Woo Deep Ward- Jared

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Woo Deep!!

Well off to the New Territories. This is not by any surprise actually its what I was hoping to get. I got an amazing start in the Wanchai and now I got the Hong Kong shock out of my system and am really looking to step up my efforts every day. This New area is in Tuen Mun and I am in the Butterfly Ward or in Chinese Woo Deep! I have an awesome new companion Elder Falk and he is from East Salt Lake. Actually He is the first 18 year old in Hong Kong. My apartment is awesome I have Elder Siebach, Elder Chan, and Elder Falk. We also all have May birthdays. Its exciting work here in the Tuen Mun area. There is 700,000 people living here. Its also been over 2 1/2 years since the Woo Deep ward has seen a baptism. So we are eager to change things and after the first couple of days under wraps that is looking more and more possible everyday. Elder Falk has been doing some awesome work before I got here and we are not looking to slow down so I will keep you posted. Also I will send a picture of the awesome view from Chelsea Heights, our awesome apartment. In the boonies of Hong Kong we still live on the 31st floor.

Love you all

Elder Cordon
Elder Cordon and his new companion

Another Transfer Down! -Josh

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Dear Family and Friends,

All is well here. We just had our transfer call last night and it looks like I have survived this one. In fact, most of the zone is staying put. We are getting another set of sister missionaries, making us the largest sisters zone in the mission. I am not entirely sure with the Lord is trying to teach me with this particular lesson. My companion is staying as well so we will be able to keep doing some good work in this area. We have a lot of awesome people and we are working with some wonderful people who are progressing towards greater things. It would’ve been heartbreaking to have to leave all this when there is so much that is about to happen.

Lily finally committed to a date, she will be baptized on March 30. The only reason that she hasn’t been baptized yet is because we have been waiting to find out when her grandma who lives in Mexico will be able to come. She was going to try for this past weekend but her grandma’s flight got delayed and then eventually canceled the next best time is the end of March. She is ready and has been for a long time. I feel like when we teach her that we are teaching a recent convert. It is amazing to see the transformation that she has gone through even since I’ve been here let alone the one that she’s gone through since elder Hamilton has been here.

We have been teaching this man Kevin since mid-December on a weekly basis, and just this past week he started bringing his wife to lessons with us. She has really liked it at this point it is funny to hear him tell us “eventually we will get her.” It is almost like we are having a member present lesson. One of the few things that is stopping Kevin from being baptized at this point is that he works every Sunday. Our lesson with him tomorrow will be about the Sabbath day and knowing him I am sure that he will try to make the necessary changes to be at church on Sunday. It has been a great experience teaching him. Because of extenuating circumstances we had started originally teaching him in the parking lot now that has moved to the church. Little by little they all know the truth eventually.

Among other amazing families that we are teaching There are the Conseillants, Bro. Colney, Bro. Gonzalez, Osmond and Viosa (the Albanian couple) and this young guy Mackenly and we started teaching yesterday. The Lord has been so very good to us and we are doing our best to be worthy of our hire and be good stewards with what we have been given. I have been so blessed to be able to develop so many wonderful friendships with a host of wonderful goodhearted people. To be surrounded by such incredible spirits really brightens my entire view of the whole world. That is a blessing I have learned as a missionary. While one could watch the news and see only negative in the world if they would only get out and knock a few doors and just see how many nice people there are out there you could really change your view entirely.

You don’t know your neighbors get to know them they could become some wonderful friends! Have a wonderful week.

And Happy Birthday Mom!

Love ya’ll!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Teaching English (in Florida)

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Dear Family and Friends,

So I don’t have much time today, but I do want to say another little bit about the Albanian couple I mentioned a few weeks ago. So we thought they had dropped us because they didn’t show up to that appointment two Saturday’s ago. We tried to visit them the next day, but they didn’t answer the door. I was bummed, but not worried. The next Friday I was looking at the European edition of the Restoration DVD and I noticed that it was in….. Albanian! I am sure to nobody else that means something. However to me it was another sign. So I called an audible and we drove straight there. Despite the fact that it was after 8:00 and Osmond was in his pajamas, they happily let us in. I showed them the DVD and some how set up an appointment with them for Saturday for another lesson to teach English. We meet them at their place and they followed us to the church. We started off by watching the DVD with them and then taught them the alphabet, numbers and time. It was sweet! We will have them fluent in no time!
Anyhow I love y’all!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Causeway Bay!!!… that’s my ward!

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Dear leihdeih(you all),

Well one more week down! This was great minus the water heater, for the shower, being broken… But hey I had a lot faster showers which gave me more time to get ready in the morning!

Things have really been picking up. We have a baptismal date with another shortly on the way and some others with potential. Its been a fight in this area but I feel like it has really been picking up nicely!

There is a really cool thing that our mission does! Its called My Conversion Story Fireside. Its when all the missionaries who are going home at the end of each transfer pick one of their recent converts who tell their conversion story! It was a great tool we used for our investigator who was trying to receive a witness and was wondering how it might come!

We also had a huge meeting with all the ward and stake leaders in the surrounding area about how the members and the missionaries can work together better. It was really good for both of us. We have been able to see the the success of one ward with less actives. The secret is really with the members on less actives we missionaries may have got them there but they will only stay if the ward will make an effort. Less actives are a huge problem here. One ward took the initiative with the members and they have about 20 LA’s at church a week and that’s a constant number even with them becoming and staying active again.

I also learned a great deal of importance about commandments. Never be scared of the commandments this church has, their no better way to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet then to partake of his fruits, like the Book of Mormon, or the word of wisdom. If you follow the words of wisdom and you receive one of the specific promised blessing of that commandment then there is a witness that Joseph Smith was a prophet.

John 7: 17 “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”

We used this with our investigator and it went great!

Also at the End of the Month Elder Holland will be coming so that should be awesome!

Love,
Elder Jared Cordon

Happy Chinese New Year

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well this was a pretty awesome week! We had the Chinese New Year which meant Deep Clean. Its the day when we all spend the entire day cleaning every crack and corner of the appartment! It looks so good now! Also to finish that day we watched the fireworks over the bay! Pretty Amazing.

Earlier in the week I also had the chance to do my first exchange but this one was the entire Zone mixing and matching. I got to have Elder McEwan who was in my MTC group. So we were both very new and also very blessed. We had to make a random trip to the airport even with all the delays we still managed to get a new investigator in my area which never happens! BABY POWER!

Also many other blessing came Elder Howells and my way this week although everyone is busy over Chinese New Year we were able to meet a few families and found a couple of guys who also live in our area. We felt prompted to go to this area we had never been and frankly we didn’t know what it was we just walked under the freeway and down this path to this beautiful bay side dog park! Way cool we ended up finding two people and teaching streets lesson, they both live in our area. So Cool!

Also today we got to go to Stanley its on the ocean side of Hong Kong Island and it had some amazing views. We decided to spend our P-Day with the ward for a great chinese BBQ!

I love you all have a great week!

Elder Cordon

Daily Miracles :)

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Dear family and friends,

This past week was a good week.

Seems like every day we felt like we had experienced a miracle. That is always a great feeling! Some of the highlights where some lessons that we had with the conseillant family. They are an awesome family from Haiti, we have been working with them for about a month and a half now. Their names are Gabin and Emmanuella, they have three beautiful children, Alayna, Nala, and Gianni. They are like our best friends. I will definitely be keeping touch with them for the rest of my life. They would be wonderful members of the Church. Gabin is Apostle material. A huge step was made with them when we were talking about the disciples in 3 Nephi 19 in the Book of Mormon. Emmanuella was confused about something and we were struggling to help her understand it. That is when Gabin turned to her and in a perfect way explained it to her in a way we never could. It was a huge step because he has never tried to help explain some of our doctrine like that before. They give us marriage advice all the time, mostly for Elder Hamilton because we are predicting that he will be married by the end of the year haha. It is some really good stuff! They really know what they’re talking about.

I am loving every minute of my mission so far! I feel as if my morning studies have improved and I’m really loving the opportunity to tear apart the book of Mormon and just find so many nuggets of wisdom and truth. I have truly grown to love that book as I focus my studies around it. I really don’t care to read anywhere else right now. The Spirit it brings into my mornings alone is worth it. I feel as if anybody who doesn’t take time to study the book of Mormon every single day is missing out on a wonderful opportunity.

A fun thing that happened this week was a friendly competition that we had. On Saturday the assistance called us and asked if we could have lunch so we could talk about a few things. On our way to the restaurant Elder Hamilton and I were trying to guess what they were going to rebuke us for. Unable to think of anything that would give them ammunition we were curious as to what they wanted to talk about. About halfway through lunch and folded the plan before us. They told us that Sunday night from 5 to 9 we were going to compete to see who couldn’t score the most points. You could score points by knocking on doors, contacting people, getting new investigators, and setting baptismal dates. The prize was a golden eagle trophy they had found in the mission office. The Lord bless us with great success and they are going to give us the trophy sometime today. 🙂

I know that God is aware of our lives, and that he really does care about each and every single one of us. His hand is always extended, and we just have to reach out. We will find success and happiness in life as we turn everything over to him. It isn’t easy, but it’s not that hard either, and it is most definitely worth it! Have a great week!

I love ya’ll!

Elder Joshua Cordon

“An unseen power will aid me and you”… Electricity or WiFi anyone?!

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Dear family and friends,

Things got pretty exciting this last week when I was able to receive
my iPad mini. These things are awesome! It is definitely a huge bonus
to serving here in Jacksonville, Florida. To answer any questions,
these are not full functioning iPad. The church has modified them a
bit to upgrade security and so that there are no any games or anything
on them. We have access to all the churches apps and Google translate,
Skype, and Facebook, but that is about as much as we get. It is also
all we really need. There’s so much information in gospel Library
alone, has everything you could possibly imagine as far as missionary
work is concerned. I’m excited to see how I can use this to grow the
work in this area.

A cool miracle from this last week shows how we used the iPad in a
creative way that opened doors we wouldn’t have had otherwise. Last
Sunday when contacting in an apartment complex we met a man from
Albania. He couldn’t speak any English, so we gave him a pass along
card and wished him a good day. As I was walking away I just found
myself wishing that I could just speak to him because he seemed like
such a wonderful man. The next day we went to pick up some French
copies of the book of Mormon from outside of the mission office that
sister roads left for us when in the stack we found an Albanian copy
of the book of Mormon. We asked her why it was there and she said it
was an accident. I immediately thought of the man that we the day
before and I felt that this was no coincidence. We didn’t exactly know
where he lived, but we went to the same complex and said a mighty
prayer and began wondering hoping to find him. We knocked on a few
doors and did a regular approach and then asked if they knew any
Albanian people in the area. We were continually sent down several
dead end leads. However, we felt the spirit was with us,guiding us. As
we walked we felt that we should talk to some young man we saw sitting
at a picnic table. After having a short conversation with him and
giving him a Book of Mormon, we started to make our way back to the
car. Right then we saw the same Albanian man that before walking into
his apartment. We ran after him and knocked on the door just after it
shut. He opened it and as he saw us a big smile came across his face
and he invited us in. We held out the book of Mormon like we are
giving him a gift. He took it and you could tell from his facial
expressions and body language that he was very grateful that we had
given it to him. After using the translation book of Albanian to
English on his table to communicate we set up a return appointment for
Sunday at 5 o’clock. We did this keeping in mind we would have our
iPads by then and that they had a translation app. After receiving the
iPads be translated a listen into Albanian. Yesterday we went to his
house and we held out the lesson we had translated and pictures that
went along with it. While we could not communicate to know how he felt
we could see he understood very well. We agreed to teaching English on
Saturday if he came to the church so we can use the Wi-Fi. One amazing
gift is iPad!

Check out my new iPad mini

Check out my new iPad mini

Josh 2

Josh 3
I hope you liked the story. I’m very happy here and I love my mission.
I know this gospel is true, I know God is part of this work, and I
know that if we do what he asks we can have the spirit as a guide. I
love this gospel so much! Have a wonderful week!

Love ya’ll!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Another Great Week! -Jared

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well its been another interesting week with things just getting more interesting this week. First to start the week off right I did my first hike in Hong Kong and that was pretty unreal!! also the card reader for my card is not working so pictures will be sent promptly. But we have decided to drop our fist investigator. He is a nice old 83 year old man but when he says he can promise he won’t commit adultery, well then we must rethink how well our efforts have been working. So this week we will be meeting one last time, unless of course he decides to read the Book of Mormon and has a desire to learn and accept then of course we will teach him again.

But with him going down our other new investigator is on the climb and he will be receiving a baptismal date after new years for sure! Things get hard around new years cause everyone has work off and a lot of people go to mainland and a lot of tourist come here. So it will be interesting but after the short delay in the work we will be able to pick right back up.

On other news we have found way to successfully contact families which has a very large challenge so far. What you need is to have a family you know in a park then you play with them and all the other parents see how nice we are and then want to talk to us! It worked yesterday when we went to a park and found a father and daughter we had taught twice and then after playing with them earned the ears of there friends, So if all goes well we will have our first full family lesson this next week! I will keep you updated!

Well things are moving here everyone is having a lot of success recently. The lord has been leading us to his prepared people!

I love you all Have a great week and Happy New Year!

Elder Cordon

Temple Work- Jared

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Dear Family and Friends,

This was another great couple of weeks! We really have been blessed this last week was temple day so that moved and shrunk my p-day. Which I am not complaining cause I got to go to the temple it jsut took away from me emailing you all.

These last 2 weeks we only had 3 days where we did not teach a lesson. So things are really picking up for us. We have 3 solid investigators now. One pretty new, the other should have a confirmed baptism date by the end of the week and the other is our 82 yeard old eternigator(he will come around as soon as he realizes God is better than horse racing). Things are really looking good. Its been a hard road opening up a new companionship for your first area, but by golly we have done it. Also a young man we found sitting on a park bench my first month got baptised yesterday. He is a Mandarin so we didn’t get to teach him, but man we sure found him! So I kinda count that as my first baptism haha.

We have learned a vital lesson that our president was tryin to teach us. Which is when you focus your priorities in order(the number 1 being the most important thing and 3 being the least important) you can recieve them all. As far as finding goes families are the 1 and then you have young people then old people. We have made it a big focus of ours to really shoot for those families. Its a principle that we tried and well it absolutly works. We have been finding a lot of families these last couple of weeks, also a lot of young people, and then of cours the poe poes and the soak soaks. When you align your priorities with the lord he absoluty makes them possible.

I know the lord loves us and I have seen miracles in peoples lives, this church isn’t just a christian church. Its the Church of Jesus Chirst where he leads it as surely as he lead it when he established during his minitstry. Its not where we learn about Christ, its where become like him and truly know him.

Love, Elder Jared Cordon

Ushering in the Technology Age of MISSIONARY WORK- Joshua

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Dear Family and Friends,

BIG CHANGES ARE COMING TO JACKSONVILLE. This is an exciting time to be a missionary. Last week we were visited by Michael Hemingway who is charge of online proselyting in the missionary department (He also used to be the mission president in Rochester, NY). He came to usher in the new age of new tools. In an increasing effort to improve productivity and the ability of the missionaries to find and maintain contact with all of our investigators we will be issued I-pad minis. If all goes well I will be getting mine during leadership meeting this week. I am so pumped. I find myself thinking all the time if I only had an I-pad right now I could show them… you get the picture. So that is something to definitely be excited about.

So, remember that lady that I told you about last week who used some colorful language, well her neighbor is a member in our ward, and he heard about what happened. He went and talked to her for us. Well apparently the conversation went really well because when we were there yesterday she came up to us to apologize and asked for our forgiveness. Despite all that happened I couldn’t help but eagerly accept her apology and forgive her. She began to cry as she walked away. Reflecting on the experience, I realized how much wisdom God us given to us in the word of wisdom. Too often people do things they regret when they are under the influence of any number of drugs and chemicals. Regret is a painful thing, even when you have received forgiveness. I feel bad that she doesn’t have the light of the gospel in her life, and that she has yet to experience the joy that can be found in it.

Sorry for the short letter this week, but I hope ya’ll have a wonderful Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Love,
Elder Cordon