Merry Christmas!!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

I hope all of you enjoyed your Holiday! The Holidays are an interesting time for missionaries. Everyone we call just says to get a hold of them after the first of the year. That makes thing hard up until then because missionary work doesn't stop! We don't take a vacation until the January! We are figuring out what we can do until then. 

Christmas Eve was really good. We had a Christmas conference with the Cincinnati stakes. I got roped into doing 3 things for the talent show and 2 other musical numbers. It was a good day, but I was a little anxious because of all the stuff I needed to do. Elder Manning and I did a 12 days of Christmas skit and it was so fun! Elder Manning has never done anything like that. That's what you get when you have a theater kid as you companion. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it. It was a fun day. 

Christmas was fun too! Christmas on Sunday is awesome for a missionary! We went to both sacrament meetings that happen in our building because one of the Elders from the other ward and I did a musical number. I sang in the ward choir and that was really fun. I miss singing in choirs. We then went to Skype home which was fun! Great to talk with my family! And that was about all that happened this week. 

Thank you, 
I love you!!!
Elder Hayden Cannon

Skype on Christmas Day

Elder Cannon and Elder Manning

Referrals!

Hello!!!

This week was a good week. This week felt really long though. It wasn't bad as in it was dragging on, but it did feel long. It was rather interesting. 

On Thursday, we had Mission Leadership Council. I really enjoy those meetings. This meeting was really interesting because there used to be twice as many zone leaders and there were more sister training leaders but because of the zones changing, there were far fewer missionaries there. We had a special guest come, Brother Hemingway, the director of proselyting for the missionary department of the church. It was a really good meeting. Something that was really interesting is that other missionaries and I have noticed is that we will have a meeting like that where there is an emphasis on something and we will treat it as if we have never had access to those principles, even though they have been in Preach My Gospel since 2006. I have found that funny. It was a really good meeting. 

One of the things that Brother Hemingway talked about is asking for referrals. He promised us that if we are to truly ask for referrals from everyone, we would be able to change our finding to baptizing ratio from 33 to 1, to 11 to 1. That is a huge difference! So Elder Manning and I have really been trying to ask for referrals from everyone. The actual asking for referrals hasn't been to fruitful but we still continued to ask. Saturday, we had our ward Christmas Party and while we were there, a member came up to us with his friend as said, "This is Jim, he came to church last week and is interested in learning more." He also came to church yesterday. Heavenly Father has laid out in Preach my Gospel that if we will ask for referrals to teach, we will have many people to teach and Elder Manning and I are just at the beginning a we can't wait to see what else comes. 

Thank you, I love you!!!
Elder Hayden Cannon

One of our new referrals!!

Doubled-in to EastsGate

Hi!!!

Things are going well here in Eastgate! Elder Manning and I were doubled-in here as the zone leaders. That is kinda rare. Usually zone leaders don't get doubled-in. This wasn't even where zone leaders were in the past. It has been interesting. Elder Manning has said that he hasn't prayed so much in his entire mission. 

Elder Manning and I are still trying to get our bearings so we don't quite have much to report. Things have been good and we look forward to the work here. 

Love you!!!
Elder Hayden Cannon