ahhh i had a toooonnn of things i had to scan and send to the aps from our zone here, and tht took like 35 minutes of my hour... then will asked me a bunch of questions, so i spent all my time writin to him and giving my weekly report to the president. but im GREAT, im LOVING the mission, i have water in my house now yes dont worry mom, the water is totally fine now, and i seriously have had the best week of my mission this week., my comp is AMAZING andwe had a great week together, ill give detalis next week, but heres the lettr i wrote to my president if you can google translate it, its the only quick summary of the week i have... im glad you guys are all good, keep up the good work, dad that is SOO awesoem everything with oyor company!!
catch you next week!!
Stephen
my letter:
Estimado Presidente!
Presidente creo que he tenido la mejor semana de mi misión! Ha sido una semana llena de experiencias increíbles!!! En pocas palabras, Élder Molinari y yo pasamos muchísimo tiempo de rodillas con los investigadores y menos activos, tratando de que oraran, invitándoles con el corazón a hacerlo como Presidente Uceda nos enseñó. De pronto la mejor experiencia de la semana fue con una investigadora que encontramos en una actividad hogareña el lunes. Ella está progresando muy bien pero ha estado muy preocupado por su hijo que es rebelde. Logramos enseñar al hijo, pero él no quiso hacer la oración al final. Nos pusimos de rodillas y nos quedamos allí por lo que parecía mucho tiempo, con la investigadora de rodillas y conversos recientes todo el tiempo, y funcionó!! Finalmente él hizo la oración, y pidió perdón a Dios por no tratarla bien a su mamá, y ya vemos que por ello ella logró un testimonio y El Señor está fortaleciendo su familia!
Como zona estamos encontrando, mucho por CR y MA ahora, pero falta que esos nuevos asistan. Para ello tenemos planes y esperamos ver los frutos este domingo que viene. Estoy aprendiendo mucho de Élder Molinari y siento privilegiado de ser compañero de él.
Whatttsupppp family?!?!?! Hows it going?!?!?! Dang times flying, looks like the Bday part with the Callisters was awesome!!! but hey how old is their youngest son??? He looks HUGE and he was a tiny, tiny baby fresh out of the oven when i left... how long have i been out?? dont answer that last question haha
alright well heres some of the big news from the week. There were transfers this morning, and i got a new companion!!! Haha now youve got to take a look at the picture at the bottom and guess where hes from.
Did you all look at the picture and guess?
Alrlight, your all wrong haha he looks like a gringo and makes funny jokes about it but hes actually from Paraguay. Haha thats right two companions back to back from paraguay, but thats a good thing there arent many missionaries from paraguay in my mission but all of them are really really good missionaries. So his names Elder Molinari, from the capital, Asunción, been a member his whole life, fun guy, and hes a suuuuper good missionary. Wow. Hes powerful when he teaches, hes been a zone leader for a while now as well and im stoked to be with him!! It was sad to see my old comp elder Romero go, we did lots and learned a ton together, but it should be a good transfer or two ahead as well!
K other cool news from the week, k so you guys remember me talking a lot about my friend from the mtc elder winchester right? the only other gringo in my mission who was in the mtc with me, just him and me who didnt speak spanish and a whole bunch of latinos when we came here, the one who i had the KILLER prank battle with in the mtc, good man elder winchester, so as i and many others predicted he got called as the AP, the asistant to the president this week and im stoked to be working lots with him now!! And of course, i have to play a huge prank on him, if you have any ideas let me know...
A quote i absolutely love from Elder Richard G Scott says something like ´´all of God´s children here on the earth chose the right, chose God´s plan before this life. Trust that, given the opportunity to do so, they will choose whats right again.´´ k not word for word, it sounds better coming from him haha but ive learned a lot from this this week. The first and biggest example: We have an investigator, an older lady, whose getting baptized tuesday, and we invited her to fast. We taught her tithing this past week, and she explained that she doesnt have income, shes been really sick and cant work right now, her family supports her, and we felt that she needed a testimony on tithing, but then we directed our thoughts to fast offerings instead. Despite the fact that shes been sick, she thought shed be able to fast yes, and really had some special blessings she wanted to ask for, so even though we thought a fast would be really really tough for her with her difficult health situations, we remembered this phrase from elder Scott, thinking that children of God are more capable than we sometimes think and need to be pushed to those high expectations... we invited her to fast, and she did it. When we asked her how it went the next day she said she hardly slept, she was in pain most of the night, and that it was really hard, but she did indeed do it and realized more how much the Lord really does make us capable of doing such things. Its incredible how hard of decisions people will make correctly if they simply remember this phrase, and understand the depth of its meaning: ´´I am a child of God´´.
Speaking of those words, another really really neat expereince from the week, Elder Carlos Godoy shared an incredible story in his general conference talk last october in which he said ´´I am a child of God´´, and Elder Godoy came to our chapel yesterday to release and call a new stake president here!! WOWW it was powerful the talk he gave!!! And so remember how i talked a little about the bishop here whose INCREDIBLE!!! So he got called as stake presidnet, which im kind of bummed because we wont work as closely to him anymore but oh well...
Esa frase de Elder Scott también se aplica muchísimo al liderazgo. He aprendido muchísimo que si tan sólo hago que otros misioneros sepan que son capaces de hacer grandes cosas, lo hacen. A menudo ellos ya saben qué es lo que tienen que hacer, no necesitan que alguien más se lo diga, sino que necesitan que alguien les recuerde estas palabras, sin importar cuánto lo han escuchado: ´´Soy un Hijo de Dios, y Él me envió aquí´´. De eso testifico, en el nombre de Jesucristo. amen.
Hey family?!?! Hows it going?!?!?! K please sign me up to take the ACT again when i get home now that mark beat my score darn it haha, congrats mark!! If only there were a spanish section on the ACT, i would do alright there now but ive forgotten just about everything else i ever learned in school before the mission...
And no way marks going off in basketball too huh??? Daaaang dude good work!!! Dad the office looks good!!
Alright well I completely understand what Will says haha when he talks about lame excuses people come up with to not listen to the missionaries... in colombia its often the same... allow me to share a story from the week. We got a reference from members in another ward, an older lady, went and taught her, her daughter, and her daughters husband, and it went well but her daughters really uninterested... so we went back the next day late in the afternoon when it was already getting dark out and they had the lights on inside the house, so the gate was closed and the daughter came out to talk to us. We asked if her mom was there to teach them a lesson and she said no, that she was alone. Little did she know the blinds were open and we could easily, clear as broad daylight, see her mom right there inside the house watching tv, and so i told her of course haha ´´uh, and that lady right here watching tv, whos she?´´ she said ´´oh, a friend...´´ and we said ´´oh, so your not alone... hmm... well, isnt that your mom right there watching tv?´´ and digging herself deeper in a hole she said ´´no its a friend who looks a lot like my mom´´ hahaha ahhh that was great.
So our leaders have been training us a lot about being bolder missionaries. Its a bit tricky because we cant completely insist on people and be overbearing, but we have to be bold and more persuasive with our ways of getting in the door, teaching, and helping people not just listen, but keep commitments and really change their lives. I love the scripture in Alma 38:12 and understand from it that the difference between boldness and overbearance is the amount of love we express for the people... the more we are kind and love them, the more we can pressure them into doing whats right without it being overbearing... We had a sweeet experience with that this week. On thursday there was a huuuge soccer game, all you could hear walking through the street were the tv commentators yelling and all, not a single person in the street unless their eyes were glued to a tv outside, and we managed to get a lesson during that hour!!! We went into a ladys house and her husband was watching the game... We explained to her the importance of having him listen to the lesson as well, and tried to help her invite him to turn off the tv and come listen... she didnt, so we proceeded to do so oursleves. We told him what a cool pretty house he has and all, and how good colombias soccer team is and how we love the colombian people, but then firmly told him to turn of the tv for just 5 minutes and listen. He did so, we used more than 5 minutes (haha the 5 minute trick works every time), we shared the story ´´He took my lickin for me´´ connected it to the Atonement with Alma 7:11-13 and he loved it!!! We felt the spirit a lot in that lesson, and walked out with stronger testimonies of the power and authority by which we really are set apart to preach this gospel!
La osadía viene con la dignidad puesta con el hecho de ser apartado, y con el amor que expresamos por la gente. Mi compañero y yo aprendimos eso esta semana por experiencia propia. Sé que además de eso, entre más comprendemos la autoridad que tenemos como misioneros apartados, aun más probable es que la gente nos escuche y haga caso al mensaje que tenemos, y aun más se siente el Espíritu también. Lo comparto en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.
Whattsuuppp family?!?!?! Hows it going?!?!?! daaaaang i still cant believe Dads new company or that INCREDIBLE new office!!!!!! WOOOWWWW thats neat!!!!! Well im glad youve all had a good week, things are going great here in colombia as well!!! i hoped you enjoyed general conference as much as i did!!!
Alright well nothings that new this week, sorry, boring i know, but first off what did you guys think of general conference?!?! woooooowwww good stuff!!!!! Sooooo after Elder Juan Uceda came to visit our mission we were all secretly hoping hed move up to the quorum of the 12 hahaha but even though he didnt those were 3 suuuuper powerful talks and i know the 3 new apostles are called of God! Alright well i could talk all day about the talks i loved, in fact thats all i do haha is talk about what i learned from them teaching others, but some of my favorites were both from President Eyring (in the priesthood session and on sunday), the story of the potters clay that had to be centered perfectly, the one from Elder Hales, that of Elder Holland of course, the one from Elder Nelson didnt seem too directed to us men at first haha but woooowww that story is incredible, and of course both from President Monson (dang did he look sick though poor guy at the end of his talk on sunday morning, do you guys know anything about that?)
Arlihgt well mom asked more about my area. My area is divided in an interesting way, almost all the members live in a part of Cali callled ´´la Floralia´´ and that is split between us and the missionaries. Thats were we do most of our work. Its nice, its normal for colombia, the houses are small, 2 to 4 stories but each floor belongs to a different family and they are long and skinny houses, there are a few cool parks and at the end of our area is a big dirt ridge that serves as a dam cuz on the other side is the river cauca, on that dam theres a dam dangerous neighbor hood (haha sorry) were we cant go in, but other than that our area is safe. The interesting part though is that if we cross the sister misionaries side of la floralia there are more neiborhoods, some of them ours, and they are really wealthy, but we dont spend as much time cuz its further from the chapel and there arent many members and we are discouraged to knock on doors here, but rather find new investigagors with the members... what i LOVe about our area though is that it has a SWEEET view of the mountains (they arent quite as big or pretty as those of utah but theyre cool!!) and there are houses and streets that go all the way up parts of them, and belive it or not ´parts are part of our ward and this week were gonna go up there for the first time to visit some less actives, so ill have pictures next week!
Bueno pues les prometo una carta más interesante la siguiente semana. Espero que por lo menos sepan que estoy muy bien, muy contento, con miedo porque el tiempo se me está volando, pero aprendo tanto cada día y siento honrado por poder predicar esta palabra todos los días. Sé que sostuvimos este fin de semana que pasó a tres nuevos apostoles llamados por Dios, y a los demás líderes y al profeta, Sé que esta es la iglesia de Jesucristo restaurada en su perfecta forma, y lo digo en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.
los amo
nos vemos
Élder Tenney
ps sorry ive been lame about pictures, heres one from pday today playing games in teh chapel, and one from a big fun family night we had
