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)
Well. It’s been a big
week. We had changes on Wednesday and Elder Carcamo left our little area
of Jacandas 2 to become a Zone Leader in Amatitlán. Now for a little
background. The changes are always read by one of the assistants to President Brough.
This time they were read by Elder Huish, a legend in our mission who has been
an assistant for 6 months. He is renowned as probably the best missionary in
the mission and is known for his ability to ''kill'' on divisions, i.e. walk so
rapidly that the other missionary feels like he's going to die.
Anyway, I've often
been impressed by how well he teaches and how hard he works as I’ve seen him
in zone conferences. Anyway, as I'm sure you can guess when he got to
Jacarandas 2 he said, ''Elder Cannon recibe a... this guy.'' Yep, so here I am, working with a missionary
who just went from being an assistant to being my companion. At first I was understandably pretty nervous
to have Elder Huish as a companion, but I quickly realized how great of a
blessing that is. I'm so excited to learn and improve so much during this
change. It's nice to have a companion who's exactly obedient and really works
hard in every aspect of the Work.
Immediately we began
to see miracles in our area. We've had members give us incredible references,
inactive members bringing their unbaptized children to church, and non-members
we had never talked to showing up on Sunday. In all, we had 14
investigators attending church this Sunday (although 4 of them showed
up after the sacrament, so their attendance didn't count). It really is amazing
how much the Lord is helping us to do our part to meet the goal of 400
baptisms. I'm convinced this will be a very successful change. Honestly, I've
never loved being a missionary so much. It’s like what I've always imagined my
mission would be like.
In all, I'm doing very
well and having a lot of success. I feel like the Nephites when Nephi
said, (in Helaman I think) ''and nothing, save it were iniquity, could
keep them from prospering'' and I'm not going to become an iniquo (wicked
person) anytime soon, so I think we're good!
Love, Elder Cannon
My completed abacus. It took a few weeks
because I had to modify it to be able to work. It’s pretty cool, although I was
slightly disappointed to learn that the magic of an abacus is just doing basic
operations one place value at a time. I guess there's probably more complicated
stuff you can do that I don't know.
Ha, I can't believe
that it’s almost the end of February. That is pretty crazy. Time here in the mission
doesn’t flow normally. Anyway, yet again not a ton to report about what’s
happened during the week. We're working hard, and although we're having a lot
of challenges with our investigators, we're really hopeful for February, when
as a mission we have a goal to baptize 400. President Brough has already told
us how the Adversary will step up his attack as he is aware of this goal. We’ll
have more sicknesses, more distractions, more problems with discouragement,
etc. It’s kind of scary, but we're ready.
On a side note: Our
normal, super nice internet café didn’t actually have internet today, so we had
to take the bus to go downtown. As you may remember, one of the things we do in
Gmala City Central is always shout a short message after we board the bus and
then pass by people’s seats and get their names and addresses. However, we missionaries
aren't the only ones who do that. Occasionally there are people selling candy
or begging for money, or even every once and a while a crazy preacher (almost
as crazy as us). However, today, on the bus ride here, I saw what must have
been the best bus contact ever. It was an old, small man who stood at the front
of the bus and, after sharing a short message, sang a song about ''our friend Jesus''
while playing on an old, battered accordion. It made us look pretty lame, to
tell you the truth.
Also, down here in the
Guatemala City Central Mission, Valentine’s day passed without note. I was
expecting at least a mission wide dance or something... (Ha-ha, just kidding)
Anyway, the other day
I was reading in the Liahona and found a cool article and really impacted me.
It was about how on our missionary name tags we have 3 names, the name of our
family (our last name), the name of the Church, and the name of Christ. For two
years that's who we're representing. Our first name isn't on the badge. In
other words, we're not here to represent ourselves. For two years we really don’t
have to worry about whether people know how great of missionaries we are, how
smart we are, or how our ideas are really the right ones. We just need to worry
about what people think of our families, the Church, and of Christ because of
our actions. I'm definitely going to have this thought guide what I
do here in the mission field.
Love, Elder Cannon
February 25
Wow, not a lot of time
today. Sorry about that. More setbacks with investigators this week, but that's
ok since we've got several font-loads of investigators who are progressing
towards their baptismal dates in March. As much as it kills me to have dates fall
of investigators have problems, I'm willing to do things on the Lord's
timetable and can't complain.
I love Doctrine and Covenants because it's so dense with great verses. I feel
like I should mark everything I read. Anyway, D&C 123:17: "Therefore,
dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power,
and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of
God, and for His arm to be revealed." I love the trust that is implied in
this verse. I'm pretty sure that Joseph received it while in Liberty Jail,
which makes being able to talk about “cheerfully do[ing] all things that lie in
our power" even more incredible. As missionaries, that's what we have to
do. That's all we can do, but after all that, we can trust that the Lord will
work His purposes, and for me personally, that we as a mission will be able to
have 400 baptisms this month.
On a lighter note,
I've had the trial of finding a bakery that sells good home-made style donuts
for 1 Quetzal each. 12.5 cents a donut makes resisting difficult. Maybe it will
help me come back from my mission with some pretty incredible self-control.
Love,
Elder Cannon
March
3
Ha, wow, that was a
fast transfer. Tomorrow we have yet another change meeting (which is
good because they're a ton of fun). My companion will be leaving and I will be
staying, which is what we expected.
This week we had the
baptism of Hermano Giovanni Flores. He's probably the investigator that I love
the most in our area, so I was really glad to be able to see him progress so
well. He's got a great testimony and really understands the principle of
repentance.
His baptism is extra
interesting because it's the first baptism I've had of an investigator that we
found while tracting. We found him as we were knocking on doors one morning
last change. It was cool to learn how the Lord placed him in our path. That
morning he had left his house to go look for a new place to live and when we
found him he was sitting on the sidewalk. We taught him the first lesson right
there in the street and he gave us his address (his real address, which is
pretty rare). He progressed super rapidly, but it's difficult for him to attend
church because of his job. Interestingly, he's the first case I've seen where
the husband progresses and the wife doesn't. Usually the women are far more
pilas (sorry, but it's true).
Finally, we received
some good news today. For the past three weeks our mission has been panicking a
little bit because we received the news that for some unknown reason an error
had occurred in the Distribution Center and all of Central America would be
unable to receive new copies of the Book of Mormon until mid-April. Needless to
say, we were beside ourselves with indignation. How are we supposed to help people
obtain a testimony of the Restored Gospel without the keystone of our religion?
The BOM combined with he Spirit is our most powerful tool and now we had to
ration three copies for two months?!?
I was tempted to write
a letter after the style of Moroni when he complained to Pahoran about sitting
on his throne not giving provisions to his troops while they were out on the
front lines dying. Luckily I didn't. Today we received the news that the
mission was able to get ahold of a few more boxes so we should have enough to
tide us over. That was a close one, but it made me much more grateful for the
Book of Mormon. We should never take it for granted.
Well, not a whole lot
happened this week. We've had some setbacks with our investigators. Three of
them moved this week (not too uncommon here in Guatemala, and much easier when
you don't have many possessions).
Yesterday for our
district P day we watched "The Other Side of Heaven." I'm not sure
how we were allowed to watch that movie. It's a little different than, for
example, Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" or Mountain of the
Lord's House. Anyway, that movie is far more enjoyable when you're a
missionary, although it is rather interesting how he breaks every single rule
in the missionary manual that we have now. In all, it made me think about how
important it is to love the people.
My mission experience
is completely different than his. Often I think that it would be easier to just
try to do as much good as possible, rather than worrying about number of
contacts, how many lessons in the house of a member we had, etc. Still, if I
truly love the people here in Guatemala, all of that will flow naturally out of
my efforts to serve them. The numbers will be the result; they should never
become the reason. My mission is teaching my many things, and how to love would
probably be the most important. I can't be a representative of Christ if I
don't love as He loved. Luckily, that love is promised to missionaries and so I
can have hope.
Antigua! We finally
got to go there last P-day. We hardly had anytime at all there since we had to
travel and get back in time to do all the things we needed to (like buying
groceries), but I loved getting to go. It's a super beautiful city. I'll admit
that I felt a little bit strange because there were a bunch of gringos walking
around, speaking in English. It made me feel like a tourist too. Anyway, we had
about 45 minutes to walk around and check out the market. Then we had a
scavenger hunt designed by the zone leaders (admittedly, it might not have been
the best idea since we can do a scavenger hunt any P day but were only in
Antigua once, however, it was fun). After that we had a half hour more and then
had to go back. I'm definitely planning on coming back after my mission and
spending a few days there, but that's a ways away.
Anyway, Antigua's so
cool because it was the old, colonial capital of Central America. It has
cobblestone streets and a bunch of really old, really beautiful Catholic
churches. The market is neat because of all the hand made, native clothing and
souvenirs. Having to haggle also adds to the excitement.
As far as actual
missionary work goes, we've got a goal as a mission to baptize 400 in March. As
I have already said, this is a super high goal and so we are all working really
hard. This week was special in that we've had a massive increase in the number
of our progressing investigators. I've never had so many baptismal
possibilities at one time in my entire mission. It's pretty cool how clearly
the Lord is preparing the way so that we can meet the goal set by our mission
president. The sad thing is that these people will all be baptized in March and
there's a pretty high chance that I'll be transferred next change meeting
(which is the first Wednesday in March) and not get to see those
baptisms. Still, the fact that they're learning about and accepting the gospel
is what's most important.
Thanks for all you
support! I hope you're all doing well.
Love,
Elder Cannon
Some homes and a park in Antigua
A picture in the market and a church
As part of the scavenger hunt we had to get (discretely) pictures of us contacting a Chapin (Guatemalan), a gringo, and a woman in Corte (the traditional dress that indigenous women wear).
