Good Afternoon!!!!

GOOD AFTERNOON!!!!!!!! :)))) how is my beautiful family! hopefully still full from that DELICIOUS birthday dinner you all had!!! ;) thank you for thinking of me!!! birthdays in the mission are pretty cool!!! we wake up and do all the normal stuff, but it just feels different!!! :) here in guatemala there is a tradition that when its your birthday, early in the morning they light off firecrackers outside your house. well it was like 8:45 when they went off but i did receive the fire crackers! :) hermana rosas and hermana garcia (the other hermanas that live in the house) did it for me and they bought me a cake! i also opened up the package that you sent me for my birthday..yes i waited a WHOLE WEEK to open it!!! THANK YOU!!! so much for the food!!! and the "cake" haha we sure enjoyed it!!! :)))) also hermana ruiz, the wife of presidente ruiz, came with us to our citas, and brought me a BUNCH of chocolate..so needless to say hermana canty doesnt need to buy snacks for the rest of her mission!!!! ;)))))) also on friday a member invited us over to celebrate a little! and they have a tradition here that they sing happy birthday, in english, and then they sing a song, "ya queremos pastel, ya queremos pastel, aunque sea pedacito, ya queremos pastel." and then they count to your age!!! :) it was really fun!! and after they sing...you have to bite the cake!!!! entonces...my birthday in gautemala was GREAT!!!!! :))))) 

well this week was also a good one! a little rough on the finding investigators side, but thats just part of missionary work!!! :) we had a goal as a mission to find 20 new investigatores for every companionship..and we only found 13! but WE FOUND 13 NEW INVESTIGATORS!!!! :) thats 13 more people who we are going to teach about the gospel!!! and one of them is a family! (let me tell you the story lol)

about a week ago we were talking with a member and we asked her if she knew anyone who we could visit, and she told us, "my neighbors, they are a young family and i think have gone to church before..visit them." well we went immediately to their house...and they werent home..haha but we went back this week and they were! were taking a little break outside the house of the member and saw them playing with their kids outside and so we went and talked to them! they didnt have much time right then but told us we could come back the next day..and we did!!! it was really a great lesson! the husband said, "i have been to a lot of churches but i have always noticed how much emphasis the mormons put on the family, and i really like that!" it was in that moment that we could testify of the reality of ETERNAL FAMILIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :))))) we have another lesson with them tonight and i am so excited to see how it goes!! :) its also kinda funny bc the wife looks a lot like whit...wierd!!! ;) 

a lot of things happened this week but that experience was one of my favorites!!!! i am so thankful for you all and the love you ALWAYS give me!!!! keep being the great family that you are and know that i love you all so much!!!!! :))))))))) be strong and press on!!! :) I LOVE YOU!!!!

 con amor,

Hermana Canty

Pictures

7 months and expecting?!

HELLO FAMILIA CANTY!!!!!! :)))))

how are you all doing!? great i hope!!! you all sound great in your emails! thank you for the birthday wishes..even though im not quite 20 yet, i still feel like a child!!! :) 

anywho! my week was GREAT!!!!! :) it started with a great surprise tuesday!!! normally on the tuesday before changes during out district meetings we find out who has changes! well presidente didnt have them ready so they didnt tell us! and we didnt find out until 7:45 that night!!! well hna mendoza had changes!! she is in Reu now! i seriously love that girl!!!!! she is so amazing!!!! 

but we also received some other news!!!! IM A MOM!!!!! yep thats right! i am training a new missionary!!!! her name is hermana leon and she is from el salvador!!!!! she is a convert to the church of 1 year and 7 months!!!! and wow is her testimony strong! training is fun..but different! you forget that the new missionaries dont know the schedule very well yet! but its getting there! and she has a lot of desire to learn!!! i am seeing the words of hermana hernandez come to pass! she told when our change ended that the lord would give us the gifts we need to do the work he has for us! and how true that is!!!! :))))

also i want to share with you all about our most recent convert, MARIA INES!!!! :)

she is 12 years old! and is one of the smartest people i have met! we have been teaching her since i got here!! :) and last monday we went to make sure she was still set for the 18 to be baptized...and she said she had to pray about it! well this little KNOWS how important prayer is!!!!! long story short..she prayed 3 times! and EVERY SINGLE TIME she received the same answer! we went on wednesday to see what her answer was (the second time she prayed) and she said, "hermanas i want to be SURE, and i know that god will answer! this is the last time i am going to pray! and when i receive the answer...im getting baptized!" we sure enough! we went on friday to visit her and she said she had received her answer! and that saturday at 6 pm she was getting baptized!!!!! i almost cried when she said that!!!!! 

this week i have had a little bit of a cold and less of a voice and some problems with my stomach! but when i saw this little girl walk into the baptismal font...none of that mattered!!!! NONE!! another soul was saved this weekend! and the lord used me and my companion to help save it!!! :) she is a huge witness to me that GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS!!! she said that she felt a peace wash over her and a joy in her heart! THAT IS THE SPIRIT!!!!! we wont always see visiones, 99.999% of the time we dont see them, we wont always have huge dreams, or life changing moments. but we WILL feel peace, joy, HAPPINESS, calmness! i know we will!!! i have not only seen it in the lives of SO many investigators, but in my own life! 

we are children of god! this life has no purpose if we dont return to his presence, bettered!!!!! that is why we are here! to be tried and tested, and to prepare ourselves to RETURN TO LIVE WITH GOD!!!! i love you all so much and am so grateful that i have such an amazing family like you all!! please be safe and eats lots of food for me on wednesday!! I LOVE YOU!!!

con mucho mucho amor,

Hermana Canty

Pictures!!

Miracles!!!!

Wow was this week full of miracles!!!!!!! :)

  

so much happened this week! :)

so this weekend was the stake conference! and we were working really hard to get ppl to come to it! well we saw the miracles! we had 8 investigators come with us!!!! :)

MARIA INES AND ELVIRA:

its a mom and daughter! and they are so great! they came with us saturday..even though we were a little late! but they lvoed it! it was the first time for hermana elvira (the mom) and the 2nd for maria ines! maria is so positive and so loving! she has a baptism date for this weekend and we will see what happens!!! :)

ABIGAIL, SELVIN, AND MARIA:

its a mom (maria) and her 2 kids! we have been teaching them since i first came here! and they havent came to church! but last week for general conference..they came! we didnt know they came bc they were downstairs and we were upstairs but we were talking to them and they were telling us all about the talks they liked!!!! we were so surprised and happy wehn they told us that!! and they also came to the stake conference!!!!!:) we are going to challenge them to be baptized the 25th of april!!!!!!

ROSADELIA AND SAIDA:

we found them on thursday of last week! and they are super positive...its a mom and her daughter! we went  on sunday to bring them to church and hermana rosadelia told us that she wasnt gonna be able to come bc she had to go to her church but that her daughter was going to come. we were waiting for her daughter and all of sudden rosadelia told us that she was gonna come too!!! she came with us to church and REALLY liked it!! we also introduced them to president and hermana ruiz bc they talked!!!

this week was amazing!! we saw many miracles are excited to see what happens next!!!! :) also...in this conference they talked alot about the families..again!!! and it hit that the lord is telling us! HE WANTS FOREVER FAMILIES!!!!!!!! we need to do all we can to be the family he needs!!! :) i love you all so much and am so grateful you are my family!!!! :) thank you for your prayers and love!!!! :) have a great week!!!! :)

CON MUCHO AMOR,

hermana canty

Come Listen to a Prophets Voice

WOW!!!!!! thats about all i can think of when i think about general conference! it was so good and so inspiring! what did you all like about conference!?

well i want to share some thoughts about conference..but first i will give a little bit about my week! the week was pretty normal for the most part! the only difference is on thursday we have a "motivational conference" in San Marcos again! we had to take a test on Preach My Gospel! it was a lot better than the last test i took thats for sure! but i still need to study ;) i love preach my gospel so much! but we also had the oportunity to watch one of my favorite movies of all time, "Remember The Titans" it was so cool because afterwards president compared us to the movie! it wasnt a perfect match but we all understood! IF WE ARENT UNITED WE WILL BE DESTROYED!!!!!!! :))) it was a really great conference! :)

NOW THE FUN PART!!! :) 

i loved conference!!! it was definitely a different feeling being a missionary but it was so cool!!! our mission brought more than 500 INVESTIGATORS to the conference!!!!! :))))) WOW! we were running around like crazy people for 2 days..and it was great!!!! :) we had 3 investigators who came to the conference and 2 of them have baptism dates!! :) but what was really cool is saturday we passed by this menos activo´s house to invite her and she told us no! but we finally got her to come (its sometimes hard for people to come bc they have fears that ppl are going to rob them while they are gone..) and she loved it! (she was so cold and a little tired during the conference but didnt want to leave! well we didnt think to much about that after saturday..but then sunday morning...SHE CAME ALL BY HERSELF!!!!!!!!!! we were greeting ppl and i saw her..and almost cried! (she is a lady of like 75 years and has had chikingunya and dengue and can hardly walk by herself) when i saw her i gave her a huge hug and asked her how she felt, and she told me "VERY HAPPY HERMANA, VERY HAPPY!!" it was such a moving moment for me bc i saw that eventhough she had so many challenges..she knew that it was important to listen to the prophets voice!!! :) 

also some of the quotes that i liked (bear with me if they arent perfect or exact..i was watching it in spanish and had to translate it..ha!) 

#1: "many things are good, many things are important, but only some things are essential!!"

#2: "if we dont hear the music in our home, we need to practice"

#3: "Watch and Wait

i love these!!! it really made me realize that everyday is a new day and every day we should work harder to be better!!!!!! :) but something else i realized from this conference is that satan is attacking the families! almost every message was about the family and how to strengthen it! its like our muscles..we might think they are strong..but if we dont use them and strengthen them everyday..they become weaker! i know that our family is strong! i was so blessed to have grown up in our family with all of you! thank you for your examples and love! but we always need to be working out our muscles! 

i hope all of you had the chance to watch conference, and hopefully you learned just as much as i did!!! :) we live in the great dispensation EVER!!!!!!!!! how blessed are we!? i hope you can all put into practice one thing that you learned from conference and that together we can all be strengthened!!!! i love you all so much and hope you have a great week!!!! thank you for being so amazing!!!! :))))) I LOVE YOU!!!! :)

con MUCHO amor,

Hermana Canty