Windsday

Mi Querida Familia! 

Hey! This week was pretty crazy. First of all, there was a crazy wind storm on Friday that the Argentine´s call Sonda. Basically, it´s just a hot wind. But it was pretty scary, there was dust and dirt everywhere, and lots of trees and branches fell everywhere. We´re okay, and everything´s fine. Luckily we were inside visiting with a less active for the worst parts, and walked home when it had mostly settled down and all the ruin was left everywhere. Pretty exciting.

Also this week I had my fist divisiones! One morning we had to go to el centro to pick up some invitations for an activity coming up, but we had citas fijas, so we asked if two girls in the ward, Lis and Aileen would go on splits with us, Aileen with me to visit with an investigator, and Lis with Hna Tirado to pick up the invitations. Basically I was nervous out of my mind. My first lesson without Hermana Tirado! I kind of freaked out all morning, and prayed lots and lots. We were teaching Mariela, our only progressing investigator. She´s been reading the Book of Mormon, and ALMOST accepted a fecha for baptism. She doesn´t quite feel ready yet, and is kind of still deciding whether she wants to be baptised into this church, or the evangelical church. So the morning´s lesson was on the priesthood, and it went fabulously! It helps that Mariela likes to talk, and also that she always has lots of questions, which makes the lessoning easier. The lesson went very well, and Aileen was able to talk about the temple, and how this church has the authority to seal us as families even after death, which was something Mariela seemed to like a lot. Well hey, me too. :) 

On the other hand, we´ve had a lot of investigators drop us recently, which is always fun. And our new goal as a zone is to focus on finding new investigators. So Hna Tirado and I have been praying every day to find new investigators, and though we find new people, most of them turn out to not really be interested in inviting us in. It´s kind of a bummer, and sometimes I wish people would just tell us no rather than giving us their address and waiting till we come to visit so they can pretend not to be home. But at times it´s a better option than getting doors slammed in your face, which as of now I´ve only experienced once. So you know, ups and downs. 

Regardless, on thursday we were walking down a street and this little girl who we see sometimes on the bus named Valentina comes up to us. She grabs my hand and literally pulls us to her house a few houses down. Well, we took it as a sign, and knocked on the door. A young girl answered, and said she would get her mom, and after a while of waiting we figured her mom probably wasn´t coming. So we told Valentina, "Creemos que su mami es ocupado, vamos a regresar mas tarde, si?" She just kind of looks at us. "Espere." She says. We couldn´t say no to the little 5 year old, so we waited a little more. Her mom did eventually come out, invited us in, and we taught her and her 13 year old daughter. Valentina was there as well, giving us water and playing with our nametags, mostly just distracting everyone. But the mother, Marcela, said we could come back again. New Investigators! 

That same day we also met with another family, the mother named Norma, who we also were able to have a lesson with her and two of her grandsons, who said we could come back another time. New Investigators! 

As I´ve learned on the mission, sometimes you´ll have weeks where no one lets you in, all your investigators drop you, and no one comes to church. Then other weeks it´ll seem like everyone invites you into their home for lessons, service, almuerzos, and everything else. And it´s interesting because the weeks like this one, where we´re able to see those miracles, to meet the people who´s hearts God has prepared for us is a really sweet experience, and those weeks are the best. But the other weeks are the weeks when I learn the most. I have to practice keeping a good attitude when we´ve walked more miles than we´ve taught lessons. I have a chance to find the millions of little, less obvious blessings when it´s seems that there are none. And  most of all, I have a chance to feel just the tiniest bit of what the Savior felt, and rely completely on His strength, becuase it´s only in those times when I truly realize that I can´t do this work alone. 

Thanks for your prayers and support! I really wanted to send photos, but the computer, once again, is being dumb and won´t recognize the card. :P 

Love you all! 

Hermana Cannon

Successful Missionaries

My Beloved Loved Ones: 

Haaaaaaaaaaappy Monday! As my companion always says, "Lunes otra vez. Siempre es Lunes." Course, she also says that for Viernes, Domingo, and Jueves, so, you know. 

Whew. This week. This week was a little discouraging, as we had most of our investigators drop us. The Rodrigues Family, the family who invited us into their home to pray? They´ve been awefully "busy" lately, so we haven´t visited with them in a long time. Hna Tirado says that happens a lot with people. We come to them when times are hard, and show them the strength and guidance that the gospel can bring into their life. But then once they come out of the hard times, they forget the importance of the gospel, and drop us. 

We also had to drop Maria, the sister who knew basically everything about the bible. After our first lesson with her, although at first we were excited that Hna Tirado had been able to answer all her doctrinal questions, we realized that in reality, we hadn´t felt much of the spirit at all during the lesson. So for the next lesson, we taught about the Book of Mormon and the power of the Holy Ghost. The whole time Maria kept trying to change the subject and bring up different interesting doctrines, and we kept trying to bring the lesson back to the Book of Mormon. We soon found out she really didn´t want anything to do with the Book of Mormon, nor with the church. We left her with a Libro de Mormon in the end, she left us with one of her little doctrinal comic booklet thingies, and we parted ways. 

In a way it was a bummer, but both Hna Tirado and I felt a lot better about the lesson having focused on the spirit and in truly helping her understand that as missonaries, we aren´t here to discuss the difficult, nit picky doctrines found in the crevises of the bible, but the small and simple truths of the gospel. Because it´s those things that help us on the path to return to Heavenly Father. As we´re reminded every year in General Conference, most of the numbered lists given to us by the speakers include prayer, scripture study, and chruch attendance. And it´s not that there´s nothing else to talk about, it´s that it really is those simple things that help us the most. 

And in conclusion, I want to share my testimony that I know that that is true. You would think it would be tiring, going into home after home, preaching these same simple truths, the primary answers over and over. But for some reason, it´s not. It´s actually quite amazing, to see each person come to the same conclusion. In Predicad mi Evagelio, it says, no matter the needs or problems, the Savior, and His teachings, or the Gospel, will help. And it´s such a testimony to me to be able to teach each less active, each investigator, that if they will only apply Christ´s teachings in their life, the small and simple things, no matter what has passed, or what will come, everything will be alright. 

Thanks for all the prayers! love you all! 

Hermana Cannon

p.s. Oh, I forgot to explain one of the pictures of last week´s email. It´s your favorite sign dad! Slow children at play! The only thing is that in spanish it doesn´t have a double meaning, becuase it would have to be Ninos Dispacios Jugando rather than Despacio, Ninos Jugando. All the same, it was exciting. :) 

A Bunch of Firsts

Well Hello There: 

First off, that title of last week´s email was embarrassing. Yeah, nuff said. 

So this week I had a lot of firsts happen. Firstly, (hah. Kind of punny. Sort of.) I had my first "Godhead" discussion. This lady and her husband were washing their car outside, and after giving them a passalong card, I don´t know how it came up, but we started discussing the Godhead and how they thought we believed in three gods, and that they believe in only one, but that He´s sometimes called the son because he was the son of mary. Anyway, you all know how it goes. It wasn´t any fiery arguement or anything, just basically an exchange of beliefs. And afterwards I was like, hey! That one discussion everyone always talks about! I just had it! And yeah, it was cool. 

My second first, (heh, still funny) me caì! Wahoo! I took a picture too, the one with me by the wall that says "freestyle es vida". Lemmie splain. So Hna Tirado and I walk outside of our appartment all chill like, heading to district meeting. We look across the street, and there´s our bus. So we´re like, yeah we kinda need to be on that thing RIGHT NOW. So we run across the street, and I jump from the street to the curb, right? I´m telling you, it was like a baseball player skidding into home. It was like...what´s that thing called where you swing around and do crazy stuff on the dance floor? Yeah, it was like that. There was no blood or anything, and we successfully got on the bus and to the district meeting. But I ripped my nylons (you can´t really see it in the picture) and we happened to pass by that graffiti, so I had to take a picture. 

My third first, General Conference! Sigh. So good. At first they couldn´t get the english session working so we gringos watched the relief society session, and one session of conference in spanish. It was kind of cool becuase they do the whole voice over thing, and it was interesting to see the apostles, but hear some spanish guy talking, but it was kind of hard to understand, so I was glad they got the english session working. And so cool that they had them speak in different languages! I was watching the spanish session when the Cantonese guy was speaking, so that was kind of cool to have it translated from cantonese to spanish. 

All in all, I´m so thankful for the prophets that we have to lead our church, and the inspiration and support they are for me as a missionary, and a daughter of God. I know that Thomas S Monson truly is a prophet of God, and I´m so thankful for the chance to hear God´s word through him and the other church leaders. It truly is a blessing. 

And, back to the work! Love you all! 

Hermana Cannon