Good News from Rosario

Thanks for the letter.  I look forward to reading your letters every week. The weather has cooled down a little bit, but it is still really hot at times. I cannot believe that it is almost December and that it is already Thanksgiving. I love the iPod, the music and the talks have really helped me a lot to be more happy and at peace.

 This week was a little bit hard, none of our investigators came to church this week, but I learned a lot. We also heard a lot of complaints from the members about the leaders of the church. Life is a little hard I just need to take it one day at a time.  Even though times are hard, I heard the greatest news ever from Rosario. I heard that today Oscar and Vicki (investigators in Rosario that we taught) are going to get married, and that they will get baptized on Saturday with their child. I was so happy to hear that Elder Herndandez and his companion are having success in Rosario.  They told me that absolutely everyone in Rosario asks for Hermano(Brother) Cannon.  They said that I am a celebrity down there. This made me really happy and think about all of the good times and experiences that I had in Rosario. I heard that Family Reyes misses me a lot, and that the child Jesus prays so that I return soon and that everyone is praying for me.  Lourdes is preparing to be a missionary and is the second counselor of the Laurels, and she is working a lot with the missionaries in Rosario. All of this makes me feel so special and so grateful beyond measure. I cannot express enough gratitude for the time I had to serve in Rosario, for everyone that I met and everything that happened there. I love you guys.  Thanks for everything that you did for me and for all of your love and support.

Love Elder Cannon    

Missionary challenge

Sorry for writing a little late.  I have been really busy. My week was a good one, and my Spanish is starting to come back, little by little. We aren´t right in the big city, but Culiacan is really big. There isn´t crime, don´t worry about anything, I am fine. I just got my package- I loved it- it made me really happy.

I kind of miss going to the temple. I wish there was a temple in our mission.

(I told Ryan my lesson this week is on member missionary work)   I have a goal for you guys, bring a friend who isn´t a member at the Ward Christmas Party. Also another goal can be to bring less active members to the party.  Some advice for the members, is that they shouldn´t wait until the missionaries come at their doorstep to do missionary work. They should be bringing and introducing their friends to the missionaries. Also the members need to give the missionaries names of people to teach and visit and then go and help the missionaries to do the work. One area in my district is having a lot of success and I am really happy for them. We have some potential investigators but we need to find some new ones. I hope that all goes well with Grandpa. I hope that all goes well, I love you guys!

Love Elder Cannon

Adjusting to Culiacan and new calling

I had my first baptismal interview with a child called Eduardo, who is 9 years old. It was really special and I have another interview this week. We had a good amount of investigators that went to church and some less active members also went. My spanish is coming back, but it still isn´t exactly where I want it to be. It is still hard, but a little better. My companion likes to give me chile to eat, I am starting to get a little better at eating spicy food. Today for preparation day we played soccer and it was really fun. We have a decent amount of investigators.  We just found out that one of our investigators has schizophrenia. I knew that he had some problems but I did not think it was anything like that. We had a really fun Family Home Evening in the week.  There were about 25 people that went to it.  We got to know a lot of people and it was a good missionary opportunity. We didn´t have a zone meeting this month, so  I haven´t recieved anything from you guys yet, but once we have a zone meeting I am sure that the package will arrive. I still miss Rosario a little bit and the people there.  Why does time go by so stinking fast?  I am a little jealous of the new missionaries because they have more time left in the mission than I do.  My week was better and I am ready to go to work. Thanks for your letter, it helped me a lot.

Love Elder Cannon      

Teaching a Jehovah witness?

I am really good but struggling a little bit.   For some reason I'm struggling with the language the past few days, speaking and understanding.  I feel like I was doing so well with it in Rosario so I don't know what happened.  My new companion is Elder Pinedo.  He is from Mexico City. He is a really great missionary and he just barely finished his training. He is a great missionary and someday going to be a great leader. 130 people came to church last week. I am not so used to so many people.. I do miss Rosario.  My new ward is  Nueva Galicia.

The funniest thing in the world happened when I first arrived to my area. My companion said that we were going to teach a Jehovah´s Witness, and made up a story about him. We arrived at his house and he started to tell us about all of his doubts of our church. He said when we went to your church we had to be seperated from the Relief Society and the Priesthood Quorom for an hour, he said I thought your church believes in families being together and why were we seperated for an hour. He started talking about polygamy, we started teaching and testifying and saying that we are not here to argue or contend. He said I don´t want to hear lies, he grabbed my companions arm and said get out of my house and never come back. We left the house and he slammed the door, I practically took off running, I was so scared. It turns out that the (Jehovah´s Witness) is a member and played a prank on me. It was the funniest thing ever and their whole family was laughing and loved it. When Elder Pinedo leaves I get to do the same thing with my new companion. He has done this prank for years. I was warned of this member before I left for my area. This week was good.

Thanks for everything that you have done for me and for your example that you have given me.