Best Week I have had in Western Hills!

Hello Everybody!!!

It was a very good week this week. It was the best week that Elder Bee and I have had! We were able to find 3 new investigators and they are great! One of them came to church yesterday and has a lot of potential. We met with her on Sunday after church and we were talking about baptism and she asked, "So when can I get baptized?" That is always a fun question!!! We continued to teach her about the Plan of Salvation and she is on date to be baptized on July 29th! We are really excited. It is really cool to see such miracles happen even when much of our time is consumed in the office. Heavenly Father is looking out for us!

I have learned some cool things this last couple weeks. I feel like that I have been trying to actively improve in charity for the last year or so. I have felt that I haven't made much progress in that area though. We had a General Authority, Elder Dyches of the Seventy, come to our mission. While he was speaking, I received the revelation that I need to exercise more faith for an increase in charity to happen. At this point, what that is going to mean for me is to be patient and wait on the Lord's timing. It is interesting to me how often we talk about faith being an action word, that we believe in something so much that we are motivated to do something about what we believe. It is interesting to me that sometimes the action is wait and be patient. Many times, it doesn't feel like we are doing anything but that is where we have to trust Heavenly Father. It can be frustrating, but it is how He intends for us to receive the greatest of blessing that he has to offer. Well, that patience paid off surprisingly quickly. This week, I was listening to a talk about charity. It quoted Moroni 7:45, a rather famous scripture about charity.  "Charity... is not easily provoked." That line stood out to me more than it ever had before. It made me think of my relationship with some of my past companions and how I could be somewhat snappy and contentious towards them. Looking at how I have been with my more recent companions and we have all gotten along very well. I love what one of my companions said, "I love being companions with older missionaries because they aren't as uptight and don't get irritated about little things that other people do." While it is weird to consider myself an old missionary, it is true. I have not been so annoyed by silly thing that a person might do. That realization was very much revelation that I have covered more ground in regards to charity than I thought I had. I know that I still have a long way to go to emulate the perfect love of Jesus Christ, but that truly was a blessing from my Heavenly Father to see how far I have come.

Thank you, I love you!!!

Elder Hayden Cannon

Busy Week!!!

This week was definitely different from all of the others that I have had in the office. This week we went to two of the three zone conferences in the mission. Since Elder Bee and I are the Vehicle Coordinators, we go to zone conference and inspect all of the cars, decide who has the top 3 cleanest cars and give them extra miles, and give some trainings about vehicle safety. It has been really fun. We get to see all of the missionaries in the mission. There is still one more zone conference tomorrow and I am really looking forward to it.

Something that happened this week was we got to go teaching with President Welch's Grandson, Wiley. That was really cool! He is a good kid and we were able to pick up a new investigator while he was out with us. It was a great experience. Being so close to the Welchs makes things interesting. Sister Welch asked Elder Bee and I to do a musical number in zone conference. We wanted to practice with Sister Welch one last time so we asked when we could come to the mission home and practice. She told us to come over at 9:15 at night. We get there and talked with her about office stuff for 20 or 30 minutes before we actually started practicing. The whole time she mentioned how tired we looked. Well we keep getting in late because we are at the Welch's! It is funny. The next day at zone conference, Sister Welch made sure that we were going to get a good amount of sleep that night. I love the Welch's. I am very grateful to be serving with them.

Missions are just great experiences!!!

Thank you, I love you!!!

Elder Hayden Cannon

Busy week in the office...

Wow, this week has been busy. It all started on Monday when new missionaries came into the mission. We had to train them about driving as a missionary. It was fun! It brought back a lot of memories of first being in the mission field. Just being dazed and confused. It was really cool to meet all of these missionaries. Tuesday, we then had to arrange for 10 new cars to go up to where the transfer meeting was being held, and then have 17 cars be driven back to the mission office afterwards. That was a huge ordeal!!! Somehow, we didn't do our math correctly so there were still 3 cars that were left up in Centerville, Ohio! Retrieving those cars was our adventure on Wednesday. We had the Assistants drive us up to Centerville because they were on they way to Muncie, Indiana because the Zone Leaders their didn't have their car keys due to one of the missionaries who left there accidentally took them to his new area in Eastern Cincinnati! So they dropped us off in Centerville and then we took two cars to Greenville to give a set of Elders there a new phone. Elder Grass is now there and he is training a new missionary. Since I was there not that long ago, I helped point them in the right direction of who they should go see. That was cool to be able to help them with that. Thursday, we went to put a set of sisters TIWI (a tracking device that monitors our driving) back on their windshield and needed to get a set of elders in Kentucky a gas card. Friday, a set of elders locked their keys in the car. We were all over Ohio this week!!! There was one day that we actually hit all 3 states in one day because the highway 275 went through Indiana to come back into Cincinnati. We did a lot of driving this week. It was fun but it took a lot of time!

Now, as far as the work is going, it is going well. We have this one investigator who we are excited to work with. We haven't been able to get her to church because she needs a ride and we haven't been able to confirm with her that she was coming closer to Sunday. Sunday morning rolled around and we still didn't have a ride for her. We were in a bit of a panic, wondering what we should do. This was a time where ward council really came in handy. We asked them who we should ask to give our investigator a ride they said this new family in the ward. We texted them at about 8:30 and they were able to give her a ride!!! I feel bad though because apparently the address we gave them didn't come up to where our investigator actually lives. They were able to find it after being on the phone with us for a few minutes but they were late to church. I really hope and pray that they are blessed for this sacrifice that they have made to help our investigator come to church! It was a great day!

Thank you, I love you!!!

Elder Hayden Cannon

Interesting couple of weeks...

So, mission life has been interesting these last few weeks. I am not longer in Huntington, Indiana. I was emergency transferred 3 weeks into the transfer and I am now serving in the Western Hills Ward in Cincinnati. My companion and I are assigned as the office Elders. So I rode the tornado all the way to the mission office!!! Working in the office has been very different but it has been good. There have been a lot of things that I have had to learn in order to help one of the office Sisters with for financial things. On top of learning those things I am also going to be replacing my companion, Elder Bee as the vehicle coordinator after the end of next transfer. So I will have to learn all of those responsibilities in the next 6 weeks. It should be fun. 

It has been fun here in this ward. The Assistants are also in this ward and one of them is Elder Demke, one of my old companions. That has been fun to be able to serve around him again, especially considering that I was emergency transferred away from him when I left Greenville the first time. We have been having a lot of fun! It is also really cool because President and Sister Welch live in our ward as well so we get to see them pretty regularly. We actually had dinner with them and some other missionaries at the mission home last night. That was really fun!

Something that happened yesterday that was really cool was we had a regional conference. There was a broadcast from Salt Lake and it was great! Elder Oaks was presiding and he gave an amazing talk at the end. He spoke about that it is primarily the members responsibility finding those who are ready for the gospel and the missionaries responsibility to be teaching those people. He talked having members pray for those missionary opportunities to be able to help the missionary effort. What was amazing was that President Welch has been teaching the mission to help members help those people to be ready to accept the gospel. That experience strengthened my testimony that this church is all run by Jesus Christ and His authority. I know that President Welch has the authority to be able to help our mission and that it aligns with what the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles want for the world. I love this gospel!

Thank you, I love you!

Elder Hayden Cannon

Elder Bee and Elder Cannon in "Elderly Parking"

Mission Home Sunset

"Ride my Tornado!!!" Welcome to Huntington, Indiana!!!

Hello from Huntington, Indiana!!!

Things are going well in the new area. I have really enjoyed being here. My new companion is Elder Thomson from Bountiful, Utah. He is 19 years old and has been on his mission for about 8 months. He is a good kid and a good missionary and I look forward to working with him. It was exciting coming into the new area because there is a couple on date for baptism this coming weekend! It is great to see things progress throughout the mission. 

Something that was really funny that happened this week was we walked by this guy who we see fairly regularly but this time he was listening to headphones. As we walk by him he starts singing along or something to what he is listening to and exclaims, "Ride my tornado!!!" Elder Thomson and I have been saying that multiple times to each other and we laugh every time! Looks like things are going to be fun in Huntington!!!

Thank you, I love you!!!

Elder Hayden Cannon 

Transferred Again!!!

Hello Everyone!!!

Whelp, I am getting transferred again. I am going to Huntington, Indiana and my companion is Elder Thomson. I am excited! It is going to be fun to be back in the Fort Wayne Stake. 

General Conference was wonderful. There were so many great talks given. We had a fantastic miracle with one of our investigators and conference. Two weeks ago, we set up with our investigator to watch conference at their house for the session at four on Sunday. Heavenly Father's had was in that appointment. The talk given by Elder Costa stood out to our investigator incredibly. He said that he felt an urge to read the Book of Mormon from that talk. That was amazing! 

I also received some revelation that I enjoyed. During Elder Grow's talk he invited us to pray for something and I thought, "I need to make sure I pray for that tonight." Something that has been almost bothering me about the clear mind and blank slate way of praying is that I feel like there are things that I have been wanting to pray for but haven't because they don't come to mind while I am praying. The thought after that though was, "Why wait? Pray for it right now!" I realized that every time that I have the thought to pray for something, I can do so right then. There is no need to wait. I think that this will greatly improve my prayers. What I find funny about this though is that I don't remember what he invited us to pray for...

I got to go to the temple on Friday!!! That was amazing! I was able to be the escort for a member in Greenville who just received his mission call. My experience at the temple was another indication of Heavenly Father's hand in my life. Elder Grass, a former companion of mine, also attend the temple during the same endowment session that I was there for! It was super cool to see him there. God truly is awesome and He does love us!

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

Elder Cannon and Elder Grass at the Indianapolis Temple 

All is well in Greenville!!!

Hello!!!

I hope everyone is doing well! 

This has been an interesting week. The week started off really well. We were working hard, staying busy, and doing things that were in alignment with our purpose as missionaries. It was great. 

Friday, we had interviews with President and Sister Welch which were awesome!!! President had some really cool things to tell me. He first asked what I am working on. I told him that I want to change my prayers in a myriad of different ways. He then suggested a different way of thinking. Rather than treating a prayers as a list of things that I would like to thank Heavenly Father for and of things that I would like help with, pray as if giving a blessing. The best way to prepare yourself for a blessing is to have a completely blank mind, ready for the Spirit to fill you mind and your mouth with things that Heavenly Father wants you to bless this person with. This is how we should approach prayer, letting Heavenly Father tell us was we should pray for. This then aligns our will with Heavenly Father's and makes prayer a more spiritual experience. It was a great piece of advice that I really have been trying to apply. 

One unfortunate thing that happened this week was that our Investigator who is on date didn't come to church. He left a note for the person giving him a ride that none of us really could understand what he meant. So, Sunday night we went to go visit him. We Wanted to make sure that everything was okay and see how we could help him. During that lesson, my testimony that Satan will do what he can to stop people from progressing in the gospel. Just while we were there, his neighbors knocked on his door and they had a pretty vulgar conversation that started because we were there. After all of it though, David still wants to meet with us. I know that this gospel will strengthen him. He is a great guy who can do so much better! I pray that we will be able to help him. 

Can't wait for conference!!! It is such a wonderful opportunity to hear from the current Prophets and Apostles. 

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