Higher ground

Hey fam! Hope you all are doing great. :) Remember you're constantly in my prayers and that I'm always sending love your way. 

This was a great week! We've started doing lots of FHE's with the members, less actives, and investigators as a way to help people make friends and learn the gospel. It's been super fun! We've gotten to know the families in the ward better and they are trusting us with their friends and neighbors to teach. 

Also if you haven't watched the #BecauseHeLives video yet, you probably should because it's beautiful and then share it on Facebook because it's beautiful. 

So I realized something about myself this week... I am like, an incredibly stressed out person haha (well, was. getting better everyday folks). But my mission president helped me realize that I was imposing a lot more pressure upon myself than necessary because I didn't understand the doctrine of grace. So he explained it to me more in depth, which helped, but I realized that I really didn't understand how to apply the grace of God/Christ's mercy in my life. I still haven't figured it out completely... the balance between motivational pressure (healthy stress) and merciful resting.... but I think I'm on my way to understanding haha. He explained to me that in the 70s, the church didn't do a very good job at preaching grace for various reasons, but have realized recently that we need it. There were a few talks on it during conference this year on Sunday. But yeah many church members don't understand grace and are suffering because of it. Many of us hold ourselves and others at unrealistic expectations which leads us to wrongly accuse ourselves and others who seem to not be enduring to the end, according to our personal (and less than merciful) definition. So basically that's super lame and we should all figure out our own balance between justice and mercy so we don't die from unnecesary pressure nor miss out on the joy that progression brings. I'm still studying it but if I come upon some awesome scriptures I'll let you know. Also if any of you find any talks or scriptures, let me know cuz I would love to learn more. 

So yeah it's been a week of soul searching on my part haha. And I'm lucky to have Hermana Andersen because she's basically my personal psychologist and goof-ologist when I need it haha. 

Anyways. :)

Loving you all more and more everyday. 

OH almost forgot. I am now obsessed with family history and I wish I had time to do it out here but I'm just accumulating this enormous hunger to know where I came from so I'm gonna have a giant family history feast when I get home. It's probably one of the most powerful connections I'm felt spiritually. It is very cool to look into the past and feel a love for people you haven't met when you read their names. It made me want to be a strong link in the chain between the past, present, and future. 

Okay that's all. 

I love you all mucho mucho mucho. :)

Hermana Cannon II (and counting)    

WHOA chills conference

Helllooooooo!!! :)

This was such an awesome week. Me and Hermana Andersen decided that we needed to make a miracle poster and at the end of the day right down the biggest miracle that happened. 

I can't remember them all haha but one big one was that a less active family came back to church for the first time in years yesterday! In our mission we're supposed to work 1/3 investigators, 1/3 new converts, and 1/3 less active members. Not sure how other missions are but I'm just guessing that we work with less active members a lot more than other missions. And it might be my favorite part. Okay I don't think I have a favorite haha but I just love helping people discover what is holding them back from discovering Christ and then working with them and helping them overcome that, and then seeing them change and become happier. 

So basically conference was AMAZING and answered the prayers I hadn't even said outloud yet. How does that work??? I'd like to know but I never will haha. That's okay. I like mysteries. 

But anyways I've been focusing a lot lately on how I can make my mission become part of my life and make my life become my mission. Or in other words, how to be more sincere and honest in my service. We had a lesson with Isabel last week, a less active member, and we were talking about Christ's disciples in the Bible and she expressed frustration and disgust towards pretty much all of Christ's disciples because they didn't ban together and save Christ from being crucified. That made me think. Idk how the situation was back then so I'm totally not judging Christ's disciples, but her comments made me wonder what I would've done in that situation. So I dug deep and decided that during conference, I needed to find out how I can become a TRUE disciple of Jesus Christ. I don't wanna be a lame one or a flaky one.... I want to love Him enough so that nothing can stop me from standing up for Him. And for these modern times, it looks like we're only gonna need to do that in social situations, which sometimes prove to be the hardest. So that's my goal! I want to get really good at that during my mission so that when I get home it will just be part of me. I wanna let myself become His defender. And the Sunday sessions gave me a lot of ideas on how I can do that. 

I love you guys so so much. :) You're in my prayers and today when I was walking home from the grocery store, the hot sun and the weight of the groceries was kind of irritating me but then I looked at the sky, pictured the earth, and realized that I was close to my family because we are both on the western hemisphere. And that made me smile. :) 

All my heart,

Hermana Cannon II 

 

 

Saying goodbye to Elder McGary who was an AP and my friend from BYU before the mission

 

 

Our last moments with Hermana Gil (my comp who got transfered) and Hermana Escobar (my roommate who finished her mission. From Guatamala)

 

 

Me and my cute compy Hermana Andersen!

 

Sarah's addresses

Hello, Ya'll. I just thought I'd make this little post in case you want to look up Sarah's address. Thanks for all your love and support!

FYI: Sarah's email address is: 
sarah.cannon@myldsmail.net

Her mailing address is:
Sister Sarah Cannon 

Chile Santiago East Mission

Cristobal Colon 6824

Las Condes

Region Metropolitana

Santiago, Chile

my new compy!

Fam! :)                                                     (from March 30th, 2015)

So like I said last week, I'm training again! And her name is Hermana Elisabeth Jane Andersen from Danville California and totally knows the Slavens! Crazy right?!?!? Small worldddddd!!!! But anyway she is the best evarrrr. We became bffs right off the bat and we are both just super focused and ready to sacrifice and just give it our all and just take it all in and learn every lesson there is to learn and just love everyone together!!! We've set some awesome goals and are ready to hit the ground running this transfer. 

We taught a lesson with our investigator Daniel on her first day and we had her invite him to be baptized and he said yes :). It was a first day full of miracles and tender mercies followed by a couple days of plans falling through and making like thousands of goals haha. We've seen a little bit of everything together this week. 

Also just wanted to let you guys know how much I love this ward. As you know, it's still my first area and I've just opened my heart to the point that it has become my home. Our bishop is literally so loving and just the best. We had an interview with him because of a few concerns we wanted to share about one of the members and then I started to cry because emotions hahaha and then he offered to give me a blessing for strength and I accepted it with a giant heart full. So just know that I am being taken care of in every aspect here in Ñuñoa- spiritually, emotionally, physically.... that whole deal. :) The only bad thing is that Hermana Andersen is so awesome that I'm pretty sure President is gonna want her to train when we finish her training... so we'll just keep making the most of every moment. :)

We made a few breakthroughs this week with some less active members. We started visiting a family a few months ago, and at the beginning of the lessons we taught they usually got kind of angry and offended. But this week, me and Hna. Andersen have been really focusing on having better companionship studies and really getting to the heart of the needs of the people we are teaching. And so after having made those changes, the family we taught reacted in a way I had never seem them react before. They accepted our message with lots of humility and even began to tell us that they had been justifying their actions in the past, but now they knew what they needed to do. Then we invited their son to say the closing prayer and he accepted, which was likely the first prayer he had said out loud in about 4 years. 

So yeah I'm loving life right now haha. It's like the lights have turned on a bit brighter and the progress is happening a bit faster. 

God is good. :) Hoping I can learn all the lessons he has for me during this transfer despite how awesome things are going hahaha. But something I learned in district class this week is that God would rather have us learn patience through the injustice acts of other people against us, rather than through the consequences of our bad decisions. Yeah that was kind of unrelated haha but still a super helpful principle if the goal is to avoid long term suffering. 

Anyways. :) Love you all mucho mucho. 

Have an awesome week!

Hermana Cannon II