Tag Archives: Book of Mormon

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Dear Family and Friends,

So this was a great week! We had an investigator make the step of baptism. Tre has aloud the gospel to change his life in so many ways. He came from a very rough past but the gospel is such that the atonement covers everything. He has really come to know that God is truly our Father and that He loves and cares for us, also that we get to live with him again and that the Gospel makes that happen.

Tre at his Baptism

Tre at his Baptism

Seeing him grow towards God has really given me another witness of the glory that awaits us at the end of this life. We have this life to prepare to meet God lets not waste it.

We have another investigator Tim that is a husband of a member. He is letting his desire to know the truth grow inside him and it is wonderful to see. Funny story I almost met them in NY haha small world we live in.

So this week was my first week as District leader. What a GREAT opportunity I have to really come to know just how unworthy I am. HaHa I laugh because just how great it is that we are always going to be unworthy. This gospel is not a museum for the righteous it is a hospital for the sinners. We get to grow every day and perfect talents and abilities given to us to strength the kingdom of God. We are also given weaknesses so that we may humble ourselves to God and allow Him to shape us into who He needs us to be.

It was such a great experience at District meeting. The Spirit did so much teaching and confirming. The spirit will always teach to our understanding and in a plainness that allows testimony to be built on solid truth without any room to second guess. What a great blessing that we have, to be able to have to spirit as a guide.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

Love
Elder Steven Cordon

What An Amazing Experience!!

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Dear Family and Friends,

This week after spending 10 days with my new companion, he was called to a different zone and I got a new companion to finish training and was called as district leader.

It was a great week. Except for the part that I was deathly sick for two days. I felt really bad that my companion had to just stay home. Besides that it was a very good week with lots of miracles, we found three new people who have started to learn about the gospel and we have an investigator (someone learning about the Church of Jesus Christ from the missionaries) that is going to be baptized this coming weekend. He has made amazing changes in his life to come unto God and allow the wonderful atonement to change his life

We had Stake Conference this weekend. What an amazing weekend it has been. We had a new Stake President (similar to a superintendent in a school district the Stake President resides over several wards in a geographical area) called as the new Stake President. So because we had that happening we had two members of the quorum of the seventy come to speak at the stake conference.

We had Elder Larry R. Lawrence and Elder Craig C. Christensen. What inspired men they are, with the knowledge and wisdom that they were able to bring to the people here in Pasco we shall see miracles happen in the coming months I am sure of it. This is truly the time that the Lord is spreading the gospel throughout the world and we can either jump on or get left behind. We have the privilege of being able to help with such a wonderful work. He is not going to drag us along kicking and screaming and He is not going to wait for us. The Gospel will go forward and we have the opportunity to help and experience countless miracles from God. What will you do?

Something that was was told to us by Elder Lawrence that really stuck with me was his talk about Light. Light is truly what this life is about, gaining Heavenly Light. We all started with some light, The Light of Christ the world knows this as our conscience. We were sent here to expand on that light, we have been given the gospel to help us do that. We can use L.I.G.H.T. to helps us in this process.

L. Love is the quickest way to gain light, it is the greatest of all commandments. Love the Lord thy God and Love thy neighbor as thyself.
I. Invest time in the scriptures. They have been giving to us to use and to guide us, so use them.
G. Go and Do. When you learn truth go and do it. Don’t wait to make adjustments that you know you need to make.
H. Hearken to the voice of the spirit. As you listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost you will develop that gift and not only will you be better at hearing that still small voice but you will hear it more often.
T. Tell the Lord you want more light. Don’t be afraid to ask for help for what you are trying to do. He loves you and wants you to succeed, He will help you.

The challenge that was extended to us during the conference was to pray to find someone that we could share the Book of Mormon with. It is a book that contains the truth of this gospel. Help the world find more light share the Book of Mormon with someone this week.

Love you all,

Thank you all for the blessing of your support and prayers
Elder Steven Cordon

Good Timing and Out-Growing

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Dear Family and Friends,

We had incredible miracle yesterday! Last week on Sunday we met a mother and daughter who were members of the church. Mother was in town for a couple of months and she works for the FBI, and her daughter was just visiting before she goes back to Idaho for college. We know it was a miracle that we even met them for because we followed a prompting that Elder Layton had to go and knock the other side of the complex we crossed paths 5 seconds before they walked into their apartment. Needless to say the time between them going to their car and the apartment is a small window of opportunity but God has great timing. Patti, the mother told us that she would come to church the next Sunday. We swung by to see her Saturday and she was still determined to come and after talking for a bit she opened up about her past and we were able to resolve many of her concerns. Yesterday she came walking through the chapel doors and filled me with joy. One of the sisters in the ward is practically a carbon copy of her (they even wear the same glasses) invited her to dinner on Tuesday. She had already signed up to feed us and figured she could bank on the opportunity. It is amazing how she is only in town for a few months, but God is taking advantage of this time to help her strengthen her testimony and get reactivated. Our Heavenly Father is one smart cookie.

We had a powerful Zone Conference this past week!! After it is all said and done, one of the things that my testimony has been strengthened in more than anything else is the power of personal revelation from the Book of Mormon. Among those that believe that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, it is something that I feel is not used nearly as much as it should. I testify that the Book of Mormon will answer the questions of your soul. Whatever it is! I know because it has answered mine. It has answered spiritual questions of “how do I access the power of the Atonement?”, and lately it answered the question of how can I help those I am teaching to come to church? Now, anybody who has read the Book of Mormon knows that there isn’t an obivious chapter which specifically lays out how a missionary gets those he is teaching to church, but I can testify that it is in there. You just have to have the spirit with you to find it. I found my own personal answer in Alma 50 which talks about how Captain Moroni maintians liberty among the Nephites. As I likened these scriptures to me the answer became very clear on what it was that I needed to do. I will make a promise to every single one of you, that if you pour your heart out in prayer to God for answers to a specific challenge and then you read the book of mormon actively seeking for your answer, by the power of the Holy Ghost you will receive that answer in a simple and powerful way. Then if you write that revelation down, it will develop and how you must act will become even more clear.

I know that our Heavenly Father loves us. I have felt his love for me and for others abundantly in my life, and the joy that brings is sweeter than anything else. I also know that Jesus Christ is my Savior, I know that he died for me and that his Atonement is active in my life. Through the Book of Mormon I have gained that faith in Christ, and not only that, but I have also learned why he died for me, and how I can access the enabling power of the Atonement in my life. Knowing these things has given me greater meaning in life and deeper and more profound joy. I meet many faithful Christians on a regular basis, and many who profess to be Christians, and while their faith is genuine God doesn’t want just a lip service from his children, he wants a personal relationship with his children and he wants us to out-grow ourselves. In the Prophet of the Restoration Movie, Alvin Smith tells Joseph of a small sea shell at his uncles home. He tells him that a small creature made that shell layer by layer until he finally out-grew it. God doesn’t intend to help us become content with ourselves as we are but rather for us to grow into our true selves. The Gospel of Jesus Christ tells us how we can do this, and Jesus Christ helps us do it so that one day we like Paul can say, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1 Corinthians 13:11) I know that these things are true and I say them in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I love y’all! Have a great week!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Another Week Down

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well This has been a really fast week! But a fantastic one. This week we were honored to have a mission tour with Elder Funk and Elder Wong. Elder Wong is the new the general Authority from the first quorum of the seventy. His talk was pretty awesome I even got water poured on my head haha. But he is so powerful and I can’t wait to hear his talk next general conference! Elder Funk, Elder Wong, And President gave amazing motivational talks on some very basic and well needed things like the book of Mormon and the message of the restoration. We were also blessed to hear from Sister Hawks, Sister Wong, And Sister Funk. They gave amazing insightful talks on the same topics.

Training has been going really well. We get along awesome and there is plenty of laughter which makes it much easier to talk to people when your smiling all the time.

This week though we really focused on Less Actives and made some great progress with some less actives that we have not seen in a while.

Things are going fantastic and with our new invitation for all the members in the ward to find one person to give a Book of Mormon a lot are taking the challenge. We should be seeing the referrals pouring in.

Love you all
Stay amazing!

Elder Jared Cordon

What Name Are You Wearing?

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Dear Family and Friends,

Moroni 7:15 & 19
15 For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night.
19 Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ.

The world is falling farther and farther away from the teachings of Christ, as they fall, we need to keep ourselves surrounded by the light of Christ. We have been given the tools we need to know where the Lord stands and where we need to stand. God is unchanging he is the same yesterday, today, and forever; we need to make sure that we don’t let the world change were we stand just because the world changes.

It is the responsibility of every member of the church to be a firm unchanging representative of Jesus Christ, every Sunday we are reminded and promise that we take His name upon us. For every person that has not yet taken upon themselves the covenant of baptism, I challenge you to search for yourselves where you want to be standing and who you want to be standing with.

There are so many things in this life that can distract us from the true purpose of why we are here. Satan does a very good job of filling our lives up with fog keeping us blinded from the end goal and the dangers that lay all around. Christ is that spotlight and as 19 says “search diligently” find the light and never let it out of sight.

Unlike Rome, not all roads lead to heaven. So we need to make sure that we are traveling on the right road. I have noticed that members of the church get very comfortable where they are at and dont even realize that they are wondering in the fog. One thing that I have learned on my mission is the great responsibility we truly have with taking upon us the name of Jesus Christ. When you can see it on your person everyday it keeps it at the front of your mind. The important thing to remember is that even if you dont wear a name tag you still wear is name by just belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have to be living up to that standard every day of our lives.

I am so grateful for what i am learning on my mission, to learn how to make my life Christ centered is going to make my life the best that it can be. We are here for one reason, that is to become more like Christ every day; as long as that is our focus then He will make sure that the things that we need to succeed in this life are taken care of.

I love that I get to be a missionary and the lives that are being changed around me and my life that is being changed just builds my testimony everyday, that this work is truly being guided by God. I know that he loves me personally and that he knows everyone so personally and all he wants is for us to join him, and live the way that he has set up for us to achieve the most amount of happiness.

I am so grateful for the knowledge that I have, but I know that it comes with such a great responsibility and if I don’t live up to my end I know that I have a lot to answer for. I love everyone for all of the support and the prayers you are in mine.

I seal this in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

Elder Steven Cordon

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Just Do It!

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Dear Family and Friends,

This past week was a rather exciting one! We got the privilege of going to Gainesville to do an exchange with some elders there. For morning exercise we ran bleachers at the UF stadium known as “The Swamp.” Not gonna lie, I almost threw up. After racing the other elders up the entire bleachers I was finished. My legs were wobbling for the next hour. It was a pretty fun little trip. We took some bikes there for some sisters too who had ordered them, and put them together for them before dropping it off at there place. During all the road-tripping I kept my hands busy by working on making a satchel out of paracord. I am making up the design as I go and beside a few hick-ups it is coming along rather nicely. Stay tuned for the final product.

I don’t have much time, but I want to share a wonderful lesson that I learned this week. I will call it the principle of “Just Do It.” I am amazed at the false philosophy taught by the world that we are a product of our environment. It never ceases to amaze how prevalent this way of thinking is in modern thinking. However, to show the world that this is not true, I will share a simple example of how I applied this principle.

While I do consider myself to be a fairly positive person that does not change the fact that in the world we live in, it is very easy to be negative. All it take is to watch the news for a week and you have enough material to be negative about politics, the economy, religion, and society for a month! Sadly many people get caught up in all that. Even in missionary work, while we are surrounded by endless miracles, and endless reasons to praise God and be grateful, there is also negative. Sometimes I find myself getting frustrated at the sight of some missionaries who I know have the potential to be so much more than they are, yet they chose to live far below their privileges. Such were the feelings that enveloped my heart and mind for a middle part of the week last week, which culminated in a vent session that left me emotionally and spiritually drained. It was at that point that I realized that I am benefited in no way by endlessly speaking of negative things. My companion and I made a pack that we would be the most positive set of people in any given room at any given time, mostly because God has given us every reason to be. Just like that, in a brief moment, I as a person changed. It wasn’t too dramatic, but it was enough to dramatically change my outlook on life.

From this simple example I learned a few lesson that I hope to share with you at this time. The first is this, that at any given moment in your life, you are presented the opportunity because of our Savior Jesus Christ to change. You can this very instance decided to be a better person. The only thing stopping you is yourself. The second lesson I learned or relearned rather, was to be grateful for the fact that God lets us fail. He let me slip and fall onto that negative slippery slop for a day, allowing me the opportunity to learn a valuable life lesson. I am grateful that God managed to teach me that powerful lesson in such a short time because as far as I know I am not suffering any lasting consequences from that day haha.

I will conclude my letter with my testimony which is embodied in a scripture from the Book of Mormon. “… And thus we see that by small means the Lord can bring about great things.” (1 Nephi 16:29) I love this work and I love my God. I am grateful the small moments of weakness in my life that allow me the opportunity to learn valuable life lessons. That all of you will take advantage of those same opportunities is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I love Ya’ll!! Have a blessed week!

Elder Joshua Cordon

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Good Things to Come

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Dear Family and Friends,

First things first Aaron got the priesthood and it was an amazing thing indeed. Thats the part I really look forward in taking part in. Thats when he receives the greatest tool and blessing the of dear beloved Heavenly Father has to offer. Right now we are working with the ward to strengthen these recent converts and getting the Butterfly Ward prepared for the many more the Lord has in store.

We were worried about Gary this last week, he seemed really off and of course I get worried about him and the gospel. Its hard for me sometimes to think of a world outside of the gospel. It turned out to be just work and he is still moving a long like he needs to be.

We have been realizing the need to focus on the basics the need for new members and investigator to read and pray is everything. I have to come to realize that its our personal devotion to God thats everything. Thats what makes our church so special than what I have come to realize is typical Christianity. God really expects everything from us.

We have been blessed with some miracles this last week. We have been finding it hard to fit finding time in. So when we have it we appreciate it even more. But what we have seen is no matter the length of time the Lord has put a prepared person in our way. We have been able to meet two fathers whose main interest is in their families. How great will be my joy when they enter the waters of Baptism I could picture them in white when I saw them!

Now we are blessed with this opportunity to have summer missionaries. These are young men and women in hong kong who are willing to be a full time missionary for two weeks. So my companionship is split and now Butterfly has 4 elders. I have a great opportunity to influence this young man for the rest of his life. The great thing is he is actually a recent convert. We are gonna see miracles these next two weeks.

PS I say the word miracles so easily cause Its just a common thing you see when your on the Lord errand. Its also not restricted to missionaries. “The Lord is no respecter of persons”

I love you all.

Elder Jared Cordon

1 more down plenty more to go!

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well what a wonderful week we just had. We worked really hard to help Aaron be ready for his baptism and the rest of his life. His baptism was a success! After he was baptized he actually spoke and it was really good. He has an amazing testimony and you can tell he is on the road to conversion as all good members are. Teaching him this last week has really taught me a lot of lessons as we were focusing on the holy ghost and receiving personal revelation. I can look back at my life and realize how much stronger my connection with the spirit is now than at any time previously.

Were also able to see Mike twice this week. We taught him half of the plan of salvation on Wednesday and after he was so excited to learn more he was scheduling the next lesson himself. So we taught him again on Friday after English class. I am so blessed to have the opportunity to teach him the lord has been here for us. Every time we get someone close to baptism I ask the lord whose next and he always has another person ready.

A couple in our ward also had the idea to feed the young men and two of our investigators who are in their friend group and that went so well. Its becoming the cool thing to be part of church for them. We were also able to meet another one of their friends and get a 3rd investigator. It really awesome to see the young men getting in the excitement of missionary and having success doing it. We just teach the all together on Saturdays then play a little basketball. Sadly they were not able to attend church but they will be there next week.

Sister Lau and Sister Syu are doing awesome they are really excited to continue to hear more. We have found out more about there families and are really pushing to meet there husbands this next week, we realize the only way to feel the fullness of this gospel is to have the full family involved, so that is our focus this week. With them living in mainland the best way for retention is to get them all.
Well it was an amazing week and I can see that the Lord will continue to progress his work I am so grateful to take part in the Hong Kong peak service to be able to hear about all the sacrifice made by the Chinese people in building the gospel. This is a blessed to be serving.

Love you all

Elder Jared Cordon

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Miracles!!

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well what another wonderful week on the Lords errand. Hong Kong has a rich pioneer heritage as all areas embracing the do. They have made a film about this very thing. Sometimes I find myself not looking at the big picture, but this is an amazing work being done here. Yesterday we watched the movie in church and the spirit was so strong. That video helped me realize the amazing sacrifice early members of the church made to build this gospel. The first chapel here is still standing and it was build by the bare hands of the early saints, then you put that in contrast to the building in Wanchi and that makes it really clear how much the church has grown and is still growing. Getting in touch with the pioneer heritage, really helps remind me that the Lord is serious when he says he is building in the 4 corners of the earth, these are the last days and I don’t plan on sleeping through the Resurrection.

On top of that, this last week President Hawks had come out here to the New Territories. He had a special meeting and during the meeting while the district leaders and the zone leaders met, that left three who didn’t fit in to go finding. So us three went out to do some finding and President was really excited saying miracles were going to happen and sadly nothing I could see happened and when we were done, President said maybe you haven’t seen a Miracle yet but they are coming. Well about 30 mins later we saw one. We met with an investigator Uncle Fighter an “Eternigator” *Editors Note: A term often used to describe someone that has been meeting with the missionaries for a very long time* our lesson started with him debating doctrine per usual, until the topic of the spirit got brought up. Suddenly everything changed and he asked us what does it feel like? Well after that we come to find out he has felt the spirit a lot and he knows that our message is true and he needs to be baptized. He also spoke of a talk at the “My Conversion Fireside” were a recent converts testimony had really resonated with him. Its interesting that this was the turning point, because just before the fireside we felt prompted to meet with him after not seeing him for nearly 3 months. We met and he wasn’t willing to come to church and we invited him to the fireside and he didn’t want to come. Later that week he called us and sad he wanted to go. So we went then after the fireside he hurried out and we couldn’t follow up on how it went. We assumed nothing happened well turns out that a lot happened. So next step is preparing him for baptism.

Another miracle is that at church we had 3 referrals!! With two more previously this week! That’s more referrals than I have had my entire mission. With a total of five! When we baptized Gary I was wondering whats next, well here they come.

Another miracle is Aaron this week he has had a total change of heart he said “I know I haven’t been baptized yet but I really want to serve a mission!” Man I can’t explain how good it is to help find not only one of the Lords sheep but one of his Shepherds.

Another miracle is when we were finding yesterday. Finding recently has been pretty tough but yesterday we contacted a family. I can already picture them in white already. But here is the miracle we were out finding when I felt prompted to go to a specific spot. While there we met a guy who was not too interested but we ended talking while walking so we ended up no where near where we had planned. But then we see this kid and start talking to him and he has a lot of interest. He tells me he wants to learn more can you wait here while I run into my house. We thought this might be a way for him to get away since people have done that before. But he comes back out and we teach him the restoration and he says that he just recently started thinking about God again and really wanted to know if he was real, then we came along. We will meet with him again next week.

Here is a few stories I thought you would enjoy, there is plenty more but my time is short.

I love you all and hope everything continues to be amazing!

Elder Jared Cordon

Week 1– Elder Steven Cordon

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well it is my first week in the mission field, and it has been pretty crazy. My trainer is 19 has been out for 3 transfers and is training as the new district leader and we are both new to the area that I am starting in. (they call it being doubled in) so it has been really crazy.

I hope that it calms down a little bit by this week so i can start getting into a regular schedule, like actually getting personal study in the mornings. (crossing fingers) The two wards that we cover are great, very friendly and we have a full feeding calender. but i think just like everywhere they could be doing more missionary work to help us out. The ward leadership has spent a lot of time coming up with some really good ideas but it is getting the members to really get those ideas moving that is falling short. I am really excited to find ways to get the fire moving with these members if they could all be as focused as the mission leaders this place wouldn’t even need missionaries except to teacher lessons and baptize.

I am currently trying to come up with new ways of getting ourselves into new investigators homes because i feel that tracting is not the most effective way of doing things. So if anyone has ideas i am open to hearing them.

The area in which i am serving (the Tri-Cities) has quite the history that i had no idea about. This whole area started from a military compound that was one of the sites of the Manhattan Project. (made the bombs dropped in WWII) And they are pretty proud of it, a nearby high school has the mascot of “The Bombers.” I got a really good laugh when I heard that, and with graduations this weekend banners of the Richland Bombers were draped all over town. Well hopefully next week I will have more to say I will have been here twice as long so hopefully.

Elder Steven Cordon