OBERÀ 1

En El Campo Semana 19

Alright, and here is a brief summary of the craziness:

Martes: I had my last Posadas Zone meeting and had to bear my testimony at the end, which I gracefully managed to get through without crying #winning.

I can´t believe how close I have come to be to my fellow missionaries; THE PEOPLE are who make the mission. The missionaries, the members, menos activos, investigators. I´d met so many amazing people over the past 4 1/2 months. Such a crazy feeling it was to pack up for the first time! Really though, leaving the birthplace was a bizarre feeling.

Me & Hna. Rigtrup

Because I was already with Hermana Rigtrup from after we left our companions the day before we decided that we would head out to Oberà that day and get a 2 DAY HEAD START! Uhm, heck yes! So Oberà is about 2 hours by SUPER BUMPY YOU WANT TO PUKE colectivo ride, and well, it is freaking CHUCHI (fancy), in comparison to Jardìn. Anyways, we arrive to a pension that hasn't had electricity for the past week. There´s a back story, but its really not important. Our dueña (landlady) isn't home, isn't answering her phone, we don´t know what to do. Also, we live 30 minutes walking away from our area, our contract ends on the first of September, so we have to figure something out by then. HOLY STRESSFUL! I had a hard enough time finding an apartment back in America, where they speak English. Really though, lots of adult problems were being thrown in my face and it was rather annoying.

Ohh how I miss the comforts from home!

Also, living in the dark freaking stinks. Oh yeah, and the shower doesn´t work #BUCKETSHOWERS (which are actually kind of awesome).

Miercoles: Met the Branch President Antunez and his family! They are so cute, I just love them, especially since she does our laundary and doesnt even make us buy the soap :) Also, their food is manna from heaven. We talked to them for a while about the branch a what we can do to help them...lets just say there is A LOT to do. WHICH IS SO GREAT! It really was crazy though, we were having a super intense conversation about the work here in the area, the Spirit was so strong, and I had no problem as far as the language barrier goes.

Heavenly Father is blessing us big time out here!

Jardin to OBERÁ - Semana 18

Hermana Simmons is leaving ;(

Na na na na na na Another one bites the dust! And today we mourn the death of Hermana 

Simmons...oh man what a wild ride this past transfer has been. So long but so fast at the same time. Im so blessed to have been with Hna even if it was for only one cambio. Now I truly understand why everyone is lifelong friends with their ole mission buddies. So incredibly stoked for our reunion at BYU next year :) 

In the mean time...GUESS WHATTTTTTTTTT?!?!?!?!?!? I AM GOING TO BE A MOM!!!!! Well, a step-mom, but I actually I realized its a pretty sweet deal because I get to do the training for the 2nd half, the less painful part of the training. Annnddddd mi hija es Hna. Rigtrup, who I was on divisions

with last week! I am so freaking excited I cant even contain myself!!!! Since both of our companions are dying, and they were going to put us together until transfers anyways, we get to head to the new area tomorrow!!!!! VAMOS POR OBERÁ!!!!!!!!!!! Its about an hour out of Posadas, in the Garupá zone! And E. Preece is going to be my zone leader again, so itll be nice to have a couple of fimiliar things as we start the next part of the adventure.

Oh yeah so here's a secret that I can now reveal...So we've been pretty miserable because our area has been seeing ZERO progress and we have hardly been teaching at all for the past 2 weeks. Which if there is any way to kill a missionaries desire to work, its by not letting them share the gospel. Anywho we have been working with President a lot and with our Zone Leaders, literally doing anything we could to find people. And after much exhausted effort we found out last week that they would probably be white washing the area. So I started packing. Then yesterday during Hermanas interview President said it was for sure. So I finished packing. So now I don't have to pack and we are just going to be RUNNINGGG to Oberá. Also our shower and fridge don't work anymore; good thing we are ditching that popsicle stand. Muahahah

 Oh my gosh I'm so excited right now I literally cant remember the other stuff I was going to talk about today...

DUOMO ice cream combination: Dulce de Leche con Bananas y Chocolate Brownie. yes, it is just as good as it sounds.

Something I invented: Shake cakes...Pancakes but you use melted ice cream in place of the leche y azucar. yes, I just made it a thing, and it is ridiculously good.

uhmm okay lets get real deep and sensitive here for a quick second...so sometimes I think about how I am one in billions of Heavenly Fathers children, or even one in thousands of missionaries, and I cant help but think how small and insignificant I must be. BUT then I think about where my life was a year ago, even 5 months ago, and I feel like it is truly a miracle that I managed to get myself here. Deciding to serve a mission is to this day, the hardest decision I have ever made, but it has been the best and one of the most important that I will ever make. These experiences are changing my life. The highest of highs verify that this Gospel is true and full of happiness and light, but it truly is the lowest of lows, the moments past 10:30 when Im still down on my knees that I can feel without a doubt that all of this is real. I testify that we have a Heavenly Father and a Savoir who love us all consumingly and that THIS Gospel is the ONLY way.

ahhh thank you for your letter, emails, all of your love!

Les Quiero mucho!!!!

Chauchau

Hermana Cannon

Barrio Jardin 17

Aright just a few things about home...I´m recovering, but still so incredibly jealous about the Disney Cruise to the Caribbean and going to Harry Potter World; thank you for enjoying two of my most favorite things WITHOUT ME! Yes, I´m fine, only a little bitter tehehe

Congrats to the future Hermanas STARLEY and WAGNER on their mission calls down here in El Sur! Uruguay and Perù will be so blessed to have you lovely ladies

Okay okay so last P-day was PUURRRFECTT! I´m sure I´ve said this before, but last week was awesome because we got all of our stuff done super fast, came home, got permission to wear NORMAL CLOTHES and went and messed around at the park by our pension! It was so great and the first really nice day we´ve had all transfer.

 

P-Day at the park

Wednesday I got to leave Posadas for the first time!!!! Hna Simmons and I had divisiones in ITUZAINGÒ for the day which was super fun! Its a little beach town about an hour from here and sooooooo pretty. the entire place is in sand though, so i'm still cleaning that out of my clothes haha but it was so much fun! I was with Hna Hartley all day, and she looks sooooo much like...miss Kyleigh Greenlief!!!!! so that was super funny. But yeah I got to meet some of their awesome investigators and it was relly cool to see the gospel really flourishing in other parts of our mission.

OH MY GOSH I have found the WORLDS BEST ALFAHOR!!!!! yes. yes. yes. I have come to the personal decision that it is in fact the Milka, Torta, Oreo Alfahor that has won my heart. They dont exist in America obvisouly, but dont worry I´ll probably come home with a case of them haha

Worlds best Alfahor !! :-)

My Bible reading in the Old Testament is still going strong, finally almost finished with Genesis! But earlier this week I was reading about Joseph!!! (which was awesome because we´re obsessed with the soundtrack) And I was reading about Potiphar´s wife being her usual floozy self and decided to do a study on Gen 39:9 and temptation, which actually turned out super good...

So from Gen 39:9 I went to Proverbs 14:6 which talks about how the wise man avoids temptation and the foolish man is confident that he can resist the sin...in which case more times than not he will succumb to the powers of the adversary because Satan is just a really sneaky guy. Then Hna Simmons coincidentally was studying temptation too and we read the Alma 50-53 war chapters. Entonces...this is how you deal with temptation:

1. Avoid - we know how weaknesses, don't be the foolish man...
2. Prepare - we can keep ourselves mentally, physically, SPIRITUALLY prepared
3. Resist - sometimes you cant avoid or prepare and temptation is just going to come flying at you and all you can do is pray for extra strength
4. ATTACKKKK - I love D&C 10:5 for this part "pray always that you may come off the conqueror"

Heavenly Father needs to test us BUT he wants us to succeed so we can ask for his help, he wants us to ask for his help, his strength so that we might win the battle. James 1:12 say how we will be blessed for resisting temptation. Yes, we will be blessed for being obedient and keeping the commandments BUT I feel like its when the stakes are high, when the temptation is strong, and we STILL come off conquering is when we are truly blessed for our enduring faithfullness.

But yeah I love me time for personal study, honestly the work is so hard and boring and somewhat depressing BUT personal study really does give me the spiritual fuel I need to get me through the week, and there is ALWAYS so much to learn and every moment is truly perfecting our faith! YAY I LOVE THE SCRIPTURES! :)

Lets seee....nothing too special actually happened in this week. it was really rather a hard week, and basically I´m just very very grateful that I have such an amazing and supportive President and Zone Leaders. Seriously these worthy preisthood holders are my rock! and the Savior of course

The days are nearing for the death of Hna. Simmons, so we all know what that means...TRUNKY TALK!!!!! yeah...lots of that...he he he :/ but its fine because I still love her and I love being a missionary!!!!

Speaking of dying missionaries...guess who is in IGUAZU, without me!!!!! Yes yes it happened again. I was again not invited to the party. But its actually okay because eventually I will get to go...hopefully...haha 3rd times the charm???

So yeah Im on divisions again for the next two days while Hna is at Iguazu and consejo and I have Hna Rigtrup and Woodwell staying with me in Jardìn. And they´re both newbies!!!! So I get to pretend to be a Mom for two whole days! :) I just keep telling myself that maybe its because I need to practice for this upcoming cambio? ¿Quizas? ¿Por Favor? he he really though I have some big dreams for this next transfer, but I wont share them because then they wont come true. Also, whatever happens happens and I´ll be fine with whatever.

love love love you all im so very out of time! till next week!

chauchau

Hermana Cannon

Barrio Jardin 16

27 July 2015

Alright, I´m going to try to keep this short because I actually have a lot of email and birthday responses to reply to, and I´m bragging about this because I truly am grateful that people haven´t forgotten about me :) so blessed!!!!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

So basically we started off our birthday festivities real well with being OVERFED from Sunday till Tuesday, I have not eaten so much food in my life. P-day was its normal problem and I was justifying just about everything since I had just one more day to be an irresponsible teenager, which meant: eating half a liter of multi flavored ice cream...unassisted. And then familia Balbuena were just the most amazing people ever and Hna B made homemade ravioli SOOOOOO GOOOOODDDD and her peach cake SOOOOOO FREAKKINGGG GOOOD and then after lunch she gave us the leftovers to take home...he he he so what ended up happening was Hna Simmons and I hard core repenting for over eating and breaking the Palabra de Sabiduria. This repentance process took in the form of cancelling all of our member lunches and us getting permission to go on the...Eat Your Heart Out Diet. For diet novices it goes a little like this:

Day1 - frutas

Day2 - verduras

Day3 - frutas y verduras

Day4 - 8 bananas y 8 vasos de leche
Day5 - pollo y 6 tomates

Day6 - pollo y verduras

Day7 - sopa de milagros

Anywhoo we totally did it...until this morning when Hna felt like she was going to pass out before exercises and I was just sad, so I ate some dried fruit. But the fact that our form of "craving" was in oatmeal and dried fruit instead of ice cream and cookies, I would say is a sign of full repentance. But basically the diet is doable and totally works, but highly unadvisable for the mission field. Ha worst week ever!!!! Actually not really, now I feel awesome, but in the moment it was definitely a form of slow torture...

We had interviews with President on Friday, which was amazing because he is just so full of wisdom. And while waiting we were talking to Hna LaPierre and were on the subject of pranking. The Elders were confessing all of their juvenile delinquencies and Hna LaPierre was talking about how she short sheets their bed every once in a while to keep President on his toes hahaha they are adorable.

Read two super capo articles in the Liahona this week the first one was about the blessing of journal writing:

-written family record

-clearer, richer memory of the past

-practical method for setting goals

-therapeutic means of solving emotional, social, and spiritual issues (personal favorite)

-improved writing skills

-many righteous desires will be fulfilled

and the second is called, "Our Divine Heritage" which talked a lot about discovering who we are and our true potential. It is so crazy to think that Heavenly Father has a plan for EACHAND EVERY ONE OF US!!!! Sometimes when I think of the billions of children on the earth or even the thousands of children in his army serving missions right now, I can´t help but think how insignificant I must be. BUT, that's so not true, because God loves ALL OF US and answers ALL OF OUR PRAYERS. I know this is true and the more I learn about him and teach these people about the true nature of God, the Spirit is truly undeniable.

Basics in opening a can with a knife & pan

Well...that's about all for this week. Oh wait FUN FACT: did you know you can open a can with a knife and a frying pan?? and also  I ate something really nasty the other night called, REVIRO. Its just fried flour and then they put a fried egg on top (which actually helped) and then they put SQUID on the side....what??? that is not food...

Speaking of food, Hna and I had to make a new rule that we couldn't talk about food from home. This was greatly needed after our 20 minute discussion of the different types of Krispy Kreme donuts...I definitely felt some tears coming on. I think I´ve gotten to that point where I miss the things of America more than the people. EXEPT YOU MOM, DAD, and GEORGIE!!!!!!! haha just kidding I really do miss everyone! Thanks again for all of the birthday love!
20 is going to be my best year yet.

les qiero mucho!!!!!

Chauuu

Hermana Cannon