Week #78- Focusing Our Work

January 25, 2016

Hey Family and Friends

It's been freezing here in North Carolina! The temperature has been in the upper 20's and lower 30's during the day! And no matter how many layers we put on, the cold just cuts right through. It also rained a few days ago while it was in the upper 20's, so I'm not too sure why it didn't turn to snow. We ended up having to change our battery, because our car battery died, in the cold, freezing rain. It snowed on Saturday but it wasn't snowing hard enough to stick to the ground.

         I've also been sick all week long. This cold has been passed around through our entire district and I'm one of the last ones to get it. I was hoping that I had gotten away without being sick, especially after being sick during Christmas last year.  Even though I’ve been sick, we have still been up and about all day like we normally are and I'm starting to feel better now.

         We are really trying to target our work with the Spanish members to develop more trust with them. We have had about four Hispanic men attend Priesthood meeting every week so we have started to translate the Priesthood lesson into Spanish as well. We ate with all 4 active Hispanic families within three days this week. We are also working with Brother Rodriguez and his brother. His brother came to church on Sunday and we have a scheduled appointment with them this Thursday.

         I know my letter is kind of short this week but I want to finish it with my testimony about God. He is not some foreign object or statue that we pray to or worship nor does He sleep. He is our Father, and He knows us even better than we know ourselves. You can talk to Him, and He will talk to you. He will answer your questions and give you comfort. I know that He lives, and I am so thankful for all that He has blessed me with. I know that He talks through his prophet, Thomas S. Monson.  I'm also so thankful for an earthly father and mother that have taught me the gospel and helped me become the person that I am.

I hope that everyone has a great week!

Love,

Elder Cannon

Week #77- Finding Rosia

January 18, 2016

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm staying in Greenville with Elder Claridge! This will be my fifth transfer here and this is the first time I'm actually going to be able to finish the training of one of my sons. 

Unfortunately, we had to drop many of our investigators because we have lost contact with them over the holidays. However, we are also finding some solid new people to teach. 

We met Rosia down in the town of Grifton a while ago but we never visited her because we couldn't locate her address. Sometime last week, I was calling through a potential sheet and talked to Alfonso. He told me that he had moved recently but that we could teach him and his family sometime in the next few weeks. When we were on exchanges with the Zone Leaders this past week we visited Alfonzo.  It turns out that Rosia is her Alfonzo’s wife. They are super cool and they said they would come to church next week. We also talked to their neighbor. It ends up that he has had an interest in coming to our church for a while.  He hadn't attended because he had heard that all our services are in English and so he didn't think that there were any other Hispanics who attended. We told him how we have a few Hispanic families that come every week and that we translate the meetings for them.  He told us that he would come to church next Sunday. We also gave him a Book of Mormon and he said that he'd read it.

We were on bikes for most of this week. Our car finally got approval to go to the shop and get repaired.  Elder Dickerson and I were involved in a car accident a few months ago. Biking has made missionary work kind of hard since most of the Hispanics citizens live outside of the city center.  Although most of the people that we teach are far away and we couldn’t get to them, we were still able to find some more people to teach in the city. Greenville has no sidewalks so we just had to bike in the street.  When you get out towards the countryside there is only 1 lane.  We are forced to bike on a one-foot-wide narrow shoulder.  It is pretty scary to ride at night with cars driving past us going 60 miles per hour. We had to bike on our exchanges with the Zone Leaders, too. I felt prompted that we needed to bike to an investigator's home so that we could give her a Book of Mormon. We have only taught her once because our past two appointments have fallen through. We biked out the 6 miles out to her home in the dark when the weather was just barely above freezing at 35 degrees. We gave her the Book of Mormon and she said that she would read it.  So yeah, biking this past week was pretty fun and it was a good workout. 

Hope everyone has a good week!

Love, 

Elder Cannon

This is my mode of transportation while our car is in the repair shop.

                                  Bowling with Elders in my District on a Preparation day

Bowling

Week #76- A New Person to Teach

 January 11, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

We have had really nice weather during the last month. I didn't mention this last week but on Christmas day it was 80 degrees. However, now it is starting to get a lot colder here! We have had to scrape ice off our windshields, and it actually snowed for about 10 minutes on Monday afternoon while we were outside playing football on our p-day.

On Thursday, we had interviews with President Baker. He told me that he was really pleased with the work I have done as a Zone leader and that he was pleased with the training that I am doing with Elder Claridge.  

It was pretty exciting this week because a brother of one of the Hispanic members of our ward came to church yesterday. We are going over to that family's home tonight to eat dinner.  I hope that the brother will be there so that we can start teaching him.

Tomorrow I hit the 18-month mark. I can't believe that so much time has gone by already. I do know this work is true. I know that this is the one and only church that has the authority and priesthood of God. And through that priesthood we are able to bless our lives, the lives of others around us, and our loved ones that have passed on. I know that we have a prophet today, someone that we desperately need to help us in this tumultuous world that we live in. I know that Thomas S. Monson is that prophet and that if we heed his counsel we will be blessed.

I hope that everyone has a great week!

Love, Elder Cannon

                      Me and President Baker wearing holiday hats at the Mission Christmas party

                                                             Mission Christmas Party

                                          Eating dinner with the Canseco family