Week #86- A New Teaching Method
March 21, 2016
Dear Family and Friends,
Things are going good here in Newport News. We are
teaching a lot of people and are really busy. We are seeing some investigators
really beginning to progress. Because of the success we are having Satan is
pushing back pretty hard. We actually had 6 investigators and 8 less actives
commit to go to church on Sunday,
but not a single one showed up to church!
On Friday we had Zone
Conference, where multiple zones met to receive training from President and Sister
Baker. It was a great conference! One of my favorite parts, was when President Baker
talked about using the Book of Mormon to begin a teaching appointment. This means that when we ask our investigators
if they had read the Book of Mormon and when they respond that they have, that
we should not say “Oh that’s great,” and then just move forward with another
topic that we had planned to teach. He stressed that the Lord has prepared a
way before us and that there will always be something that the investigator says
or that they have read that can be related to what we are going to teach.
To illustrate his point he called up random missionaries, asked them to leave the
room for a few minutes, told us what he was going to teach them, and then he
called the missionary back in and did a role play with them. The missionary played the part of the investigator. President Baker asked the investigator (the
missionary) if they had read the Book of Mormon and then asked them what had
stood out to them in their reading. The missionary pointed out something out
from his personal study the day before. Each time President Baker was able to
relate what the investigator (the missionary) said and transition seamlessly into
the lesson he was planning to teach. It was really cool to see how he taught
from the spirit.
We had an interesting lesson with one of our less
actives named Cristian. We helped him out with his gardening tasks and then proceeded
to teach him about the Plan of Salvation. We had forgotten a Plan of Salvation
pamphlet in English (he speaks Spanish but can't read it) so we ended up
drawing the Plan in the dirt with a hoe as we taught.
We had some speakers from the High Council come to
the branch on Sunday. Neither of them could speak Spanish so
I had to translate for them while they were speaking. One read his talk so it
was tough to keep up. They had both given me a copy of their talks the night
before so I had a little bit of time to read the talks over and mark the
scriptures so that I could flip to them easier but that was about it. I just
had paper copies of the talks in English and had to translate them while they
were speaking. But, it was all good.
With Easter coming up this Sunday, I want to bear my testimony that I
know that Jesus Christ lives. I know that His Atonement happened and provides
us comfort and strength if we choose to use it in our lives. Even though Christ
died that day on the cross, I know that he was resurrected the third day. And I
know that we will all be resurrected because of Him, and if we stay true
to the covenants we have made, we will live forever with God, Jesus Christ
and our families. I love Jesus Christ, and I am so thankful that he chose
willingly to suffer for me. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen
There is a great video that the church put out
about the Resurrection that I invite everyone to watch. You can find it at followhim.mormon.org.
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Cannon
Week #87- Trying a New Teaching Method
March 28, 2016
Dear Family and Friends,
This past week has been a really busy week. We
taught a lot of lessons and found a lot of new people to teach.
Last week I mentioned the way to begin teaching
through the Book of Mormon. We've been teaching this way and it totally works. It’s actually really cool. We started out our
lesson with Miguelina and Leapoldo this way. Miguelina had read the testimony
of the three witnesses and testimony of the eight witnesses, and we were asked
her what stuck out to her in what she had read. I honestly had no idea how we
were going to transition from that to the Plan of Salvation. However, Elder
Free found the perfect transition at the bottom of the testimony of the three
witnesses where it mentions standing at the judgement bar and being saved. This helped us to transition perfectly into
the Plan of Salvation.
We had a really good lesson with Maria about how
she would receive her answer if the Book of Mormon is true. Sadly, she wasn't
at church on Sunday, but we have a lesson with her tonight so we will see what happened.
We got a media referral this week. We visited the address on the referral. The owner told us that he hadn't requested us
to come over, but clearly he did or someone in his family did because he had
his phone number and email. He decided to let us in and we talked to him.
He is Pentecostal and all he did was try to bash with us. It was really cool
though because all the different concerns he brought up lead right into the
next point of the Restoration. His big concern was how he felt that when someone
is baptized it should be in the name of Jesus Christ and not in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. When we came back to his home for a lesson
the second time we brought a member named Brother Flores. We focused on the Book
of Mormon, but he kept bringing up his question about baptism, and so we read a
scripture in 3rd Nephi where Jesus Christ talked about how we should be
baptized. Brother Flores bore a super strong testimony of his conversion. Unfortunately, the investigator was more
interested in bashing with us than anything else so we were forced to drop him.
We had interviews with President Baker. Its crazy
to think that it is a one of the last few that I will have with him. Because he
is being released two weeks before I am, its not clear whether he will be able
to do my final interview. He said he'd think about it, he just doesn't want to
step on the new mission president's toes. I am really hoping that I can get my last
interview from him.
At church we had a special Easter program where we
read the final talk that Bruce R. McConkie gave about the Savior. I was asked
to teach the gospel doctrine classes right before Sacrament meeting so I had 2
minutes to look over the lesson and then I had to teach it. Luckily, it was on
2 Nephi 31 which is about the doctrine of Christ. After church we had a linger
longer and we ate some really good food.
I want to finish by inviting everyone to watch all
the sessions of General Conference that they can. It is an amazing opportunity
to have a living prophet and apostles. Come to Conference with a question and
it will be answered
Everyone have a great week.
Love, Elder Cannon
My new friend, a less active member's chicken
