Category Archives: Joshua

Elder Joshua Cordon is serving in the Jacksonville Florida mission as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Why I Believe

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Dear Family and Friends,

Words cannot describe how I felt in the temple this Thursday. I know that some missionaries have to wait a full two years to go back to the temple and that I am blessed to go at least once, but it definitely was a must needed spiritual recharge. It is like getting plugged into the generator.

We met at the mission office at 7:00 in the morning. There was a pretty decent sized group going this time. I cant remember the exact number, but I know that we filled three 12 passenger vans and a suburban, and then were met by some more at the temple who left from Gainesville. It was a couple hour drive to get to Orlando, but it was well worth the wait. I am sure that this is true with all Temples, but the Orlando Temple is so much better in person. That is probably due to that fact that when it comes to temples the beauty isn’t only seen, it is also felt. The spirit enlivened my soul throughout the entire experience. I have learned more in that temple trip than I ever had before. To add more to my joy in the experience Elder Hamilton and I shortly after finishing our session, went and saw our recent convert, Jim, do proxy baptisms and confirmations. The whole experience was undoubtedly one of the most joyous of my life.

I also had the blessing of meeting some very choice spirits of our loving Heavenly Father in my new area here in Mandarin 2nd Ward. Tara I have only met briefly, but that is all I needed to realize that she is one of the most positive and sweetest people that I have ever met. Michael is a young man my own age who is trying to do all he can to experience joy in his life. Both Tara and Michael came to church yesterday and both thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Last night we had a fireside at the church called “Why I Believe.” It consists of several recent converts sharing with us their testimonies. It was a very powerful meeting! Danielle, a lady we met the other day when she chased us down while walking her dog– may i say that it is probably one of the few moments that missionaries have ever been chased down by someone– accepted our invitation to come and had a great experience. She used the opportunity to tell all the young adults about a community outreach project that she is helping to organize. I have never met someone who is so happy and full of life! We haven’t been able to teach her anything yet, but we have a return appointment at a members house Friday night so we will see what happens!

Temples have become a major piece to my testimony. The power and spirit that you feel in those Holy edifices, even if you are just on the grounds round about, can only come from God. Those feelings bear an absolute witness to my very soul that this gospel has been restored in its fullness once again to the earth. I know without one doubt in my mind that Jesus Christ is my Savior and Redeemer, and that I am a child of a loving Heavenly Father. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that he really saw God the Father, and Jesus Christ one spring morning in the year of 1820. I know because I have been there in that very grove, I have prayed to God for a witness of my own, and I know by the Holy Ghost that it truly happened. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God, and I will sustain and follow him for I know that he leads us to Christ. I KNOW all of these things by the power of the Holy Ghost through much prayer and fasting, and I KNOW you can too. Start by reading the Book of Mormon, that is where it all begins. Once you are finished pray and ask God if it really is his word. That simple. If you do, I know that God will speak to you and confirm to your heart, like he has to mine that, the truthfulness of these things. I write these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Love y’all!
Elder Joshua Cordon

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After the trial of your Faith!

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Dear Family and Friends,

Before I do anything else, I would invite all of you to get on Facebook and join the group called to share. We are having event number 2 come online tomorrow and we need your help this week to make it big! It is called #searchthebook. It is pretty simple. Post a picture of you reading the book of Mormon in your favorite reading spot. Then post it with the #searchthebook and one of your favorite verses or something. Last week the event was trending on facebook, we got several celebrities to take part, and mormon.org even did a write-up on it. You don’t want to miss this 🙂

This last week has been a real trial of our faith though (Ether 12:6). Here we are setting a goal of finding someone who we can teach and get baptized in the month of June. In order for the lord to trust us with one of his beloved sons or daughters we need to do our part. Which in my mind is putting in the ample amount of time to find. Well, this past week we were fed 8 dinners and 3 lunches with members, which is absolutely a huge blessing (the most meals I have ever had in one week my whole mission), but it means you can’t skip meals or take a quick lunch, and considering the crunch time, that was the plan. Apparently the lord wanted to make sure we ate! Are car also got put in the shop on Monday, which normally isn’t bad, but we had made all our plans with the mindset that we would have a car. So not having one through a lot of things into a big pot of crazy as we scrambled to adjust our scheduled appointments to make room for travel time. We also had a lot of members ask for service from us, which is also a huge blessing, but we didn’t expect to do so much in one week haha. On top of that we had two exchanges to do, which once again is another blessing. All of these things combined just made it hard to donate much of any time to finding. Yet we found the time regardless.

In order for someone to get baptized though they have to come to church three times. Considering the fact that we only had 3 Sundays left this month, that person had to come to church Sunday. We had a few potentials who had committed to come, but one by one they fell off of the face of the earth. We still had one brother named Mobile who was committed, but he didn’t have a ride. We tried for two hours Sunday morning to get him a ride, but not a soul in the world would answer their phone. 15 minutes before church starts we get news that he found himself a ride and a few minutes later he comes rolling into the parking lot in a rickety old SUV with a non-member friend a recent convert. It was a beautiful sight to see them all come walking up to the chapel in their Sunday best, knowing that God had provided us that soul that we had been fighting for! The 3 of them and Solomon on the pew was a beautiful sight to see. I believe in a god of miracles!

Some background on Mobile. He is one of the lost boys of Sudan. His cousin is Solomon who i baptized back in December. And his other cousin is a man elder Frazier baptized back in December as well who moved to this area shortly after Elder Frazier came here. He is really tall and very funny. His English isn’t too great but it is getting better. Hearing the story of what those men went through back in their country is really incredible. Despite the very traumatic events that naturally following joining the military at the early ages of 10-15, they are all so very happy! It really puts your life into perspective and helps you learn to pick what is worth being sad about. He continues to inspire me one day at a time! I love that brother!

I got told that I will be able to go to the temple this week! Wohoo! I am excited! It also happens to be the same day that my recent convert Jim will be going which will pretty awesome! I hopefully will see him down there!

Have a great week! I love y’all!

Elder Joshua CordonA

Lightening, Cameras, and…. Snow

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Dear Family and Friends,

How is it possible that week after week things just get better and better? You think you should just get to a point where you would just stop progressing and you are as happy as you can be… Except that would be false doctrine and the exact opposite of what I teach people, so it makes perfect sense actually. I love truth!! It is just so… motivating!

This past week at Zone meeting we had one of the most inspired goal setting sessions i have ever experienced in a Zone Meeting! I have struggled to get a goal that everyone embraces and one that unifies, but I think we finally did it. It started with a spiritual epiphany I received several weeks back, and one I have been praying about ever since. I realized that God wants his sons and daughters baptized more than I want them baptized. No duh right? Well it definitely changed the way I pray. Then I realized that he spends everyday preparing people to received this message and that there are prepared people out there and we just need to find them. Now I kinda knew all this already, but it finally hit me in a different way, the kinda way that leads someone to change and to act. My companion and I then came up with what we knew was a inspired plan. We decided that if we pray and fast and work our tails off, that every single companionship can find and baptized someone in the month of June. When we first introduced it we had a lot of doubting eyes staring back at us. So we pulled out our secret weapon, the faith building pep-talked we prepared. Before we were even done the spirit was very thick in the room and every single missionary jumped in excitement for our goal which is twice as much as a number we thought was impossible the month before. Good things are coming 🙂 #raiseyourexpectations

So if you haven’t seen our video on Facebook yet, I pity you. I would also invite you to repent and go and check it out. We are forming an amazing group and we need your help! It was a lot of fun to film and it was definitely interesting scenery. I hope you enjoy/enjoyed it!

I also had the opportunity to go on exchange last week to required me to hop on the bike again for a whole night! Before we even finished our dinner it was raining. I decided to go without a raincoat though because I new that if I wasn’t wet with rain water than I would be wet from wearing a non-breathable coat in the thick humidity. As we biked around we enjoyed natures natural firework displays. I was hoping that people would take pity on us considering, but it didnt seem to work too well! haha

Another amazing experience was that this past week Alfred opened up that he was still unsure of Thomas S. Monson being a prophet. We decided to help him out by watching the move about him called “On The Lord’s Errand.” Before we were even able to finish the movie he said that he knew that it was true! He is such a champion! He will be interview this week for baptism so we will see how that goes!

Oh ya and about the snow comment. We were about to go meet some less-active members at an apartment complex when we saw a pile of snow on the other side of the fence. I had to look to twice to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. I made a snow ball!!! In Florida!! OUTSIDE!! How is that possible!?! Well… it helps if you are next to an ice rink haha. Nevertheless, it was awesome!

Once again everybody join the Facebook group Called To Share and invite all of your member friends. Then tomorrow (Tuesday) post a picture of you holding the Book of Mormon just under yours eyes with #discoverthebook and with your testimony of how you know it is true!

Love Ya’ll!!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Bring on the rain!!

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well, Hurricane season is officially here. The wise old patriarch of the ward strongly urged all of us to be ready. Don’t worry though, we are. We have been stocking up on food for the last little while. The cupboards are full and we have food for at least three months. Also, if anything does happen, what a great opportunity it will be to serve those around us. It will also make it easier to baptize if the streets are full of water. Of course I am only slightly joking! It did storm rather heavy every single day last week! We even had nickel sized hail several times.

Moving on.

Some really good things happened this past week! Not the least of which is the mission leadership council meeting that we had in which a lot of good things are coming about. I really love where President Craig is moving the focus and I am excited to exoerience all the good that will follow. For me personally, that meeting was very inspiring. I left with my expectations raised and my vision expanded. I realized I hadn’t been stretching myself enough, but that is going to change! Starting with my online proselyting, which is something that I have completely neglected these past few months. I have been looking for ways to improve and now I finally feel like I have concrete direction on how I am going to do that!

An exciting thing that happened this week was that Alfred had a change of heart. A week ago he was pretty down and he wasn’t his normal cheery self. He didn’t come to church last week because he was so down. He started to have a lot of doubts in what we were teaching because he still hadn’t had a spiritual witness of the Book of Mormon. We set out this week to help him have one. On Wednesday we talked a lot about prayer with him, we knew that if he could understand how prayer works then getting an answer will be easy. Near the end of our lesson he seemed to have a really good understanding of prayer. We then challenged him to pray right then and there and ask god if the Book of Mormon is true. He was a bit hesitant, but he agreed. After praying we had us just sit in silence for a few minutes so he could pay attention to the way that he felt. Needless to say, Alfred finally can recognize what the spirit felt like! It was pretty incredible! This Sunday at church he just kept saying, I feel the spirit and I can’t help but smile!

And on that note I want to end by saying, if you are looking to smile a little more in your life, then do something that will invite the spirit, and soon enough, I promise you, you will be smiling! It happens to me every single day!

I love y’all!!

Elder Joshua Cordon

One step at a time!

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Dear Family and Friends,

This last week was complete craziness! Which is just the way I like
it. Perhaps I say that a lot, but it is true. We started the week off
right by having a wonderful FHE at Br. Ortega’s home, he is the ward
mission leader and he does a phenomenal job at fellow shipping. There
was a wonderful spirit there as we talked about the Book of Mormon and
overcoming different fears in life. That is when Steve chimed in with
an innocently hilarious comment. Now mind you, this room was mostly
full of women. He told us how he recently had a chuckle moment when
reading the Book of Mormon, it came when he read the line, “the fruit
of thy loins saith.” He followed that up with the question, “do loins
talk”? Haha oh man that was hilariously awkward, but more hilarious
than awkward. We later explained to him what that meant and he felt
slightly embarrassed.

That night we picked up President Craig’s nephew and he stayed with us
for the next 2 days/3 nights. He was a lot of fun! Needless to say, we
laughed a lot. He is leaving on his mission to Ecuador next month.
Probably one of the best experiences we had with him was when we were
contacting a family who was fishing on the St. John’s river and while
teaching the mans wife, we had to chase a crab around that he caught
that got loose. Then her husband pulled out two grabs at the same
time. There is a reason for that. It was a really fun time and a good
experience.

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We had zone conference the next day that was really inspiring despite
the fact that it was ten hours long. I received a lot of revelation
for myself, my area, and my zone. I am excite to see what comes of
these new plans.

The rest of the week was just dandy!

I also learned that more than ever I need to take life just one day at
a time and one week at a time. The rest will take care of itself.
Maybe you could try that too!

Love y’all!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Elder Huntington

P.S. Elder Huntington says “Hi”.

A Rebirth For Some and A New Decade For Me

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well two more wonderful children of God have entered the waters of baptism!! Kevin and Lori have come a long way since I first met Kevin in a parking lot back in December. I am excited to see what they can make of this wonderful opportunity. A big shout out to Bishop and his wife who were so instrumental in getting us to this point. They opened to their home up to lessons several months ago and that definitely solidified the testimony kevin and lori already had. It is just amazing to see the change that comes into people lives as they begin to accept the gospel!

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Thank you to all who helped to make my birthday last week a special one! I was definitely taken care of here in the Hendricks Avenue ward. At the end of the night on Thursday my companion had organized a small surprise gathering of cake and gifts. Some of my favorite people in the ward were there so it was definitely a wonderful moment. Sis. Laskis also fed us that night and gave me another cake haha. There are so many wonderful people here. The Lord definitely gave me a great week seeing as how we had one of my most productive weeks yet! (Matthew 7:11)

All in all it was an incredible week. We started teaching this wonderful young man Alfred again! I taught him a few months back with Elder Hamilton, but he was lacking that real intent so we parted ways. A couple Sundays ago, his Sister (who is an active member) told us that her mom wanted us to go see Alfred again. We went by the next day. As we sat down with him he just got quite and said, “Elders, I am going to be honest with you…” as he paused I braced for what I thought was bad news, he then continued saying, “I really want to change my life now and I just want you teach me whatever I have to do to have what you have.” Talk about music to a missionaries hears! With maybe a little too much enthusiasm we proceeded to unfold before him the truths of the gospel. We have met with him every single day since and each time he has read from the Book of Mormon and taken notes on what he read. Can I just mention how great god is! His power to soften the hearts of people in their time is amazing!

Inspired by my amazing sister Shalese, Elder Frazier and I are going to take a picture everyday of something we are grateful for/makes us happy! It should be good. Perhaps I might share a few with you next week. If you are lucky haha.

Love, Y’all!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Alligators, Snakes, and Trios

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Dear Family and Friends,

Sorry I was silent last week, the pictures are of what I was doing instead of emailing. I hope that you agree it was time well spent, and if you don’t well too bad it already happened.

St. Augustine is a really cool city. It has some really neat attractions, definitely some of the coolest stuff I have ever seen on my mission. I got two items checked off of my bucket list, I saw huge gator, and I held one. Next task is to find one in the wild and poke it with a stick. A really long stick mind you. Okee Fanokee Swamp here I come! haha oh man that would be cool. 

Along with seeing the gator farm we got to see the Fort they had there and it was really cool. It was definitely a lot bigger than I thought it would be looking from the outside. Needless to say it was a really awesome trip! It all could not have happened without Elder and Sister Christensen though, they help finance all us poor missionaries and made the itinerary. I am very thankful for kind people like them!

Another interesting thing that happened this past week was that Elder Frazier went to the temple and I was in a trio for the day. It was an interesting experience. Luckily I got to pick were we go for the day, so I was able to stay in my area and keep the work moving along. Both of the Elders I was with are in full bike areas so they appreciated the break. Exchanges are nice because they mix up the monotony and you learn so much from serving with other missionaries. 

We got a call from President Craig yesterday and Kevin and Lori can get baptized this week so that is incredibly exciting! Also, we had transfer calls last night and every companionship of elders in the zone got changed except for us, and all the sisters in my district got changed, and 2 sisters in the other district. It was a massive change that I did not see coming! That just means that I get to build a friendship with a lot more missionaries though which is very exciting! Wohoo! Friends!

Love ya’ll!
Elder Joshua Cordon

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Double Dunks & Back Flips

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Dear Family and Friends,

Oh the simple joys of life! One of the happiest moments for a missionary is to see someone who you felt came into your life by divine intervention enter the gate to eternal life through the waters of baptism. I am a very lucky Elder to have been so richly blessed. I will take just a few minutes to describe my two brothers who were baptized this weekend!

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Jim, oh Jim. He is honestly the most prepared person that I have ever met in my entire life. Once he knew it was true, which didn’t take long, there hasn’t been anything that has been a struggle for him to give up. Every time we taught him a knew principle he immediately started doing it. He had to get work off for Sundays and his job wouldn’t comply, so he quit! He spends every day serving his neighbors and doing acts of kindness. He is one of the most kind-hearted men I have ever met in my life. It was an honor to be able to baptize him. Sunday after he was confirmed he also got the priesthood and went and did home-teaching right after church! This church is in dire need of more Jims.

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Then you have the good ole Steevo! This brother has made me laugh more than anyone else. He truly understands good humor. He, like Jim, has been so willing to make the changes in his life to come closer to God. His love and enthusiasm for the Gospel has been an inspiration. He just wants this more than anyone I know. He has no problem with telling everyone he meets about the church! Especially via facebook! He has the potential to be a great missionary! I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to meet him and that the spirit softened his heart so that he let us in to teach him.

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This week was just an unbeatable one with that great weekend coming to a close! I am looking forward to helping these brothers down the path of growth and progression in this amazing church! Sadly Kevin and Lori were unable to join them in the font on Saturday but when they get baptized in a few weeks the joy will be just as sweet!

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A quick word of caution for all yall! If you are going to be attempting a back-flip off of a swing at 6:45 in the morning any time soon, don’t tuck your legs too much or you will over-rotate and turn that back-flip into a back-flop. Trust me I know! It is okay though, the swings and I are still on good terms.

Love Y’all!
Have a great week!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Let Bygones Be Bygones

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Dear Family and Friends,

This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. [Philippians 3:13–14]

I decided to write about this topic today because of a trade-off that I went on with an elder earlier this week. To often we spend way to much time living our lives in the past. This is seen in phrases like, “the good ole days,” or “I wish I could just go back.” The beauty of the atonement of Jesus Christ is that because of him we can always be happier tomorrow than we are today if we allow his grace to work in our lives. Life is not intended to have a peak of happiness and then go down hill from there. Men are that they might have joy (2 Nephi 2:22), not men were that they used to have joy. Not only is that wrong doctrinally, but probably grammatically too.

This philosophy of seeing every new day as a possibility to progress rather than regress has changed the way that I look at my mission and at life. I am excited by the fact that through Jesus Christ the future will always be something to look to with eager excitement. This is the case because true lasting happiness is never determined by our circumstances, but instead by our character. Even through Christ, death is not the end, but the pathway to an even brighter and more glorious day, that is of course–like always–if you apply the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Often however, through our own stubbornness and pride we hold ourselves back from progressing by not letting go of the past. This wonderful quote somes up my thoughts on that quite nicely. “When something is over and done with, when it has been repented of as fully as it can be repented of, when life has moved on as it should and a lot of other wonderfully good things have happened since then, it is not right to go back and open up some ancient wound that the Son of God Himself died trying to heal.” (Elder Holland, ‘Remember Lot’s Wife’)

Anyhow, I hope y’all loved my spiritual thought. I just thought it was a fitting message for Easter. This past week was a great one as always. It started with a wonderful FHE at the mission home, and then we got to see a wonderful ward function for the Messiah by Handel on Saturday. Then Sunday was great when this young guy named Mat who we met the day before came to church and loved it! However, that is the past now 😉 And though it warms my soul like the hot sun on my back, I am more concerned by the beautiful scene ahead of me. I have the blessed opportunity of seeing 4 wonderful children of God enter the waters of baptism this Saturday! Boy the future looks so bright, I might need sunglasses!

I love ya’ll! I hope this week is better than any before, which is your choice by the way 😉

Elder Joshua Cordon

Family, Isn’t it about time!

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Dear Family and Friends,

It feels like its been a “hot minute” since my last email, but that is just how things go I guess. (I actually have no idea what “hot minute” means, but someone said it the other day and I have been trying to use it since) Time is a really strange thing when you think about it. Technically it goes at a constant rate, but it feels like it is always changing pace. They say it goes in a line, but that definitely is not the case. They say you can spend it, but it is not something you earn, that its actually a gift we eventually learn. We all have a lot of it, but it is never enough. You can use it with care, or you can waste it on fluff. Now that my time of talking is through, I’ll give you my love and bid you adieu. (Special thanks to Elder Sutton with helping me finish that) I hope ya’ll enjoyed my hand at poetry. Now that I have spent all my time trying to come up with a poem on time, I am now out of time. Funny how that works!

I hope y’all will use your time wisely this week, by doing what matters most.

Bubye now, bubye.

Elder Joshua Cordon