Possibly the last week in Northern Cali

Whattsuppp family?!?!?!  Hows it going?!?!?!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!  46 no?!?!  tenaz espero que los haya cumplido con bien!!!  Dang sounds like it really was one good birthday though!!

Alright so all is good here in Cali, Colombia!!  Its rained a lot recently (but is still blazing hot at the same time, not sure how that works...) but the rivers have pretty much refilled and all of Cali is good on water again!!  K so this is the last week of my 3rd transfer here in the northern zone of Cali and missioanries rarely stay a 4th transfer in one area in this mission, so next week ill probably be writing from another part of the mission, but theres a lot of good work to get done still in this area and i know this will be my best week yet here!!!

K one funny thing from the week, a family of investigators has a dog that they dont really like and just kinda let run stray all over the neighborhood, and the dog seems to really like my comp and i cuz he follows us ALL OVER the place haha!  I have no idea how he finds us everyday, sometimes we dont even pass by their house, but this dog finds us in the street walking from lesson to lesson practically everyday and then follows us to EVERY LESSON!!!  and this thing is magical too cuz when we close the gates to the houses where we have lessons and leave him outside, he always slips throught the bars or something when we arent looking and just magically appears in the middle of the lesson!!  hahaha we have one recent convert who has 5 cats and in the middle of a lesson the dog came running in and started chasing them all over the whole house and the poor old lady just about had a heart attack as we chased the dog trying to grab him before he ate any of the cats... 

Alright so our golden investigator who planned a small celebration with my comp for my birthday a few weeks ago is having some difficulties unfortunately... So my comp and i, as we headed to the lesson, changed the lesson plan a bit trying to think about what we could share to help her calmdown a bit and be happy despite the challenges we all always have in life... So we were in the lesson, she wasnt doing too well, the plan had kind of fallen through, and then my comp and i felt the need to share something interesting... We told her she could feel more peace and be happier if she exercises a bit more faith, and that that faith has to be demonstrated with actions... then we gave her an interesting invitation that i dont think she really liked, we invited her to take a step of faith and ask The Lord for more challenges.  We probably should have shown a bit more support first and tried to show her we understand her difficulties, she got frustrated saying things like ´´how can you expect me to ask for even more trials when i already have too many???´´ and we will show more support the next time, but i know the invitation we gave her that day is a key to being happy.  Anybody can ask The Lord for patience, anybody can fall to their knees and plead for help when they most desperately need it, but if we have the faith to humbly ask The Lord for even more difficulties that we already have, then were really putting our faith in Him, showing that we know that we can be happy despite everything were passing through.  We did it with her, its something i done a few times here in the mission, and its part of how i know that The Lord really does love us.  When things really do get hard ive realized im still just as happy as always, worried and tired as well most of the time, but in the end happy, and i can always feel The Lords love as i pray and talk to Him about everything that goes on.

Sé que Él Señor siempre está pendiente de nosotros y que espera nuestras oraciones con ansiedad.  Sé que nuestro salvador Jesucristo comprende todo también por lo que sufrió por nosotros como se enseña en Alma 7.  De esto testifico en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.

les amo

nos vemos

Élder Tenney

The birthday week!

Whatsssuppp family?!?!  Daaaaang you went to a clippers game without me???  Alright well i hope you enjoyed your birthday mom as much as i did!!  Its been another good week here in Colombia!!!

Alright so on my birthday we worked just like we always do haha, but it was cool our pesnionist (the lady who makes our lunch every day) decorated her house a bit and made hamburgers!!!  haha that was awesome and they were really good!!!  then we had 5 lessons with a member present in every one and found a bunch of new investigators!!  And my comp surprised me in the night, we have one investigator right now whos AWESOME, a middle aged single lady and now her sons starting to take the lessons too, and my comp told her to pretend like she didnt want to take the lessons anymore, so we got there at her house, our last lesson in teh day, she immediately said there were a number of problems and she didnt want to keep having lessons any more... i was stunned... haha so trying to talk about it i told her that we should just talk a little bit real quick if shed let us in, she did, and they had the whole house decorated and a bunch of members there and they threw a mini surprise party for me!!!  It was awesome!!!  So we ate patacones, which are giant bananas that they smash into discs and deep fry, haha theyre SUUPER good, and we covered them in a guacamole type sauce she made, im not much of a guac guy in the states buts its pretty darn good here!!!  So yes i had a great birthday!!!

Alright well last night we had an incredible lesson that i wanted to talk about a bit real quick!!  Our leaders have been training us to work with the recent converts and less actives who are starting to come back to church in order to find new investigators throught them, and a recent convrt lady took us to visit one of her friends the other day.... so we visited her, seh came to church yesterday, and told us lots about how she and her husband dont get along at all about religious matters, she said he hates all the churches... So last night we swung by and found him infront of the house!!!  We talked a bit across the front gate, and managed to buy ourselves what we said would be just 5 minutes talking with him inside... WOW!!!  this guy TRANSFORMED within the 40 minutes or so that we were there!!!!!  First off he started talking about how he despised priestcraft... he said leadership in a church should be sacrifice and that people should have jobs apart from that... so con mucho gusto we taught a little bit about tithing... side note:  i love teaching tithing, surprisingly, it makes SOOO much sense to people here since its the only church that doesnt give the money right to the leaders... then we had barely started talking about how the church of Christ was lost when the apostles and peter the prophet at the time were killed, and he finished the story and explained the whole apostasy perfectly!!!  but, he said we were still in apostasy, we shared the story of Joseph Smith and he immediately said ´´you mean the church of Jesus Christ exists again on the earth with a living prophet??´´ and he got suuuuper happy and commited to pray about it, and his wife haha at the end of the lesson was looking at us shocked, giving us thumbs up like ´´wow, you guys are the first ones to satisfy him´´ and it was INCREDIBLE!!!  The spirit we felt there more than anything was suuuper strong!!!

I dont know if you guys have seen The Other Side of Heaven recently, theres a part that shows Colypoci teaching on several different islands, just teaching teaching and teaching while it has cool calm music in the backround, showing all the incredible proselyting he was doing, thats how my companion and i have felt laterly!!!  I plain and simply love teaching!!!  I love the challenge of explaining things as clearly as i can, i love showing how this gospel has helpted me so much and i LOVE the relieved, brightened look on peoples faces as they feel the spirit and realize we are teaching the truth and that its going to change their lives!!!  

Que pena pero ya se me está acabando el tiempo pero estoy muy contento y siento sumamente privilegiado por esta oportunidad de servir como siervo del Señor!!  Espero que ustedes también sientan tanta felicidad como yo al aplicar este evangelio no solamente a sus propias vidas, sino a las de los que nos rodean también!  lo comparto en el nombre de Jesucristo. amen.

los amo

nos vemos

Élder Tenney

Triki Triki Halloween dame dulces para mí

Whatsssuppp family?!?!?!  ¡Cómo me les fue halloween pues?!?!  Aquí es una LOCURA!!!  dang the trunk or treat looked sweeeeet, nice costumes mom and dad!  Mark, 16 points?!?!  DAAANGGG boy, good work!!  Jared, im sure you had the best costume of all, and are you still studying spanish??

Alright well halloween was pretty crazy here!!  The day before, day of, and every day since halloween all the teenagers around here dress up with their scariest costumes and walk all around town playing drums suuuuper loud, from like 2 in teh afternoon and on there are drum rolls heard on every corner, other than that there was a TON of music, k theres always music, TONS here in Cali, but SOOO MUCH loud music on halloween night, ughhh we couldnt find anyone to teach that night and nobody stopped to talk in the street but oh well, it was fun to see all the cool costumes here, other than the teenagers with drums they celebrate halloween here like in the states...

So something interesting my comp and i have been talking about lots lately and analyzing:  Colombians consider themselves extremely, extremely free and independent people... this is a good thing in many ways, but it makes missionary work interesting.  The way in which this is most commonly seen as a missionary is when we try to get them to try new things in the lessons, haha ohhhhh its always interesting...  for example:  Most people are willing to say the last prayer in the first lesson (we never leave until they pray, we get on our knees and stay there for half an hour often times till they pray) but those who arent, when we ask them to do so, and then get on our knees and wait for them, they always say we are ´´insisting´´ and that they dont like people to insist on them... they think theyre free and that nobody can make them do anything... So we wait their on our knees haha while they sort of throw a fit... Some of the members, when they go with us to the lessons, have said ´´elders maybe we should wait a few lessons for them to say the first prayer, let them get comfortable first´´ but we simply explain to them that until the investigators keep a commitment we give them, usually the first one is simply a prayer, they are the ones in control of the lesson, not us.  But, when we invite them to pray, and show that we arent going to leave till we do so, we take control of the lesson, and then we see who is really willing to change, improve their lives, make and keep commitments, and who isnt willing to do so but simply wants to hear pretty messages about Christ and families without leaving their comfort zone or changing their lives...

Eso es lo que más he aprendido esta semana, a manejar las lecciones como El Señor necesita que lo hagamos, no simplemente someternos a las bajas expectativas de algunos investigadores.  Lo interesante es que al aprender esto, veo mucho la forma en que El Señor hace lo mismo con nosotros.  Normalmente cuando nos frustramos, es porque Él está tomando en control un poquito más e invitándonos a salir de nuestro estado de comodidad y tratar algo nuevo.  Sé que así es cómo llegaremos a la perfección, en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.

los amo

nos vemos

Élder Tenney