Wow that was fast!! – Jared

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Hello Family and Friends,

This might have been one of the fastest weeks I have ever had. Probably because it was just so good! A couple of firsts this week, we got our first investigator. We also will be seeing him again tonight. He is 84 and we can comprehend what he is saying! That is a miracle in itself! Also I taught my first street lesson yesterday in all Cantonese! The gift of tongues is real! Normally I just let my trainer do all the talking! I also went to a normal sacrament meeting this week, which was amazing because it has been 4 weeks since I have been able to take the sacrament. It was quite an amazing experience the spirit I felt to be able to feel the gift of the atonement and know that all those mistakes I have made I can be forgiven of!

The ward here is small but they are amazing! They are blessed to be one of the only wards with 6 missionaries! 2 Sisters and 4 Elders, President would love to see this ward grow enough to have to split!

This is the first week we have been able to have street lessons with people we will actually be able to teach! So far it’s been a lot of girls and non-Cantonese speakers. But we have taught 5 to Chinese men. That’s a miracle because this city is so crazy and everyone is so busy! So to get that kind of time from the men was pretty amazing! Our secret is to get over the lack of confidence and stop and asking people for the chance to teach them and just do it. When you’re really assumptive and assertive in a polite and kind way it really works. We were tired of people saying no, truth is they don’t realize what they are saying no to, so don’t give them the option.

I realize how much of missionary work is truly the work! You have to try your best to be the best missionary you can be and that is having the faith to talk to people and the diligence to grow. We have been struggling with boldness so this last week we really focused on it! For these Chinese men you got to be very confident and bold, something I struggle with in Cantonese because I am really insecure about the language. Yesterday though something hit me and we stopped in the middle of evening studies and went out and I was talking to as many people as I could and that’s what lead to the street lesson that I gave. The Lord is amazing. He can even help me speak Cantonese.

I love everyone and hope all is well! Thanks for all the support!

Elder Jared Cordon

Week 2 Down! -Jared

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Wow what a week!

So this week wasn’t any different, but I can say I did enjoy it a lot better! There is a great thing to understand you may not change your circumstances but you can change you attitude so thats exaclty what I did. Also I guess our mission is soley responsible for China its technically our mission. So I am in the biggest and most populated mission. A great work that is going on here is that the members in China are doing a great job of spreading the gospel so they convert their friends get them to start following all the commandments and once a month we get large groups of chinese that come stay at the mission home which has like a small hotel on it). They spend a whole day meeting with the mandarin elders and sisters recieving all the missionary lessons and then recieving baptism by the close of the day, then we send them back to China as newly set apart member missionaries! What a wonderful work. China is open just more in the way that the qurom of the twelve has been pushing missionary work, and thats threw the members.

Being in Wanchie is hard because this area has the most non Chinese populase so we have been doing a lot of turn overs. Its hard turning people over because you build that trust and you want to help them all the way down the path. I know this work is guided by the Lord so if I am called to find and only find so be it. We find a lot of people from Indonesia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Napal. They come here to Hong Kong to be hired as Helpers, for all the extremely rich people here. For example yesterday I saw 5 ferraris,6 aston martins, a rediculous amount of porsches and such! These are special people that come from these countries they are very accepting. I know i was sent here to help bring the Hong Kong people unto Christ and I will work and work until I do. The potential they all have can really be seen in the wonderful ward I am serving in. All the members are so kind and so Happy and I know that all the upset work beaten people I see once use to be sons and daughters of god and if they could only understand a particle of the joy they could feel from the gospel they would come running.

Well everyone I will keep you updated on the how the work is and I will be sure to put a picture up next week!

Just know that salvation wasn’t easy for the Savior, but the joy he recieved was greater than we could imagine!

Love Elder Cordon

I’m finer then a frog’s hair split four ways :-) – Joshua

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Dear Family and Friends,

Sorry for the scare last week, I always forget to mention when the following week is transfers. No promises that I will remember in the future though.

Everything is going great though! I am filled with a very sweet spirit today, which is a direct result of my comp and I growing closer as a companionship. For the first transfer and well for the first week of this one we would but heads all the time. Though we managed to temporally let it go for lessons, the spirit we brought was nevertheless affected by the friction that was so obviously there. This weekend we finally worked things out though.

It started with a serious talk where I finally established my role as the leader of the companionship, which should have been there the moment I became his trainer, but he wasn’t used to not being incharge. After we came to an agreement it still didn’t entirely eliminate the contention and finally Sunday afternoon we were both tired of it. We were doing a Revelation Sequence (Pray for guidance, read the Book of Mormon, write down spiritual impressions, and pray for confirmation) in 3 Nephi 12 and the part about forgiving thy brother hit us both very powerfully. For me is was verse 25. The agree with thine adversary to me was interpreted to mean, “You don’t have to win every arguement or always be right, just agree with him.” We openly talked about the issues we had been having and now we are good. A weight has been lifted off of both our shoulders, and there is much more powerful spirit between the two of us. Not to mention we are actually good friends now. Two cheers for the Book of Mormon anyone?

I felt like sharing that in case anyone else is looking for guidance on conflict resolution. And because it explains why I can be so dang happy regardless of the fact that no investigators came to church and that we have no baptismal dates. But hey that just means that miracles are just down the road.

We did have some really great experiences this week though. We managed to administer the sacrament to two sisters who are confined to their homes because of illness, and to be able to see Nick. Nick came to church twice back in September, but it had been over a month since we had a lesson with him. I was finally tired of it so we went over there on friday just hoping to catch him. Well it worked 🙂 We sat and talked for a few minutes before he had to leave. Then we went back–uninvited– to his house last night with the bishop and we ended up having a terrific lesson with him. He shared with us a few of the sermons he gave when he was pastoring, but once he finally talked himself out we got down to business talking about his concerns. The spirit was very strong and we know that he is so very close to accepting the invitation to be baptized. We will definitely do that the next lesson we have with him which will hopefully be tomorrow.

The week was full of many other miracles, I just don’t have time to share them, but trust me they happened.

I have made some good changes to my blog this week so that will be really nice. I am hoping to have another post up here in a few days so check it out at arippleoflight.blogspot.com.

Anyway I love ya’ll!

Elder Joshua Cordon

I’m As Busy As By-George I Reckin – Joshua

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Dear Family and Friends,

Sorry I didn’t write last week. Things got really crazy and we only got an hour to email. Anyhow and things are very crazy this week as well so it will have to be a short one. These past few weeks have been very crazy and a TON has happened!! But sadly I can barely scratch the surface! I will pick 3 experiences and tell those ones though.

For the first one I got a sweat recliner chair. It is so nice, but I only use it when I read in the morning so I almost feel like it is wasted, though it is thoroughly appreciated!

As for experience number two we have been meeting with this really awesome lady named Kim for the past little while. She is so nice and I always leave feeling full of the most peaceful spirit. We haven’t made much headway until this last lesson though. We taught her the Restoration and she believed it all! Which isn’t really that surprising because it is easy to believe the truth. Then we followed up to see if she watched any of the Mormon Messages (that was our last commitment for her) and she ended up watching half of the district!! (they are videos of real life missionary work that we use for training) Haha I think it is awesome though. She told us that she knows all of our secrets now 🙂

As for my last experience. About a month ago we ran into a guy named Dorian street contacting and we had a pretty good lesson with him. He was a really smart guy and very inquisitive. He had a few concerns but offered to read the Book of Mormon. Well we finally caught him last week and he has been reading and has a lot of questions for us. We had a terrific lesson, and he left the lesson feeling very pumped about reading the story of Enos. That is what happens when you show somebody how to study not to just read though 🙂

All in all it has been a terrific 2 weeks, but there is never enough time during p-days, so I got to go!

I love ya’ll!!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Well I Am in Hong Kong – Jared

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Wow!!!

This has been an interesting two weeks!! I got to See conference twice I finally got to Hong Kong! Met my President, my trainer, my zone leaders, and the ward. So I had one of the hardest yet greatest weeks I could have ever had! Yet through all my trials the lord has been sure to take care of me!

Alright well first that last week was crazy. It was hard saying goodbye to the teachers and the Australian Cantonesies; but I got to leave seeing conference which was just amazing! I learned a lot and mainly took out of it to step up my game. I felt as if it was a call to prep up cause things are not gonna get easier. Man was that true!! I thought my Cantonese was alright… I can basically say hello, and thats the problem because then they start talking and then I pray they can speak english. haha I met my trainer Elder Howell super cool and very excited! He has been here for 4 months and his Cantonese is amazing! So that gives me hope.

So they moved us to Cause Way Bay which is in the best Area in the mission it’s right in the heart of Down Town on Hong Kong Island. Our area includes the Wanchie chapel which is amazing the second most expensive building the church owns! Check it out online or something our appartment is right next to it. Since we are both new and there is already two Elders in this Area we are starting from scratch. No investigators, So we go finding all day long… I cant speak for my life so its a very long day.

It was such a blessing because the last two days is when Hong Kong watches conference and all the missionaries can watch it in English! I thought it was good the first time, well not as good as the second time. I didn’t understand Elder Hollands talk until this time. I started getting that depression he was talking about and it was bad, I was having a hard time those first few days. Now I look at things differently. I can’t speak any better, but I realize this is the trial of my faith. Now I will doubt my doubts before I even think about doubting my Faith!

I have been able to look back at last week and realize how much the lord has blessed me and my companion! I may not be able to talk but I was able to listen to the spirit and the four big success we have had are because I said hi and got them to stop or by letting the spirit lead me to the most random places. I know this is the lords work and he won’t let me fail. We even have a meeting with this guy I ran into on the street, Also he Speaks English!!

I am in for a long ride but I love the people and this city is so unreal!! I am not a big fan of the humidity, but its cooling down. Also I am blessed to have some really cool Elders sharing my area and appartment its Eder Parker and Elder Passie. They are the Zone leaders and have both getting close to going home so they are a big help!

I encourage everyone who is going through any hard times that are really breaking you down. To change your perspective. Doubt your Doubts before you Doubt your Faith. You may realize how much the Lord has been really helping you, and your probably have something big you can learn from what your going through.

I love everyone and hope all is going so swell!

Elder Jared Cordon

He has arrived in Hong Kong

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Elder Jared Cordon has arrived safely in Hong Kong. Enjoy the picture of him with his mission president and the mission presidents’ wife.

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Until next week when Jared sends his first email from Hong Kong. 🙂

TRAVELL PLANSS!!! – Jared

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Wait what is that?

I think.. wait what.. that’s MY TRAVEL PLANS!!! YEAH! YEAHHHH!!!!

I can’t believe its almost here!! Next time you here from me I will be in Hong Kong!

Am I ready?… NO

Am I scared?… Not one bit!

If there is one thing I have learned in the MTC is this is the Lords work and he has proven time and time again that it doesn’t matter what the language is, when his missionaries obey he will fill in whatever they are lacking. Which for me might be just about everything except for Faith.

So first I hope everyone is doing okay I know its gonna be hard not hearing about the boring MTC life but, don’t worry it will get better, I promise. This last week was a blast!! I got to Host for the first time which was so great! I had the privilege of scaring new young Elders about the Horrors of the MTC. I am sure they will be relived when they fined out everything I said was true… 😉 haha. Also another great time was TRC!! It’s lesson we give to volunteers every Saturday morning. They Sister we taught just got back from her mission to Hong Kong also like 5 others who just got back where there. So after our lesson my companion and I talked with them for a good 40 mins. All about what to expect. They gave me some great advice never let the thought of going home come into your mind for one it will take over and start wasting a lot of time; because the moment I step off the plane coming home I am gonna be wishing I was right back in Hong Kong.

Sunday might have been one of the most spiritually uplifting days of my life! Some things I wanna tell you all is: I know that Thomas S. Monson from a very young age was being prepared to be our Prophet and he is truly an inspired man of God. Go to the mormonchannel.org and watch his video! Also I have seen the most mission changing talk of my life. Sadly you can’t read because its one they only replay in the MTC. It’s Elder Bednars Doctrine, Principles, and Applications. The problem with most members is everyone only studies the Application like lets set new goals or the answer to better Home teaching is to bake a cake. Doctrine is Always the Answer, and True Doctrine understood changes attitude and behavior. When someone gives you a question like why can’t we drink alcohol, well most Mormons as well would I is to immediately give them and application response, for example, well its been scientifically proven…. well instead given them a doctrine response like go read section 89 of the D&C and get back to me. True Doctrine understood changes attitude and behavior. So I challenge everyone to know there doctrine better.

Sadly this is the time were I say farewell for longer than normal.. But don’t cry I will be back soon!

I love all of you and hope your lives are fantastic!

Love Elder Jared Cordon

My worst week of finding since week 2! Other than that not too bad haha :) – Joshua

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Dear Family and Friends,

Contrary to popular belief, Florida does have enjoyable weather. WHO KNEW? It caught me surprise, I can tell you that. I actually love biking now. Not only does it feel great, but it means that more people are outside. Which is weird now that I think about it because well as my title suggests, we didn’t find much.

On other news, we did an exchange this last week and I went down to Price Creek which is out in the country and my companion stayed in Deep Creek. The best part about all this is that the elder who served with him for the day was his MTC companion which means they both had only been out for 4 weeks or so. The thought of the two newbies wandering the streets trying to figure out what they are going to do made me laugh. Not surprisingly they had interesting experience, but not in the way I expected.Here is what happened to them while I was down in the country. They started there day by helping with Bingo at the senior center, and then after they left they didn’t bike 300 feet before the elder who was borrowing my bike (which is a loaner bike from his companion) managed to cause the back sprocket to practically explode and render the bike unrideable. They walked about half a mile to the house of our ward mission leader who is currently in Vermont. They waited there for a ride for about 3 hours and then managed to get a ride for the rest of the night. I just feel bad for them.

Until my bike gets fixed I have been riding a bike that a sister in the ward loaned me. Luckily it wasn’t too girly and it is actually pretty nimble.

My miracle that I wanted to share this week comes from last Monday night. We hadn’t used our time very wisely and with a only an hour left in the night we felt like we had accomplished almost nothing. Recognizing that by our own efforts nothing would be accomplished we decided to say a prayer, begging for forgiveness and asking for direction. After the prayer ended I felt prompted to go and visit a referral nearby. When we got there this guy was standing outside waiting for a ride. We decided to verify with him if this was in fact the right house. He confirmed that it was, but that the guy we were looking for was in bed. Just then he asked what we were doing. We told him a little bit about the logistics of missionary work and how it all happens. Then he asked us for our information–which never happens! We exchanged information and he said he wanted us to come by and teach him. Then we got a text from him an hour later saying you will be hearing from me soon. So pumped! God is good!

Then we were finally able to get in touch with the lady who gave us her info at the library. Her name is Camekco and after a great first lesson she committed to be baptized on the 26th of October! 🙂 It was awesome 🙂

Just remember that prayer actually works!

I love ya’ll!

Elder Joshua Cordon

So close you could almost taste it! Release your inhibition!

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Well hello there!

Alright 2 more weeks to go then Hong Kong here I come! There have been some nice mix ups this last week to remind me the importance of the MTC and other things just make me really wanna leave!

This week Elder Cederlof and I have been able to see what it feels like to truly work through the Lord with our investigators! We have been struggling along with one. She didn’t feel our messages relation to her and she wasn’t experiencing what we were saying!

So finally we buckled down and decided we need to hit straight from the source! We prepared a lesson about the love of Christ! Although it was not exactly how we planned, she felt the love of Christ! (I want to remind everyone this is not a real investigator) but, the Spirit there was!

She has been complaining about her knee hurting and making work bad for her. So we felt prompted to show her the Bible video about Jesus healing the palsy stricken man. Then we shared testimonies about Christ healing us through blessings we have received. She started tearing up, then we were prompted to ask her if she had faith enough to be healed, she started crying again, and said whimpering yes I do. After the blessing we knew the spirit was there and God answered our prayer! We then being prompted told her about baptism and how the spirit she is feeling could be with her always! We then invited her after more testimonies, she started balling again, after a long long silence she said yes!

That lesson was amazing the spirit was so strong and I could definitely feel the spirit working through me! We now know what it feels like to have our investigator experience the discussion!

Whats been hard this week is we ended up not moving to WyView. My whole branch did but us Cantonese, we are sadly getting moved to a new branch. So after saying all these goodbyes I feel like I should be on a plane right now. sadly that is not until 2 weeks. But I did get my Chinese tags with my Chinese name in Characters! I do know how to read that one at least!

Also after long discussions with the Elders from Hong Kong I can not wait! All my experiences with the Hong Kong people have really helped me develop a love for them!

The work is Hastening and as my brother said the miracle will not only be through Missionaries but also members! Open your mouth and The Lord will fill it for you!

Everyone Take Luck

Love Elder Jared Cordon

Wait a minute, you mean there is a better way then tracting! -Joshua

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Dear Family and Friends,

So the trademark of Elder Newbold and I’s 3 month companionship was tracting. I honestly feel like we knocked half the doors in Lake City. Though most people were not home, so we never actually talked to half the people in Lake City, but we are making up for it now. Our method, street contacting. Turns out that is far less intimidating to roll up on a bike and talk to somebody than to drive slowly and creepily through a neighborhood in our car having everybody immediately recieve wrong impressions of us. Being on bikes though has allowed us to implement the fail-proof finding method of talking to everybody. Although we are drenched in sweat and soaked by the rain we find we can quickly disarm people by flashing our pearly whites and giving them a friendly wave and a “hi sir\ma’m, how are you doing today”!

To back up my testimonial, the following is one of our success stories.

So, we were biking home late friday night and passed a guy walking on the sidewalk. At first I did not stop justifying the heinous crime by saying that we were done with teaching for the night and it was time to go home. The spirit quickly worked these blaphemous thoughts out of my mind and I found myself squeezing the brake and turning the bike around. We approached the guy in our usual friendly manner, and began to converse about gentile things such as Star Wars–he had a tattoo of something star wars–and his particular line of work. We quickly navigated to the fact that we wanted to share with him the message of the restored gospel. His name is Blaze and he is one of our newest investigators. We are going back for our second appointment tomorrow.

As we kept biking home we passed a gentleman walked and eating a McDonalds hamburger. We informed him of who we were and ended up sharing with him the message of the restoration and being invited to come teach him at his house. All in all, street contacting is much more affective than tracting.

Some more great news is that Stefan Sutton before he has even been baptized taught a lesson to some of his co-workers during the lunch break about faith and he even used the Book of Mormon. 🙂 To all those who are NOT doing member missionary work… shame on you.

We also had the blessed opportunity to give talks in sacrament meeting. I made a deal with Br. Cook who was speaking with us that if I only left him 3 minutes he would buy us lunch. I agreed and prepared a long talk. When it came time to make good on my side of the deal, I forgot all my notes at the apartment. Luckily, the topic I had been chosen to speak on was prophets, and well, we spend all day teaching people about that. So I was still able to keep my side of the deal. I tried my best to stick to the New Testament during my talk because our investigator who came to church, Nick Harwell, was a preacher for ten years and I wanted him to relate. It made me really happy to hear that he enjoyed it. It was a great week though!

I just want to encourage ya’ll to speak to someone new each day this week. Just say hi, introduce yourself, give them a compliment, and it should flow very nicely from there, then when the setting is right invite them to hear the wonderful message of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. If they say no, oh well, be there friend anyway!

Gospel means good news, and this message is the greatest news that anyone could hear because of how happy I know it will make them. Many of you have experienced the joy of the Gospel, so why wouldn’t you want to share it with friends or strangers. Whether they realize it or not. It is the ultimate expression of love! 🙂 Go out and be missionaries and spread the Love of Jesus Christ!!! Which simply starts with flashing your pearly whites and saying hey!

I love you ya’ll!!

Elder Joshua Cordon