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!

I am leaving Ft Wayne!!!

Welp, I am getting transferred from Ft Wayne. This has been the longest area that I have served in so it is a little weird to be leaving. I am excited to see where Heavenly Father needs me now. I know that this will be good for me! I am excited to see what happens.

I don't really know what to say in this email. It has been a good week but nothing all that eventful happened. I am sure that I will have more to say next week once I have been transferred. 

Thank you, I love you!

Elder Hayden Cannon

We had a baptism!!!

Elder Lilly and I are super happy that we got to baptize Joyce. She is awesome! She was the fastest baptism that I have ever had. The minimum requirement for going to church before investigators are baptized is attending 3 times. The sacrament meeting she was confirmed was her 4th time being at church. We saw Joyce 4 times a week to get her ready for baptism. This was an awesome experience! Joyce is wonderful and Elder Lilly and I are so excited to see her progression and to see how excited she is about the gospel. I am really hoping that I will be able to go to the temple with her when she receives her endowment. This is going to be so cool! 

It was a really hot and humid week this week. It was in the 90s on Wednesday and Thursday. Heat, humidity, and biking makes for very interesting days. I love working though. Any bad feeling that I have towards anything, goes away as I go out and work. I am so happy to be a here in the Ohio Cincinnati Mission. I can't wait to continue to work with people and help them find salvation. 

I love you all! Thank you!

Elder Hayden Cannon

We had a Mini Missionary!!!

Hello!!! Things are going really well! We are really excited about the work!

This last week we had a mini missionary. He is an 18 year old from another ward in the stake. It was awesome having him with us! He didn't quite know what he was doing, which was just fine, but he still did really well. He asked some really good questions and we felt like we were able to help him a lot. It was really fun to have him. It felt weird after he left because we were then used to having 3 people with us all the time. 

We also got to go to the temple this week with the Porters! That was really cool! It was a great goodbye present to be able to do that. We all really enjoyed it. The Mission hasn't been to the temple to do endowments since October so we were really happy to be able to go. We are going to miss the Porters, but I am excited to get to meet President and Sister Welch! They are called of God to lead this mission and I can't wait to see all the good that they do for the mission. 

This week we also found a really great investigator. We got a media referral on our phone that was from this woman's sister in Arizona. We gave her a call to set up an appointment and she sounded so excited! We went to go meet with her and she was so happy to see us. She even already knew the member that we had brought with us! We talked for a good while and had a very spiritual discussion. She came to church yesterday and stayed the whole 3 hours, which I haven't seen someone do the first time they came to church while I have been on a mission. We actually had 3 investigators come to church and they all stayed for the whole service! We were really happy about that. We are really excited for things to start picking up in this area. I love it here!!!

Thank you for everything! I love you!
Elder Hayden Cannon

Elder Cannon with President and Sister Porter. What a fond farewell at the Indiana temple!!

Fort Wayne Stake Zones at the Indianapolis Temple

Elder Cannon and Elder Lilly

We have a mini missionary!!!

On Saturday, we got a mini missionary! His name is Brother Kennedy. He is a priest from another ward in the stake here. He is going to go on a mission after a year of college. He is going to be with us for a week and we are excited to have him! We get to help him learn what really needs to be done to be a missionary and to prepare. This is going to be fun!

That is the most exciting thing that is going on, but here is a funny story. We went to a recent converts apartment in a nursing home yesterday. This woman is an interesting lady. She has dementia and hardly remembers anything you tell her, even if it was a few minutes ago. She was talking with Brother Kennedy and she asked how hot it was outside, he told her and then we moved on. Just a few minutes later, she asked him again, "How hot is it outside?" The funniest part of that was we forgot to tell Brother Kennedy that she has dementia so he was really confused. Later we asked her to turn off the TV so we could talk. She had no problem with that so she went to turn it off. Once she did though, she turned around and said, "Oh, the red light is still on, that means it didn't turn off." The TV was clearly off and I told her that but she turned it back on. It came on again and I pointed and said, "It is back on." She then said, "Let me see that finger." She then grabbed my had and then bit my finger! She bit my finger!!! We just moved on, talked about the plan of salvation and moved forward. It was really funny though. 

Thank you for everything that you are doing!!! I am so glad to be out serving the Lord. I love you all!
Elder Hayden Cannon

Elder Cannon, Brother Kennedy (the mini missionary) and Elder Lilly