Well, who would have
thought? It's time for changes again. I'm going to be leaving and Elder Huish
will be receiving a nuevo missionary straight from the CCM. I've really come to
love this area and am pretty sad to finally have to leave. When I first got here
I was dying in the heat and humidity and thought that the sooner I could get
back to the capital, the better. However, as I've done my best to serve
diligently, the Lord has really blessed me. This last change especially has
been good. I've learned a lot and had a lot of fun with Elder Huish but we
haven't had as many baptisms as I was expecting. Nevertheless, we've done all
we can and the area is well prepared for next change.
I'm leaving 3 people
to be baptized this Sunday and quite a few more who will be baptized
in the coming weeks. I'm sad that I won't be here, but the important part is
that they start progressing towards eternal life. Despite the challenges we've
had with investigators disappearing, having personal problems, not having the
desire to follow the answer they've received, we were able to have very good
church attendance. In the change (6 weeks), we had a total of 53 investigators
attending church. I hope that those who might not have been completely ready to
participate in the gospel at this moment in their lives will remember what
we've taught them, the spirit they've felt at church and while fulfilling their
commitments, and the love we had for them and that someday that seed will bring
them back. In all, it was a successful change because we were exactly obedient,
diligent, and we did the Lord's will, which was for us to have those three
baptisms.
I've included a bunch
of pictures of what we did yesterday for P day. We've been wanting to make pan
(bread) forever. There are bakeries all over the place and the bread they make
is all very standard (i.e. a piece of pan dulce is exactly same wherever you go
in Guatemala). We eat lunch with Juan and Gladis. They’re super nice and I
really love them. Gladis is a pilas recent convert and Juan has been a member
for much longer. He suffered a stroke a few years ago and half of him is
paralyzed. He is especially fond of us because we've talked and (mostly)
listened to him as we've eaten lunch. It really means a lot to him to feel
valued. Anyway, they used to make bread and they have an oven and so they
invited us and one of their friends who also knows how to make bread over and
it was awesome. Now we just need to spend a P day making tortillas. That'd be
even more useful after the mission.
Finally, there's been a firefly invasion here. Maybe it's just firefly season or something, but it's so cool! At night, I can look out from out porch and the field is lit up with hundreds of bright fireflies. The effect they all have together is weird, kind of disco...
A picture of a
mango the Alvizures family gave me. I used it to break my fast and it was
probably one of the best things I've ever eaten. So fresh and so perfectly
ripe. That's a blessing of being in the coast.
The Garcia family and
then a noche de hogar [family night] that we had yesterday.
Wooo! General Conference! Those 6 months flew by. Sadly, for the first
day, we were only able to listen to it in English, the video didn't work. We even missed the talk by Elder Holland!
Elder Holland of all people! We also
missed the talk by Elder Ochoa who is totally from Guatemala and is the area
president. Yep. I've heard him speak on multiple occasions. Anyway, the next day was better. We got the
video feed working and we even got to watch the first session with President
Brough, just to amp up the spiritual power in the room.
I felt like all the
talks were incredible. They made it
really clear what families have to do to avoid the growing evil in the world:
have daily scripture study, family prayer, family home evening. I specifically loved the talk by Elder
Utchdorf of gratitude, the talk by Elder Oaks on the Priesthood and Elder
Bednar's talk, as well as many others. Wow,
what a great 5 sessions. Now I'm rather
distraught that once again we have to wait another 6 months. Why can't these things be more often? In
all, I'm very grateful that we have living prophets and apostles to guide us in
these days. That's such a great blessing.
Something weird is
happening with my accent in Spanish. I've now had multiple people tell me I
sound like a Brazilian. Not sure how that happened, but I'll take it I guess.
Still got a ways to go though...
We
had a rather frightening adventure this week. We got a suspicious call from an unknown
number who told us that her sister was in the hospital in our area (the caller
was from the United States and who knows how she got our number) and that she
wanted us to go and give her a priesthood blessing. We took a member with us and, sure enough, the
person really did exist. After talking
with the receptionist, we were allowed to enter.
It
was unlike anything I'd seen before. There were flickering lights dangling from the
ceiling, flaking paint, and large rooms full of dirty beds with no dividers
between patients. We went to the
gynecology section of the hospital (which made it even scarier) and found the
woman. When we began talking to her, I
was incredibly glad we came. She was
pregnant and her baby died. She was far
from home and didn't have anyone to visit her. I was grateful for the service we were able to
perform by comforting her and giving her a blessing. I was grateful to be used as an instrument to
bless someone else.
OK.
Well, yet again we’re having internet troubles. Hopefully my parents are able to get the
capitalization and punctuation of my letter cleaned up. It’s a long story - and wow, that’s a pretty
inappropriate song that they just started playing. It’d be pretty easy to tune out, but it’s in
English - so it’s more difficult.
Moving on, since last I wrote… well, yep, I
ended up getting pretty sick after eating in that comedor [restaurant]. I’d say it was just my head, but I was really sick. Let’s just say I became very familiar with
the bathroom of one of our investigators that was so terrible I don't think I
could have imagined it before coming here to Guatemala. Anyway, I’m feeling much better now.
We had three baptisms this week! Two were Marco and Josue Alvizures, the sons
of Aidee and Marco Tulio. Apparently no
records of them exist anywhere in the Church.
Being unable to recreate the baptismal records for various reasons, we
had to baptize them again so they would be considered members. The baptismal font was extra fullthis Sundayand after I baptized Josue, he swam
back to the stairs. As in, 100% swam,
head under and doing breaststroke. It
was hilarious. Their family is kind of like
that - not super educated. I really love
them.
Anyway, the third baptism was Catherine Garcia. She’s super pilas. Her dad is an excommunicated ex-missionary
and her mom is inactive. We started
visiting the family a month ago and, man, since the first day, the dad decided
that he’s coming back to church. He’s
got a super strong testimony and knows a ton.
(He even showed me some cool scriptures I hadn't seen before.) He’s been coming with Catherine and his
younger son to all the church activities and services. For whatever reason, the mom has been the problem. She’s been super resistant and getting her
signature for the baptismal form was pretty hard. She didn't even show up to the service - talk
about totally lame. Anyway, Catherine is doing great and wow; she and her dad
are really pilas. I really enjoyed that baptism. The other kid in the picture is a baptism of
the other elders.
Yesterday we had our p-day and
Elder Huish and I went and picked up the hammocks we had ordered a week
before. In a part of our area there’s a ton
of people who make hammocks. It’s super cool and they only cost fifty quets aka
six dollars. Best purchase ever. I set
it up last night using every bit of my engineering skills and it was rather
revolutionary.
The first picture is of my companions hammock,
as they were attaching the end parts.
Mine is the same color as the hammocks in
the background.
My
two favorite trees in Guatemala the highly efficient, solar panel like tree and the giant ceiba.
A
cool morning in Escuintla.
A picture taken
shortly before my personal battle with Shelob [Lord of the Rings reference].
Well, another week has
flown by. We had a great week from last Tuesday to Sunday. We had more
progressing investigators than we were able to visit every other day (which I
think is the optimum amount of time between appointments with pilas
investigators). Our days were therefore always full of incredible lessons and
we had a very achievable goal of having 16 investigators attending church. We
were excited and full of faith that our goal of 8 baptisms this month would be
almost easily achievable. However, on Sunday even the most firmly
committed investigators were unable to attend, causing their baptismal dates to
be bumped back to April 6th.
This was a discouraging development to say the least. I think that God wants to
try our faith though. I very much feel that our goal of 8 baptisms was made by
the Spirit, therefore we can achieve it. I know we are doing all we can and are
being obedient, therefore I know we will achieve it. Now, instead of being able
to easily baptize 8 this month, it will require a miracle. I feel like this
situation is similar to when the Lord lessened Gideon's army to be sure that
everyone knew their victory was due to Him and not to their own strength. Our
number of possible baptisms for this month has been greatly reduced, but I'm
trying to keep from doubting so that we can be blessed with the miracle we
need. It is scary to not know how we will achieve the goal, but, I assume that
Nephi felt similarly when he was commanded to build the ship. I love what the
Lord says to him in 1 Ne 17:13. Sorry, you'll have to go look that up.
I've only got it in Spanish. "Y también seré vuestra luz en el desierto; y
prepararé el camino delante de vosotros, si es que guardáis mis
mandamientos. Por lo tanto, al grado que guardéis mis mandamientos,
seréis conducidos hacia la tierra prometida; y sabréis que yo soy el que os
conduce." [And I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led.] Anyway, we're proceeding with faith despite the opposition.
Also,
it seems like are area seems to be more full of slightly crazy people than
usual, which is actually really fun. This week we had an encounter with a man
who, on the first visit wanted to give us food so we could eat with him as he
finished his dinner. We refused as delicately as possible as he wanted to buy
us tamales (aka street food, which we're not allowed to eat). However, he flat
out refused to accept any of our excuses, saying "how can you expect to be
able to invite me to church if I can't even invite you to eat?!?" We
managed to extricate ourselves from the situation by convincing him to buy us
some bread instead. We also talked to an old guy who was sitting outside of his
corrugated steel house and told us he "only believes in science" (yes,
exactly like inNacho Libre - Link) and then tried to stump me by asking me what the
biggest tree in the world was. Despite having gone to Stewart State park at
least 32 times, I'll admit that I was only able to come up with Redwoods, not
Sequoia. That was embarrassing. Also, a woman who said she was dead for 7 days
and one of our investigators who (with his wife) was supposed to be baptized this
Sunday but who, on Wednesday, backed out because he didn't want to give up
the little bar he had in his garage. In our last lesson he even got up when a
drunk guy staggered over to give him a bottle of vodka. A great example of how
true faith is more than just a testimony that the BOM is true.
Anyway, I'm doing
great and hope that you all are as well.
Love, Elder Cannon
P.S. here's my random
picture for the week. This is how we get water. We buy big bags of pure water
for 5 Quets (62.5 cents) and then can use the small bags whenever we want. You
just tear a corner off with your teeth and drink the water inside. When we're
out of the house we can buy a small bag for .50 Quets whenever we feel thirsty.
P.P.S. The "I'll
go where you want me to go" member missionary video that was shown during
the worldwide conference on June 23, 2013 really is incredible.
Tuesday, March 25,
2014
Well, not a ton to say
this week. Sunday was hard as not a single one of the people we were
going to baptize on the 30th attended church, which is tough because they have
to have at least three attendances before baptism. We're still working hard
though, and having a good time. Speaking of having a good time, I've got a new
favorite Gmalan dish, tocón. Mom, you have to look up a recipe and make it. My
old favorite was pepián, a great tomato and chicken soup thing, tocón is
similar, but made out of green vegetables, instead of red, it has green
peppers, tomatoes, etc. It must be eaten with real Guatemalan tortillas though.
Elder Huish and I are going to learn how to make tortillas before this change
is over. Wow, I'm really hungry now.
In other news, my
companion and I were struck with the dreaded "bu" this week.
"Bu" is pretty much an integral part of serving a mission here
in Guatemala. Let's just say that I came closer to throwing up during a lesson
than I have ever done before and my companion was also pretty close to having
some major problems in another way. We're feeling better though, and I'm fine
with suffering if it means I get more blessings. Wohoo! Blessings!
Yesterday I was a
little baggy; Elder Huish got permission to go to the BYU website to enable
President Brough to renew his ecclesiastical endorsement. It's definitely
easier to stay completely focused down here in Guatemala, but then there are
always those little distractions that pop up. As he's only got one full change
left, it's made me think about how much I love Guatemala. It really must be so
hard to have to leave after coming to love every little detail here. I've come
to love the people, the culture, the food, the language, the houses, the
bakeries, the tiendas, the buses, even the metal doors that everyone has (I'll
have to get a picture of one of those, they're kind of a big part of my life).
Ok, our internet went
out so we went to eat as a district while we waited for it to come back. We
went to the only place available, a super scary comedor (cafeteria) near here.
That was one of the diciest eating situations I've ever experienced. However,
we did eat with a really drunk guy who didn't want to leave us alone and we
taught him how to say "fried chicken" in English. Anyway, I'll
probably be super sick tomorrow. That food was definitely not clean... Oh
well...
Talk to you all in a
week... (if that food wasn't too dangerous)
