Let Us Act

Dear Family & Friends,

We’ll last week was a busy one a good one for some ups and downs. We were able to add a few more people to the teaching pool so we are seeing some great success from our finding efforts, we have been really consistent since I got here. Some of our investigators made some huge improvement this last week, like one brought his father to church who is so cool! Which is so good cause we need more priesthood holders. One has a really strong desire and has had a lot of anti and family opposition and its cool to see her fighting through all of it. Because conference taught us “having sincere questions is not the question but, where you go for answers”. We have some investigators who have listened to our exhortation to read and pray to know for themselves and nothing is sweeter for a missionary when they do it and find that it works. But on the flipside this week we had two who would not, no matter how much we did on our end, read and pray. Its a simple fact, missionaries can bring the spirit unto people but we cannot bring it into people as 2 Nephi 32 teaches us that it is the spirits job and the individual through there agency to act is what allows the spirit to do that. I think if we apply these principles in any teaching situation whether it be in church, families, schools, sports, or military. Its all the same we need to teach and help people to do it themselves we are objects to act, any other way is simply contrary to our nature and the way God made us.

I love you and hope the holidays are full of happiness and joy as we ponder the glad tidings of great joy which is our Savior Jesus Christ who came to save us all if we come unto to Him. Let us show our true gratitude by coming unto to him and helping all that we can remember the true reason for Christmas.

Love you all

Elder Jared Cordon

P.S. Here is some pictures! BTW my pose is demonstrating how main landers sit everywhere, bus lines, when reading the paper, really anywhere.

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The Christmas Season Has Begun

Dear Family and Friends,

Well December is underway. With comes new miracles. This week we added two new people to our teaching pool. One is a turnover from the sisters. She was found through an english find that we organized. Her name is stephanie and this week we have seen her three times. But the coolest thing is last sunday she went to church with the sisters and then in the evening we got to know her better at and FHE activity and had an amazing experience. Well that night her house apparently got in quite a dispute over her being involved with our church her father had found tons of anti stuff on the computer. She had a hard time believing all the anti she heard because she felt too good when she came to church. So late that night she called up the Sisters who couldn’t get back to her tell the next day but when they did she wanted to meet up immediately to talk. So we went with the sisters and then we ended addressing her concerns and taught a really strong restoration lesson. She said she loves the feeling of the gospel and is willing to work pass the anti and opposition.

The coolest thing is this got started because of the Elders quorum president in our ward he wanted to help boost the work so he made these really cool english class flyers and we had quite a few people show up, one being stephanie. Also his wife is getting involved as well because she made cupcakes we could take to less actives and investigators. We were doing less active finding and just going down the list of names and addresses we ended up giving one out to the dad of a less active. Later that less active who has not been in contact with the church in years called the bishop thanking him for the gift. Thanks to this families efforts we are seeing blessings in both investigators and less actives. We were sure to let them know of their help. Its amazing what happens when members and missionaries work together.

Now we are working with ten plus investigators all of which were found with the help of others.

One big lesson that I learned from Preach My Gospel that I have been working to incorporate in the work is helping investigators gain a sincere appreciation for the scriptures. I trace the lack of that appreciation to a big reason people go less active so we are really working to make sure our investigators are reading and receiving revelation for themselves. We really want a december baptism and we know that scripture study is key for getting them there.

This last week I had the chance to go on Exchanges with Elder Tse over in the Ngau Tau Gok area. I have never been over to that part of Hong Kong so it was cool. They have really good steamed bread over there and its really cheap so I might have eaten a lot of those. We area able to add a new investigator to their teaching pool and Elder Tse really taught me a lot of simple lessons about how I can improve my teaching. He does an amazing job and setting really clear expectations for lessons and the entire experience. He really knows how to apply the how to begin teaching skills.

On another note I have been trying to improve my cooking of oriental foods. I have successfully invented my own dish and with other missionaries confirmation its pretty dang good. It also fits into the Chinese food category.

Things are really good here in Aberdeen we got miracles coming we have already seen plenty and we have plenty I am sure.

love you all

Elder Jared Cordon

#NEW

Dear Family and Friends,

I am in a new area, with a new companion, and a whole new set of challenges. I am so excited for this transfer and everything that it has to offer. There is a lot of people here that are seeking after truth and are ready to make changes in their life to come closer to Christ. I love the people that I meet, what an amazing knowledge that we have to know that we are all children of our Heavenly Father and brothers and sisters in his family. It really brings it into perspective of why we share this gospel.

I have been sent to Wenatchee WA. what a beautiful area this is and I my even be here for Christmas, which would be just great. We already have snow capped mountains. SO BEAUTIFUL. Gods creation of this world is such a wonderful gift I am glad that we have beauty in this world that we can fill our surroundings with.

Sincerely,

Elder Steven Cordon

It’s been awhile! -Jared

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

Short and Sweet!! -Joshua

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week was definitely an interesting one. While it felt a little like Christmas, it just wasn’t the same. Maybe the fact that we were wearing short sleeves for a lot of last week and well we just taught everyday. All in all there is still nothing better than serving the Lord.

Seeing as how I don’t really have any interesting stories for you at the moment I will just talk about a few things that have been on my mind. It seems to be that I have really come to understand what it means when it says that faith, hope, charity, and an eye single to the glory of god qualify you for the work. If a missionary can only master those few points EVERYTHING else would fall into place. I find myself lately feeling that those are the only things that I want to study or even think about. When I measure myself in those categories against what I could become I feel very motivated to improve. As we were considering some of the things that we could train on in Zone Meeting this week we realized that it all comes down to the fundamentals. Kinda like what coach Vince Lombardi would teach. And the fundamentals are what I have mentioned above. I am probably just rambling, but that is just what has been on my mind this week. Sorry for the short letter but that is all I got.

Love Ya’ll!! Happy New Year!!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Also checkout his blog post for a wonderful perspective on New Years goal setting. arippleoflight.blogspot.com