May 13, 2012

May 13, 2012

Wow it was so good to here from most of you yesterday! It really is hard to be away for the ones that I love but I know that I'm doing the work of the Lord and that truly brings great joy in to my heart. I pray for all of you every night and I hope that everyone’s testimony is going. I know that this is the true church of God and that it is the only way we can find true joy and fell fulfilled. If I had to put in to words the way I feel about missionary work I don't think I really could, but the closest thing to this is the way I felt after a long day of shoveling snow for all those in the neighborhood that couldn’t do it for themselves! It’s like having a very tired body and full sprit, times ten + the best Sunday school lessons that spoke right to you. That is almost like a day as a missionary and I love it!

Right now in my new area I’m still trying to find out where everyone is and where the heck I'm!  I feel like mom trying to find where 10 of my friends lives for the first time! LOST! : )  But that should go a way soon, I hope. My new companion is so much fun! I wish I still had the gift of tongues though because I can't understand most of what she is saying, and she can't understand most of what anyone tells her. This leads to a lot of fun conversation. We are like two old people that need to put in their hearing aids! This was super frustrating this week but really really fun, I'm sure we will both get better at understanding each other. 

I love the people here and getting to know them is so much fun. The wards here are great they are super missionary minded and love missionaries. Livermore feels a lot like being in Utah, it already is starting to feel like home.

  

 If I could change one thing about my life before I came out I would take some of the distractions out of my life. There are so many things that we feel like we need to do that we really don't. I would put reading my scriptures over catching up on my favorite show, and spending time with family over friends. I would align my life more with my eternal goals than the temporary ones. I hope all of you can take a look into your life and set a goal, as a family or as a person, and make that step closer to God. We are building a foundation that we will have in this life and the one to come. YOU NEED TO BE A LIGHT TO THE WORLD!!!! Even if you are surrounded by LDS people you can still help lifted them.

 I wish there was a funny story to tell you but most of my week I spent getting lost and then getting lost again. Yes I can get lost following a GPS and I know that doesn’t surprise any of you. I drove in more circles and more U turns then ever before in my life this week. But no matter what is going on if you have faith the Lord will lift you up as long as you look for his hand in you life.

I miss you all and I will see you in just a year how crazy is that. Keep read the BOM and your prays will be answered.

Sister Cannaday.

May 8th 2012

Hi Everyone!  Big news I have been transferred as of today! This is my new address:

                         

1736 Paseo Laguna Seco

#124

Livermore, CA 94551

I'm no longer learning Spanish, even though it was coming great, I'm now teaching English to a Sister form Tonga named Sister Santini. She is a wonderful Sister but she is a little shy. We are still low on missionaries here in my mission and president has moved me to an area to get the work moving. It was so hard to leave my Morgan Hill ward but I'm excited to be here in Livermore. It’s a small town about 50min north east of where I was before and in the northern most part of the mission. I can see utter darkness from my living room window, which is all so our bed room. We share the apartment with a set of Spanish Sisters  (I'm excited about that so I can keep up my Spanish) which makes things  just a little cramped. We have all four of our beds in our front room and we have our desks in the two bedrooms because the bedrooms are too small to fit two beds in them. I'm so excited to be meeting so many new people and becoming a part of a new ward.

This also means that I will be still attending church from 7:30am to 4;00pm so I will be calling Mom on Sunday at 6:00pm and Dad around 6:30pm my time. I'm not sure what time it is in Utah but hopefully everyone can make it. I’m sorry that I didn't tell everyone sooner but I didn't know if I was being moved and so I had no clue when I was going to be able to call.

I had a great last week in Morgan Hill we just killed it! But it also killed us! I'm super tried but I know the Lord is strengthening me to keep going. We found 3 new investigators and had 3 families come back to church just as I was leaving. I know it’s all up to the Lord, but it is really great to see some of the fruits of our labor. I wish I had more to tell you but my brain is so fried from everything that has happened today I just can't think of anything else to tell you.

Every one please keep doing the little things that God has asked us to do those are really the things that will make the biggest differences in ours and your children’s eternal future. I love you all and happy mother’s day

-Sister Cannaday

May 2, 2012

Hello everyone!

Today is my six mouth mark of my mission can you believe how fast this is going? The time is just flying by and the my companion has told me that after this it goes super fast. AAAAAAAAAAaaaa...... it needs to slow down I love doing this way too much for it to be going by so fast. We are teaching so much here that the time is moving even faster every day. This past week has been one big blur. Yesterday we had one of our new investigators call us and ask us to come over and teach him in ten minutes. Well… he live in his home and isn't married so we had to find someone to come with us because we can't be there without another girl there. We made a few phone calls and no one answered so then we got in our car and started to drive to members home to ask them to come with us. Just in time for the lesson we found a sister who had moved in with her family for the summer and hasn’t found a job yet. The only thing is Roger, the man we were teaching, didn't speak English at all and neither did the Sister we brought, so she got to sit there and smile just like me. The lesson was great and I understood all most everything and I was even able to answer some of the questions he had that my companion couldn't and she didn’t' even have to translate. After the lesson we were talking on the way back to the car and my companion Sister Deatherage was telling me how hard it is to understand him because he is from a different accent. I truly know that the Lord is blessing me so that I can help ALL people we are teaching. The funniest part is that I had a harder time understanding my companion. Hahaha!

 Keep up the good work out there and never give up.

Love Sister Cannaday

April 25th

         Ok just so everyone knows I'm not dead or hurt I’m just super busy. We don't e-mail on our p-days here because the library isn't open so we have to just find the time in the week to write and there just has been no time. Every bit of time that we set aside for email the spirit tells us that we need to be somewhere less and that truly is where we should have been. This week was truly full of great teaching opportunities and the spirit. We found three new investigators, and two are golden. We taught this couple the first vision and that there is a prophet here today and they almost jump off the sofa with excitement. This was all said is Spanish so when they started to up off the sofa I wasn't sure what in the world was happening, and if I had miss understood the whole thing. They were yelling "Toms S Monson" over and over again. They were just so excited to know that God was still calling people to teach his gospel. We can't wait to go back and teach them I love finding people that are truly looking to find the truth. Another investigator we found lives a like bit off the beaten path and it makes you feel like you are in a movie driving through the jungle to get to their home. But she is ready to hear the gospel too. She visited her sister in Utah and put her self on a referral card for us to come teach her, before we could tell her anything she asked what time and where church was, ask us to come back, and asked for a Book of Mormon!

The only word that we could get in was “Halleluiah”!

Something else cool we got to do is help put temple clothes on one of the sisters that past way because none of her children are members. It was so sweet and neat because the spirit was so strong the whole time we where dressing her and she just looked so beautiful when she was all dressed. I was then reading in church on Sunday and found this quote from George Albert Smith:

" I have felt, since I was asked to speak at this funeral, that perhaps I would not be able to do so. My emotions have been stirred, and I have found myself incapable of controlling them, but since I came into this building a beautiful, sweet influence of peace has come into my soul. …

“Instead of mourning I feel to thank our Father in heaven for the Gospel of His Beloved Son that has been revealed anew in our day. … To know that life is eternal is a wonderful blessing,—to know that throughout eternity the blessings that this good man has lived for will be his. His mortal life has been terminated but this is only part of eternal life. He has laid the foundation deep and secure upon which he has built and will continue to build throughout eternity. The joy that he has experienced here upon earth will be added upon. …

“As I think of the experiences of people in the world, on occasions of this kind, I marvel how we have been blessed. I have no more doubt about eternal life and the immortality of the soul than I have that the sun shines at midday. … It is a sad thing to part with our dear ones, even temporarily. We send them upon missions, or they go to other parts of the world to live and we miss them. When an occasion like this occurs it seems that they are more distant, but as a matter of fact they are not, if we but understood. … Instead of extending the condolence that sometimes might go to those who are bereaved, I feel more like rejoicing this day that I know that this is not the end. …

“… So today, as I stand in your presence, when perhaps tears should be flowing, my soul is filled with comfort and satisfaction. I pray that that comfort may be in the lives of each of those who are bereaved

Everyone stay strong and remember the blessing it is to be a member of this church!

-Sister Cannaday

NO EMAILS

I HAVEN'T HEARD FROM JILL IN WHAT FEELS LIKE FOREVER! I'M NOT SURE WHAT'S GOING ON BUT I'M SURE SHE'S JUST WHY TO BUSY TO GIVE US AN UPDATE! I WILL POST WHENEVER I HEAR FROM HER NEXT!
THANKS FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!

April 10th Lots of Pictures!

THANK YOU everyone for all the happy birthday wishes! I have never had so many in my whole life! You all made me feel so very special! I have to explain the picture of the cake. Mom sent me my favorite cake mix and frosting and I wanted to make it for my birthday on my birthday. We were going over to an investigators to have a little party / lesson and I wanted to bring it. First the cake didn't look very good to begin with because I had a really hard time trying to frost it, then we had to bring it with use and leave it in the car for two other lessons, and then on the way to the investigators house my companion tried to stop something from falling on the cake and instead stuck her hand in it splattering the cake all over the car and myself. The cake was a hot mess by the time we arrived, but it still tasted really good!!! Thank you mom! Thank you Jenni for the box of sunshine it was oddly needed the day it came and was greatly cherished as well. 

Covering two areas makes you feel like half of your brain is gone, but it is never boring and the Spanish is coming along great! I love the people so much and the food! Haha!  I truly believe that they think they are feeding a small army when they invite us to come over for dinner! And you have to finish everything on your plate or they take it as you not liking them.

We now also go to church from 8:30am.-4:00pm. and feels like the whole day has passed us by. It really is a humbling experience meeting all these new people and growing to love them so fast.

Thank you all again for the birthday wishes!

Love you all very much

Sister Cannaday 

Storm Time!

Flowers from Troy! 

Fun at an aquarium! 

Playing at the beach!

Jill's BIRTHDAY!

Shaky face picture!

April 6th 2012

     I am now learning to speak Spanish! I love it and the Lord is blessing me in so many ways! I have only been studying Spanish for two weeks and I can read Spanish, slowly, say a very simple pray and testimony and I understand about 75 % of the conversations in our lessons. I know that it is Heavenly Father trying to make this a little easier for me. This also means that we have a lot to do and I'm also the Sr. companion. I have no clue how we are going to do this, but the lord will provide away if we have faith in him. I have been praying a lot and asking ‘how in the world we are going to do this?’ In personal study the first day I opened up to Alma 37 :40 “And it did work for them according to their faith in God; therefore, if they had faith to believe that God could cause that those spindles should point the way they should go, behold, it was done; therefore they had this miracle, and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God, day by day." (The Lord answered my prayers! The only way that we can do this is by listening to the sprit and being guided everywhere we go!)

41 “Nevertheless, because those miracles were worked by small means it did show unto them marvelous works." …(That by doing the little thing we are going to make the big impacted on those around us.) ..." They were slothful and forgot to exercise their faith and diligence and then those marvelous works ceased, and they did not progress in their journey. 

42 “Therefore, they tarried in the wilderness, or did not travel a direct course, and were afflicted with hunger and thirst, because of their transgressions. (If we don't go forward with faith were aren't going to go anywhere with anyone that we teach. We wont be able to be there for them when the Lord has prepared them to hear what we have to say.)

I love when we find answers your payers in the scriptures! He really is there and He really is listening to what we ask, we just have to truly seek after the answers.

         This week we went to the store and my new companion was trying on a dress; by the way I love my new companion we get along like two pees in a pod! :), I was sitting outside the dressing room and a girl the worked there saw me and I said "Hi" she than said “You are with the Mormon church right?" that put a great big smile on my face. "Yea I am! How do you know that?" " Well I went there once" ... This started a great conversation about the church and she stared to tell me how it could be true but she never prayed about it to know and she wished she had. I got her number and told her I would call her and right before I got up to leave she told me "Thank you for smiling at me and being a nice I know you must have been a Mormon because you are so nice and I just really needed it today."  Heavenly father puts you where you need to be when you need to be there. He really will direct your path if you just ask him to. I can promise that the road he will put you on is so much better then the one you would pick for yourself. Even if you would be happy on the one you pick there is just no words for the joy you will find on the one He is saving for you.

         I know that this church is true and that the Lord knows and loves each of us. Never forget that the world may turn their back on you but you have the almighty God on your side. I love you all and pray for you every night. Thank you for everything you do!

- Love, Sister Cannaday