Tag Archives: chinese new year

Red Rockets!!

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Dear Family and Friends,

Chinese New Year was a wonderful, wonderful experience here in Aberdeen. Last Year I remember the work really slowing down when the New Year rolled around but this year it was different, it did not seem to have any effect whatsoever other than the positive ones. We decided since everyone would be in their homes why not test our luck with knocking doors! What came of it was the greatest success I have ever seen from knocking doors. We ended up teaching a total of 3 lessons between 3 visits heading over there. 2 were to Chinese people one was to a Philipina who helped us understand that her employer (who was not home any time we visited) had actually been taught previously by missionaries and has a book of mormon. The two Chinese people were from the same family. From two different visits to the same house. We also met another man and his daughter which after talking to them for awhile earned their trust and he wants to bring his daughter to english class, we also ran into him later on the bus and he was happy to see us again. I have always love knocking doors because it takes me back to my summer sales experience before my mission. But the Chinese new year seemed to definitely work in favor of our plan because most people were home.

We also had the chance to meet with the Kwok family before they headed to mainland to visit some family and we focused on the importance of daily scripture study. We have previously committed them this was mainly just a follow up lesson. She has a really big desire to accept the gospel and we are trying our best to help her in teaching her kids, we will continue teaching the whole family of course but we have been really trying to help her understand that she needs to lead the way for her kids. It was funny she knew we had suitcases and she did not have enough for her and her kids so begged us to use ours, so right now I have one suitcase in mainland china!

A member gave us some radish cakes to give out to less actives and investigators and it was a huge help! It gave us a simple excuse to be able to meet up with a few. For example one is a recent Convert Helen who has not come to church in 3 weeks it was an easy way to meet with her to do our part, but mainly the ward has been very good about staying up on all the recent converts right now. It give me great peace if we were to help someone be baptized that the ward would take care of them.

The ward is doing great we are still waiting on the ward mission plan, but they have got some other plans they are executing. They are starting a rotating family home evening once a month on Sunday night at the church. Several families will plan and organize it and we can simple bring investigators so we will do our best to support their plans. Its something they came up with to create unity in the ward and provide ways to consistently have something we can bring investigators too.

RED POCKETS!! During chinese New year they have a tradition that those who are married will give red pockets to those who are not. Mainly just family and friends. Its basically a red envelope with some cool designs on it and it has money inside! Chinese people love money! yesterday I got quite a bit. I got $380.00 in red pocket money!

I love you all and Happy Lunar New Year!

The year of the Lamb or Goat (I kinda like the idea of lamb better because of its significance to Christ)

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Happy Chinese New Years!

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Dear Family and Friends,

It was another great week in the Life of a missionary. It was a week of all finding because for the last couple of weeks we have not been able to meet with people that we normally would meet, although they all still keep coming to church. I am very grateful that they will at least do that. The Kwok Family has now come twice in a row and they plan on coming still next week and then to Elder Ballard so they are moving great we just need to teach them.

We have continued the consecrated finds and again this last week I can say that something of a little miracle came out of each one. I have realize also that I have been noticing these blessings mainly because I have been looking for them. As I have started applying that mindset to the other times It seems that all of the times we find diligently something cool will happen.

This last week while finding we tried doing some finding in the less traveled places and thought of places, it takes more creativity and effort when praying and picking where we will go, but its so worth it. We have found a few places which have turned out to be very prosperous. I have been here for almost 2 transfers and its amazing that I have never thought of going to these places.

Elder Wong and I have been getting better at our unity and just trying to make finding an enjoyable process, because a happy missionary is a successful missionary.

I have been pretty consistent about my prayer journal every night which is what I said I would do to show my love towards Christ and its cool because it has got me pondering even beyond the day to my whole life and I have been able to recognize how the lord has answered many many prayers.

Here is an experience I would like to share with you. When I was at my first semester of BYU very grateful to have been accepted and very confused about what I wanted to study. I started the pondering process as I tried different things. After the first semester having tried a variety of classes I realized that maybe business was not what I wanted to do with my life and neither was anything with science and math. So I thought I would try ROTC and fulfill my childhood dreams of the Air Force. Well I no sooner found out that they wanted me to pick my major for me to be able to progress. So the pressure was on and I was clueless but the help in the process they gave me a list of degrees that the Air Force limits to their officers. Well basically none of them caught my interest but languages for some reason did. I reflected how during high school I spent 3 years struggling through spanish but, still it felt right. After more research I found myself contemplating learning chinese, and the more I thought about ti the better it felt. Still very uncertain I thought I need to take this to the lord. So I remember on a friday just before noon (likely the same time that my mission was being assigned by an Apostle of the Lord) I knelt by my bed in prayer. I am not sure why but the words that came out of my mouth were “If Chinese is what I am supposed to do with my life send me to Hong Kong on my mission”. Almost immediately I was overcome with a very warm and very certain feeling that I was going to be serving in the China Hong Kong mission. So I immediately set off on the computer researching all about my mission and ever purchased a learn Mandarin CD(I have never heard of cantonese before). Not to long after that experience was I opening my call to serve here in this amazing mission. I know the Lord answers our prayers and I also learned a lot about preparing our minds and our hearts for those prayers which will bring very specific answers.

This week should be a great week like all the others.

Elder Jared Cordon

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Happy Chinese New Year

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well this was a pretty awesome week! We had the Chinese New Year which meant Deep Clean. Its the day when we all spend the entire day cleaning every crack and corner of the appartment! It looks so good now! Also to finish that day we watched the fireworks over the bay! Pretty Amazing.

Earlier in the week I also had the chance to do my first exchange but this one was the entire Zone mixing and matching. I got to have Elder McEwan who was in my MTC group. So we were both very new and also very blessed. We had to make a random trip to the airport even with all the delays we still managed to get a new investigator in my area which never happens! BABY POWER!

Also many other blessing came Elder Howells and my way this week although everyone is busy over Chinese New Year we were able to meet a few families and found a couple of guys who also live in our area. We felt prompted to go to this area we had never been and frankly we didn’t know what it was we just walked under the freeway and down this path to this beautiful bay side dog park! Way cool we ended up finding two people and teaching streets lesson, they both live in our area. So Cool!

Also today we got to go to Stanley its on the ocean side of Hong Kong Island and it had some amazing views. We decided to spend our P-Day with the ward for a great chinese BBQ!

I love you all have a great week!

Elder Cordon

Another Great Week! -Jared

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well its been another interesting week with things just getting more interesting this week. First to start the week off right I did my first hike in Hong Kong and that was pretty unreal!! also the card reader for my card is not working so pictures will be sent promptly. But we have decided to drop our fist investigator. He is a nice old 83 year old man but when he says he can promise he won’t commit adultery, well then we must rethink how well our efforts have been working. So this week we will be meeting one last time, unless of course he decides to read the Book of Mormon and has a desire to learn and accept then of course we will teach him again.

But with him going down our other new investigator is on the climb and he will be receiving a baptismal date after new years for sure! Things get hard around new years cause everyone has work off and a lot of people go to mainland and a lot of tourist come here. So it will be interesting but after the short delay in the work we will be able to pick right back up.

On other news we have found way to successfully contact families which has a very large challenge so far. What you need is to have a family you know in a park then you play with them and all the other parents see how nice we are and then want to talk to us! It worked yesterday when we went to a park and found a father and daughter we had taught twice and then after playing with them earned the ears of there friends, So if all goes well we will have our first full family lesson this next week! I will keep you updated!

Well things are moving here everyone is having a lot of success recently. The lord has been leading us to his prepared people!

I love you all Have a great week and Happy New Year!

Elder Cordon

It’s been awhile! -Jared

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Dear Family and Friends,

Sorry for the laps of writing the last couple weeks the Holidays have been crazy here! And its only about to get worse with chinese new year around the corner! But the Lord has been sending a lot of blessing our way, we have been able to have some pretty amazing experiences!

Our wonderful investigator! Well he was moving along but we keep feeling stumped, Elder Howell and I decided to turn it to the Lord as always and we felt prompted to switch up our member present to a very unlikely canidate and well it turned out to be exactly what we needed. He was able to be the right amount of help of being able to put our words in the right kind of way, and help us analize the real need our investigator has. Also the ward gave a great refferal of a family that lives pretty close to us. They came to the ward Christmas party(which was a blast) and also english class while bringing a friend family too… so a pretty great christmas present from the Lord.

Speaking of english class Elder Howell had a great Idea to mix it up and we mad a christmas themed one about different Christmas carols and their vocabulary. Super Fun! We have have been able to have a pretty amazing holiday!

This week we also learned a great deal about stepping out of our comfort zone and we have been talking to people we normally would not have and we have seen some great miracles from it. We had our best finding day yet this week with four golden street lessons–of course they are outside of our area–but hey I dont care if I teach them just as long as they come!

So its been amazing and I love all those who read this I hope you all have a happy New Year!

Love Elder Cordon