11/13/2013 Final Letter

This week has been a really great week so far!

I have been in a lot of doctors’ offices trying to figure out what this rash is and they made me do a bunch of tests to check to make sure that it wasn´t something more serious. So they tested my blood and pee and poop. They told me that i don´t have anything in my system and that i am parasite free. I just had a bacterial infection, but it is pretty much healed. It was a little awkward at the return visit but i´ll tell you about that next week.

This week we have been teaching a lot of people and I have really felt the spirit guiding our lessons. We have been teaching a lawyer here and he is really serious with us, but he hasn´t prayed about the message partly because he is catholic and does memorized prayers. So this week we had a lesson about prayer and why it is so important for him to pray and really know if the message is true. It was great because normally when we talk about those sort of things he interupts more and explains how he is catholic. This week was different I started to talk about why prayer is so important and he was quiet and just taking it all in. The spirit was really strong and at the end he said ok i understand I will pray this week. It was great!

We also have been contacting and this week we ran into one of our english students who really likes us and we found out where he lives and shared a message with him. He told us that he is just so happy that we shared that with him. He just seems to ask all the right questions and give all the right answers to our questions. He is Haitain and is really smart. He seems to be a golden contact. At those moments I really wish I were staying to help them and see how they progress.

This week there has been an explosion of disobedience in the mission and tomorrow we have a zone conference and I think that they are going to be a lot stricter on the rules and stuff. It is sad to see that the last little bit of my mission.

This week also Carolina got baptised this week. I asked permission to go back to my old area and see the baptism. When i walked in the church she started to jump up and down saying he came he came, and then she was about to give me a hug but then remembered and shook my hand. They were really happy to be baptised. She is a pretty big lady and the guy doing the baptism just about fell over into the wall trying to get her up which was hilarious. They said if they guy, their exbishop hadn´t showed up i would have done the baptism, but it was a great experience!

Well I can´t believe that this in the last time that i will write you guys! I hope that you guys have a great week I am excited to see you all! Love you guys and talk to you next thursday!

Con todo mi amor

Elder Cannon

11/6/2013

So this week we got some bad news. Our neighbor told us that we aren´t going to have water for a month, so we better save the water that we had. All we had was a tank with about 25 gallons in it and so we quickly filled up our little washer with water as well. But we don´t really know what we are going to do. We figured that we are going to have to buy food and eat just sandwiches and stuff as for showering and washing clothes. We found a way to wash clothes by going to the church and using the water there, but showers are going to be spit baths or something and a bucket shower ever couple of days, but we are trying to figure out a way to get water.

Well other than that this week we had the day of service and we went to the cemetery that is right next to our house to clean it up and pick up garbage. There was a lot of garbage out there. It was pretty interesting while we were there the cemetery manager came over and started to talk to me and the older guy that I was with and showed us some things in the cemetery that I never would have known. He showed us the place where people go in there and do witchcraft and burn things and do crazy things, and we can see right by there from our window in our house. Also he showed us the holy hole. That is where they throw all the bones from the really old graves. It was really nasty there were sacks and sacks in there and then the last one was open slightly and there was a skull there that I could see, just the top but it was pretty nuts.

This week in the search for more less actives we found some more and they have been really open to the message. He asked us if we really wanted him to come back to church and we said of course. It was really sad because I looked like he was really touched my that. He is the type of guy that nobody would have really noticed in church and he may have just slipped away and nobody noticed or something. He eyes got all watery and I really hope that this Sunday he comes. He said that he is going to come.

10/30/2013

This week has been pretty interesting.

Today we went with a member here in the ward Miguel into the mountains to go hiking. So we started off at 7:30 with our backpacks packed with food and water and headed towards the mountains. He took us up this trail that runs by a river bed and was dry and first and then by the top had lots of water. Then we turned up this other little river bed and went up there for a while. He showed us all the crabs and things that there were under the rocks and things. Then we got to this little water fall thing and we had to crawl up that which was really fun. It was really rain foresty up there with lots of plants and vines and things which was good because that really helped up while we were climbing up the water slide things. We kept walking up further and ran into two more of those and had to climb up those because there was no way that we were going to be able to go back down. Then we hiked way the heck up there to this tiny school that was there at the end of this never ending hill that just kept going and going and going. It was really hot and we were sweating a lot. We got up there and ate a quick lunch of sandwiches and juice that we had brought. We took some photos and then headed back down. On the way down we saw two little snakes. We didn´t get home until after 2 in the afternoon, but it was really fun.

This week has been interesting with the work. We finally got a list from the branch of all the members so we sat down with one of the oldest members in the branch and asked where they all lived because the list isn’t very good about describing where they all live. So we have been going around and trying to find all the less actives. We have been walking around a bunch and as of now we have found one and the house of another. Then we found two that aren´t on the list. One stopped us a while ago and told us that he is a member but we thought that he lived somewhere else, and this week we were able to find where he lives. Then while we were walking through the poor Haitian village that is in our area and there was a big group of guys there talking creol and out of the middle a guy said in very bad English, so bad that my companion didn´t even understand, ¨come here¨ so we went over there and he told us that he is member and had moved back here from Haiti but hasn´t been able to go to church because of his work. It is going great and now it isn´t as sketchy going through that area, because we have started an English class here and at first it wasn´t going very good, but now we have had 17 last week and this week we had 18. There have been a lot of Haitians there and so now when we are walking through there every now and again we see some of them and they are very nice to us and say ¨hey Profes¨

Well other things have been happening this week. On Saturday on the way to the English class we went by a house of a lady that is in active and is going to another church. We went by and walked with her to the English class because it can be dangerous down there, and then on Sunday her sister and her showed up at church with their kids. It was really awesome, we were really happy about that. 

This week has been a little bit difficult because the people that we are working with and some of the other people have been having pretty serious couple problems and we have been trying to work with that. It is hard because when we are seeing more progress in the branch and with the area, and then what we thought was going pretty well takes a bad turn. So that is going to be something that we are going to be working with this week.

Well I love you all tons and hope that you guys have a great Halloween tomorrow! I hope that you sent some pictures of your costumes. Love you tons and talk to you next week!

Con Cariño 

Elder Hunter Cannon

10/23/2013

This week has been an interesting week.

First of all we haven´t had water for the past couple of days which has been super uncomfortable, we had a little bit of water in a tank, so when we get home all sweaty and nasty we were at least able to wipe off a little with a wash cloth before crawling into bed and sleeping. So we had to buy some food because all the dishes were dirty and we were able to wash them. We found out yesterday why we weren´t getting water. When they scrapped the road to flatten it again after we had a huge rain storm they broke our water pipe and never told us. So everyone in our apartment building didn´t have water either, so they were all trying to fix the pipe so we stopped and helped them get the water pipe fixed, which was lucky because the water came back that night, but now the water pump isn´t working and so the water can´t be pumped up to the tank on the top of the house so that we have running water. So we have to carry the water up with buckets.

This week our English class really took off. The last couple of weeks we just had 2 people every week, but this week 17 people showed up and they are really excited about learning English. I taught the majority of it and it went really good, we hope that we can get some references and introduce some of the people into the church.

This week also this awesome guy can to church. He is less active and hasn´t been to church for a long time. He has elephantitus and is super humble and loving and spiritual. One day he ask me what I would do if people tried to nail my hands into a post, and then he said he would probably try to hit someone, but the savior let them nail his hands to the cross. It was great.

Well I have to go now I love you all and hope that you guys have a great week getting ready for Halloween and getting your costumes ready. I think that I am going to dress up as a modern day Captain Moroni...(aka the missionary me) Jk. Well Love you tons!!

Con cariño

Elder Cannon

10/16/2013

So this week has been pretty interesting.

First of all last week my group that i came out in the mission with left to go home, and I was able to go to the mission home and eat dinner with all of them. So it was a little weird to see them leaving and saying their goodbyes. I really wasn´t affected by it I came out here only ready to work even harder.

We went to teach a contact that we did that is a brother of a less active. While we were there a drunk guy came and wouldn´t leave. We were singing ¨come follow me¨ and he started to dance as you can imagine a drunk guy to dance, closing his eyes swinging his hips and waving his arms. My companion lost it at first when we both cracked on a high note he couldn´t hold it in anymore. I finished the verse but then i had to laugh. We had to reschedule because I couldn´t convince the drunk guy to go home and get his bible and leave us to teach the other guy.

We have been trying to expand a little more in our area that we are working and try to get to more people. We went up to this are and were contacting and we found two less actives and one of them her family isn´t members. There are active members that live right in front of them and have been trying to introduce the message to them. They tried with the sister missionaries but they weren´t really taking it serious but they think that with us her husband will be more willing to pay attention. So that was great that we were actually able to get a good foot hold in that area to help us keep up the work out there. It is about an hour’s walk away for our house and we were walking back to the main area were we teach and we were trying to contact. Nobody was home. I turned and saw the rain so we started to try to contact more frantically. We finally found someone and they invited us in. As soon as we were in, the rain came down so hard we couldn´t even hear the people so they just gave us a chair to sit in. We had to leave anyways because we had an appointment. It was really good that we left because the streets were rivers and the deepest was when we tried to jump a part and i landed and it came up about mid calf. The lightning was incredible. there was just so much. 

The work is really started to show progress. This week i had to talk in church and the stake president came and they had called a new high counsilor to be over the branch. So they are giving us a lot more support and this week some less actives that are really strong members when they were active came to church, and all the members were really happy to see them. That was great so things are starting to come around.

Well i love you guys and hope that the new driveway looks good and that you can get that done with really soon! Keep up the great week and I´ll talk to you next week. I love you tons!

con cariño Elder Cannon

10/9/2013

What an incredible week.

This week has been incredible hot. It looks like it is going to rain everyday so it gets really humid and hot and then it hasn´t rained so that makes it a bit harder. 

Conference was great we were able to get all the arrangements to watch it in English so we were able to do that. I really enjoyed conference, I received a lot of things that i need to work on. One of my favorite of the many was by Ulises Soares about being meek and humble. It was awesome and went well with some of the things that i have been studying this past week. Over all it was great and when we went to the priesthood session. Because we are in the zone where I started the mission I was able to see a lot of people from my first area and the converts so that was great. I really enjoyed that.

So this past week we went to an investigator that we are teaching and he really wants to change and stop drinking but he just falls into temptations. So we were teaching him and trying to help him overcome this addiction. So this weekend we were a bit worried because we really wanted him to come to conference, but on the way there are a lot of temptations. We have been praying to strengthen him and allow him to stay away from the temptations. This weekend his wife had to go to Santiago because one of her family members was sick and then just the weekend their daughter got sick, and it was just sick enough where he had to stay home with her. It wasn´t exactly what we were thinking but he didn´t Drink and is doing better. It was a miracle.

Then we have been teaching a weird man the only real way that I can describe him is a giggly guy, so you can imagine that this guy is a bit weird. He is a less active and has a lot of problems and he hasn´t done much since we have been teaching him but we feel like we should keep passing by. He has slowly been getting more serious every visit that we do. This last lesson he was a bit giggly. We were talking about the word of wisdom and my companion finally was just sick of him not taking it seriously. So he said for just a moment forget about the spiritual side and think of just the physical. If you don´t stop this you are going to die before it is your time. It was really funny. I was think trying to feel what we really needed to tell him, and he noticed that i was pondering and asked what i was thinking about. So i told him and it really brought the spirit and he felt it and he even got tears in his eyes and changed from being so giggly and really thinking. It was pretty incredible.

Today we didn´t have milk so we were going to walk down to the Colmado and buy milk and as soon as we left the house. I stepped and a piece of glass went through my sandal and cut my foot it was so stupid. So we had to go back home milkless and call delivery. It wasn´t a bad cut so that was lucky.

Well I hope that you guys are all going great and getting ready for Halloween. I love you tons! Talk to you next week.

Con Cariño

Elder Cannon

10/2/2013

This week has been awesome.

First of all this week we did some service for a new member here and we started to dig a black water hole in there yard for the house that they are building now. We dug for about 2 1/2 and we only got about 3 feet down. She lives in a place called ¨The Rock and we found out why there were so many rocks there that it was hard to dig. We were sweating so much that we had sweat drops running down our arms and faces and legs. It was so hot, but we didn´t burn because we took turns, but by the end we were really tired because it was just the two of us.

That day also Omar and Carolina were married. They were the couple that i was teaching while I was in the office and then there was an accident after I left the office and their house burnt down and killed their three kids. It has been really hard for them, but this week they were finally able to get married, and they were able to get married here in Villa Gonzalez so I was able to go down there and get pictures and congratulate them it was great to see them and to at least support them because it has been really hard and it has been hard to cope with the pain. I just hope that they prepare well for her baptism and that they don´t just do it to get it done.

Everything has been going alright. This week we worked hard and have been seeing some progress. There is a less active guy that usually treats our lessons like a joke and so one day i told him straight up some pretty hard things and he started to be more serious and open up a little more to us. He has a lot of problems but is starting to actually show some interest and some motivation. So we will see how it goes. He acts a lot better when he is alone when we teach him because he likes to jokes with the other people who are there. He told me that everything goes ¨step by step¨ and that was the day that he was just joking around a lot, and I told him straight up that he was using that as an excuse just to get rid of us and that I wasn´t going to take it, and he has never forgotten it.

I love you guys tons and hope that you guys have a great week this coming week!

Con Cariño

Elder Cannon