Alright so im gonna jump to it real quick, ive had an INCREDIBLE week and know im not gonna have time to type up all of this, but here goes my best try!
So i gotta start with the spiritual experiences: K so first of all, tuesday i got sick again and had to stay in the house all day, it was rough, trhowing up all day, finally in the afternoon though i fell asleep and slept all through the night and was good to go wednesday! But anyways so wednesday i was feeling a bit down about having missed all day tuesday to work, we had some important appointments that day, so i just asked The Lord for a little help of feeling better, i asked for the spirit a little more strongly than usual that day, to kinda help me get back into it, and so during my personal study i was studying my patriarchal blessing and i just started to feel incredible!!! I felt the spirit sooooo strongly, was just completely filled all the way through!! Thats something ive noticed to really be unique about the feelings of the spirit too, is that its not just a nice cool fan on a hot day, with makes us cool on the surface, but no its a suuuper good almost burning feeling all the way through!! So ya i felt so much closer to The Lord that morning, and it got even better when i looked at the name on my scriptures with an idea. I looked at the name Richards and thought to myself if that was the only place there on my scriptures where that name appears, and sure enough, its not! There are a few scriptures that talk about Willard Richards in D&C and it was amazing for me to think that on the cover is not the only place on my scriptures where my name appears!!
So then thursday i was studying the 12 week program with my comp in the morning that we study for an hour every day to train him, and ive really been trying to be the best trainer i can be and help my comp learn as much as he can. Ive been praying lots, looking for opportunities to teach him with examples in the streets, and ive been studying the 12 week program a little bit ahead to highlight the most important parts, writing down questions to ask him to train him and all... and so ya we were reading in abraham 3 where it talks about the great and noble spirits whoo would be the leaders here on earth and i testified to him that i knew it was true. I testified that i knew we are both here on the mission becuase we understood this plan there in the pre earth life and sustained our savior at its center, and that we agreed to give our whole lives, leaving our families for 2 years, to testify of this divine plan to the other sheep who have gone astray, and whether i actually taught important doctrine or anything i dont know, but one thing i do know for sure is that i felt the spirit suuuuper strong again in that moment and i know he did to, and thats the best thing i can offer as a trainer!
Alright so also one thing weve been studying in the 12 week program is listening to the spirit to know what questions to ask the investigators in order for them to really speak up and share their needs and stories, and wooowww did my comp do a miraculous job of that or what this week!! A few days ago we went to contact a reference from one of the members here, the reference was a man who owns a bread shop here... so when we walked in he told us quite honestly that hes catholic and doesnt want to change his religion... so we told him we believe in Christ too as he does and that we just wanted to share ideas and talk casually a little bit... so we start with a prayer and begin talking when after a few minutes, a little boy, only 5 years old he told us, with suuper dirty clothes and without shoes, walks into the bread shop. The man then told us that this poor little kids parents are beggars here on the street too, homeless, and that even though they are in this same town, they have abandoned this kid. He lives on the streets, alone, and is 5 years old, with nothing but a pair of shorts and a t shirt. He had walked into the bread shop because this guy always gives him some bread to eat for free, and the man told us that he does so because he too lived alone on the streets as a kid. I was heart broken. I was sitting here with my nicely ironed clothes, one outfit of many, well fed and from a nice home and plentiful environment my whole life, and looking at two poor innocent people just like me, one old and one young, who have had absolutely nothing. nothing. But i knew with all my heart that the one most important thing that i could give them, that can save the lives of people who have either everything or nothing, was this gospel, and that is exaclty why im here on a mission. So the man began to tell us his whole story that his parents abandoned him when he was little and he ended up somehow riding on a bus to ecuador where the bus driver dropped him off at a school. The school took him in full time and fed him and all and he grew up there, and believe it or not this school is fairly close to where my comp is from in quito ecuador. so he begins to tell us that as soon as he learned to read, he began reading the bible because he wanted to learn about the God who had delivered him to this nice school that has taken him in. So the guy really does know the bible well, and my comp did then an incredible job of asking him questions to steer his understanding of the bible to the realitly of the restored gospel today that only makes sense... it was AMAZING!!! I know that no matter how good of a missionary my new comp might be, hes not good enough to have been asking these questions on his own, nobody is good enough to have done this, he was being guided by the spirit! So we show some scriptures about how Chrsit said i have other sheep not of this fold and all, and he agreed that it means that there were other people in other parts of the world in Christs time. Then we asked him that if Christ really loves all of us, he would have visited these other people too right? he agreed, and then we gave him a book of mormon and explained it and all and he told us he was excited to read it!! so ya we have another appointment with him tonight and it will be interesting to see how he progresses! Ive come to learn that every investigator always has some big problem to overcome first, so im scared of what might come up since everythings gone so perfect so far, but we will see! Buy anyways, ive learned that The Lord truly does love all of us, and for that he sends those who have been sooooo blessed their whole lives such as myslef to those who havent been as blessed such as this poor man, and im sooooo honored and greatful for this opportunity that i have to be The Lords full time servant to take this blessed message with the spirit to those who need it!
alright now that i got the good spiritual experiences down from the week, i do have a few funny stories too! So remember how last week i said i would remember my other funny story right as i walked out, ya thats exactly what happened... haha anyways heres the story from last week!!! My comp, darn it haha, told one of the members that hes a bit tired of eating chicken, cuz thats all that the members give us here for lunch, but for me chickens good, and more importantly, its safe haha.... its hard to go wrong with chicken, and as long as we are eating chicken it means we arent eating anything crazy, so im happy... alright well ya so she said she would cook something else for us then, and oh man did i miss understand how bad of news that would turn out to be....... so ya she brings out some weird looking brown mush, somewhat solid and like curvey... ugh like little brown bars of soap that people have carved roundish chunks out of... and then with a off green kind of sauce over it.... oh man! It was bad! So ya i said my own personal prayer, one of the most heart felt prayers ive done in a while, in my head, while the dad blessed the food... so ya i take my first bite to see if it really tasted as bad as it looked and smelled, and to my surprise it wasnt too bad, but then i realized after a few seconds i was only tasting the sauce, which wasnt too bad, but then it quickly disinegrated in my mouth and i was just left with the mystery meat... so ya not only did it taste awful, but it was like a mix between a sponge and a towel too because it like dried up my whole mouth as i chewed... AHHHH disgusting!!!! Worst textured food ive ever had!!! So ya luckily the dad of this family loves the tabernacle choir and always puts on music from them while we have lunch with them, and oh man ill tell ya the choir was cheering me on hard to finish that plate of what i guess they call food here... so ya i didnt ask what it was, but finally when i finished and looked up and smiled i realized for the first time my comp had finished before me, he ate it super fast and to my disgrace told the lady he absolutely loved it.... talk about one of the few things you never want your comp to say... so ya then she asked me what i thought and dont worry mom, i maintained a good honest, k well maybe not honest, but a good and necessary smile none the less and told her it was really good... she laughed, which scared me, and asked if i knew what it was. I innocently said no and she told me some word i didnt know. Realizing i didnt understand that word she then said it was ´´this part of a cow´´ pointing to the side of her stomach... so ya im still not sure what i ate that day, not sure i want to, and worse yet my comp really did like it and asked that she keep giving us stuff thats not chicken.... so ya on the bright side i should have a good new story every week now from eating lunch with them!! oh also, it was a good few days later that i got sick, just enough to not be able to say that it was that meat that made me sick darn it, i would have loved that excuse to tell her i cant eat that stuff any more...
Alright the other funny story real fast is that last night we were in our weekly meeting with the ward missionaries planning some activities, when one of them offered to bring a refreshment. knowing that i had recently been sick, she askeed me if i could eat... and then she said the name of some food i didnt know in spanish... so then they all start trying to describe it to me, asking me if ive had it, and they are all saying its yellow, you eat it with salt and butter, and that it EXPLODES!!! So they are all making explosive motions with their hands and im like what kind of food is this that explodes!!! What on earth!!! Ya no duh im sure they put tooons of salt and butter on it, probably have to to make anything that explodes reasonable etible... so then after a few minutes of confusion and laughter one of them is finally smart enough to tell me that its what people always eat at the movie theater.... WORLD CLASS ´´OOHHHHHH´´ FROM ELDER TENNEY as i realize POPCORN!!!! Hahahaha ahh ya we laughed way heard for a long time after that!!
Listo entonces eso es todo lo que tengo para compartir esta semana! como siempre muchas gracias por las cartas y el apoyo, y si mom estoy leyendo mis notas de ese discurso de Jorg (i dont remember his last name) casi diariamente para aplicar lo que aprendí de él aun más y más todos los días! También espero que se anote muy rápido que he aprendido por fin a escribir con acentos en estes teclados jaja! Listo entonces quisiera dejarles con mi testimonio. Sé que vive mi Señor. Sé que Él nos dio Su vida, y además que resucitó y que según y gracias a ese sacrificio haremos lo mismo nosotros mismos. Él nos ama, no me cabe duda, y lo digo en el nombre sagrado de Él, Jesucristo, amen.
les amo
nos vemos
Élder Tenney
