Update from Mission Blog

Posted on June 25, 2013 by shalesecordon9

Occasionally we receive updates from the Jacksonville Florida mission blog.

Here is the recent update that includes Elder Joshua Cordon.

“It’s the highlight of the day for the new missionaries and trainers to meet each other. The new missionaries spend the whole day being trained by the Assistants to the President and interviewed and trained by President and Sister Barry. Finally at 2:30 pm the big event happens. I can testify that every missionary is put with their trainer and assigned to the area where the Lord wants them to be. After President Barry interviews every new missionary and a lot of time in prayer the Lord makes his will known. There is much peace in that knowledge for all the missionaries. Nothing happens by chance. ”

Elder Cordon will be trained by Elder Newbold. They will serve in the Deep Creek Ward in Lake City, Fl.

Knowing the truth is like walking in sunshine when the whole world is covered in rain clouds.

Posted on June 25, 2013 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

I wish I could say that I came up with that line about the sunshine and all, but it is actually from a song on of my companions CDs. I totally feel that way though!. It seemed even more true when I considered that line as it has been raining these past few days.

To be completely honest this has been a very annoying week. We still have nobody that we consider a progressing investigator (someone we have had a follow-up appointment with). We meet all these great people who look so ready to receive the gospel and enjoy all the wonderful blessings it brings then they just either don’t call us back or are not home for the scheduled appointments. We still are finding many great people we just need to get some progress with some of them and then I will be jumping for joy! A great find happened on Saturday when we were walking through the park. We talked to these two guys and the one I focused on was from South Africa and he was interested and shared how he really wants the strength to quite smoking and drinking. I told him that if would read and pray about the Book of Mormon that he will find that strength that he needs. He said that he would only do it if I really believed that and I replied firmly, “No other book will give you more strength and guidance by bringing you closer to God than any other book.” He promised to read and pray about it. I hope he reads it!!

I was really excited for the World Wide Leadership Broadcast! I love how they emphasized that every member is a missionary. I’m eager to see how it jump starts the ward. Our ward is great about going out with us, but we are struggling to get any member referrals at all. Elder Newbold and I decided this morning that we are changing our entire strategy. Starting tomorrow we are now doing what we call the “Operation Less Active Attack, or Battle LA”. The ward here a has like 300-400 on the roster and only like 80-100 active. If we get some reactivation going or work with part member families I feel like we could really do some good work here. I am exited to see what happens.

I love you all and I know that God loves you even more. He truly blesses those that are faithful to his word. One of my focus topics for studying this past week was faith. Two of the most powerful discussions of faith I found was Alma 32 in the Book of Mormon and Elder Holland’s Talk from the last General Conference. Read them both! It talks about how the size of your faith doesn’t matter. It is all about how true you are to the faith that you already have.

God Be With You Till We Meet Again,

Elder Joshua Cordon

First Week in the Field

Posted on June 17, 2013 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

Well to bring you all up to speed I’ll start with where I left off, the MTC. My last Sunday in the MTC was incredible. The Devotional was great, it was talking about how when you are teaching someone if you don’t understand each other than what you teach them will go right over there heads. So you have to make sure that you understand where they are coming from, and that they understand what your purpose is. After the devotional we went and watched the Character of Christ. It is a devotional given by David A. Bednar back on Christmas in 2011. It really put everything simply for me and gave me the proper perspective for my mission. To sum up the main message: Christ was the best missionary who ever lived, so if we want to be good missionaries we must be like Christ, and to be like Christ we cannot think about ourselves; basically we have to realize that it HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH US. I hope that I will be able to maintain this terrific attitude of selflessness my entire mission. I know that that is impossible, but I know by trying I will experience many miracles.

I left the MTC on Tuesday, In order to catch my flight that morning I had to get up at 2:30 in the morning. Well that is when my alarm was set, but I didn’t actually get up until 2:45. Either way my companion and I clean up shop caught quick breakfast and was on the bus ready to go to the airport at 4:00. After we got to the airport and escaped the chaos upon getting through security we were able to breath easy for a little while before our flight. It was this time that we could call home and talk to our parents for a little bit. It was truly a blessing to talk to my parents knowing that our next conversation wouldn’t happen until Christmas. Because of delays and just a lot of flying we didn’t get to the Jacksonville airport until about 4:00 in the afternoon on Tuesday.

When I stepped outside the airport I thought I got a concussion from how thick the humidity was. Now that I have been here a few days though I feel like I have acclimated quite well. We had some orientation meetings on Tuesday, before going over the mission presidents home and eating some awesome dinner. It was about time I got to eat some good home cooked food. The MTC food was starting to take its toll on my system. That night the Elders in my MTC distict and I stayed at a local members home, just to get back to the church at 8:00 in the morning. For most of the day on wednesday it was more orientation meetings. Very informative and helpful, but very boring.

Finally it was time to meet our trainers. I got a great trainer who happens to be from Bountiful, Utah. His name is Elder Newbold and we get along great. Along with assigning us our trainers they also assigned us to our areas. We got assigned to the Deep Creek area, which is a new area. So not only are we opening, but I am also getting trained. The Deep Creak area is in the nice slow community of Lake City, Florida. It is really nice out here and the people in the Church are awesome. We are getting fed by members 6 out of the next 7 days. On top of all of that we have a nice new apartment and we get to drive around the classy 2013 Ford Fusion. That car had only 89 miles on it when we got it.

We do have a lot of work ahead of us though. We have before us the difficult task of building a teaching pool, and until then it is basically just a lot of knocking doors. We have had to miracles though that I would like to share with you.

Miracle #1
After going all day on Friday without accomplishing anything, and I mean anything (we didn’t talk to a single person and all our scheduled appointments fell through). We decided to talk to an in-active member named Br. Green. When we pulled up to his house he was sitting on his porch relaxing and mending a broken rib. We talked with him for a bit and asked if any of his neighbors would be interested in hearing our message. He pointed out two of his neighbors and told us about them. We thanked him and went a nearby appointment that ended canceling on us. We decided then to go meet Br. Greens neighbors. The first house was home to Karen G.. As she answered the door she was a bit reserved at first, but decided to let us in to teach her about our message (first lesson of my mission). We got to know her for a little while and found out pretty quickly that she has a very close relationship with God. We taught her about Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and then after talking about the book of Mormon and other things, taught her about God’s Plan of Happiness. I could feel the presence of the Holy Ghost so powerfully and constant the entire lesson, and she really liked our message. After about an 1 hr and 40 min we finally closed with a prayer and left her with the commitment to read and pray to know if the Book of Mormon was true. We plan on stopping by again this week.

Miracle #2

We were knocking doors yesterday after little success for the day and finally someone answered the door. This happy guy answered the door and accepted our offer to here a message about Jesus Christ. He rounded up his wife and son, turned the T.V. off and was ready to listen. After getting to know them a little more we found out that they were knew to the area and that they were originally from Louisiana. We also found out that he was pastor in Louisiana for over 10 years though he pastured for nearly every denomination from Methodist to Baptist. We shared our message about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through Joseph Smith and introduced the Book of Mormon. He was very open to our message and said that he knows that God sent us to his home to share that message with him and he was very eager for a return appointment. He also shared with us some wonderful words of encouragement and told us to never give up no matter how much rejection we face. And he said never complain about experiencing some hard times simply just say that you are “In between blessing.” I Really love that quote from him. We ended the lesson by leaving the Saviors peace and blessing on his home and family and he thanked us for the spirit that we brought into his home. O what a blessing it was to meet that family.

I know it was a lot, but a lot has happened. I hope everything is going well for y’all

Elder Joshua Cordon

Arrival in the Florida Jacksonville Mission

Posted on June 12, 2013 by shalesecordon9

We received this letter from his mission today… with a picture of Elder Cordon with his Mission President, President Barry. We are so excited for him! 🙂

Elder Joshua Cordon’s first day in the mission field. He looks so happy!

Dear family of Elder Cordon,

We are happy to send the good news that your missionary has arrived safely to the Florida Jacksonville Mission. What a great joy and privilege it is to greet each missionary as they come off the plane in Jacksonville. The smiles on their faces showed their excitement and readiness to be here.

It is very apparent to us that Elder Cordon has prepared very well for this calling in the Lord’s service. He has come to the mission field with such enthusiasm and love for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Your son’s upbringing and additional training in the MTC have provided him with many wonderful tools to help him be an effective missionary. Now he joins us ready and willing to exercise his faith, testify of the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and love the people of the South.

Your son arrived with 24 other missionaries and they have enjoyed a dinner together at the mission home, have been interviewed by President Barry and were trained by the assistants. We have taken pictures and we have attached a picture of him with President and Sister Barry. As you can see he is well and happy although a little tired. We also took a group picture which you can view later this week on our blog at: www.floridajacksonvillemissionnews.blogspot.com

You are welcome to check this blog often to catch a glimpse of your missionary and find out what is going on in this mission.

We encourage all missionaries to email home weekly on Preparation Day which is each Monday. He will let you know where he has been assigned to serve. Just a reminder … when Monday happens to fall on a national holiday, those who use the public libraries will not have access to a computer, therefore, they usually email on Tuesday instead. Also Preparation Day moves to Tuesday during transfer week which is every 6 weeks.

We trust you will write to Elder Cordon on a weekly basis also. Please send positive messages that will keep him focused on his work. We hope you will share faith promoting experiences, convey your love for him and describe the blessing you are receiving. Missionaries like to know that your testimonies are growing and that you are strengthening your faith in Jesus Christ. In order to be successful as a missionary, great focus on the work is required. The more he can “lose himself” in the work, the better prepared he will be to teach and testify. Your positive support in weekly letters will help him to do this.

Your missionary is about to make an eternal difference in the lives of others. We hope you will be encouraged and comforted by this quote by President Lorenzo Snow: “There is no mortal man that is so much interested in the success of an elder [sister] when he is preaching the gospel as the Lord that sent him to preach to the people who are the Lord’s children.”

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for all you have done to prepare Elder Cordon to faithfully serve a mission. We look forward to getting to know him as we serve our Heavenly Father here in the Florida Jacksonville Mission.

Please accept our love and gratitude for trusting him to us and more importantly to the Lord.

May God Bless You,

President James W. Barry and Sister Marilyn T. Barry

Life is Good!

Posted on June 7, 2013 by shalesecordon9

Dear Friends & Family,

My time here at the MTC has been awesome!!! I have learned so much and I have already had the opportunity to hear two amazing devotionals. The first was by Ted Gibbons, who did a narative about Joseph Smith’s his finals days from the eyes of Willard Richards. They guy talked really fast and loud, but I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. It was one of those ones that when you get out you are completely speechless and you feel like you are walking on a cloud.

Then on Tuesday we had a devotional by Tad R. Callister of the Presidency of the Seventy. (I think it is really funny that the two devotionals are given by Ted and Tad. I hope the next guy is a Todd.) It was literally perfect for a Southern mission in the bible belt. I have never taken notes so furiously in my life. He gave scripture after scripture, and showed how the blueprints for Christ’s church can be found completely in the New Testament, and that we are the only church that matches those blueprints. My district and the Branch presidency collaborated for an hour afterwards, combining notes to make a handout for everyone to put in their scriptures.

On other news, our zone lost three districts on Tuesday, but we only had one show up. So our zone consists of only 22 people. Basically it is tiny it feels like. The new district seems really cool we just haven’t had much opportunity to interact with them.

I finally get to do some much needed laundery today. I personally hate re-wearing workout shirts, I am just saying.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned over the past week, is the role the Holy Ghost plays in my life. I am comforted by it everytime I pray and read the scriptures, but as far as it guiding my actions, I supposed I didn’t understand it fully. I wanted the Holy Ghost to either comfirm or chastise everyone of my actions, but more often than not I will be acting by the spirit and never even realize it. As Elder Bednar put it, “Be a good boy, honor your covenants, keep that commandments, and STOP worrying about it.” A lesson I very much need to learn.

I just want to say that I have such a powerful testimony of prayer. I know that if you prayer with a sincere heart, and a true desire for answers that you will receive answers. If you feel like this is not the case, I challenge you to pray tonight if your Heavenly Father loves, and ask with a true desire to know, and with faith that he will answer, and I promise that the Holy Ghost will confirm it to you.

I love you all!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Has it really not even been a full two days???

Posted on May 31, 2013 by shalesecordon9

Dear Family and Friends,

So the Missionary Training Center (MTC), isn’t really what I expected, but then again I didn’t know what I expected. After getting dropped off on Wednesday I got a quick tour of the campus, and then I was dropped off in a classroom where I met my district and my companion.

So a quick explanation on districts and zones. The split everyone at the MTC into zones, we were divided up by language and region. In my zone I have all the english speaking missionaries going to the Florida, Jacksonville mission, the Arkansas, Little Rock mission, and the Indian, Indianapolis mission. Basically, there are some really great missionaries in my zone. Then from there they split every zone into districts. My district has only 10 missionaries in it, and we are all going to the Florida, Jacksonville mission. There are also more Sisters than Elders in my district.

Now for my companion. His name is Elder Searle, and he is from Holiday, Utah. The first thing that I found out about him is that he loves to fish, more so than anyone I have ever met, which is pretty cool. I also found out he attended BYU last year as well and is thinking about doing Mechanical Engineering as well. So we got a lot in common. We have gotten along very well and I am glad he is my companion, we teach are first mock investigator lesson tomorrow, and I feel like we will work really well together.

Some big new from yesterday is that I was asked to be the District leader. I guess it means that I am basically the Father of the group. I make sure that an opening and closing prayer is said, I check on the companionships and make sure that they are doing well, and provide them with council when appropriate. I also have the responsibility of getting the mail, the one job that my district thinks is the most important.

Some antics went on in the residence hall last night. Some of the guys were having a competition to see if they could jump high enough to hit their head against the ceiling, and many were successful. Also my roommates and I (which are the other 3 guys in my district) noticed that there where these metal outlet cover things on the wall, and we figured that it would be a good place to hide something for future Elders. Well we weren’t the only ones with that idea. We opened the first one up and it was packed full of candy. Like bit size snickers and baby ruths, and tootsie rolls. And a letter from the Elders who said that it was put there on 4/19/13, so still fresh :). Then we excitedly opened up the other one and found a chocolate orange, left there by some elders in January I think, also still fresh. Right now we are brainstorming on what awesome thing to replace it with.

Despite all the antics, the spirit is very strong here. I have been full of peace for every single minute that I have been here and with every meeting and lesson, I become happier and happier. I wish you all could feel the awesome feeling that exists on this campus. It feels every once of your soul, with a warm and cozy burning. I want to feel this way the rest of my life.

Have an awesome week,

Sincerely,

Elder Joshua Cordon

Joshua’s Mission Address

Posted on May 29, 2013 by shalesecordon9

For those of you who would like to send me letters while I am at the MTC for the next 10 days or when I am out in the mission field these are my addresses. I would love to hear from anyone who is willing to send a letter!

From now until June 10th My MTC mailing address is:

Elder Joshua James Cordon

JUN11 FL-JAK

2013 N 900 E Unit 309

Provo UT 84602

**Feel free to use the free delivery service of dearelder.com if submitted by 10am MST he will receive the letter that evening. You will need his MTC address for that as well.

After June 10th send all mail and/or packages to:

Elder Joshua James Cordon

Florida Jacksonville Mission

8663 Baypine Rd Ste 102

Jacksonville, FL 32256

United States