Gringo with Gringo?

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.

los amo

nos vemos

Élder Tenney