Weeks 72-75

October 17, 2016

Yesterday at zone conference my sisters [missionaries who were in the same MTC group] gave their death testimonies [their last testimony before going home].  Wow, the Spirit was so strong, I am sad to see them go. I will be a wreck when that day comes for me. One of them, who also served in Bari, was really happy to hear during the conference that an extended family is now joining the church. This in a town outside of Bari where there had formally been only one active member. It is an incredible story how my friend found their apartment on an ancient map with markings of where investigators lived. They went to see these people, one of which had taken the lessons in 1993 and was wondering where the missionaries had been the whole time. The rest is history.

We have been planning an awesome activity! Our ward is great; we should have about 30 or more members come. When we got here the plan was sort of a church tour, but Anziano Jorgenson and I wanted to work in some of what we learned from General Conference: rather than explain the differences and similarities of our church from theirs, just teach the plan of salvation! So, we will have a pre-Earth room, an Earth life, and a post-mortal life room. We are hoping to get many non-members there!

This week we went to see the Dini Ciaccis. We had the street name but had to ask someone if they knew the family, since we couldn't specify the house. He pointed us where to go and we rang the button. A little kid came out and asked who we were. We responded that we were the missionaries. I could see inside that the dad hesitated when the kid told him who we were, but then had us come in. IT WASN'T THEM. This guy said he loved the Bible and would love to share a tea with us.  He always welcomes missionaries, but unfortunately, we were so off balance that we politely refused the opportunity, saying we had to get to our appointment. Here's the thing: I know that the Dini Ciaccis go super hard on missionary work, and these were their next-door neighbors, so I assumed they had been invited umpteen times to take the lessons. But we learned after we had found the real house, that these neighbors were new, and that the two families hardly even know each other! So, we are definitely following up with that.

We are stoked to see president Nelson on Thursday in Rome. We are sending our investigator Claudio to the session on Wednesdays night for the members that we aren't allowed to go to.

Love,

Anziano Cannon


Help! Does anyone speak Portuguese? These two new converts from Brazil showed up in church this week. During sacrament meeting whenever someone referenced a scripture or talk I found it on my iPad in their language, but they will need a lot of spiritual nourishment as they are so young in the Gospel and plus don't even speak Italian.

October 24, 2016

President Nelson said some awesome, awesome, awesome stuff. It was a little General Conference as we also got to hear from President Kearon, Elder Hallstrom, and their wives. I don't feel the need to share some of the most spiritual stuff with all of you, but here are some funny things: he told us how he has new scriptures he got in May. With his old ones, he said, he could just think about a scripture and they would fall open to the correct page. These ones aren't "broken in" yet. I believe it – he once asked everyone to look up a scripture. He commented after the first person found it: "not bad, for an electronic device". He had been there for a couple seconds already.  He told us how when he got the scriptures he wanted to read every word contained in the standard works. "Two weeks later, I had finished...along with adding all of my annotations and cross references from previous worn out scriptures". It's funny because it would sound straight up prideful out of anyone else, but you know he is completely stripped of pride so it's just funny.

Well, we have had like no time this week. It started last p-day, I didn't get to email, and we've been running around everywhere, literally not a moment to spare, ever since. Sunday was so nice, we actually got to sleep in until 6:30. Literally, it is such a miracle how the Lord sustains us as we live lives where our physical and emotional health sort of fall by the wayside sometimes.

A lot of it had to do with the activity. We worked super hard on it.  In the end, we had over 40 members there, but only 3 non-members, two of which were English course students! But one of them was Fabio, who was already a potential in our minds. We are pretty excited for him. There was also a Mongolian lady and her son who the sisters are visiting this week. Her husband is Nigerian and speaks 10 languages. I can't wait to meet him!

Pat is making nice progress. He is in the golden age and shows every sign of it based on the questions he asks. HOLD YOUR HORSES we'll get to that In a few lessons! He's great though.

Love,

Anziano Cannon

This is our whole MTC group, back together for the first 

time in over a year and for probably the last time ever.

October 31, 2016

This week I did a scambio with Anziano Castillo. It went great! He is from the Philippines and started it out by making us fried rice for lunch. Then we went on our bikes to find an old investigator, but the chain came off his bike several times, so we had to go back. I was super bummed, no one wants that to happen on your scambio. We were walking the bikes back to the store when we got a call from Sorella P, who we had only met once in the pharmacy. She doesn't come to church, and had had to tell us "Hey elders! I'm Mormon too!" We like to be bold but hadn't planned on talking to the lady in front of us at the pharmacy. But she wanted us to give her a blessing right then. It worked out perfectly.  We later realized that had we gone to the old investigators house we never would have made it in time. She was really touched and grateful, and yesterday she came to church for the first time since I've been here! 

The next morning, we were doing a little contacting before an apartment inspection at 10:30. We were just walking back to our apartment when the Thackers (senior couple) called us to say they would be a few minutes late. So, we decided to go see this other old investigator in the couple minutes we had. We rang the doorbell and just then she came out. Not to talk to us, she was literally leaving and had we come a minute later we would have missed her! We have been working on unity with the sisters and were then really glad to give her as a referral to them. They had their first appointment last night and said it went great!

Pat is a stud and wants to be baptized but he will be returning to live in Torino and later move to Caserta. I'm hoping to hatch a plan to pass him off to Anziano Cunningham (from my hometown of Medford) and Anziano Cutrignelli (his greenie who I knew in Bari) if that goes through!

The joke I talked about with a couple of my college friends who are serving missions called "trick or referral" is actually taking life, much to my surprise. Don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds, but we are going through with it tonight :)

If you want to say a prayer for someone, make it for the referrals we are working on! Sorella Gambi was a stud and found an African guy at store who wants to know the purpose of life, and the Dini Ciaccis are working on the family we stumbled into the other week.  We are really excited because they are not committed or anything to the Jehovah's Witnesses, they are just investigators for now, so we hope to be able to veer them to a different course.

Love,

Anziano Cannon

Classic missionary looking pic in (almost) Tuscany

November 7, 2016

Yesterday in church, Jonathan, our awesome ex-missionary friend, got up to bear his testimony of missionary work. He practices what he preaches, and tonight we have a dinner and restoration appointment with six people! Pray for us! The last time I got this many referrals was Bagheria and that was with a bunch of old Catholic ladies!  You know how some testimony meetings have themes? After Jonathan's talk, Yesterday's turned into "explain why two missionaries changed your life". I sat back and loved it! Side note: do you take notes in church? Why would we not? I have gotten so much inspiration that I am sure wouldn't come if I didn't appreciate it.

We were very blessed that we were inside doing language study when an incredible wind picked up. I looked outside and saw furniture blowing off balconies. When we left, everyone was outside. A bunch of trees had been uprooted in Centro so traffic was diverted onto our street. The street of the church was the worst off; there was rubble everywhere. A tent type thing blew over the wall into the courtyard, and a family came to get their mangled laundry rack from their house 200 meters away. But the Lord takes care of His servants, and the only damage we incurred were two plants on our balcony that fell over (like literally they just fell over on their side). It felt really nice though and I do love our members. We got a couple calls making sure we were ok.

One morning we planned to go do finding at a park and found the place literally deserted. Pretty discouraging. So, we felt to go back to Centro and passed by the church. We talked to a lady who wasn't interested in our survey, but were able to open her up after asking her why she was holding a pizza. She was going to see her husband in the hospital. She wouldn't commit to taking the lessons but told us "it as if two angels had just stopped me!" Kind of cool how the Spirit works with people. She wasn't at zone conference! How did she know we are supposed to be Angels!? This kind of thing happens often.

I don't remember if I told you this, but we had gone to see Matt last Sunday night. We basically pulled out exactly what President Uchtdorf talked about- we NEED you! Well, he showed up at the youth activity Friday and came to church Sunday for the first time since we've been here! Also, Sorella P from last week came again!

Pat lives in a barracks in Rome so we are still working on getting him to church, but he has read a lot of the Book of Mormon. As I read in a talk recently, you don't have to tell them how normally Mormons need a study calendar and stuff to get through the BOM. To them it's just a 500-page book, why would you limit them to just the introduction or something when they are capable of so much more?

Another bike I took lost its chain repeatedly so we had to walk it back... Until I had the excellent idea of "sailing" it. Basically, I stuck one foot on one pedal, leaned to the side, and pushed myself forward with the other foot over and over until that leg got tired and I could switch. It actually worked. We were moving!

What?? This just in! There was a little kid that was like 12 years old who we met in Bari that asked us for a Bible. I was like "you are 12 years old? Why do you want a Bible? Let's teach you!" But it didn't work out. I just heard he has been coming to church every week and wants to be baptized, but his parents aren't letting him yet. Wow!


Love,

Anziano Cannon

Heading off to zone calcio amid the rubble. I am really lucky.  This was my 

14th zone calcio in 12 transfers. That doesn't usually happen for missionaries.

Week 70 and 71.

October 3, 2016

After one session of conference, we did a split and I went to help an old lady in our apartment complex who needed our help. She needed us to go to get her groceries. It was an excellent lesson in patience. To be honest it was kind of a weird sight to see Anziano Ruiz going to replace the 1.39€ wine for the .89€ wine on a Sunday at the grocery store because she couldn't afford it.  A couple times I wanted to
leave her and drop the bags off at her house so we could be at the church in time for the conference, but I felt not to. After we left her, we ran to the bus stop, and soon after Syv (changed name) walked up. "Are you late to see the prophet?" he asked. After we responded affirmatively, he replied "me too".  So, we got to go with him to conference!

Which was AWESOME… like always.  I encourage us to all go back like Elder Kearon told us to and underline actions we plan to take because of this conference. I made up my own Italian saying, "c'è chi fa ma non sa, è chi sa ma non fa" [translated roughly as: who does but doesn't know, and who knows but doesn't do]. Basically, I've noticed that a lot of excellent disciples are pretty new to the church and sometimes uneducated, but they live the gospel 24/7. Sometimes there are others who know it all, but don't follow through with the basic stuff. So let's do it! We were so happy that Clytus, our less active new convert, came.  I've really tried to take him under my wing (no one else even knows his correct name).  Yesterday everyone was telling "Clever" to get in the picture) but with my love for Africans it was easy to want to work with him. He heard two Book of Mormon talks that gave him a wake-up punch.

Rose is taking a break right now. But pray for us tonight with Diego, our first referral here! We were so excited, that isn't very common. I went on a scambio with my old friend Anziano Vrska. I was so happy to hear how my favorite unit in the mission is doing- Palermo 3, the international branch. I love the priesthood service that Fratello Mannino gave as he clearly groomed his counselors to take the reigns of the branch. He was called to the stake presidency since I left and Joel Kefas is the new president. I've heard rumors about them being the highest tithe-paying unit in Italy and the stake president telling them that this branch, which was six strong in 2014 and had over 20 active members when I was there, will be a Ward within a year or two at its current growth rate. We also saw an awesome miracle as we stayed to eat fufu after teaching a new convert and got to meet the incredible land lord couple who agreed to start taking the lessons because they love the way the missionaries act and treat our friend.

Love,

Anziano Cannon

P day at Nike store. Look at the seat next to me

 

October 10, 2016

 

Well, we got transferred to Ladispoli. I said "we" because basically Anziano Jorgenson and I got sent to another city to be companions again. Good thing we like each other ha-ha. Ladispoli is pretty close to Rome, normally the zone leaders buy your tickets for transfers but they told us this time just to find our way to Ladispoli by getting a train whenever we wanted.

Walking into the apartment was interesting. We spent a few hours today and whatever time we could find in these past few days to clean it up.  It was pretty filthy in addition to the straight up problems it has like how you have to turn on and adjust the shower with a wrench, and the elevator we stopped using because it makes you sick like it were the Hollywood tower of terror. But these are all things you can for the most part just laugh about.

I told the assistants on Monday that the phone would be on silent that night when we taught our referral. I wasn't kidding. I felt the phone vibrate as they called give us out transfer calls, but we had more important things to do with Diego who is awesome and I think will be baptized!

Ladispoli is an interesting place, it is a very small city compared to Rome, but the missionaries have done good work here, plus it is the home of the translation center for Italy where about 12 people work.  In other words, our ward is STACKED. Elder Dini Ciacci, the stake president I knew in Rome, who is now an area 70 wasn't even at church yesterday.  But there are so many other great people, including Gianni, who I used to know as Anziano Calvagna from this mission, and Dario, who I knew in Rome 1 and is literally the most jaw-droppingly good teacher in lessons that I have ever seen. We are really excited for the ward unity and strength and will be working a LOT with that this transfer.

I'll let you in on our secret plans: obviously, all of us missionaries loved the talks by Elder Andersen and Elder Oaks, but we want to pull a little from President Uchtdorf as well. The reality is that each member in the ward is an Amulek. We need them; we always have.  But in a city of this size and with the plain statistics of who is most likely to stay active, we really are going to be pleading with them to
make missionary work an attitude rather than a program.

Cool analogy: probably my favorite part of our house is the mirror in our study room. Why? Because the way it is positioned, I can only see Anziano Jorgenson –  and Anziano Jorgenson can only see me. What a great model for humility and selflessness.

Super exciting announcement:

WE ARE GETTING BIKES!!!

Love,

Anziano Cannon

I loved our last English group with this crowd. It grew quite a bit 

last transfer.  I would be remiss if I didn't note how many times the

Lord has taken care of me this week, like during our last spiritual

thought where I basically just started going off on something I had

not expected to do, very much grateful for the spirit.

 

 

Ethan on his birthday.

Sorry.  We received no letter from 10/17 and no explanation why.

Week 70 and 71.

October 3, 2016

After one session of conference, we did a split and I went to help an old lady in our apartment complex who needed our help. She needed us to go to get her groceries. It was an excellent lesson in patience. To be honest it was kind of a weird sight to see Anziano Ruiz going to replace the 1.39€ wine for the .89€ wine on a Sunday at the grocery store because she couldn't afford it.  A couple times I wanted to
leave her and drop the bags off at her house so we could be at the church in time for the conference, but I felt not to. After we left her, we ran to the bus stop, and soon after Syv (changed name) walked up. "Are you late to see the prophet?" he asked. After we responded affirmatively, he replied "me too".  So, we got to go with him to conference!

Which was AWESOME… like always.  I encourage us to all go back like Elder Kearon told us to and underline actions we plan to take because of this conference. I made up my own Italian saying, "c'è chi fa ma non sa, è chi sa ma non fa" [translated roughly as: who does but doesn't know, and who knows but doesn't do]. Basically, I've noticed that a lot of excellent disciples are pretty new to the church and sometimes uneducated, but they live the gospel 24/7. Sometimes there are others who know it all, but don't follow through with the basic stuff. So let's do it! We were so happy that Clytus, our less active new convert, came.  I've really tried to take him under my wing (no one else even knows his correct name).  Yesterday everyone was telling "Clever" to get in the picture) but with my love for Africans it was easy to want to work with him. He heard two Book of Mormon talks that gave him a wake-up punch.

Rose is taking a break right now. But pray for us tonight with Diego, our first referral here! We were so excited, that isn't very common. I went on a scambio with my old friend Anziano Vrska. I was so happy to hear how my favorite unit in the mission is doing- Palermo 3, the international branch. I love the priesthood service that Fratello Mannino gave as he clearly groomed his counselors to take the reigns of the branch. He was called to the stake presidency since I left and Joel Kefas is the new president. I've heard rumors about them being the highest tithe-paying unit in Italy and the stake president telling them that this branch, which was six strong in 2014 and had over 20 active members when I was there, will be a Ward within a year or two at its current growth rate. We also saw an awesome miracle as we stayed to eat fufu after teaching a new convert and got to meet the incredible land lord couple who agreed to start taking the lessons because they love the way the missionaries act and treat our friend.

Love,

Anziano Cannon

P day at Nike store. Look at the seat next to me

 

October 10, 2016

 

Well, we got transferred to Ladispoli. I said "we" because basically Anziano Jorgenson and I got sent to another city to be companions again. Good thing we like each other ha-ha. Ladispoli is pretty close to Rome, normally the zone leaders buy your tickets for transfers but they told us this time just to find our way to Ladispoli by getting a train whenever we wanted.

Walking into the apartment was interesting. We spent a few hours today and whatever time we could find in these past few days to clean it up.  It was pretty filthy in addition to the straight up problems it has like how you have to turn on and adjust the shower with a wrench, and the elevator we stopped using because it makes you sick like it were the Hollywood tower of terror. But these are all things you can for the most part just laugh about.

I told the assistants on Monday that the phone would be on silent that night when we taught our referral. I wasn't kidding. I felt the phone vibrate as they called give us out transfer calls, but we had more important things to do with Diego who is awesome and I think will be baptized!

Ladispoli is an interesting place, it is a very small city compared to Rome, but the missionaries have done good work here, plus it is the home of the translation center for Italy where about 12 people work.  In other words, our ward is STACKED. Elder Dini Ciacci, the stake president I knew in Rome, who is now an area 70 wasn't even at church yesterday.  But there are so many other great people, including Gianni, who I used to know as Anziano Calvagna from this mission, and Dario, who I knew in Rome 1 and is literally the most jaw-droppingly good teacher in lessons that I have ever seen. We are really excited for the ward unity and strength and will be working a LOT with that this transfer.

I'll let you in on our secret plans: obviously, all of us missionaries loved the talks by Elder Andersen and Elder Oaks, but we want to pull a little from President Uchtdorf as well. The reality is that each member in the ward is an Amulek. We need them; we always have.  But in a city of this size and with the plain statistics of who is most likely to stay active, we really are going to be pleading with them to
make missionary work an attitude rather than a program.

Cool analogy: probably my favorite part of our house is the mirror in our study room. Why? Because the way it is positioned, I can only see Anziano Jorgenson –  and Anziano Jorgenson can only see me. What a great model for humility and selflessness.

Super exciting announcement:

WE ARE GETTING BIKES!!!

Love,

Anziano Cannon

I loved our last English group with this crowd. It grew quite a bit 

last transfer.  I would be remiss if I didn't note how many times the

Lord has taken care of me this week, like during our last spiritual

thought where I basically just started going off on something I had

not expected to do, very much grateful for the spirit.

 

 

Sorry.  We received no letter from 10/17 and no explanation why.

Week 69

September 26, 2016

This week Abraham celebrated his first re-birthday: he was baptized one year ago. He is a studly missionary who will just call missionaries' contacts to see how they are doing and anyone he knows who didn't come to church.  He is also very humble. He's 29 and refers to a 40-year-old Nigerian member as "Uncle George". He's really just grateful to everyone who played a role in his conversion.

In other news, I made pizza for the first time this week. I was using expired yeast. Learn from the mistakes of others. The thing about us missionaries is that we always think "well, I don't want this food item, but maybe the next elder will". Do that a couple times and I start finding stuff that went bad in 2014. The yeast, in my defense, had been approved by a senior missionary.

Rose got to lift some spiritual conversion weights this week as she got offered a job on Sunday that she really could use. We are still hoping she will be ready by the 8th! Apparently all of her Pakistani friends were super stoked to come to it so we'll see.

I got to go on a scambio with Anziano Ruiz this week. He kind of defies the description of greenies.  Maybe it has something to do with the work he put into become a state champion track athlete but so far he thinks the mission is too... easy? We had a great time and got sidetracked from going home to lunch by the Spirit helping us to find a new investigator!


Love,
Anziano Cannon

Abraham

Week 68

September 17, 2016

Well I guess I've been transferred! I am no longer serving in Rome 6.  Yesterday, the stake presidency came to join Rome 2 and Rome 6. What had happened is that a year or two ago they had created Rome 6 so they would have enough wards to split the stake. Since then, many families from Rome 6 have moved away, while other units that had been branches have become wards, so the need for Rome 6 no longer existed. Plus, several American families have moved in recently, so we are very blessed to now have Sunday school and third hour in English.

We met with Will this week, unfortunately it was at a bar since he was in a rush. But this guy, who initially wanted us to teach him English, apparently frequented our church with his family for two years in Venezuela before returning to "il mondo Cattolico". We hope well because we aren't sure he ever worked with missionaries while he was there, they may not have had them in his unit.

Thursday we had a mission conference with President Kearon of the Seventy! Elder Sabin was also there. The conference was held in Rome 1, my old church. But I tell people Rome is its own country for a reason. Anziano Jorgenson left early to practice a musical number, but it was quite the miracle that we did an exchange and had me leave later with the other missionaries to help them find the church, as you'll see. I was happy to host the Cagliari elders, among which was Anziano Chugg!  We took a metro ride to centro and then had to switch metros – we saw some companions from Rome 3 on the metro, but there was no room. That came into play later as about halfway through the metro we fit on it broke down. We got off and decided to take a bus (it was pouring rain), but the first bus that came after 15 minutes was too packed to get on. We finally got on another one after 15 more minutes, which was also packed. We then walked the rest of the distance to the church, and got there at 10:15 after nearly three hours of travel. We were supposed to have arrived at 9.

Anyway, they said some incredible things. President Kearon remembered meeting me in February I believe! Crazy stuff. He quoted Elder Holland saying "it takes a great conference to last past Tuesday" in relation to making goals based off spiritual impressions and what we learned from the conference. I certainly did and think we should all apply this with General Conference in a couple weeks.


I guess the biggest news is Rose, who had an obstacle preventing her baptism but she prayed after one of our lessons that she would receive an answer.  The following morning, and at 6 am, she got her answer. Her date is October 8th! She bought a notebook to start taking notes of what she learns in church and from the Book of Mormon.

Love,

Anziano Cannon

Anziano Jorgenson and I try to recreate the picture 

I did with Anziano Saffer several months ago

Week 67

September 12, 2016

My friend Elder Dini Ciacci sent a letter out to be read in church...  On the 25th we are fasting in gratitude that the temple is moving forth at full speed again!!!!! These days I have stopped praying that the temple will be completed but instead that the Saints' hearts will be prepared, because I know that when they are ready, the temple will be too.

President Pickerd is a champ. Even though I'm here in Rome I never see him, but his influence is felt. He "fulfilled the law" in my opinion with the old standards of excellence and made a simple, new one – one baptism per companionship per six-week transfer. It goes right in line with the Europe area plan, which has been called the best in the world for its simplicity. We really are working to get Rose there for October 8th, the last Saturday of the transfer. This week she has been reading every day, and says that her friends have noticed a big difference in her in the past three weeks. She tells them two angels were sent to her.

Yesterday I translated sacrament meeting for about 30 Americans who came on a tour. They are so nice but all I want to do is speak to our members in Italian ha-ha. There are a couple American families who live here whose dads are working on the temple and who are studs. But one thing I forgot since I have been in Italy is how normal American teenage kids are. One thing I love about Italians is that right off the bat you and the youth can be good friends. With the American kids we are going to have to win them over a bit. We'll definitely be using them; there is a strong nucleus of about 30, most of which are new, that are going to an international school here.


Love,
Anziano Cannon


Sorry no pictures... Hint for next week, you'll see a picture of something from the British Isles that is coming here to Rome!

[From President and Sister Pickerd’s blog]

Week 66

September 5, 2016

Next week Rose (new fake name) wants to bring several of her Pakistani friends to church! One of them had asked for an Urdu Bible, but we obviously didn't have one, so we asked if a Book of Mormon would do. She agreed! Mwahaha.

Super cool miracle on Saturday when we met "Jeff" at the park! I thought he was giving us a fake number when he looked up his own number in his phone and said "seven" twice where there was clearly an "eight". But my companion attributed it to English being his second language, and he was right! We were able to meet Jeff again yesterday.  He is a 20-year-old from the Philippines and was so grateful for his Tagalog Book of Mormon.

Sunday we got a new member family from Germany. They had just moved in on Saturday. Apparently he doesn't have a job or anything here, he just felt inspired to move his young family to Italy. I love people who are instantly focused on looking outside themselves and serving others. I believe they are far happier that way. He has already been inviting people to dinner at HIS house, and last night the assistants took an investigator to eat and do a lesson with them.

Anziano Jorgenson defines a miracle as a set of circumstances that is super improbable that shows God has a hand in your work. Regardless of what you think, we believe the chances of Hector, a South American guy, finding an old strip of paper on the ground advertising our English course, should have been pretty small. Nevertheless – It happened! We'd like to start teaching him no soon.


Love,

Anziano Cannon

Zone calcio. That’s my companion on the far left at top.