First Letter from the Missionary Training Center

Elder Heath Tenney's first letter from the MTC.   If you'd like to write him, until April 9th, you can send a letter for free through dearelder.com, or send a regular letter.  Dearelder.com prints them off and delivers them the same day if you write by 1:00 p.m.  Thank you for your prayers, letters, and love!   

Elder Heath Tenney

MTC Mailbox #146

ARG-BAN 0409

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT 84604-1793

Leaving for the airport, Feb. 27th, 6:00 a.m.

Send off at Indianapolis Airport

Elder Tenney with his sister, Kirsten, in front of the MTC.

 Weston & Kirsten dropping him at the MTC

Family!

I love you! Thank you so much for all of your dearelders and letters. They meant a lot. I'm sorry it has taken so long to reply to your letters and send this e mail. Our P-day is friday, and we didn't have one last week. 

I am doing really well. I have never felt so mentally, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. I have never worked so hard in my life. I love it. It is sooo exhausting and there are times when it feels like I can't keep going for two whole years, but it is amazing because there is SO much help from above. There are so many miracles all around us here. We are in the same class for almost 11 hours a day but somehow we are still able to take in everything and learn so much. 

Okay so on the very first day, Wow, that seems like SO long ago. I feel like a completely different person than I was just 10 days ago. But anyways First day. I went out to lunch with Kirsten and Weston before entering the MTC and it was so good to see them and spend time with them. They also gave me some awesome advice for the MTC. So they dropped me off and I DIDN'T CRY! I was really proud of myself. I was just filled with so much excitement.

So I got to my classroom and the teachers from the very 1st moment spoke ONLY spanish. I am so glad I took spanish in high school because it helped me a lot. Some missionaries had NO IDEA what was going on. I felt bad for the missionaries that had no background in Spanish. 

I met my companion, his name is Elder Hogge. He and the rest of my district are so awesome. 

My district has 7 sisters and only 4 elders. It is so crazy. My branch president, who has been here for 3 years said that this is the first time that there has ever been more sisters than elders in a district since he has been here. So that is really cool. 

I don't have enough time to go through everything so I will just give a few cool things that have happened over the last 10 days.  On the 3rd day we taught our first lesson in Spanish to a guy named Pablo. and it was scary, but it went well. The other lessons with him went awesome. In our lesson plans we pretty much wrote out everything because we didn't know enough spanish. And we were teaching him the Plan of Salvation (check it out at  plan of happiness). He started asking about evolution and how could God create us if evolution is real? hahaha I didn't even know how to answer him in English; but anyway, I put down my notebook and just listened and I felt so guided by the spirit. I just bore my testimony that I didn't know the answers to everything, and there are a lot of things we may not know the specifics of, but if we pray to God to know if something is true then we can know if it is true. So that was an awesome experience. Our last lesson with Pablo was incredible too. We made a whole lesson plan, but it didn't go as we planned at all. The whole lesson was just the spirit guiding us to answer his questions. Elder Bednar says in one of his talks, that as missionaries the best thing we can do is "just get out of the way, and let the spirit work." This work is not about us at all. In that lesson, we both spoke the best Spanish we've ever spoken. The spirit is so real. The only way to successfully be a tool in the Lord's hands is to place yourself in His hands. 

I also gave my first blessing this week which was awesome. A sister in my district named Hermana Myler was sick and had been in her apartment throwing up for 2 days, and the doctor said that it could be appendicitis if it continued.   I gave her a blessing and then she went to bed to rest. The next day she was better and didn't have to go to the doctor. So that was another miracle of the week. The priesthood is real. 

I was playing basketball this week and I hurt my knee running into someone, so I had to go to the trainer and I couldn't walk for a few minutes, so that was cool. But it is doing a lot better.

Oh and Mom, could you please thank the Holmes for the talk they sent you to give to me. It is incredible. I havent read Holland's yet. 

Sorry this is only a small portion of all the incredible things I have learned and done, we only have 30 minutes on e mail. Oh and could you guys send dear elders instead of emails while im in the mtc? That just makes it easier for e mail time. 

I have never felt a part of something so powerful. This great work of God is happening before out eyes. I know that this is truly the work of God! This is what the prophets have testified of!

Love,

Elder Tenney

"Obedience brings blessings, but exact obedience brings miracles."