Nathan letters are updated on his blog 12/17-3/18

An amazing week, so many miracles!!!    03/5/18

Hey guys! This week was awesome, i would like to start by sharing a cool story of the power of the book of mormon. One of our dear investigators, Romldo, is having a ton of progress. He went to church last week and is reading the Book of Mormon. He did not go to church yesterday because he had to take care of his elderly mother. We went by his house a little after church to see how he was doing. He had a huge maigrain but still let us in to drink some water. He said that because of his head pain and his sick mother, he had not yet read the chapter in the Book of Mormon that we had left (2 Ne 31 *he asked questions about baptism in the previous visit). So then we invited him to read and to go to a member´s Family home evening tonight at 7. He said that he probably would not go because he would have to take care of his mother. Then we marked our next visit for wednesday and we left to the road to visit some other people. About 3 and a half hours later he gave us a call out of the blue as we were leaving another appt, it was like 8:40 at night. He started by saying that he was reading the Book of Mormon and really wanted to know what time the family home evening would be on monday! He said that he would talk to his mom and do everything that he can to try and make it to the famiy home evening! We are so happy for him! I know that the Book of Mormon has the power to change our hearts and will to God!! It worked for such a simple invitation to go to a family home evening! We will teach and mark him for baptism tonight with that member family that offered there home to have the activity!

My companion is awesome!! I will miss being a missionary, there are so many opportunities to shine the light of Christ here! There is so much potential in the Lord´s precious children. We have another investigator who is struggling with alcohal. He has been addicted for more than 35 years. He came 3 days from being baptized in December and then had a slip, wasnt baptized, felt shame and stopped going to church. We had to amazing opportunity to explain to him how our Savior Jesus Christ doesnt give up on him. His appearance changed from discouraged and self loathing, to confident and joyful in that visit. He started reading the book of mormon again and will return to church with full force. We have already recruited the Ward´s Priesthood Quorums to give him the support he needs until he will be able to be baptized and recieve the help of the Holy Spirit!

I feel so much love for the people that when we they cut us, and dont want to recieve the lessons anymore (even when they are reading the scriptures and praying like we ask them too) it breaks my heart. I feel like we lost that battle. We had found an amazing couple this week, It was a miracle that this women who was walking her dog alone at night stopped to hear us and even invited us to go to her home the next day. Her husband felt the spirit strongly as he said the closing prayer after the lesson of the restauration. She read the introduction, the testimonies, and the invitation of Moroni to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and yet they made it clear that our visits (which are less than 30 minutes) were a burden to their daily routines and they did not want us to set up another appointment. I was sad that day, like i said before, i felt that we had lost that battle against the natural man in them. Being cut by investigators is more normal than not, but the more miraculous and spiritual the experiences we have with our investigators are, then the harder it is to watch them stray and reject the path of righteousness. We did find an awesome investigator after that. He was from a referal list on the computer, we spent an afternoon just calling a bunch of numbers that we had recieved and we were able to set up a few appts this way. Paulo was one of these and he read the book of mormon already, went to church and set up our next visit for tomorrow night. He said that he has had a question during the majority of his life (he did not share this question with us) but he said that nobody or no religion has ever answered his question. He will try our religion to see if his question is answered! I am confident in the power of the Holy Spirit responding his question through the book of mormon or testimonies of church members!! It was awesome meeting him, he said that he felt that he was at more of a cooperate meeting than a church meeting when we asked him what he thought after sacrament meeting. He is really a great guy and we love him!

I dont have pic this week, sorry. I am not remembering ot take pictures now that i am working in the field again. I am excited for the trip too. I will sit down with Elder Melo today an plan our trip. He will be back in são paulo the same time that we will be here. He was my companion in Caucaia and i live with him again now. He would like to spend some time with us to visit the temple in Campinas (1.5 hrs driving away) and to visit Caucaia as well. He lived in this area of sao paulo before his mission for a year and so he will know how to help me plan our days here. I dont think that going to a beach close to sao paulo is worth it. The beaches are not that pretty. It will also be closer to winter time and so probably wont be nice to swim. I will talk to Elder Melo today as we make our plans to see in which area we should stay at a hotel. The places you said are nice and are close to the temple, after planning today, i will try to find a place that will be easiest for our transportation time to and from places.

I loved the picture of dad sleeping! Its great. I was thinking about staying at home and going to the gym with you guys and working a little bit in TN before going out to Utah. Idk if that is a good idea or not. Will i be able to find work in TN? Will it be better to find work in Utah already before the semester starts? What are your opinions? Does david already have a place? Who else lives there? 

Love you guys, have a wonderful week.

Elder Sanchez

PAULISTA!!! 02/26/18

Thanks for your emails, i have little time to write because i read emails and made list of the referals that we need to visit, we have list of like 156 to divide between the two companionships that we have. The new area is Cerqeira Cesar, It is in Down Town São Paulo. I live on the road Frei Caneca, about two blocks from Avenida Paulista, check it out on the map! Its crazy, our road is known for gay activity and it is so true. Its insane living downtown. I am so not a city boy, too low of standards and too many crazy people. My companion is aweomse, Elder Silvério from Brasilia. He is relatively new on his mission and we are having a great time. We had awesome miracles this week. We opened this area, starting from nothing and just a few people that the other companion ship had given us (because we divided the area, its huge) we had 5 investigators at church and it was amazing!!! Our ward is awesome! I love being in the field again, i love Jesus Christ and the opportunity that i have to serve his children. Contacting on the buses again is pretty fun!! There are some many people in the city. We cannot talk to everybody or we would spend the whole day on one block without finding anybody from our area and so we are learning to be strategic. Talking to people in specific places to find those who live in our ward!! Love you guys! Have a wonderful week!!

Tu es grande, tu es forte (SPC)!!! 02/10/18

That subject is part of the São Paulo soccer team´s song. You know dad, i love the jersey idea and i think it would almost be cooler if we bought them together here in brazil. The São Paulo futebol club driver is in my ward and this morning he took us to the stadium and on a personal tour. We went to areas that only workers can go too! It was pretty awesome! It is the only soccer stadium of its kind in the world. There is no other oval shaped professional soccer stadium! the others are all rectangular! We saw there trophy room and their press conference room. I would love to take you guys to a game or to a tour here in brazil! They have spiked fencing to separate the fans from opposing teams in the cheap seats! it is so wild! I have never seen anything like it at a stadium! I will send pics. We also ate an american breakfast this morning with the Shermans! It was spectacular! I have not tasted those amazing flavors of whipped cream, waffles, maple syrup and bacon in such a long time!! I was in heaven. they even found milk that tasted like fresh american milk! (i bet it was pretty expensive too). The rest of the day we help some members with a move! We thought that it would only take like 2 hours but it ended up going from 10am until like 3pm! But it was a lot of fun! They took us to a sweet burger place afterwards! It is called Madero Burger and the restaurante is made of some of those large international shipping containers! It was sooooo good, I drank Green apple lemonade!! The members' names are Moroni and Erika!! I´ll send pics of all this stuff. I am getting close! one more week in the office. I´ll have p day next saturday (packing day to leave the office) and then i will go a week and a half with out p day! It will be good! Elder Eggers made an awesome spreadsheet to keep track of bills and rent and stuff. I have been trying everyonce in a while during these past transfers to make this and never could figure it out. So i asked for help and eggers worked non stop on this  thing until he finished and it is so cool. No we can print out a month report based upon the data in the table for president thomas about the mission´s finances.

Mom have you had a chance to see when we are going to fly here to brazil and go back? I havent had time to plan things but once we have specific dates, i can start to mark things to do with people! If you could let me know that would be great! My feet started hurting because of the wear and tear on the echos so bought new shoes for 30 bucks (100 reais) i hope they last me the three months that i have left. The second pair of echos has finally reached their end. They were great shoes, beautiful as well. I will bring one home with me as a trophy shoe. I should have kept on of the first pair, they were really destroyed!

I have got to go now, i loved reading your emails. I restarted the BOM and will try to finish it in the three months that i have left! I am practicing piano still and will perform with a senior missionary, Elder Barrett, in sacrament meeting, not this sunday but the next one!

A missionary couple that served in the area office and help with reactivation in my first area went home this week! It was crazy! the Andersons, i saw them arrive on their mission in my first area!!

Love you guys! May the Patriots win next year!

Elder Sanchez

Hey Guys, today was crazy... in kind of a bad way 02/03/18

I finished and submitted my essays this week. I was so stressed before i submitted them and then it was such a relief to turn them in! The Sherman couple were so nice to review and edit my essays with ways to improve. I think they were great. I will attatch them to this email so you guys can take a look at what was submitted. I tried to find some kind of way to fit in a Puerto Rican quota, but i dont think BYU recognizes the Puerto Rico Nation as a legitament minority and foreign power. I also included a picture of the prompts that i had.

Well this week was great. I just feel such a need for Jesus Christ. Idk, there is so much darkness all around us and then there is so much available light that can come through Him! I need to repent and excersice more faith in Him. Here in our ward we go out with so many members. We only have like 4 hours to work each night and so we always split into two companionships and destroy. We have been going well with about 3-5 teaching opportunities per day! I love Elder Eggers and Elder Smith. We are the SPO office american dream team!! We have had the priveledge to meet many great members of the church here, meet some less active members that just need to feel loved to come back, and some awesome investigators. We are teaching Fatuma, she is from Kenya and is here studying infectious diseases. She is so cool and speaks english and portuguese so well. I mean english is here native tongue. It was cool to visit her. Pricila is really cool as well. She is 26 and is very much loving the Book of Mormon.

Today was crazy. We tried to go to a cool place that we found on the internet that is in our mission. It is called the Beco do Batman (Batman´s Ally) It is like an alleyway with a bunch of graffitti about super heroes. So we got all excited to go and even ate burgers today at this cool burger place called Stunt Burger. It is like comic book themed and everything. Then we went off. We almost got lost and also came to realize that this weekend and next are Carnival weekends and we were right in Downtown SP. So much sadness. So many people poorly dressed going to probably one of the largest parties in the world. We were passing through crowds and people men and women alike were calling to us from cars. I literally felt like it was the great and spacious building all around us.  The sad part is that there were teenagers there too, so young and already into this mess. We werent that distracted by the commotion, it only got it the way of a fun afternoon. We finally got the Batman place and it was filled with shady characters as well, the spirit was not there at all. So we found some places to quickly take some pictures that would not have any suggestive people in the backround and then we left. It was not a very fun day, but i learned that we need to be more careful and pay attention to where we are going and what will be happening around there. I am truely grateful to have been born with the knowledge of the true gospel of Jesus Christ and in a time with true prophets of God on the earth. Satan is so decieveing and has so much power and deceit over the hearts of so many people. While we were waiting for a bus to come back and as the crowds and crowds of skanky people were just passing by, my companion looked at me and said, "this makes me feel like we are losing". Its crazy how much wickedness exists today. I hope that i can fulfill my mission well and help others who are lost and dont know what Jesus Christ has done for them. Our king was beaten and murdered for our sake and every thought and feeling of his was felt on our behalf. He then rose, showing us who we can become. i love the way this is shown and sung in the song "Forever" by Nathan Pacheco. Here is the link to this awesome video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvmuHxH3Qa0

Have a wonderful week, pics are coming after this email!

Love you,

Elder Sanchez

A great week and temple session 01/27/18

Hey guys!

So this week was great, I have learned a lot. I am training a senior missionary how to be financial secretary. I have started creating a manual for all of the different tasks and responsibilities. After this is done, any secretary will be able to learn his job just by looking up what he wants. The manual will be in english but if i get a chance (i doubt i´ll have time), i might translate it to Portuguese. Elder Sherman is very cool. He is from Victor, Idaho and loves to go backpacking in the Grand Tetons! It is so beautiful there, i miss the beauty of nature. The city is so gross, i dont care if there are cool looking buildings and a lot of people and cultural things, it is just dirty and smelly. I almost want to live in the rockys after seeing pictures of where the Shermans live and hike! Mayby after we all get rich and older, we can all move to the victor, idaho! I still havent taken a picture with him and his wife, i need to do that. The mission is a lot of culture shock for Sister Sherman, being her first visit to Brazil. We bought a cake and some icecream and celebrated her birthday with her this week. We sang in english so she could feel at home a little bit. It was fun!

We had a great miracle, Besides Caio´s baptism, we also contacted this girl in the street one night. Thais is her name. She wanted to get to know the church and was very excited. We gave her a chapel tour the next day! Then realized that she is from the Sisters´ area that is right next to ours. So then we invited the sisters to our next appt with her in the chapel to teach the first lesson. It was awesome. She will be baptized the 17th of Febuary in the sisters´ ward!!

I had a great experience at the temple today!! We went just because it is in our area! I learned that, for sure, our purpose here on earth is to recieve and learn to live with a body! I  though it was so cool that everything in the temple refers to the body and to Christ´s body. It is so physical and literal the means by which we can return to God´s presence. The only part of the creation that God personally accompanied Jesus and Adam to the grand work was when they created man (The body of man)! I thought that was so cool that God personally oversaw that part of the work. That shows me how important we are to God and how important this lifetime is for us.

I know that God and His Spirit reside in His temples! I felt that today! I know that the veil is thin and the work is accomplished here and on the other side. I know that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. I love the quote by Elder Holland from last conference when he said "...Because i need mercy, and because the world needs peace...". I need mercy and we all require mercy to have peace and to return to our heavenly home!

Love you guys! Pray that i can be guided to write good essays even with a mind full of portuguese grammer structure haha!

Elder Sanchez

You guys rock!! 01/20/18

I have not gained any weight on my mission. I have had times where i lost weight. Here in the office, my eating schedule is totally whack. We like only eat at lunch and then this week we bought pizza 3 times. I am out of my mission allotment becuase of that haha! But it was totally worth it. I cannot find my personal card. It has been like a week and a half. I am surprised that i lost something like that. I dont think that it was robbed becasue i have kept my eye on the account and the value hasnt changed. I will keep looking for it here at the office and let you know if i feel that you should cancel it. Maybe you wont have to send me a new one because i only have a like 2 more transfers here.

I hope that you guys can go to the super bowl!!! If they make it, i will go downtown SP to take a picture with my Brady Jersey just to represent all the way from south america!!

What did you guys think of the first presidency?? I am so grateful for them. I was notified about what the new york times did about the death of president monson and i hope that they come to understand one day why we need a prophet and why we follow. We are blessed because we can listen to our prophets! It is amazing to see the miracle of health and long life that was given to President Nelson to guide us after President Monson had passed away!

We will have a baptism tomorrow and we are planning on four more this transfer! I have started trying to be more obedient here this transfer. I will be honest that sometimes i dont feel like a missionary here in the office paying bills and resolving financial conflicts. I understand that that is because i personally can loose my focus of Jesus Christ here sometimes. I am excited to leave and to work for two transfers as a missionary. My companion (the executive secretary) will indicate me to train at the end of my mission! I think it would be a good thing for me, to have a more constant motivation to be obedient and to work hard because my impact will be lasting on that new missionary. I would love to really rely on the Lord and teach my companion as i learn for myself how to pray and return and report to the lord in the last two transfers. I really would like to baptize and teach others how we can have weekly or biweekly baptisms in our mission, which is a struggling truth among some missionaries here in SPO. 

I read the part of King Benjamin when he testifies a Christ a few times this week and i think it is amazing. He truly feared the Lord! and Loved the lord! I want to fear God like he does!

Love you guys! Have a wonderful week! hope the pics were good! I will cut my hair today and probably clean the shower box!

Elder Sanchez

Semana ocupadíssima no escritório! (Super busy week in the office!) 12/16/17

Hey family!!

I am so happy to hear your funny stories!! They are pretty great! Especially the "You´re a cat guy" and "I found the unbold button". David, may the force be with you in these finals! I am so excited for you guys to see the new star wars. Some elders are freaking out because they are breaking family traditions by not going to the opening night haha. I am totally fine with it. Right now i am more worried with finances and trying to keep my desk organized. We had the mission christmas party (the pics have not gotten to us yet) That took me out of the office for two days (CRAZY!!) I had some cool car rides with just President Thomas and I. We were able to talk about a few cool things. I asked questions about how he raised his children and talked about how i would like my home to be. We went to burger king and spent R$600.00!!! 

After all the christmas party stuff, i was behind in my office work. We only went out to work in our area yesterday with our Ward Mission Leader, Irmão Lazaro. It was pretty sweet. Tonight is our ward christmas dinner, we went around inviting a bunch of people yesterday and it looks like it went pretty well, we will follow up today and see how it goes. I am pretty excited to eat some good christmas food. I just really hope they have gingerbread cookies there, it´s been a while!! My box arrived mom and dad! I receive the notification yesterday. I have to pay $36 dollars to get it out of the post office. I am super excited!!! I will get it on monday on my lunch break! 

Tomorrow we are going to do something super cool!! You guys know the little pass along cards this year for Light the World. Well i went to the area offices yesterday and asked for the archives of those graphics for the portuguese campaign. They gave it and asked for a banner to be made. The mission paid for it!!! The area offices also gave a bunch of other church materials like Liahonas and christmas music videos to give away. (Perks of being the mission with the temple and area office!!) We are going to set up a table with the christmas campaign on Avenida Paulista (the times square of Brazil!) We will contact and sing and give out church material for an hour and a half tomorrow after church!!! I am soooo excited!! I will take pics and spread the good word of God downtown!!!

My companion gave me an eggnog chocolate from his christmas box, though i am not very fond of eggnog. I really enjoyed and appreciated that chocolate.

Yesterday i bought a vuvuzela from BRASIL!!!!

I am reading in the scriptures about Jesus Christ in the Americas. I love reading his own words! How He loves us is fantastic!!! I love Him and am trying to get better and become more like Him each day! Have a great week! May the force be with you, Always!

--Incluído, há algumas fotos de minha mesa no escritório, minha vuvuzela, e meu companheiro morto depois de três semanas de reuniões consecutivas--

Elder Sanchez​​​​​​​​​​