Barrio Jardin 15 Happy birthday to Me Week !

20 July 2015

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WEEK TO MEEEEEE!!!!

Birthday Mail  :-)

Yeah okay, so I have less than 24 hours until I´m no longer a teenager and I start the glorious adventure that is my 20s´ahhhhhhhhh freaking outttttttt. But yeah, something that´s super cool about my birthday is that it really does fall on our birth week. Allow me to explain...

• my 20th year starts TOMORROW
• my 6th month starts on Sabado
• and Hermana Simmons'  16th month starts on Domingo...

So basically its going to be an awesome week, and we are really quite excited !

Okay so let´s back up to the conclusion of last weeks Pday...we get home, chill, do nothing, it was awesome. With 15 minutes left it begins to rain...hard. and then harder and harder and then the thunder comes and then HOLY SMOKES LIGHTENING STORM!!!!!! Yeah, so the lightening was going about every 1.5 seconds and we were super scared to leave the pension. but we were struggling between the decision of risking our lives and wimping out and calling the zone leaders to see if we could wait it out...yeah we chickened out, called them, and turns out they were hiding in their pension too! haha so yeah we waited out the storm, and then ended up waiting the whole night...we guiltily had SO MUCH FUN listening to music, making food, and lots of story-telling. Lots of really good companionship unity haha!

Wednesday we had divisions and Hna. Fox (newbie) came to Jardìn for the day! She is so awesome and we had so much fun, and I got to try my hand at being senior companion. Yeah, when you have a companion that has 3 weeks in the mission instead of 15 months in the mission, you speak a lot more Spanish...haha it was good and for the most part I think everyone understood what I was saying.

Friday we had THE WORST LUNCH EVER! Really though, I have been so incredibly blessed in this ward, we eat really good food usually. But oh my goodness it was so gross...the rice, bean, liver concoction not only smelled unpleasant but it looked like the classic cartoon cafeteria scene, where the grumpy lunch lady plops a large helping of brown goo on your plate...yeah, not good. After, we went to the pananderia and bought our stomachs some pity food.

Hna. confessed that she is actually SUPER trunky but has been trying to protect me. I just kind of laughed it off, but then she kind of exploded and we got super trunky...we talked A LOT about BYU and classes, being social, dating, etc. and after it was all over I felt very very grateful that I don't have to worry about any of that for a really long time...

So everyday I´ve been reading a chapter in the Bible, because I have never really read it right? Yeah, its kind of really weird and I don't really understand how people have problems with the Book of Mormon, but whatever. Anyways, I was reading in Genesis 24 where the servant of Abraham goes off to find a wife for Isaac. He goes to the well, prays that whoever gives him and his camels water will be the girl! And then walks out Rebekah!! So basically we have a code now for how to determine if "he´s the one": with the CAMEL DRINKING SIGN!!!! Don't worry this is all hypothetical of course, because we dont think about boys during the mission :)

Lastly, some crazy things to share from the Sabbath. We left before church to go look for one of our Menos Activos, Marina. We get to her house and she comes to the door, butttttt her sister had left earlier that morning with the keys to the gate meaning...SHE WAS LOCKED IN HER OWN HOUSE! :( It was really sad because she was all dressed and ready to go. Now its just kind of hilarious, because only in Argentina would you ever have that problem...

Get to church, Valeria didn't come. NOOOOOO seriously we were super bummed because she totally loved it last week and she had been saying how excited she was to come again, and everyone was asking where she was. So yeah, that was disappointing. After sacrament meeting we gracefully sprint to the bathroom, because Hna. Simmons was about to have an accident, and when we come out we are greeted by Claudio.

Quick backstory about Claudio: 2 weeks ago we were out contacting, when we see this guy sitting on the swings. He doesn't say anything but just stares at us as we walk by. I turn to Hna and tell her that the guy totally wants a tarjeta, she just rolls her eyes and mumbles, "Snake".

Snake= just about every guy in Argentina that cat calls us, and is only interested in saying inappropriate things to us. Blehhhh

Anyways, then the guy starts to follow us and I look back and say, "okay that guy is either a super snake orrrr he really wants a tarjeta" so we go back give him a card, leave, nothing special. BUT OH WAIT....then he came to church??? All by himself, and stayed the whole time, and is already making friends, and sometimes Heavenly Father is really nice and blesses us with miracles that we have nothing to do with!!!! it was so awesome!

I wore one of my kinda bigger necklaces for the first time, and everyone told me I looked really pretty, which was so nice of them, but that I should probably take my necklace off because I was going to get robbed. oh bueno.

Snickers !!

We commenced the beginning of our birth week festivities with a delicious banana pancake brunch. I even broke out the peanut butter.

ohhhhh quick note. so the toilet paper really sucks out here. Its like thinner than tissue paper. Yes, normally this is rather unnoteworthy BUT last week we accidentally bought paper towels instead and you know what? 100% better and the same price.

haha welp thats about it for this week!!!! thank you for all of the emails, and for everyone thats been keeping me in the loop! S/O to Elì, who has been keeping me updated on all the summer wedding action. Thank you for all the pictures WHY ARE MY FRIENDS SO GORGEOUS???? So so blessed. And then you for the letters, snail mail is always such a gift :)

love love love you all have a great week!

Chauuuu

Hermana Cannon

Barrio Jardin 14

July 13, 2015

Holaaaa :) Oh my goodness this week was so hard, spiritual, and really AWESOME and here is why...

So it was really hard because: well I´m on a mission hahaha yeah that´s the obvious one, it rained alllllllll weeeeeeekkkkkkkk and no one likes to come out of their house and talk to us when its raining, which is super lame. Also, definitely almost got struck by lightening, I SWEAR IT WAS SO CLOSE THE EARTH WAS SHAKING!! so yeah. Also, we had "charla francas" with all of our investigators because no one had been progressing or doing anything really (charla franca= dropping cane and upfront asking people if they want to start doing things to change their life and be happy) hahaha so after doing that...we had no investigators...whoops. It was definitely for the best though, because then we new we really had to start finding new people. And new people means...CONTACTING PARTY!!!! Oh my goodness we contacted sooooooo muchhhhh and you what??? Now I hate it a little less :) Spanish has been really hard this week because since Hna. Simmons is American obviously we speak almost only English together, which is bad, because I still DONT SPEAK SPANISH! But we ended up making a rule about ONLY being able to use Spanish if we are outside of the pension (unless we´re telling stories about our past lives...then all the rules have been going out the window hah) We are two gringas that don´t know how to cook and love Pananderias...so...yeah...we are in the repentance process for our disobedience to the Palabra de Sabiduria (Word of Wisdom)

It was super SPIRITUAL because...we had ZERO investigators right? So we decided to spend the day "following" the Spirit. There are quotes on that because we confessed to each other that we had yet to experience "street guidance" yet. So that was interesting...yeah we still haven´t mastered that one yet. But this week we are working on virtue. When we are virtuous the Holy Ghost will want to dwell within us sooooo MAYBE THATS THE KEY!!! But really, so this week I´ve been doing my best to push away the remnants of Top20 song lyrics out of my thoughts and replace them with scripture mastery and church hymns WOOOOO. It is a work in progress hah. Oh so back to the ZERO INVESTIGATORS thing...So we get to Friday, its still raining, we know we have another day of mostly contacting ahead and we decide that we are going to have someone in the capilla on Sunday sì o sì (no option) At about 5pm we are in the middle of torrential downpour, clap a house, Valeria comes out, we give her a card, write her number down, and leave. Saturday we start fasting (now I´m not bragging, because in 3Ne something it talks about how bragging about fasting is bad) because the week has been as pleasant as cow stomach, and we had SO MANY LESSONS on Saturday! And then we went back and had a lesson with Valeria, and invited her to Church. We only taught her a little bit but she was super receptive to everything we were saying and said that she did want to change her relationship with God, and SHE PRAYED (which is a big deal). Went back to her house in the morning and she was ready to go!!! Church was AWESOME!!!!!! Really funny though because since she's 18, we accompanied her to the adultos solteros class, which felt really illegal even though hna and I are single, and adults...yeah it was just weird. But she left Church so happy and smiling and we have another lesson with her today! YEAY FASTING IS TOTALLY A THING!!!!!!!! I already knew that, but its always nice to have your testimony strengthened :)

And lastly it was AWESOME because...I LOVE HNA SIMMONS and we are like actually friends!!! It really is so much fun and she's such a hard worker, and is helping me to be a stronger missionary, I really do feel so blessed to have her this transfer. We laugh so much which is something I realized I was definitely lacking. We decided that our life could easily be a reality TV show se llama, "GRINGAS IN SOUTH AMERICA". Oh yeah HNA got bit by a dog! She's fine though, she was actually really happy about it so that she could say she got bit before she got home haha and oh I totally had an "adventures in babysitting" moment...at a members house, I think I see a bunny, pick up the bunny, bunnies don't have RED EYES, scream...it was a rat. "that's not a cat miss that's a sewer rat", goodness I do miss that movie, ohhh brenda....oh speaking of movies last night we were teaching a menos activo and HANNA was totally playing on the TV, then I spent a good 5 minutes of the lesson distracted by my memories of how disturbing that movie was.

Is this happening everywhere, or just here? Fashionnnn Yikesss!

So basically it was a good, long, hard week just like normal. I´m learning that through EXACT OBEDIENCE Heavenly Father will show us the way to his lost sheep. I know that if I´m not obedient he isn't going to trust me to teach them...We don't have that many people still, but I KNOW that there are people here. The field is WHITE!!!! And I´m positive that if we continue to be diligent we will see the fruit of our labors...or someone else will. Egual no màs :)

Kay I´m going to go eat SUBWAYYYYYYYY now!!!!!!!! Yeah! They just put in a subway!!! It´s like $12 though so I might shed a couple tears, but the Elders said it tastes just like America. "Whatever happened to land of the free, home of the 5 dollar foot long"?! - Elder Ollerton

 

love you all thank you for all of your emails!!!!!!!!!!!!

Les quiero muchoooooooo

Chau Chau

Hermana Cannon

Barrio Jardin 13

6 July 2015

HAPPY 4th OF JULY!!!!!!!!

On Saturday we celebrated our beloved Independence day by wearing red, white, and blue. Then later, we had to cover up our red, because people were accusing us of supporting Chile in the COPA AMERICA partido contra Argentina that was that night. hehehe. Yeah Argentina lost, so that was a let down.

Got 2 packages from DAD!!!!! But, of course I'm saving them till the 21st! :) *cough my birthday cough*



Ice Cream night with the trio

Last Monday-Thursday I was in a trio with Hna Garcia and Hna. Johnson while we waited for cambios to go into effect. Hna Johnson was preparing to head up to Ciudad del Este and Hna Garcia was waiting for her second daughter to arrive from America! It was pretty fun, but its kinda hard to teach lessons with 3 people.

They helped me clean out the pension before Hna. Simmons arrived which was good, because well...it was really bad...and thats all I will share about that...

So thursday morning finally came and we all headed over to the terminal and everyone was either waiting to leave to go to Paraguay or waiting to reciever a comp from Paraguay. It was so awesome because I got to say goodbye to some of my favorite people, meet new people, and run into HNA JACKMAN, who brought me PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!!!!! it was a very good day

Oh yeah, so I´m NOT in TRAINING anymore!!!!!! Still dont really know what Im doing, but that okay, because Hna. Simmons is suppppperrrrrr old on the mission. THANK GOODNESS the rumors were true, HERMANA SIMMONS IS FABULOUS!!!!  Some fun facts about Hna. Simmons: she is one of 6 kids, from Meridian, ID, went to BYU before the mish and was studying English teaching, she loves to read, her favorite food is ice cream and.....she's all together just really great, and now I´m a really happy missionary. The only

Me & Hermana Simmons

bad news is...SHES DYING THIS TRANSFER!!!!! Yep. We were at Church on Sunday and everyone was meeting Hna, and when E. Villarroel (de Buenos Aires) found our that she dies this traslado, he just looked at me and micheviously said, "sister killer". thank you.

Nah, its really okay though because Hna. S really is great! And she still has soooooo much energy and together we have set some pretty good goals and dreams that we are going to accomplish during these 6 weeks and I´m so excited!

The Elders finally brought us their extra calefactor for our pension so we don't have to sleep with like 8 layers of clothes anymore, which is really great and then we found ANOTHER calefactor hiding next to the fridge, oops! hehe. So now we have two :)

Lastly, we have a new Elder in our Zone who just came in from an area in Paraguay and I found out that before his mission he was a personal trainer. Entonces...we´re all supposed to come to zone meeting with questions and goals that we have and he will be making custom diet and exercise plans for everyone. WHAT?!? yeah so with that and the fact that I have another dying comp that doesn't want to go home fat, I will be taking real good care of myself this transfer, hopefully :)

That's all for this week, nothing too scary, gross, or hilarious to note. As useful I'm so so so grateful for every day that I have here in the mission. This work is real and I'm so blessed to see the hand of God change the lives of these people and mine every day!!! Love love love you all!!! Have a good week!

 

Te Quiero,

Chau.

Hermana Cannon

Semana 12

Today we mourn the death of my companion, Hna. Tapia, and 20 other honorable missionaries. We thank them for their services as they depart this life and cross over into the next!!!!! Crazy!!!! But yeah, all packed and ready to go, I cant believe the day is here. Really though, I have no doubt in my mind that Hna. Tapia was exactly who I needed as my entrenadora. Through the good and the bad times, oh my goodness I have learned so much, and I´m grateful for EVERY MOMENT! yes, every moment.

Okay okay okay soooooooooo IM DONE WITH TRAINING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and I´m staying in JARDÌN WOOHOO and my Zone Leaders are staying!!!!!!!!!! and I heard my new comp, Hna. Simmons, IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woah. So who wants to hear about my crazy week??? So much happened I don't even know where to start.

Oh right. So I don't actually want to come home, and when ever I´ve said in the past that I 

 want to come home I don't actually mean it, I just mean that its hard. So thank you Dad, but you don't need to buy me my plane ticket from Buenos Aires...yet :) hehe just kidding there's NO WAY I´m coming home.

So this past week we focused on the Christ-like attribute of "La Caridad" or Charity and had voiced to Hna. about my past issues that I have with sharing things, especially when it comes to food. Anyways so I´ve been praying really hard to be filled with the pure love of Christ, and for opportunities to practice charity. Then we go to zone meeting and the office elders had A PACKAGE FOR ME!!!!! It was from Dad and I was so excited I ripped it open and the first thing I found? DRIED MANGO!!!! I started jumping up and down and naturally all heads turned and I am pretty sure a few mouths started to water. And then all of a sudden I was sharing and then all of a sudden they were all gone and I had only had one. I left the happy little crowd to dispose of the waste and cried a little inside at the loss of my precious American treasure, but OH it was SO WORTH it to see the expression on everyone's faces, so it was good.

Once content I proceeded to rummage through my box again, and what do I find? ANOTHER BAG OF MANGOS! LA CARIDAD! This might have been kind of a dumb story, but Mom, aren't you proud of me? Sharing my food? Growing up??

Let´s see...I finally read "The Fourth Missionary". I had heard from multiple people that this talk was amazing and well...they were correct. Is it possible for a talk to change your life? Well, I think it is. I wont go into detail because there are too many good things about it, but just know that ALL MISSIONARIES NEED TO READ THIS TALK AND DO WHAT IT SAYS! Yes, that is all.

This week was really plentiful as far as receiving mail goes, so that was happy! FINALLY got your letter Mom! And it was awesome! And I received it, it looks like, in under a month so that´s not too bad!  Dad your letters were fantastic! I greatly enjoyed the articles about the benefits of cold showers, at least they´re good for me right? And the article about Taylor Swift!!!! Ahhh my hero!!! It was awesome, but kind of made me super bummed about missing the concert in September, but that's okay. I love how she said how this has been her "favorite year" so far. 22 days till mi cumpleaños annnddddd kinda freaking out about turning 20, so knowing that Taylor Swift is still loving life at 24? provided some comfort haha. ALSO, I found out the my favorite old lady of the ward, Hna. Innocencia, and I have  the SAME BIRTHDAY!!!! So we will be celebrating with cake later this month! :)



Me and Hermana Innocencia - birthday buddies

Ahhhhh Im running out of time so here are some other awesome and not awesome things:

finally had Noche de Hogar with obispo, and it was super awesome, because all six of us Jardìn missionaries were there and we got to spend time with their family and I think our relationship with them will be much stronger!!! It was really funny though because we all didn't get home till 10:30, but we were with the bishop and our leaders soooo...yeah

Friday I started feeling SOOOO SICKKKK but we called the Nurse and she told us to keep working, so yeah, but then then lady that owns our pension was a nurse and she took a look at my throat. STREP! Entonces...antibiotics and contagious for 24 hours we couldn't leave the pension. I memorized a lot of scriptures.

We had 2 investigators at church!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the meetings were perfect because E. Thornton, Hna. Tapia, and Presidente LaPierre all spoke so it was AWESOME AND SO SPIRITUAL. bad part: they live superrrrrr far away and we had to walk super slow because Maria was carrying her baby and we had to walk with little Juan Gabriel. We were 20 minutes late and missed the Santa Cena!!!!!!!! SO BADDDDD.

Ehmmmm i know that there was more I wanted to say, but I cant remember and theres no time. So basically, all is well, i'm staying in Jardìn, God is good and is blessing us with trials and miracles and it is truly a privilege to be here! I love you all thank you for your love and your letters! Have a good week!

Te querio!!! CHAUUUU :)

Hermana Cannon'