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