每周信函2013年5​月28日

This week was a good week, we made tons of progress with an investigator, but 3/7 days were spent at home! :(

Yes so most of the week was spent at home sick, I got some sort of food poisoning and I am still feeling slight affects from it. So i'm not sure what exactly it was but it's been bad.

Our Investigator Helena, has been doing well, she is progressing a slowly but surely. She went to the temple Saturday while I was home sick with Elder Anderson and Porter.

That's the bulk of the week, not any new investigators quite yet, but we have meetings with potentials this week. So that's be good.

Hope I feel a little better soon.

Thanks everyone,

Elder Sanchez

p.s. walmart likes selling bigred for under a dollar per 2 liter ;)

每周信函2013年5​月20日

Cupertino! I'm here. My new address is:

100 Buckingham Dr #249

Santa Clara, CA 95051

We live right next to a SAS Shoes, I thought of Dad when we pulled up for the first time.

So my new companion is Elder Anderson, he's from Farmington UT. He's been out 14 months, and he's a great companion, we get along really well.

We have a few investigators here, I think he most promising is Helena (from GuanDong) and James and Elva.

Helena is an exchange student staying with members that meets with us weekly. She at first just wanted to learn about religion for the sake of it, but now she is praying by herself and reading from the book of mormon without us asking. She is 19 and studying at DeAnza college across the street from our church. Very very promising.

James and Elva are a couple from north of Beijing in their early thirties, brand new daughter born a month ago, they investigated the church last year but they were determined not the be ready to be baptized by a senior couple and they dropped off the missionary radar, but they kept coming to church every week for the past year+ so we had dinner with them last night with another member and invited them to be baptized again and Elva wants to but James said they aren't ready because he can't afford tithing right now, so he said in 2 months he wants to meet with us. They want it, but they aren't willing to stick with tithing. Very common for chinese people.

There are a lot of other investigators that are progressing well, I just haven't met them yet. Will write more next week about them!

So also in other news Fremont is doing well, I hear about the investigators up there a lot. The Mao's keep asking Elder Butcher when I am available to have dinner so they can come down to Cupertino, so that makes me happy to hear that. Sophie asked me when in the next month or so her and her family can come down and do the same. That made me glad. It's only a 20-30 minute drive!

Chapter 2 here we go.

Love,

Elder Sanchez

每周信函2013年5​月13日

so this week has been crazy.

1. The G's did not get baptized, they got scared and felt not ready, so president is going to meet with them this week.

2. I got to call home yesterday, that was great, and I was glad to hear from everyone and talk for a little while.

 and finally

3. I'm being transferred to Cupertino! I am super sad to leave Fremont, but i've been here for 7 months, so it's time to enter into the second chapter of my mission.

This week has been a great week, we thought Elder Butcher was getting transferred all week, and so he got pictures of everyone and things, and then on Saturday night, I got the call instead. He will be up here being Zone Leaders with Elder Woodbrey, and Elder Anderson and I down in cupertino.

We visited around 8 people yesterday and we have around 4-5 people tonight we want to visit, I am saying bye to Julianna, Aparna, Bennetts, Sophie and the Mao's. The latter two are going to be especially difficult for me. I don't know what i'm going to do, but I will miss them dearly. I think i might write Emily every few weeks snail mail... mail back and forth from san jose literally takes 1-2 days so it will be cool haha

So yes, chapter 1 is over, I am more than 1/3rd way through my mission.

I hope everyone has a good week, we'll see how this transition goes.

每周信函2013年4​月29日 M Family Baptism!!

Hello everyone! Saturday the M

s all got baptized. I got Emily a quad with her name on it (I love my little sister) and President told me in interviews i'm not getting transferred until August at the earliest. WOOHOO. It's been a good week (I really don't want to be transferred, President told Elder Butcher he's getting transferred into the English program) so this should be interesting. Also Sophie asked me to baptize her so that was really awesome too.

So first of all! The Mao's baptism. I don't even know where to start. It was the best baptism ever, Sister Watkins was able to make it and everyone there felt the spirit sooo strong. Elder Giles said "it was the best baptism i've had the pleasure of existing at" It really was so great. I had the wonderful opportunity of baptizing Brother M, Sister M and Emily into this great church. We really do love them a lot.

We set it up and a lot of people came, Brother Mao first... he was fairly easy. No problems at all! Then Sister Bai, she has back problems, but she came up and like took a look at herself and took a moment (probably around 30 seconds) to just stand in the water and feel how she was feeling. It was a powerful moment for her i'm sure. Finally Emily haha. She just said thank you afterwards. It was a great moment for her as well.

They all were so happy to be baptized, I ordered Emily a burgundy quad with her name "Emily Mao" embossed in gold, put a picture of all of us at the Oakland Temple and my testimony in it too, I told her that I officially adopted her as a sister. You all will meet the Mao family one day, they are so great!

The next day in church we had a lot of investigators there. Darian and Brandon G, and Sophie, and of course the newly baptized Maos. Elder Butcher originally was going to confirm all three in the family but 1. He knew it was going to be a lot and 2. Emily wanted me to confirm her I think so I had that opportunity! It was great. After the confirmation I sat next to Sophie because she was sitting all by herself. It's good just to talk to her, she always has a lot of questions coming from what people say in their talks and things in Sacrament meeting.

This week has been busy, but we're doing well. We have two new investigators that I have known since i've gotten here but really haven't pursued since the mom isn't interested. The Mom is a famous Bay area reporter for the most popular Chinese news channel here. Her parents are Members in Toronto, Canada, but she isn't. Her 12 year old daughter is a member and was baptized when she was 10. So anyway, this lady (we'll call her Jiayu) Jiayu has a cute little daughter Gemma (and they all go to church every week) that wants to be baptized, so anyway since her mom isn't a member, we teach her, so we teach her every week on Tuesday. So this should be interesting because we want to invite the mom to be baptized as well, she's just afraid to because of her job, that she can't change at all... so we're not sure.

I think that's about it from this week, Ryan and Brenda are uneligible for baptism right now, so we're moving forward with Brandon and Darian this next Sunday we think. We'll see what happens.

Sophie is May 11th at 10 AM. She's pretty anxious, she said she feels like a 'weird member' because she comes every week, participates every week, but isn't actually a member. So she's happy that this is finally happening for her.

Here are the pictures from the M's baptism:

Before getting in white:

After getting in white!:

 

Love you all,

Have a great week.

每周信函2013年4月22日

Hey everyone, this week blew my mind but every week does anyway, and this transfer is more than half over, that means I may or may not be transferred on May 14. Soon enough though I will be.

So we have 2 new almost baptismal dates. We met them through a member, his name is Bro Dozier and he is an RM that lives in our ward boundries but for some reason goes to the branch in Cupertino, he married a chinese girl (member of course) and they just had a brand new baby, so her parents are in town from China, they asked us to teach them the lessons, and they accepted baptism, we asked them when they wanted and they are still deciding (they are leaving back for China on May 9th...) so we think they can and will be baptized on May 4th... we had 3 lessons with them in the past week and a half and so we think they can be ready by May 4th... they've been to church every week since they've come from China. So it's cool. They're names are Lan 弟兄 and Cheng 姐妹。 We're excited for them.

The M Family is doing well. They had another issue come up, but their other issue is pretty personal, and President has to interview them now because of it, but that's okay, he said that 99% they will still be baptized, we set up their baptism this past Friday, and went to the Temple on Saturday with them too. On Friday night we set up their program and who will do what etc etc so that was great. I felt pretty bad but we asked them who they wanted to be baptized by, and they all said... me. I felt bad for Elder Butcher that none of them picked him to baptize them. So I have the oppurtunity to baptize the three of them this Saturday at 4 PM.

As for Emily, she likes the name, so she pretty much picked it now. One of the members is going to pick up a gift I'm getting for her baptism this saturday. A set of scriptures... with the name embossed of course. Yesterday she told me a joke... I asked her "Did you pick your name yet? Emily, right...?" and she responded "Emmmm... i'm not sure yet :("  and later on in the lesson she told me "Do you want to hear a joke?" and she went on to say "Why do you think I hate the name Emily?" and I asked her "Why do you?" so she responded "I don't... I love that name" hahaha. Added note: Her english is pretty much perfect for a little girl that moved from china 5 years ago.

The Gb's... tsk tsk tsk. We don't think they are going to be baptized anytime soon, except Darian, and maybe... maybe ryan. Darian has been coming to church nonstop for like a months now. So it's been really nice. He's ready for baptism for sure.

Sophie is being baptized May 11th now. She has stuff on May 4th with her kids. 他说了， 诶！ 单长老， 对不起我可以在五月十一好受洗吗？ 然后我说了， 当然可以！ So I naturally said of course. So yes, that's my last Saturday in Fremont... IF I get transferred. Elder Irvine told us that president told him something over the phone that he can't tell us yet until transfers... I think he might be put into English program the rest of his mission..... not sure.

I wish I had some pictures to send this week, but next I will definitely have some for you. I miss the Mamily, and Emily really is like a little sister for me.

Love you all, hope you have a great week.