Trust in God, Then Go and Do!

Hello family and friends!

How's everyone doing?

This week was great! Every day in the service of the Lord is great, regardless of the obstacles or the hardships. I'm always so grateful to be a missionary. Every morning, putting my name badge on is a really scary experience for me because I can see my name next to the Savior's name and that helps me to remember my purpose and what I have been called to do. 

The Lord has been so good to us and I love being able to increase my testimony ever day in the Savior and all that He has done for us and for those that we're teaching.

The Lux family is amazing! We had two really amazing lessons with them this week and they have a desire to change. We know that they're going to be a wonderful family as they progress in coming closer to their Savior and making the necessary changes to have the Spirit more abundantly in their life. 

We had a huge soccer activity on Saturday. We played and had a barbecue! The Lux family came. Little Leslie was all geared up ready to play some soccer and Susan played goalie! They're so energetic and loving. We're so happy that they're so desirous to listen and provide their family with the framework of the Gospel. Please pray for them!

This week something awesome happened. Hermana Davis and I were walking our bikes on our way to teach the Lux family ... and as we were walking, a man in his car pulled over and asked us if we were Mormon. We proceeded to tell him that we were and he went crazy! He told us that we were preaching false doctrine. He was rebuking us, shouting so loudly so anyone near us could hear him. He called us all sorts of names. It was terrible. Never on my mission have I had someone go that crazy. I have had Bible bashers and anti-Mormons yell at us, but never someone with so much anger and rage. 

Well, I started walking away from this man because I didn't want to cause any problems or be yelled at. Eventually, he drove away, yelled some more and it left us sad, but SO GRATEFUL to have the trust and to teach it. It was Hermana Davis' first time being yelled at like that. She was holding back the tears, so we continued to walk and hoped we could get the Spirit back for our next lesson. Well, as we were waiting for the member to arrive who was going to accompany us to the lesson, a girl walked past us. She stopped when she got to us and said, "Hello." We were so shocked ... really hoping that she wouldn't yell at us, too, and she didn't. She asked us to help her cross the street with her newborn baby! We helped her and got to talking and she was so sweet! She said we could come back and teach her so we did on Friday night and she's so great. A young 18-year-old mom that just happened to be reading a book called "What is the purpose in life? She's incredible! Unfortunately, she just moved out of our area, but we have her information. It really helped my testimony to realize that God puts us exactly where we need to be, regardless of the hardships that happen. I also learned that there's always good to come if we have faith and if we continue to try our best. The Lord is there. 

We have some really awesome potentials we're going to try this week and we're hoping to start teaching them. 

The Lord has been so good to us. I love my Savior more than I can express in words. I have been reading the scripture this week about the natural man and how it's an enemy to God. As we put off the natural man, through the Atonement, we'll be made strong. I also love the scripture that talks about weaknesses in Ether 12:27. It says that as we COME UNTO THE SAVIOR, He'll show us our weaknesses. So as we recognize our weaknesses, we can have the confidence to know that we're coming unto the Savior. 

Hope y'all are so good. Life is so GOOD!

Hermana Sánchez

Sister Sánchez

Free coach! 

Tacos! 

Dulcemente Asado!

It was a good week! We remembered our purpose and we worked hard. 

Great news. I'm staying here in Houston 1 for my last transfer and I'll be here with Hermana Davis! I'm so happy and thankful for that. She's my best friend and we just work so well together. The Lord blessed us both by keeping us here! We also had 3 exchanges this week. Craziness!

Russhine got a calling yesterday. We have NO idea that was happening and I don't think she did either ... Hermano Samayoa, one of the counselors in the bishopric, approached us with her yesterday and let us know. Russhine seemed a little shocked but happy and then as he had her tell us the news, she started crying! Tears of joy. I remember when we were first teaching her. She was always so impressed with those that had callings because she always knew they had to be worthy to have one. We mentioned to her that one day she would be able to get one and I remember her always being so doubtful that she could ever be worthy enough. Well that's why she was crying, because she has changed. She has found God. Because she loves Him, she gets to serve Him! She was ecstatic! Young Women's counselor. She's going to be AWESOME. I kind of wish I could be a young woman again and be in her class! We're so happy for her. That woman is just on top of the world. 

We taught our two new investigators on Monday. Their names are Yamir and Jennifer and they're awesome! Definitely searchers of truth that just love God and you can really tell. We loved them so much the second we met them. They, unfortunately, weren't able to come to church, but we'll be going to see them next week. They're searching! Yamir is reading the Book of Mormon with Jennifer and they have a lot of questions! Pray for them! They're so good and would be such amazing members of the church.

We took the Lux family on a church tour this Thursday and they loved it! They weren't able to come to church yesterday because their car broke down, but they loved the church. We're hoping to see them more than once a week, so that we can really help their progression! They also came to play soccer with us on Saturday! Their daughter Leslie is the CUTEST. We asked her what she was going to wear when she gets baptized and she said "MY BIKINI!" Ha, ha, ha. Love them!

Jose is still going strong. He will be back in 2 weeks officially to stay and then we'll teach him a lot more! We're so excited!! 

Jorge is progressing a lot! We had 3 really good lessons with him this week and he has made the solid decision to be baptized! He wants obispo to baptize him. We aren't sure exactly what day, but we know that it's soon! He's reading and really praying to know when he needs to be baptized!

We learned about the phrase "dulcemente asado" this week! It means to be bold but loving. Ha, ha, ha, ha. I thought that was so funny! Just thought y'all would enjoy that! We definitely had some dulcemente asado experiences this week as we were street contacting!

The Lord is so good to let us serve Him. If we love Him, we'll serve Him. I've realized this week that I have a lot of weaknesses but I found comfort in this scripture in Ether 12:27, which said: "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

If we're recognizing our weaknesses, it's because we're coming unto Christ, so find comfort in that. He loves us!

Love y'all!

Sister Sánchez

LOVE MY COMPA!

Exchanges without a car ... .

The House of The Lord

One more week as the Lord's servant. What could be better?

This week was awesome! Hermana Davis and I were basically on cloud 9 all week, but we always feel like that because Heavenly Father is so nice to us and our area. It's been so amazing to literally see miracles revealed right in front of us. I have such a testimony of God's Plan and how perfect it is if we just listen to the little promptings in our mind and heart from the Spirit. God will lead us perfectly.

We took Russhine to the temple this week. It was incredible. She has been doing family history this week with us and we could feel the Spirit of Elijah just illuminate her heart! She loves it! The only hard part is that most of her family wouldn't give her permission to do proxy baptisms for her relatives, so we started working through her husband's side. He's the closest living relative, so we needed to get his permission. Russhine was pretty nervous about asking thinking he would say no. Well, she left the room and I thought in my heart, "Heavenly Father, please help us to ask him for permission so we can save these souls." And immediately after that silent prayer, he walked over and sat right next to us! We explained what we were doing and we asked him for permission, and he said yes! Russhine came back and we told her he said yes and she was so shocked and so excited! 

Russhine then took her grandparents' names to the temple and she just loved doing the work for them. Inside the temple, she was so thoughtful and pondering all the things that she was seeing. We're so grateful that we were a part of that experience with her. She's magnificent and we know that she's going to continue strong after having the opportunity to enter the Lord's home. And she definitely felt that spiritual exhaustion after leaving the temple, too! We love her sooooo much. 

At the temple, I had the opportunity to take my Tia Conuelo's name to do her baptism and confirmation. It was incredible! I know that she's happy to have received the ordinances of salvation and I'm blessed to have provided that for her!

Jorge is doing really well. We actually invited him to the temple and told him to get there when we were done with baptisms and he showed up! He really liked it and he had a lot of questions about baptisms for the dead and why we do them. We explained and he seems so intrigued. We met with him again this week and he's still praying about an answer. He was at church on Sunday and he came to a baptism the sisters had right after. I could tell that he liked the baptism. After, we sat down and spoke about his questions and what he though (it was the first baptism he's seen in our church) and he didn't have too many questions. The more we spoke, the more he felt the Spirit and we invited him to set his own baptismal date. He was a little hesitant at first, but eventually, he set his date for March 27! He's nervous, but it was such a good step for him to set his own date! It's personal to him. It's not something that came from us! We're going to work so hard to prepare him for that day. He's really awesome. Such desire and diligence to find the answer. 

We taught two new families this week! The Lux family are non-members that live with a less-active we barely contacted. We set up a follow-up appointment with them and they were there! Hermano Lux told us that he had been waiting for our appointment all week. Before our appointment, he said that his cousin had invited him to go drinking but he decided not to because he knew we were coming to teach them. How cool is that!? So they said we could keep teaching them! Pray for them!

We also taught a couple who were given to us as a media referral and they're awesome! Both are really looking for the truth and they want something more to fill the emptiness in their life. We taught the Restoration yesterday and they said they will read and pray! 

Anyway, amazing week. So much more I could include, but I would go on forever! I love my Savior and I love being His missionary! It's the best decision I have ever made!

Enjoy your week! 

Sister Sánchez

Itzel!!

 Gina took us to lunch!

After-the-temple lunch.

Our investigator's practice head!

Russhine with her names!

I love Russhine!

Temple group!

Jorge visits the temple!

New shirts from Kiko!

The Field Is White!

Hello family and friends, 

How's everyone doing?

Texas is amazing! This week was incredible! Heavenly Father loves us!

The Hernandez family is progressing! We had a noche de hogar with them and with Bishop and his family! It was great! They hadn't seen each other in a while, so it was awesome to see them catch up! The husband of the family, isn't a member, along with the 2 daughters and the brother, but they're on their way to baptism! We love their family and can see them all in white already. Please, please, PLEASE pray for them! They're going to be such great members and a wonderful eternal family! 

Russhine got her Temple Recommend yesterday! She was so excited. After church she looked for the bishop and told him she needed an interview. She said, "Quiero ir al templo!" Ha, ha. She passed and we can tell she's so excited. We're so excited! We're having a Houston 1 Ward Temple Night this coming Saturday and we're all going together! We're taking all our converts. We have about many converts in just this past month as a ward! It'll be really special. Today we also saw Russhine's husband at Walmart ... and he said he didn't know where she was ... so we went to the fitting room and had them page her ... ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. We found her. She was surprised to see us. It was hilarious! I love that woman. She has so much energy and is just always bouncing off the walls. She loves church. Yesterday, she thought about maybe leaving early after Sacrament Meeting because she had some homework to finish, but as soon as she stepped into the chapel, she said she was going to stay because that's where God needed her to be. SHE'S WONDERFUL and progressing so well. 

We also taught Jorge this week. He's a new investigator. The elders were teaching him, but he said that since his father was never in the picture and that he wasn't the best role model, he seems to have trust issues with men. He says that because he has been with his mom all his life, he trusts women more. He kept canceling all the appointments he had with the elders, so we talked to President and got permission to teach him. After English class on Tuesday, we had a lesson with him and it was incredible! He asked the most amazing questions and really wanted to understand the Book of Mormon and why we have it. We committed him to read and he accepted. On Saturday after soccer, we went to dinner with him and his member friends and we talked about his questions which were, "Why is the book named after Mormon? Who was he?" So we based our lesson after that and he really understood it all. Well, the amazing thing is that yesterday he came to church. He usually does, but this time it was different. We could tell that he really internalized what the Spirit had taught him. 

During fast and testimony meeting, Jorge bore his testimony. He mentioned that he didn't know if it was okay for non-members to do so, but he didn't mind because he felt that he needed to. He bore his testimony on a noche de hogar we taught a couple weeks ago on the Sabbath and the importance of keeping it holy. He said that before that lesson, he used to play soccer and hang out with friends and do all sorts of things that we shouldn't do on this sacred day. After the lesson, he said that his idea of the Sabbath changed and he feels much better being in church. He concluded his testimony with an "amen." Hermana Davis and I were so shocked but so happy for him! He's wonderful! A lot of members were shocked, too. It was awesome! He's progressing really well. We don't want to push baptism, but we know that after we teach the importance of it, he'll desire it for himself. 

I cannot emphasize how grateful I am every day to be a missionary. It has truly changed my life and how grateful I am to have President Hall as my mission president. He's really helped me a lot. I love my Savior. More than I could ever put into words. I love the Book of Mormon. It's my favorite book! I love having the Savior's name on my lips ready at any moment to testify of His divinity and reality! I love my Heavenly Father. I have come to understand how prayer really is sacred communication between us and the Almighty Creator. I love the Sacrament and I cherish the opportunity I have each week to renew my covenants. I love the Sabbath and I love the sacredness of it and how God expects us to keep it holy. I LOVE seeing people come to know that there's a God who LOVES them infinitely and a Savior who has already taken the burden that they're bearing. I hope you all love these things too. It's the only intelligent thing to do!

We got a new apartment this week! We're so grateful. The Spirit is way more apparent and we feel a lot more in tune than in our old apartment. It was so dark and the area was so dangerous. The new apartment is really nice and the apartment workers are super friendly. Time to share the Gospel with them!

If you want my new address, please reach out to my parents. I need letters. Please send me love! (:

Sister Sanchez

Mardi Gras!

Texas BBQ!

New apartment!

Cool Book of Mormon found in the ashes of a burnt home!

Love these girls!

Member's bikes are so light!

Instructed From On High

This week was sooooooo wonderful! One week that I'll never forget.

First, President Russell M. Nelson, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, visited our mission and our church building! So we got to be the ushers! It was a tri-mission conference, so the Texas Houston Mission and the Texas Houston East Mission were all there. There were about 700 missionaries present, including senior couples and other missionaries. It was incredible. AND.... President Hall called me the Friday before and asked me to conduct the music ... I was so nervous, but it was super fun! I was about 3 feet from President Nelson. So exciting. He took the time before the meeting started to shake each of our hands individually. That was quite the experience for me. I have never met an apostle before, so it's something I'll never forget.

Along with the message President Nelson shared, the Spirit was vibrant during the conference. All the missionaries were captured by his talk and by his presence. He's next in line to be the prophet! He spoke a lot about how much God loves us and the way that he spoke about Heavenly Father was so genuine. He spoke in a way that made God so real. I feel at times that we don't realize how real Heavenly Father is. We believe that He is there and that He loves us, but how often do we meditate the fact that God is so real. He has a body! He speaks. He loves. He cries. He rejoices. He's SO real and I appreciated learning more about that as I listened to President Nelson.

President Nelson told us of so many experiences in his life that have testified to him of God's love and the reality of the Savior. It was pretty mesmerizing. I'll always remember it. We learned a lot about the doctrine of Christ from 3 Nephi 11 and how important our responsibility is to bring God's children home. AND THAT'S NOT JUST THE FULL-TIME MISSIONARIES. It's everyone! I want all of you to re-commit yourselves to inviting people to take the discussions and to be baptized! If we don't invite them, we're depriving them of their opportunity to live with God again. We cannot rob them of that. Open your mouth and share!

Russhin received the Gift of the Holy Ghost in Sacrament Meeting and she's on fire! She sent us a text before she got to church saying that she was feeling like a member of the ward and she feels like it's her family. THAT'S THE BEST THING WE CAN HEAR! She has integrated herself so well. We know that when we leave, Russhine will stay. Our 3 hours of church was all focused on missionary work. In the third hour, our ward mission leader put up 4 chalkboards, one for each area, and asked our members to sign up on the days they can go out with us to teach. Well, Russhine's name occupied about 6 days and then she told us that if anyone cancels, to call her. She also hunted bishop down to schedule her Temple Recommend interview and she came teaching with us last night. RIGHT after she officially became a member, she came teaching. If only all members were like that, with such fire and enthusiasm, the work would blow up! She bore such a powerful testimony of baptism and the Book of Mormon to our investigator Alvin who came to church, too. SHE'S SO COOL. To think that in October we just spoke with her on the street and to now. 360 change and it's all because the Spirit is the teacher. We love her.

Our less-active members came to church yesterday for the first time in about a year! That was really cool! The Lord is blessing this area so much! We're so grateful. Please pray for Jose. We haven't been able to get in contact with him and we really want to make sure he's still reading and praying!

I love you all.

Share your faith in Christ!

Sister Sanchez

Back with the bikes!

Hermana Davis hit 100 days!

Love my compa!

Russhine put our bikes in the back of her car!