Tag Archives: Baptism

Powerful Week

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So the Baptism of Tiffany went Awesome, you were there so you now that. 🙂 There was so much support there from the ward and she is ready to move forward she is excited to receive a calling and to go to the temple. She fasted yesterday and learned how to paying her fast offering. JUST LEARNED you can do that online now! Crazy. Her husband came to the ward picnic that night and had a good time. He was invite to dinner with the family that we are eating with on wednesday and he said yes!

We had our second lesson with Flor last night and we had a followship family there for her besides her own active inlaws 🙂 she seemed to make a great connection with them and they are a great family. I am so grateful to be doing the work the Lords way, It is amazing.

We have another baptism coming up this weekend for Eric and the another coming for Mike. The Wards are coming together to help with the work and it is making all the difference.

So this week I am working on charity Well I am probably going to have that as a focus for the rest of my mission and life. 🙂

I love you all so very much. Thank you for everything that you do.

Elder Cordon

WKM!!

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Dear Family and Friends,

The work is moving crazy fast here in Hermiston. We had another baptism this weekend. Kathy was baptized. What a wonderful day that was to see her so happy for making the decision to come and follow Jesus Christ.
We are watching every day as the people that we are teaching are making the steps needed to gain the conversion to the truth of this message. I have seen an increase in the faith of our investigators since the fast that we had for them. It is great to see them all be willing to make the steps that they need to make to gain the knowledge from god that this is true. Faith is such an amazing power that cant be put into words, but I know it works. God is there and wants us to believe in Him so that he can use that power of faith to bless our lives, so when others are doing that and experiencing the truth of it all IT IS A MIRACLE.
We have so much that is going well, we are teaching everyone as often as they will let us. Abel and Kristina are letting us meet with them EVERYDAY. They came to church and brought all the kids. What a wonderful family! We are excited for their baptisms in July, they are praying and working towards that date.

So Transfers have come and gone. I am staying here and so is my comp. Which means that we are staying in the Kennewick Washington Mission.
And This will be at least 4 1/2 months in Hermiston I love the people that are here and everyone that I am around. I am very excited for the next 6 Weeks!!

Love you all so much.

Elder Cordon

#FWB

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Dear Family and Friends,

So this week was wonderful and full of HEAT, from the Spirit and the weather. We are teaching every day and teaching a lot. Talking to everyone is really helping us find those that God has been preparing. We didnt talk to as many people this week that we could have but there is always room to improve. We are committed to refocus on it this week. REPENTANCE that is what it is all about. Finding those small things that you can work on each day and each week. Doing the small repenting every day and week keeps the big ones away.
WE HAD A BAPTISM YAY!! Damien has made the choice to become a member of the church. What a Spirit filled baptism that was Donna his grandmother that is currently praying about a date for baptism really loved it. She is making the changes in her life that are necessary for her to be ready for when she does get a date. Watching Damien go through this has really helped her. She is such a wonderful lady that I am so glad to have been watching her grow.
Kathy is making the step of baptism this weekend. Her baptism is Saturday she is so very excited. What a wonderful miracle it has been with Kathy, her friend is a Recent Convert that took the courage to talk to her friend about the gospel. Both of them have been receiving blessings through this whole experience. We are going to be asking her to give a talk at the baptism.
It has really been able to give me a testimony of the power that comes when friends talk to there friends and are involved with the whole thing.
It is such a wonderful time to be apart of this work, and the blessings don’t have to be just for the full-time missionaries. I am trying to share that with the members that we have dinner with, and when we see them anywhere else. God wants to bless all of his children that get involved with sharing his work with the world. This gospel was restored so that it could be shared with the world.

Love you,
Elder Steven Cordon

Bright Times Ahead

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Dear Family & Friends,

Well it was a sad weekend, but it will all work out in the end.

Arnoldo didn’t get baptized… that is the sad news. His grandmother didn’t feel that he was ready to. She wants him to wait a while longer to really see that he is taking it serious. So… the good news is that in talking to her, through the aunt cause the grandmother doesn’t speak English, she said that she would like to sit in on lessons to learn what he is learning. So we may have found our way into getting his whole family. We are going to be working with the Spanish elders to help with this family. He still came to church on Sunday and still loves Primary.

We have Damion getting baptized this weekend He had his interview last night and it went great he is so excited for it. Our WML is baptizing him.

We had to move some baptism dates that we have Abel and Kristina need to get married but Kristina needs to get unmarried first. O.O She has been separated from him for over 12 years she has just not done it out of fear. But we pushed that fear right out of here and DUN DUN DUN DUN!! We are also teaching her oldest daughter now too she is 17 and going through the “Im a rebel teen” phase but she is taking interest and she is starting to soften to us. Walls are coming down!! We are now working with them to getting baptized on July 25th.

What a wonderful day at the temple. It is always wonderful to get the spiritual recharge that you get there. Sometimes you just need it. The spirit was able to testify of some amazing truths and wonderful talents that have been given me, so that I may put them to good use.

I love the work that is happening here. I love missionary work all together but it is always great when you are just focused on the work.

I love you all so very much and pray for you. We are having a mission wide fast this weekend for our investigators if you would like to pray for some of mine you are more then welcome to. You are all fantastic people.

Love Elder Cordon

Oh What A Beautiful Morning!

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Dear Family & Friends,

Well this was a great week we got two more people on Date for baptism which brings us to 7.

But all great weeks come with set backs.

I was Sick for the last couple days of the week. It started at Zone Conference and the Saturday I was out Still was able to get the strength to make it to our lessons that we had planned but I couldnt do much more then that. So by the end of the night I had enough, Medicine wasnt working so I called in the big guns, I got a blessing that night. Sunday I was feeling better but I was still noticeably sick and still had a cough. I made sure that I sat away from everyone in our meetings and during church. And now today I am feeling a even better. The cough is still there but that is about it.

Arnoldo is preparing to be baptized this weekend. He loves coming to church and loves primary. His grandparents also like how he is when he comes home from church. We are hoping that when the attained his baptism and feel of the spirit it will lead them to ask more questions. 🙂 His grandparents first language is Spanish so we are inviting the the Spanish elders to the baptism so that they can have some referrals.

Damion is preparing to be baptized on June 6th. He is such a wonderful kid that loves church and loves all the friends that he has made. He notices that they are much better then the other friends from school and that the gospel is going to help his life. I think I have already told you but this is the kid that read the whole Book of Mormon is like a week and a half. It was crazy!

This week is crammed full of lessons and I cant wait for it all.

Love you Elder Cordon

   
   

Tears of Great Joy

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Dear Family & Friends,

This was a miracle filled week such a wonderful experience to see so many people at church. We put 3 people on date for Baptism This Week! Arnoldo who has come to church the last 2 weeks and Abel and Kristina, Abel came to church but Kristina was in lot of pain so she stayed home. Damion is also on date for baptism and Donna his grandmother is 100% on board now and is so involved with the lessons in teaching Damion. She said that the only reason that she is not following him to the water is that she wants her divorce to be done when she does it. Which makes sense but we are still going to leave it as an option for her and pray for her every night. But that is a huge step above what she was at just 2 weeks ago when she didn’t want to even try and set a date. OH YA Damion read the whole Book Of Mormon in less the two weeks WHAT!! He is 13!! He told us that he even shut the TV off if he got to distracted!! THIS WAS A CRAZY WEEK. We are focused on talking to everyone and making sure that in doing all we can, so that when we teach it is with the spirit! OH AND CHURCH TOURS ARE AWESOME!!

To watching people grow in the gospel is the best thing in the whole world!!

Miracles happen every day in the mission field and as you put your whole heart in the work and in service to God the happen in great abundance.
I love you all so very much thank you for everything that you do for me. You are in my prayers daily!

Love Elder S Cordon!!

Miracles Abound!

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Dear Family and Friends,

A miracle that happened on Sunday was that a man we had met at the bus stop the previous Sunday whom we invited to church ended up showing up. I was in the foyer waiting for our investigator when he came walking up to the door. He clearly was there for the first time from the uncertain look on his face and he had in his hand a crumpled pass along card with the church address on it. He really enjoyed himself, and the best part was that the sisters investigator who came for the first time was his cousin. So they sat together in Sunday school and really enjoyed themselves. We still don’t have any contact information for him, but when he said that he would come back, I really do believe him this time.

Another Miracle we had was that Wittney, a wonderful young man from Haiti, has accepted the invitation to be baptized on May 23rd. He has been very active for the last month and he is more than ready for this step. I am happy to see how this will bless his life. Hopefully we can find him a bicycle so he can bike with his friend Trevor to church and back. That would be a real cherry on top.

All in all thanks for all the love and support!

Love y’all!
Elder Joshua Cordon

Good Week with Elder Williams

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Dear Family & Friends,

We had a good week this last week! I really do feel like the law of compensation is alive in our area. We did not have as much finding time as we would like but it seemed like the success came more from the time that we didn’t have to find. We found our new investigator A-Ming when we were walking back to the church after grabbing some food. We really are good about always talking to people when we can. Mainly its Elder Williams, he does it so easlily that I just cant help but join in.

It was busy having to prepare for zone training and MLC and it was hard trying to get zone training prepared in a way that it could be spiritually uplifting. But I think in the end we did well and we were able to give a training we felt was by the spirit. because we had sat down to plan and neither of us could get any revelation on how we should do our training, but we had a thought to head out and find and that was the right thing to do because after heading out we were able to get some good revelation on what we should train on and it seemed very clear to us. We decided to make it focused on true teaching and comitment inviting. We initially were going to train on effective ways to get referrals but it eventually came to us that there is really only one way to do it and its by the spiriy. So our training was teaching true doctrine, testifying, and inviting while the spirit is high will yield results in seeking for referrals. After Zone training we were not sure if our training was good or not but, once we did numbers it sounds like it worked for a few of the companionships.

The work is moving along great in the ward we have two pretty solid investigators one Mr. Mak with a date for 6/7 and then Frankie who should have a date this next week are both doing great and the ward is doing a fantastic job at fellowshipping them. I think a big help is that they are the same ages as a lot of the brothers in the ward. Our recent convert Ray is struggling a little with faith, which we are trying to help its just hard because there is not much support from the ward because no one there is his age. But we were able to help him and will keep seeing him reguaraly.

We have a good pool of other potentials and investigators that we hope to be drawing from and moving them to the progressing list. There also is two people that have been coming to church both brought by the members. One is a problem because she lives in Kowloon City ward and so does the Member who brings her to church. It would be awesome if they both moved over together because then she could go to the right ward be her fellowshipper and give her friend a chance to be baptized. The other lady who has been being brought to church is very nice and wants to learn more but for some reason the member who brought her is acting wierd about having us teach her. So we will work the member to figure out more of the situtation and see if we can help her friend start investigating.

But altogether we are getting along great and have great unity as far our purpuse goes just one thing we are working on will come from helping our teaching flow so we can keep improving which will come from good comp studies for sure.

Love you all

Cheers Elder Jared Cordon

TST!!!

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Dear Family & Friends,

It has been a wonderful Start to the next chapter of the mission story. It was amazing to have the opportunity to serve in Macau! Also now for the opportunity to serve in TST(which is the ward my trainee is from and my good man Elder Townsend served). It seems like God always sends me to the areas that I really want to go to! Although I did not necessary want to be Zone leader its here and I will do my best to be a leader and an example to the Zone. I know the best way to lead is by my actions.

My companion is one of the best if not the best the mission has! His name is Elder Williams and we started in the MTC living together so its a blessing to be with him now!

Macau had a great finish for the week we were able to meet up with a part member family and that was really cool they will be coming back to church and we were able to get the wife to agree to start meeting with the missionaries, we were also able to see Carson that new investigator again and be able to help a struggling Recent convert. A Wang one of the RCs has been struggling as we came to find out when we sat down with him. He was having some faith issues and it was awesome that he was willing to open up to us and the most important thing we got from him was that he want to improve his faith! So then we were able to help and gave his some assignments. His faith was struggling because he stopped reading praying and coming to church. The best part is we were able to help him just as the problem got started. So then Elder Chu can keep working with him. We were very busy with the finish and I was able to completely finish all the record books as well.

Now TST we had a ward BBQ is was a great chance to get to know the members right from the start and to meet a few a referrals from members so that was really cool! I really like the ward and the members and am glad I have already had the opportunity to get to know them I feel like I have been here for quite some time now, in a good way. Since Elder Williams and Elder Martinez met with all their investigators right before I got here we didn’t have any for the weekend but we had some chance to prep some stuff for MLC and get a lot of finding in. Elder Williams is an excellent finder and truly has embodied what Elder Ballard invited us to do. He talks to everyone and its just contagious so I have started to as well. I did before but, not like now. We have had a lot of really cool contacts and take advantage of every finding opportunity. Its interesting because its the culture here and as I moved in because thats just the way it is here thats what I natural started doing. I feel like if Elder Williams was with a new missionary he couldn’t help but just becoming like him as I just experienced.

One thing that we are working on is really getting up to speed as fast as possible with our teaching unity. Time is precious and we don’t want to waste any minute of it!

The zone is awesome and from it looks is every month they are getting better and better and we are going to do what we can to reach out the one and lift those who might be struggling we feel the zone will be the strongest once everyone can really start seeing the miracles!

Love,
Elder Jared Cordon

Here is some pictures for you all since I have been lacking. Don’t judge me cause i look bad, missionaries for some reason always look less attractive then when they get home I promise.

ps the whole squatting thing is a chinese thing

Here is a shot of me taking out the great and spacious grand lisboa with my cannon

Here is a shot of me taking out the great and spacious grand lisboa with my cannon

Now I am in a roman coliseum

Now I am in a roman coliseum

Also here is a car at the grand prix museum

Also here is a car at the grand prix museum

Y(>_<) PEACE!