Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Bit of an interesting week. Holidays as missionaries are just weird because the world around us just stops for Thanksgiving, yet we don't. Thanksgiving was good though. We went to two dinners that day. Oh my word, I was so full! I couldn't sit down for about 20 minutes after I ate the second dinner. There was also a Turkey Bowl that morning. That was fun! There was our branch and another ward that showed up. The team I was on lost, but it was still fun! 

There is this one kid who we have been teaching who is awesome! He is nine years old. His dad is a member and he wants him now to be baptized. Yesterday was the first time that he was able to attend all three hours of church since he has moved into the branch. He loved it! There were a good amount of people that he knew from school and was able to make friends really quickly. It is really cool to see someone who is so excited about this gospel and to be baptized. It is also interesting to see someone so young be so excited about it. It has been a real testimony builder of how this gospel can really help anyone.

I am sorry that my letters keep getting shorter. I guess I need to do better at recording the things that happen. 

Anyways,

I love you all, Thank you so much for your faith in me! I am very grateful for this opportunity. 

Elder Hayden Cannon 

I didn't get hit by a car this week!!! Yay!!!! Still a good week for other reasons though...

This was a pretty good week. It started right off with an exchange on Tuesday with the new Zone Leader, Elder McKay. He and I were in Crittenden, so I was leading the area for that day. That was an especially interesting day because of one of our appointments. Elder Woffinden and I ran into a man at the store one day and we started talking about religion. We then set up an appointment with him at a later time. Tuesday happened to be the day that we were meeting with him, in a Starbucks that is a part of the local Kroger store (I know, it is ironic). We were excited to meet with him because he was already a religious person and we thought that we would be able enlighten him with the restored gospel. Not very far into us meeting with him, he was really just interested in Bible Bashing. This guy knew his Bible! I am really glad Elder McKay is there because there is no way that I would have been able to combat what was going on. At one point, this random guy walked up to our table, looked at us and said, "He's right, you're wrong. He can really help you." He then just walked away. We tried our best to do what we can for this man, but there really wasn't anything that we could do. We left him with the commitment to pray and ask Heavenly Father if there could be a possibility of a prophet being here on the earth today. He informed us that he doesn't believe that there could be prophet on the earth today. We told him all he has to do is ask, all Heavenly Father will do is answer him yes or no. He reluctantly accepted the commitment. The next morning we got a call from him saying that he would like to meet with us again but with a few more people with him, but we didn't actually set something up. He also told us that he "can't pray that prayer because that would be denying Christ." We wont be meeting with him again, but I did really enjoy this experience. Even among all this negativity toward the LDS Church and what we believe, my faith and my testimony grew stronger. I highly doubt that the man felt the spirit in our conversation, but I know I did. I felt the spirit telling me "No matter what this guy says, you are right and you know it!" I am grateful for that experience because it showed me how the world's mind is being clouded to the truth, but we have the truth and all of it! It was an experience that I wasn't really sure what to do, but I stand firm in my belief! 

This week there was also a mission tour. We had Elder Bennett come speak to us. He gave a talk this last conference, which was really good, but I have to say that the mission tour was better. There were some really great things in that entire (day long) meeting. There was a lot of talk of being consecrated. Elder Bennett broke down the word for us. Con means completely or all, secrate means sacred or holy. So in order to be consecrated, we need to be completely sacred and all holy. Something that President Porter also said about being consecrated is that "We are on the verge of what can be." There is something that is keeping all of us from being consecrated and keeping us from what can be. Our job to find out what it is that is keeping us from being consecrated and the things that can be. Another quote came to my head right after that. The quote is by Shakespeare, "What e're thou art, act well thy part." I am a missionary, I am a representative of Christ and I need to act like it. I am not doing a bad job at that, far from it in my opinion, but there are still things that I can be doing to be a better missionary, a better representative of Christ, and to be more consecrated. This is what I now have to work on and I am excited to dive head first into it. I know that I can do it with Heavenly Father's and Jesus Christ's help, they have helped me before, and they will do it again and they will help me tenfold if I need and ask for it. 

I am so grateful to be here to help myself be better in every way but more importantly to serve the children of God, my brothers and sisters, who need this gospel. 

Thank you, I love you,

Elder Hayden Cannon

Bit of a "Meh" week.

This hasn't been the best week, I will admit. I don't really know why, I just have had a dip in my mood. Luckily, I know that I can move past it because that just what tends to happen with me and feelings like this.

Tuesday was a day that I was feeling particularly "blah." Before Elder Woffinden and I went out, something just felt off and I don't know what. It was a similar feeling when I felt like there was some sort of homework that I was forgetting to do. We finally went out and started working. That day we were riding our bikes. As we were coming back to the apartment for dinner, we passed by an intersection. A car pulled into the walk way of the intersection where I was riding my bike, but the woman driving started backing up so I thought she was backing out so that I could go, she wasn't. I started going and pulled out in front of her right as she started going and then she hit me... I came out completely uninjured, but that was a rattling experience. She got out to make sure I was ok, once she knew that she left. I wasn't really sure what to do, so I let her leave. It wasn't until she was pulling away that I realized that the wheel on my bike now was bent, making it so I wasn't able to ride the bike. So now I had to carry the bike back to the apartment. As the day went on, I kept saying, "I was just hit by a car..." I wasn't sure how to react to that. I was never expecting to be hit by a car on my mission, but I guess now I can add a new box on my check list and then check it off. Later, thinking about how I was feeling in the morning I thought to myself "Did Heavenly Father just try to literally knock that feeling out of me?" I don't know what the intention was of that happening, but it did.

A scripture that I found that has helped me. 3 Nephi 5:13 - "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life."

This mission is not about me or how I feel, while yes, there are things that I can benefit from, but shouldn't be what I am focusing on. I am here so that the people in Crittenden, Kentucky might have everlasting life.

Thank you, I love you,

Elder Hayden Cannon

Well, luckily he looks ok. I'm sure Divine Intervention played a roll. 

"God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy" - OCM Zone Conference

Hello Everyone!!!

I found something that I wanted to share with you from zone conference, "God is easily pleased, but hard to satisfy." God is pleased with all of the good that we do, but he will not be satisfied until we become like him. I like this because it gives us gratification for the things that we are doing and also gives us something to continually work on throughout our lives.

This week has been pretty good! We have some investigators that are doing really well. There is one couple that are really enjoying us coming over and learning more about the gospel. Their current road blocks is that they are not married and that the boyfriend smokes. We taught him about the word of wisdom on Saturday and he seemed really enthusiastic about quitting. It was really cool to see the spirit working in him! He and his girlfriend are on date for the 28 of November! I know that they will be able to make it there! 

Now that the transfer is over (I am not being transferred, by the way) we set a goal for the next transfer. The District leader asked us to set a goal for how many people that we will baptize in the next transfer (we then changed it to until the end of the year). Elder Woffinden and I prayed and we both felt that we should baptize four people. That is a ton!!!  So we told our district leader that and he told us that the district has a goal of baptizing 13 people by the end of the year!!! Holy cow!!! But because of the spirit we felt we know that is what God wants us to do and we know that he will most definitely help us. It is going to take a lot of faith and prayers to get us there, but we know that it can and will happen with Heavenly Fathers Help. 

Just a little fun thing that we were able to do last night is we were able to play with some puppies. There is a part member family whose dog just had puppies and we were able to play with them. I will send some pictures later today.

Thank you all so much for everything! I love being here and I know that there is nothing better that I could be doing. 

Thank you, I love you,

Elder Hayden Cannon

These are the puppies!! 

It was my Dad's birthday so I sent a picture message.
Happy Birthday Dad!! 

Then it was my birthday. A birthday wish from my family. 

KFC FOR DINNER!!!

HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY HAYDEN!!!

Everyone needs cake for their birthday!!

                   

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Happy Halloween!!!

November 2, 2015

This week was unlike any other. It wasn't better or worse, it was just different. On Tuesday we went on an exchange with the zone leaders, but instead of one companionship in each of our areas, we all stayed in the zone leader's area (this is called blitzing the area). So that day was weird that we weren't in our area. I was with Elder Heiner. He is a good kid. He has been out for a year. It took a bit to figure out what we could connect with, but we were able to figure out that we like similar movies and music, so we had some interesting conversations about those. What was a rather big bummer about blitzing another area is that we don't get any stats for that day in our area! Just a big fat zero! So we pretty much started the week off behind. On top of that day of not getting much done in our area, we had zone conference on Friday, which lasted from 9 in the morning until 5 in the evening and after that we went straight to the our branch's trunk or treat. We managed to get a lesson in after that, but that was the only one for that day. Saturday was also weird with it being Halloween. We went out like it was a normal day, but we were asked to be in at 7 because people mistake us for being in costume, not actual missionaries. So we missed out on 2 hours of proselyting. By Sunday, we needed to get 7 more lessons in order to reach our goal for the week. We usually don't teach that many, especially on a Sunday! But Elder Woffinden and I went out in faith and we were able to get in 9 lessons! That was a huge blessing for us! I know that Heavenly Father is aware of us and saw that faith that we have and guided us where we needed to be and guided the people we taught to be where they needed to be. We received quite a lot of grace on Sunday.

Zone Conference was awesome! President and Sister Porter have most definitely been called to lead this mission. They had some amazing things to say. Now I am kicking myself because I didn't bring my study journal to tell you about some of the revelation that I received from zone conference. I am sorry about that, I will tell you about it next week.

Halloween was interesting. For the last about hour and a half we were out, there were kids trick or treating. There was this one girl that yelled at us from across the street, in the whiniest voice Elder Woffinden and I had ever heard, "What are you supposed to be?" We said we are missionaries, because we are. At the trunk or treat the night before, someone asked if I was dressed up as something else. I told them the scariest thing that I could possibly be is a missionary without his companion, which that shouldn't even happen. Yeah, Halloween is interesting as a missionary...  

I am continuing to love what I am doing. This is most definitely hard, but I enjoy it making it doable and fun. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, I'm sure that they are doing more work than you think they are.

Thank you, I love you,

Elder Hayden Cannon  

"How Firm a Foundation!" Hymn no. 85

October 26, 2015

I don't know why I wanted to title it with "How Firm a Foundation" I just like that song and I feel like I have been singing it a lot. 

Monday was a good P-day. We went bowling as a zone. I think that was the best I have ever bowled before. I got 117. I am really happy with that. That night, we had Family Home Evening at the church that we taught. It was really fun! It was also the first time that anyone has shown up. We played a game where people have a name of a person on their back and they have to ask yes or no questions to figure out who it is. I got Darth Vader. I figured it out way to quickly. The point of the game was that we need to ask our Heavenly Father specific questions when we pray in order for him to answer us in a specific way that we can understand.  

Tuesday was interesting. I was on an exchange with Elder Macfarlane again, but this time we were in Crittenden. I lead the area. That was an interesting experience. It was also rather difficult. I don't know the area super well and some of our appointments fell through. I didn't know what to do. We managed to fill the time though. 

We currently have two people on date! One is on for November 7th and the other is for November 21st. We are really excited for them and we know that this is what they need to be doing.

I feel like not a lot happened this week... It was fun, spiritual, and hard. But I can't think of things to say. I am out of time anyway. 

Sorry for it being so short. 

Thank you, I love you

Elder Hayden Cannon