"Giant Baby Steps" Quote from Elder Davis this week

Elder Davis and I were teaching this guy yesterday and Elder Davis made the comment to this investigator that "You have to take giant baby steps!" The investigator and I gave him a hard time about that for a while. Think about that though and see how that applies to you in the gospel. Regardless of whether or not it makes sense, if you let the spirit work on it, it just might. 

This was a good week. We have another investigator getting baptized this weekend! This is really exciting because the New Castle Branch hasn't had any baptism since November of last year, then we get here and have two baptisms within the first transfer. I am really excited to be here. I am a little worried about this investigator. She is 88 years old and has slight dementia. She knows that the spirit has told her to be baptized in this church but she doesn't really have a testimony of Joseph Smith. We definitely have our work cut out for us to help her by this weekend. 

I was asked to give a talk this last Sunday and I was asked to give it on Saturday. Luckily, I enjoy speaking so I took the assignment without any complaint. I wrote it all during studies on Sunday. I was worried that I wouldn't have enough material to give a long enough talk for the branch. When I got up and started speaking though, I looked up at the clock and saw that 10 minutes had gone by and I knew that I needed to fill 5 to 10 more and I thought I had gone through more than half of what I had prepared, so I was a little worried. I just kept talking, trying to do my best to follow the spirit. The next time I looked up at the clock, 20 MORE minutes had gone by! When I finished my talk, I had spoken for almost 35 minutes! I couldn't believe that I had spoken that long! I sat down and there was still an intermediate hymn and another speaker. Sacrament meeting ran a little long that day, but I felt like I spoke by the spirit and said things that did help the branch. People were very complimentary of my talk. I was grateful that the spirit helped me make such an impact on the members here. 

I love this gospel and how Jesus Christ is able to enable us in everything that we do, even a Sacrament talk.

Thank you so much! I love you!

Elder Hayden Cannon

Sara got baptized!

We had a pretty good week this week! Finishing it off with a baptism made it even better. Sara was baptized! We are so happy for her and grateful that we got to be a part of her conversion. Her boyfriend from Texas was supposed to come to baptize her, but he couldn't make it, So I got to fill in! That was super cool to be able to do that! I also ended up giving a talk on the Holy Ghost because the person who was supposed to give the talk got sick that morning. I was happy to do it though. She will now be able to enter into the Celestial Kingdom! We are so happy about that!

We had a really funny story from earlier this week. We went with Sara to the Library and one of the Family History Consultants in the branch to get Sara started in genealogy. We were at the front desk getting guest passes when we noticed this man asleep on the couch. We didn't really think anything of it until one of the librarians went up to him to see if he was okay. She wasn't able to wake him up though. Another man walked up and tried but still with no results. Finally, he took his pulse and there was none. Somehow, I got roped into "helping" (Elder Davis did most of the work) him down to the floor so someone could do CPR. The lady who was there who said she knew CPR couldn't do it because of her injured wrist, so I got as far away as I could so I wouldn't get "volunteered" to do chest compressions on this man. Paramedics then showed up, did what they could and then took him away in a body bag. Needless to say, I was weirded out by this. I felt weird for a while after that. The funniest thing about this though was this guy died at the library right when we went to go do Genealogy with Sara. I found that rather ironic. Elder Davis later was telling President Welch about the experience and he thought that our investigator died while we were at the library. We were happy to tell him otherwise and then she got baptized this weekend! 

Anyway, things are going well! I love it out here! Thank you for all that you are doing for me and for the world. I love you all!

Elder Hayden Cannon

Doing "Great things!" Quote from Abbey Cannon (*see note below)

Things are going well. This week has seemed a little slow, though. Elder Davis said that he could feel a difference from our first few weeks. I think the best way that I can describe it is using a theater analogy. On opening night of a show, everyone is excited, nervous, focused, and ready to perform. Because of all of this they have a lot of motivation to do their best. They usually do very well. Once the second night comes along though, the performers have an attitude of, "I've got this" and start to let things slide a little resulting in a performance that wasn't quite as good. I feel like we are in a very similar situation, here in New Castle. We were relying so heavily on the Lord the first couple of weeks and we saw a lot of grace from it. One of the people that we found are getting baptized this weekend! We are really happy about that. But because we have had a bit of an "I've got this" attitude, we have let things slip a little bit. We need to be relying fully on Jesus Christ, because that is when miracles come!

There is a funny story that I want to talk about. We knocked on this door and we asked the woman there if she believed in Jesus Christ. She said no. I was curious what religion she was apart of, so I asked her. "I am a wicken," she said. I didn't know what that was and she could tell, so she said, "I am a witch and have been for 20 years." I haven't wanted to leave somewhere faster! I thought that was funny.

Thank you for all that you do! I love you!

Elder Hayden Cannon

*A little side note from home to explain today's title:

     Every night Elder Cannon's 6 year old sister prays for him "to do the great things". The other night she prayed - "please bless Hayden on his mission that he can do the great things, and bless me if I go on a mission that I can do the great things too". 

Good things coming in New Castle!

Things are going really well for Elder Davis and me in New Castle. We are really enjoying it! We have this one investigator who was found because she requested a Book of Mormon from the church's website. We were planning on calling her the next day, but before we could, she called us! We set up an appointment right for the next day. We have now met with her twice, she has been to church twice, and she is on track to be baptized on August 20th! We are really excited! This is going to be another quick, but awesome baptism!  

Thank you for everything that you do for me! I am enjoying this work so much! 

I love you!

Elder Hayden Cannon

New Castle Crusaders!!!

Hello from New Castle Indiana!!!

I have been doubled into the New Castle Branch. This will be my third branch that I have served in and only one ward. I guess my job as a missionary is to help it become a ward! This has been an interesting experience. Luckily the elders that were here (One of them being Elder Tanner who I trained in Fort Wayne) left the area book really nice so we could have some idea of what to do. 

My new companion is Elder Haydn Davis. We have the same first name! There are so many Ha(y)d(e)ns in the mission right now! Elder Woffinden, my trainer, has now trained 2 Hayden's and now I am training a Haydn. It has been rather fun working with him though. Elder Davis is from Irvine California where he did improv and choir. It is interesting because he seems like me, just with ADHD. That makes Elder Davis rather fun though. Boy, does he not like to sit still! That has been hard for him because we aren't really sure where to go so we have to sit down and figure it out and he just wants to go go go!!! It has been funny watching him squirm. Even now, Elder Davis is waiting for me to finish emailing and is having the hardest time waiting. 

There are some really great investigators here. This week, we received a media referral for this lady and she is super solid! Her boyfriend in Texas is a member and is really interested in learning more about the church. She is very ready to be a part of the gospel. Something that was really cool with her was that we weren't really sure who she should sit by during Sacrament meeting. We thought about this one sister and we were planning to make arrangements for them to sit by each other. What was really funny though was that the sister and our investigator walked into the church already together already talking! It was great! Heavenly Father's hand truly is in this work, even in something as simple as that!

Thank you all for everything that you do! I love you!

Elder Hayden Cannon  

Elder Cannon and his new companion Elder Davis.
Sister Westbrook jumping in!