Tag Archives: Christ

1 Down… 103 More to Go!

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Dear Everyone,

This first few days in the MTC! What an adventure they have been!

The food has successfully made me and my companion spend a lot of time in the Bathroom, more him than me! It is gonna be easy to cut back, I dont know how people eat so much here! But the learning is coming a long surely! The Language is truly amazing though my teacher has not said a single word in english since I have been here! I can tell you that the gift of tounges is real because of how much I have learned! The first investigator we taught was defiantly a humbling experience though! I couldn’t understand anything she was saying and she couldn’t understand me at all! I might have accidently said something offensive haha. But today it will be another test how that language break this last day has treated me!

Sundays here are like a Holiday going to church and hearing english is like music to my ears! Also speaking of music I will be in the october Conference Choir! But sundays are great Sacrement, Priesthood and Sunday School are broken up which is kinda nice then in the evening there is a Fireside and we then will watch a recorded fireside afterwards! I have some great notes from yesterday it was so great!

My companion here is really awesome he is a twin also! and he is from centerville so right next door! His twin also not learning a language and he will be here in a few weeks! They are not Identical though, they dont even look like brothers haha! Its interesting here though because there is only 13 people learning cantonese two districts mine has 8 the other has five 3 of the people are going to Sydney australia! I Had two guys whose flight got cancelled they were going to toronto so we had two many guys in my room tell 2:00 this morning I didn’t sleep much! but I loved both of those Elders I actually knew them from BYU so that was cool! The first two names on my flag! Maybe things wont be as crazy now that we are down to 4 in the room! But we have so much junk food! like 4 big boxes just pilled high so I wont be needed to spend my money we just got all the great leftovers from a bunch of Elders who just left!

Man its crazy that Its only been 5 days I feel like I have been here for 5 weeks! It seems like by the time lunch roles around it should be dinner and then we have a 5 hour class…. But I love this wonderful opportunity to learn so its all worth it! My zone is awesome! its us Cantonese and then a bunch of people going to the Phillipines! So its a great group there is a lot more elders in my zone than Sisters but the MTC over all right now its like 50/50. Its probably because there is no sisters learning Cantonese right now, So we are like a little band of brothers!

Its been amazing here and I will be sure to be a little more thorough once I get a full week! But if you feel like your life isn’t that motivated or you need a spiritual recharge or you think your doing well enough in gods eyes. Well then go watch or read the Character of Christ! I love everyone who read this! And ill be back next week!

Sincerely

Elder Cordon

Short one this week!

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Dear Family and Friends,

This past week was a terrific one. We stayed really busy and saw a lot of success. We managed to set 3 new baptismal dates and found 6 new investigators. The Lord truly is taking care of us.

I am all out of time though so I am just going to share a quick testimony.

I know with every ounce of my soul that this church is run by REAL Apostles and Prophets today. Men who truly do receive guidance and revelation for the world from God. I sustain these men and would serve in whatever capacity they asked me to do. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God; that he truly did see God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. I know that Book of Mormon is the most correct book of earth. I know that if someone wants to experience true and lasting happiness than they need to live the commandments. I honestly believe that if people only knew about the happiness they could receive from living the Gospel that not a soul on earth would reject us at the door step. I also know though that God is working on everyone, and that our job as missionaries is to find those who are ready and direct them to wonderful gift that savior has given everybody.

I thought to myself this morning that the savior is like a father over a few month period has lost sleep and put all his energy into making some handmade gifts for his children to give them at Christmas. Each gift is personal and was made with love, and designed to bring great happiness to each child. On Christmas day this father offers his gifts to his children. The first child notices that the gift is in a small box and decides that it most not be that great and doesn’t open it. The next child opens the gift and sets it on his shelf where it gathers dust. But the last child takes the gift and cherishes it and allows it to make him happy everyday. Just like these children Christ has offered us a gift that will bring us ultimate happiness, but what are we going to do with it? What are we doing with it?

I know that our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ love us and want nothing more than to see us be happy. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I love you all!!!

Elder Joshua Cordon

First Week in the Field

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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