January
16, 2015- Lots of Families to Teach
Hola
familia y amigos,
On
Monday, we had a really good lesson with Martin and Lani where we talked
about the Book of Mormon and helped them understand how the scripture in Revelations
is talking about not adding to that particular book and not about the Book of
Mormon. They both committed to reading.
I
woke up Tuesday morning feeling pretty sick. This illness has been going around
the missionaries. It’s the same illness I had during Christmas and I
got it again. I've been fighting it pretty hard with Vitamin C and cough
medicine and I'm still sick but I feel better.
We've
been trying to help Christopher to come back to church. He doesn't like it when
we teach him a lesson, so we watched some Mormon Messages with him, hoping that
would invite the spirit to help him realize he needs to come back to church.
Wednesday, we
went down to Chesapeake to tract. As we were tracting, we saw a group of black
guys so we went over there and gave them all a pass along card with a picture
of Jesus on it. One of them said, "This
white guy is Jesus? Nah, that ain't right." Then they walked away before my companion and
I could try to talk to them. It was actually pretty funny, but I wish we could
have been able to talk to them.
We
knocked on a door where we thought a Hispanic family lived, but a black guy
answered the door instead. He invited
us to come in to talk and then he accepted a Book of Mormon and he said he
would read it. We're going to send the English missionaries over to teach him.
We
visited the Ramos family, in which the mom is a member and the father and son
aren't. They are sweet! We had a really good lesson about prayer and we asked
them to read and pray about the book of Mormon.
We
also taught Victor, an 80-year-old guy from Peru who is a member. He lives with his daughter Maria and her
husband. Maria is a member but her husband Reuben is not. We taught him about the
Restoration and he said he knew that what we were saying was true and that the Book
of Mormon is true.
The
past couple days has been freezing, in the low 20s, and
on Thursday it started snowing but the snow didn't stick so the snow
just ended up melting really quick. While it was snowing, and as we were
driving the street and saw some people who were moving into a house. We pulled over and offered to help them. The
guy said, "Yeah, you can help but I'm not going to buy whatever you are
selling." After we helped them move in, we gave them a couple cards and
talked to them about the church.
On
Friday, we had exchanges with the zone leaders. Elder Smith came up here
to Norfolk to work with me and he brought along the missionary they are
training. Elder Smith is a Spanish Elder who was assigned to be an English zone
leader. He actually served here in the Norfolk Spanish area a few transfers ago.
It ended up being a miracle day. We taught an amazing lesson with less
active 18 year old named Eric. We actually
went to teach his whole family but since he was the only one there when we
showed up, we just taught him. Erik hasn't ever read the Book of Mormon,
so we committed him to read the Book of Mormon every day, and he said that he
would. Afterwards, we had dinner with Jose and Reina. Reina is a member, her husband Jose isn't. She
served some really good flautas and Jose made this really picante (spicy) salsa. I thought it wasn't that hot, but Elder Smith said
he thought it was really spicy. The dinner was super good. We go over there
every week for dinner. Jose and Reina
are definitely some of the best cooks ever. I look forward to eating their food
every week. We retaught Jose about the importance of the Book of Mormon. We told him he wasn't doing his part to find
out if the Book of Mormon is true. He
wouldn't commit to reading it, but he said he might read it. We are going to have to continue to work with
him on that. Afterwards, we had an amazing first lesson with Dixion and Bessie. We found them at a car wash as we were riding
by on bikes a few weeks ago. We talked a little about the Restoration and gave
them a Book of Mormon.
Saturday, Elder
Bradshaw returned. While we were in
Chesapeake, we drove to a trailer park to tract and hopefully find
someone to teach. Before we got out of the car we said a prayer. I asked Heavenly
Father to help us to find someone to teach that was ready
to hear our message. We got out and started walking. We saw some Hispanic kids playing on their
porch. We walked over there and the parents let us in. We taught them
about the Restoration. They were really open to what they were teaching
them and they told us we could come over again.
I
was reading in the Book of Mormon this morning during personal study. I was reading 1st Nephi 8 where it talks
about Lehi's dream. Something that stuck out to me was that after Lehi had
partaken of the fruit, he had the desire to share it with his family. He could
see his family across the field and his family didn't know where to go, so he beckoned
and called his family over to him so that they could partake of the
fruit too. As we experience the joys of the gospel, it will only become natural
for us to want to share it with our families and friends because we will
want them to taste that same joy and happiness that we have tasted. We
have family members and friends who are looking for this fruit, but they don't
know where to find it. And it is our job to help show them where this fruit is.
I want to encourage all of you back home, if you haven't already, to taste
of the amazing fruit of this gospel through praying to our Heavenly Father,
reading the Book of Mormon, and going to church. As you do so, your desire to share the
gospel is going to increase. There are
people waiting out there for us to show them where the truth
is.
I
hope everyone has a great week.
Elder
Cannon
