Week #62: Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey Everybody!

I had totally forgotten it was Thanksgiving this week. I´m thankful that you reminded me. I am thankful that Sam got on the Basketball Team. I am thankful that I don´t have a foot fungus as of right now. I am thankful that I stayed in my same area with Elder Ammon this transfer. I am thankful that Christmas is coming up. I am thankful that bread is cheap in Manaus. I am thankful that toilet paper exists here. I am thankful for running water. I am thankful for electricity. I am thankful for a mattress to sleep on. I am thankful for a pillow to rest my head. I am thankful for my clothes. I am thankful for my dying shoes which shall probably be replaced soon. I am thankful for duct tape and how it works to waterproof the before stated shoes. I am thankful for Doctor Scholl´s. I am gellin´. I am thankful for mangos and bananas and apples and oranges and tangerines and açai and cupuaçu and araçá-boi and graviola and macaxeira and pupunha and taperebá and piquiá and tucumã and bacaba and acerola and guaraná and limes and lemons and pears and grapes and watermelon and peaches. I am missing a whole lot of fruits, but I´ll just let it go there. I am ....thankful.... for...... rain........... maybe...... I am thankful for music. Very much. Very very much. Oooooh so much. I am thankful for computers and how I can email home every week. I am thankful for water and water purifiers. I am thankful for baptism, and how the water purifies. I am thankful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and how through our faith in Him, miracles can happen. I am thankful for the Holy Spirit, and for its comfort it brings to me in times of trial. I am thankful for my companions, every single one of them, and the things I was able to learn from them. I am thankful for President Jayme and for the counsels he gives to me. I am thankful for my mission leaders and fellow missionaries. I am thankful for prayer, that through it I can speak with Heavenly Father on a constant basis. I am thankful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ, that through Him I can be forgiven of all of my sins, and return to live with Heavenly Father with all of you. I am thankful for my mission, and for the experiences I am having here in the field. I am thankful for the Book of Mormon and the Bible and all other scriptures, and for the teachings that are inside that record that the Prophets left for us and are still giving us in these latter days. I am thankful for the temple, that through the ordinances done there I can be sealed to my family for time and all eternity.

I am thankful for my family, and for all the love and support that they give me.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Love,

Elder Tenney

Week #61: 14 Months! Week 6 of Transfer 9

Hello, Hello, Hello!

So, this last week was pretty good. We have been teaching Janderson´s brother, Jonathas, who was marked to be baptized last Sunday. There was a small speed bump in the road, but this next Sunday he is all up and ready to go. Jonathas has an extremely large testimony of the Gospel. He even bore it to us the other day. Basically we are just making small visits this week to keep him pumped up and excited.

We had made a contact with a man in the road the other week. We marked to go back, but I got a little lost. We decided to go to a house on the street we were at to ask directions. Turns out, that house had an inactive family in it. How are they now? Active. It was a miracle. Then the man we were looking for ended up yelling at us to come over in the road and we kept teaching him. He had started reading the Book of Mormon and was extremely interested.

Yesterday, I made 14 months in the field.... Seriously, it is going by extremely fast. Too fast for my liking.

Today we went to INPA. It is like a zoo/science study place. They do studies of the Amazon Forest. It wasn´t all that exciting, except that the animals are allowed to roam free through the zoo. Except the crocodiles. The monkeys went swinging around over our heads at one part. I got a pic! So yeah, it was cool. There was the world´s largest leaf there from the Amazon. It was bigger than me!

Transfers are coming up next week. Who knows where I am going to be this next Tuesday! (Day of Transfers) More areas are closing because there are about 10 missionaries leaving and only 2 coming in. It's a rough life.

Well, that´s about it. Love you all tons! Happy Thanksgiving next week! Happy Birthday, Blake! Thanks for the amazing email Grandma Tenney! Love you!

-Elder Tenney

Week #60: I'm Singing in the Rain!

Oi! Como estão?

So, this last week has been really tiring. We have done a lot of walking. Right now we are working out in the Sharp Community, which is the furthest neighborhood from our house. Basically, if we had gone any further, we would have gone into the area of Mauazinho. (I didn´t know it was so close to here!) We received one reference out there and now we are finding a whole bunch of people to teach! Our teaching group had died, but now it is starting to come back to life again. I´m starting to realize that a teaching group has an average life span of 2 weeks, then you have to basically get a new one. Well, actually you shouldn´t let it just die, you should always be putting in and taking out people constantly so it can stay healthy, but usually if you don´t go looking for new people, it dies fast. But, on a happy side, we have a baptism marked for this Sunday, and another one for next Saturday after. The first one is of Jonathas, who is Janderson´s brother, the guy I baptized with Elder Seastrand. He is an elect. He was already trying to quit drinking coffee before we found him. The other guy is Antônio. He was an old investigator from a few years ago that I found in the Area Book. That Saturday is also the day the phone call comes for transfers, so I don´t know much of what is going to go on after that one. We also started teaching Fabio´s parents. His dad was really against the church a long time ago, but now that he is seeing how Fabio´s life is changing, he has softened up a bit and we are teaching him. He accepted the Book of Mormon as the word of God, but he isn´t really in the mood to pray about it. Give him another couple days and he will come around.

All in all, Zion is growing! Hope you all are having a blast! Good luck to Sam with the basketball tryouts. I will only accept Desert Hills beating Pine View if Sam is on the team!

Boa Sorte, Buddy!

Love you all!

Church is true in case you had any doubts.

-Elder Tenney

Week #59: Power Week!

Hey all,

Hows bes yous alls? Is bes goods. This last week was a power week in the mission. We went all out and we have quite a large teaching group now of young couples and men. If all goes well, we will be doing 6 weddings on the 27th and about 15 baptisms. But, that´s just the hope. Most of the people aren´t exactly accepting, but if they all do, that´s about the potential number. Probably will filter out to one wedding with 2 being baptized, but that´s the idea of teaching lots. SOMEONE in there is ready to accept the message.

Our investigator that is closest to being baptized is Jonathas. He is the brother of Janderson, that Elder Seastrand and I baptized when I was here last time. Jonathas is like a golden investigator. He reads, prays, received an answer, was already trying to stop drinking coffee before we met him, and has no other problems that we are aware of yet. 13 of November is our goal.

We have had a few headache-giving investigators the last few days. People that just don´t seem to get it and they say that even if they got an answer from Heavenly Father they wouldn´t trade their religion, then they say that it can´t be true anyways because Joseph Smith´s name isn´t in the Bible. We try to explain, but a hard heart is a hard thing to get through.

This transfer is going by extremely fast. It´s practically Christmas again! So very excited I am!

Have an awesome week!

Love you all tons!

-Elder Tenney

Bad news about pictures: My card reader burned out for some reason last week and isn´t working anymore. It is going to be a while before pictures come again.

Week #58: A Seventy & an Ultimatum

How be everyone? I´m doing just dandy. I feel like I´m in this never ending cycle of opening an area with nothing, getting it all set up and going, then I get transferred and open another area. It wears a person out after a while. But, I know one thing for sure.   I am way less shy talking with people now. This last Sunday after trying to bring people to church, we arrive at the chapel and the bishop says, "Good timing, elders! We need you to give talks today." "Ok, Bishop, we can do it." (In our heads, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo......... well, at least we have old talks from the past already prepared.")  I ended up writing a quicky about faith leading to repentance and I used Enos 1:3-8 as a story for that.
 

Elder Tenney: "Study Time"
23 November 2009



I started the Book of Mormon again in Portuguese the other week. Already in Alma. It´s so much easier the second time around. I´m marking it up, too, so it´s not really a speed read either. I have a goal of reading it at least 5 times in Portuguese on the mission.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to hear from Elder C. Scott Grow of the 1st quorum of the 70. One of the things he is in charge of is that he is on the committee of Restoration of Blessings and Cancellation of Sealings. Committee of 4. They get lots of requests every week and then they pass everything to the 1st Presidency and then the 1st Presidency will either confirm or change what they decided. I just love how the church is organized. I don´t know how President Monson has enough time in a day to do all that is required of him. He was just out in Rome dedicating the temple this last weekend.
 

Jungle Road
04 August 2010


This last week was one of the worst for the Brasil Manaus Mission. There were only 7 baptisms. President Jayme put out a mandate that if the missionaries are not working trying to find people, just lazing around doing nothing, they will be sent home. Seems it is becoming a problem. What we all really need is just a faith booster to go out and believe that there is someone waiting for us to talk to them. It makes all the difference in the world with this hope than that of a what's-the-point-of-contacts-no-one-gets-baptized-from-them attitude. Of course, references from members are the best thing in the world and work almost every time, but in order to show the members that you want their help in finding, you have to show them that you are finding as well. I´m not going to lie. I don´t like doing contacts all that much, but contacting to have a teaching group is better than sitting around and waiting. It´s one of those Go-and-Do sort of things or Faith-without-works-is-dead.

Anyways, E. C. Scott Grow was good. He made an open question seminar with the missionaries. He asked for questions, and then he taught us what he felt was most important from the questions. I haven´t copied the notes over to my journal yet, so it´s not very fresh on my mind. 



Elder Tenney's Missionary Shoes
12 December 2009

Oh! I got the package with the pit rub and socks and candy and stuff!!! Thank you so much! Some of the stuff like shoe polish I can find here for cheap, but it saves me a few reais. The candy corn seems like it can´t take the climate here unless I keep it in the fridge, but the chocolatey goodness is very accepted! LOVE YOU ALL!

So, being the end of October and me missing the feeling of cold weather, I put up the Christmas tree I kept from last year that I got from Jessica and friends.

Oh, Big NeWs!! I saw Elder Poulton!!! It was amazing! For a second I really felt like I was back home and just sitting at school talking to friends or something! Then a Brazilian walked up and spoke in Portuguese and it went away. Oh, well. I´m trying to send a picture, but the little picture transfer thing is not playing kindly today....

Elder Mitchell Tenney
04 August 2010

 

Love you all! Thanks so much for everything! Pray4Me!

-Elder Tenney