Week 68

10/28/14

Well, this will be a short email this week. We've got changes tomorrow. Yes, it's only been four weeks, but if we did the full 6 weeks the missionaries would be flying home on Christmas so we'll make up by having a cambio [change] of 8 weeks in two changes. Elder Fulmer is going and I’ll be receiving a new missionary straight from the CCM. That should be fun. It’s been great to see Elder Fulmer grow and improve as a missionary. It's helped me grow a lot too. The tough part is that we've really been struggling to find progressing investigators. I'm pretty sure that they're going to close this area next change (speaking of which, it turns out that my last companion, Elder Gonzales, is going to open Zaragoza again this change. I'm really happy for him).

One success that we have had here though is that we've really been working with one recent convert who was pretty distanced from the Church when I got here. We've shown her a lot of sincere love and have really won her confidence. I can imagine how successful we would be if we could develop and show that love for all the people in our area.

Yesterday we went to Antigua for P day. It was pretty incredible, as always. For lunch we went to El Mono Loco [The Crazy Monkey]. They're famous for their nachos. I've never seen so much food on one plate.  Despite the fact that I shared it, I was still stuffed. They deserve the fame. 

Also, a picture of my district. It's a lot smaller here in Compalapa than it was in Patzicia. Inexplicably though, despite the fact that I have more free time each night, I remain just as far behind in my journal as I used to be...

Anyway, I love you all, as always. I am more and more grateful and glad to be a missionary every day. This work is great and I know it's true.

Elder Cannon

Week 67

October 21, 2014

Well, yet another week has flown by. I don't really have any big experiences, although we did have one nice miracle last Saturday. The stake was doing an activity where youth would get to experience missionary life for a day and they sent two super pilas 16 year olds to work with us for 5 hours so we decided to do divisions. I practiced a lot with Elder Fulmer before hand so that he would be prepared to take the lead. When we came back that night after the divisions, it was great to see how he was so happy and full of confidence.  As he had been forced to speak and understand more, without the help of a gringo at his side, it would seem that the gift of tongues kicked in and he was able to do everything he needed to. They even had 75 contacts with 35 families contacted during divisions. I was so happy that he had that opportunity to see how much he can really do on his own.

Speaking of the gift of tongues, I had an experience that made me feel really good yesterday. For the first time in my entire mission, a person we were talking to said that he thought I was from either Honduras or Panama because of my Spanish. That was definitely a little confidence booster for me as well as one of my minor mission goals.

Yesterday for P day we really didn't do much, although we did go to view some of the art galleries here in Comalapa. They have some of the coolest paintings of streets in Antigua. I'm totally going to get a few of those for my house someday. However, I also saw a painting of the Last Supper as if it had taken place in Sololá by Lake Atitlan. Everyone was dressed as Guatemalans and you could see the lake and the volcanoes in the background. It was cool, until I realized that, wait, Christ really did come to the Americas (probably here in Gmala) and really did call twelve Disciples and really did institute the sacrament, when I realized that the painting just became awesome.

One rather ridiculous thing that happened to us this week was that this Sunday we passed by a retirement home in order to bring and investigator/convert named Fernando to church. He was baptized several months ago but hasn't been confirmed since he started drinking again. We accompanied him to church but after sacrament meeting he somehow escaped. We caught him right as he was being handed a glass of something in a tienda close to the church. He said it was coconut water and then drank it at which point we realized that it was the hardest alcohol available. We brought him back to church and tried to disguise the heavy smell of alcohol on his breath to no avail. To make it even worse, when we dropped it off at his retirement home, all the old people were watching LOTR.

In all, I'm loving being a missionary. Reading back over my journal makes me more and more grateful for every day. I've really come to love it more than I every thought I could.

Love,

Elder Cannon

Ok, so in Comalapa there's a really long mural on the wall as you enter the city. It depicts the history of the people here in the mountains of Guatemala. I found it fascinating so I'll include some highlights here.

Creation, Mayan life, and colonization

Indigenous life

  

Indigenous life continued

Revolution and the great earthquake of 1976

The Guatemalan civil war. Government forces vs. guerillas. Lots of atrocities. The ¨Paz¨ was signed not too long ago, in the 80´s or maybe in 1991.  It's a pretty violent mural.

Hmmm, long story, but it would seem as if I can't access the other pictures right now. It’ll have to wait for next week

Week 66

October 13, 2014

Wow, yet another week has flown by. Today we had interviews with President Markham, so I'm writing on Monday because tomorrow will be our P-day. Anyway, things are going well here in Comalapa, even though we're still struggling to find investigators.  Six months ago, when I first came to Patzicia, the situation was similar. We were facing a lot of rejection every day without being able to see many results, however, I feel different this time. Instead of becoming depressed and discouraged, I still feel hopefully and excited to work. It's been cool to see how much I've learned and grown in these six months and in my mission.

Being with Elder Fulmer has helped me see that even more. He's the first companion I've had who's younger than me (in real life or in the mission). Like I said last letter, he left the CCM seven weeks ago and is still really struggling with Spanish. It would seem that his last companion, in an effort to be diligent, often cut the hour of language study to be able to have more time to work. As well, being with a gringo makes it harder. Regardless, I’m getting to learn more patience as I help him learn how to speak even the most basic Spanish. He's pilas though, and so it's fun to train him.

Teaching him all I've learned about Spanish, teaching strategies, the mission, etc. has helped me realize just how much I have learned. It’s so strange to think of myself as an experienced older missionary. It's gratifying and humbling at the same time (I mean, I'm not going to lie, it's pretty fun to be walking fast and having your companion run to catch up after having the opposite happen when I was in training). As much as I’ve learned, I know there's still a lot more I can do to improve, but I have the surety that I will be able to achieve it.

Hmmm, a little bit about Comalapa. It's basically like a combination of Patzicia and Zaragoza. Lots of corte (luckily). The streets are narrow and winding and sometimes I have fun imagining that I'm in 19th century London (fun, right?). Our house is great. It has a ton of natural light (in Patzicia all the light in our house came from two different colored fluorescent light bulbs). It's on the second floor right next to the ever busy central park so I feel like I'm in a skyscraper in New York.

A great experience this week. We teach an English class every Thursday and last week we taught our class the Primary song ¨Head Shoulders Knees and Toes.¨  It was pretty hilarious to see all those adults trying to do it as fast as all the primary kids in the states can.

Additionally, we had stake conference this weekend and they showed a video the church made about savoring moments with your family, or something like that. It used a bunch of high speed cameras and slow motion. They showed that and then put on the video the church made for Easter ¨because of Him¨ and they pretty much blew my mind. Man, the Church is just so pilas!

Anyway, I'm loving my mission and can't imagine being anywhere else. Thanks for all your love and support.

Love,

Elder Cannon

Week 65

October 7, 2014

Wow, big week this week.  After writing last week Elder Gonzalez and I headed over to Zaragoza so that I could say goodbye to the people there.  I’ve included some pictures of Ricarda who we baptized back in August.  Her piglets have gotten really big and have lost some of their cuteness. 

We also visited my favorite eternal investigator, Danielito. He’s pretty crazy (and pretty tiny). He doesn't want to get baptized because he says he's already been baptized three times and that's probably enough to be safe.  Our attempts to teach him about authority have proved fruitless.  He is worried that he'll get sick by being baptized in the cold water of the font (that's actually a fair concern as it happened to Hermana Ricarda), and that he has a lot of mujeres [women].  I'm guessing that's a definite lie.  Anyway, I'll be sad to leave him.  

I also said goodbye to la familia Gamez Hernandez. That was pretty hard. I love that family so much and they were sad too, asking if they would at least be able to call.  I hope I'm able to stay in touch with them.  It’ll be hard as they don't even have email.  In the night I said goodbye to Patzicia, eating elotes [corn on the cob with the husks pulled down to form a “handle” and served with salt and lime juice] there for the last time.

Leaving the aldea of the famlia Gamez Hernandez

As far as my changes go, my fervent prayers were answered and I didn't go to the coast again, in fact, I stayed as close as I could to my last area.  I'm now in Comalapa, Chimaltenango.  To get to Comalapa you just have to get off the highway at Zaragoza, drive through it, and then keep going another half hour.  In other words, I get to see Zaragoza several times a week (every time I have to go to Chimal).  Anyway, I'm happy about it and it makes me laugh how I had to take my suitcases all the way to the capital just to take them back again.

Comalapa is very similar to Patzicia. There is lots of corte (thank goodness). My district now consists only of me and my companion (Elder Fulmer) and two sisters. I don't even know what to do with my time now that I don't have to make so many calls each night.

Elder Fulmer is in his 2nd change here (still in his training), so in missionary lingo that makes me his step dad (his second trainer). He super pilas, although he knows almost no Spanish.  Still, we're working hard.  Upon arriving in my new area, Comalapa, Elder Fulmer told me that we basically had no investigators.  The only progressing investigator we had we dropped after my first lesson in the area as she rather explicitly told us that she didn't want anything.  Still, I know that the Lord wants me to baptize this month.  Elder Fulmer has already learned very well how to be obedient and diligent, but still hasn't had a baptism in his mission.  

We immediately started looking for new investigators.  I think the Lord has prepared me for this assignment.  My last area, Patzicia and Zaragoza was quite close and very similar to Comalapa.  Through a long series of incredible miracles, I saw that area transform.  It went from having maybe 3 or 4 investigators every week to having 10 or 12.  My time there culminated with the 6 baptisms the last week, two full families.  Coming here right after that great experience has given me hope and faith that we will find families just like that here in Comalapa and we will baptize them.  Our first week here didn't go so well.  We had low datos [statistics] and no investigators attending.  However, we've kept working hard and kept on looking with faith.  At 8:40 last night the miracle happened.  In a dark, rather scary alley, we found an incredibly pilas family of 5.  It's cool to think that through faith we really can have miracles like that all the time.

Conference was incredible, as always.  I absolutely loved Elder Christofferson's talk on agency and accountability, as well as Elder Holland’s talk on poverty.  His talks are always rather spiritually exhausting since they are so powerful.  Another of the highlights was Elder Bednar's talk on why we do missionary work.  https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/come-and-see?lang=eng  I recommend it to any of my nonmember friends as it explains very nicely why anyone would be so crazy as to leave work or school for two years to go walk around all day in some faraway place.

Suitcase full of corte

Week 63 and 64

September 23, 2014

We've had an incredible amount of miracles this week. The biggest has been the progress of la familia Gamez, a family we've been teaching. The fact that we found them at all was a miracle (they live far out of the way in a tiny aldea), and I know that the Lord has been preparing them for quite some time. I have never enjoyed teaching someone so much. Maybe it's such a great experience to visit them because I can see how we're not just teaching them lessons, we're inviting them to come unto Christ, repent, and be baptized by someone who possesses the correct  authority. The husband was a total alcoholic but has stopped drinking. The family has grown much closer to each other and all are progressing together in the gospel. It really is a great blessing to be able to apply the power and authority of our calling to help. We've experienced many other miracles with them in the past two weeks: the family showing up on time to church despite other commitments they had which could have kept them from attending, a son who we hadn't been able to teach the Word of Wisdom being inspired to stop disobeying that commandment without any intervention on our part, the family having the papers they need to get married, etc. It has been a great experience, one of the highlights of my mission. This and other great things that have been going on in our area have made me wonder why we're being so blessed right now. The sisters in Calvario, for example, are also working very hard but are suffering quite a bit. They haven't had a single investigator attending in 3 weeks, while we have and average of more than 9 a week during this change. I have to assume that The Lord knows what He's doing when he sends us trials and when he makes things a little bit easier for us. I'll enjoy the easy times while there here and try to learn and be grateful during the trials. 

Also, it looks like the website we use to send our weekly letters to our mission president has added a weather widget that lets us see the 5 day forecast for our area. Doesn't help that much. It says that every day will have a high of 65 and most days will have a low of 55 with rain everyday... Good old Patzicia.

Hope you all are doing well. Love you all (and all your letters, as always),

Elder Cannon

September 30, 2014

 This was truly an incredible week, one of the best in my mission. The highlight was the baptism of the Gamez Hernandez family. On Saturday we had a wedding for their daughter and son in law, Isabela and Ronal (they were living together but weren't married) and the next day we had their baptismal service. All 6 members of the family were baptized and I was blessed to be able to perform the ordinance for all 6. I've completed families by baptizing the non-member husband or wife, but this was the first time I've ever baptized a complete family, including their children. It was such an incredible blessing, as well as one of my goals for the mission. However, it certainly didn't come easily. The Adversary did everything he could to stop their spiritual progression. We had problems with the papers, problems with the lawyers, and the day of the wedding, the dad, Alejandro ran out of gas twice and locked his keys in the car. Still, despite the opposition, we pulled everything off without a hitch. It's been so great to see them progress, from the time we contacted them while they were walking home to now. I loved going over the baptismal questions with the family and hearing them recount how much their lives have changed and how many blessings they've received as they have repented. The dad was a total alcoholic and the son drank and smoked as well, but the Lord had been preparing them for quite a while and when we arrived they were very willing to do the Lord's will and were remarkable receptive to the Spirit. They're definitely my favorite converts I have thus far. I love that family so much. This experience has motivated me even more to work hard, to do everything I can to find those people who is ready to accept the Gospel. I know there are more families like la familia Gamez Hernandez out there and I am excited to find them.

In all, I'm very happy, but also a little sad, because this Wednesday I've got changes and will be leaving Patzicia after 6 months of serving there. When I arrived here I certainly didn't imagine how much I would grow to love this area. Sure, It's been incredibly hard, but I’ve learned and grown a lot and was able to finish my time here with this incredible blessing.

And some photos:

The baptism...

and the wedding

At their wedding reception we were treted like kings. It felt like we were explorers visiting a tribe in the jungle. The brought us out a special table and a bunch of food, including tamalitos, which are incredible

Alejandro and Lucriecia's granddaughters

The wedding again, with us and the branch president as well (you can tell we're in Zaragoza by the way they're dressed. Just look at that mustache)

Week 62

September 16, 2014

X-ka k'ij. I hope everyone had a most excellent 15 de Septiembre, the Independence Day here in Central America. On the 14th I was in Zaragoza, where there are always fiestas and man, they were getting ready for a pretty great celebration. Everything here in Patzicia always seems a little more gloomy and drizzly. I don't think the people threw quite a great a party (at least I didn't see anyone dancing on top of buses in motion like I did last year). However, I can't talk since we used the day (which was our P day) to defrost the freezer. It was as fun as it sounds.

Things have been going well in our area. Too well in fact. A few days ago the stake president talked to us and said that he was going to ask President Markham to put missionaries back in Zaragoza. Pretty sad because I love that city so much. We've just started teaching a big, really prepared family there in Zaragoza that came to church for the first time this Sunday. They're really prepared and it's well worth the 10 or 15 Quetzales we have to spend to travel out to their aldea (a little group of houses a ways away from the main city).

Also, a few days ago we knocked on the door of Antonio, the really great grandpa who we used to always have Family Home Evenings with but who fell back into his old addiction to alcohol. He answered to door and we found out that after 6 weeks straight of drinking he was finally sober again. He certainly looked a little the worse for wear. He had lost a lot of weight, hadn't shaved well, and was wearing dirty clothes, but I was so incredibly happy to hear his normal voice again. I think I experience a little bit of the joy our Heavenly Father feels when we repent. I was sad for all the suffering he had passed through but all that was forgotten in how overjoyed I was to have him back again. I felt the Spirit really strongly as I taught him about how it is only through the Atonement of Jesus Christ that we can overcome our weaknesses and faults. We can't do it on our own. That was something I really needed to hear myself. These things are always easier to recognize in other people. Accurate introspection is really hard. Ay yayay (not sure if that's the right spelling in English, but we'll do it.)

P.S. here's a picture of Elder Hintze and me at a meeting we had with Elder Ochoa last Thursday. He's one of the elders who entered the field with me and is probably one of the most pilas missionaries I've ever met. Yep, we finally ended up wearing the same tie we both brought from the States. Awkward...

Week 61

September 9, 2014

This week was another great one. I rededicated myself to being as obedient and diligent as possible. As I have done so the Lord has blessed me with what I so desperately long for: the security that I've done all that I can even in the face of delays, disappointments, or setbacks. This week I was also able to see some indications that yes, I am slowly but surely developing more patience and charity. I've still got a long way to go, but at least I'm moving. (I realize that these emails must sound pretty bipolar at times, but remember that a lot can happen in one week in the mission field).

 The disappointment of the week was that this Sunday morning it was raining really hard and we only had 4 investigators attending. The rain really can be a killer here sometimes. However, I've been trying to apply what President Uchtdorf taught last General Conference to not just be grateful for the number of blessings we've received, rather, cultivate and attitude of gratitude that we'll have regardless of the circumstances. This Sunday when we only had 4 investigators attending I really tried to be just as grateful as the last two Sundays when we had 10 and 12. It paid off and I was happy and excited to be a missionary. In all, things continue to go well. I'm happier than I've been at any other point in my mission and so grateful for this chance to serve and improve myself.

Also, I had the rather disturbing and rather late realization the other day that I'm not longer a teenager. Not sure how that happened, but it makes me feel old. Hmmm, I guess like that means I have to be responsible now. It's kind of sad.

Love,

Elder Cannon

P.S. This really must be the Promised Land. The vegetables here are way bigger than any I've seen in the U.S. The broccoli and carrot that I took pictures of are normal sized here. The really big ones get shipped off. . Every day here in Patzicia trucks and trucks get stuffed full of amazing vegetables (once again, so little of the good stuff stays here in Guatemala, and even less in Patzy). The corn stalks here must get up to 15 feet or more. 

P.P.S. I took this picture on the way to zone training today. That bus would be considered "fairly full." You know that they're really stuffed when there are a half dozen people hanging on the outside of the bus and the ayudante (the guy who works on the bus but isn’t the driver) is collecting bus fares through the windows while climbing around outside of the bus. That's what I need to get a picture of.