3 Posts in One
July 6, 2015
Dear Family and Friends,
We've been really busy this
past week. We taught 17 lessons and had 115 I/OS’s, the number of gospel
discussions that we have with someone outside of a lesson where we invite them
to do something, such as talking to people on the street and then giving them a
card, or talking to people at their door as we are tracting.
For the fourth of July, we
spent time with Hermana Sabillon, Lani's Mom, and then we taught Fausto, a
family friend. Later in the day we met up with Martin and Lani in Virginia
Beach and ate dinner with them. Afterwards, we watched the fireworks. President
Baker extended our bed time for that night until 11 p.m. which is good because
since there was so many people there, there was a ton of traffic so we didn't
get home until just before 11 p.m.
Hermano Mendo joined us for
a lesson with an investigator. When we showed up to the investigator's home for
the appointment, he was not there. We called up a few other investigators to
see if we could come by and they were all busy. We decided we'd knock on one
other door in the trailer park and then if we didn't get invited in for a
lesson, the member would just drive back home. When we knocked on the door,
Mauro, another one of or investigators, answered and let us in. It ends up that Mauro and Hermano Mendo know
each other and are actually good friends.
We were able to teach a really good lesson about the Book of Mormon.
On the 23rd of
this month, I'm going to hit the year mark of my mission. It is crazy just how
fast time goes by out here.
I sure love everybody back
home. I want everyone to know that I know that this church is Christ's church.
I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and that all you need to do
is read it and sincerely ask God if it is true, like it says in Moroni 10:3-5,
and you will receive an answer from God. And I know we have a living prophet
and apostles today. I encourage everyone to go
back and read all the conference address from last conference, becausue their
words will guide us in the world we are living in.
I hope everyone has a great
week!
Elder Cannon
July 13, 2015
Dear Family and Friends,
We have continued to be very busy here, teaching 16 lessons this
week. We are trying really hard to help get our investigators to church.
Right now we are working with Lani to help her get to the temple
to do baptisms for the dead. We are going to help her with her family history
so that she can do work in the temple for her own family.
We got rained out on Saturday. We drove into a really big townhouse complex when it was
only lightly sprinkling rain, so I parked the car far away on the opposite
side so that we could talk to people along the way. After we had been walking
for a few minutes, it just started pouring, and even though we had our rain
jackets on, we were soaking wet by the time we got to our appointment. We dried
off during the lesson just in time for us to go back out in the rain and
walk all the way back. It was a bad call on my part to park so far away, but we
did end up talking to a few people in the rain.
I had a funny experience this week. We were walking through a
trailer park, and there was this couple that was up ahead sitting on their
porch. When they saw us they were said, "Oh no, here come the Jehovah Witnesses,"
and then they started to bad mouth the Jehovah Witnesses. When I got closer the
man told me to go away and that he didn't want to talk to us. I told him that
we weren't Jehovah Witnesses and that we just wanted to give him a card about
Jesus Christ. He said, "Oh y’all are Christians." He and his wife
looked really relieved and actually pretty happy as the man took the card and
said he'd check out the website that was on the back.
Well, I want everyone to know that I know that the church is true
and obedience to God's commandments brings blessings and happiness!
Love,
Elder Cannon
July 20, 2015
Hola Family and Friends!!
I can't believe I'm hitting my year mark this week! It is crazy
just how fast time goes by!
The weather has been super bipolar this past week. A few days ago
it got up to 100 degrees with 90% humidity.
As a result,
when we were tracting and talking to people we were sweating like
crazy. The next day it poured and then all the streets here got flooded and we
got all wet. It was really crazy because when we were driving our car in the
rain, we turned onto a street and before we knew it, we had water all the
way up to the doors of our car! There wasn't anything I could do but to keep
driving quickly get out of there because stopping would have made the car
stall.
This week we had interviews with President Baker. We only get 15
minutes to talk with him, but we had a really good talk. He told me I needed to
talk to the branch mission leader because the sisters feel like they have been
getting too much food and that they are struggling to say no to members when
the members keep offering more food. However President Baker took care of the
problem himself when he showed up to church on Sunday. He gave a talk in
sacrament about how the purpose is not for the members to feed us but for us to
spiritually feed the members. He asked the Stake President to translate for
him. He came into the Gospel Principles class, where Elder Garcia and I
were teaching the class. It was a little nerve racking having President Baker
sitting right in front of us and listening to us teach. He doesn't speak Spanish,
so I guess it wasn't that big of a deal.
We also had our car taken to the shop on Wednesday and we were
told we would have to bike for a week or two until the car got fixed. I was
actually looking forward to it, to be able to get some exercise instead of
being in the car all day, but at the last second President Baker gave us
another car to use while our other car is in the shop.
I have some crazy stories to share from this past week.
We were walking in the ghetto around 8 p.m. when we saw a couple of
black guys sitting on their porch. I walked up right to them and I started
talking to them. After a minute, Elder Garcia and Elder Thompson finally came
over to join me. I guess that they hesitated to talk to them because they were
a little scared. When they finally began to walk over, one of the black guys
told me to, "Tell my friends to not be scared around here because Jesus is
protecting us."
I talked to another guy the other day, who grew up in Harlem. It
was pretty cool to see the respect he had for us and we had a really good talk
with him, too.
An Elder in Newport News told me that a few weeks ago, in an area
that I tracted a lot in when I was there, someone opened fire in the apartment
complex with an AKA 47 and killed a few people. I guess I've been in some scary
places and have talked to some seemingly scary people.
Hope everyone has a great week!
Elder Cannon
