GT's!

Our friends. Fun times.

The one with the blue tie is the one who proposed to me. All 3 of us played Vball together. GT's!

Elder Dougherty, me, Elder Elwood (blue tie)

A hilarious picture of me for some reason they zoomed up on me. With Elder Braider. funny kid

Aren't I so cute? haha

A sister just gave me thi.s It hink it's better than the other one! Hilarous!

(This is her sister speaking, the other one, in my opinion, is WAY better :)

us partying together. Sister Paletta, Sis Cardon, and me!



I have a New Best Friend

Mom and Fam!

Gma and gpa are coming here m/w/f/ afternoons? Tell them to find me! I
want to see them! Tell them I eat dinner from 5:30 to about 6:00 or 6:15.
Please tell them to find me!

Thank you for the packages! I got the one with the watch and shoes and
stuff as well as the one with the sports bra and retainer, where did
you find my retainer by the way??? THANK YOU!

This week has been nuts, yet again. So basically after this week I
have a new best friend. He is AWESOME! We talk all the time, almost
constantly actually. I'm pretty sure you all know HIM. Its Heavenly
Father. Things can get tough here sometimes, or other times, you know
how open I usually am with my thoughts and feelings, well, I can't
really be that open and out spoken on a mission, so basicslly probably
over half of what I would normally just tell someone or say out loud I
now say in prayer to my Father in Heaven. I rely on Him sooooo much.
Good thing He knows me so well, and cares about me so much, so He
doesnt mind :) Basically he is the PERFECT best friend (no offense to
all my besties out there I love you don't worry!). So He's helping me
through this, and is always rememinding me I can do it.

Like last week, we had TRC. TRC is where we teach volunteers who come
to the MTC so we can work on both teaching, and our language. The girl
we were teaching is from Moscow, was just baptized 3 moths ago, and
was about to go to the temple for the first time the next day. And
besides all that, I could not understand ONE SINGLE WORD she said. oh
I felt horrible, and so embarrassed, but somehow my companion could
understand everything (miracle!) so sometimes she would let me in on
what was going on. So we taught about prayer, and I did say a few
things, but for the most part I was either frustrated/sad, but the
other half of the time I was amazed at this 20 year old girl's faith
and courage. At the end of the lesson we walked out feeling bad cuz
even though my companion could understand some of it we felt like we
taught horrible and that we were all over the place. After we teach at
the TRC they have the volunteers fill out a form letting us know how
we did and what we could work on. All she wrote on it was that she
felt comfortable with us, felt the spirit, and that through faithful
prayers we can recieve what we ask for. We were AMAZED! We could not
believe she understood and learned exactly what we wanted her too. And
that she felt "comfortable" with us even though there were plenty of
awkward pauses and awkward sentences as we tried to understand
eachother. It was SO COOL!!!!!!! I can't explain it but God works in
mysterious ways and we needed to know that we can still teach even if
our language sucks haha.

OOOOH another tender mercy. So we had one of our teachers leave for a
week so we had a sub. Our teacher just got back Monday. Before he left
I could never understand what he was saying and what we were supposed
to be doing in class (remember our teachers ONLY speak in russian ALL
the time), but on Minday when he returned in class I could understand
everything he said! Whether it was what we were supposed to be doing
or when he was teaching us something I could understand almost
everything! It was weird to actually know what was going on (hahah),
but seriously. I know I have soooo much to learn with Russian still,
and when I get to Russia I doubt I'll understand anyone, but to know
that in a weeks time I have learned enough, gotten so much better to be
able to understand so much more is crazy!!!

Oh guess what I did on Sunday, gave a talk! Oh my gosh it was soooo
scary but sooooo thrilling! I think I explained this already, but
every Sunday EVERYONE prepares a talk in Russian and then they
randomly call 2 of us up to give it. Last week our branch president
told us sisters to be ready so I had feeling I wopuld be called. (my
branch president is super scary and intimidating but SO NICE and he
LOVES the sisters :) The talk was on the Holy Ghost (my FAVORITE
topic) and I did pretty well. It was frustrating having to read my talk
the whole time (you know I hate reading my talks I just kinda like to
say whatever I want) but I kept the Russian extremely simple so
hopefully everyone could understand what I was trying to say. I ended
with my testimony and my favorite thing I said was what i finished
with. Directly translated from Russian I ended saying "God wants so
that we know what to do". And I know thats true! God wants to help us,
so look to Him, ask Him your questions, tell Him your thoughts and your
frustrations, tell Him what you've been thinking about. He wants to
hear! And I know he will help you.

Oh, best news ever! One of our "investigators" has a scheduled
baptismal date. Woot WOOT!

So I think I've forgotten to tell you every week we have do "service"
basically meaning we have a sceduled time to clean the MTC haha. We
ALWAYS clean the Barbershop. Ha, isn't that funny there's a barbershop
here? Anyways, for some wonderful reason our service is 6 am every
monday (makes me want to kill someone) so we always look hilarious as
we clean becasue 1) we always wear our hair in pigtails (its for fun).
2) we're all super angry cuz its so early in the morning 3) Just the
fact that we are cleaning a barbershop is hilarious. So yea, just a
small little fun part of my life I'm priveledged to do so early in the
morning.

OOOh we had an awesome speaker last night. Elder Zivic of the 70. It
was amazing. I wish I could tell you everything. My favorite thing he
said was this quote "God grant me serenity to accept what i cannot
change, courgae to change what i can, and wisdom to know the
difference". He followed the quote telling us that we cannot change
our physical height but we change change our spiritual height. So
true! So make sure you're not stressing/worrying about the things you
can't change, and that you're working on changing what we have the
ability to change :) I know I really needed to hear that. Makes me
think of the most annoying scripture ever Mosiah 4:27 (i think). The
one that says we cannot run faster than we have strength. Makes me so
mad cuz I just want hit the ground running and be awesome right away
at everything. I hate not being good at things and having so much I
need to work and improve on (and believe me the MTC is a great place
to go if you want to earn alllllllllllllllllll of you faults and
weaknesses) but we just need to trust in God and know that he knows
we're trying our hardest.

Goodness I feel like Im preaching to you, sorry! I just have so much
cool stuff im learning I gotta share it! I love all of you. Thank you
for your prayers, and your letters and concern. Can you believe I have
less than 3 weeks? Time flies! I love you!
Love,
Sister Tenney

Ether 12:27! Let your weaknesses become your strengths

Mommy! And family!

 

Thank you for all the letters this week. That was my favorite letter I've gotten so far for sure. And it came exactly when i needed it, thank you!

 

Wow this week was a lot longer than the last few. I kinda hit another wall. Friday we met with one of our teachers to talk about the progress of our investigators and I just felt like an IDIOT! We're trying to teach to their needs but I couldn't even figure out what their needs were and I just felt like the worst teacher ever. I've always thought I was a good teacher until I came to the MTC. I dont know what my problem is but teaching hasn't been easy for me. The whole time we were meeting with our teacher I was trying not to cry. Luckily, once class was over it was bed time so we went home and I took a shower and got ready for bed trying not to think about it and not to cry. I've been kinda gunky lately so I went to the bathroom and went to spit my gunk and somehow i ended up spitting on myself! Oh I was SO mad! I just started bawling right there all alone in the bathroom, I guess spitting on myself just did me over. Hhahahahaha so funny to look back on. Anyways, luckily that was the same night I got your letter from all you girls and it was perfect. I still went to bed thinking it couldn't be possible to have a good day the next day, but I did! I woke up, kept on going, and was able to have a really good day and a really good lesson. I just think I really needed some humbling. Thats the interesting thing about a mission. Everyday I learn something new about myself; usually its a new strength or talent, but sometimes its a weakness. Its no fun seeing and learning about the bad things about myself but I know I'm learning my weaknesses so I can try to make them strengths. ETHER 12:27! No one is perfect, but through humility, diligence and hard work we can slowly overcome the faults that easily beset us.

 

Another thing i've learned in the MTC: I STINK AT LISTENING. In all aspects. During lessons I often dont listen to my companion cuz im trying to figure out what I want to say in Russian, I often zone out when ppl talk in russian then have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. Just overall I need to learn to listen. And this kinda freaks me out cuz the only thing I can remember from my setting apart lesson is when President Osborne paused (which seeemed like forever) and then told me in a VERY VERY urgent and pleading mannor, to LISTEN. I know he was referring to the Holy Ghost, not necessarily ppl, but if I can't liesten to ppl in front of my face how will I be able to listen to the quite, subtle impressions of the Holy Ghost???

 

And the Holy Ghost is SOOOOOO important. I love it. I hear/feel the Holy Ghost EVERYDAY here. EVERYDAY. And I want everyone to know that you can too. We are entitled to the Holy Ghost as our CONSTANT companion. He wants to help us. Its not always through words or voices or strong feelings. Mostly I just have a very slight impression or thought. Maybe its just a question to ask in a lesson, or the thought to grab something in the morning, idk, but slowly Im realizing how often I've listened to the holy Ghost in my life without even realizing it. I urge everyone to try to notice these times. Learn to recognize the Holy Ghost in your life. The more you recognize it, heed it, and thank Heavenly Father for it, the more He will want to give you! I promise this will bless you. And don't forget my favorite scripture, Moroni 7:33. through Christ we can have the power to do anything!

Now let me get off my preacher box ;) I have some hilarious news. Guess who I ran into last week here who's serving a mission???? PHAYA!!!!! It was so awkward. We both saw eachother and were like "what the heck are you doing on a mission????". And his classroom is in the same building as mine. Its pretty hilarious. He's only here for 3 weeks he's going to the NY NY south mission. Good for him! I never thought he would actually serve one. Oh and I run into elder brown and Elder Hjelmstad all the time. Yesterday Sister Paletta and I street contacted Elder Brown it was Hilar. (street contacting is when you walk around the mtc and pretend to contact ppl and tell them a little bit about the church and you try to set up appointments with them to talk more about the gospel) Me and sister Paletta street contact in our free time its a blast and really helps our Russian.

 

Oh! Since starting the Book Of Mormon last week Sis Paletta and I are in Mosiah! Right on track to finish by the time we leave. Are you reading your scriptures everyday? And not just reading but really trying to understand why what your reading a prophet so long ago felt it was important to record? The book of mormon is sick I'm addicted to it. Sis paletta and I read every chance we get. It's a little nutty ;)

 

EVERYONE: thank you for your prayers and your dear elders and letters and love. I soooo appreciate them . Esp when they are funny (like you, bobo, britt, kira and krista). All I want to do each night is sit on my bed and read the hilarious things you send me. All my roomates aer so jealous cuz they think I know the funniest ppl (cuz I do). As Im sitting on my top bunk each night reading and laughing they always beg me to read the newest updates. You're all the best thank you. WARNING: I leave in less than a month! If you want to send me a package send it soon! (HINT HINT :)

 

Yesterday Sister paletta and I convinced an elder I was russian and didnt know english. it was hilarious! Guess im getting better at russian :)

 

I almost fell off my bed this week. still been donmiating it bball :)

 

I love you! ya loobloo tebya!

Love you, Sister Tenney

;)

Braden, and Fam, and Mom,

 

 

This week flew. I cant believe I've been here for a whole 7 weeks now. I still feel like I just got here. 7 weeks! That means I'm over half way now. AHHHHHHH! Does it seem like I've been gone that long? But here is the BEST news of the entire week. This Saturday was the VERY first time I truly felt like a missionary. Like a real missionary. It was crazy and such a good feeling! Sister Paletta and I had to teach a random lesson we weren't expecting to teach on Saturday. The only thing we quickly prepared was a scripture and then we headed to the lesson. Keep in mind this lesson had to be in russian too. We start talking too the guy and it was fun! And not hard at all! And all of a sudden neither of us were trying, we were just talking and having a great time getting to know this guy and talking to him about the gospel. The lesson we gave came from nowhere but I know it uplifted both of us, as well as our investigator. It was amazing. I've never felt so good about a lesson. Now everytime we teach we strive for calm, uplifting spirit like we had on Saturday. Im slowly getting a little better at this stuff...... with a lot of help from the spirit of course!

 

This week we started teaching the word of wisdom to our investiogators (slova mudrustee in russian). Its fun teaching people who dont understand why drinking or small things like coffee and tea are bad for our bodies. We're so lucky we've always known not to do these things!

 

We have a new district goal that started yesterday. Our goal: speak russian AT ALL TIMES! NO ENGLISH! (theres a few exceptions like on p-days, and at gym, and when talking to ppl who dont know russian), but isn't that crazy! Its SUPER hard, but its already helping me so much. Please contiunue to pray to bless me with the gift of tounges, and also that I can be diligent. That hardest thing about the MTC is that they dont babysit you or make you do anything you dont want to do. All of my learning and growing depends on ME and how hard I want to work. YIKES! So I've been trying to work hard, but man I suck at being diligent. I love this work and I want to be the best servant of the Lord I can be. I need to learn how to work hard!

 

K, you MUST look up these scriptures. Turns out prophets of the New Testament had a sens of humor. Look up Ephesians 2:5, 2 cor 12:2 &3, Ephesians 5:9, and ephesians 6:2. All of these scriptures have winks! in them ;) SOOOOO funny. I've become a master at finding winks and smiley faces throughout the scriptures. Just a random thing I thought you'd like to know.

 

OH! Me and Sister paletta have a new goal. Yesterday we restarted the Book of Mormon and we're going to finish by the time we leave! Im sooo excited. I LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON. Are all of you reading it? REALLY, truly, trying to read and understand it? I promise you, this book is amazing. It is packed with gospel truths and wonderful stories that help us to see why these truths are so necessary. Alma, Nephi, moroni, etc, they are so awesome. PLEASE read this book everyday and ask yourself how you can relate it to your life, and ask why did they write this? How can this help me? I promise as you do soon you will notice a difference in your life and your desires and what you think and do and say. You'll want better things and you will be happier!

I hope everyone is well and happy and remembering to choose the right! If you are I know God will bless you. I love you alll SOOOOOOOO much and miss you tons! Write me! Please! Ya loobloo tebya!

love- Sistra Tenney

Some cute photos...

Just me being Mary Poppins

Our jam sesh singing and stuff Elder Lythgoe (a good friend of mine who just left), me, and Sister Paletta

This is Elder Mitchell who the whole MTC saw me beat at arm wrestling, he decided to do a re-enactment. BEFORE.

AFTER!

jumping + umbrellas = awesome



I miss my mom! I can't make my bed (the sheet always comes off). everyone was making fun of how retarded I am at making my bed.

So I decided to show them that I really am retarded :)

 us partying in the hall

me being knighted with my new desk by Elder Brasier. as you can see I was TOTES excited

I look retarded. These are me zone leaders (well my old zone leaders). Elder Bodily, me and Elder Larsen :)

A happy missionary is a successful missionary :)

Mom and Family,

WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO BRADEN! Guatemala sounds awesome! Im sooo excited for you :) You're going to love it. I think its cool that I heard the news of where you're serving on the one month mark of my mission.... too bad I wont be seeing you for so long, but it'll be fun to write each other :)

 

I cant believe I'm already emailing home again and that its been 5 weeks already. Nuts! Time is going faster and faster now..... its freaking me out I dont know enough Russian yet!

 

SO this week has been a little sad for a few reasons. ONE: All my friends left! Meaning, all the Russian Elders that were 6 weeks ahead of us left. It was tough saying goodbye they have been so helpful with our russian and so supportive of us PLUS they were all sooo fun and cool. We had a huge good bye ceremony on Sunday. I was givin the honor of receiving one Elder's comfty chair for my desk, I was knighted with it and everything :) that was fun. (Of the people who left includes my zone leader...... dont worry he has my address ;). One of the elders proposed to me before he left (he was being serious)... that was awkward.

 

Another reason this week was hard was I basically hit a wall. All of a sudden I couldn't teach or anything. In lessons with our investigator I wouldnt even know what to say in English, let alone Russian (which is weird becasue usually I do most of the talking in our lessons) and Russian was just extra difficult this week and it was just a mess. BUT, as I was trying to get over this hump I decided to look extra hard for blessings, and to try to find the good things. After a day I was amazed at what I found! Im sooooo blessed, and I can feel the power I'm receieving from everyone's prayers for me. It was especially cool to see how my studies were lead to help me. For some reason I started studying HOPE. You have got to talk about hope at Family Night or something. It is SO important! Without hope, we have nothing. My favorite, is that "hope isnt knowelegde, its trust in God" hahahaha. I definetaly dont have much knoweldge in the gospel and with Russian, but I CAN trust in GOD :) Thats easy. And I know since I've begun doing that things have gotten better :)

 

Another cool thing we discovered this week is the power of hymns. Usually in my companionship I'm the happy/crazy/energetic one, but there has been a few days that I haven't been (which is weird) and it throws everything off. One day I was trying to do everything I could to slap out of it but it just wouldn't seem to go away. Sister Paletta and I decided to go practice a hymn (in Russian of course we only sing in Russian here) for a lesson and as we did so I could feel the negativity and frustration leaving me. We sang a couple songs and finished feeling so calm and ready to do the work. It was a miracle. Now whenever we are struggling we do this and it helps sooo much! Remember this whenever you're struggling or angry or need to think about something good, I know it will help.

In the middle of this plateau I hit another thing that helped me was hearing " a happy missionary is a successful missionary". HA! Im not the smartest, most spiritual, most hard working missionary but I can definetaly be a happy one :) I love that promise.

 

Hey mom guess who spoke to us in Relief society on Sunday.... Sister Cook! From the young womens board! I even got to talk to her after and shake her hand :) I so wished you and tammy could be there with me. She talked ALL about virtue. It was awesome. Tauna and Krista, do the younge women's recognition for VIRTUE they sounded like such good things to do. My 2 favorite things she talked about was GRACE. Go read grace in tyhe Bible dictionary. I love that it says GRACE is the ENABLING POWER of the atonement. That means NONE of us are perfect and we all mess up, but through the enabling power of the atonement we can not only be clean and whole again, but we can have the power to do things we otherwise wouldn't be able to do without it! Sorry for those of you who need alot of thios enabling power, I'm hogging most of it with my Russian studies :) And let me tell you its helpful! The other thing she talked about is the necessity of P.R.O.S. in our life everyday. P: prayer. R: read BOM everyday. O: obediance (pray for strength to have it and want to do it). And S: SMILE! Be happy! Look for the blessings in you life! I know as we practice with the pros everyday we'll become a pro at being righteous and happy :)

 

And dad guess who spoke to us last night at devotional!? Gerald n. Lund! The writer of the Work and the Glory books. I was stoked. He gave a powerful talk about hope (just in time with my own study of hope that was cool). I'm so lucky to be here at the MTC!

 

So basically here at the MTC everyone is CONVINCED I am a spaz. And they have some pretty convincing evidence to believe so. Somehow everyday I'm tripping (not like a small little trip either), falling, spilling, yelling, laughing. You name it I've done it. In fact I tripped walking over to this very computer. I really dont get it I've never been SUCH a spaz before, but somehow it really helps becasue me and my companion always have something to laugh about :)

 

Oh our lessons! Besides those few days we were struggling they are getting so much better! Yesterday we talked about the plan of salvation to our investigator.... witthout any notes! It was a miracle. The vocab for that lesson is hard, and just talking about the plan of salvation in english is heard, but we did it! (not perfectly but who's perfect?). Usually when we teach we use notes but our goal is not to have any anymore and we've been blessed since we started. I think one thing that has helped are SYL days (speak your language). We've assigned a few days a week where we can ONLY speak russian. We're not that good at it yet but it GREATLY imporves my russian. Isn't that crazy we can do that already?

 

Shout outs:

Scottay! Up top mister perez thats for the letter!

Jarms: you are totes a baller. ps I think I eat more bananas than you everyday.

Kira, britt, rach, jack, Bcon, Kayla: I LOVE YOU!!!

So yes Im doing great and still having a good time. Mom, I never realized how much a like I am to you. All day I say the stupidest corny jokes that really aren't that funny but I think they are hilarious. Of course everyone laughs cuz they are so amused that I find it so funny! You have always been like that and I've admired you for it :) If anyone has any good jookes could you send them to me? Im running out of material up here. hahahahah.

 

I love all of you and pray FOR ALL OF YOU!

LOVE SISTER TENNEY