Second P-Day in the Bogotá Training Center

Hola!!!

Alright so it is driving me nuts how little time they give us to email. sorry... last pday they said we had an hour but ended up kicking us off early each shift to get the people in for the next shift, so I want nothing more than to give you guys my typical two hour movie in four hour detail, but the limited time makes it hard, but none the less I will do my best.  And out in the field we are supposed to get at least two hours, so hopefully the emails can get better once im out of the mtc.

anyways, we had the most incredible day today!!!  Every four weeks they take the gringos and brazilians on a tour of the city while they shuttle in a new group of latines and are making runs to the airport all day, so today was that day for us!!!

First we went to the temple again this morning which was a blast!!!  Super fun watching and listening in spanish!!  Its full speed spanish of course recorded from natives with accents which i normally wouldnt really be able to understand, but since I know what to listen for I can pick out most of it!

Then we drove all the way across town and took tons of pictures on our way to the base of a cable car that takes people up to this incredible catholic church right smack on top of the mountain front that over looks Bogota!!  Driving there was suuuper neat because we went from a pretty developed but still dirty down town to the slum of slums at the edge of the city that start to climb the mountain.  Mark, you know how we talked about the really poor houses just stacked and stacked on each other in the beginning of the Incredible Hulk, its like that.  As the valley starts to get steep towards the mountains there are still some really big buildings that somehow stick out of the uneven ground, no idea how they built a foundation for those, probably didnt, and then in between them just plywood and scap metal houses piled and piled all over each other, quite humbling and life changing to see, in a really neat and positive way though... But the coolest part is that there were gaps here and there between these developments that are just super thick and super green forest, which then climbs all the way up the mountains!!  unlike anything ive ever seen!!  It really is quite hard to describe this city, I hope this is painting a good image, cuz quite honeslty im not sure if its one id recommend a family coming back to visit, but it sure is absolutely fascinating to see right now!  Also there is grafiti everywhere, absolutely everywhere, which adds an interesting twist.

But then we got to the bottom of the cable car and took it up to this catholic church that literally sits right on top of this huge mountain and overlooks the whole city, soooo interesting.  there is another huge statue of Christ too on the peak adjacent from it that overlooks the city, but its a whole nother long trip to that monument so we didnt get to go... But there were a few little restaurants behind the church up top too and some shops like a mini canal street that were fun to walk around.  One American lady (she and her husband were here with the Vice President and some meeting he has here i guess or something) who didnt speak spanish saw me, a white guy, and asked if i spoke spanish and could help her negotiate a price for a jacket for her daughter with this Native running the shop, and my spanish actually pulled through pretty decent!  Normally i still cant really understand the natives, but this time I actually understood most of what she was saying and she understood me and it was super neat to see!  But ya so then we walked back to this look out point of the north side of the city and of the mountains on the other side, and it was incredible!!!  Super thick and whispy clouds were rolling through, and it was just suuuper green and forest stricken mountains, real shifty mountains, as far as the eye could see, which eventually become the Amazon!!  Suuuper neat, Ive got a ton of pictures and I will work as best as i can to get them through to you guys!

But ya so thats about it!  i know it doesnt really sound like im even serving a mission from this email haha but let me remind you that it was just today that we got to do this, and I am staying focused as thoroughly as i can in studying the gospel and spanish.  I have been put with one of the Brazilians now for teaching investigators here in the CCM, and with our investigator Luis we had a spectacular lesson the other day!  We got him to pray and he seemed super glad for the sincerity we tried to show towards his family problems he's having, promising him that this gospel will help him as it has helped us!  We had another lessson with him yesterday though and that one was really tough.  He started spitting out all his problems he has with our church and seemed real uneasy about our lessons, but we did our best and I know I am learning as much as I can and preparing as best I can to teach the people of Cali!  I couldnt be happier to be The Lords full time servant right now because He has been my fulltime servant my whole life and always will be!  This is His great and marvelous work here in these Latter days, and im honored to be a part of it and want nothing more than to work as hard as i can to spread the best message man has ever heard!

Take care, I dont have another pday till a week from friday, but I hope to have good stories from you then and will hopefully have some of my own as well!

Les amo

Nos vemos

Stephen

First P-Day in Colombia!

Elder Tenney is coming to you live from Bogotá, Colombia!!!!

OK first of all lemme tell you that I love it here!!!  The CCM here (spanish for MTC) is waaaay rad!!!  So ya as I told you, the first night we got into the MTC at like 10 and got in bed but didnt sleep till 2 haha because soon after about 40 missionaries from Venezuela came in and we stayed up trying as hard as we could to talk to them with tons of hand signals and all haha!  So it is constant fun here trying to communicate with the latinos, and jokes seem to be way funnier across language barriers so we are constantly enjoying good laughs with the latinos and have become great friends!  There are only 6 of us gringos here right now, and one of them is on his last block, meaning he has class with the latinos.  A block here is two weeks, so the latinos all come for a block and the gringos come for three, the first two learning spanish with each other and then we spend our last block with a latino companion and going to all their classes comletely in spanish with them... 

K Bogotá is quite a city!  Its sort of like Log Angeles but with more and taller building all over the place.  The buildings are all pretty run down, but they are way more colorful than any city in the states which makes it cool.  And my favorite part of course is that there are sweeeeet mountaints surrounding the whole place!  There are sweet big mountains not too far from the CCM here, and they are like the hills north of LA (in that they are really shifty if that makes sense) but about the size of the utah mountains, maybe a bit smaller, and they are really green!  Super neat!  The city is loud and crazy but really exciting!  There are literally car alarms going off half the time, I cant imagine how its possible that they are always going off so often, and the drivers are indeed pretty crazy so there are constant honkings of car horns as well, but i like it because you learn to just block out the sounds when you need to focus but you also can always sit back and kind of enjoy the comotion when you want haha!  They took our cameras so i couldnt take any pictures of the city when we went to the temple on wednesday or when we went to register our visas at an immigration building, but they did give us our cameras today for p'day hours, so ive got some coming of my friends and i and of the city view from the CCM here.  Oh also there are these funny trucks that drive around all the time with big loud speakers that are like announcing all sorts of random stuff that the natives say they cant even usually understand, but just another fun loud thing about this city.

My teachers are awesome!!  They dont speak much english, but just enough that if we cant ever understand their spanish they can eek by whatever we are missing in english.  But they are all natives here of colombia and super fun guys!  We have most of our classes with our district, which consists of us five gringos and two brazilians who are learning spanish too.  The gringo group is me, Elder Jones (my good friend from BYU), Elder Windchester (from Florida who is awesome and going to Cali with me), Elder Downing (also knew him at BYU but not very well, its been super fun becoming friends with him here, his family are Dave and Lauras old neighbors with the pool in their back yard), and Elder Jorgansen who is a ton of fun too and from North Ogden Utah.

So it really is pretty sweet here, the only things i dont love are the werid p'day schedule (had to go a week and a half with out one till today, but then i get another one this coming tuesday), and the food haha.  The food is decent, better than I thought it would be, but its also probably a good middle ground working down towards the kinda food im gonna get in cali.  part of the problem though is that ive just been spoiled with moms good food.  They always have good bread and soup, and super neat fruit drinks.  The meat however comes in all shapes and sizes, with fun obstacles to cut around haha.  The other day we were talking about how fun it is to look at the clouds and guess what shape they are in, and we all agreed that it is eve more fun to play that game with the meat here haha, but its not actually as bad as i probably just made it sound.

My favorite thing hands down so far has been this killer meeting we had with, guess who, ELDER CLAYTON from the 70!!!!!  He came and put on a three hour fireside that did not at all feel like three hours though, i coud have sat in that same seet for easily another three to listen to him!!  His wife talked a lot too and contributed lots, and she sang a song for us that was my favorite one from that CD Mom gave me of spanish music when i got my call!!  It was awesome!!  Our little chapel here was packed with elders from both Bogota missions too so it was really cool to see the big time real dea elders, especially the gringos and their awesome spanish!  Another thing i loved is that us gringos hre in the CCM got headsets for translation, and i could put the headset just at the right volume so that i could hear most of what Clayton was saying and practice understanding his spanish (most of which i did in fact understand) and any word i didnt catch i could just listen to the translation a few words behind on the headset, really helped me understand practicing spanish!!!  What was the highlight of my time so far though turned out to be pretty disappointing when they made all of us MTC students stay seated while the Claytons and older missionaries left, so we didnt get to talk to any of them, and i really wanted to, but oh well.

So i can honestly say my spanish is getting pretty good!  My companions and I (i dont think i explained this yet, i am in a three some with Elder Jones and Elder Windchester, its a blast!!!) have already taught three lessons to a (fake) investigator Luis, entirely in spanish!!!  The first one was quite tough but we have since gotten pretty good, and we plan to invite him to get baptized next lesson tonight!  So it is super neat how much we are already practicing preparing lessons and teaching them entirely in spanish, and the gift of tongues is definitely with me!

Every sunday afternoon President Dyer (from san Diego, he knows Grandpa well and i found out we are related to him through Willard Richards!!!) meets with us gringos to have suuuper deep and neat gospel discussions!  I have learned so much from him! 

Well I dont get too much time today so I gotta rap it up, but hopefully I will have more time Tuesday to write even more!!!  good to hear from everyone!  And of course I will close with my testimony real quick, in Spanish!! 

Yo se que esta iglesia es la iglesia verdadera aqui in la tierra, la misma con la iglesia de Jesucristo cuado El vivio aqui en la tierra.  Yo se que Dios nos ama, y que El nos da Su Hijo, Jesucristo, quien nos dio su vida, para que podemos volver a vivir con ellos y nustras familia otra vez.  Yo se que tenemos un profeta hoy, quien recibe revelaciones actuales para nosotros.  yo se que dios me ama porque puedo sentir su amor y el espiritu santo cuando leo las escrituras.  Tambien he tomado pruebas en mi vida, como cada persona aqui en la tierra, y he sentido el mano de Dios durante de mis pruebas, y despues de mis pruebas, siempre puedo sentir mas cerca de Dios, y digo estas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.

          Translation by Will:

I know that this church is the most true church here on the earth. the same as the church of Jesus Christ when he lived here. I know that God loves us and  his son, who gave his life for us so that we can return to live with them and out families again. I know that we have a prophet today, who receives actual revelation on our behalf. I know that God lives me because I can feel his love and the spirit when i read the scriptures. I also have had challenges is my life, like everyone here on this earth, and i have felt the hand of God during my challenges, and after them i always feel closer to God. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ amen!

Les amo

Nos Vemos

Elder Tenney

Arrival in Bogotá!!!

Familia!!!!

I LOVE IT HERE!!!!!!   This has been so much more fun than I thought it would be already!  My flights went great!  Turns out it was just me, Elder Jones, my friend from BYU, and one other elder, Elder Windchester from Florida who I really like, we were the only ones flying from Atlanta to Bogotá, and right now it is just us and like three or four other Americans in the MTC here, but it makes it fun!  Last night, as we were going to bed, a few more vans pulled up to the MTC, in spanish its called the CCM, and they unloaded with like 20 elders from Venezuela, and we stayed up pretty late just trying to talk to them.  They dont really speak English, but they are all really funny and its fun to try to talk to them with tons of hand motions and all haha...

Well they arent giving me much time at all, and I dont have a p/day till a week from friday, but I just want to say that I couldnt be happier to be here!  I miss you guys tons, and i still cant really believe this is gonna be my life for the next two years, but I know its exaclty where I need to be right now and I am very excited for it!  Please excuse any typing errors, the keyboards are a bit different here.  I love you guys, keep adhering to the Lords work.

Nos Vemos

Elder Tenney