Autumn in the air

My Family and Dear Ones,

Wow this week was just beautiful..... in every aspect. First of all,
FALL has... sprung??? It is here and amazing and so chilly and breezy
and fresh. I feel like its waking me up, I love it. Autumn has brought
with it APPLE SEASON. Oh. my. gosh. So many people have given us huge
bags of apples, and guess what? We have become proffesional apple
sauce makers. Dont schrunch your nose over that; this apple sauce is
more than divine. So fresh, and all you have to add is cinamon and a
pinch of sugar. LOVE IT. This week we were also blessed with the find
of CILANTRO. Oh how I have missed cilantro. I've really gotten
obsessed with making "salsa" (tomatoes, onions, peppers, and lime...
so I guess you could call it salsa). But this cilantro has made our
week. Basically I've become obsessed with cooking and baking, and for
those of you who know me.... this is very new to me. But Sis M and I
basically own our own bakery out here in k-grad.... the members, our
investigators, and WE just love it. Mmmmmn. For the first time in my
life and I cant wait to be a mom in an apron cooking all day.... what????

This week sistrer M and I had an interesting experiment. We decided to
pretend we were assistants to the president. We tried SO HARD to do
everything perfectly right, and not just fill our time with things to
do, but with exactly the Lord wanted us to do. WOW. The outcome was
MIRACULOUS. Whats weird is that we dont really have investigators
right now, however, we did SO MUCH GOOD this week between meeting with
less actives and active members. The spirit was so strong with us this
week. Thats seems like a given being a missionary, but not every
meeting is the spirit very strong.... but this week it was so obvious
to Sis M and I that we were doing just what the Lord needed us to be
doing. And there really isnt a better earlthy feeling than that.
Each day on my mission I see more and more how PRIDEFUL I am. Yupp.
Just as the word is written... FULL of PRIDE. So this week I decided
to pray to be humbled. <WARNING> If you pray to be humbled God will
make sure you are humbled. Its tough... but such a sweet experience as
well. I challenge each of you to do so... sincerely and with real
intent of course :)

We were lucky to be able to go to the BEACH 2x this week. How lucky
are we! Of course it was beautiful and homey... sitting in the sand
listening to the waves. I forgot how much I miss that. And to be able
to do so with the members out here. It was really special.... gah I
wish I was articulate.... few things are better than being at the
beach with those you love (see pics I attatched).
I just want you all to know I love you and I feel your prayers. I need
them, and the people of Russia need them too. Aren't we so blessed to
have prayer! i hope you all are praying and really communing and
conversing with your Father. He loves you. I Know. I love you all too!

love, Sister Tenney

ps- the pic of me reading is a memorial for the beloved Pushin. They
are obsessed with him here. Isnt the book and quill so cute?

"No Change, you're still together"

Family and friends,
Stink, I dont have much time today so this will prob be short. This
week was awesome!!! Being in St. Peter with all the leaders of the
mission was such a great priviledge! I have always wanted so badly to
go to these meetings, but of course, never thought I would because only
Elders are leaders in missions.... but not this one! I was so
impressed with the Elders and Pres Clark, they treated Sister Morrison
and I with such respect... and they treated us as equals. When they
talked about the mission and just anything, they always included
womanhood and how important our role as women are as well... both in
regards to this mission and in general. I was expecting them to think
it was weird or not right to have a sister at the meeting, but on the
contrary I was an equal., colleague and friend. President Clark just
blows me away. The way he loves and respects his wife is so inspiring.
She is always at the leadership meetings and plays a huge role. He
always trusts her and what she says. He NEVER cuts her off, interrupts
her, argues with her or anything. He treats her not only as his
partner, but also as his beautiful wife... I cant find the words to
articulate this right. Lets just say I'm on the search for a man who
will treat me as such as well..... which of course would mean that I
need to be an amazing woman who can be trusted and treated as both
partner and "beloved" wife haha. MAN... i just want it all... and
think I deserve it all. There's nothing wrong with demanding respect
and adoration right???? haha.
Speaking about getting what you want.... so my whole mission I have
basically gotten what I wanted. I'm not shy in letting pres Clark know
what I want.... and somehow I usually get so. I was planning on
spending another transfer in k-grad with my dear sister Morrison, and
I had informed Pres clark, but while we were up at the conference he
tipped me off saying I wouldnt be here next trnasfer with her. WE WERE
SO SAD!! Sis M and I were freaking out all week trying to prepare her
to take over k-grad... and then saturday morning we get the transfer
call and President Clark tells us "NO CHANGE! YOU'RE STILL TOGETHER!"
We nearly fell out or our seats out of excitement, shock, and anger at
him. Pres Clark is just laughing his head off saying "I so fooled
you!". Haha he thinks he's so funny. He then told them I was going to be
a zone leader, and I was speechless (pres clark ALWAYS does the
unexpected... anything is possible with him) and then he starts
laughing again and said he was joking. But seriously pres clark????
The moral of the story is... I get what I want, because I know what I
want and I work for it! (ha how bratty does that sound??). But I urge
you all to try it :)
Serving with Sister M is the best because our conversations are
AMAZING. Especially during companion study. Every morning it is such a
struggle to keep our comp study within the hour limit. Her love and
curiousity for the scriptures is so addicting. She questions and
ponders everything, and now I'm like that too! I go to show her a
scripture I, before I can even finish the first line she's asking
a question or trying to find a scripture related to it... we then get
tangled into billions of other scriptures and great conversation, then
and hour and 5 min later we are just in amazement with all that we
just learned and then realize we still have not got past the first
line of the scripture I shared...nor planned anything we were supposed
to plan that day. I get so excited for both personal and comp study
everyday..... its amazing! I hope the scriptures truly are delicious
and exciting for you... if they arent, I promise you they can be! Try
to understand why the prophets wrote what they wrote, look at the
footnotes, use the bible dictionary.... everything. I promise you the
scriptures can be a feast for anyone!
Well I gotta run. I love you all. Read your scripps, pray, and just
try to follow that still small voice. I promise you, you will be lead
and directed in life. How magnificent is that!?
love you all!
love, Sister Tenney

"Positivity in life"

Family and dearest ones of mine,
Yet another jam packed week. It started off SOOOOOO SLOW. Tuesday we
thought we had made such good effective plans, and then NOTHING worked
out, not one thing, how we wanted it to, and somehow we ended up just
being out on the street contacting the ENTIRE DAY. It was sooooo hard
(yupp I'm totally complaining and being a whiner). We literally had
like 6 backup plans too and nothing worked out. We were so frustrated
and felt so ineffective... like we had been wasting the Lord's time!
(prob the worst feeling in the world). So wednesday and the rest of
the week we planned SO well that it never happened again and our week
turned our semi successful :)
Whats hilarious is that this week Sister Morrison and I were the
biggest whiners/complainers ever..... and then we got a call that we
will be flying to Peter this week for a leadership training meeting
and that we will be teaching the leaders of the mission about the
power of positivity..... how bout that??? haha. So lets just say since
then we've had a marvelous attitude change :)
Also regarding flying to St. Petersburg, we will fly out in
Septemeber as well because Peter is having a HUGE MEETING WITH ELDER
NELSON (YES THE APOSTLE) (aka we are becoming a stake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
I know I haven't talked too much about this, but basically the entire
goal of the mission since Pres Clark got here (he got here the
transfer before me) is to become a stake. We have worked so hard...
and its finally here! Its truly a time if miracles. I feel SO
privilaged to be out here at this time.......
So we met this week with a lady in the ward.... she has been a member
since 1995, and is one of the few original members when the first just
started out here, who is STILL ACTIVE. Its soooo sad how many members
there are in Russia, who have just gone completely innactive. But
anyways, she has an inspiring story. She has always been a rock, and
just like 4 years ago, on Dec 31st she was walking home from a branch
activity at night, there was a huge storm coming in and the winds were
so wild that a sign blew over and landed on her and now she is
confined to a wheelchair the rest of her life. Regardless of this
tragic story, she comes to church each week, and her gransdon was just
baptized this last week. Its amazing to see that truly, no matter what
happens in our life, even if our 6th back up plan fails.... that God
truly does have His own plan for us, and we can choose how we want to
respond. I realized something this week... our positivity in life
really is a reflection of our faith and hope. When we are positive, no
matter what surrounds us, we are testifying to God that we trust Him
and know that He has a plan. It really is the beautiful promise of the
gospel; no matter what happens to others or in this world, as long as
we personally are doing all we can to fulfill God's will and keep
His spirit in His life, nothing else matters! Our salvation relies on
no one but OUR VERY SELF :) So, "let us waste and wear out our lives"
in our very own adventure home to our loving Father in Heaven.
This gospel is true! We have no right to despair or be discouraged.
God has already given us everything we need and prepared the path home
for us, let us choose to follow it, and help others to do so with us:)

i love you all! давай ликовать! (Let's rejoice!)
Sister Tenney

ps- I totally forgot, we got to go out in Dacha land again and serve
on lday's dacha in our branch. It was a rainy, but beautiful day. She
made us put on russian bonnets and even made me wear her pants haha.
So funny! Enjoy the pics.

I have the truth

My dearest Family and Friends,
I decided that I need to be both more informative and expressive in my
emails. So here it goes for all of you.
This week was jam-packed, yet once again what we accomplished doesn't
seem to show all the hard we have been doing. We haven't been super
successful lately, which just about kills me, BUT I know miracles are
right around the corner if we continue to keep working as we have
been. So for some reason, this last Sunday (a week ago), as we were
preparing to start a new week of goals and accomplishments, I felt
very ambitious and ready to go tear it up, so in our companionship
prayer, to end the night and kinda start that next week, I prayed that
we would work so hard each day that week, so that we would come home
and be exhausted. A word of advice: NEVER DO THAT!!! I dont think I
have ever had a more exhausting week than this one haha.
So one interesting thing that happneed this week, as we were heading
home from a meeting and talking with people as we did so, this woman
we contacted got pretty angry at us and started saying things like "I
think its not right, annoying and rude for you to be out on the
streets preaching what you think is right. We all believe in God! And
we all have our own faith and way to God, so go back where you came
from.... and anyways, if that church really is "the truth" why would
you even need to be out preaching about it???? wouldn't people be
running to it themsleves????". So, before my mission, and maybe even
the first few months of my mission I would have had no idea what to
say, and just shyly testified, but NOW. Oh gosh, these days its
almost bad, but arguments such a these do not scare me one bit. These
people do not realize that I HAVE THE TRUTH!!! And NOTHING, not one
thing, can shy me away, make me back down, or feel ashamed. I looked
at the lady, and somehow was inspried to respond " You believe in the
Bible right? Well CHRIST himself spent his whole life, GAVE his whole
life actually to preaching the fullness of truth. If Christ himself
had to do so, how much greater of a need do we need to do so now???"
The woman kind of mumbled a few things, we testified and turned away.
I really trully felt so inspried, I have no idea where that answer
came from. But something I do need to be careful about these days, is
arguing. I was never one who argued before the mission, and now Im
like "bring it on!". But I need to remember the spirit of contention
helps with nothing, really testifying and walking away is what you
should do, even though it can be so hard to do so...
A reason I LOVE my companion right now, is that each week we are able
to identify what we need to do to be better, we work SO hard that next
week to improve, and by the end of that next week, its become a
STRENGTH of ours! Its incredible to see the rapid growth and
improvement in all aspects of missionary work. Oh how I love her!!!
Its just such an exciting time with her... regardless of our
success...
OLYMPICS MOMENT: thank you for all the updates everyone!! We had a
hilarious incident the other day when we walked into a flower shop and
found a TV playing the olympics! We freaked out and become good
friends with the ladies working in the store. They complimented our
woman's gymnastics team (WOOHOO!) and they couldn't stop talking about
how much they love Phelps. It was cool to be able to be having a
friendly conversation with Russians about the olympics. I may in
future years cheer on my russian friends :)
I finallly had another "missionay moment" in the fact that I
completely WORE out and BROKE my shoes one day. They completely fell
apart and I had to walk home barefoot (hahahah I felt like such a
rebel).
So this weekend President Clark and his wife flew out to K-grad. It
was actually kinda intense. You see k-grad is so seperate from the
mission the members feel really isolated. Because of this the
leadership here in the ward isn't the best and Pres Clark often had to
do some clean up whenever he flys out. Yesterday in church, we had
such a sweet testimony meeting, and I was so proud of my k-grad members,
until, the very last testimony, a lady got up and started yelling
about how the leadership has completely ignored her and her daughter
and how she never wants to come back to church. I wanted to crawl into
a hole! The worst part is, that Pres Clark immediatly took her into an
interview, and I had to be the translater!!! UGH! SO hard and intence.
But President Clark, in his awesomeness and love-ingness worked it all
out and everything is going to be ok. But really translating for such
things is not easy. I also had to translate this week as Sister Harps,
a senior couple missionary spoke at a baptism. Translating from
Russian to english is one thing (which I have to do each sunday and
district meeting), but taking english and forming it into RUSSIAN,
thats tough. But I'm learning and the Lord is definetly helping!
BUT while President Clark was here we had interviews..... and somehow
I am now the mission's first corrdinating sister???? WHAT??
Coordinating sisters are sisters who iron their clothes and know how
to be reverent and that "perfect sister missionary". (if you are
wondering I do NOT fall into that catagory!). BUT considering that I
am the oldest sister in the missionary I think Pres Clark had no
choice but to call me haha. Im actually secretly stoked. I asked pres
clark what I will be doing. He himslef doesn't really know... I;m just
going ot be training the other 11 sisters and working alot more with
the leadership of the mission. AWESOME!
SO yea, thats my week. I love you all and hope all is well!!!! Being a
missionary is such a privilage and i love it! make sure your opening
you mouth, sharing and testifying at home. The Lord will bless you. I
promise.
Love, Сестра Тенни
Ps- I GOT MAIL THIS WEEK! THANKS ALL!
pps- the photos
me stoked about my package!! We ate the reeces right away :)

me in the center square in the city with the huge russian orthodox
church behind me

a cute little thing somebody made... and it was raining.

me and sis M!

me climbing to the top of k-grads biggest building