Tag Archives: Blessings

Tears of Great Joy

Posted on by
Reply

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!!

Advertisement

Hard Work Pays Off!

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family & Friends,

It was very busy week. Probably one of the busiest weeks I have seen on my mission. But in a good way. I have seen that since moving to this area I hit my pillow at night being truly tired. There is a lot to think about and worry about, all in a good way of course. I really enjoy the feeling of hard work and truly I wake up with a smile on my face every morning to do it again. I am so grateful for the counsel that President Hawks offered us last week. One of the many things I like from what he shared was this “you don’t know how much you can do until you really need to do it” I feel like this sums up my mission for sure. As I contemplate on the weaknesses I have overcome and the ones I am still working on, I think how is it possible? Well its because the lord really needs us to work and work real hard, he needs us to be obedient and diligent. Well I feel like I am doing more than what I ever thought I could do and that’s because the lord really needs me to do it.

The ward really is awesome and we are seeing really cool miracles every week. For example this last Sunday two women walked into the church on their own. One lives in our area and the other in west points are on Ping Chau. They left before we could talk to them and we thought we lost our chance but luckily our amazing ward missionary stopped them and got their numbers for us and invited them to every activity that we have. We should be seeing more of them. I have been in this ward for 3 Sundays now and every week there has been new faces in the the Gospel Principles class.

We have also been able to extend 3 new baptismal dates this last week and already have a few people in mind that we would like to give them to this week. We are truly both being so blessed and I am so blessed to be able to enjoy and contribute to the hard work of my companion and other missionaries before me.

The meeting we had with the stake mission leaders last night was very very good! There was a lot of points being discussed that really needed to be brought out. Although we said very little that meeting we left with a big list on the ways the members and missionaries can work together better and we will be trying to sum those up and distribute that information to the other missionaries. I sometimes have a habit focuses only what we can do more and rarely stopping to appreciate whats already being done. I took a moment to stop yesterday as I sat with all the Bishops and ward mission leaders from the stake and to really appreciate their work, I felt this really cool feeling come over me of excitement and respect for these priesthood men and all they do to volunteer and support the church and the work of salvation.

This week the things we are going to focus on is finding new investigators we are making great progress with the investigators we do have and hope to be able to add more to the list this week! We are really good about talking to everyone and it seems like are best finds are the people we find in the non scheduled finding time. We are just working on getting better at rescheduling and calling.

Well I don’t know how familiar people are with the work here but it really is doing awesome! Macau officially became organized yesterday as the China Macau district. Here in Hong Kong we should be having another stake being organized in the next few months and several new wards. which would make 5 stakes here. We have a temple and 5 stakes it really is doing awesome here.

Well love you all and hope you take a moment every day to remember your Savior.

Elder Jared Cordon

Good Week with Elder Williams

Posted on by
Reply

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

Family & Friends

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family and Friends,

As normal things went well. Last week had some more consistency than
others though. Rather than half the week be better than the other
half, it was rather productive from start to finish. God is really
helping to work move forward.

The highlight off the week was our lesson with the Estrella Family
which we had at the Nhiev’s home, they are a member family in the ward
that have been helping us fellowship them. On Friday we had the two
families together for dinner, a game, and a lesson. It was an awesome
time, and everybody lightened up and enjoyed themselves. The fun part
was to see everybody relax as the night went on. Before it was over
they were already planning their next get-together. The Estrella’s
weren’t able to come to church this weekend because of work situation,
but they are hoping to adjust their schedules to be there next week.
All in all, great success.

The other bonuses were that we got in to contact with some
investigators that fell by the wayside for a few weeks. Jeff was
silent for a few weeks but this past week he was stronger than ever
before. He wants to get baptized as soon as possible. And then Davie,
we went and saw him. He recognized he difference our visits made in
his life. And after only one lesson he read more than a chapter of the
Book of Mormon which is crazy considering that he didn’t read at all
before when we were visiting him. We talked to a member who was
willing to come fellowship him with us and that will be a great
connection if we can help them make it.

The ward here is great! It isn’t very big, but nevertheless I have
enjoyed getting to know everybody and hopefully we can do our part to
help grow it some more this month. We are doing a Mighty Miracle May,
where every single companionship is going to get a baptism in the
mission. It is going to be amazing! God bless y’all!

Love y’all!
Elder Cordon

Progress

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family and Friends,

Progress, I like progress; it feels nice. I’m sure y’all probably agree with me. Here are some updates on some names that you probably remember.

Trevor: Trevor is really getting back in his groove and then some. He has come to mutual three weeks in a row now and he even came to church on Sunday. His friend Wittney Garçon (He is someone we have been trying to get back into contact with) also came with him on Wednesday and Sunday. We were blessed with some kind members who helped us give them rides so we didn’t have to walk with them there; however, we were willing to do that if necessary. They had a great time and hopefully we can step up the fellowship for them. The youth program here is really small so they are pioneers in many ways.

Michelle: She came to scripture class again and even surprised us by bringing her daughter, Victoria, and her daughters boyfriend, Chandler. Victoria was super engaged and participated a lot in the discussion. We are going through the Book of Mormon chapter by chapter and we were on 1 Nephi 15. The discussion really kicked off when we began teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Victoria had such a good experience that she came up to us afterward and asked, “can I keep this Book of Mormon?… Here take down my number I am going to have some questions… Alright so how do I read this and where should I start?” It was pretty awesome to see her jump right on board. A couple days later we went to see Michelle at her place and she made us breakfast for dinner. Chandler was there and we got to know him some more. He is about to start school to go be a doctor. The greatest news was that we found out that Victoria wanted to go to church on Sunday. She showed up with Chandler and they had a great experience.

It is good to see some people make those steps that we need to be seeing. We have some others that we are working with but these were the ones who made the most progress this week.

An awesome little miracle happened after a great experience at the hospital on Friday. We went to the hospital to administer to three afflicted members of our congregation. When we parked we realized that we needed $2 in cash to pay the toll, but we both only had our debit cards. We figured we would just not worry about it, and that we could take care of that after the blessings. Two of them were quick in and out visits, but with one lady we stayed and talked for almost 45 minutes. Her cousin was there and it sure was a hoot talking to them. It was nice to help her take her mind off the cancer for a few minutes. She was missing her son especially because the day before she found out she had cancer he was deployed over seas. She asked me to give the blessing and it was a great opportunity for me. During the blessing a very sweet spirit entered to room. She started to cry and said that it really helped and that it made it feel like her son was there. On Sunday she was able to make it to church and thanked us both again for the blessing.

After the visit we got off the elevator on the first floor and tried to figure out where we could go go get some cash. Right then one of the employees said, “Are you lost elders?” We responded with “You must be a member. What Ward are you in?” He told us that he was in the San Jose Ward (Spanish Ward). I had actually met him before when I was serving in Hendricks Ave. He opened up his wallet and he pulled out $2 and said, “It is all I have.” He smiled and then walked away. I looked down at the cash in my hand, just amazed about God blesses us in the most personal ways. That was a really good day!

I love y’all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Conference Answers Questions

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family and Friends,

This was among one of the most inpiring weeks of my life. The Friday trainee/trainer meeting and then a Saturday and Sunday of general conference answered so many of my questions about life I had to start thinking of new ones while conference was still going to continue to get the most out of it. I am so glad I took the advice and wrote down some questions. One of my favorite talks was Elder Eyring’s during priesthood session. I had asked a question on how to improve my prayers. I got more of an answer than I ever was expecting. I even had a question about college and just my future in general that I really wasn’t anticipating receiving an answer to, but God had other plans.

The week went really well. I will tell you about a few miracle men that we had. The first is this man Jeff. He was a miracle that we had several weeks ago when we had arrived at the apartment about 10 minutes early. Rather than going inside which I have never done. I told elder curran, we are not going home until we have a miracle. We began to walk and hopefully find someone outside. At exactly 9:00 this man yells from his porch, “are y’all missionaries?” And we of course went right over there and said yes. We replied with, “yes we are!” He told us that his dad is Mormon and that he has a lot of questions. We struggled for weeks to meet up with him. This past week we decided to give it one more try. He was home and we had a phenomenal lesson. He really did have a lot of questions. The next day we went back and he had read 50 pages and done tons of research. He said that a lot of people don’t support the church but he feels like this is where he is meant to be. He accepted the invitation to be baptized on the 25th of this month. It was awesome!

Another great thing about this past week began with a challenge presented by elder Kopischke called “priming the pump”. He said that we should go and ask them to pray for us that we could find a family to teach in their home. We decided to try it with the awesome Nhiev family. The very next day after we started it we met Michelle who I mentioned in one of previous letters. This past Monday she joined us at the Nhiev’s for a family home evening and everyone had a great time! Then on Friday we had a lesson with her and her husband Ray. On Saturday they came to the church and watched the afternoon session of general conference with Br and Sis Nhiev. It was awesome to see how quickly everything is coming together when we exercise some faith. God really is just so good! The challenge worked so well we are trying it again with another family. Wish us luck!

Love y’all!
Elder Joshua Cordon

#BecauseHeLives

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family and Friends,

I just got to my new area this week. Lots of exciting things happening we are teaching a lot of people and with Easter coming up we are able to talk to so many people about the true meaning of Easter. Jesus Christ Lives, and because He lives we can to. He gave us the best gift that was ever given, the Atonement and an empty tomb.  The empty tomb is such a very important part of the process. All of the suffering in the Garden, all of the whippings, all of the hatred from the people, the betrayal, and His death would have just been another story had it not been that He was the Son Of God and was called to rise again. 

He gave us an empty tomb, so that our graves would have no hold on us. Everyone person that has every lived will rise again. The question is what are we going to do with that gift that has been given to us. Are we going to waste are time here on this earth or are we going to work towards the life that we can have. This life does end, We All Will Die, but the life hereafter does not end and that is the life that we need to be preparing for. 

General Conference is Coming. This weekend We All have the privilege of listening to the man that are called of God to lead this church, but they are not just the leaders for our church alone. They are called of God to be the Prophets for the world. They receive revelation from God for what the world needs to hear and do to prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ. So Everyone needs to watch it. Invite those that you know to join in this wonderful event. So that we can hear what God wants to tell us. 
I know that this church is true. I know that we have a prophet on the earth today and I know Jesus Christ Lives.
 
Love you all so much.
 
Elder S Cordon.

The Work Moves On

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family and Friends, 

This week was a riveting roller coaster ride of emotion. Everyday was very eventful! A couple of highlights can be really help you see where I am coming from.

On Tuesday we were biking to a few potentials and street contacting on the way when I saw a girl headed my direction. She was carrying a red gas can and was clearly headed to the gas station behind me. I approached her and asked if she needed any help, and if her car ran out of gas. She said that she would be alright and that she lived around the corner and was just getting gas for the lawn mower. I moved the conversation to the gospel. Noticing that she had her hands full, literally, I suggested that we come back another time and share our message with her. She, to our surprise, told us to go and visit her mom right then and that she would be willing to listen. 

Happily acting on that suggestion we rode right to her moms house and knocked on the door. Right when she answered she invited us right in and started to pick up a few things to make room for us on her couch. Turns out she was a Mormon when she was a young teenager but went inactive many years ago. We had an awesome conversation and she agreed to come to scripture class the next night. Along with this woman, Michelle, we found a bunch of people in the area that we talked to and got return appointment with. 

On Wednesday we had a solid day lined up with several member present lessons, service, and the scripture class. Everything cancelled except the service. So after a fun service project which included a great lunch where the main dish was crab. We spent the rest of the day knocking doors. It was a long day. We found a few solid potentials though so it definitely wasn’t all for not.

For rest of the week everything went very well! We were very busy and we found many elect souls! The Montcrief family we met while they were sitting in their garage just enjoying the good weather. We approached them with the intent of talking about families. That beautiful family of 6 then accepted a return appointment.

The other was Rusty. When we knocked on his door he came out to talk to us and about an hour latter we had taught the whole restoration lesson and he readily accepted the Book of Mormon telling us that Mormons were the only religion in America that was the “real deal.” We are excited to see where he goes in the next little while.

Finding new souls is basically been our focus over the past several weeks. Hopefully now we can change the focus to helping all these
wonderful souls along their new life-changing journeys.

I had to write quick this week because I was taking care of other things, but I hope y’all have a great week.

Love, 

Elder Joshua Cordon

Elder Kopischke Comes To Town

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family and Friends,

The highlight of this week was hard to pin down so I will share a couple. The first great one was a mission conference that we had on Friday. We have had 4 in 4 months. That is surprising because I only had 2 my first year.

Anyhow Elder Kopischke was the one who visited us. He is a wonderfully-jolly german-man, and it made for a fun 6 hours that we spent with him. I think the most powerful lesson that I took away from that meeting was that the gospel is about relationship, and relationship requires investment. That is a lesson that I have been learning through-out my mission and I believe hearing it that way helped me put it all in perspective. As I reflect upon all that I have experienced so far, it is the relationships that I have developed that I consider to be my most valued treasures. He helped see missionary
work in a new light that helped us with our priorities. It was a great lesson to learn to help me capitalize on my remaining time. We only had a 20 minute break during those 6 hours, but I could have stayed for 6 hours if he would have let us. It was a very spiritual meeting and I had many questions answered.

Another amazing thing that happened this weekend was that a man named Davie that we found my first Sunday in the area came to church. We met with him twice last week and he was curious about our services. His lives in a mobile home park that a member of our bishopric owns and manages and so he had immediate fellowship. Everybody loved seeing him there and he seemed to enjoy himself. It was great that so quickly the Lord has blessed us to see the fruit of our labors. I look forward to the many other things he awaits to bless us with.

I know that Jesus Christ is our savior and redeemer and that if we come to him, miracles, purpose, and true joy will begin to flow into our lives in a very personal way. It starts by us coming unto him.

I love y’all!
Elder Joshua Cordon

#LETHIMIN

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family and Friends,

Monty was Baptized!!

It was such a wonderful experience, the spirit was so strong and everyone felt it. Monty, Deedee, and Seth all shared their testimony of the wonderful truth of this gospel. They witnessed of the divinity of this work and the truth that Joseph smith was called by God to be a prophet.

Then Sunday came and he was able to get the gift of the Holy Ghost through the priesthood. Then just a short 3 hours later he was given the priesthood himself and he asked me to do it. What a wonderful blessing it is to be able to hold such a wonderful gift in this life. God has brought the priesthood to the earth to bless his children and to build his kingdom, and it is such a blessing to know that it will never be taken away again.

So know that He has been baptized, has received the Holy Ghost, and received the Priesthood Monty and Deedee, and Brian and Katy are going to be going to the temple this Friday to do baptisms for the dead; best of all they are taking names from their own families. WHAT!! They are just on fire with the Spirit that they have let come into their lives and change them. They are truly letting God change their very natures and become better.
Deedee has decided at her work that she was going to start every day off with prayer and now everyone in the office gathers to start off with prayer in the morning. #prayerbringsblessings Not surprising at all that everyone in the office is starting to comment that work is dramatically improving sense that started to happen.

God wants to play a rule in our lives and not just on Sundays. He wants to help us in our jobs and in school. He wants to helps us raise our families or to make new friends. He truly wants to be in every aspect of our lives, and the more that we let him do that the more blessings we can receive. God can help with any part of our lives and it is up to us if we let Him.
Spring is in full effect right now we have Spring blossoms everywhere, and spring showers are here.

We had Zone Conference this week. Such a great experience to be able to hear from the mission president and the APs and to be able to learn so much through the spirit. That is the source by which true knowledge from Heaven is learned. It is only by the spirit that you are taught pure celestial truth.

I love you all so much thank you for every thing that you do.
You are in my prayers always

Love
Elder S Cordon

PS the pictures are the baptism and also at zone conference we took our 100+ pic with the mission president. the 100+ club is the four of us missionaries in the picture have over 100 years of life together. Basically we are all over 26 haha we are an elite group, and the four of us are in just 2 zones. oh ya.

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES