! I needed red ties! I wore one every day this past week, and Michael thank you for the cologne, seriously! Been wanting it for so long!

I was able to buy a new watch today with some of the money I got from my tax refund, I was really excited to go and look at watches, and I found this clearance sale at a jewelry store in the Great mall and they had this 500$ Bulova watch for 100 dollars so I just bought that today, I was really happy, because it is such a gorgeous watch, Dad would really like it alot, because it's one of those really light weight ones.

i would like to ask for EVERYONE's support for Sophie, and her husband, pray that her husbands heart will soften so that she may be able to baptized!

I love you all, and I hope you have a good week.

Elder Sanchez