I love peanut butter

I´ve already eaten like half the jar today haha. 

Anyways!

Last week was Chile´s Independence day! 18th of September. Yep. Everyone went wildddd!!! Our ward even had a Fonda (huge fiesta thing) that started at 11 am and went until 11 pm. There was tons of food and a bounce house and music and dancing! It was awesome! We got to go for a couple of hours. There was actually a whole table of non members there so we got all their info! Hopefully we´ll get some good lessons out of that! 

But yeah it was a good day. We also taught tons of lessons that day which I was especially happy about because I was worried everyone would be out partying. But some weren´t! Miracles. :) 

Ohhhh my gosh we had an awesome REN meeting this week. (Reunion de Nuevos--meeting for newbies). Our mission president invited an investigator to come. She stood up at the pulpit and told us all about her journey finding her faith, meeting the missionaries, and setting a baptismal date. Then we got the chance to ask her questions. We asked questions about what were the good things the missionaries did that helped her make the decision to come unto Christ. The idea was that we could learn from her experience and apply those things to ourselves. She was AWESOME. Someone asked, "one of our investigators is having a hard time making the social change into our church. Their family doesn´t approve or support them and their friends laugh at them." Then she went on to say that her family isn´t very supportive either and some of her friends make fun of the Mormon church. But she just realizes that they haven´t felt what she has felt, so she forgives them. She said that she just remembers what she learned from Jesus through the Book of Mormon, and that keeps her going. 

Wow. Talk about a testimony rooted in the scriptures. She´s inspiring. Made me want to work on that myself. It´s true--everything we need is in the sciptures. Because Christ is in the scriptures. We can apply His principles to any situation in our lives and follow His example. 

Also--holy cow I have never studied the scriptures like I am doing now as a missionary. All the stories are coming to life and I´m realizing that these things really did happen. That´s what the spirit tells me and it´s awesome. Plus they´re a lot easier to understand in Spanish--as weird as that sounds haha. They just say everything more straight forward. 

So yeah overall it´s been a great week. :) Oh except Jorge from last week--the one that said he was gonna come to church--didn´t come. :( We even speed walked all the way to his house to pick him up but he said he had to work. :( We´re praying so hard for him. He´s such a great guy. 

Love you guys so much! Thanks for all the love and support. It helps more than you know. I always have a prayer in my heart for each of you. :) 

xoxo,

Hna Cannon II 

Sorry these captions are non existent. Sarah didn't tell what she wanted them to say.

This one she did write: They are my family while I´m here. :)  love them so much

This one needs no caption! A Pablo Picasso Mural!! Wow!!!

How To Eat An Elephant

Heyoyoyooooooo!!!!

Yep. This week I´ve been utilizing the advice I learned from Mrs. Long in 6th grade about how to eat an elephant... one bite at a time. In other words, I´m still learning how to be a missionary haha. It involves a lot more than just preaching the gospel and having a testimony. There´s planning, learning the streets, learning how to have a good attitude in any situation, planning, planning, and more planning. YAY LIFE SKILLS. I´ll come out all shiny and golden just wait. 

OH MY GOSH I LOVE ZONE CONFERENCE. I have the best mission president and wife of all time. This week got me so pumped to eat the elephant. Ha. I left with goals and plans. It was great. :) 

Had a really cool experience with a less active member this week, Daniela. She´s a single mom and holy cow she has such solid faith. She told us all about her situation. She has some hard decisions to make and has gotten conflicting advice from pretty much everyone. I encouraged her to pray and left her with D&C section 121. Told her that God´s advice is gonna be a lot better than anyone else´s. Praying for her. 

Ahhh finally we had an investigator show up at church!! It was so exciting!! Her name is Rosario and she´s trying to quit smoking. We had a lesson with her earlier in the week that was focused on helping her to quit. We told her if she came to church, we could get a member to give her a blessing of strength afterwards to help her quit. She said she would love that. :) After that I had an idea pop in my head, so I said it. I told her she needed to come with a sincere desire to quit, which meant she needed to bring her cigarettes to the blessing, and after the blessing, throw them all away. After I said that she knew we were serious about helping her. The look on her face changed a little bit, like she was realizing the commi

Vida's comment: I'm assuming Sarah is frowning here because she would love to have some empanadas, 

but the gluten free thing is preventing her.

tment we were trying to get her to make. It was a really cool moment. I´ve never felt so excited to help someone. Anyways she came to church, got the blessing (which was beautiful) and then I asked her if she brought her cigarettes. She took out the box and said she had 1 left. Then she tore it up into little pieces and threw it away. Suchhhh a cool moment. Ahhhh. Praying so hard that she´ll be able to quit. 

So yeah! Missionary work :). It´s awesome. And crazy. And emotional. And hard. And fun. And then all of that times 20. 

I love each of you more than words can say. :) Thank you so much for the support. I feel it and I feel your prayers! I hope you can feel mine. :) 

PAZ Y AMOR

Hermana Cannon II

Viva Chile!

Yoooo!!!

This has been another awesome week! I´m learning a lot about myself. Especially my weaknesses haha. I have a lot to work on and improve. But I´m trying to stay motivated and believe that through God all things are possible!

I finally got to watch Finding Faith in Christ as a missionary! haha (my mom is in that video if you didn´t know) MOM I GOT TO SEE YOUR FACE AND IT WAS A BLESSING FROM HEAVEN!!! My heart went crazy!! haha. I love you mamacita. You sound great Spanish dubbed. But yeah we watched this with a couple recent converts and one of them, Franklin, told me to tell you you are very famous and loved in Chile! He says hola.

Highlight of the week: had an aweeeeesome lesson with an investigator named Ricardo. He`s dating a member, and she was there with him during the lesson. The spirit was strong, and I was able to communicate my feelings in Spanish better than ever. Here´s an entry i wrote in my journal from this experience:

"We were going to teach about baptism. I was just praying so hard during the small talk that I would be guided by the spirit and be able to say something helpful for Ricardo. 

"It was an awesome lesson. I felt the spirit so strong as I testified of the atonement and faith. And I felt a love for Ricardo even though that was the first time we had talked. I wanted to understand him. I wanted to help him. I wanted him to feel the spirit and access the power of the atonement. I wanted him to comprehend the reality of prayer and the guidance of the spirit.

"When the lesson got over he asked if he could have a word with me alone outside. Of course, Hna. Escobar had to come with, so us three stepped outside. He proceeded to thank me for being so real with him. That he had been taking lessons from the missionaries for a while but they felt more rehearsed. He told me he knew the things I said and the questions I asked were part of me and came from the heart. He told he was definitely going to read and pray about the section we left for him (Alma 37)."

So yeah!!! It was an awesome experience. I´ve been praying hard for him. 

So much to say!!! Oh well I'll just leave it there and pick it up next week. :) Love you guys so much. And THANK YOU for the package!! It came so fast!! I love the picture! I look at it everyday!!

Oh yeah this week is independance day in Chile and everyone is gonna go crazy partying. It´s on the 18th. Which is why this is called viva chile!! Haha people are super patriotic here. 

PEACE AND

LOVE AND MORE LOVE

Hermana Cannon :)

p.s. check out the view from our apartment building!

P Day is MAGIC

Hey everyone! It´s my first Pday in the field! 

This has been a great week. I have so much to tell you! And I didn´t get enough time in the CCM to tell you guys about how much I loved it!! Here´s part of my journal entry from August 24:

"I have never felt more loved in such a short amount of time. This district is my family. I love them sooo much and they´ll never even know how much! Tomorrow´s our last day. We just finished packing, running around, screaming, teasing, hugging, laughing, smiling, scowling, and more. I love them."

So basically i loved it! A lot of the people in our district were converts and their stories were so inspiring. That was part of what kept me going throughout. 

Now about the field!

My trainer/companion is Hermana Garcia who is from Guatamala, but born in California, grew up in Texas, and is bilingual. We Spanglish sooo much. It´s probably 50/50. Which is awesome because I get to practice my Spanish, but if I can´t say something, I just say it in English. She´s super fun! Super spunky, hilarious, energetic (she walks like 10000 mph haha. it´s a workout to keep up with her) and has a strong testimony. She´s been out here for almost 11 months. 

We live here in a little pension (apartment) in the middle of the city with Hna. Burr from Utah and Hna. Escobar, also from Guatamala. It´s a party :) They are a lot of fun too. We had a dance party the other night to efy music haha

I cannot tell you guys how happy I am that I already have Spanish experience. ohhhhh my gosh these Chileans speak sooo fast!! haha and their accent is crazy. And the idioms are nothing I heard in Mexico haha. but at least I can express myself! haha. No it hasn´t been THAT bad trying to understand people... I just tell people, yeah I know Spanish, now I´m just working on learning Chilean. 

I loooove our ward! It HUGE. Like... it´s about the size our home ward was right after it split the first time. They fill up the chapel. That´s pretty rare here. And everyone is so awesome. :) I love chileans! Everyone wants to take care of me and feed me gluten free/dairy free food haha. They are so sweet. One member asked me what kind of milk I drink. I said almond, and she said she was gonna go buy some. I always feel bad for being all like ahhhh I can´t eat anythingggggg. But the members are understanding so that makes it easier. :)

We had an aweeeesome lesson with Jorge, an investigator this week. Here´s what I wrote in my journal about it:

"It was an awesome lesson. My companion hugged me after and said she had no words for how awesome it was. I felt the spirit so much during it. Jorge was having doubts about prayer and revelation and comparing our church with Catholicism and all that... so I said, "Jorge, me gustaria compartir algo con usted." (I would like to share something with you) and proceeded to tell him my story and how I found faith. I told him how I wasn´t always going to serve a mission. I had doubts. I told him that I have fought with my faith, I´ve considered the alternatives and I´ve been tempted many times even to leave the church. But I´ve also learned something in the midst of all the soul searching: faith is a choice. And there is more happiness in faith."

He sat there in thought for a little while after I said that. I think it really touched him. He actually has a date for baptism but he hasn´t gone to church yet so we keep having to push it back. I just pray so hard that his heart with be touched and that he´ll understand why Christ suffered for him. Because when we understand the atonement, we naturally want to do whatever we can to follow Him. At least that´s how I´ve felt. 

Man.... the gospel really is so powerful. My testimony has grown faster and stronger than ever in these last three weeks. I´m SO GLAD I decided to serve a mission POR FIN. Ahhhhh seriously. Thank you to everyone who helped me work out those feelings and to my friends and family who served missions/are serving and set that example for me. I can already tell this is one of the best decisions of my life. 

I love you all! Have a great week. :)

Hna. Cannon

Me pointing to the Chile flag

The elder in the front is from the Slaven´s home ward! (Friends of Sarah's from BYU).

  We saw each other like every day in the CCM. so much fun! Small world.

Me and comp. Hna. Chavez from CCM. We love each other obvi

me and trainer Hna. Garcia. We like rice and ketchup.

Sarah is done with the CCM

Hello family and friends,

We got a short note from Sarah last week. She is finished with her 2 week accelerated courses at the CCM in Chile and is now getting assigned to her first area. We will probably find out more today

With President and Sister Wright

about where she is and who her companion is. We'll keep you tuned in. Here are the photos we got of Sarah with her mission president and his wife, the Wrights, and a big group pictures of missionaries.

Love,
Vida

New Missionaries

New group with trainers

With PhotoShop Magic, my niece, Kiera created this image for me of Amanda handing her scriptures off to Sarah -- like handing over the mantle of missionary work. The photos were taken in our front yard, 3 weeks apart and Kiera blended them together so nicely. Followed by a note from Sarah