Monday, January 25, 2016

Here I am, This is me





Dear Family:

Don´t know why that Spirit song came into my head... but there you go. 

So this week! It was super great. The worldwide missionary meeting was incredible! We got to hear from various speakers, and my favorite was Elder Bednar. He talked about how as missionaries we can teach more with the spirit. Because as missionaries we can´t take the spirit into the hearts of the investigators, we can only bring it unto the heart. And if we can get it as close as we can to them, then their choice is whether or not to open their heart and let it in. Lots of good stuff. Super cool, and I was super glad to have been able to participate in it! 

This week we taught a ton of lessons, and found lots of new people, so that was great. My favorite parts of this week was a lesson with had with a less active who has been through the temple, Graciela. It was just after the missionary meeting, so we were super spiritually pumped. And the lesson just happened to be the first vision. It was super powerful. It´s just the best feeling when as a missionary you can really open your heart and mouth and just let God fill it. Miricles always happen, and it´s a lot less stressful because you don´t have to worry about messing up, since God is in control. Super neat. 

Also this week we were finally able to meet with Juan. It was a great lesson, and we made some interesting discoveries. He has his answer! But he still doesn´t recognize it. He was able to kneel and pray, asking all the specific questions we gave him, (was joseph smith a prophet? Should I be baptized?) and he said, he felt the Holy Ghost very strongly. Peace, surity, strength. Sent from God. So, isn´t that your answer? we told him. But he doesn´t think so. He´s still waiting for something else. Sigh. Sometimes it´s frustrating, because he´s so close! He even bore his testimony in the lesson about how the book of mormon and the bible go togther, and should be one. But he doesn´t seem to know that he knows it. 

One thing I did learn, is that God really has patience for his children. Because even though Juan doesn´t recognize it, God keeps sending him peace, and communicating with him. In the lessons, God is always there guiding the lessons. And it´s comforting to know that even when I may loose my patience with him sometimes, God never does and never will. 

Welp, I guess that´s about it. The work hastens forward! Have a great week! 

Hermana Cannon

p.s. we went bike riding last p-day. super fun! 

Here I am, This is me

 

More pictures




Some more pics! 

More pictures




Some more pics! 

Monday, January 18, 2016

Nothing New Much

Dear Family: 

Things are going great! Nothing super extraño happened. Todo lo mismo! :) 

We weren´t able to see juan at all this week, because his mom had to go to the hospital multiple times, so it was a hard week for him. He didn´t come to chruch this sunday either, which was a bummer. We´re going to plan a Family Home Evening with him hopefully this sunday with the branch president and a couple other families, so we´ll see how that goes. 

More than that, we were just finding a TON this week. We went out one day with P-day clothes, a broom, and a list of household chores, offering free service. It always surprises me how much the argentines don´t really go for that. "Nah, it´s okay, I´ll do it later" is usually how they respond. But, it was still good, we were able to find a few people, and sweep a few driveways. 

We also went out and shared the video "gracias a el" a bunch of times. And it actually turned out really effective. Mormon messages are always really inspired, and it´s a great way to bring the spirit. Always after showing the video we have a great discussion with people, and it´s really noticeable how much there hearts soften after watching. 

Anyway, things are going really great. I´m so grateful to be serving a mission at this time, and these weeks I´ve just been focusing as much as I can to share with as many people as possible. Trying to really be a FULL-TIME missionary. :) This wednesday we have a world-wide missionary meeting. Apparently it´s the first time it´s ever happened in the history of the world, so that´s exciting. I´ll let you know how it goes! 

Sorry for the short letter, I really don´t know what to say, nor do I have any exciting pictures. ...but, that´s just how it goes this week. Love you tons! Hope you´re all keeping up with your goals! I´ll be following up with you! haha 

Hermana Cannon

Monday, January 11, 2016

Once Upon a January

Dear Family: 

Hmmm, that would have been a good title to use for December. Missed that opportunity. 

Well, now that the funny comment about the clever title is over, we can get to business. 

Crazy week! I guess every week is crazy, so that´s nothing new. We had our zone meeting this week, then we stayed an extra day in San Luis for intercambios with the hermanas Matheson and Tuiá. I was on intercambios with Hermana Tuiá from Samoa, so that was fun. She´s really great! Super nice and tri-lengual and all, so it´s fine. 

Then coming back from San Luis we stopped in Villa Mercedes for a baptism in the Elder´s ward. We had invited Juan, and he showed up twenty minutes early, as usual. :) It was really great, although Juan still doesn´t quite understand perfectly. For example after the baptism while walking to the sacrament room, he comments to me, "yep. That´s just how we do it in my church." So we may need to explain the preisthood again I guess. 

But anways, after the baptism, we had a lesson with him, the plan of salvation. When we got to earth life, we kind of just started talking about baptism again, and Juan shared some thoughts he´s been having. He said he kind of feels left out when he comes to these church reunions. Not really left out, but just that something´s missing. "I´m missing something, and I think it´s baptism." WHAT? Yes! So we talked a little more about that, and more about the gift of the holy ghost, and invited him to be baptized. But he still doesn´t recognize his answer. The holy ghost is always present so strong in the lessons, and he recognizes that, and he loves coming to chruch and reading the Book of Mormon, but he says he´s still waiting for his sign. We´ve explained many times that, well, what he´s feeling IS the sign, but he still doesn´t recognize it. So we invited him to pray again, and ask specific questions. We even wrote out all the questions on a sticky note like, "was Joseph Smith a prophet? Should I be baptized?" That kind of thing. So we´ll see how it went. He keeps progressing little by little, which is great. He´s awesome. 

Also this week we had a cool experience. We found this young couple a while ago, and have gone back lots of times looking for them, but only ever find her mom, who every time kindly insists that she doesn´t want anything to do with us. Yesterday we passed by and it was the same story. But this time hermana gonzales asked for a drink of water. She let us in and gave her some water, and we started talking, and, like good missionaries, we somehow turned the conversation to the topic of religion. And finally her doubt came out. "But no one´s seen Jesus, right? He never really lived on earth, did he?" It was definitely a first for me. All the argentine´s I´ve talked to are either catholic, or some other Christian religion, so they all believe in Christ. Or they say, "I´m athiest" and close the door. So I had never heard anyone openly share that they didn´t believe Christ came to earth. We explained that christ had indeed been born on earth, and had lived and died for us. It was really neat. I mean, I´ve always born testimony of Jesus Christ, but I had never had the opportunity to share with someone my bear-bone testimony that I know that he existed on the earth. That he was born, he lived, people saw him and heard him, and followed him. She was surprised, and the spirit was definitely present. "Oh. I didn´t know. I had heard the storries, and I know that he´s in heaven, but I didn´t know that he had actually come and lived on earth." It was really neat. 

I know that Christ lives. I know he came to earth. He was born in Bethlehem, and grew up, and lived a perfect life. He chose to follow the will of God fully and completely, even to gethsemane and to the cross. He was laid in the tomb, and rose again. He lives, I know he lives. I know he´s real, and his love for each of us is real. You can feel it. He is our savior, our guide, our brother, and our friend. There is no other way to God but through Him, and I know that through Him, it´s possible. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Hermana Cannon

Monday, January 4, 2016

Crazy Holidays

Hey Family!  

Firstly, sorry I didn´t know what day p-day was. We did have our p-day on the first, but there wasn´t anything open on that day, which is why they gave us a few hours today to do our shopping and cyber time. So, yes. 

So Christmas was great. Feliz Navidad everyone! ...yep, that´s about it. 

Transfers! Hermana Sandau went to Mendoza, and I´m sticking around here in good old Justo! It was sad to see another hijita leave the nest, so we ate some ice cream on the bus. (see pic) It was a little crazy because they told us on sunday night, and she had to leave teusday morning at 6. so we left monday night to stay with the hermana Masoner and Hermana Tevez in Villa Mercedes where her bus would be leaving from. So monday we just packed her up and cleaned the pench, said goodbye to a few families, and left. Then hermana Tevez had her bus leaving at 3 in the morning, so we took her to the terminal, came back and slept, took hermana sandau (see pic), came back and slept, got up and did some studdies and ate lunch, then at 3 went to pick up Hermana Masoner´s companion coming in at three, but didn´t get there till 4:30, took her back to the appartment to unpack, then went back to the terminal for my companion who came in at 7, and took the bus at 8 to Justo and got to the area at 9, did some planning, and slept. Crazy day! 

But now we´re all settled in. And my companion´s the best! Hermana Gonzales from Lima Peru. She´s really funny, and a super hard worker. It´s been really great to teach with her. Here´s a picture of her on new years when we played ping-pong at the church with the district.  

Juan is doing okay. He´s a faithful member of the sunday congregation, which is great. He´s also still a faithful member of his evangalist chruch, which is okay... we keep working on him. :) We haven´t seen him this week any more than that because his mom´s been a little bad with her health, so he´s been taking care of her. But hopefully we can visit him this week. 

More than that we´ve met some new investigators this week, which was also nice. 

More than anything, we´re just thinking of some things we can do to strengthen the branch. We´re planning on doing weekly visits to all the members who miss church on suday to let them know we´re thinking of them, and encourage them to come the next week. Mostly just doing lots of member and less active work. There´s always lots of work to do. Lots of testimony to share and strengthen, people to support and serve, and a marvelous gospel to spread. Every little act is a part of the Lord´s work. 

Love you all, and hope you have a great week! 

Hermana Cannon

Feliz Navidad!

Hey All! 

Before I write, here´s a picture of a Christmas tree Argentina style! Made me laugh.