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.
