Tag Archives: Faith

A Message of Joy

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Dear Family and Friends,

I try to reflect on my life as much as I can. Even on a mission its hard to find time. But when I do its always a joyous experience. A principle that I have striven to get my investigators and recent converts to understand and is simply and clearly laid out in 2 Nephi 28:30–

“For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.”

The Lord knows when we are ready to receive new revelation. You must do all you can to seek what God has and to always do his will. I think a big part of that is receiving the revelation in the order which he desires us to receive it. We can all strive to understand the basic ordinances and principles of the gospel being first faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and second Repentance. If we all devoted our entire lives to studying these two principles then we truly would only understand a fragment of what they mean, there is so much to learn. There is a reason that truly all conference talks relate back to these two things.

On an even deeper note– How many of us truly love our Savior Jesus Christ? How many of us really love our neighbor? I dont know if I have ever heard someone express the intensity of Joy they felt as did Ammon or Alma after having given everything to the Lord and learning to love their enemies who countlessly tried to end their lives. I know that their is no greater joy in this life than that of a servant of the Lord. No matter how much money, material wealth, or excitement you can draw from a temporal nature it cannot and will not compare. If you find your life not were you desire it then I invite you to choose this day to serve the Lord and partake of incomprehensible JOY.

I love you all and appreciate all the support.

Elder Jared Cordon

Atonement & Agency

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Dear Family and Friends,

What a wonderful strength it gives me to know that I am a son of Heavenly Father. To know that I have a Father that has that much knowledge and wisdom. To know that he loves me forever no matter the circumstances. He will always be there for us when we truly seek him in our lives, even sometimes when we don’t he is still there.

Just like my parents told me not to run in the road, or not to touch the hot stove. I didn’t know why, I didn’t know that a car moving 25 mph hitting me would lead to a lot of suffering, but they did. Heavenly Father has the knowledge to know that the way that I can find the least amount of suffering in this life is to follow the plan that He has created. Just like I didn’t know about the cars or what a hot stove would do to my tiny hands; I don’t always know why he has asked me to do things or what the out come would be if I disobey. However I do have the trust to know that if He has asked me to do it then it is for my benefit, safety, and salvation and is of the utmost importance.

Just like my parents want me achieve all that I am able. Heavenly Father wants me to achieve everything that I am able, which is more then we can dream of. I, and everyone that has ever lived and will ever live, am part of the lineage of Heavenly Father. I am a heir to a throne and kingdom, as is everyone, because we are children of a Heavenly Father. I have a birth rite to claim, but He has given us agency to choose. I for a long time in my life was using that agency to chose to not follow the path that Heavenly Father has laid out. I chose to wonder down paths of un-inheritance choosing to throw away my birth rite. The inheritance that He has to give is one of eternal happiness, full of our families and loved ones with the rites to an eternal family that will grow forever.

I have let this knowledge shape my life to what it is today, I have been able to use my agency to turn my life around from what it was to what it is; made possible through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Without that sacrifice there would be no way to receive the inheritance. I have been able to see and feel the change in my own life that has come from becoming like a child, and just trusting that Heavenly Father knows what I need and knows the way back.

To end here is a scripture to that sums it up very clearly
Mosiah 3:19 in the Book of Mormon

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love,willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

I love all of you so much thank you for you prayers and love

Love,
Elder Steven 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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This has been a GREAT year!

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Dear Family and Friends,

This coming Saturday will be one year, one year sense I knew that this gospel was the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. That Joseph Smith saw God the Father and his son, our brother, Jesus Christ in a grove of trees in Palmyra NY in 1820. It has been such a wonderful year I am so glad that I had the courage to go to the pageant.

In this last year I have let the gospel change my life. The promise that we get, that following the gospel makes us the best that we can be is VERY TRUE. It is so weird to think that it was only just a year ago that I didn’t know that this church was true and now I am on a mission and am through my first transfer.

So crazy news about this first transfer I am getting a new trainer. Elder Lafond is getting transferred and I am getting Elder Butters to finish out my next 6 weeks of training. SO… it is kinda weird to think, we just assumed that we had 3 months together and so it did come as a shock. I am excited though because God is in the details of the mission and so I know that I am supposed to learn something from this so can’t wait to see what that is. A quote from President Lorenzo Snow, who was the prophet from 1898-1901.

“There is no mortal man that is so much interested in the success of an elder when he is preaching the gospel as the Lord that sent him to preach to the people who are the Lord’s children.”

The Lord is invested in the success of our missions and He wants us to grow in the gospel and He wants us to become the best missionaries that we can be. He knows what that will take and he will give us the things and challenges that we need to mold us into the missionaries he needs us to be and the best we can be.

I am so excited about this next transfer and what it will bring. So a quote from me.

“There are many things a person CAN be, but the focus needs to be on what you SHOULD be.”

The gospel can change you to the best person that you can be so let it. Everyone can be perfected, so don’t get distracted by the things that aren’t in that direction.

Sorry this letter is so short next week will be longer 🙂

I love you all
Elder Steven Cordon
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Update on Sister Feathers (the bird we are teaching the gospel to) eggs have hatched and now we have two babies living on our porch.

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Washington Sunset

This is a Beautiful Place!

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Dear Family and Friends,

This is such a beautiful place they have taken a desert and turned it into a very beautiful place.

This week there was so many reasons to be grateful. It is remarkable everything that needed to happen so that the gospel could be restored. All of the details that God directed to bring this world out of apostasy is incredible to me. I know that God has his hand in the details of the affairs of this world and his plans and works will progress. The question that we have to ask ourselves is whether we are going to be apart of the work that is happening. I am so grateful to be able to be apart of this work “full time” and am taking down notes on how I can be for the rest of my life.

We are continuing to have wonderful blessing. I am growing in testimony every day, that is easy to do when you study as much as we and talk about it even more. I never tire of feeling the Holy Ghost every time that I testify of truth. I am so grateful for the area that i am in and the people that i get to meet every day.

Phil and Alicia and both moving forward with their faith in finding out for themselves their relationship with God. We gave a church tour to Alicia and what a wonderful experience that was we invited her to be baptized and she is very committed to building her testimony to build her to that moment. She is so good at recognizing the spirit and letting it guide her to make changes in her life.

Phil still has a lot a questions which is really good and he is praying about all of it. I am so excited to see him grow in his faith as we answer the questions he has and show him how he can find his answers through pray and scripture study.

I am almost done with my first transfer, and if feels like just yesterday that I got off the plane with the sun glaring me in the eyes. I am so glad every day that I made the decision to serve a mission. I know that this is where I am supposed to be. I challenge everyone to decide what you can do to be apart of Gods team and DO IT.

ELDER S. CORDON

A Lesson Of The Mission

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Dear Family and Friends,

These last couple of days have been pretty interesting.

I had the opportunity to meet with a pastor from another faith. It was really interesting too because previously we had met him and had scheduled a time but for some reason we never met up and I had not cared too much to see him but then one day Elder Au just had this feeling to go to this village called Lung Gu Taan. Now this man lives there with his family and when we were there I saw his house and didn’t want to bother knocking on his door. He is really nice but he is pretty dedicated to his belief.

Our time there was kinda of a bust until we were leaving then we saw this man and his family pull up in there car. So we spoke for a second and he was super nice and wanted to meet back up. It struck us at this point that maybe that’s why we needed to go to Lung Gu Taan. So that time was last Friday. When we first met him he had posed the question how can someone read the gospel of John–he said its his favorite book–and be led to believe in our church then he told us to study it. Well this is pretty funny cause his name is John Johnson. But I added that to my study and man I never been more convinced that someone with the gift of the spirit can led to believe more deeply that this gospel the Church of Jesus Christ teaches is true. Now I knew that he wouldn’t put that question to us unless he had a reason someone couldn’t.

Well we met up because I felt this is what the spirit was telling us to do. Well we didn’t really discuss the Gospel of John, I just had to defend my faith against the pride of the world. This meeting was interesting it provided me greater insight on the war of words this world is facing. In this meeting you had two people sitting on one side of the table who had gained their testimony of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit in reverent prayer, while on the other side you had someone who gained his testimony from years and years of study starting from a degree in religion and then throughout his paid career.

I now understand why we needed to meet with this man, I know that all the words the world can throw at you have no effect compared to the quiet whispers of the Holy Spirit in prayer. This has been a great reminder of the kind of missionary and teacher I should be, I can never convert anybody that power is the responsibility and calling of the Holy Spirit. I must not forget who the real teacher is. The people of Hong Kong deserve a foundation of stone not sand.

I love you all and wish you the best.

Elder Jared Cordon

Don’t Forget Him!

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Dear Family and Friends,

When you do work on a Monday and your mind thinks its P-day weird things start happening everybody in the district has been a little goofy and District meeting yesterday might have been the funniest district meeting I have had. Yet we all learned some great lessons. I did the training and nothing really went according to plan, but it ended up teaching some very valuable unplanned lessons about power statements which we took to use yesterday.

Yesterday was interesting and its also funny how the Lord does little things to remind us who is really in charge. When we first started looking for people to share the gospel with after district meeting, I am not sure why, but the constant no’s were getting at me more than normal. I started having all these thoughts come through my mind;

“Is this message really true nobody wants to hear it.”

Or

“Man why I am even trying these people just don’t get it.”

So it was pretty sad the thoughts going through my mind after doing that for a while and still not having success me and Elder Au said a prayer, rethought our approach and found one kid, who we taught and set up an appointment to come and teach him more. So that was cool. Then that evening after dinner, similar thoughts started haunting my mind, but I tried to shrug it off and keep looking for the people I was suppose to find. The Lord put three amazing people in our path 2 of which are new investigators. The lesson I learned is how quickly I forget the Lord sometimes but He doesn’t forget us, He picks us up when we are weak. We had 3 new investigators the same day I was thinking of quitting. That’s about the same amount of new investigators I had in my entire time in my first area. The Lord is pouring out a lot of blessings here in the Butterfly Ward and if all goes right we should have 3 baptisms in June with a few more for July!

Much Love
Elder Jared Cordon

Short and Sweet!! -Joshua

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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

Who knew missionary work could be so INTENSE!!!

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well this week was truly a terrific week! So many great things happened and I have been blessed beyond measure. Anyone who thinks of their mission as a sacrifice doesn’t understand the bigger picture. It seems like there is this attitude of referring to missions as a sacrifice, but I never could even from the very first hour of my mission. Looking back I can’t help but just laugh at how I thought I knew the blessings that would come from a mission then, but oh how my mind as been opened to the beauties and blessings of the Gospel. I can’t wait to laugh at myself again 6 months from now. OH HOW BLESSED I AM TO BE HERE! I wish all of you could be experiencing this as well. On that same note, thank you Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, and my home ward, along with anyone else I have forgotten, for making sacrifices in your lives so that I could have this experience.

The experience I want to highlight this week was a lesson with the wonderful Lily. She is the 17 year old sister of Hugo, a recently reactivated member. My wonderful companion found them street contacting back in September and has been teaching them ever since. On Friday we felt that it was finally time to get her to commit to a baptismal date. They have tried in the past, but she always said that she wasn’t ready. Our last few lessons have all been really powerful and we just knew that the time was now. We also knew that it wasn’t going to be easy, and that without the spirit it would be impossible.

We started out with some ice-breaking gentile conversation to lighten things up. After a few minutes we got to business by inviting the spirit in with a wonderful prayer. After the prayer we began with our plan of reading Alma 32. When I say that that scripture was perfect, I am serious! There truly could not have been a better chapter of scripture that one at that time for her. It addressed all of her concerns and we knew as we read that the spirit was confirming with her the truthfulness of those words. After reading I transitioned the lesson to our main objective of committing her to a baptismal date by giving a short shpeal (not a word, i know) on the importance of goal setting. She saw right through us and new exactly what we were trying to do. Nevertheless, we pressed on as we talked about how we know that she is ready and that it is within her grasp. I knew that it wasn’t too well received so I called an audible and told her that what we are going to do is to have everybody close there eyes for thirty seconds and just feel the spirit in the room, and then I would read to her the baptismal covenant in Mosiah 18. As we sat in reverent silence the spirit thickened to the point of tangibility. In a hushed voice I read the covenant and then looked her in the eyes and said, “I know you love God, so why not show it to him by committing your life to him.” Elder Hamilton followed up by bearing a powerful testimony and then he introduced the date of Jan. 26 as the day for her to be baptized. She seemed still hesitant and then he said, why don’t you pray about it? She responded with “okay, I’ll do that,” thinking that she was off the hook. Then Elder Hamilton said you should pray about it right now. She surprisingly agreed and said that we should join her. So we all knelt in a circle as she gave a humble and sincere prayer. She even said in that prayer that she knew that what the Elders have taught is true. After the prayer we sat for a few seconds to let her think about the answer she received. After about 5 seconds she was like, alright I know that is what I need to do. OH MAN!! I so excited, but in an attempt to keep the spirit by not shrieking with joy, I just sat there with a grin on my face simply nodding my head in agreement. IT WAS SO GREAT!!

Anyway, I hope ya’ll enjoy the story and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

I love ya’ll!

Elder Joshua Cordon

A Message of Thanks

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Hello Family and Friends,

Hey sorry the missed email last week! We had a bit of a mix up! Well the work has been hard and it has been slow. But we are always seeing new miracles! One thing I would like to tell you about thats special to Hong Kong members. Its All the helpers that come from south east asia.

I have had the priviledge in being able to bless the sacrament for the saturday branch and to be able to be a witness for a baptism. These branches being almost entirely women are from tuesday to sunday. These sisters will leave there families to come to Hong Kong and become domestic helpers. They only have one day a week off and they dont decide when. So they will help them by having meetings all week. I have never felt a greater spirit in a sacrament meeting than in the one with these sisters, they truly have humbled themselves before god and he has worked many miracles in all there lives. Many of these sisters have seen greater challenges than most would ever hope to endure but through it I have seen some the most amazing members. Although there time off is very little every week and they give most of their day to church You will still find them going out to parks and inviting others to come to church or by standing on the street trying to talk to people. If all the members in the church were to have this kind of love or faith, how great would be the harvest of souls, and the growth in the kingdom of god. So I just want to give a shout out to them and their amazing faith and encourage all to learn from their example and follow the words of our prophet in remembering what kind of a gift our Lord would want for his brithday.

I love you All!

Elder Jared Cordon