Where Has the Time Gone?

Posted on November 17, 2014 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

So another transfer as already flown by, really where does the time go. I really feel like I was just coming up here from Pasco. Which also means that I have been out for 6 months WHAT!! I still remember getting dropped off at the MTC. I still think of times at the MTC almost like they were just last week. I have already made so many great connections, and friendships, that make me so glad that social media exists. I will be able to keep in touch with everyone so easily.

So I am staying in my area in Wenatchee with the same companion. Which is now the first time that I have had a companion for more then a transfer. So this will be a new experience. We will see what that is like. Luckily my companion and I get along and we are working get together.

Brian, an amazing guy that we are teaching, is on date for baptism. Dec 13th. so everyone pray for him. He is really seeking after truth and the great part is that he is getting his witness that it is true. Faith is such a powerful tool, but i has to be followed with intent. If you don’t plan on acting upon the answer that you receive then you are probably not going to receive an answer. God will give you what you seek for but he knows the intent of your heart. Brian intent is good and he is changing everyday.
Well I am so glad for all of your support. I keep you in my prayer often.

LOVE YOU ALL
Elder S Cordon.

Tender Moments

Posted on November 17, 2014 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was a wonderful week! I had a lot of tender experiences that really made things very enjoyable. I did an exchange this week on Wednesday back in my old stomping ground of Deep Creek. Luckily for me the plans had us going to the home of my old ward mission leader Br Strattan. I love that family so much they definitely have enriched me mission experience! It was like I never left when i saw them. After catching up for a bit Elder Francom who I was with got to work getting some info on some referrals while Sister Strattan had me add myself to a group for the Deep Creek ward that shows how everyone is related. I found out that Sister Strattan was my 8th cousin and that Betty Hicks, a black sister in the ward who was recently baptized is actually my 6th cousin. It was a funny moment to learn that, but really awesome at the same time. Betty was one of the first people I met when I got to Deep Creek. We had a great day there though and were able to get a lot of work done. At the end of the night we had a lesson with a girl that I met the last time I was there about 6 weeks ago. They had been struggling to get a solid lesson with her since then, but we were able to sit down and have a very powerful lesson with her. We laughed at the thought we would just have me come every 6 weeks and help teach her.

On Thursday I was in Georgia with the incredible Elder Welsh. He is one of the best Elders in the mission and I was grateful to be able to spend the day with him. We had an awesome experience after trying to contact a less active member. After noticing that the family who we had an address for had moved we began knocking on the neighbors doors. After a few doors a school bus showed up and dropped off some kids. These two boys were teasing these girls and one of them was crying while her sister was walking with her back to there house. Turns out that Elder Welsh knew these girls because they are the daughters of a member and the older sister had been to church a couple of times. They told us that the boys were teasing them and one of the boys took an old can of vienna sausages (which are gross to begin with) that he found on the ground and opened it up and threw it at one of the girls. Not too much got on her but nevertheless it was completely unacceptable. After showing the girls a quick video on Jesus Christ we walked over to the home of those boys to invite them to repent. One of them timidly opened the door, he was probably 15 and less than half my size. He wasn’t the major trouble maker though, his cousin who was hiding behind him who was 18 couldn’t even look us in the eye long enough to answer our questions. We proceeded to teach them how unchrist-like their actions were and if they ever wanted to amount to anything in life they would learn quickly to grow up and be real men. Hopefully, an ounce of that sunk in. As we finished up with that the girls mother had arrived home and had been informed of what we were doing. She was very impressed and was very open to hearing our message. Prior to this moment she was very against the idea of becoming a Mormon or even associating with Mormons. By the end of our lesson with her we had her and her daughters all excited about the idea of getting baptized and return appointment to teach them as a family the next day.

On Sunday we had Stake Conference. The building of the Hendricks ward is my Stake Center so I was able to go and say hi to all of my old friends. It is so nice to be able to maintain such a close relationship with my recent converts. In that meeting I had two recent converts in the Hendricks Ward, Solomon Deng and Jim Colney, be sustained by the stake to be ordained to the office of Elder. Solomon wasn’t able to be there that day but Jim was, and my old Bishop was so kind to think of me that after the meeting he went and found me so that I could help with Jim’s ordination. I had no idea that I was going to be able to have that opportunity, but it was definitely a very special moment for me. God has been so good and to give me many tender experiences this week and I know that he loves me very much. It never ceases to amaze me how personal of a relationship that we can have with our Heavenly Father. My mother pointed out in a letter a couple weeks ago that God will bless us very specifically and personally if we are ready to receive those blessings and I can testify that this is true!

I hope everyone of you can look for ways that the lord has specifically blessed you this week and make sure to give him thanks for those blessings!

I love y’all! Have a wonderful week!

Elder Joshua Cordon

The Pains and Blessings of Missionary Work

Posted on November 17, 2014 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

So the news from here in the Orient. Well the work has been going fantastically well. We were able to meet to ladies the sisters found, One she is amazing has two kids one 14 year old boy and one 8 year old girl. Super cute and the 8 year old will be a great addition to the primary of 4. We have not met here husband yet but that is to come. The other lady has a 6 year old girl, also a great addition. Also another potential family we are working with whose name is Mr Lam he has two kids one is 12 and the other 7 I am not sure. But if all goes well we will be populating the future of this ward quite nicely. Thats the foresight on the miracles lying ahead for December.

On other news, I got a call last night that breaks my heart and might be the hardest thing missionaries ever face. Gary my recent convert from Butterfly has informed the bishop and investigators that he is no longer coming to church and will be joining another church. No doubt there was anti involved but, this is so hard for me to swallow because last week I got his phone number and all week I have been thinking about him kept getting the impression to call him, I finally followed this yesterday and wrote him a letter and gave him a call but no answer, it was later when I received the call from the elders about him. On thursday I was even about to write him an email but something distracted me and I thought I would put it off for today. Well on thursday night is when this all went down. So I was able to get in contact with him and he hasn’t not responded to my text. I feel as if the Lord was trying to get me to be there for him is his time of decision making to be a light and a guide. But I missed my chance and for now he is gone. So all my recent converts now are less active. I try to wonder why this happens, what have I done wrong, I think the simplest thing is I am not perfect and the lord knows that although I have done all I can I think these people are starting to realize that salvation is not easy. We all at times feel like we need to quite that it would just be easier but the truth is we can’t. Because salvation is not a cheap experience. The Lord showed us that as he cried in agony on the cross asking the Father where are’t thou. Joseph Smith felt that on many occasions but, maybe most strongly in liberty jail. Truth is all Hell is trying to stop us from getting salvation because it is that great and that amazing, it is always worth it to keep going and we can’t give up.

I love you Thank you for the support.

Elder Jared Cordon

Great Time to Be Serving

Posted on November 17, 2014 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

Well it feels like yesterday but what happened for the last week and a half? that is a great question. We have been doing some solid work! We have been so blessed when it come to street finding because thats mainly all we have done for the last little bit. last week everybody was sick and out of town but its all good because they were feeling a lot better this week. We ran into Irene now for the 3rd time on the street and all three lessons she says she doesn’t have that much interest but we keep seeing her and she keeps listening… she’s getting baptized. We also ran into simon in central. That was super random since we were both far away from home on a very random street but it was good because we had not seen him for almost 2 weeks at that point but he came to an activity that the sisters planned. He likes speaking english which is good and all but i don’t know how to teach the gospel in english I talk to much I complicate things, thats probably why the lord called me cantonese speaking.

We also had a book of mormon find we gave out about 60 book of mormons in about an hour. That planted some great seeds and people were just walking up to us. Also planned a couple sweet ideas for the ward to really spark missionary. Well I guess they already got the spark just throwing some more wood on. But we are going to do a online missionary work training. Helping them use our email program, Facebook and other multimedia and mormon.org so it should be sweet.

The ward is really liking us and so is the bishop. Because we found the sweetest guy on the street and he came to church and next week he is going to bring his two kids and his wife! So things have been slow but now we got a family and simon coming to church the Lord is really blessin us right now!

I got a feeling I am gonna love this ward just like I loved butterfly. Speaking of butterfly the ward split two weeks ago so right after i left. A guy we found has a baptismal date and brother chan(my ward mission leader) is the new wards bishop. An eternal investigator that I prayed for so hard would be our december baptism is going to be baptised in december(answer to my prayers). He had a vision that told him he needed to be baptized. Also he has to quit smoking because he has a liver problem.

The work is good i love it. I also love the temple its an amazing experience everytime. Its such a wonderful blessing to be able to go as frequent as we do.

Oh also had a really cool zone conference last week. It was all about the mission culture and the kind of attitude that we are going to set for all new missionaries.

love you all have a great week!

Elder Jared Cordon

Good Week!

Posted on November 11, 2014 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

I love being in this area, not that I didn’t love my last area, it has just given me some great growth that I needed in the mission. I have learned to turn to the Lord. I have come to know him very personally and I am praying more and it is really helping my strength. Coming closer to Christ doesn’t mean that you are not going to have problems. It doesn’t mean you are going to have problems taken away. However it does mean that you will gain a new perspective on the things that you do need to deal with. An Eternal perspective.

We had a family that we have been working with come to church this last week. They had a great time and felt the spirit. We were able to get a lot of people in the ward to make sure that they went and said hi. Sometimes it is a matter of bringing it to others attention of what they need to do.

Well I love you all. Have a great week.
Elder S Cordon

Meetings Galore!

Posted on November 11, 2014 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

This last week was a bit crazy!! We had 3 zone conferences which are about 10 hours each, then we had a meeting with elder Suarez of the presidency of the seventy on Friday. After a week of that many meetings my brain was fried. I definitely know how a lot of ways that I can begin to change and improve for the better.

It was a really awesome experience being able to spend some time with Elder Suarez. We picked him up from the hotel and took him to the mission home which is about a 25 minutes away, so it afforded us some good opportunity to chat. He knows a Br Cordon who was a mission president in Brazil who lives in bountiful now. Sadly I have never met him but I said he was undoubtedly kin.

He met with us after our general meeting with him and he gave us some good council and commandments, it was stuff I really needed to hear. We left that day with an unconquerable spirit. The very next day we set a date for baptism on the 22nd of this month. Her name is Kristin. Her twin sister was baptized earlier his year. Her twins boyfriend goes to our ward so she started going recently. She is very excited and so are we. There is a new spirit about our work, and I can’t wait to see where we take things.

Love yall!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Ward Harvest Festival

Posted on November 4, 2014 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

What a great week that we had! I love the work of salvation that I get to be apart of.

We had the Ward Harvest Festival and trunk-or-treat. Which included a chili cook-off, my companion and I got to be the judges for. We had an investigator show up and she had a blast.

We had a great Halloween full of fun with my comp. With a curfew of 6pm we had a lot of time to get to know each other. We got a person on date for baptism, the spirit was so strong in that lesson. It was amazing to see her light up when she heard the first vision. The Spirit is always so strong with the first vision. It is true it actually happened and that is the vision that started it all. Of course the Holy Ghost is going to testify of it.

That is the amazing part about the work that we are doing. We just ask them to find out for themselves by praying to God and having it confirmed to them by the Holy Ghost. Everyone can get the answer right from the source we are just making the invitation.

Thank you all for your support.
I keep you all in my prayers.

Love Elder S Cordon.

PS I don’t need anymore candy for like 2 years 🙂

I Am A Child Of God

Posted on November 4, 2014 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

Transfers has come and gone and thankfully Elder Layton and I are still working together. He is now officially the companion that I have served with the longest. We will have been together 6 months by the end of this transfer. Like always this week has afforded me an interesting time of reflection and contemplation. Spending time with missionaries on their first day and on their last day caused me to think about how far I have come and where I am going. It makes me so happy to see how the mission has made an impact on my life so far. I am not sure if there is any other way to learn so many life experiences so intensely in such a short time. I am grateful to God for everyday that he has given me to serve. Luckily for me I still have plenty of time to learn and become a better man.

I Am A Child of God, the classic primary song in the church, took on an entirely new meaning for me this morning. It was interesting how everything came full circle. It always does. Wednesday night I was at the mission home waiting for some missionaries to finish getting their final interview with President Craig. Among those missionaries are a handful that are very talented musically. Sister Heckel, Sister Dodd, and Elder Sorenson, received a request from Sister Craig to sing one more song accompanied with the piano before they left for the night. The hymn they chose just so happened to be I Am A Child of God. My initial thought when that was suggested was, “come on, that is a boring one, choose something else.” However, as they sang, they did a beautiful rendition that really brought a heavy spirit into the room and was very enjoyable. At the time, aside from being wrong about that song being boring, I really thought nothing more of it.

On Saturday we helped an investigator of ours, his name is Tom, he is the one that came into contact with the church via the app, Hanging With Friends. He is very busy and it has been difficult to sit down with him. In fact we only have once since the initial lesson, but we have maintained great contact through calling and text. He told us that he was going to busy this weekend moving some things and condensing two storage sheds that are across town from each into one. We saw it as a great opportunity to serve and quickly jumped on the opportunity. It surprised him at first but he let us help. Because our mini van can hold so much we ended up saving him two trips and we were able to do it in one. Afterwards we got lunch together and it became a very powerful lesson. In an attempt to help him and his girlfriend, Cathy, see why knowing about the pre–mortal life is so important for them I realized in a powerful and new way why it is so important to me. Tom is a man who puts family first, he does not hesitate to skip his breaks so he can make it to his sons baseball games and go on scout camps with him. He learned to put family though through the school of life experience. On the other hand I contrasted that with the fact that I am only 20 years old and I have not had the amount of life experience that he has but I have known my whole life that family is a priority and it deserves our time. I have known that I know it now because I understand where I am came from and why God sent me here. Knowing that I am a Child of God has helped me see what is most important in life. I am not perfect by any means, but I know who I am and where I am headed.

The next day on Sunday we were teaching Ty, and he is someone who is struggling to overcome the effects of his past mistakes and other things that continue to hold him captive. We helped him see that God is our loving Heavenly Father, and that he gives us commandments to help us know what we can do to be happy, and that because we are children of God and because of Jesus Christ we are capable of living every single commandment that God has given us. Even though we are weak we have the potential and capability of overcoming everything that holds us captive. Because of Jesus Christ even the grave cannot hold us captive.

Finally this morning I was listening to a talk by Henry Eyring that he gave in 1988 at Ricks College. He talked about the power of knowing and believing the song I Am A Child of God. He talked about how it speaks of our potential. A child has the potential to become like its parent. Since that happens to be God our potential is literally limitless, we should never let anyone tell us that we cannot do something. Secondly he talked about how we are still yet children and that we need to be humble and wiling to learn the way that children are willing to learn. As people grow older they seem to think that people younger than them cannot teach them anything, but we are all children and we all have plenty of lessons to learn from one another. And thirdly, because we are Children of God we have the divine help of the Holy Ghost and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Knowing that enables us and helps us know that no matter how many mistakes we have made we are still capable of reaching the potential that is part of our nature. I coupled that with studying the life and atonement of Jesus Christ this morning and it was a very powerful experience.

I want to bear my testimony that I am a Child of God. I know that he has sent me here. I know that family is of God and that parents our a gift from God. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and redeemer and that will help me through every step of this mortal existance. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and the gospel has been restored through him. I say all these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I love Y’all!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Record Setter!

Posted on November 4, 2014 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

Well what a wonderful week in Aberdeen. This was the first full week that we had together here and it really shows that we work well together. I don’t think I have had better unity with any companion previous. We set a mission high for both of us at a good 16 other lessons (editors note: lesson without a member present) which is about twice as much as what people call a good week. I am not saying this to gloat but only to glorify God because this is also 4x the high for lessons in the last 5-6 months for the area. We had a pretty crazy schedule this last week with three trips to the north side of the island during the week for activities and missionary meetings & a birthday party at a mental rehabilitation center. Still with time being short throughout all this we often filled those random gaps of time with some great finding and the Lord always put someone in our path who was ready to listen. I have not done really anything different with people than I normally do. Just the Lord felt it was time to really do some work.

With that we also made great progress with Simon who before was really confused and not motivated to being focused and eager to learn more. He really likes speaking English which is good and all but there is a reason the Lord called me Chinese speaking I have a hard time keeping things simple in my native tongue. Although we overcame these barriers and did well. We are also working with two potential families which is so great! next week they should be at church. Also with hope of a third on the way. Things are so good here in Aberdeen! My area is just almost all predominant finding.

We see boats for days and plenty of huge yachts here in Aberdeen, which finds me having a desire to live in a yacht.

Here are some pictures of my last two p-days in butterfly I will get some of Aberdeen soon.

Love you all,

Elder Jared Cordon

The Work!

Posted on October 28, 2014 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

We have put our heads down in prayer and our feet forward in faith and it has, as it always does, created amazing results. We found 4 new investigators this week, and looking for 4 more this next week. We are teaching a lot of people and the ward is seeing it. We had a family that we made contact with last week come to church this week. It was so wonderful to see them make that step towards God. We found a couple that live at the very edge of our boarders, we have to drive 1 hour to get to them, it was a referral from a missionary serving in the Salt Lake Central mission for us to go see his brother. It was a great lesson and they want us to come back. It kinda holds a special place in my heart to be able to teach this couple, he is a less active member and she is a non member.

So this last week I got to go on exchanges with my MTC companion. He is serving in a wonderful place called Leavenworth. If you haven’t heard of this place you need to Google it. I really hope that I get to stay around here for the holidays, so that I am able to see this place at Christmas. I met the best member missionaries up there, they talk to everyone about the gospel. It was a wonderful place that I will 100% be going back to.

I am so grateful to all of you that are supporting me on my mission.

I keep you in my prayers daily.

Elder S Cordon.