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