Week 52

May 23, 2016

John's baptism went super well. He was grateful for the opportunity to become a "brand new boy" as he expressed in a prayer. We had a great show from our African brothers. Maybe it was because he was wearing a plaid shirt tucked into his jeans, but Samuel just reminded me of a straight up elders’ quorum president. He's just got to get baptized first! I can already see the change the Holy Ghost has made in John's life. Love it! We should do baptisms more often!

This ward is rolling, the blessings will be coming in soon. We taught Giuseppe and Valerio Wednesday morning. Or rather, we had them teach us… the law of chastity. Giuseppe is a new convert of about six months and Valerio was reactivated about a year ago or so. Valerio is finishing his mission papers and Giuseppe also wants to go. I love these GANS (YSA) we have, it's so true the influence righteous youth can have on other youth. These guys, about three new converts and a couple who got reactivated within the past couple years, basically all just decided to go on missions together. Ivan was the most recent to make the decision.  He told me the other night. As of literally a month ago he was someone who only came to church when his family did and didn't seem to care less. But there's a reason why one of our assistants called our GANS "the most powerful converting machine in the mission".

The people who live above us like to play OneRepublic a lot which kind of annoys me, but it sure was great to finally drive home from a member’s house Sunday afternoon as we all belted along to "Army of Helaman/Sisters in Zion medley". When your music playlist consists of about 25 MoTab songs your companion has on his MP3 player, it can be pretty exciting to have some variety.

Love,

Anziano Cannon

I'm sorry, for some reason I was the only one who didn't get a good picture.

Week 51

May 16, 2016

So we now begin "Mission Impossible" with Nicola... My fears were confirmed. He was not built upon the rock of his Redeemer after one lesson with us (should that be a surprise?)  We believe that someone saw his Book of Mormon and said some bad stuff about us, shaking his desire to meet again. He was pretty adamant about returning the Book of Mormon to us, so we'll be waiting for our appointment Friday, and believe me, he won't be leaving without that book still in his hands! We hope.

Gospel principles was a little over the top yesterday. The sisters brought their poor 45-ish year-old Italian investigator to our party of Africans, three members, two nonmembers, and two investigators.  Fratello P translated himself, which worked... for the most part. Then in priesthood I was translating and I literally just put the mic down for about 10 minutes during the incredibly lively discussion of whether we were on chapter 9 or 10 of the Howard W. Hunter manual.

We are all just waiting for Samuel to make the jump... He speaks Italian pretty well and took a page and a half of notes while he talked to the bishop yesterday. It's been a pretty humbling experience for him being here in Italy. Back in the day when he was a wealthy traveling businessman, he literally went together with a couple other guys to pay to build a Christian church in England. He wants to contribute much more than just tithing but currently doesn't have a source of income to do it.

John passed his interview! We are really hoping Destiny or Endurance can baptize him. Originally John wanted to postpone the baptism because he thought he had to fast and pray for weeks before he decided who he wanted to baptize him. We kind of cleared that up and are back on for Saturday.

Love,

Anziano Cannon

Coming up, on "The District"... Albero Bello

Zone Conference

Week 50

May 9, 2016

This week we taught one of the most jaw-dropping lessons ever to Michele from English course. On Tuesday night he literally said that one of our spiritual thoughts had saved his marriage, and he wanted to learn more about the Book of Mormon. It was as if we were role-playing; everything he said was so perfect. "Oh, so these must have been the other sheep Jesus was talking about" and he even asked if he could serve a mission to talk about the Church to others.  Honestly I've never seen someone quite like that.

Samuel... By the way, he's actually well over half way done with the Book of Mormon and last week he promised to try to live the Word of Wisdom. We showed him "The Restoration". The Spirit was so strong that I thought to myself "there is a zero percent chance that he can deny this is real after this experience". He agreed like I thought, but isn't sure this is the only true church. It is really hard for him to turn away from his family tradition. Then on Saturday we jumped out of the plane by giving him a baptismal date, which he meekly (and a bit weakly) accepted.

The miracles have just been lining up. Saturday the elders quorum is going to Trani to visit five "investigators" that a sister there wants to get taught. If all goes well, we'll come into the picture soon. We have been talking with members about how we want real names of people to work with. Sunday, a friend of the bishop's wife came to church. She was surprised that she is allowed to take the sacrament here because she is divorced. She had to leave immediately, but after we helped out with primary singing time, sister V told us: "her name is TIZIANA. Please pray for TIZIANA that her heart will be open to the message." Perfect!

We had a super good exchange with the assistants yesterday. And tonight before zone conference we will have eight missionaries at our house, the majority of which have not showered since calcio today... Yikes!

Tons of miracles this week!

Vi vogliamo un sacco di bene, specialmente a mia bella madre questa settimana.  [I love you, especially my beautiful mother this week.]

Anziano Cannon

After teaching Samuel

Week 49

May 2, 2016

AHHHHH MY RELEASE DATE IS ONE YEAR FROM TODAY!!!! HOLY COW WHAT IS GOING ON?  THE TIME FLIES SO QUICKLY!!!! 

Ciao belli [Goodbye beautiful]!!!!!!  That is the salutation we received from the second cutest four year old girl I know after we left lunch yesterday. It was a pretty cool experience. Brother V asked us in the car on the way home after church what we had planned for the spiritual thought. I said that we would be talking about charity.  He responded, "how about we go for the Restoration instead?"  Then explained how his inactive daughter and her non-member husband would be there with their two kids. After a delicious lunch we went for it. Their interest in the Restoration itself was not super high, and I might have been disappointed if this was not incredibly parallel to another part member family I once knew: Mauro, in Rome! That took a miracle to work out, and this will too. But if we can help them build their faith, I think we could see a miracle.  The lunch literally played out exactly like the movie "Finding Faith in Christ" which starts with the unbelieving son.

Samuel gave us a determined promise to try to read the Book of Mormon.  John's interview is next week, and we are going to work super hard this transfer to find new investigators. 

We got some new sister missionaries. I only say this because it has been a bit of a shock.  Our last ones were super experienced in the mission and each about 24 years old. Now I'm the most senior missionary in our ward and we are doing our best to help these sisters as they get blown in. At this point they hardly even speak each other's language. Well, I guess there is a refiner's fire for everyone. They are handling it really well. 

This week... We taught an investigator from the Anziani of the other Bari ward. And it was completely unintentional. 

Friday morning we were blessed to be able to take this old man to his doctors' appointment. It was incredible, how, after the doctor worked on his foot, he was so happy to be able to take a couple inching steps forward on his own with the help of a walker. It made me very grateful for what I have. It was pretty cool taking him there through Centro, we were able to cross the middle of the street in ITALY without any one honking at us, and I loved how even the Jehovah's Witnesses gave us a nice long stare. Yep, that's how we do it.

Love, 

Anziano Cannon 

I highly recommend you all learn how to play mountain cricket. It is to outdoor activities what bananagrams [a board game similar to Scrabble] is to indoor games. The rain didn't stop and neither did our fun. 

Being the naughty companions that we are, Anziano Saffer and I both independently thought of the idea that we could switch nametags at the train station and fool his greenie into thinking I was his trainer. The joke lasted for about 20 seconds.  [Note the "Elder Cannon" nametag]

Week 48

April 25, 2016

Transfers!!! We are staying! No surprises there. Good stuff. 

This week we had a pretty cool experience as a couple of cool brothers came up to us and asked if we were Latter-Day Saints. They turned out to be newly arrived members from Nigeria! AFRICAN BRANCH HERE WE COME! Their names are Fabulous and Kingsley. 

Yesterday after church we went to the Fitzner's house with Samuel, member John, and Emmanuel. John and Samuel not only happen to be neighbors in Samuel's new apartment, but they also lived just 20 km away from each other in Nigeria, and will talk to each other in their local dialect when they feel like it. 

Investigator John had a crazy week. HE ALREADY PAYS HIS TITHING. Apparently one day he just asked Godwin if we pay tithes here and Godwin showed him the envelopes. Since then he's payed every month. It's cool to see how much the Atonement has already been working in his life, I can't wait for him to take the next step in the Gospel, though that won't be for a couple weeks since he'll need an interview with president. 

Mario might get dropped soon, we taught Ernesto, and we are really working on getting new investigators from English course. 

In other news: the elders in our district broke a rope during a tug of war.  Another victory was miraculously getting out of eating the fifth course at a members house, and my pasta consumption has gone up to its summer levels of 350+ grams a meal. 

Love, 

Anziano Cannon 

 Lunch yesterday. 

The sisters apparently didn't get the memo that we 

were just smiling for the district picture.

Week 47

April 18, 2016

We took a plane down to Nigeria this week to teach... 

John has a baptismal date for May 7th! He is a champ, super ready and willing to change his life with no questions asked to live Gospel principles. 

Samuel still does not have his permanent documents, but he actually got a special exemption from the area presidency that allows him to be baptized without them! I'm not sure exactly what the Fitzners (a missionary couple) said about him to convince the mission president.  Next step... he has to want it too! He has committed to pray and continue reading to know if he needs to be baptized. In our lesson Wednesday he prayed that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints would grow, and I was thinking "Hmm... I wonder who we know here who could contribute to that?!" Ah… pazienza [patience]. 

We finally got to teach Ernesto!!! We taught him the plan of Salvation and will see him again this week. 

Yesterday church was pretty great. Ernesto and Mario couldn't come so we just taught gospel principles to a bunch of Africans. One of them, Emanuel, who struggles to come to church, was under the impression that someone had been baptized the day before. "No", I responded, "but Samuel should be getting baptized pretty soon". "Who is he?" Emanuel asked. "The fat one?" Basically from that moment I guessed what kind of gospel principles class it was going to be. I LOVED it.

Endurance was spouting a never ending stream of sincere though sometimes random questions "Are there big sins and little sins or are they all the same?" Godwin was dropping some pretty advanced stuff about how Abraham must have had a lot of faith to trust in the Lord's covenant with him.  Samuel was adding his own helpful truths about patience and faith in waiting for promised blessings, and they all enjoyed answering each other's questions, always punctuated by "You understand?" Meanwhile, I was sitting there wishing I had studied up a bit more on the Abrahamic Covenant. They are great and all have such a humble desire to do what's right. 

Saturday night was an awesome talent show organized by the bishop’s wife with tons of non-members. It went late, so we had to leave after the second act (a beautiful Mozart composition), which was good because I heard later on someone sang Coldplay. Good thing I wasn't there. 

Holy cow it was an emotional experience watching the talk by Elder Kearon during lunch the other day. It really is true – seeing and talking to a refugee changes you! It's hard for Americans to understand being so far away from it all, but please help if you can. 

Love, 

Anziano Cannon 

P day  

Picture from the Mostra [display] we did last week.  

The non-missionaries are our YSA (Young Single Adults). 

Week 46

April 11, 2016

Pretty darn crazy week, here are some highlights:

1. The sisters' investigator texted them Tuesday saying "can I be baptized this Saturday?" She was totally ready and it happened! We announced it in English course and this sweet older lady asked us "so if we come on Saturday do we have to be baptized too?" I reassured her that she didn't, and she came with her daughter and friend! Two of them seem to have some good potential as the sisters' investigators.

2. After the baptism I had an epiphany. We had practiced "Come thou Fount" for just a little bit on Thursday because we were going to sing as missionaries on Sunday, and I had had to play the piano. That makes it kind of hard to practice singing the bass in Italian. So, when we got together as missionaries to practice, I invited Samuel to come sing with me. Turns out he plays guitar and has written about 50 of his own gospel songs. I literally have no way to describe what it was like to have him standing there next to me singing bass in his deep, beautiful, rich, African voice. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Our ward mission leader was killing it on the piano, and it went well when we performed it the next day in church.

3. Miracle time!!! John has been a faithful member of the church for the past few months... Except he's not a member. As of last fall, we aren't allowed to teach or baptize Africans unless they have documents. But he just got his, and we are meeting him to get him ready tomorrow! Bishop was the one who gave us the good news. I am continually taken aback at his charity towards these people. He even does his best to speak to them in his decent English (though they are all taking Italian lessons from the senior couple). 

4. Piero completed his fast with us. He still did not get the sign he was hoping for, but we are giving him one last chance to pray specifically to know if what we have told him is true. It's hard because you can't really look straight into someone's heart and see their motives (although I still hold that the vast majority of the time you can tell if someone will be baptized or not after the first lesson). 

It's been a little hard to come down off the mountain of general conference per se, but we are seeing some big blessings here, thanks for keeping us in your prayers. 

Love, 

Anziano Cannon 

 Zone calico today was nuts! I am so burnt 
and hopefully weigh a little less now!