Tag Archives: investigators

NINE DRAGONS!

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family & Friends,

I am in Kowloon Zone and Kowloon in Chinese means 9 Dragons so I in the 9 Dragons zone, probably the coolest name for a zone!

Well it was an amazing week last week!! We had some really cool miracles! We were able to solidify two people in preparing themselves for baptism this next month and working on one more. Also we have another young man who is looking very promising coming up quick. The most important thing for these people is definitely getting them converted and one I think is helping is giving people short powerful commitments. People don’t need time to baptized they just need to be converted. We were not able to add any new investigators to the teaching pool but we did add two less actives and now have some part members that we are starting to get things going. We find that real success is really working the ward members so we are working to keep a really strong relationship with them and to keep referrals coming. Thats something we need to be better at doing is getting referrals. But we have thought of some good ways to do that. Another thing thats been taking up our time is working with a lot of Recent Converts. Its so important to keep these people progressing and none of the converts this year have been to the temple yet, so big thing to focus on there. Also we are working on trying to get family history really moving here so we scheduled a member to teach us with her family then we can then teach our less actives, recent converts and investigators. Really the ultimate goal in doing it will be to get them to the temple. We have a temple in Hong Kong and I feel like its so underused sometimes.

This last week we met with the Sister Training leaders to plan up zone training and that was one of the most inspired meetings that I have been apart of. we were all just getting so many amazing ideas that we feel will transform this zone. We saw miracles this last month as far as families goal. As a zone we set a pretty high goal and we ended beating it by two and it was interesting, because we didn’t focus on families directly, it was indirectly influenced by the focus on teaching in the home. We also beat our member present goal as well which was another indicator we were hoping to indirectly influence as well. I just have noticed that when you have a vision and you pray for that vision and you wake up everyday working to achieve that vision the lord will really bless us and help us accomplish our dreams. We noticed that as we did some consecrated family finding this last week and got exactly what we prayed for.

Also I want you all to know that my companion is the most powerful man I have ever seen. He has been preforming miracles here in Tung Chung and I just get the privileged to sit back and watch. He is so intuned with the spirit and we mesh so well. We have plenty of fun let me tell you, but we also go to work.

Missionary work is the most satisfying work I have ever done and thats also because its the most important work I have ever been apart of. I know this church is true and I know that salvation only comes through Jesus Christ and living his gospel. Its this truth that motivates me and brings me the joy that comes from missionary work.

Love
Elder Cordon

Advertisement

Very Hot Summer

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family & Friends,

Well wasn’t expecting this transfer at all. It came and went so quickly. I was truly expecting that I would be staying with Elder Harmon, I truly have loved the time that I have spent around him and he has taught me so much. This is going to be the weirdest one yet, but I have also been on my knees in prayer to help me with the coming transfer and become even better each day. I am learning very quickly that the more I recognize that I am in great need of Gods, and the faster that I recognize it, the greater that I can grow with Him.

I love the strength that I receive from Him when I ask with faith and am willing to put forth all of my effort. I love the stretching and growing that I can do on the mission to be able to be more then I ever thought possible. To Become What He Know I Can.

I am going to cherish the moments that I have had to be able to recognize his hand in my life. I am grateful for the atonement to be able to help me become so much more. The Atonement is the reason that we can even become more then what we are. The reason that we can have hope in a better future to know that we don’t have to just be ok with, or even worse get upset about what is just currently happening to us.

We are still working very hard to make sure that we are getting Friends for our investigators so that there connections with the church that are not ones that are going to be leaving any time soon.

Love you all so very much

ELDER S CORDON

Bright Times Ahead

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family & Friends,

Well it was a sad weekend, but it will all work out in the end.

Arnoldo didn’t get baptized… that is the sad news. His grandmother didn’t feel that he was ready to. She wants him to wait a while longer to really see that he is taking it serious. So… the good news is that in talking to her, through the aunt cause the grandmother doesn’t speak English, she said that she would like to sit in on lessons to learn what he is learning. So we may have found our way into getting his whole family. We are going to be working with the Spanish elders to help with this family. He still came to church on Sunday and still loves Primary.

We have Damion getting baptized this weekend He had his interview last night and it went great he is so excited for it. Our WML is baptizing him.

We had to move some baptism dates that we have Abel and Kristina need to get married but Kristina needs to get unmarried first. O.O She has been separated from him for over 12 years she has just not done it out of fear. But we pushed that fear right out of here and DUN DUN DUN DUN!! We are also teaching her oldest daughter now too she is 17 and going through the “Im a rebel teen” phase but she is taking interest and she is starting to soften to us. Walls are coming down!! We are now working with them to getting baptized on July 25th.

What a wonderful day at the temple. It is always wonderful to get the spiritual recharge that you get there. Sometimes you just need it. The spirit was able to testify of some amazing truths and wonderful talents that have been given me, so that I may put them to good use.

I love the work that is happening here. I love missionary work all together but it is always great when you are just focused on the work.

I love you all so very much and pray for you. We are having a mission wide fast this weekend for our investigators if you would like to pray for some of mine you are more then welcome to. You are all fantastic people.

Love Elder Cordon

Family & Friends

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family and Friends,

As normal things went well. Last week had some more consistency than
others though. Rather than half the week be better than the other
half, it was rather productive from start to finish. God is really
helping to work move forward.

The highlight off the week was our lesson with the Estrella Family
which we had at the Nhiev’s home, they are a member family in the ward
that have been helping us fellowship them. On Friday we had the two
families together for dinner, a game, and a lesson. It was an awesome
time, and everybody lightened up and enjoyed themselves. The fun part
was to see everybody relax as the night went on. Before it was over
they were already planning their next get-together. The Estrella’s
weren’t able to come to church this weekend because of work situation,
but they are hoping to adjust their schedules to be there next week.
All in all, great success.

The other bonuses were that we got in to contact with some
investigators that fell by the wayside for a few weeks. Jeff was
silent for a few weeks but this past week he was stronger than ever
before. He wants to get baptized as soon as possible. And then Davie,
we went and saw him. He recognized he difference our visits made in
his life. And after only one lesson he read more than a chapter of the
Book of Mormon which is crazy considering that he didn’t read at all
before when we were visiting him. We talked to a member who was
willing to come fellowship him with us and that will be a great
connection if we can help them make it.

The ward here is great! It isn’t very big, but nevertheless I have
enjoyed getting to know everybody and hopefully we can do our part to
help grow it some more this month. We are doing a Mighty Miracle May,
where every single companionship is going to get a baptism in the
mission. It is going to be amazing! God bless y’all!

Love y’all!
Elder Cordon

Referrals!!

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family and Friends,

Well a wonderful week is under wraps. It was one of those weeks where you don’t see any of your usual people and it has lots of finding; which is ironic due to the fact that finding was our huge focus when we planned for last week, I guess you get what you plan for. One thing we did last week was take presidents advice and do consecrated finding. When we did weekly planning we prayed and picked two hour blocks everyday that we would not move for anything, and then we would pray about those days all week. Well we saw many many cool miracles happening every single finding time had something very unique to bring and we really saw the lord rewarding us for our faith. We also had our zone training this last week and its one of the best that I have ever had. So many things very specific for my needs.

Also personal accomplishment of my mission is I have finally mastered personally cutting my own hair. I got it down. Clippers on the sides scissors on the top and I even got thinning scissors mastered. It was hard at first but i got it down now.

I named this email referrals because this last week we received four referrals!! sadly none were from the ward but 3 are from investigators and 1 is from church headquarters which will be the first my entire mission! so that gives a lot to work with. One of the investigators was reading the tree of life vision and when he read the verse where lehi tastes of the fruit and then desires his family to partake he had a really strong feeling to invite his family so he introduced to his daughter and he shared that verse, it was really cool.

Today is also the second time I have finished the Book of Mormon on my mission and the second time really sincerely in my entire life. But I have applied the promise in Moroni 10:3-5 again for the second time after reading the entire thing and again like before it was so good. I don’t get an intense feeling or anything crazy but just a calm peaceful feeling of complete certainty that the book is true. This time I read the remake of the first edition that I have and highlighted when it spoke of christ and also his words. The miracle of the outcome is not only did I come to know about Christ but I come to know Christ more fully in ways that can only be experienced not explained. I know if anybody will follow that invitation they will truly come to know their savior.

I love you all

Elder Jared Cordon

IMG_0360
Live from the apple store!

Preach My Gospel and Pot Luck

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family and Friends,

Well this was a great week for missionary work we have made leaps and bounds in becoming Preach My Gospel missionaries. I think the mission overall has been a very very humbling experience everyday the Lord reminds me I am nothing without him, and now (I am not sure why so late) I have truly began to understand the power of preach my gospel. This experience to train I feel like has been more for me and less for him sometimes. I have learned a lot about relying on others and allowing them the opportunity to grow, Using my time wisely, and most recently working with the ward.

I was analyzing our situation with the ward and why we are not getting more and more members to be receptive. Then something clicked something so big that I have been missing. Ward Missionaries!! I have been here Six Months and have not used them at all. So I met with the sisters and expressed my desires of having a ward missionary correlation meeting then with the ward mission leader. It went Amazingly they are all on board and have made some new goals. This meeting could not have happened at a better time. It was the 5th sunday and we didn’t have meetings before church so we could do it then and get everybody to attend, also it was right after the ward activity that we had planned. I have been making huge goals about trying to get 1 ward activity a month.

The ward was not so enthusiastic at first but we worked so hard and invited everyone (we did a good old potluck) We ended up having over a hundred people there and about 28 were investigators. with 7 ward referrals! It was amazing the ward is really excited about the success which is the real outcome that have been praying for all week! So moving into this meeting everyone was really excited to plan another event we have now lined up one per month for the rest of the year. In my eyes activities are the genius of this church. Because we contact people every day who are Christians and every time we ask them how they became one its typically “my friend invited me to activities” this helped the ward know its not scary to invite friends to these events!

But hey love you all!
Elder Jared Cordon

As Always!

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family and Friends,

Well a wonderful week in the orient! We had a lot of mix ups happen this last week in the zone and in my district. They sent away the sisters and brought a set of elders in. Which happens to be my MTC (Missionary Training Center) companion Elder Cederlof and he is training its awesome it work near him and both be training at the same time, and then the other sisters in my ward are training as well so 3 greenies (*editors note: new missionaries) now in the district (*editors note: group of missionaries in a defined area). Its good the ward clearly sees good things happening in this area and we are excited to see the effects of all the excitement new missionaries bring to an area.

This week we also made some great progress with our investigators. We were able to organize a ward activity after some reluctance but it will be awesome we have already got 14 investigators coming and should be getting more. We are doing a good old potluck when I said the idea no one knew what it was but they like the idea. Our ward mission leader is so enthusiastic about all this he has taken a brake from work to do full time church service. It will be a fantastic event! Our investigators have really made some fantastic progress. We have now got uncle Fighter to church twice in a row and he has said he really wants to get baptized its just getting over a lot of addictions. First comes the desire then comes the change. We also got Peter Lo to commit to coming to our activity. We are going to introduce him to Gary because they both are in wheel chairs, love speaking English, Love America, Hate communism, I think they will be best friends for sure.

The biggest difference maker in the work this week is something that was expressed by our investigators. We heard on multiple occasions: You really care about me don’t you? with a look of tears on their face. People are really influenced by the amount of love you can show if you look at them the way Christ does. Well fantastic week.

Love you all! Enjoy the little things!

Elder Jared Cordon

Badabatadatbaa I’m Lovin’ It!!!!

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Family and Friends,

Well just another wonderful week in the life of a missionary in Hong Kong. Training is going smoothly and the ward is picking up we are seeing a lot of good things happening. We have been doing a lot of Less Active work and tried our luck with some old investigators and we have seen some good things happening. Less active work we really stirred up the water so now we have some great potential there. But we really do have some characters for our investigators. Peter Lo is a man who is in a wheel chair cause of polio I mentioned him a few months back. He loves america. Uncle Fighter haha man love him. We actually visited a former and was teaching him a lesson at his door then the door right behind us opened and it was Uncle Fighter and his wife. It was cool to meet his wife. We got family potential there. Then of course you have this english class that we teach these these 9-11 year olds, they are the best! I love them its funny how no matter where you are your gonna get every stereotype of kid in your class. I cant wait to teach english in Mainland.

Elder Tam is just awesome though we do plenty of laughing and he has got so much potential we are going to see miracles together I know it.

But working with a lot of less actives recently has helped remind me of a principle that Joseph Smith taught is that when you fall away from the church your not on nuetral ground anymore you made your decision the only other option is the other direction. Well you choose to fall from a higher plane it hurts cause you fall hard. I have seen some sad situations but I have also seen some amazing ones where a few of these people a very sincere and they recognize what there decision has done to their lives and they are ready to change, they are ready to feel the warm embrace of gods love.

I know the work I am doing is of an eternal nature and that why I am doing it.

I love you all!

Elder Jared Cordon

Don’t Forget Him!

Posted on by
Reply

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