每周信函2013年9​月23日

Hey everyone!

Another week, another miracle!

So this week was pretty good! We met our standards of excellence on almost every front. 20 lessons, plenty of contacts (275) and all sorts of other great things are happening.

A miracle we saw this week was finding 3 new investigators, we as a zone are doing this thing to find 3 new investigators every week so we got to Friday night without finding any at all. We had a list of names that the missionaries ran into 6 years ago in 2006-2007 of people they just tracted into and so we got this list of peoples names in Cupertino, prayed over them, and just knew who just right away, a lady named Nancy. That's really all it said, Nancy, a phone number, and an address. We drove to the address, arrived there, and knocked on the door, and in Chinese they both said "Church elders! Great!" and let us in. We sat down and started to talk to them, they are from Qingdao (Tsingtao, if you know your beers, the most popular Chinese beer in the US) which is in north China on the bay of East China Sea. They are technically northerners by birth, but their Geographical location is pretty middle of China. Anyway, we sat and talked for a good while. We asked them if they wanted to learn about the gospel, and then the foreign exchange student from China that they are hosting came out and listened too. They are were willing to meet and have lessons with us. We set a return appointment. We had been visiting these people for weeks on this name list from 2006, and hadn't had any luck.

Helena is BACK! Finally. She came back Friday, and 2 hours after she got off the plane she said she wanted to meet with us. We met with her and her host family the Hessel's and talked about her mom, her mom is still super against the church, and gave Helena a literal ultimatum. You tell the Mormon church you will not join them by tonight or I can say "goodbye forever" so Helena was really nervous about this and said her mom is just being ridiculous. Anyway she sent her mom a long email with her response. It's all in Chinese but it was pretty amazing. It was like "I want to join the church because it is true, I feel more happiness in this church..." and just kept bearing her testimony. It was really spiritual for me hearing it, I can't imagine how she is feeling.

She showed an increase of love after this "reproving" in a way, she told her the church helped her to understand that love is forever, and that's the path she wants, not temporary, but eternal.

Her mom was still upset, and still said "Y-B"  which in text slang is "永别" which means goodbye forever.  

Helena isn't really upset, she knows her mom is just overreacting, and being pretty ridiculous. Her mom said she might as well have killed her, because that's how she feels. She will come around. They are still kind of arguing back and forth through texting 2 days after this happened, so, so much for that "Y-B" haha.

 Elder Fisher is so awesome, we are doing good work here. I realized that my mission is really short from here. I only have like 10 months left, and then I come home. That's only 7 transfers left. The last 6 months go by so fast, at least that's what everyone says. Anyway, glad to have a new companion, new start, Helena is back, and that this work is moving forward.

-Elder Sanchez

每周信函2013年9月9月

So this week was great!

Wu Tao is being baptized! September 28th!

We taught Wu Tao on Tuesday night:

"After a while of that we still had chances to get to know him a lot better. He asked us to teach him more about one of the pamphlets that we had given him and Elder Anderson did, he taught more about the plan of salvation and how important it is, and how much of a blessing it is for us to have it in our lives to know we can live with our families forever. He enjoyed that lesson, after that he asked me to pray for him and his petition for his visa, since he has to get it extended in order to stay in the U.S. and he is working with a lawyer to make sure it goes through, but he is really nervous that he might not be able to stay here in the United States. So I prayed for him, and he really was emotional afterwards, Elder Anderson said "Hey you know Wu Tao you can pray for your self too, when you have that chance you can ask for blessings..." and after that Wu Tao got super emotional and said "I want to cry..." and then he did... was shaking and bawling, just looking off into infinity looking at the wall and crying... I tried to hug him but he was really in a sort of emotional state. Anyway he started to pray while crying "Heavenly Father, Please let me to get my petition finished so that I can stay in the U.S. with my family. I love my family. Please let me stay here. Thank you for these two guys elder anderson and elder sanchez Help me. name of Jesus.. amen" 

He calmed down after that, and was still pretty emotional. But he was super grateful for us, and I am grateful for him. It was very spiritual experience for us all. An act of faith will always be responded with a blessing, and this was definitely an act of faith for him..

And then on Saturday afternoon:

We went to the temple, and had a great great time. I'll copy and paste some exerpts from it.

"Anyway the visit with Wu Tao to the temple was so good, he enjoyed the Christus, and then the God's Plan family presentation, he said it was very correct. Then we had a teaching room with him, taught him the beginning of the restoration, and then watched the restoration video, he had a lot of questions about everything we taught, one in particular he said it was very hard for him to believe that Joseph Smith saw what he saw, and then we bore testimony and elder Anderson kind of just linked it to the Book of Mormon, and how the Book of Mormon was translated by Joseph by the power of God and Wu Tao believes it to be a true book, and so that links Joseph Smith right in. When Elder Anderson told that he was like "Oh... OH... you are right, that is right yes it makes sense" so it was just awesome. It was a great visit, we went and walked around a little bit with the Sisters."

I also have a testimony that Sisters are better missionaries than Elders. Just throwing that one out there.

On Sunday:

"We got a referral this past weekend from Elder Bird of a chinese guy and his young daughter that wanted to learn a little more, anyway so we called Elder Lewenilovo the zone leader down there (and best missionary ever) to see if we could get a dinner down there, and he said "You asked the right guy!, of course you can have dinner with us!" and so we had the funniest dinner I have ever had, at a Tongan home. It was the Sefa family, Sister Sefa prepared a big delicious meal for us, ribs, New Zealand style sausage, rice, and salad (pfft, who needs salad?) and so we ate, and laughed and ate and laughed, and it was just the best time even being with Elders Lovo, Fakava and Harper. It seriously was so fun. We just enjoyed it so much. Sister Sefa made the best Otai (this tongan drink made out of fruit juice, coconut, mango, and other fruits) and a huge platter of cake and icecream for all of us. It was just so much I was so full after this meal, but that happens in every tongan dinner I think. Elder Fakava shared the message in Tongan, and I didn't understand anything what was said, but I felt the spirit, I think he told of a story before his mission with his father, or something to this extent, and he started crying a lot. It was really powerful. We left with happy faces, full bellies and the energy to rule to world. Thank you so much Sister Sefa!

After Sister Sefa, we had our referral to visit. His name was Qian xiansheng. 錢先生，和他的女兒。His daughters name was Helena. Weird, eh? Anyway we didn't feel prompted to teach him any specific lesson or anything, but we taught him on the Book of Mormon and how we can develop faith in Heavenly Father. He was sorta interested, and the daughter maybe about the same interest level. He walked us out to our car, and said he would like to set another time with us in the near future. It was a decent referral."

So this weeks email was from my journal entries from the past week, a lot easier to write!

Love you all!

Elder Sanchez

每周信函2013年9月3日

Hello Family!

Another crazy week. I'm not even sure where to start.

Wu Tao our investigator, is progressing so well! We met with him on Saturday night, told him we would teach him a lesson on the gospel, and a lesson for English, so we did just that! We gave him a tour of the Chapel, talked about how important the lessons we have been teaching him are, asked him if he had any questions about anything that we have taught him, and he said he has read all three of the lesson pamphlets, and so that was really good. The spirit was felt for sure, and we had a great lesson. We invited him to be baptized, and he said he would if he knew it was true and that he would be more decisive this Wednesday.

After that we had a session of "English" where basically I introduced my family more, and told him more about the people at home. He said he envies me and Elder Anderson because we have more brothers and sisters than him, we all drew our Jiapu (family tree) on the white board and explained how our families work. He asked when I was going to be going home and I said I still have a year, and he said good! I don't want you to leave, you need to keep staying here. Elder Anderson let him know he would more than likely be transferred in the next week or two and he would move away. He wasn't too happy about that, but assured him he could still stay in contact.

Yuanli the movie star is being taught by English sisters, and so she isn't progressing at all, since she can't be taught in Chinese because her husband won't allow her because he's afraid of her being baptized. Anyway, she said she will come to the Chinese branch this next sunday, so we'll see how that goes.

Yu Mi hasn't had time to meet with us, she is looking for a car and trying to get her drivers license on lock so that she can start going to school as soon as possible. She will probably meet with us this week.

I am excited for this new transfer, new things are coming, I can feel it. We have been working closely with the Zone leaders to come up with a zone goal and plan for this next transfer, and I know it's going to be great. We launched it today at Zone Training meeting, and it has to do with "3" Every week, 3 new invesigators, every day, 3 new phone numbers/addresses. Praying for 3 different parts of our missions, the zone, the district, and the companionship! It's exciting. We have this plan where if a companionship in the district does not meet their goal for the week or day, we go into their area, and contact and find until they meet their goal. It's going to be so good.

Anyway that was our week. I hope everyone is doing well. Will talk more next week. 

Love,

Elder Sanchez