October 13, 2014- Jamestown Visit and Walk and Talk at a Trailhead

Jamestown Visit and Walk and Talk at a Trailhead
October 13, 2014

Hi family and friends!!

There are two things I forgot to mention in last week's letter that I want to tell you about.

We brought a member with us to teach Omar. Elder Remund and I ended up not being able to teach our lesson very well because Omar and the member ended up bible bashing the entire lesson. However, everything turned out okay. When all things were said and done they were still friendly to each other, beats me how they can do that.

While we were tracting out a neighborhood, we met a Guatemalan family. The man of the house started to bash us. We tried to not get pulled in, but he wouldn't let us get away. We tried to pull some scriptures up in the bible to try to help him but he just didn't want to hear what we were saying so we ended up leaving. I don't like bible bashing at all, it doesn't bring the spirit into the conversation.

Elder Remund and I were dropping off a member at his house, and after we dropped him off, this guy came over to our window and motioned to us to lower our window. I evidently wasn't even thinking because I lowered the window all the way. Then, he stuck his arm in the car and told us to look at a really bad burn he had on his arm. He told us that he had gotten it while he was cooking some meat on a grill. Elder Remund and I told him that we hoped he got better soon and we gave him card from our church. Then, he walked from my side of the car to Elder Remund's side and motioned for him to lower the window. Elder Remund lowered the window just a little bit, and the guy asked, "Hey could you guys help me out?" We said, “Sure,” and then he said, "I got in trouble at the gas station so I need you guys to get me something." When he said that I thought he was talking about some medicine for his burn, so I asked him what he needed. The guy said, "I need beer." We told him we couldn't get that for him so he just walked off.

Last Monday, our p-day, my companion and I, and the two English Newport News 3rd ward Elders came with us to Jamestown. It was actually a pretty cool place to visit. You could see the holes where the posts had been located in the original fort. There was an old church that was built in 1650 after the original one burnt down. The view from the fort overlooking the James River was way cool.

The first Tuesday of the month we deep clean our apartment. This Tuesday, we cleaned out our apartment and I finally was able to be able to unpack everything from my suitcases.

We called our mission President to clarify why Nazario, one of our investigators, couldn't be baptized. Previously, our President said Nazario couldn't be baptized because of his court date. We explained that Nazario had a court date because he had been caught crossing the border into the United States. President Baker had thought that the court date implied that Nazario had committed a serious crime. Once he understood that immigration was the issue, President Baker told us that Nazario could be baptized. We told Nazario the news, but his faith had been shaken a bit because for 4 or 5 months he had been told he wouldn't be able to be baptized until after the court date. We are really working hard to try to help Nazario gain a testimony again.

Elder Remund and I set the goal that we would get 42 member presents this transfer. This transfer is 7 weeks long, so that equals 6 per week. We also set a goal to find 50 new investigators. It’s going to challenging but we want to work really hard.

On Thursday, before weekly planning we had to drop our car off to get inspected. While we were waiting, my companion and I walked over to this forested park next to Lake Maury for our weekly planning. It was fun to do our weekly planning while sitting on a log in the forest overlooking the lake.

Every Saturday we from 1p.m. to 4p.m. we do a "Walk and Talk". During those three hours, we pick a place and walk there and talk to everyone we see. We decided to walk in a Flea Market because we thought there would be lots of Latinos to talk to there. However, it was really awkward trying to talk to people while they were busy shopping. We weren't sure exactly what to do. Then we both felt impressed that we needed to go to the path at Lake Maury for Walk and Talk instead. We drove over there and parked our car and headed over to the trail. It was an absolute miracle because there at the trail head was a Latino family looking at the trail map. We went over there and talked to them. The dad was asked, "Su iglesia habla espanol?" or "Your church speaks Spanish?" We said “Yes,” and he seemed pretty interested. Later that night, we got a call from him asking what time our church started. And on Sunday he came! He was late, but he came! We gave him a tour of the building. He told us that he never really had gone to church during his life but something had pushed him to come to ours. He lives in Richmond but he comes up to this area for the weekends, so we are hoping that we will be able to teach his family.

So this week was a struggle to meet our goal of six member presents. On Saturday morning, we had zero member presents. But we continued to have faith and a miracle happened and we got 3 member presents on Sunday for a total of four. Although we didn't meet our goal of six, I think the Lord has noticed that Elder Remund and I want to work. We have been able to set up 8 lessons with investigators for next week already. We have also had a couple members tell us that we can call them anytime and they will teach with us. I am really excited for next week!

-Elder Cannon