December 28, 2015
Wow... What just
happened? Yesterday Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the quorum of the twelve apostles
came to our church! First he spoke to the missionaries in Rome. There were
about thirty of us, plus it was filmed and broadcasted throughout the mission.
They asked if someone could play the piano, so I got volunteered. I was
supposed to go up and play prelude about twenty minutes before the meeting
started, but all of a sudden some guy ran in and was like, "He's here,
he's here!" So I had to rush up and start playing, and of course being super
nervous I was playing "How Firm a Foundation" in the wrong key as
Elder Oaks walked in with his wife and President Whaddoups and everyone else
stood up.
Then we were informed
that we would be able to meet him. "Them too!", said Elder Oaks,
pointing to me and the translators. Sitting at the piano, I presumed to go last,
but Sister Whaddoups said "Him first, so he can play piano". Thus I
walked up and shook Elder Oaks' hand. He asked me where I was from and I
managed to get out the most distracted "Oregon" I could have said,
all the time thinking about the stories about how apostles can conduct a whole
PPI by looking through your eyes into your soul while you just tell them where
you are from. Then I sat down and continued to play, even after everyone else
was sitting and quiet as we waited to begin.
So yeah, it was pretty
intense, and I learned a ton!!! I definitely know he is led by the Spirit to
know what to say, because he spoke for a couple minutes in response to
literally the exact conversation we had had with the sisters about the
priesthood the day before.
He spoke about being a
"tool in the Lord's hands", and in specific, a pen. We need to have a
full cartridge (studies), be functional (stay healthy), be willing to
"write" 24/7 (including p day), and always write the Lord's
message, not ours.
Then he spoke to the
whole stake an hour later. Holy cow, so many people came!!!! We packed in a
GAZILLION chairs, honestly we destroyed the holding capacity of that room. We
had four investigators come, including Eva and Gian Piero, who miraculously got
seats despite coming late (we were outside in the hall). Afterward I took Fabio
to go meet them [the investigators], and he KILLED it, like always. I merely
asked them how they were, then he jumped in and talked to them nonstop in
Spanish for a few minutes. I think I heard some stuff about the Book of Mormon
and we missionaries. Then he gave Eva a handshake and Gian Piero a hug! Ha.
Stoked about that.
We ate an awesome
Christmas pranzo [lunch] with our ward mission leader’s family. I enjoyed
eating a "Bethlehem dinner" as is tradition in my family. Skyping my
family was fun, but it went SO quickly.
We also found a great
potential family this week! And they told us to come to their house in the
mornings!
Your special spiritual
thought came from something Elder Oaks said to the stake:
If there is one
problem in the church, it is that there are millions of members who are on the
path and not progressing. Last year the apostles prayed about this for a few
weeks together, and decided that the best way to fix this was to increase our
faith in Jesus Christ. And how do we do that? By improving our Sunday meetings
and do better at honoring the Sabbath. He said that unlike the Jewish leaders
of old who set tons and tons of rules of what is appropriate for Sabbath day
observance, we focus more and more on the principle that the Sabbath is a sign
to God. It is a day we set apart. The closest thing to a rule is "the
suggestion to not go shopping on Sunday" (he actually used the word
suggestion). Sunday is MY favorite day. Especially as a former college student,
I can really testify that choosing to not study, run, etc. and instead focus on
Heavenly Father and spiritual things was a great source of energy, stability,
and happiness.
Love,
Anziano Cannon
Yummy Peruvian lunch
Christmas Eve
January 4, 2016
I think I'm going to like 2016!!!!
Honestly the miracles just come every day here. January 1st was deep cleaning
day. I had a fun time cleaning the black mold off our bathroom ceiling with a
sponge taped to a broom head that I dipped in bleach and tried to not drip in
my eyes or on my clothes. Fun stuff, eh?
Ok the next day we were doing weekly
planning when a guy named Nicola called us, saying that somehow he got a pass
along card with our number and wanted to meet us. So we went to the church,
taught him the Plan of Salvation (I felt that based on his needs we needed to
change from our original plan of the Restoration on the fly. Thankfully we have
the companionship unity for stuff like that to work). He has had a tough past
few years, but he still remembers with great fondness going to Salt Lake City
for business a few years ago and loving all he saw about Mormonism. He came to
church yesterday and was chalk full of questions about everything that would
take hours to respond to, so I promised him we would get started when we meet again
Tuesday!
We also did a pass off lesson with
the sisters for the Mendez family this week. We gave the 2 year old daughter
Eva a blessing. They have so much potential, it's going to be hard but all of
our efforts will be worth it if the dad and son get baptized and the wife
reactivated!
Another miracle happened just a few
hours ago! It was a bit annoying that we had just gotten our groceries and the
bus was taking forever to come. Just then we saw Liu walk by on the other side
of the street! RIGHT afterward, our bus came. Not a coincidence if you ask me.
The problem was that we hadn't been able to call him. He had gone to Cuba on December 26th to see
his mother who was in critical condition in the hospital. We had been praying
really hard for both, but staying out of contact because we can't call out of
the country. Turns out that because of certain problems he actually couldn't go
to Cuba, but it's ok because his mom is doing fine now! So we'll see him
tomorrow. I'm stoked for the Plan of Salvation.
This week I gained a testimony of
less active work. Our lesson with Janus Silva (a 20 year old from the
Philippines) helped me realize that to God, the importance of the souls of less
actives, investigators, and missionaries are all the same! In the middle of the
lesson he just broke down crying as he told us about how active he used to be
in the church, and how he wants to return. I felt God's love for him really
strong right then and am super excited for him.
Saturday night we started our
member missionary work operation using a sheet we got from our zone leaders. It helps them write down friends that they
can invite to make certain small steps in the Gospel and progress towards the
missionary lessons and baptism. We went to the Barriga family. Honestly this is
one of my favorite families in the world (literally, I'm so privileged to have
been able to come to Italy to meet this awesome Peruvian family). Around them
it's just impossible to not smile.
Oh yeah, one more funny thing that
happened. This week we stopped a lady in the street and asked her what was the
most important thing in her life. She responded that God was, and she told us
she wanted to show us a picture. It was the wallpaper on her iPad - the picture
of Christ holding the lamb that is found on the cover of "The
Restoration" pamphlet. Ha-ha so that got the conversation going pretty
quickly. She had found it online. We sent her phone number to the sisters where
she lives.
With even more examples of people
like Nicola and the Mendez family where we just have investigators handed to us
on a plate it has become very clear to me that what we learn in 2 Nephi about
grace applies to missionary work as well: it is by the power of God that we
have success AFTER all we can do, not BECAUSE of all we do.
Love,
Anziano Cannon
Ethan is on the second to last row, first seat on the left.
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