7/18/12

This week has been a lot different. I got transfered today so I am now in La Yaguita in Santiago South. I also got a new companion Elder Mandrigas he is from haiti so he speaks french and spanish and I have heard that he speaks a little english, but I still don´t know if he does or not.

Today we got up and ready pretty early then the office elders came and got me they dropped me off at my new house and I cleaned part of it a little then got my stuff settled in. We then went shopping to buy some food in the city at La Sirena. so we were down there and had lunch. Then came home and I cleaned a little more and started to wash my clothes, with a washing machine! And now we are using internet, so I still don´t know much of my area just from what I have seen in the car ride, but there are a lot more trees here then in cien fuegos so I hope that it is cooler. We are on the outskirts of the city I think that we are the last missionaries in this area.

It was pretty hard to leave Cien Fuegos. It was really hard saying goodbye to the members and the converts and investigators. I really hope that I can see them again. I spent a lot of time at the Cabrera´s house. They wanted me to share one final lesson with them. We talked then I shared some scriptures with them and then had to say goodbye. I ended up crying a bit saying goodbye and giving them hugs.

This week we also found a leak in the pipe from our tank on the roof of our house. It was spraying our water all over the house of our neighbors. So we went and bought the stuff to fix it. so that took a little while, but we got it all fixed and glued together. I was pretty happy to know how to do it and so did my companion so together it wasn´t a big deal.

Sara wasn´t baptised on saturday we posponed her date for the 28 of july. So that was a bit sad to have shared so long with her and not be able to see her baptised, but it is enough to know that she is going to be baptised.

So this house has a shower that actually runs so I won´t have to take a bucket shower everyday, which is a bit weird because that has been my shower for so long. They have power on and off so when it is here we have to wash our clothes, but their inversor works when there isn´t power so the fans will work. They also have water most of the time and when it leaves it only leaves for a little usually, who knows with my luck.

Well I hope that you guys have a great week camping. Joshua and Allison it sounds like you guys did great swimming this year, keep it up. I´m glad that rachael and tyler had fun at their camps. I love you all tons!

Con Amor 

Elder Cannon 

7/11/12

Hola Familia,

This week we still don´t have any electricity in the house. So we have been washing by hand which is hard because we don´t have the tablet to scrub your clothes so we have to use a brush, but I use the inside wall of the washer. It makes your arms pretty tired, but I have been thinking alot about what Tom Cruise taught in ¨Far and Away¨, ¨You plung and you scrup and you plung and scrub and you plung and you scrub again and if it still isn´t clean you plung and scrub again.¨ It really works. 

Today we have been cleaning the whole house. We woke up and then we washed the walls and stove and cupboards counters and then the floor. Then we spent the rest of the time hand washing our clothes and sheets.

This week we have a baptism planned. It has been a while we have run into a couple problems with all the baptisms that we had planned, but this weekend we have one. Her name is Sara, she is a friend and reference of Jesus Cabrera. She has been progressing a lot and is involved in relief society going to meetings and going to church. It was really good. We were worried because her work schedule was going to change and she was going to have to work on Sunday, but we promised her if she prayed and talked to her boss she would be able to work something out so that she doesn´t have to work on Sunday. She told us yesterday that her boss changed her schedule and she isn´t going to have to work on sundays. She is really excited about her baptism and has been telling everyone about it. So we are pretty excited for her.

Transfers are next week so that is pretty sad I think that I am probably leaving because I have a lot of time in the area. So it is sad to think that this could be my last week with these members and investigators. So this week was also the last week that I had to teach my district, it went really well. I have learned alot from them from studing and teaching them and also from them teaching me. It has been a really good district.

I met President and his wife we had interviews last week. He has the look of a mission president, he is calm but his words have power and are carried by the spirit. The interview was great, it was a bit weird because it was in english, but really great. His wife is more energetic and is very loving and you can see that she really has charity for the people already. she also interviewed us and asked about our families they are and if they write us and are active in the church. They are very excited and have a lot of energy for the work. I really like them and it is going to be great to get to know them better.

Wow it seems pretty crazy at home with all the fires and girls camp and student council camp. I hope that you can all have fun with all these activities. I´m sorry to hear about the high adventure being canceled, but fishing will be fun. Keep working hard and having a great summer. Joshua and Allison it sounds like you guys are becoming really fast swimmers. I remember when I left and joshua was getting pretty good and allison was starting to swim in the deep end and now you guys are racing and working hard. Keep going and win lots for me. Thats good that Dad has a break from work for a little bit, maybe you can shorten the list of ¨hunny dos¨ that mom has. Well I hope that you all have a great week! I love you all tons!

Con Amor

Elder Cannon

7/4/12

This week was really good.

We have been trying really hard with Mayra and Joel. They went to church a while ago and had a bad experience and we thought that they were never going to come back, but we have been teaching them about the power of fasting and asked them to fast with us to see when they wanted to be married and baptised. So on saturday right before we started our fast they called us and told us that we weren´t going to fast, and that something happened and they aren´t going to be married until they solved this problem. We fasted anyways. On sunday they came to church and they had a much better experience. They also told us that they were fasting and wanted to end the fast together. It was so awesome that they ended up fasting with us. We went and visited them last night and shared with them. We had a really long lesson because their kids were hungry when we got there so we waited. Their two year old ended up looking at the family pictures and thought you guys are really cute. We answered a bunch of questions and shared how we can overcome problems and used the example that as missionaries we have to discuss what is bothering us or we don´t have the spirit with us. Them they just kept asking question and more questions, so we tried our best to answer them and show them how through the scriptures they can find their own answers. At the end of the lesson Joel, the husband that isn´t as receptive, said I am going to be baptised. It was so great, and we opened a new window for him in the way that the scriptures can really relate to him and how he can study them. When we left the house they were hugging at the door telling each other that they love each other and kissed. I felf so great! it was such a spiritual experience!

I had an intercambio with elder Kimball and went to tierra alta. It was really weird it is a richer area but it also has some poor parts. Some of the houses are really big and there are a lot more people who at least know a little bit of english, because they visited the united states the people where I live that lived in the united states are usually deported. There was an area called the hole and it was really nasty. There was a river of sewage and garbage and the people built their houses on the side of the hill. During the exchanged I learned a lot more about my own area. There was a member that told me a lot about the process of the Gansters and the police. It was pretty eye opening even though I live there I now understand what is really going on, and see the blessings that we receive everyday. We talked about this because someone else was murdered on sunday in the area that we were working in that night. It is just a blessing how the Lord protects us.

We still don´t have any power and it is hard when the neighbors have their loud music and you can´t sleep very good without the fan. We have both run out of clean clothes after the exchange my companion brought some clothes to wash there, but I forgot because I was already there. We don´t know when we are going to get power again we keep calling the office elders but they are just slow at doing things. It is a bit annoying. 

Tomorrow we get to meet the new president and we are pretty excited to meet him. We have heard some pretty good things. his wife called my companion yesterday to wish him a happy birthday and she speaks a little but is learning at the end of the call president talked just to make sure he got the message. He said the spanish here is a bit fast but he is getting used to it.

Well I hope that you all have a great 4th of July and that you can see a lot of the family and have a great bbq, wow that sounds really good.. I hope that all the fire stop burning so that I can come home to beautiful mountains. I miss the mountians in utah. Have a great time this week, and I love you all so much.

Con amor

Elder Cannon 

6/27/2012

So this week has been pretty good.
So on monday I was on an exchange and when I got back I found out that
the power company came and shut off our power, because we don´t have a
counter to keep track of the power that we use. So they called the
office elders and they couldn´t do the contract with the power company
until they had finished the contract for the house, so they now have
that all arranged. The bad thing is we aren´t going to have power
until friday hopefully probably not until monday. We took the food in
the fridge to the neighbors house they are really kind to help us with
that, but we didn´t have any clean clothes. So we talked to our
renters to see if we could run an extension cord to our house to use
the washing machine for our clothes. They said yes so we have one
extension with power. The inverter also doesn´t have any charge so we
have no light and can´t use the fans so it is really hot. Yester we
didn´t have water so last night we were up trying to find out the
problem.The tank that we have on the roof was full but it wouldn´t go
through the pipes so we were up late fixing that. It turned out that
there was air in the tubes and couldn´t leave. After we fixed that we
had to wash our clothes and wash dishes. It was a pain in the butt,
but now we have clean clothes and dishes, but it is really hot at
night without fans and the bugs get you more when you don´t use a fan.
We woke up today and ate and talked. Then we wanted to go an play
basketball at the church so we went over there and played with two of
the young men and then a kid that just came over and wanted to play.
It was extremely hot and I burnt a little because I forgot sun screen.
It was really good to play I haven´t played in a long time. I was
trying to help Kenny learn to jump higher and when I was showing him I
was able to grab the rim. I was pretty surprised and happy. But
afterwards we were extremely tired, and had to go and buy ice because
we don´t have any cold water because no power. We had lunch and then
tried to relax.
This week with investigators we really worked hard to get
investigators to come to church and we had a petty good number come to
church. We have an investigator that is a haitian lady and she is
reading the book or mormon a lot. We we contacted her and just left
her a pamphlet she tried to come to church but got lost, and then we
gave her a book of mormon and she is reading a lot. We shared
yesterday and found a member visiting with her with her family. It was
really good she believe that the book is true and believes to have
received an answer. Her boyfriend isn´t as interested and it is going
to be really hard for them to get married to be able to be baptised.
We went and visited Sagrario and talked a lot about what she has
learned and how she has felt. Then we talked about coffe and how she
needs to quit drinking coffee. We talked about why she drinks coffe
and found out that it is just something hot to drink so we offered
chocolate and other hot drinks that she could drink in place of coffe,
at the end of the lesson we asked her to give us her kettle because
she can´t quite with it. We had the kettle out during the lesson and
at the end we asked her to give it to us. It took her a while to
answer and then at the end she said no, and that she couldn´t stop
drinking coffee. It made me really sad expecially because I have a lot
of time teaching her and she has made changes in her life. At this
point I felt the prompting that we needed to drop her. That was really
hard because we had grown close we had helped her with personal
problems that she had shared with us. So I took the initiative and we
dropped her. It was really sad I cried a little at the end and i tried
to think if there had been anything else that I could have done.
President Douglas and his wife are coming this week so we might see
some changes in the mission so that is a bit sad to see president and
hermana lee leave, but it is exciting to see changes.
I hope that you all have a great week and that everything is going
great. I love you all so much. Just so you know I am about halfway
through the last journal that i have, dad has the kind that i want.
When you send it if you could send a stress ball the black ones that
are really hard that would be nice. Have a great week and I´ll talk to
you next week. Love you soooo much!!!
Con Amor
Elder Cannon

6/20/2012

This week was really Great!

So this week we had a capacitation with President and Hermana Lee for just our zone, and a half an hour before a meeting with the three district leaders and zone leaders. So we were on our way and running a little bit late. Then the ruta that we were in died. ¨great now we are going to be even later. The driver got out, popped the hood and started the car and then reved it up. We went a little ways and it died again. So he got out and started it again and reved it up. We went another little ways and then it died a third time. He got out of the car and started the car under the hood, but this time he forgot to take it out of drive. So when he reved up the car it nailed the driver knocking him pretty hard onto the ground and then kept going. I thought that the car was going to run him over we were just waiting for the bump bump and the screams. He was able to roll to the side and then running after him car. He jumped in the window and throw the car into park. It was so funny to watch a guy hit himself with his own car. All the people in the car were trying not to laugh.

When we finally got to the capacitation we talked about planning and contacting 10 people everyday. It was really good. he talked about preaching the gospel ¨en camino¨ in D and C 52, and how we need to open our mouths and trust that it will be filled. he told us about how sometimes we are scared or timid to open our mouths and preach the gospel, but if we do this we showed us how it would be simple to have a baptism once a week. It was really good. I just hope that the other missinonaries put this in practise so that when I get transfered they will have put in the effort to open their mouths. 

On monday I had to give my first capacitation as a District leader. I talked about the importance of inviting and helping our investigators come to church. I had a lot a participation from the district and it turned out really good. 

I also did an exchange in La Union. We had a really good day leaving with members and working out there. We were able to have a lot of success contacting and talking to people. That night I slept terrible. All there was was a matris so sleep on so I had a shirt that was a very little pillow and then the elder I was with gave me one sheet. During the night my right calf crapped up really bad about 5 time. So I would wake up and try to stretch it out and then go back to sleep only to wake up and try to stretch my leg out again.

We are starting to get more refereneces from the members. On sunday the lesson was about having excitement about sharing the gospel. So I think that really helped, we are really trying to asked references from everyone to try to reach the goal of 10 references every week. It has been a bit hard because there are 4 missionaries in the same ward and both of us are asking for references, so 20 references every week from the ward. 

I hope that you all have a really fun week this week for Strawberry Days. Eat a bunch of strawberries and cream for me. Keep up the good work in school and piano. Try to teach chief how to sniff out non members so that you can teach them. Have a great week and Enjoy the summer together! I love you all!

Con Amor 

Elder Cannon 

6/13/2012

Hola Familia

This week has been pretty good. We haven´t had water for a couple of days so the past couple of nights our neighbors have given us water to wash our clothes and bath. So after we are done during the day we go and haul water up to our house. We have probably hauled 100 gallons. It is pretty Tiring to lift it up the stairs to our house, but it has been really nice to have water. 

My companion and I are getting along pretty good. He loves to cook and took classes so I am learning a little about how to cook food from Guatemala. He also cleans alot which is really nice because our house is more clean.

So as a zone we are focusing more on goals and how to achieve them. I had to get a capacitation on how we are going as a zone to get 1,200 references this transfer. We are really trying to focus ourselve more by setting and making better goals.

So this week we have really been trying to help Mayra and Joel come to church. This Sunday they came a little late but they came which was really good. The class with the inverstigadors was really good and they really had a good time. But during priesthood some things were said that has made a bit harder. I think that it won´t slow their progress too much but it might a little bit, so that wasn´t very good.

Yesterday we went to Sagrario´s house and shared with her. She is doing a lot better. We have a goal to reactivate some less actives in the Ward. The other day we were walking and saw this lady carrying some boards. So we offered to help her and she didn´t want us to. We insisted and then helped her. We found out that she used to work in the houses of the missionaries and is now less active. She just moved here and was really happy to see us. It was awesome to see that just by doing what we were supposed to be doing we happened to pass by just at that moment, and insisted to help her. The spirit was really strong and she has a Desire to reactivate and become an active member in the church again.

We have been fasting and studying and it really goes to show the power of fasting, we are finding more people that are really progressing with the lessons and we are constently receiving new ideas in the things that we can do to help the members and investigators in our area. The work is moving forward everyday as we are contacting and finding new people that the gospel can bless.

Seeing people change their lives everyday really shows the power of this gospel and the teachings of Jesus Christ. In a song that I have It says ¨seeing their lives begin to change I know that i´ll never be the same, how can i keep this gift to myself when I Could lift somebody else, I am a witness of his Miracle and his mercy…¨ It is a really good song that talks about missionary work.

That is great that you guys were able to go to ST. George and see all the family and get all those pictures. I am sorry to hear that allison is a bit sick. Tyler don´t worry about the ACT you did fine. It was great to hear that Rachael had a great time at EFY and that allison and joshua are doing swimming again. I hope that you all have a great week and I love you all very much.

Con Amor 

Elder Cannon 

6/6/2012

This week has been pretty good. My companion is going home today so we have been working pretty hard. He was able to finish strong. My new companion is Elder Muralles from Guatemala, Guatemala City, and says that he know a bunch of missionaries I asked about marshall Nielson but he said that there were two Elder Nielsons. I am now the District Leader of 8 missionaries 6 Elders and 2 Hermanas. There are 4 from my group of missionaries that are in my district. It is a bit intimidating, but I´ll just do my best. 

This week we saw something that I never thought I would see in my life. So we were at the church to pick up a member to go and do visits with us, and a big black dog came waddling down the road. It was half squating. Then it stopped in and tried to poop, it must have put a good amount of preasure because it was shaking. Then it waddled some more and then tried again. On the third attempt it came out. It was a grocery bag that it had eaten. It was pretty gross, and really funny.

We have eaten at a lot of members houses this week because my companion is leaving so they all wanted us to go and eat over. One day I ate a ton I thought that I was going to explode. We have had a lot of meetings that we have had to go to this week. We had an exchange while my companion was in a meeting for the missionaries who are finishing their missions. When we got back, because we were the only companions that got back on time, but the meeting was still going so I was able to play the piano a little bit. It was also nice to see all the missionaries that are finishing their missions to say goodbye to them.

It has been extremely hot lately. We are sweating like crazy. The members don´t like to leave in the early afternoon because it is so hot, but they are leaving with us which is really nice.

Yesterday we went to an investigators house when we didn´t have an appointment. When we got there she didn´t want to share with us it wasn´t a good time. We sent another appointment and asked if there was anything that we could do, because something was wrong. She told us that it was something personal and something emotional and that there was nothing that we could do for her. So we left, I felt like was should go back, so we walked back up the stairs and knocked on her door. She was pretty surprised to see us at her door again, but she was close to tears. We told her that she was a good friend and we didn´t want to leave her like   that. She said that there was nothing that we could do, so we told her that whatever she was going through the Book of Mormon would help. It was extremely impacting. My companion and I were close to tears when we left. She is normally very excited and laughs and likes the visits, she has also asked us advice about problems that she has in her life and is a really good friend and investigator. It was really hard, I don´t know how to discribe it, I really wanted to help her and felt like I couldn´t, my heart was heavy and sad it is just hard to discribe. 

I hope that you all have a great week this week with brand new carpet the squishes when you step on it and goes in-between your toes. Wow that seems so foreign. I hope that Rachael have an awesome experience in EFY, and that you are all enjoying your first week in summer. Keep working hard and having fun! I love you all and thank you for the package that you guys sent me. Have a great week!

Con Amor 

Elder Cannon