The Week

Heyyyy Whatttsssuppp family?!?!?!  Hey shoot so, im soooo sooooo sooooo sorry, but this email is about as lame as it gets this week.,.....  Sorry but we planned an activity with the whole zone for pday today and the activity went too long and we dont have much time left on pday.... We are heading out right now to go back to our area, its like half an hour away but theres probably traffic right now, so i might get back with time to write a bit more before pday ends, but if not im sooo sooo soooryyy for such a lame letter, just now that im doing great!!!  All is still suuuuuper great here in the mission, im safe, im healthy, my comp and i are tearing it up, weve had even more incredible experiences this week and are marrying and baptizing that couple next week!!!  All is good, i managed to read your emails real quick and im glad to hear all is well there too!!! Keep enjoying utah for me and if i dont write a bit more ill catch you next week, which will be here before we know it!!!

 

les amo

 

nos vemos

 

Élder Tenney

You See Better With Your Eyes Open

Alright well heres the weekly report for ya!

First off, last monday, as pday ended we were headed out of the house to hit a few lessons when it finally happened.  We knew it would one of these days, it was just a question of when...  So as zone leaders we have a copy of the keys to all the houses of the other missionaries in the zone, incase they get locked out.  But who has the keys to the houses of the zone leaders?  The secretary in the mission office. Perfect!  oh wait no, the secretary is in Cali, 3 hours from our house here in Zarzal.. so ya we were about halfway down the street when we realized we didnt have the keys, that they got left in the house.  We called the mission office to see if by any chance they could send the copy of the key in a bus or something, they said no, so we got creative!

Most of the houses here in Colombia, ours included, that are on the top floor of the building have little landings or balcony type places ontop for doing laundry and all.  so we thought it just might be possible to climb over to the landing of our house from the neighbors roof... We knocked on the neighbors door, but the funniest part was that we had just barely started explaining the situation to the neighbors when they said ´´oh ya come on in, just climb across from up here!´´ like they knew exactly what to do... so as we head up to the balcony with them we asked them ´´uh, so has this happened with other missionaries before?´´  and they said ´´of course haha, with every single one of them, we were wondering when it would finally happen with you new guys´´ hahaha so they totally knew the drill, they took us up stairs, but a little step stool up to the roof and helped us climb across to our balcony haha... Then from the balcony luckily my comp had left a window open and we managed to get in...

The only problem then once we got inside was that we couldnt find the keys... so after looking all over the place i finally start looking through my backpack which i had with me the whole time, and ya sure enough.....

haha no jk they werent in my backpack, that would have been horrible, but no we found the keys and then went on our way to the lessons...

Alright well thats really the only funny story from the week.  other than that my comp and i have been learning a ton though!!  Its been interesting to see how so many people react to our message here...

So i gave the letter the title this week because of a pretty funny thing my comp did.  With backround, heres the story.  Weve taught a whole handful of people recently who are already members of other churches, mostly catholics... So we go through the whole process.  We teach them the first lesson, all about the restoration, give them a book of Mormon, have them read it and pray about it, and then always, as ive mentioned before, they always get an answer when we go back... The problem is theyre just never willing to change anything based on the answer they themselves dont even deny theyve had.  The interesting part though is that they always tell us they pray to God everyday asking Him to guide them in their lives.  We ask them if they will change churches when they know another church is the true church, and they say yes, that they ask The Lord everyday to make it known to them if they need to change churches, but they never do anything.  so we sit their, thinking hmmmm, The Lord´s sent us here, weve taught you, youve prayed and know its true, youre telling us its true, but you still wont join the church, and when they tell us no we just shake the dust off our feet and move on...

so after many, many of these situations my comp hahaha finally said to a lady, ´´you know what, you know why you arent fixing your life at all?  its because youre living like this´´ he then put a first lesson pamphlet up to his face right infront of his eyes, blindfolding himselft... hahahahaha i tried so hard not to laugh, it was a wayyy bold but honestly very necessary way of explaining to her that she, like so many other people weve taught, is completely blind to The Lord´s guidance in life....

The interesting part though is that while my comp and i have found a lot of people blind to what The Lord is trying to help them do, we ourselves have taken a step back and tried to open our own eyes and see what it is that The Lord wants us to learn as well.  and wooowww has it been an interesting few weeks because of that... This week we made a list of lots of little things that arent exactly agains missionary rules, but that do keep us from working a bit more effectively, and that will be important skills to learn for the rest of our lives, things we know The Lord wants us to learn, and were really trying to repurify ourselves and edify ourselves as missionaries!  Its incredible, absolutely incredible how much influence The Lord really has in our every day lives, even when we think we recognize His hand lots, theres sooo much more we can always open up our eyes to see!

Me encantan los capítulos de primer Nefi, cuando Nefi se retiró a las montañas para orar acerca del sueño de su papá... Nefi quería abrir sus ojos aun más así también, y al hacer esta obra y al estudiar las escrituras, todos nosotros también tendremos el hambre que Nefi tenía, el hambre de implementar los cambios en nuestras vidas que El Señor nos tiene.  Sé que Él obra milagros todos los días.  Sé que Él está apresurando Su obra, y sé que esta es la iglesia verdadera de Jesucristo.  Lo dejo en Su nombre, el de Jesucristo, amen.

les amo

nos vemos

Élder Tenney

ps, sorry sorry sorry i think my camera memory card has a virus cuz i cant open my pictures on any computer, sorry ill try to get some pics sent as soon as possible

Asunto

Whatsssup?!?!?!  Hows it going?!?!?!  Talking with you guys was the absolute BEST yesterday!!!!!  Ahhhhhh i loved seeing that you guys are doing so well!!!!  Alright well you already got most of the scoop yesterday but heres a bit more for ya!

So two interesting stories from the week that didnt make it into the skype conversation yesterday, here they are!  enjoy

first off, we were teaching a less active couple that recently got married in the branch.  We were teaching the first lesson, talking about the great apostacy, when something fell from the ceiling and landed behind one of the pieces of furniture.  We all kinda stopped and looked over, but then shrugged when we didnt see anyting and kept the lesson going...  So of course, all biggest distractions always, ALWAYS occur when we are sharing the first vision, there i was telling the story when all of the sudden a HUGE spider, almost as big as the one from my last spider story, almost the size of my hand, absolutely HUGE came SPRINTINg into the middle of all of us from behind the piece of furniture... We realized why it had made a bit of a thud sound when it fell cuz the thing was MASSIVE!!!  But even more scary was how INCREDIBLY fast it ran!!!!  So in the middle of the first vision, the wife screams, almost does a backflip, no better said backflop, off the back of the couch and starts running into the other room... wait whoops did i say the wife?  oh wait that was actually me that did that... but i sware i wasnt the only one, the others screamed as well and stood up to run... but ya so the worst part was of course that we didnt manage to kill it, it hid somewhere behind the couch where we were sitting, and then trying to act calm and invite the spirit again we sat down and kept the discussion going, with some occasional twitches of fear and all... 

K so the other story real quick!  Last night we went to a recent converts house to fill out her papers to register her in seminary.  It was like 8:30 and pitch dark, we didnt see any lights on in the house, but knocked anyways.  Nothing.  We knocked a second time, and waited a moment more.  Then, out of nowhere, the door just slowely swung open ALL ON ITS OWN!!!  My comp and i looked at each other, confused, then peeked inside, sure that somebody was hiding behind the door or something, but didnt see anyone...  Slightly creeped out, we then heard a really screachy voice say ´´who is it?  what do you need?´´  ya, that was creepy!!!  We asked for the recent convert, and then we saw her mom who had just woken up walking towards the door, slightly sick, and hence the weird voice, but we sure arent sure how the door opened all on its own

Alright so this week has been sooooo awesome with respect to the family we are doing the wedding for!!!  We managed to raise the money and get ahold of all their birth records and all from other cities, and longs story short its been a week full of small miracles!!!  But i want to share a bit more about something really neat that happened as we were in a lesson with the dad.  For years the dad in this family was the reason they didnt get married and baptized and sealed sooner, he just didnt want to... but he told us this week that what really made the change in him was the book of mormon.  While his daughter was on the mission, she told him to do her just one small favor.  Read the book of mormon.  He did it, and he said that even though he didnt want to believe it, he could not deny it was a book inspired of God.  He said that he knew first from what he felt, then from the answers he found, and then from changes he saw in his life that it is indeed the word of God.  So ya thanks to the power of this book he is now getting ready to get baptized and has his eyes set on going to the temple with his family!!!

Les testifico que no hay ningún libro que sea más correcto que el Libro de Mormón sobre la faz de la tierra.  Sé que al leerlo uno siempre se acerca más a Dios, y eso porque contiene la plenitud del Evangelio de Jesucristo.  Es interesante, aunque muchas personas en fin rechazan nuestro mensaje, aunque lo hagan de manera tenaz y ya no quieran nada que ver con la iglesia, siempre, siempre, siempre cada persona que tan sólo lee el libro un poquito y ora a Dios para preguntar si es un libro verdadero recibe una respuesta.  He conocido a muchas personas aquí que me dicen ´´sé que es verdad.  Sentí algo muy especial cuando leí y oré, mas sin embargo no estoy listo para cambiar mi vida, estoy contento donde estoy...´´  Sé que el Libro de Mormón se tradujo por José Smith, y que testifica del Hijo de Dios.  Lo dejo en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.

los amo

nos vemos

Élder Tenney

1 Nefi 4:6

Whatttupppp family?!?!?!  Hows everyone doing?!?!?!  Thanks for the letters, sounds like its been another good week back in the states, and things are good here in Colombia as well!!!  Im suuuuuuper excited to talk this sunday!!!  but until then heres the weekly report!!

I hit my 11 month mark yesterday!!!!   Holy cow......  not even kidding, that kind of scares me... time is going by wayyyyy to fast!!!  The only thing to do is what Elder Holland says, not worry about the time and just work work and work until someone tells me to go home...

So here are some weird indicators of 11 months in the mission:

I cant remember the last time i dreamed in english... always in spanish... haha better yet i realized the other day that even when you guys are in my dreams, you are all speaking spanish

All the girls my age who left for the mission around the time i did are already coming down to the last strech of their missions!!!  and a handful of the girls i hung out with at BYU who didnt go on the mission are engaged!!!  weird

I cant remember the name of any NBA players!!!!!  I got my haircut the other day and espn was on the tv in the barber shop and i recognized all the faces but couldnt put names to them, really annoying actually haha as i sat there with all their names on the tip of my tongue

I never have to tie a tie more than once to get it the perfect length

I cant speak english to save my life infront of pure latinos, it comes out sounding like absolute garbage, i dont even know how to explain it, my tongue slips up and the grammer is horrible, and i pause for moments thinking ``how do you say...?`` but when im with other gringo missionaries i speak just fine

Alright well i dont really have anything super exciting besides that this week, but there are a number of sweet stories with respect to the missionary work more importantly!

So the title of my letter this week is 1 nephi 4:6 because that describes more or less a number of key lessons we had this week!  first off, we have some investigators, a man and his wife, who, typical colombia, arent legallty married but have lived together for 30 years and act like husband and wife, but ya so their daughter is a returned missionary, believe it or not she served in Chile, but down south somewhere, not in wills mission, and ya so the mom has wanted to get baptized for the longest time but the dad hasnt wanted to get married or baptized... So my comp and i were walking by from one lesson to another when we both just kind of paused, looked down the street that heads towards their house, and then looked at each other, and almost at the same time said to each other ```how about we swing by their house real quick, even though well probably be late to the next lesson...<`` so backround info real quick, the dad has a crazy work schedule and is almost NEVER home to have a lesson with him... but so we swing by, and sure enough, he answers the door... better yet, hes alone, and we honestly really really needed to talk to just him alone...

So we were stocked on the inside for this totatlly random and totally inspired opportunity, but quickly realized we had no idea what on earth to share/teach/where to go with the lesson.... So afte the prayer we just sort of started asking questions to see where he stands on things... long sotry short it turned into an unofficial baptismal interview, and at the end we testified of everything he agreed is true, and shared Mosiah 18:10, asking whats keeping him from getting batpized.  He said its the marriage sure enough, and then we asked him quite simply, ``well then, why dont you get married?``  To our shock, outstanding shock, he said he would like to, he just didnt have the money.... Almost crying for joy, we said we would easily get some fundraisers going to provide the money with his help and the help of the whole branch here, and told him to propose to his wife!

so if thats not enough, a few days later the EXACT SAME THING happened!!!  We were just walking by when we felt the same slight prompting to not worry about the next lesson we had and to instead swing by that house... turns out the husband answered the door again!!!  We NEVER found him at home before as we tried to contact, but we caught him with a few free minutes again, with his wife and daughter home, and long story short he had proposed to her and we put dates down on paper for their wedding and baptism.  The dad said the final prayer at the end, and as he said amen, the daughter took off running into the other room emberrased because the was crying with joy!!!!!

Entonces si tuviera màs tiempo, podrìa hablar todo el dìa de que tan especiales esas experiencias eran!!!  El gozo que se siente al hacer la obra misional es ireemplazable, y sè que es un pedazito de lo que siempre sentiremos cuando nos reunamos con nuestro Padre Celestial despuès de esta vida y con nuestras familias nuevamente!!!  Espero con ansiedad la oportunidad de seguirles contando este domingo, y espero que les vaya muy bien hasta entonces!  Sè que las familias pueden ser eternas gracias al plan de salvaciòn, hecho posible por el Hijo de Dios, y lo dejo en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.

los amo

nos vemos

Èlder Tenney

mhhmmm

Alright well heres the scoop.

ya ive got nothing

theres the scoop.

Sorry, nothing too exciting has happened this week.

One cool thing!!!  We found a building not too far from our house actually, somewhat in the middle of nowhere, but that of all things turns out to be a small BASKETBALL STADIUM!!!!!!   So the doors are always open and theres never a living sole there, at least not at 6:30 in the morning, so we ran there this morning (i bought a basketball and pump to keep in the house now and shoot hoops more often in the morning!!) and shot hoops for our xercise time and woooowwww that was wayyyy fun!!!  Hahaha basketball has seriously been erased from my mind completely here in colombia unfortunately, but today it was super nice to shoot some hoops in a nice gym with a hoop that actually has a backboard and is the right height and all, and the stands all around the court make imagining a roaring crowd a bit easier, felt like i was playing in the NBA today!!!  the bad news though, ahhhhhh i cant quite dunk anymore....!!!!!  or at least today i couldnt, ahhh it was the most unsatisfying feeling haha jumping as hard as i could and just getting rim stuffed like no other, but oh well...

So yesterday i gave a talk in sacrament meeting.  They told me i could really talk about whatever i want, but that itd be good to get the members more pumped about missionary work, even though the memvbers are actually way good here (i have no idea how this poor little branch is still just a branch cuz it really does have a lot of good members, a handful of returned missionaries, and 5 people on missions right now...)  so i talked about how the difficulties of the missionary work edify us.  I had a sweet talk planned out about how missionary work is about forgetting about oursleves, not even trying to have success persay, but to just submit ourselves completely to The Lord´s will and do what were told when were told, and that then The Lord can really scolt us and mold us into the better people he needs us to be.  I used the example that mark and jared arent going to like too much, but wrote that parents cant do their homework for their kids or they arent going to learn anything.  the same goes for missionary work, if we only testify to people who are going to accept the message of Christ immediately, and never talk with anybody whos not going to accept, then The Lord is doing all the work and not leaving room for us to learn and grow at all.

I also wrote a bit in my talk about doing the work for the right reasons, because we love The Lord.  Thats what i learned in buenaventura.  I had sooooo many good lessons there where we felt the spirit tons and were teaching the people exactly what they needed, having incredible spriritual experiences with the people, but then having all our hard work crushed every sunday as not asingle person went to church with us..... i felt like George Bailey in a Christmas Carol, working lots and not seeing the good fruits of my work, but i learned a lot from that and tried to share all that in my talk.  We have to do the work we do simply because we love The Lord and He tells us to do it if we love Him, and not try to do it for the joy that comeswith success, cuz that just lets us get discouraged when the success doesnt come... but ya so i had all that planned out for my talk with examples of how Peter and Alma the younget and the sons of mosiah changed so much and became such stronger people after preaching for years, and ya.... 

There were just two problems with my talk though darn it haha.  First off, if anybodies ever in a bad mood, all they have to do is see a gringo bend over at the tiny little pulpits made for latinos here in south america.  Ohhh ya haha, i lifted themicrophone all the way up, making the classic screaching sound, and still had to bend down to an awkwardly low position for my voice to reach the microphone haha but its all good everybody enjoyied it.. the only other problmem though unfortunately was that the lady who talked before me talked for like 30 minutes, and i being the last speaker ended up just sharing the story of Alma the younger real quick and then bearing my testimony, but its all good.

Well this weeks been incredible cuz weve met two more families like the one we found last week, where weve knocked on the door and immediately we found out they have a fmaily member, the dad or the brother, who has recently passed away and theyre still hit pretty hard by the loss.... so weve been teaching the plan of salvation a lot this week, but theres nothing more satisfying than seeing how much people light up as they hear us testify that their families can be eternal thanks to Christ!!!  Its a pretty commonly accepted idea here in colombia since the people are all atleast somewhat christian, but all the people like this weve met have had serious doubts lately and have told us they feel incredible hope in their lives as they feel the Spirit and it assures them thatthey can indeed be with theri lost loved ones again!!

pues quiero dejarles con mi testimonio que El Señor deja que cosas así difíciles nos pasen a fin de que busquemos a Dios. Es irónico que Dios a veces permita que personas cercanas en nuestras vidas fallezcan, pero sé que eso pasa para que las familias aprendan de su potencial eterno, según el plan de Salvación hecho posible por Jesucristo.  Sé que las familias pueden ser eternas y que todas las dificultades que tenemos en esta vida nos serán redimidas después de esta vida.  Lo sé por las respuestas que he recibido del Espíritu Santo, y lo comparto en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.

los amo

nos vemos

Élder Tenney