March 16, 2015- Temple Trip

Hey Family and Friends!

The highlight of this week definitely was going to the temple on Wednesday! We woke up around 5 a.m. and drove down to Virginia Beach. From there, we caravanned to Raleigh, North Carolina, which is about a three and a half hour drive. I was glad that I wasn't assigned to drive. We ended up driving through the Richmond, North Carolina mission to get to the Raleigh Temple. The Raleigh temple is in the Raleigh, North Carolina mission so I ended up being in three different missions all in one day.

I had the most amazing feeling seeing the temple again. Even though it's only been 8 months since I've been to the temple, it has felt like forever since I've been there. The experience in the temple was amazing! Afterwards, we went into the stake center that was next to the temple to eat lunch and then have a zone conference. Two zones went to the temple the day I went. The temple president talked to us and then we heard from President and Sister Baker. President Baker called a set of sisters to role-play teaching a lesson about the temple, eternal marriage and ordinances for the dead. Unfortunately, they didn't do that great of a job. President Baker called up another companionship to role-play, my companion and I. Our role-play went well, and even President and Sister Baker said that they were impressed.

On Thursday, we taught the Sabillon family. We talked to them the purpose of the commitments. The spirit was really strong when Satan just wrecked our lesson. A neighbor knocked on their door and then came in and talked to them for a couple of minutes. Right after she left, some more people showed up to talk. After those people left, a woman started screaming outside. It was the first lady who had interrupted the lesson. Apparently, she had been robbed and her face was all cut up. Hermana Sabillon called the police and so we left.

We also taught Martin and Lani Thursday night. We decided to teach them the same lesson that we had role played at the zone conference. Before the lesson we went to the dollar store and bought a picture frame and put in a picture of the Salt Lake temple that we found in an Ensign. We also showed Martin and Lani a picture of the temple in San Salvador, El Salvador, which is where they are from. The spirit was so strong that Lani started crying. During the lesson we asked them if they would be baptized and Lani said she'd say yes except that, “There was someone in that room (Martin) that still didn't know if the Book of Mormon is true.” Lani has been doing her part by reading and praying about the Book of Mormon whereas Martin hasn't. So, in the future my companion and I will start reading the Book of Mormon with him.

On Friday, we visited Osman and Carmina. They haven't read the Book of Mormon yet so we read the first chapter with them and they both committed to starting to read it on their own.

Saturday night, we asked Martin and Lani over the phone if they planned to come to church on Sunday. They said that they weren't sure because one of Martin's friends from work had invited them to come to his church. Even though they didn't really want to go, they wanted to be courteous to Martin's friends. Satan was at work again. However, they did end up coming to church yesterday for Sunday school and Relief Society/Priesthood. We ended up having a really good lesson about Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon during priesthood and someone brought up the scripture in Ezekiel 37, where it talks about how the stick of Judah (the Bible) and the stick of Joseph (the Book of Mormon) will become one in the Lord’s hand, so that should hopefully help Martin develop a testimony of the Book of Mormon.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Love, Elder Cannon