Tag Archives: Jesus Christ

Striving for the Spirit

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Dear Family and Friends,

This week for the specialized training we got to have a training today on church tours and how to use them to help get our investigators to church. Getting people to church directly ties into investigators getting baptized. Church is so important it is where we go to partake in the sacrament which is the most important thing that we do on Sunday. It also allows for fellowship and helps them feel of the love of the ward family. It also helps them realize that going to church helps us strengthen our relationship with Jesus Christ because that is who we teach about, preach about, and worship too. The Sabbath is such a special day and time for us to grow closer to our Heavenly Father, and us as missionaries can use the tool of a church tour to help get people to church and then to the waters of baptism.

I would say that it was a GREAT training! I LEARNED SOOO MUCH!!

I love the spirit that is with me as I teach the gospel whether it is in a lesson with an investigator, or in a training doing a Role Play, the Spirit is there to testify of the truth of the gospel. That is such an amazing part of the mission, having the Spirit constantly testifying of the truthfulness of the work ad the gospel. I really cannot and will not ever truly understand how someone can serve a fulltime mission, (even if he was only semi obedient) and then come home and leave the church. To spend 2 years teaching people about the gospel and everytime having the Spirit witness to them that what they were saying is true and then to turn their back on it. I will never understand it.

I will never be able to honestly look at myself in the face and say that I don’t believe in this gospel EVER because I would just be lying.

I know without a doubt that this gospel and this work are TRUE! I know it because the Spirit has witnessed to ever fiber of my body.

I will share this truth forever! Sealed in the name of Jesus Christ.

I love you all so very much Thank you all for everything you do to help me on my mission.

LOVE
Elder S Cordon

Lessons Learned

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Dear Family and Friends,

A wonderful week! We had a branch find in this estate where we had 4 tents displays and games and a lot of people came to take a look. The Members here are amazing and so willing to do missionary work it truly is a blessing to serve them. They have a talk every week talking about achieving there goal of true Zion as a stake of the church. It will be wonderful when that goal is achieved. Here on May 17th the area presidency is coming over to make an announcement. Maybe it will be making Macau a district who knows?

Well I think one lesson I learned this week came to me this morning. Me and my companion were talking and then one thing lead to another and I shared a story about a lesson I learned when I was younger, but, then it dawned on me I have never actually thought of what I shared until just then. But it goes along the lines of weakness or imperfections in our lives. So for the family you know very well about my eyes and how we have spent so much time and energy and faith and prayers trying to get this problem fixed, yet in the end nothing has worked. So the question comes to mind was I not exerting faith? Isn’t the lord able to heal me? Well just today I feel like I was able to learn a lesson from this, that might be more valuable than having vision at this time. The lesson I feel like I have learned is that we all have challenges weaknesses and sometimes we get so caught up trying to fix these small imperfections that really wont make any difference in the eternal perspective of things, they occupy our prayers and our efforts and time, when really we should be focusing on more important things like eternal families and missionary work.

A connection story shared in the Liahona. A women was pregnant and she started having really bad headaches and she could not get rid of them no matter what she did but, once she had her baby though they went away. This was great but soon down the road when she was thinking about another child the thought came into her mind, don’t you remember the headaches you don’t want to deal with that again. So she prayed and fasted and waited for a confirmation that the headaches would not happen that being pregnant would be easy and the answer never came. Then she realized that she wants a child and really no problem or challenge would keep her from having such a great blessing so she had a child and the headaches came but as she focused on the eternal blessing and the big picture her trials seemed to disappear.

This is a lot like people who want to join the church but there is too many trials to many things that wouldn’t be easy or members might say they want to give more but they are to caught up trying to solve trivial problems that waste time and energy. Me, that women, these other people have to remember that as we spend our energy and really focus on what matters it seems like the little imperfections, trials, and weaknesses just disappear as we remember we would do anything for the blessing of eternal life no matter the cost. Remember the words and of Moroni 7:41 and think where our hope really is. its not in having the perfect body or the most comfortable life now, its eternal life. I hope this made sense what I just shared. Because it did to me and its been a big eye opener for me on my mission that it really doesn’t
matter what happens I am willing to do anything for the lord to earn eternal life.

Instead of trying to work on reversing weaknesses we should just fill the holes with new eternal strengths.

I love you all have a wonderful week.

Elder Jared Cordon

Hello! 

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Dear Family and Friends,


This was an interesting week. We found ourselves engaged in a lot of service this past week which was a blessing for sure. We actually resolved that our focus is going to change. After much consideration we are going to put a greater focus in service and working with part member families. So the fact that we got a bunch of service right when we resolved to focus on it was an indication that we are on track. The nice thing to was that every service opportunity resulted from someone asking us for help. We already have two service projects lined up. Our goal is to get different people we are working with to help us with the service projects. 

A person that we are working with who really came along this past week is a girl named Shy. We have taught her the first three lessons already and she reads the Book of Mormon during her bus ride to work everyday. She told us that she has fallen in love with the book and that it has opened up her eyes to so many things. We invited her to be baptized at the end of May and she asked if she could do it sooner and set a date for the 16th of May. It was really awesome. She has already started teaching other people about the Book of Mormon and she is going to come to church this weekend. 

This Ward here is wonderful but it is really struggling in that there are 10 members who have been admitted to the hospital lately. We have an older congregation and it has been tough to try to meet everybody’s needs. However, it has been a strong motivator for us to go and work with more less actives and part member families so that we can strengthen what we have so that the ward can support growth.

Elder Curran and I continue to learn from our mistakes and from one another; as a result, we feel the lord continues to provide tender mercies that move the work along. One big tender mercy is embodied in the Estrella Family. We have been able to teach Ray a few times and he is just eating it up, along with Michelle. I can’t wait to see how the gospel will continue to bless their lives. 

Love y’all!
Elder Joshua Cordon


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#LDSConf

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Dear Family and Friends,

easter-pictures-resurrection-mary-magdalene-1242543-gallery
Conference was so very good, they get better every time I see them. I get excited in anticipation for what is going to be said.

There was a couple big points that were touched on throughout the conference in almost every talk. Focus on the foundations of you testimony, and strengthen marriages and families.

Those are things that Satan is always and have always attacked in this world. If he can attack your foundation in Christ then everything else becomes easy. If Satan can destroy the family then he can disrupt the central unit that God has put into place to allow for the best success of his children. God has given us families so that we may see the eternal perspective of the order of Heaven, with Mothers and Fathers and children.

Truth has been restored, but what are we surrounding our lives with? Are we surrounding it with that truth or are we surrounding it with the half truths and even lies of the world. What we focus on is what we will become. So the focus needs to be on the things that we know, things that we dont know or understand should not just be looked in a closet though. Always seek to find more then what we currently have. But with the foundation of what you already have firmly locked into place. We shouldn’t ever let the lack of knowledge or understanding of things disrupt or damage the foundation.

Striving for the DAILY companionship of the Holy Ghost, is what leads to spiritual survival.* Life without this companionship only leads to darkness. He is the access to the celestial light that we need in our lives to change and become like our Heavenly Father.

I am so grateful to be able to receive guidance and direction from Heaven from people who have been invited by a prophet to seek revelation for the world. what a wonderful gift it is.

I am grateful for all of you and love you all. You are always in my prayers.

Love,
Elder S Cordon

Stepping Stones

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Dear Family & Friends,

Hey well the work is moving a long nicely in Macau and I know that the long term benefits are going to come from the Baby Steps.

A big thing we have been working on these last two weeks is fixing the LA records. They were such a mess when I got here, there was a lot of them stuffed in a drawer and many just all over the place. lots of missing information as well. I am not sure why this is that way.. but we also found a pattern there were a lot of records that just had either 6 or 7 digit phone numbers. Apparently Macau used to have less numbers, so I figured out that if you just put 28 in front of the 6 digits and 6 in front of the seven digit numbers then they work. So its frustrating that a lot of the records got thrown away. Because we have been able to talk to a lot of people and we were able to meet with someone last week. His name is Micheal and he has decent potential for coming back if we stick with him, the branch knows and they will start helping him.

Our finding has been going pretty well. We are talking to a lot of people and we have been getting some good contacts and hopefully some reschedules. We are not holding back teaching on the street but mainly we are looking to reschedule people. A lot of the situations we meet people in are not enough time to teach or the place is too distracting to teach these people how to pray. Right now we only have one Investigator A-Hou who we meet with once a week. But mainly our work is we are trying to find families which definitely is harder but it will produce more lasting results. Overall I know the numbers dont show it but I really feel like we are fulling our purpose out here. We have found quite a few people to turn over, and many others to reschedule.

A cool thing that happened is this last week on saturday we went out morning finding and and it was not going so well but we decided to go to a different place then we planned and we ended being able to contact 2 different families. Both of which we were able to talk to for quite some time. I just really want to build up the primary and youth in the ward.

We have also been meeting with about two members a week ether family or Single RCs. Usually at the church to share the worth of souls and now we are about to start some follow up visits I know they were excited and after talking to some it sounds like its going well. Their has been a few successes from some but they are all women for the sisters. So we will keep working and see if some come our way.

I feel like Elder Chu and I are getting along great. I dont know if I filled you guys back home in on his background yet he is from Hawaii he is full chinese both of his parents are from Hong Kong and the only members in their families. He was raised in america and didn’t speak any chinese before his mission. He also studied at BYU for 2 1/2 semesters before his mission. He has been out for about 5 months in the field. He is the second companion that I have had who is younger than me the other was my trainee is also living with me right now so thats awesome!

Really the work is moving a long and I really hope the work that we do will make a lasting impact on the area.

Mainly the challenges we are facing is getting new investigators Its never been a strong point in my mission since I have not gotten one for quite some time. But i really I can over my weakness and we can do a great work here.

Love,

Elder Jared Cordon

People, Quotes, and Family

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Dear Family and Friends,

Hello Everyone! So this last week was a good one. We finally got some good lessons with a few people and it definitely was a week that allowed us to see who we really have as a solid base in our teaching pool. Lets begin with Davie. He is really coming along we saw him last week and had a good lesson that really just involved reading 3 Nephi 11 and testifying of Christ. It was a great experience because until that point he just couldn’t bring himself to read it on his own, but to be able to just sit and read a chapter with him really helped to alleviate that fear. After hearing it out he said something similar to, “you know, it sounds like true scripture.”  He is making steady progress. Hopefully we can get him to join us for the bbq and broadcast priesthood session of general conference at the church this Saturday.

Another wonderful soul that came into the picture last week was a character named Stew. We met him at a bus stop. He was sitting there with no intention of getting on the bus but just because it was something to do. We learned that he had found out that he arrived in
Jacksonville only a week prior and he had come from Oregon. He is here with the intentions to get a restart on life. Before our first conversation was over he knew that he was meant to meet us and learn what we teach. Over the subsequent days we taught him three more lessons and have made some good progress with him. We have already set
him up to start attending different classes and things are looking bright for his future.

The other awesome brother we are working with is a high school student named Trevor. The previous missionaries taught him and made some good success. When we first got here we struggled to connect with him. But during the week before last and last we were able to break down some walls and really connect with him. He committed to work towards being baptized in May and he is excited. We couldn’t find him a ride so we
made the hour/ride walk with him last week to the church so he could go to young mens. He brought his skateboard and we had our bikes so we took it easy and talked all the way there. He ended up having a great time and wants to come every week now.

So that is how the work is going. We had a couple of instances while tracting where people mocked our beliefs and told us we were teaching false doctrines. It was interesting. I got to boldly tell them what we believed and then we left. I always ponder on those experience during the following days because I feel there is much to be learned from
those encounters. As I did I realized a trend in both cases: both times the major insults came after I bore my testimony. Three quotes come to mind, I don’t know the sources for two but they are still great:

“You know you have lost an argument once you get angry.” Unknown Author

“Anger is the reaction you have when you don’t know how to react.” Unknown Author

“Anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intention of throwing it at someone, you are the one who gets burned.” Buddha

Taking all those into consideration I realized that while all three of those men acted childish by the time we walked away we were the victor in all cases because we never got angry while they did. Now I do have to admit that I was frustrated as I pondered on the fact that people would embrace and express those particular views about our church, but luckily it was not in the moment. A lesson I learned is that you can’t convince someone of spiritual truth, that is The Holy Spirit’s job. Another lesson I learned was if you simply bear your testimony of what you know to be true their reaction will quickly tell you whether or not they are ready for more. If they do not receive the truth you have shared so far then they definitely won’t receive anymore, so there is no point in sharing more.

The same is true with all cases in life. If either party in a conversation isn’t ready, then stop the conversation. Their is no point to share anymore because clearly what has been shared so far won’t work. Now, this doesn’t always mean you have to walk away –though that is a great option– you can apologize, you can change the subject, and you can even just give them a hug. Sometimes that last one isn’t a good idea depending on the tension level. Either way a person who is angry is a fool and will do foolish things. And as the Lord put it, “…fools mock, but they shall mourn…” (Ether 12:26)

I am sure none of you struggle with anger but I felt like mentioning it. I love y’all!

Elder Joshua Cordon

P.S. I have a challenge for all of you. The church on Friday released a new video to celebrate Easter. It is super good. You can find it at HeLives.Mormon.org.  So here is the thing. All the full time missionaries in the church off of Facebook for the time being, that
means the responsibility falls on the members shoulders to spread this message all over Facebook. So here is the challenge: will each of you share his video with 5 of your friends before Easter? It can be in person or in a message. I promise that as you do you will feel the true spirit of the Easter weekend enter into your heart, and your love and appreciation for the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ, will burn within your soul. I know that to be true because it has worked for me. Good luck!

 

Good Start

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Dear Family and Friends, 

Well what a wonderful first full week in Macau! I really like it here the people are nice and from what we can see pretty receptive we were able to meet a lot of people and help a lot start having interest to be taught now while all may not be being taught by us they are still coming unto to Christ. But what goes around comes around because we were also able to meet a young man that the other Elders found. 

We were able to meet with our investigator A-Hou and find out why he has not come to church for two weeks also why he stopped reading and praying. Now we have re-motivated him and he has started reading again and he came to church yesterday. Sadly his fellow-shipper has not come for two weeks who is also a recent convert so that’s another thing we are going to try and fix this week. Also we met with another Investigator who is the one we still need to turn over. Brother Mak, he is the man who was going to be baptized then last second found out he couldn’t because of the Elders not realizing where he lived. But I think this is really for the best because after meeting with him there is a lot he didn’t understand, for example he thought he could just go get baptized in another church, but the best reason for waiting is now he is working to get a new job and applied to have Sundays off. So we are praying really hard that he can have that blessing and then start to be able to attend the other branch. We wanted to turn him over but he said until he figures out his job situation he doesn’t want to meet the other Elders.  

We now have some decent Less Active work. Yesterday a man walked into church with his family, he was active 10 years ago when he got baptized, after talking to him I found out that he came back because he realizes that his kids are growing up really fast and need the gospel. So after talking to the sisters we are going to work on helping him get back and active then once we get going with him then we can help the sisters to start teaching his wife. We feel like its best for us to work together on this one. We also had another LA man walk into church and he wants us to meet him so we will see what we can do. We also met with another Less Active who has a desire to come back we are just working to build his faith so he can make it happen. 

We also were able to meet with a few members to share the Worth of Souls project that the Sister Training leaders and the Zone leaders came up with, its mainly with visiting members and helping them understand some ways they can do missionary work and then working to get a name. It went really well this week we will be following up with the families hoping to be receiving some names. they were all very receptive and want to share the gospel it might just take a few follow ups to really see some big results. We also had a young mens biking activity which went well we had 1 Recent Convert 1 Investigator and 1 Less Active. The activity went well and the young men enjoyed themselves that helped a lot in getting our investigator to church yesterday.

We have some other things we are working on with the Branch, one is a big street display coming up in April they want the whole ward involved. It will have some games and information about what the church offers. It will have primary kids singing songs and a lot of other stuff hopefully it really goes well. I know its really getting pushed by the Branch members which is awesome because the main target is families and they can find them a lot better than we can! 

Here are some pictures.

Love you all!
​

Elder Jared Cordon 

     

The Work Moves On

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Dear Family and Friends, 

This week was a riveting roller coaster ride of emotion. Everyday was very eventful! A couple of highlights can be really help you see where I am coming from.

On Tuesday we were biking to a few potentials and street contacting on the way when I saw a girl headed my direction. She was carrying a red gas can and was clearly headed to the gas station behind me. I approached her and asked if she needed any help, and if her car ran out of gas. She said that she would be alright and that she lived around the corner and was just getting gas for the lawn mower. I moved the conversation to the gospel. Noticing that she had her hands full, literally, I suggested that we come back another time and share our message with her. She, to our surprise, told us to go and visit her mom right then and that she would be willing to listen. 

Happily acting on that suggestion we rode right to her moms house and knocked on the door. Right when she answered she invited us right in and started to pick up a few things to make room for us on her couch. Turns out she was a Mormon when she was a young teenager but went inactive many years ago. We had an awesome conversation and she agreed to come to scripture class the next night. Along with this woman, Michelle, we found a bunch of people in the area that we talked to and got return appointment with. 

On Wednesday we had a solid day lined up with several member present lessons, service, and the scripture class. Everything cancelled except the service. So after a fun service project which included a great lunch where the main dish was crab. We spent the rest of the day knocking doors. It was a long day. We found a few solid potentials though so it definitely wasn’t all for not.

For rest of the week everything went very well! We were very busy and we found many elect souls! The Montcrief family we met while they were sitting in their garage just enjoying the good weather. We approached them with the intent of talking about families. That beautiful family of 6 then accepted a return appointment.

The other was Rusty. When we knocked on his door he came out to talk to us and about an hour latter we had taught the whole restoration lesson and he readily accepted the Book of Mormon telling us that Mormons were the only religion in America that was the “real deal.” We are excited to see where he goes in the next little while.

Finding new souls is basically been our focus over the past several weeks. Hopefully now we can change the focus to helping all these
wonderful souls along their new life-changing journeys.

I had to write quick this week because I was taking care of other things, but I hope y’all have a great week.

Love, 

Elder Joshua Cordon

Temple Blessings

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Dear Family and Friends, 

This was such a wonderful week.  This week two wonderful families were able to attend the temple.  They had such a wonderful experience.  They loved the feeling of the spirit that is at the temple. I reported that it was like a warmth in their chest that was accompanied with love and joy.  That is the fruit of the spirit.  It was so wonderful to be able to hear their reporting back. I love the temple so much I have such a testimony of the spirit that is truly there.  


We also were able to have a ward activity in preparation for Easter, the true meaning.  It was interesting to kinda notice how much goes into Christmas for the birth of the savior, but the same excitement is not around Easter for the Atonement of the Savior and his resurrection.  I am so very grateful for the sacrifice that was made for us to be able to live with our Heavenly Father again. I know that Jesus Christ Lives, and that he will come again. I know that he died and suffered for each one of us so that we dont have to.
So transfers…….. I am getting transferred to Hermiston OR.

I am very excited for the new adventure and so very happy that I am leaving this area feeling that I have done what I was supposed to do. I Love Wenatchee and I have already been praying for love for Hermiston and the people that I will serve. Charity is key to developing love for anyone or anything.  

The church is running a video and campaign for people to spread the True Meaning of Easter. The video is called “Because He Lives” and will be up and running by March 28th. Find it, Watch it, and Share it.  It will be on many sources of media so it wont be hard to find. Spread Easter to Everyone. 

Love you all so much 

Elder S Cordon
   

Elder Cordon with the Bishop’s Family

Elder Kopischke Comes To Town

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Dear Family and Friends,

The highlight of this week was hard to pin down so I will share a couple. The first great one was a mission conference that we had on Friday. We have had 4 in 4 months. That is surprising because I only had 2 my first year.

Anyhow Elder Kopischke was the one who visited us. He is a wonderfully-jolly german-man, and it made for a fun 6 hours that we spent with him. I think the most powerful lesson that I took away from that meeting was that the gospel is about relationship, and relationship requires investment. That is a lesson that I have been learning through-out my mission and I believe hearing it that way helped me put it all in perspective. As I reflect upon all that I have experienced so far, it is the relationships that I have developed that I consider to be my most valued treasures. He helped see missionary
work in a new light that helped us with our priorities. It was a great lesson to learn to help me capitalize on my remaining time. We only had a 20 minute break during those 6 hours, but I could have stayed for 6 hours if he would have let us. It was a very spiritual meeting and I had many questions answered.

Another amazing thing that happened this weekend was that a man named Davie that we found my first Sunday in the area came to church. We met with him twice last week and he was curious about our services. His lives in a mobile home park that a member of our bishopric owns and manages and so he had immediate fellowship. Everybody loved seeing him there and he seemed to enjoy himself. It was great that so quickly the Lord has blessed us to see the fruit of our labors. I look forward to the many other things he awaits to bless us with.

I know that Jesus Christ is our savior and redeemer and that if we come to him, miracles, purpose, and true joy will begin to flow into our lives in a very personal way. It starts by us coming unto him.

I love y’all!
Elder Joshua Cordon