Tag Archives: Humility

Keep It Going!!

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Dear Family and Friends,

This was a wonderful last week! We mixed things up last week and organized an English find with the Pok Fu Lam sisters and elders. We realized that nobody was really showing up to English class. So we made our own sign and had a member make some English flyers. After a few were passed out. We saw great success we had 10 people at English class. With the variable that we had our ward thanksgiving activity this last week which took place at the same time and took 4 people who normally go to English class away. So that says a lot about the impact of the find.

Speaking of the Thanksgiving activity that was also a great success. It gave a great chance for a mom and her two kids we have been working with to meet the ward, we also got our investigator Simon to get to know some of the members in the ward a lot better, and we got a referral. It was great. Along with that we saw some other little miracles this last week. We were doing our language study in the church when a man walked in. We thought it was one of the other missionaries investigators or a ward member, turned out to be a former investigator from several years ago. We taught him then committed him to church. He showed up dressed up in his Sunday best without being asked. We will see him again this week. We also had a near by rehad center for people with mental illnesses give us a call asking for us to help them with an activity they had planned. They were impressed with missionaries in the past and they wanted our help again that was a great service opportunity! Having time to serve people in Hong Kong helps me love them more and really keeps me positives through any rejections people throw out.

As far as our mission goal of 65 baptisms in December I really want it to happen and I truly believe it can, but I know to show my gratitude for the Lord for all the blessings we have been receiving I need to be more obedient. So thinking through what I could do I realized that we never really SYL (speak your language) *(Editors note- missionaries learning a new language on the mission are strongly encourage to only speak the language they are learning when they are in their apartment so that they are learning the language quicker by immersion.) Elder Wong doesn’t like speaking Cantonese so we really haven’t been. But I decided that I need to speak as much as possible but most importantly I need to have the 3 SYL days like we have been asked to have many times well we have been doing it. And it was hard to remember but we did it and it was really fun. I couldn’t let myself crack in the apartment ether so I as I kept speaking Chinese in the apartment I saw that the others started to as well. So its my new actions and we are actually doing it and I have seen its helped my contacting skills because then I don’t have to be switching back to Chinese mode I am already in it. Language is something that I have not taken as seriously on my mission as I should have but I have been cracking down now for a few weeks and I have seen it start growing again.

Things are just great here. I feel like the Lord wants me always to be growing so he needs things to stay hard enough to at least keep me on my toes or knees. You can only grown under pressure. If there is no pressure than you get soft.

Love you all

Elder Jared Cordon

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Elder Groberg and Elder Cordon (They were in the MTC together)

 

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Sunday Blessings

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Dear Family and Friends,

I had the blessed opportunity of going to the Orlando Temple last week!! Nothing is quite as rejuvenating as a trip to the temple! I am grateful that God has provided a way for me to still maintain temple attendance despite my circumstances. We had a Q&A with the Temple President afterwards, and the only question I had afterwards was how do i ask a question that is worth asking haha.

After some long time of contemplation I believe I have arrived on some answers to that questions which ironically in this case is more questions 🙂

We were blessed immensely this past week! We had some powerful lessons Saturday night with some of our awesome investigators. One of them is a man named Madison. He is very thoughtful man. He was taught several months back but never progressed. Something changed in his life though and he was so ready to listen and to act. We taught him about humility and the importance of a having a strong relationship with God. Near the end of the lesson he just stopped us mid sentence and said, where is your church at? I need to go to church tomorrow. Sunday morning I got to see his smiling face come walking in the door with his girlfriend right behind him! It was so beautiful to see. God definitely provided.

On that same note of miracles. We are teaching a brother and sister, Shauna & Christian. We just started teaching them a week ago and they wanted to come to church yesterday. Shauna texted us at 8 in the morning though and said that she got called into work and wont be able to make it. We were rather disappointed to hear that, but we were at peace for some reason. Shortly after the meeting started we were surprised to see both of them walk in the door and grab a seat on the back row. I was so happy to see them there!! The ward just wrapped their arms around them and made them feel so welcome. We talked to Shauna after sacrament and she said that when she got to work she still wanted to come to church so she got someone to cover her shift so she could come. I know God will bless them for their faithfulness!

There is no greater work than this! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!

Love
Elder Joshua Cordon

Another week into the rest of my life.

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Dear Family and Friends,

So this past week was a good one. It definitely kept me on my toes as each day presented some unique experience. I would have it no other way though!

I did my first exchange as a zone leader with a district leader, and though I am sure it should have been the other way I learned a bunch on that exchange. Elder Feliz is such a terrific missionary. He has been out a lot longer, and is very humble. He is a convert from the Dominican Republic, and he one of best missionaries in the mission. One thing that I learned from him that I really appreciated was his selflessness. He is a YSA missionary which means he works with all the young single adults in his area. Nevertheless, during our exchange he still talked to everybody regardless of their age or relationship status. We ended up finding a family and a single guy that were both very interested, but he immediately handed them over to the missionaries who are supposed to teach them without even flinching. (I say that example because it is proving to be the exception rather than the rule) All in all it was a great experience for me.

Another wonderful experience was that we found this awesome Haitian family. They are both very intelligent and they have an incredible desire to learn. We had our return appointment lesson with them last night and it went really well. They had a bunch of questions from when they read the Book of Mormon, and they are excited to learn a lot more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their names are Gabon and Emmanuela. I am looking forward to our lesson with them tomorrow.

All in all it was a great week. I feel like I have so many wonderful experiences everyday that I would never be able to talk about all of them, but when it comes to writing this email it seems that a lot of it escapes me haha so well that is it for this week!

I love ya’ll! Merry Christmas!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Well what another interesting week!

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Dear Loved Ones

Man this last week was one full of a lot of different events! First I didn’t say this last week, but what happened to standing while singing called to serve? No one has done it here so far so last Sunday my companion and some of the other Elders thought it would be embarrassing to start it but I did anyway and I got everyone to follow.

But man there is so much more I finally got my Lava Lava! These kids dared me to eat this huge ball of cheese found at the bottom of the ritz bitz box, lets say I will never again eat a ritz bitz! But it was so worth it because its all I wear now! I am not sure who invented pants, but it was a bad idea.

Also we had three guys who are fluent cantonese speakers from the states that were only here for a few days that were in our room man so that was a short fun party two left this morning at 2:30 so I didn’t sleep much. Then my whole branch accept us and one of the phillipino branches all left today! Man I am gonna miss all those guys so many characters in that group for sure!

Also my companion got geardia its like a stomach bacteria so that has delayed the work we had to go the doctors here which took awhile, then we had to go off campus to the lab. and miss a whole morning session of class while he slepted in! But overall it all came together when after playing some volleyball we watched the sunset together sharing detailed descriptions of the colors and pictures view.

Man even with all that going on I have still been received so many blessing! We had our TRC(training resource center) Were you get volunteers that you get to teach they could me members or nonmembers. Me and my companion did really well, we got to know the investigator, taught a whole lesson on the spirit used some scriptures and set commitments all with just what we knew so the language is moving along!

We are still far from ready its amazing that anybody could ever pick this language up in 9 weeks. Its considered the hardest language here in the MTC, to make it harder we cant even learn the written part until halfway through the mission. So they have the word leah which means like nine different things depending on the tone, but even with the same tone it means to get to know someone and the word for you. Haha I am gonna love it though its an adventure the whole time.

When I first got here I was really competitive about being the best. I would do study that would help me and I would kinda not share things but I have completely changed my mindset. Its so much nicer to just help each other grow and become part of the same team, I dont know why it took me so long to figure that out buts it been a lot nicer I am trying to be a leader and keep everyone on task. But 60 hours a week in class it can be hard to stay focused sometimes.

I know the lord gives no commandment unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them to accomplish the things which he hath commanded of them. I am not worried about the language I am just worried that I wont rely enough on the spirit. I have found countless times that if you rely on the spirit you would be amazed at how much you can accomplish.

Farewell everyone we will talk again in a week!

Love Elder Jared Cordon

PS: Sorry for the bad grammar the more I learn in Cantonese the less I know in English

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