Author Archives: shalesecordon9

2015!

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Dear Family & Friends,

Well this is the first week of another transfer. My new companion is Elder Barbour. He is 20 and from CA has been out 2 transfers less then me. I am so grateful that I get to stay in the area that I am in, I can feel that there is still something that I need to do here.

I do know that everyone is trying to make there new year goals at this time during the year. So as you sit down to do so keep in mind the goals that should lead you closer to our Heavenly Father. Seek after them in pray, so that you my receive answers as to what God knows that you can do in your life to come closer to him. Then know that those are going to be the most important goals that you set for yourself this year because they will be goals from a loving Heavenly Father who knows better then yourself what you need.

Love you all so much,

Elder S Cordon

Chaos and Melodies

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Dear Family and Friends,

This week had my head spinning!! Our week was packed with appointments, we had a million and half (divide that by 50000 and it is probably more accurate) people we need to get in contact with, we had to prepare and give a training for a meeting that was most of the day on Wednesday, and I have a new companion who has yet to meet everyone in the area, and I did two exchanges. Haha it was crazy. It pushed me to my limits in a lot of ways. The blessing and the curse of high stress situations is that it quickly brings to your attention different flaws in yourself. As nice as it is to have some direction as to were you can begin making improvement, it also isn’t the most painless process. I made a number of mistakes this week that I wish I hadn’t made, however, I am grateful for the Atonement of Christ which helps me to put them behind me, to learn from them, and to change. I am so very grateful for change. This week was met with a lot of blessings though. Donna, one of our good friends is still on track for baptism here on the 18th and she is so excited. She just begins to live everything immediately. She reads the book of mormon several times a day and she is trying to get her brother to also begin studying with us. She has quickly won the heart of the ward and everyone is happy to have her join the ranks. She is a prime example of someone who has a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I am grateful God has allowed me to be part of her story. Jorge is also still ready to go with baptism on the 24th of this month and the ward is very excited for him as well. The sisters in our ward just had a baptism this past week and I think having 3 baptisms this month will do wonders to build excitement in the ward to share the gospel. Last week we had 10 people in church and this week we had 7 so we are getting some consistently large crowds which is really exciting. After a lot of work the teaching pool here is very large and now the trick to get them all progressing quicker and quicker.

I am so grateful for the wonderful opportunity I have to be engage in such great of a cause. I frequently ponder on how lucky I am to be able to have been born in the gospel and to be able to have it simply be part of who I am. I have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, and I want the whole world to join me in singing this sweet melody!

image1Picture Caption: We had to capture the moment! Also the elder on the right is not my companion I was on an exchange and the guy on the left is a recent
convert who I am good friends with and the girl is Tara the amazing
woman we baptized back in July. Happy New Year everyone!

I love y’all!!

Have a wonderful week!
Elder Joshua Cordon

 

Happy New Year!!

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Dear Family & Friends,

Well what an awesome week! Could not have thought of a better way to start 2015! I have been becoming the best missionary of my mission which is I guess what should be expected, but even more than I thought.

Talks that changed my life this last week were two A consecrated missionary and one by my mission president when he spoke at BYU. Both are just awesome and have really changed the way that I work. One thing the consecrated missionary talked about was the commandment to open our mouths and find by the way. Whether its on the elevator, parking lot, grocery store, the ferry finding by the way is the best way to find. I have been taking this to heart and it doesnt matter the setting I have been opening my mouth I feel like fear of contacting anyone any place any time has almost left me completely there is still work to do. I also went singing in public which is something I never thought I would do in a million years. But hey I think singing everyday to start comp study has done wonders for my voice plus when you learn a tonal language its helped me to be not so tone deaf. Basically we got some slow but solid work moving we are not looking for dramatic spurts that look good but dont retain but the solid consistency of the line upon line approach. I got a lot of time left in my mission still but I am treating every week as the final stretch.

Plus a quote that I came up with for you all to think about is:

“Salvation is as hard as your heart”

Love you All
Elder Jared Cordon

I Will Relish The Transition!

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Dear Family and Friends,

Sorry for a short one this week, but things have been non-stop crazy–that is normal though.

The biggest thing from this last week is that I got a new companion. This time with Elder Layton has been one awesome ride! I have learned so very much from him and I thank God for everyday I had with that good friend of mine. As much as I had to say goodbye, which no one likes to do, I get the chance a of learning from and gaining a whole new friendship. My new companion is Elder Jorgensen, he is an amazing person. He’s got the work-ethic of ten Idahoan farmers combined, and the intellect of eight amatuer chess players…. Okay I don’t really know what either of those are supposed to mean, but either way he is really awesome! He is from San Diego he has had one interesting life story. To say the least he graduated high school by home schooling himself at the age 15 and he read the Book of Mormon for the first time when he was 5. Even though that makes him look super nerdy also know that he played rugby in high school… I honestly feel like God knew just what I needed to progress in this next phase of life and Elder Jorgensen has got all I need to learn what I need to learn. We are already full speed ahead!

Anyhow, love yall!

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Joshua Cordon

P.S. I got a fortune cookie once that said, “relish the transitions in
your life they will happen regardless.”

Goodbye 2014

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Dear Family and Friends,

As I reflect upon this last year, and all the changes that have happened I cant help but smile and know that 2014 will always be remembered.

I can narrow it all down to one single thing that has improved my life. Getting to know the Savior and how I can grow closer to him. As I have come to learn about him and have begun to change things about myself to try and live a life modeled after Him. I have felt the desire to share with others the beautiful light that Jesus Christ can bring into life on this earth.

He is the life and light of this world. He is the way and by no other way and by no other name can we live with our Heavenly Father again. I know this with ever fiber of my being and I know that he loves each and every person unconditionally. Even when we stumble and fall, which will happen everyday. He is there to lift us up and build us stronger so that we can build our lives on a proper foundation.

I am so grateful for the trials that I have had this year; they have broken down the bad and built up the good. That kind of change only happens through the atonement of Jesus Christ. It has the power to change a person from the very core of who they are and that only happens because of the Holy Ghost being able to touch and give more light and strength to our souls, giving us more power over the natural man.

I am grateful for this year and what I have learned. I am also very grateful to move to 2015.

Thank You everyone that has helped me in my 2014 journey each and every one of you hold a special place in my heart.

Elder S Cordon

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The Roast Elder Cordon cooked on Christmas!

 

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Beautiful View!

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

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Dear Family and Friends,

What a wonderful week! I truly felt the Christmas Spirit and I will never forget these experiences!

We wanted to see miracles this week and so preparing for Christmas we did a special fast on wednesday. We asked to truly feel the love that Christ feels and to be able to find people that need our help. So Christmas after talking to family we went out to work and despite that fact that it was raining we met some really cool people who have had pretty hard lives! A ward member had given us these little christmas goodie bags to give to investigators and Less Actives so thats what we used. These people really enjoyed them and we also found other little ways to serve people. I think the greatest miracle I felt though is the pure love of Christ that filled my soul that whole day! We also saw some other miracles while doing some less active finding one ladies recorded said she did not want anybody to contact here ever again but we knocked anyway and she opened the door and said: “Elders I haven’t been to church forever, wow its been awhile since I have seen you, hows the ward…” She was so happy to be in touch with us again and we will see her next week. We also were able to see and give presents to some others as well. Also the ward Christmas party was this week and we were able to have a kid we met last week come who really enjoyed it then we taught him again the next day. Also another lady who we are working with drove from a mainland family vacation got to come then headed back after, and she loved it!

We also saw many other miracles this week and although most of everyone we are working with were too busy to meet up we were able to see some great success!

I have learned so much from these goals of 65 that just by pushing a little harder when you don’t want to go anymore and by just using every minute you have it really can make a huge difference!

Love you all and keep improving life is to precious and to sweet to stop!

Sorry for my poor english, my chinese is just getting better.

Elder Jared Cordon

#FilledWithJoy

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Dear Family and Friends,

This week I was able to go to the temple. The temple is such an amazing place, a literal heaven on earth. I am grateful that we have temples on the earth today, to be able to learn so much about our Heavenly Fathers plan for us. To be able to make covenants with God which in turn gives great power and blessing from Him to make it through this life. I never fill closer to God then when I am in temples.

I also got to go up to Leavenworth this weekend. We were handing out PassAlong Cards for the share the gift campaign. It is such a beautiful place. I will come back to visit it for sure. The Christmas ward party that we had was a great success. There was a shadow nativity and musical performances and dinner. Lots of people brought friends, and everyone that we talked to at least invited someone. That was Friday and on Sunday we had a very spiritual Christmas sacrament meeting. The Christmas Season just has a way of filling everything with Joy!

Love you all very much.
Thank you all so much.
Merry Christmas.
Elder S Cordon

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It’s Christmas Time In the Mission

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Dear Family and Friends,

One more week done and gone… I am at that point in my mission where that hurts to say that. I would be happy if time would just stop for a while. This last week was a great one though! Definitely the highlight was the fact that we had the mission Christmas Conference. I was on an exchange in Lake City the day before so I had to leave a lot earlier to get there but all was well. It was such a great time! I was amazed at how different it felt from last year. Even though it was in the same chapel as last year and the agenda was very similar, even the orientation of the building felt very different. Some big differences this time was, that I was helping run it rather than simply sitting back and enjoying it, also I know every missionary by name now too, rather than feeling like I only know a small portion. It was the same event, but my perspective changed the whole experience for me. Also I was part of our Zones skit. We did a missionary rendition of Elf, and when the missionary was trying to street contact in New York City, I was a street performer who got to bust out a few dance moves. I knew that my Folk Dance training would come in hand at some point my mission. It was a lot of fun, but now it is no secret that I like to dance.

This week we had two miracles! Sadly I was on an exchange out of town for part of it, but nevertheless they happened. The first was with a wonderful lady named Donna. We met her a week and a half ago and she said we could come by on sunday to teach her. That was last sunday. When we showed up to see if she was going to keep the appointment (because a lot of people don’t) we not only found that she was expecting us, but that she had dug up her old book of mormon that someone had given her a while back and she had read the first few chapters, marked it up, and had a few questions for us. I was dumb-founded as she told us all of this. Turns out this retired women with 11 birds is far more prepared than we ever would have thought. On Wednesday Elder Layton went back and taught her and she enthusiastically accepted a baptismal date for the 18th of January. She came yesterday to church and loved it! Also the relief society just adored her so it was phenomenal all around.

The other miracle was that on Wednesday, Elder Layton went and saw Jorge Simons. The father of one of our recent converts and has come to church for the past few months and has been reading the book of mormon almost daily. So of course we know that he is ready to make the step of baptism, but he has been so nervous to make the commitment. During the lesson on Wednesday Jorge has finally decided though that he is ready to make that step and he has picked The 24th of January as his time to enter into the waters of baptism. I am so excited for him! It is huge that he finally made that step!

I love all of you and I hope that you will take the time this Christmas season to reach out to those around you and help them feel the love of God we so frequently take for granted!

Love y’all
Elder Joshua Cordon

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Merry Christmas

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Dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas!!

We had a really good week this last week. We were only able to meet with one of our investigators, and had our lowest week of teaching lessons. But we also had a week were we probably met more potential than any other previous week. One cool miracle is we planned to go finding out to Lamma island. Right as we were walking up to the ferry it was leaving, barely missed it. Well that gave us another 2 hours so we said to ourselves there must be someone we need to find, and that there was. We met a really prepared kid and taught a powerful lesson and rescheduled him for this next week. Later in the week when some lessons fell through we took advantage of the extra time to find well, finding went really well we found three really prepared people (one who has met with missionaries previously), finding was going so well we only took a ten minute dinner. During enlgish class, a mom we have been working with was not able to come but, instead she sent her sister to come for her with her kids. Her sister loved the spirit of the church and has a lot of potential and then the mom with her kids showed up to church for the first time and were able to see the Christmas devotional. Christmas time brings miracles I can attest. Another miracle that happened–which shows the effects of the holiday although its mostly secular here–we were finding in a place that is known to be a bad finding place and, I am trying my hardest to break that mentality because there is no such thing as a bad area, we taught a pretty cool lesson. We saw a guy way off in the distance and felt impressed to talk to him, well turns out that the first time is his life he has ever pondered the thought of Jesus Christ two missionaries from his very church decide to contact him. It was really funny he just kept saying over and over again that this must be a sign from god, And it really is I know he leads us to those who are ready.

I love Christmas and the reality of Jesus Christ our Savior its amazing time of year to ponder the most amazing man. I know he still lives and I know each and every one of us can know that for ourselves.

Elder Wongs style has taught me a lot as I have tried to take the follower role we have seen an interesting thing happen. Less lessons but more quality lessons. He delights in simplicity as is quick to discern when we are wasting our time talking to someone who is not ready. These two principles have helped improve our finding this last week. We taught less but we taught better.

Me personally I have seen such a huge change on my mission in my testimony in my behavior in my desires. Its hard to see the change sometimes because I feel like who I am now is who I have always been, but maybe thats because I am finally becoming who I am supposed to be.

We have been contemplating the words of our mission president about making this the most memorable christmas and with just finding scheduled on Christmas right now we have some plans in the works to make this the most memorable spirit filled find we have had thus far. We will fill you in on the miracles to follow.

By the way my chinese has been getting a lot better. Also I am becoming more versed with soon being able to contact in mandarin and chinese sign language.

Love you all and have a very merry CHRISTmas!

Elder Jared Cordon

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A mission wide rule of NO CONTACTS required Elder Cordon to sport some new specks!

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The view of Hong Kong from a hike Elder Cordon took.

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Let Us Act

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Dear Family & Friends,

We’ll last week was a busy one a good one for some ups and downs. We were able to add a few more people to the teaching pool so we are seeing some great success from our finding efforts, we have been really consistent since I got here. Some of our investigators made some huge improvement this last week, like one brought his father to church who is so cool! Which is so good cause we need more priesthood holders. One has a really strong desire and has had a lot of anti and family opposition and its cool to see her fighting through all of it. Because conference taught us “having sincere questions is not the question but, where you go for answers”. We have some investigators who have listened to our exhortation to read and pray to know for themselves and nothing is sweeter for a missionary when they do it and find that it works. But on the flipside this week we had two who would not, no matter how much we did on our end, read and pray. Its a simple fact, missionaries can bring the spirit unto people but we cannot bring it into people as 2 Nephi 32 teaches us that it is the spirits job and the individual through there agency to act is what allows the spirit to do that. I think if we apply these principles in any teaching situation whether it be in church, families, schools, sports, or military. Its all the same we need to teach and help people to do it themselves we are objects to act, any other way is simply contrary to our nature and the way God made us.

I love you and hope the holidays are full of happiness and joy as we ponder the glad tidings of great joy which is our Savior Jesus Christ who came to save us all if we come unto to Him. Let us show our true gratitude by coming unto to him and helping all that we can remember the true reason for Christmas.

Love you all

Elder Jared Cordon

P.S. Here is some pictures! BTW my pose is demonstrating how main landers sit everywhere, bus lines, when reading the paper, really anywhere.

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