Monday, February 23, 2015

The Longest Strongest Week

Mis Seres Queridos Quienes Amo: 

Hola! Yeah, so basically this week was extremely long, but in the bestest of ways. It was incredible! 

So it all started out in Mendoza, where we went for P-day and the District meeting, (Oh yeah, and my birthday! Wahoo!) And then we had intercambios with the sister training leaders. It was great and all, really it was, but we didn`t get back to our area till Wednesday afternoon, which was kind of a bummer, and we were feeling a little meh. But it kind of worked out I think, because we felt that we were a little behind, which motivated us to work extra hard. AND WOW! The results were incredible. The people here in Uspallata are so great. Usually the people we talk to in the street just accept the pass along card and pass on along, but here it seems like everyone we talk to is interested in the message we have, and we always get lots of directions to go visit. 

This week we met with Nidia, a new investigator we found two weeks ago. Don`t know if I told about her, but we met her outside her house with two of her granddaughters, and I felt inpressed to ask if we could sit for a minute and share a message then and there. She accepted, and we taught lesson one then and there. This week we visited with a member, and addressed her doubts about life after death. She had a daughter pass away 20 years ago, so we talked about the resurrection and how we can live with our families forever. Having an Hermana there was excellent. She bore a beautiful testimony, and because she was able to relate with the death of her mother, the moment was very special. We went on Sunday to invite Nidia to chruch, but she had just woken up, so she wasn`t able to come. We`re excited to keep working with her, and also the rest of her family. She`s got a lot of kids, and we met one of her daughters who is also interested in listening to us, so we`re excited about that. 

Let`s see, what else happened this week? Sebastian was baptised! Yesterday, early in the morning, we went to the chapel to put the baptismal pool together, (yep, such are the Ramas) and start filling it up so it would be ready by that night. 

The service was so sweet. The spirit there was so strong, and it was so sweet to see Sebastian all in white, enter into the waters of baptism and come out completely clean. Really, the spirit was so thick in the room, it was awesome. And the best part is that it`s not the end! He`s only just started out on the path that leads to the temple, and to eternal life. 

I know that this is the true church of God. Sin duda. I`m so blessed to have it in my life, and I`m who I am because of it. I know the message we share, and that we all should share, is true, and it truly allows people to make changes in their life that lead them to peace and happiness not only in this life, but afterward forever with loved ones. I`m so thankful for everything Christ has done for each one of us, and I know that if we follow him, all will be well. Always. 

Have a great week! Chao for now! 

Hermana Cannon 




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Monday, February 16, 2015

Un Abrazo from the Argentine!

Hola Familia! 

First off, thanks so much for all the birthday wishes! It makes me feel a little more like there was some change that happened today. :) Cuz I still feel the same. And I guess that´s how it goes, change is something that happens over time, not overnight. (Inspirational music) 

So hello! I felt like there was so much to tell, and then I sat down and it all just goes, whoosh! away from my brain. So that´s always fun. 

I guess the biggest news is that we have a baptism coming up! Sebastian, the one I told you about who has health problems, and seizures occasionally, he came to church this sunday! And it was really sweet becuase we talked the other day about tithing and following the prophet, and after sacrament meeting he came up to us with his money, "do I give this to you?" It was so sweet. We helped him fill out his tithing slip and give it to the Branch President. It was so sweet to see his pure faith and desire to do what´s right. The branch is really small so yesterday in Preisthood, he was the only one besides the branch president in the class, so the president taught the lesson on baptism and helped explain that it isn´t meant to heal physically, but spiritually. Then he gave him a preisthood blessing as well, and after the meeting we set the baptisimal date. He´s very ready, considering the level of understanding that he can have, so we´ll be working very closely with him this week to finish the last few lessons and be sure he´s completely prepared for this big step in his life. It´s so great to see his excitement. Can´t wait! 

Other than that not a whole lot happened. We had a lot of appointments fall through becuase people forgot or weren´t at home, so this week in reality was a little slow. 

We were able to meet with a few more of the Young Women! Don´t know if I told you, but becuase there aren´t a whole lot of active members in the ward, so the sister missionaries are in charge of the Young Women. I get to earn my honor bee! haha. I´m way excited. We´ll be having mutual on friday, and we´ll be going to visit all the Young Women, most of them are inactive, to invite them to go out for icecream and play games and stuff. I´m super excited. 

I guess the most important thing I learned this week was in priorities. ("We could be killed! Or worse, expelled." "She needs to sort out her priorities.") We´ve been working really hard here in Uspallata, and a lot of times I take a look at everything that needs to happen, and I don´t even know where to start. I keep thinking about the Good Better and Best talk. Basically, we´ve been practicing focusing our efforts more on the best things, rather than the good ones.

Well, I guess that´s it for this week! Love you all! Chao for now!

Hermana Cannon

pictures: We live super close to a casino, so sometimes I want to pull and Sky Masterson from Guys and Dolls, and gamble all the gamblers to chruch. Follow, follow the fold! :) 

Hooray for bicis! They´re exciting. 

District meeting over the phone! Woot! 



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Lots of Pictures!

Good news! Ceber finally decided to be nice to me and my memory card! Woot! 

Beautiful Uspallata, proselyting adventures en el campo, and I might just hitchhike to Chile. :) 



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Monday, February 9, 2015

Cannon in the Cordillera

Dear Fam: 

Okay, I`m starting to get the hang of Uspallata. We`re still spending most of our time wandering around asking for this person, or that neighborhood, but we`ve been able to find a few families, have a few lessons, and the rest of the time we just have patience. Or try to anyway...we`re learning. :) 

We weren`t able to meet with Sebastian this week becuase there`s this festival thing going on here, and he went to party there I guess. Uspallata is a tourist town, so there`s always lots of people from all over that come here, but this week there was even more than usual with all the festival hubub. One time we were just walking down the street, and there were a bunch of people all lined up and down the road, and there were police cars, and people running around, and we had no idea what was going on. Then people started shouting more and more and we started to get kind of scared, and thought there was some kind of riot going on. Then suddenly all these bikers zipped by and everyone cheered, and we realized it was just a bike race. Basically scared me out of my mind, cuz I thought someone was going to die. No worries, just some bikers haha. Quite the excitement. 

We also passed by a rodeo this week, which was fun. Good idaho memories! Yeehaw!

Let`s see, what else happened this week. We`ve mostly just been getting to know all the investigators that the other missionaries have been meeting with. 

We did meet with a less active family yesterday, which was great. Raquel and her three daughters and one son. They lived about a 35 minute walk from the appartment (still working on getting the bike fixed...mostly we just don`t have time. We`ll get it working today.) in a neighborhood a little more humble than the rest. It was so sweet to meet them. They pulled chairs out on to their front yard in the shade, and went to get their scriptures and hymn books. We talked a little bit about their baptisms, the brother, Arturo, had just been baptized in December. We started with a prayer, and one of the little girls offered to give it. It was so sweet to hear her pray for their pregnant dog, and her cats. Adorable. Mostly I was so happy to hear that she knew how to pray. A lot of less active families are those who get baptized, go to chruch a few times, and then don`t come back for 5 years. The fact that she knew to start with Padre Celestial, and end in the name of Jesus Christ, means to me that Raquel, although she hasn`t been to chruch, has been teaching her children the principles of the gospel. 

And I think that`s my favorite part of missionary work. Seeing the gospel put to practice in people`s lives. Because really, it is the answer to every problem, a strength in every trial, and a guide in every day. 

This morning I was reading in D&C 88 verse 67 and 68, which talks about having your eye single to the glory of God, and sanctifying yourself. It made me think of baseball, and that phrase, keep your eye on the ball. Because as a batter, you don`t choose when the pitcher is going to send the pitch your way, and all you can do is keep your stance, and watch carefully, so that when it comes your way, you can hit it right on. 

And that`s kind of how God works with us. We don`t know when He`s going to need us. We don`t know when someone on the street needs a smile, when a neighbor needs a bit of service, or when the spirit will send its sweet warnings or whisperings. But I do know that if we can always be ready by doing the little things, reading scriptures, saying prayers, and going to church, we`ll be prepared for when it comes. 

I know this gospel is true, and that God is hastening his work. We don`t often understand the time of the Lord, but when all is said and done, we`ll someday look down from the heavens and say, ah. That was the reason. God does know best, and He loves us more than we could even imagine. He wants us to trust in him and in the atonement of Jesus Christ, and I know that if we can do that, and live the principles of the Gospel, we can be made strong. 

Have a great week! Chao for now! 

Hermana Cannon

Otra vez, ceber troubles. :( No pictures. 



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Monday, February 2, 2015

Oozma Kappa

Dear Framily: 

What a Wheek! So, I`m training! 

You`ll have to excuse my brain in this letter, it`s a little fried from these past few days. Training is tiring. Great! But tiring. 

So I guess I`ll start from Mendoza. Hermana Fernandez and I traveled to Mendoza to meet our Hijas. We got to meet all six new missionaries before we knew which ones we would be training. Two from Chile, one from Peru, one from Brazil, one from the US, and one from Samoa. And...drum roll please...I got a chilean! Her name is Hermana Cortès, she`s 22, and quite fantastic. After meeting our trainees, we all separated to our different areas. So Uspallata is about two hours from Mendoza centro, up through and within the mountains away from everyone and everything. The drive is really pretty, but we only got to see it this morning coming back down to Mendoza for the District meeting tomorrow. Every other meeting is over the phone because the travel time is so long. But anyway, there`s that. Oh speaking of pretty drive, I have pictures that I won`t be sending because this computer doesn`t have an input. Please forgive. You`ll see Hermana Cortès next week. Or if you go to the mission blog you can see her there also. http://argentinamendozamission.blogspot.com.ar/ :) 

So Uspallata! The first couple of days hermana Cortès kept saying Oozma Kappa, from Monsters University, so that was pretty funny. 

It`s basically super chill. It`s small in the sense of population, and large in the sense of we have bicicletas because of the large distance. One of the wheels is popped on one of the bikes so we haven`t used them yet, but we do have them. 

The first day we got there was basically spent looking at the area book and maps and more at the map and area book, which was a little boring, and pretty confuzing. It`s hard becuase a lot of times the streets don`t have names. And when they do, the houses don`t have numbers. Basically a lot of the directions are "House 27 on Block 3 in Neighborhood such and such". Sometimes there are drawings too. But the Branch President helped us a lot. He took us to his house and marked on the map where all the members live and helped us figure out how to get to the less actives and investigators too, so that helped us a lot. We still got pretty lost and weren`t able to get a lot of lessons, but such is washing the area. It`s pretty slow at first, but pretty soon we`ll start finding our way around. Let`s just say we ask for directions a lot. Which is a great excuse to talk to people! Woot! 

So this week we met an investigator named Sebastian. He`s 23 mas o menos, and his situation is a little difficult because he has seizures which cause him to forget a lot of things. The lessons with him are very simple, which is always nice. The hermanas before us set a baptismal date with him for this coming saturday, and the president said everything was good to go, we just had to set up an interview with him. We had one lesson with him, and things went well. He does want to be baptised, and says he thinks it`s what he needs right now. It`s a little difficult because of his health, but we moved the date to the 14th because there`s still a few things the hermanas haven`t taught him, plus we want to really make sure he`s ready for this important step in his life. But we`re super excited to be teaching him! Lots of prayers for him would be appreciated. We really want to help him prepare to be baptized. 

Well, I`m super excited to be with this new little missionary. It`s exciting to work with her, fresh from the MTC, excited over everything that has to do with missionary work. She`s so sweet. Saturday, after a long day of knocking doors and not finding anyone, we talked together about Abinadi versus Alma, right where I`ve been reading lately in Mosiah. Alma baptised thousands, and Abinadi zero. But each one completed their mission from God just as faithfully. And really, that`s what`s important. I love reading Abinadi`s testimony, because you can tell in every word that he knows his is a death mission, per say. He knows they won`t listen, he knows they won`t let him go free, but he teaches anyway, and doesn`t hold anything back. Why? Because he was given a mission from God to that specific place, people, time, and he trusts that God knows why, even if he didn`t. And I add my testimony the same. I don`t know why God put us here in little Uspallata, but I know that God has a plan for us here. And for each one of you, wherever you are and whatever you do. Never lose trust in Him! 

Love you all! 

Hermana Cannon



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