Monday, December 10, 2012

Vision, expression, love, laughter, understanding

To all that I love,

This may be my last email home. I'm trying to think of how to make it awesome but I'm BLANK! Mainly I'm just overwhelmed with SADNESS and EXCITEDNESS and can't even figure out what to think.
You have all heard me say this over and over again, but really, I LOVE my mission. I love Russia. I love the gospel. And I have never felt such deep love for my Father in Heaven and my Savior.
I have a list book full of random lists that I have been keeping my whole mission. One of my favorite lists is the things that I have learned on my mission. I want to share a few.
  • The power and importance of VISION in life. We need to know what we want! And once we've caught the vision, we need to go after it. Do it. Make it happen. I've met so many people who are just walking around without anything to strive for. They are wasting their life! We need to ask ourselves, what do I want? And then we need to ask ourselves, am I willing to give my soul to make it happen???
  • I learned the beauty of communication, expression, and being understood. First of all, trying ot speak Russian and having people understand you is no easy task. But the real feat is people trying to understand THE MESSAGE I am sharing. I just want people so bad to "catch the fire" or the "drift" of the gospel! Its such a rare gift to see the flicker of understanding in one's eyes. Whether it's a child in primary, an investigator, a member, your companion, or even those humbling moments when you REALIZE something yourself. I have sought for this my whole mission.... I didnt experience it too much, but those moments I saw it I felt blessed :)
  • The power of laughter. Gosh, really the most healthy companionships I've had, and the only good investigators I've had, I look back now and see that we laughed REAL laughter with each other. Its so relieving and neccesary!! I feel accomplished as a companion when I make my compnaion laugh, and my favorite companions have always easily made me laugh :)
  • I learned how important it is to understand people. Recent example; This new sister in our trio, Sister Schwarz, I kinda wanted to kill her when she first got here cuz after every meeting, she had no idea what was going on (cuz she can't understand Russian) but afterwards she would basically tell us all the things we didn't do or should have done. Gah!!! It was so annoying, but mainly it was annoying cuz she was somehow right and I hated being humbled. BUT this last week I finally was able to get to know her and now I LOVE HER! She is hilarious and always has me laughing. And now I see why she does the things that she does. You just really need to try to get to know people and try to understand why they do the things they do. As we come to undertand them we can show them love in the way that they like to recieve it. And hear you me, when your comp is happy, then You are happy, and I have strived my whole mission to be each of my companions favorite companion haha :) good goal right? I like it...
Anyways, those are just a few things.
To sum it up, life i Petro is feezing and amazing, my comps are hilarious and I cant wait to go to Peter this week and go on splits with all the sisters! Basically the end of my mission is one big festive way to be the best missionary I can be. I love you all and thank you for my prayers and CAN/CAN'T wait to see you next week :)
 
ALL MY LOVE
Sister Tenney

PS- don't be surprised to see a very VERY white and out of shape Sister Tenney next week...... :)

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