Saying "good bye" is hard

Family and Friends,

I'm just going to be honest, this week was an emotional one. Gah. This week an Elder, who was my really good friend finished his mission and left back to Ukriane. Saying good bye to him, and then realizing that time really is flying, basically sent me into a freak out mode. WHY!? Im just angry. Mainly because Im just finally becoming a real missionary. Im just starting to be the missionary I dreamed of being. Its starting to happen!!!!..... and then the end was near.... seriously?
I randomly cried the other day while we were tracting. Well, to start the story of right, this week we had planned 28 meetings. That is so many! I think the most meetings I have ever had in a week was 17 or 18. Anyways, while we had 28 planned, 10 of them actaully happened. When people tell you "missions are hard", its often referring to this- we have so many great dreams and plans.... and then people cancel. The beautiful thing about this though, is that even though as missionaries, our favorite thing to do is meet with people and teach them (aka; the more meetings the better, cuz when you don't have a meeting, it means you're out on the cold street just talking to people, which can also be really fun, but not until you actually make yourself do it) but, as I was saying, the beautiful thing is, you get all bumed when your awesome plans don't work out, but then you try to be good missionaries and tract or contact, and then you experience miracles you never would have if you had been at your meeting. Therefore, God just has to remind us over and over again He has a better plan than ours.
Anyways, so this is what happened to us, we has a meeting planned we were SO excited about, and then it got cancelled and we didn't know what to do the rest of the night. SO, we set of tracting. And we hit GOLD! We knocked just one set of stairs in an apartment building (about 20 doors) and almost everyone was nice to us! And invited us back! WHAT????? However, one babushka answered her door, and right away started telling us that she didnt believe in God, we kept talking with her and it turns out both her son and husband died within 3 months of each other years ago and she doesn't understand how a loving God could let that happened. My heart was breaking for her. She was just SO hurt, and lost, and sad, and she is searching for peace, but her heart was hard and she wouldn't listen to us. We tried everything. We hugged her, we testified, we talked about the plan of salvation, we tried to explain agency, and God's love. EVERYTHING. And finally, she just slammed her door in our face. I just started crying. I couldn't handle it. I felt her pain and her hurt. I wanted SO BADLY to fix it, to help her feel God's love and peace. It just didnt seem fair and right to me that she wouldn't listen. Gosh dang it satan YOU Stink!
But talking to people really is one of the greatest things about the mission. A lady on the bus yesterday tried to tell me that God didn't exhist. I totally rocked her world when I explained to her how, and why there is a God. She said if God exhisted he wouldn't create a heaven and  a hell and wouldn't require us to give everything to him. I explained that God, is like our very own parents. A loving father tells his child not to touch the hot stove. The father cannot force him, but can only warn him and tell him. The child then has the agency to choose to do it or not. If he chooses to he pays the consequence! God already warned him and tried to help him with commandments, but we simply choose not to listen. We choose our fate, not God.
Gah, I dont have enough time to explain everythiung, but basically, Our father in Heaven is THE BEST and has it all worked out for us. We simply need to love Him, and others, and keep the commmandments :)
The gypsies are doing good. AND I have awesome news, Lena back in k-grad, her little brother got baptized yesterday! WOO HOOOO!
well I love you all so much,
kiss kiss, hug, hug,
Sister Tenney