Sunday, February 22, 2015

January 16, 2015- Lots of Families to Teach

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