Merry Christmas!!!

The weather here is really weird... It has been in the 50's all week. The last couple of days it has just started raining and hasn't stopped. Everyone is saying that this is still really weird for the area. People are also saying that we are just going to get dumped on with snow in a few days... This should be fun...

This week was just weird in general. We had a really good Christmas meeting with the whole mission. It started off with an interesting talent show. Of course, I was volunteered to get up and beatbox. I didn't argue... After that we had a concert and devotional. During the devotional though, Elder Spagnolo got really sick and became best friends with the toilet in the church where we were. He is now just getting over feeling gross. Because he wasn't feeling good, it made missionary work rather difficult. We are supposed to get at least 20 lessons every week. By Saturday, we had 9. We were playing catch-up on Saturday and Sunday. We did make it to 20 lessons though. We were zooming around all of Greenville to make sure that we got in all of our lessons. We definitely wouldn't have gotten them in if it weren't for the grace of God. We are so grateful for the enabling power that Grace gives to each and every one of us. 

Christmas was interesting. Holidays are still just weird as a missionary. They just seem like regular missionary days where we got to talk to our families (which was great to be able to do) and got a bunch of packages. I still don't know what to think about holidays. It was still very fun and a great experience. I love doing this work and I am very grateful to be out here serving the Lord.

Thank you, I love you.

Happy New Year! 

Elder Hayden Cannon

Merry Christmas!

A Note from the Cannon family -
 Our Skype session with Hayden was amazing!!
It was great to "see" him. He is happy and so excited to serve.
We feel so blessed by his example!
Thanks Elder Cannon!!
We Love You!!!

Merry Christmas from Greenville!!!

Things are going pretty well in Greenville. I am really liking it here. My companion is Elder Spagnolo (pronounced spawn-yolo). He is a really good kid. He is a wrestler, football and rugby player from Idaho. He is a SPAZ!!! The other day he just picked me up out of no where! This should be fun! 

So of course, I'm in a new area so the first Sunday that I am here I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting, Yay! I was given the opportunity to speak about Christmas. It was actually really fun to prepare for and I am grateful I got the opportunity to give the talk. After the meeting was over, a sister from the ward came up to me and said that, just based off of the way that I speak, I am going to be a politician or an apostle. I was appreciative of the compliment.

It has gotten cold here and it is a wet cold the just goes through everything! Luckily, I am a warm body, but there have still been a few times where I have gotten rather cold. It is to bad that we have to share the car with another area... So this week we have been biking in the wet cold. I got a new bike, so I don't have to ride the broken one that got hit. I inherited it from the last Elder who was here.

I am really enjoying this area and I am looking forward to what Heavenly Father has in store for me here in Greenville, Ohio!

Thank you, I love you! 

Merry Christmas!

Elder Hayden Cannon

        Transfer Day. Hello Greenville, OH

Elder Cannon and his new companion - Elder Spagnolo

I worked on a farm this week! (Also, I'm getting transferred.)

I am going to be honest, never in my life did I expect to be in Kentucky, nor did I think that I would ever work on a farm. But this week, I got to work on a farm in Kentucky!!! We went and did some service for one of our investigators on his farm. It has been really nice because it has been rather warm this week so it wasn't miserably cold out while we were working. We spent most of the time driving posts for a new fence and taking out the old fence. It was something I had never done before and it was rather fun to do! 

We met an interesting family this week. They live next door to a less active member in our branch. He took us over there and it was quite the conversation with this family that are born again non-denominational Christians. Both the husband and the wife were talking at the same time, the wife was talking to me about how we are all God's children and as long as we have accepted Jesus we are going to Heaven, and the husband was talking with Elder Woffinden about how the Book of Mormon isn't the word of God because it was written by man. It was loud and very confusing. They strait out said that they probably wouldn't become members of our "denomination" (the wife didn't like us using the word "religion" to describe the church we belong to) but they would love to learn more about what makes us different. After we were done working on the farm we went to go visit the less active member to see if he or his family needed some service because we were still in our service clothe and thought, "why not?" We ended up helping the family we had talked to earlier in the week moving some wood and then talking to the wife and daughter. It was a great conversation and we were able to teach all of the Restoration to them. It was a little weird for us because were weren't in our suit and ties, we were in jeans and t-shirts teaching them the gospel. We are not used to that at all. But it still was a really good conversation and they are still interested in learning more. Because we showed up at their home in jeans and t-shirts and helped them out a little, they warmed up to us quite well. I just goes to show that sometimes the best way to share the gospel is through serving others. 

Thank you, I love you, Merry Christmas!

Elder Hayden Cannon

Cool frosty leaves

This is transfer day. 

It gets colder, but the work progresses!

Things are still going rather well. Yesterday was a great fast and testimony meeting. I love being in a branch here. It is so small, but it is amazing because the spirit there is still just as strong. I got up and shared an experience I had this last week. On Tuesday I was on an exchange with Elder Bunderson and we were in Crittenden, so I was leading the area, I'm not the best at doing leading the area yet. We went to an appointment with a less active member and knocked on the door. There was no answer. We knocked again. Still no answer. We went a looked around the house and we couldn't find any one who lived there. Elder Bunderson suggested that we knock again. We did and yet again, no one came. I wasn't sure what to do, I failed to plan a back up and our next appointment wasn't for an hour. We went back to our car and I started looking through our member folder to see if there were any other less active members that we could go visit. No names were jumping out at me and I had no idea what we were going to do. I told Elder Bunderson that we needed to say a prayer. We prayed that we would know what it is that we needed to do. The second we said amen, Elder Bunderson looked up and started waving at someone who came out of the house who then brought us inside so we could meet with the less active member. Prayer is something that I am indeed grateful for and now even more so after this experience. Prayer has been a huge blessing in my life and it continues to bless me, especially while I am out here on my mission. 

Thank you for all of your prayers and support. I am incredibly grateful for them.

Thank you, I love you.
Elder Hayden Cannon

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.