Valentine, from Mexico

Hey family!

First of all, I don't know if he gets these e mails, but DUSTIN GOT HIS MISSION CALL?! that is so awesome. The Philipines is blessed. Tell Dustin I love him please. And tell him to write me haha.

This was such a good week! I really tried to focus on how I can better help the people here throughout the week and not focus on personal things at all, and I saw many blessings from it.

We rode our bikes on Tuesday through the rain and mud to tract. And I was just so happy. It made no sense. haha. But I was just so happy. Happiness isn't found in shelter from the rain. But I have never had colder hands in my life. They were turning blue.

First awesome experience. We were tracting on Wednesday and as we were walking down the road, this red car broke down right by us on the road. A woman and her 2 kids got out to see what was wrong and tried to start the car again. I asked her "Could we help you push your car? Or is there anything we could do for you?" and she said "No, I can do it myself!" she was obviously very stressed. So we kept on going down the street, but the spirit just kept urging me to help her. So we went over and just started helping her push anyways. We pushed her car to a nearby parking lot and then left, she didn't really acknowledge us, but we just said "have a nice day! God Bless!". Then we went on our way. As we continued down the street, no one was answering their doors, and I kept on having the feeling like we should go back to the woman and her kids in that parking lot. I kept justifying in my head why we shouldn't because she was stressed and didn't want our help. But after a few more doors of no one answering, I said to Elder Payne "We should go back and talk to her." We went back to the parking lot and this woman and her 2 kids were sitting in the car, I came up to her window and she rolled it down, still looking really frustrated. I said "I'm sorry to take anymore of your time, but it seems like you are having a rough day, and the things on this website (handed her a mormon.org card) have really blessed my life and always makes my day better. I know that it can help you with any problems you are having and make your day better." She then seemed to calm down a little bit and said thank you. We asked her if there was anything we could do for her. She said no, she was just not sure what she was going to do. She was out of gas and had no money at all to get home. She is living in a woman's shelter with 2 of her kids, lost her job, and she is just going through a lot right now. She told us about how her older kids are not living very good lives, and they do not treat her well. We talked with her about the restored gospel, how there is a prophet of God today who guides and directs us, and he gives us guidance of how we can raise righteous families in this wicked world. She said she was just amazed how we were so young, but such good kids, and we explained it was through the gospel. We left her with our number, a card, and a book of Mormon. We also gave her some money so she could get home. She was SO grateful. It was amazing to see her countenance change as we spoke. I am so grateful for this experience. I really felt like a representative of Christ because we just helped her and did our best to help her. I know that miracles really do happen if we are obedient and follow the promptings that the Lord gives us. I am so blessed to be a missionary and be able to serve God's children.

Yesterday at church I met an amazing man named Valentine. Valentine is from Mexico. He doesn't speak any english. A member of the ward translates for him. But whenever this member cant come, Valentine doesn't come because he can't understand anything. It was so awesome to talk to him. I was so excited to talk with him so that I could use my spanish, but I really got so much more from talking to him than just practicing my spanish. He told me (in spanish) "Yeah, it is kind of hard coming to church because no one talks to me because they cannot speak spanish. And I cannot speak english." But he still comes every Sunday that he can. He literally can only talk to 1 person at church, ONE. But he still comes, because he has so much faith and he knows the importance of going to church and taking the sacrament. He joined the church in Arizona when some missionaries came across him when he was walking home from work. He said he knew that what they taught was true, so he stopped drinking, smoking, and other habits so he could be baptized. It was just amazing for me to see how much faith he had. I cannot imagine going to church and not speaking to anyone every single week, but continuing to go. That man is converted, not to the church, not to friends at church, but converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I am out of time, but I am doing so well and I am just happy. I love looking into the eyes of Heavenly Father's children and really feeling their divine nature, and feeling how much Heavenly Father loves them. If you just look deep into someone's eyes, it's hard not to love them, because you can just see straight through to their soul. This probably sounds weird haha, but really, in lessons, I can look into the eyes of the person we're talking with and it just fills me with so mcuh love for them because I can feel they are a child of God.

I love being able to serve here. I love learning how to love these people.

I love you all!
I hope you have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Tenney