El Campo - Semana Tres !

28 April 2015

Hola!

woahhhh where to start...

The weird stuff:

• they use frosted flakes, fruit loops, and other cereal type options as toppings for their FROYO?! where are my snickers and mini yogurt chips. sad, i miss Yogurtland!

• We were on a SUPER crowded colectivo (sort of like a mini bus) after a Zone Meeting. I turn around to see a lady breast feeding. With forced composure I turn around to see the horrified face of Elder Preece. haha pobrecito.

• I tried matte. And it´s pretty good if you like the taste of freshly watered grass...so basically, its not that good. but esta bien, Argentinians worship the stuff. if you do, you do.

• POMELO JUICE IS THE BEST THING EVER! Seriously though one of our

  

  Learning how to make fresh pomelo juice

  investigators always makes it for us, and last time I´m pretty sure we drank a whole gallon. Only problem, he doesn't have a bathroom in his house.... ha ha :) so we we sped walked about a mile back to the pension to relieve ourselves. ohhhh the struggles.!!! :)

• Speaking of no indoor plumbing. A lot of people here don't have windows or doors or any furniture besides lawn chairs, HOWEVER...... they do have giant flat screen TVs with cable ?????.....I see where your priorities are ha ha  #fùtbol

• sometimes there are horses just chillin' in the park... weird?! ha ha

Lessons learned & things that occurred this week:

• So in my district (4 elderes 2 hermanas) 3 of the 6 of us are dying within the next two transfers (which means theýre finishing their missions, they´re not actually dying, obviously ! :)) and there´s a good chance I´ll be staying in Barrio Jardìn for a full 6 months, which is A LOT but I do love the people and there´s so much work to be done with the members here, and there is an obvious reason why they don´t white wash missionaries into this area. (white wash= 2 new missionaries as companions to an area)

• Being American both helps and hurts. It helps because people usually think its way cool that I´m from super far away and they´ve been taking pitty on me with my castellano. :)  But after they find out I´m an American they suddenly can´t understand a thing I´m saying. interesante. Hmmmmm ???!

• Sometimes we pass by our investigators and they tell us to come back at 5:00PM, then we come back at 5 and their gates are chained and locked. how rude!! I just walked two miles in honor of YOUR salvation !!! ha ha !  (oh well... at least she's getting good exercise?! ha ha! )

• Hermano José (our landlord) said my handshake was too manly so we spent a solid 10 minutes correcting that. (This funny.... it's probably from all the bar work in gymnastics! )

• I had the opportunity to help a member with her math homework, and it turns out teaching advanced fractions in Spanish is harder than Calculus ever was, which is really hard!

• Found my first COCKROACH, and it was IN THE HOUSE! I know that there´s only more of that to come, sadly. But at least my companion isn´t afraid of any creatures.
• *Okay but the bad part is, is that my companion, Hermana Tapia loves ALL living things, meaning she wont kill any of the bugs, she just lets them outside, so that they can come in at a later time. por queeeeee !!! ughhhhh !!!

• I´ve contracted a patch of mosqito bites around my eye and my skin is not adapting very well to the humidity, so basically I´ve been looking SUPER good everyday!  hehehehe

Spiritual stuff:

Dallan H. Oaks spoke to the Resistencia mission this week, and we were able to watch it and interact conference style, SO COOL! He spoke on how we can better be in tune with the Spirit, letting the Spirit guide us and the lessons, how we can be more open to receiving revelation from Heavenly Father, and the importance of the Sabbath Day! It was wayyyyyyy good, and it was in English with a Spanish translator, which was much appreciated for us newbies. So spiritual and so awesome.

I gave a talk this Sunday in Sacrament meeting. Woo that was scary, but it went way well. I talked about faith and how we can strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ. *Alma 32 was my best resource for sure! Anyways the talk was good, and Hna. Tapia corrected all of my grammar beforehand so that I didn´t sound like an illiterate fool, and afterwards Hna. Amopola asked if I´d make her a copy so she could read it to her (SUPER INACTIVE) family! Yay!!!

None, of our investigators came to church which is really sad, but our less-active members are making SO much progress!

Hna Amopola for one has come every week I´ve been here and she will be receiving a calling this week and Elias and Pablo will have their interviews so that they can receive the Aaronic Priesthood and bless/pass the sacrament!!!!!!!!! Yayyyyyy so much happy!

Also, my testimony continues to grow exponentially everyday I´m out here. This work is truly humbling and amazing, and I am so incredibly blessed to be out here. The Book of Mormon is true, I started at the beginning again at the MTC and I´m slowly but diligently getting through Alma. LOVE IT!!!! The words are so true. I´m so grateful for this gospel, and I can´t imagine not having it in my life, which is why BEING A MISSIONARY IS SO AWESOME because everyone needs to know HOW AWESOME  IT IS!!!!

Lastly,

I got my first hole in my shoe. This makes me feel cool, like I´m an actual missionary :) roughing it out in the field. It´s kind of sad though, because this means I´m probably going to have to buy new shoes already, and it´s only been three weeks. oops! (told her that was just an excuse to go shopping!  ha!)

Oh also, kinda embarrassing, I found out that I´ve been spelling Ciao wrong for the past 2 months ha ha!! it´s actually Chau.

soooo...

love you all! Chau

Hermana Cannon

El Campo Semana Dos !

21 April 2015

Hola!

You know you´re living in a 3rd world country when...the city´s water supply gets shut off, and you have no water for two days. What is the solution to this problem?
1. pray
2. take a bird bath with ´wet ones´ wipes and 

3. go find the nearest neighbor who has a well in their backyard

Okay...so a couple things...sorry about being so scrambled last week, I don´t know if any of my letters made sense or the things that I even said, holy smokes the past 2 weeks have been insane. I still haven´t quite figured out an efficient system in which to spend my 60 stressful minutes online, but I´m definitely beginning to get my bearings. In which case, if I don´t get back to you for a couple weeks it is NOT because you´re not important, because you are, and everyone´s support means so much to me. So keep sending your love and I will eventually send some back your way too!

Something super happy is that...I CAN RECIEVE DEAR ELDERS!!!!!!!! Of course they can´t be the delicious Kripspy Kreme DearElder packages, but they can print them off at the mission office and since my area is super close to the mission office I´ll be receiving mail weekly!!! Woooo! Also, the mailing system here isn't as questionable as we thought. NO POUCH MAIL, NORMAL MAIL!!! In which case, since I only have an hour each week, I would love to reinstate the practice of "snail mail" so that I can spend more time responding (just send to the address on my blog) YAYAY Also, the whole "do not send packages" thing, is also a lie!

So now that I´ve been in the field for over a week I can appropriately evaluate my new world...

• Three words to describe my area:   hot, humid, and a lot of bugs
• Three words to describe Argentina: futbol, siestas, and matte (really though they don´t do much else) *Mom make sure that you´re bleeping stuff out if its inappropriate or offensive
• Fun facts. week old puppies look like naked mole rats

  

  milk in a bag, Frosted Flakes & peanut butter

  
  

  
  

• Argentinian's have their milk in bags or in unrefrigerated boxes (not sure how that works)
• cold showers are not refreshing, they´re just cold
• some minor victories: 
• I can make audible noises with both hands doing the finger snapping thin (if you know what I´m talking about then you know that this is an accomplishment, if you don´t then ask a return missionary), 
• I split an apple with my bare hands!! (I knew all those work outs on the bars would come in handy?!) , and 
• I still have yet to see a cockroach (which even President LaPierre was impressed with that ! :)).

From last week...All of my menos activa (less active) DID end up showing up to church, they were just all late, so that was happy...and then this past Sunday they were ALL on time so, yay good for them! We´re continuing to have a lot of progress with the Barrio Jardin (Jardin Ward), and it´s really great to see the members getting involved with the missionary work as well. I never realized how great an impact the members have in the conversion of investigators. I know I definitely didn´t do my part before.

The past week has been a bit frustrating at times, but definitely manageable as far as the language goes. What I realized is that when I´m having a really hard time I just need to speak some English and eat chocolate, and the world is suddenly a much better place. Last week I got to go on divisions (splits) with a Sister from the states so 24 hours with her was pretty much Q&A about the mission and it lowered my stress levels and moved me from the reddish zone to the green zone. happy :).

I´m honestly 100% grateful for Hna. Tapia, she´s easily the worlds best trainer. I´m learning so much everyday, and I know that because of her, I will be a better missionary.

Spanish and Guarani Book of Mormons... too much to know!

Can´t remember if I got the chance to mention this last week but the 3 languages thing. Very very real. Gratefully, I don´t have to deal with it in my area just yet, but once you go into an area in Paraguay they all just speak a mixture of Guarani, Portuguese, and Spanish. So that´ll be fun. Also, I heard there´s more bugs over there. Bleh. BUT they do have blenders and microwaves in their apts so that´s cool!

I am among the few that are blessed with the amazing opportunity to have

• 3 languages
• 2 countries
• 1 God (our mission slogan trumps all muahahah)

My feet hurt a lot, actually my entire body hurts and I´m ridiculously tired everyday, but it´s actually kind of an awesome feeling when we think about all the mileage and people we´re were able to talk to. This work is AWESOME!

I still haven´t thrown up yet, or gotten sick in any other form which is really great! I´m thinking that can be attributed to my handy dandy water filtration bottle and that the only water that I´ve drank has been that of the tiny sacrament cups (which is obviously unavoidable)

OH MY GOODNESS the rain storms here an INSANE!!!!!!!! That´s about all I can say about that, I haven´t quite found a good way to explain it, yet. Also, because of the amount of rain, and the fact that all the streets are made of dirt there´s A LOT of mud, or barro.

Something funny. The first day it rained hard, and we went outside I came making screeching noises and crying out "BLEHH BORRO, MUCHO BORRO" as my foot sunk into a pile of mud. Hna. Tapia would just stand there and laugh at me...after hours of doing this she finally informed me, that BARRO means mud, and BORRO means Marijuana. So...I was basically I was complaining that there was too much Marijuana. Which, there is a solid amount of Marijuana, but that wasn´t quite what I was going for.  Ha ha !

Well, tata for now. See y´all next week

Ciao!

First Area- Barrio Jardin, Posadas

13 April 2015  Monday

Hola! Reporting from el campo (the field) from a somewhat sketchy ciber (internet cafe) trying to type on this spanish keyboard, which yes is really different. Also, as I´m typing this spell check is marking all of my words as incorrect, and that would be because the spell check is set to read Castellano sooooo lo siento if my spelling is rather terrible.

Anyways, it´s been exactly one week since I left the MTC! Wow...is that all??? Is it bad that I miss the comfort and safety of its walls? Yeah, never thought I´d say that...Don´t get me wrong, being in the field is 100% better, but let´s just say that this very first world Hermana is currently having a very difficult time adjusting to, all of this...and that is all I will say about that for now.

Okay, so flashback one week ago, hna. Walters and I were crying like babies as we left our two compañeras behind. The bus took us to the frontrunner where we took the train up to Salt Lake, and as we rode I had a rather emotional goodbye to my mountains. yes, it was a little emotional and sappy. once we got to our stop we had to transfer to the trax station to


reach the airport. As soon as we stepped off the train there was literally a fleet of missionaries charging the stairs. The level of ANIMO (new word) in the vicinity was incredible. 4 hour plane ride, Atlanta layover, lots of crying and stress with the lack of pay phones to call home, getting to facetime on a members iPad, yeah that was really awesome, and then the 11 hour flight to Buenos Aires. Next, I had to say goodbye to everyone in the Buenos Aires Argentina South (BAS) mission, which meant more tears for me and Hermana Walters. Wooo. And then it was just Elder Bethers and I and the other Hermanas going to Posadas, but saying goodbye to the District family was real real rough. 

Next we took a bus to a domestic airport to head to Posadas! As soon as we passed through security, there was a small gathering of Elders who were on their way home!!! They had nothing but good things to say, obviously, so it was just a good extra motivational umff for the long journey ahead.

We went to our gate to find 10 native speaking Elders who had just come from the Buenos

Aires MTC! They are all so awesome and are going to be great missionaries! Our flight got delayed by an hour so good thing I had UNO!!! The language barrier was too real. they knew ZERO English and I felt like we knew ZERO Spanish, especially when trying to talk to the Elders from Chile. After a short flight we touched down in POSADAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH It is very very humid, my hair is having a pretty good time with it and likes to go into afro mode if I don't get rain on it.

We met President LaPierre (who is awesome) and Mama Lapierre (who is adorable) and our Assistant to the President's (APs). We spent the next two days in the city of Posadas staying in a quaint little hotel (with no bugs) and completed all of our tramites (paperwork, fingerprinting, visas, etc.) On Thursday we got assigned our trainers! My entrenadora is Hna. Tapia. She is from Chile, but speaks with a Castellano accent (still not sure why) and is 32 years old...So we don´t have to much to say to each other...I am her 5th child (the 5th trainee) in the mission, which means she is a pro!!!!

*Kay really though I´ve only been in my area for 5 days and already I can understand casi todos (a little of everything) of every conversation, which is so awesome! I know there´s would be a better way to learn the ways of the mission.

Ahhhhhhh there is so much to say about this past week, I could literally write a novel, oh wait I have been, and my journals are going to be way entertaining to read when I get home.

Okay. So, I´m staying in Posadas for my first area in a area called Barrio Jardin. The people are very humble, as is this lifestyle. There are SO MANY MEMBERS, but most of them are inactive, so that is our primary focus here. It´s really hard, and people are set in their ways but little by little we can already see change in some of the people we´ve been working with.

One of the families is la familia Ledesma. Hna. Amopola, who runs the house, is the matron of her 3 grown son and husband. They´re all members, but Hna. Amopola is the only one who "lives" the gospel, but she hasn´t been attending church for 20 years. Any ways the first day we visited her she did not like me because I told her that I didn´t drink soda and that I wasn´t hungry. bad bad idea. But she kept insisting she feed us and was asking me a question I did not understand at all...finally my companion told me, "she wants to know what kind of food you like with your salt" What kind of question is that? Well, we ended up just having some sandwiches on this heavenly bread, known as MILENESA (it comes close to being better than Pandesal (Emily's favorite bread/roll from the Philippines)!!!) and it was delicious!

So the food situation, and the secret to not getting fat...everyday we eat lunch with a member. 9/10 they stuff us completely full of potatoes, pasta, protein, and pan (yes my favorite food groups). So the rules is that for our other times of eating we eat practically nothing, and it is FORBIDDEN to eat food when we get back to the pension (home). Well, okay it´s not as serious as it sounds, but kind of, because thankfully my companion is just as serious about not having to roll all the way home after the mission is over.

Back to the less active members...so yesterday was my first Sunday!!! And after visiting and encouraging 4 of our menos activa members we waited anxiously for them all to come, but of them all I really wanted Hna. Amopola to come!!!

Me & Hna. Amopola

Anyways sacrament meeting starts and the rumors from the CCM were true, the bishop had all the new missionaries to the ward go up and bare their testimonies. Now let´s just remember that I AM THE ONLY ONE THAT DOESNT SPEAK SPANISH,. Anyways, it turns out that it is just as difficult to share a testimony in Spanish as it is in English. Esta bien...

well i have two minutes left and i haven´t answered any of my emails, so my emails will never be this long ever....most likely....

anywho....serving a mission is hard, but i already knew that it would be so it´s fine...really though every minute of this experience is so incredibly humbling!

Te Amo

Hermana Cannon

Arrived to Posadas!!

7 April 2015

hola familia!!!!!!

just wanted to let you know that i have arrived safely to the mission office of Posadas, Argentina! My Pday will be on Monday, so I will talk to you more then. This place is beautiful and the language isssssss NOT what i learned in the MTC haha but thats okay. 

Español es muy dificil!

te amo, ciao!!

5 More days !!!

1 April 2015

"when there's sumthin strage in yo neighborhood, 
who ya gonna call? THE MISSIONARIES!"

Hola! 5 minutes ago we found a mouse in our room, so after that traumatizing event, I can say that I'm REALLY ready to get out of this place. Too bad there will be far worse things than little 5 inch mice running around in Argentina...

Okay. So I have some good news and some bad news. Everyone always likes to hear bad news first so I'll start with that...Friday afternoon at lunch, after I grabbed my food and made my way over to the district table, I was greeted by 10 anxious looking faces, with expressions resembling someone who had just found out someone had died. Great. Finally, Elder Tobler informs me that everyone received travel plans, except for me. NOOOOOOOOOOOO. It was so hard to hear since I know my Visa cleared, but but hopefully my reassignment won't last longer than a transfer...

Kissing goodbye our boys and the MTC :)

As of right now we have 5 DAYS left in the MTC!!!!!!! WOOOOO It has definitely flown by, but at the same time I kind of feel like I was born here? I can't explain it. We have figured out that after a month, we really started to go crazy. I can't even imagine the "olden" days (aka before the age change) when people would be in here for 9 weeks just to learn Spanish! I think Heavenly Father knows we wouldn't last this place. The nights have gotten weirder and crazier as we more frequently stress eat, accompanied with our slow but steady packing. Also, not too sure how I'm going to pack, since Mom did it the first time.

Anyways, nothing too different about the MTC, besides the fact that cereal has become by far the best meal in this place; breakfast, lunch, and dinner. With the semester (for normal people) coming to an end, the MTC has been progressively getting crazier. I can not imagine being here in the summer.

So, all we've been doing for the past 5 weeks is role-playing lessons, right? None of it is actually real, right? Well, yesterday Hermana Allen and I taught a kick butt lesson. Well, the Spirit taught a kick butt lesson to Miguel (hermano draut) and the feeling and strength of the Spirit was truly captivating. We just walked away saying, "Why doesn't everyone know about this"?!? *Also, if you have time this week read/listen to "Willing to Submit" by Neal A. Maxwell. Soooo goood!

Sunday temple walks have been amazing, since it's been so warm down here. This week was especially wonderful because we didn't have anything scheduled out, so we stayed up there for a couple hours and just enjoyed not being in the MTC. Really though, it was so fun we (district) just hung out and Hermana Bosse was feeding us Disney quotes and we had to guess which movie they were from. She is incredible and can literally do the voices and sing ALL of the songs to all the the movies, even some I've never even heard of.

Me & Sister Jesse Robinson - Park City pride!

Elder Coburn created his own version of Apples to Apples, and since the entire game is in Spanish, we can justify playing as a district for part of language study. It's mostly just extremely entertaining, because he has the most absurd and obscure words in there, along with all of our names. So much fun.

S/O to Jenna and Lisa Peers and the oldest little Peay girl! I saw the Park City Stake representing us real well for Women's conference! It was way fun getting to see their beautiful faces. Also, I get to see my favorite Russian Sister everyday! Having Sister Robinson here has been like having a little piece of home here with me.

On a slightly more disgusting (mom don't share this if it's too gross) note, I finally shaved my legs since...my farewell? So, I made it 2 months? I had no idea my leg hair could even grow that long...Yeah it was a real unfortunate lifestyle and "granola" is definitely NOT for me.

General Conference is this weekend. We will ALL be watching it together in the big gym. This means NO jammies, no crepes, no blanket forts, which is all very very sad, but supposedly it is THE best place to attend conference, besides actually attending conference, so that's pretty cool.

PLOT TWIST!!!!!! Here's the good news...while I didn't get my travel plans at lunch, they came at DINNER :) So I am in fact leaving for ARGENTINA in 5 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm very excited. They've designated me as travel leader of three other girls going to Posadas, and they're all super nice, so I won't "accidentally" leave one of them behind tehehe. Also, the rest of my district that is going to Argentina has the same exact travel plan so it's just going to be one big party!

Oh, I watched this Health and Safety video for in-field training and let's just say I'm slightly terrified I'm not going to make it back alive, but...I'm sure I'll be fine. Here's a couple of things I learned: 

• Monkeys are NOT pets (sad face)
• you can kill e coli at 163 degrees,
• studies show that after 9 hrs of exposure to bugs with no protection people had over 2400 bug bite (awesome), 
• with 30% deet they had 100 bites (better), 
• with permetherin 50 bites (good), 
• AND with deet and permetherin they had 1 bite! Yes, let's do that.  Thank you Mom who packed me some DEET !

Family photo - District 21

Well, this is my last email from the MTC!!!!! I can't believe how much I've already grown spiritually (and physically...can't wait to get away from this food) and all of the adventures that await me down south! I'm going to miss my district family so much, we have grown so close and these are some of the best friends I've ever made. Thank goodness half of them will be at BYU/in Utah after the mission.

AHHHHH 5 MORE DAYS!!!!! Kay bye.

Te Amo, Ciao

Hermana Cannon