My worst week of finding since week 2! Other than that not too bad haha :) – Joshua

Dear Family and Friends,

Contrary to popular belief, Florida does have enjoyable weather. WHO KNEW? It caught me surprise, I can tell you that. I actually love biking now. Not only does it feel great, but it means that more people are outside. Which is weird now that I think about it because well as my title suggests, we didn’t find much.

On other news, we did an exchange this last week and I went down to Price Creek which is out in the country and my companion stayed in Deep Creek. The best part about all this is that the elder who served with him for the day was his MTC companion which means they both had only been out for 4 weeks or so. The thought of the two newbies wandering the streets trying to figure out what they are going to do made me laugh. Not surprisingly they had interesting experience, but not in the way I expected.Here is what happened to them while I was down in the country. They started there day by helping with Bingo at the senior center, and then after they left they didn’t bike 300 feet before the elder who was borrowing my bike (which is a loaner bike from his companion) managed to cause the back sprocket to practically explode and render the bike unrideable. They walked about half a mile to the house of our ward mission leader who is currently in Vermont. They waited there for a ride for about 3 hours and then managed to get a ride for the rest of the night. I just feel bad for them.

Until my bike gets fixed I have been riding a bike that a sister in the ward loaned me. Luckily it wasn’t too girly and it is actually pretty nimble.

My miracle that I wanted to share this week comes from last Monday night. We hadn’t used our time very wisely and with a only an hour left in the night we felt like we had accomplished almost nothing. Recognizing that by our own efforts nothing would be accomplished we decided to say a prayer, begging for forgiveness and asking for direction. After the prayer ended I felt prompted to go and visit a referral nearby. When we got there this guy was standing outside waiting for a ride. We decided to verify with him if this was in fact the right house. He confirmed that it was, but that the guy we were looking for was in bed. Just then he asked what we were doing. We told him a little bit about the logistics of missionary work and how it all happens. Then he asked us for our information–which never happens! We exchanged information and he said he wanted us to come by and teach him. Then we got a text from him an hour later saying you will be hearing from me soon. So pumped! God is good!

Then we were finally able to get in touch with the lady who gave us her info at the library. Her name is Camekco and after a great first lesson she committed to be baptized on the 26th of October! 🙂 It was awesome 🙂

Just remember that prayer actually works!

I love ya’ll!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Short one this week!

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week was a terrific one. We stayed really busy and saw a lot of success. We managed to set 3 new baptismal dates and found 6 new investigators. The Lord truly is taking care of us.

I am all out of time though so I am just going to share a quick testimony.

I know with every ounce of my soul that this church is run by REAL Apostles and Prophets today. Men who truly do receive guidance and revelation for the world from God. I sustain these men and would serve in whatever capacity they asked me to do. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God; that he truly did see God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. I know that Book of Mormon is the most correct book of earth. I know that if someone wants to experience true and lasting happiness than they need to live the commandments. I honestly believe that if people only knew about the happiness they could receive from living the Gospel that not a soul on earth would reject us at the door step. I also know though that God is working on everyone, and that our job as missionaries is to find those who are ready and direct them to wonderful gift that savior has given everybody.

I thought to myself this morning that the savior is like a father over a few month period has lost sleep and put all his energy into making some handmade gifts for his children to give them at Christmas. Each gift is personal and was made with love, and designed to bring great happiness to each child. On Christmas day this father offers his gifts to his children. The first child notices that the gift is in a small box and decides that it most not be that great and doesn’t open it. The next child opens the gift and sets it on his shelf where it gathers dust. But the last child takes the gift and cherishes it and allows it to make him happy everyday. Just like these children Christ has offered us a gift that will bring us ultimate happiness, but what are we going to do with it? What are we doing with it?

I know that our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ love us and want nothing more than to see us be happy. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I love you all!!!

Elder Joshua Cordon

This week was crazy!!

Dear Family and Friends,

I don’t even know where to begin…

Men Working

Last Tuesday after a great first district meeting as a new district, Elder Newbold and I put on the service clothes, grabbed a mower and got to work. We mowed 2 1/2 lawns in like 2 hours. The reason there is a half in there is because we started mowing and then the guy who the lady apparently hired (I guess she didn’t think we would actually mow her yard) pulled up and at first was annoyed because he thought we were stealing his yard. When he found out we were just missionaries doing service he relaxed and gave us some gatorade. He was a cool guy. He also finished the yard in 1/3 of the time haha. We tried to mow the Suttons yard without getting caught, but that is hard when they are home haha 🙂 So after we finished we had a lesson with them.

Choose the Right

On Wednesday we had a slow day before dinner, but then during dinner we split up and just read the Book of Mormon looking for direction. I found myself in Alma 39 (great chapter), and we both left the apartment ready to go! We found two new investigators that night!! Also that day we went to the senior center to do some volunteer work and ended up doing a chair exercise with some old ladies called sit-down dancing haha it was really funny!

DSC00170

Let me tell you about one of them. We were about to pull away from a street because the lady we intended to visit wasn’t home, but the spirit told me that we couldn’t leave yet. So we decided to knock a few doors. When we were standing in front of one house this lady came out and asked us about Joseph Smith. We ended having a great conversation, gave her a Book of Mormon and got a return appointment. This lady told us that we should go see her sister though that lives on the other side of town, but her mom (Jeana Hutto) wouldn’t be interested because she is hardcore southern baptist.

When we went and contacted the referral we showed up with working gloves hoping it would soften her mom’s heart. It worked. We actually just had dinner with her family yesterday. The lady grew up baptist, but recently stopped going to church because of a some doctrinal issues she had a problem with. Some being that she believes that Godhead to be three distinct individuals and that there has to be more scripture than the Bible.

On Saturday though we went by for a return appointment with Jeana’s daughter. As we pulled up to her house though I felt like we shouldn’t go, but that we should just leave. We both agreed and just pulled away. Come to find out yesterday that she had been drinking all weekend and Saturday was the worst. The spirit really knows what it is doing and I am glad I listened.

Yesterday was also a terrific day! Kayliah got confirmed a member during church and we found some great investigators!

Sleeping Children

This hangs on the outside of our door.

Now to explain that sign on our apartment door. (The one that reads: Sleeping Children DO NOT knock or they will wake up, Thank You, Chelsey and Robert) So we may or may not have told a guy where we live and we are very confident that he may try to rob us. So we said a prayer that he would forget and we had the sister missionaries write this sign for us so that we could throw-off the scent. Apparently it has worked so far. haha I just wonder what the neighbors think?

Anyhow, Sorry for the long sporadic email! There is actually a lot more to share but I have to stop somewhere.

Love Ya’ll!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Chris and Kayliah’s Baptism

He just received the Priesthood

This young man just received the Priesthood

BAPTISM!! Whoot Whoot!

Dear Family and Friends,

So the first awesome thing would definitely have to be that I had my first baptism on Saturday!! It was my first two actually 🙂 The two awesome kiddies were Chris and Kayliah, 12 and 10 respectively. We have been working with them for about a month. They are the grandkids of recent convert Sis. Hug. I got to baptize and Kayliah and Elder Newbold baptized Chris. It was truly a special experience. I feel like I can say that I experienced complete happiness during that baptism if only for a brief moment. A feeling that I will no doubt experience at many future points in my life. The baptism was beautiful though and I will make sure to send pictures next week. Sadly we can’t send any here at the library.

A bunch of other miracles happened on Saturday. The first is that I woke up knowing that we had to visit this less-active lady on the roster. We tried once before but she wasn’t home. When we got there, she had just gotten back the day before after having been gone for three weeks and she was about to leave for another week. That lady really needed us and we were able to chat a bit about the gospel and do some service for her then and we agreed to mow her lawn. She is still very heart broken about a divorce she went through and just really needs the gospel. Hopefully we can reactive her.

The next was that after the baptism we got three leftover pizza’s from an activity at the church earlier that day. At first I was like SCORE FREE PIZZA!! but then my comp had a different plan. We have struggling to see one of our awesome investigators Br. Sutton. So we swung by there place and just walked through the front door with the pizzas in hand. It ended up being an answer to their prayers because he had three hungry kids and was really stressed out. We were able to have a lesson with him and do a harvest blessing as well. The difference in the spirit before and after we left was really noticable.

Last week was a low numbers week, but we did find 5 awesome new gators. Also I feel like i really underwent so serious spiritual growth this past week. I have tackled some mentally tough gospel topics and have come out unscathed with a new found love for all the scriptures, and a stronger testimony in Jesus Christ as the savior of the world.

I know with every ounce of my being that our heavenly father knows and loves everyone of us (1 Nephi 22:25), and wants the best for us. I would die before I deny the testimony of Jesus Christ, and even more so I am living for that testimony by going on a mission. The best thing for us is to be tried and to grow. Like we always say here in the mission field, “there is no growth in the comfort zone.”

Some great scriptures from this past week include:
2 Nephi 1:13-23 (BE MEN!)
2 Nephi 1:27
D&C 101:35
Matthew 10:39
That should be good! Happy Studys 😉

Love Ya’ll

Elder Joshua Cordon

I have successfully completed a transfer!

Dear Family and Friends,

Sorry for the Tuesday update, but that happened because of transfers. Luckily I get to stay here and continue to labor in the lovely Lake City, Florida zone! My comp was made District leader so I will be doing a lot more exchanges this transfer which is fine with me. It adds a little flavor to the weeks. Overall life is going great though!! One awesome investigator of ours is Sis. Singh, I don’t know if I have mentioned her or not, but she is just full of the most crazy questions!! It is great to ask questions, everyone should, it is healthy because so much growth can happen upon searching and finding answers, but it makes it frustrating when you are trying to make a lesson plan haha. Yesterday we had a lesson with her that went really well. We taught her the Plan of Salvation, with a little Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and tithing sprinkled in. She started out by asking some really odd yet insightful questions and was just really confused, but we asked her to wait till the end in case all of her questions are answered. When we finished and asked if she had any questions she said, “I love this so much! All those questions that I thought were important were either answered or the just don’t matter anymore!” It was awesome to hear that! She promised to read and pray, and come to church on Sunday!!

I have had an interesting experience with the scriptures lately. So for the first part of my mission I have had this frustration with the Bible only because there are mis-translations that have totally misguided and blinded so many people. So I would never use the Bible except for some memorized quotes from PMG scriptures. THEN we went over to member in our wards house who is in charge of the YSA in the Stake and we have a YSA we are working with. We were talking though and I asked about some essays he had written that use the Bible to explain the views in mormonism. After a very long talk and a lot of biblical examples I walked away with a new found love for the New Testament. However, it then took away from the fact that we want to focus our teaching on the Book of Mormon. So after a few days of being Bible bi-polar, I finally resulted in my current feelings. “I believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it is translated correctly, I also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.” Sound familiar haha  😉 It is definitely good to know my Bible, and I do know it better know, but I will focus my efforts on the Book of Mormon.

We found this awesome couple last week doing some tracting!  They are an elderly couple named Jim and Mary Hathaway that is in their 80s and they don’t go to a church regularly right now because Jim asks to many questions that don’t get answers! Of course this put a smile on our face because we know that we can give him the answers he is looking for! They also watch the BYU channel regularly haha. They are so ready! We had a really good lesson with them on Saturday and they agreed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it! Whoot Whoot!

Life is good though!! I just need more energy, 8 hours isn’t enough! Br. Sutton last week said that he knows that everything we have taught him is true and he even came to Scripture Class last week, so did JC! JC was a big surprise though because we swung by his house to invite him and his sister said that he was really angry (so angry he just punched a hole in the wall) and didn’t want to talk with anyone, but we invited him a then went over to church. 10 minutes after we started he came walking in the door and stayed to whole time. What a

This saturday we have… drum roll please… A BAPTISM! It is Chris (12) and Kaylia (10) Gallagher. They are the grand kids of a recent convert Sis. Hug and they are such champions! They are both really excited and Elder Newbold is baptizing Chris and I am baptizing Kaylia. Also their parents are not members… can only else smell the sweet scent of potential in the air. Cause I CAN!

Anyway, Ya’ll are awesome!!

Elder Joshua Cordon

P.S. here is a conversation in Southern

M R Ducks
M R Not
O S M R
C M Wangs

Can anyone translate?

**Put your translation in the comments and I will send them to Elder (Josh) Cordon. :)** (His Sister)

Tried and Blessed This Week For Sure!!

Dear Family and Friends,

It is interesting how much my mission can feel like a roller coaster ride. Last Monday we had a district bowling party which was awesome! I had a whopping score of 116, and beat my companion so he had to buy me ice cream. He makes all these bets with me and has literally lost every one of them. He would have had to buy groceries twice now if I wasn’t so nice.

So one of the highlight lessons this week was when we got our super awesome family, the Suttons, over to the home of one of our awesome families in the church, the Hergets. I was on trade-offs that day and Elder Newbold went with Br. Hand up to the North side of town and Br. Herget was my companion so I could be there for the lesson. They had dinner and the lesson went great! It was about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Faith, Repentence, Baptism, The Gift of the Holy Ghost, and [Enjoying] to the End) blesses families. They have kids that are the same age so that worked out really well and the spirit was very strong. Also I got the Hergets to teach most of the lesson, and I feel like they could be great friends. It is so great to work with members!

So I go from that on Thursday to the worst spiritual experience of my mission on Friday. We going to contact a potential on our records when we saw this guy in his front yard playing with his dogs. We decided to go and talk with them and as I was walking up I got this terrible feeling like something bad was going to happen. So I should have just got out of there, but I wasn’t sure of how to handle the situation. The guy invited us inside, and once again I had that feeling and I literally new exactly what was going to happen. I prayed for strength though rather than just getting out of there.

We talked to him for a little bit and got to know him better, then suddenly the spirit leaves and the guy changes the subject and begins pegging us with these ridiculously worded and annoying questions. Trying to get us tangled in our words. He failed and it got him obviously frustrated. Then he starts to tell us how he had this experience where he went to turn the page of his friends Book of Mormon and he felt a feeling that he hasn’t felt since he did sorcery. And tells us that we simply haven’t asked enough questions or else we would see that our religion is false, and that he feels bad that we are going to hell and that he loves us more than we could possibly comprehend and that is the only reason he does this. I bore a short testimony about how I follow the spirit because it testifies of truth and that he didn’t speak truth. And that if he wanted to know, he could find out if the Book of Mormon was true but he has to read first, turning pages won’t do anything for you. Elder Newbold shared a testimony as well, and then we shook hands and departed. What a waste of a solid hour of prime proselyting time!

Also if anybody wants to know what that feeling was that he felt when went to turn the page, it was the same feeling Joseph Smith felt before his prayer in the grove.

After that experience we were totally drained of the spirit, so we gave each other blessings that night, and I was felt one of the most peaceful feelings I have ever felt. And the blessing gave me some wonderful counsel.

The following day went really well. And then Yesterday we had a baptism in the Ward! It wasn’t one of our investigators, but it is always good to see some one change their life for the better and come into the fold of God. God is great and he takes good care of those who listen to his counsel! I know this to be true and I can feel the blessings in my life as I try each and every day to align my will with God’s. Then only way that can happen is through sincere and earnest prayer, something that I am very grateful for!

I love you all!

Elder Joshua Cordon

P.S. this is the sixth week of my mission in the field which means that transfers is coming up! Here is a picture of the current zone though. I wonder how it will change.

 

First Zone of my mission.

First Zone of my mission.

A Roller Coaster of a Week

Dear Family and Friends,

This week another insanely busy one. I found it very difficult to share all that I want to in my emails, but I will try my best.

On Tuesday I had an exchange with the District leader. He is in the area just south of ours. It went really well and there place is what they call the “shack”. It really is one though. But missionaries have been living there for like 20 years. So it has everything you could want. There are big comfy recliners at the desks which was so nice! haha. It was a fun exchange. Elder Payne is a great missionary. I am sad to report that we did in fact have an hour long bible bash with some guys. It was a serious waste of our time and god’s time. I also learned from experience this time that the spirit cannot testify of the truth that we share in the a contentious environment. So never bible bash.

On other news we set 4 baptismal dates this week. One was reset because JC needed a new date. The other was the Grandson of a recent convert who is totally awesome! He is 12 and will be baptized on the 27th. The other was a man named Willy. One of our appointments fell through and so we saw him outside and asked his name. He just invited us right in and we taught the restoration and committed him to baptism. He has to get married first though, minor detail. The last one is the husband of a innactive lady that we have been teaching. They are great and he loves to cook for us. Since I love to eat we get along great!

Things are going really well here. I learning more and more each day that there is a lot that I need to improve on. Luckily the Lord will make weak things become strong!! Also I stepped on a scale the other day full clothed and I was 217. That is either all those push-up or the good southern cooking we are getting fed. It probably the latter #Fat&Happy 😀

Love you all!

Elder Cordon!!

Month Mark!!

Dear Family & Friends,

PictureEJC 014
This past week was incredible! So much has happened that I don’t even know where to begin. We had so much success this past week! The Lord has truly blessed us. We have these two great progressing investigators named JC and Mat. They are really making some incredible progress in changing their lives for the better. They are both 19 (i think) and are best friends. We are great friends with them to which is just terrific. They are both trying to quit smoking and dipping and I am very impressed with how willing and strong they are. Both are planning on getting baptized here in a few weeks!

Other than that the work is really picking up. We have a lot of people we know now and so planning our days is becoming a lot easier. I feel like I have been doing this work my whole life!

One small story to share. We were trying to find a less active on the church roster and when we got to their house they weren’t home. So we decided to knock a few doors before we left. The third house we went to just so happened to be the home of Br. and Sis. Sutton. Sis. Sutton was baptized into the church at 17 and hasn’t gone to church since. Which is even more incredible when she told us that she wants us to teach the discussions to her husband so they can be married in the temple! They were so fun to talk that we just chatted with them for probably 45 minutes. Also her husband is a terrific cook and he said he wants to cook us dinner. We have him scheduled for the 4th of July! ‘MERICA!

Anyhow, I am loving my mission. Even more so I am loving how I am more clearly seeing how the Lord blesses us each and everyday. I think if all of us really took some time each day to see how the Lord has blessed us we would all stop complaining and feeling entitled to any more blessings! I love you all and have a great week and 4th of July!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Here are a few pictures of my adventures so far.
One of our temple trips while at the MTC.

One of our temple trips while at the MTC.

In the south there are signs directing you to the different chapels.

In the south there are signs directing you to the different chapels.

First Week in the Field

Dear Family and Friends,

Well to bring you all up to speed I’ll start with where I left off, the MTC. My last Sunday in the MTC was incredible. The Devotional was great, it was talking about how when you are teaching someone if you don’t understand each other than what you teach them will go right over there heads. So you have to make sure that you understand where they are coming from, and that they understand what your purpose is. After the devotional we went and watched the Character of Christ. It is a devotional given by David A. Bednar back on Christmas in 2011. It really put everything simply for me and gave me the proper perspective for my mission. To sum up the main message: Christ was the best missionary who ever lived, so if we want to be good missionaries we must be like Christ, and to be like Christ we cannot think about ourselves; basically we have to realize that it HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH US. I hope that I will be able to maintain this terrific attitude of selflessness my entire mission. I know that that is impossible, but I know by trying I will experience many miracles.

I left the MTC on Tuesday, In order to catch my flight that morning I had to get up at 2:30 in the morning. Well that is when my alarm was set, but I didn’t actually get up until 2:45. Either way my companion and I clean up shop caught quick breakfast and was on the bus ready to go to the airport at 4:00. After we got to the airport and escaped the chaos upon getting through security we were able to breath easy for a little while before our flight. It was this time that we could call home and talk to our parents for a little bit. It was truly a blessing to talk to my parents knowing that our next conversation wouldn’t happen until Christmas. Because of delays and just a lot of flying we didn’t get to the Jacksonville airport until about 4:00 in the afternoon on Tuesday.

When I stepped outside the airport I thought I got a concussion from how thick the humidity was. Now that I have been here a few days though I feel like I have acclimated quite well. We had some orientation meetings on Tuesday, before going over the mission presidents home and eating some awesome dinner. It was about time I got to eat some good home cooked food. The MTC food was starting to take its toll on my system. That night the Elders in my MTC distict and I stayed at a local members home, just to get back to the church at 8:00 in the morning. For most of the day on wednesday it was more orientation meetings. Very informative and helpful, but very boring.

Finally it was time to meet our trainers. I got a great trainer who happens to be from Bountiful, Utah. His name is Elder Newbold and we get along great. Along with assigning us our trainers they also assigned us to our areas. We got assigned to the Deep Creek area, which is a new area. So not only are we opening, but I am also getting trained. The Deep Creak area is in the nice slow community of Lake City, Florida. It is really nice out here and the people in the Church are awesome. We are getting fed by members 6 out of the next 7 days. On top of all of that we have a nice new apartment and we get to drive around the classy 2013 Ford Fusion. That car had only 89 miles on it when we got it.
We do have a lot of work ahead of us though. We have before us the difficult task of building a teaching pool, and until then it is basically just a lot of knocking doors. We have had to miracles though that I would like to share with you.

Miracle #1
After going all day on Friday without accomplishing anything, and I mean anything (we didn’t talk to a single person and all our scheduled appointments fell through). We decided to talk to an in-active member named Br. Green. When we pulled up to his house he was sitting on his porch relaxing and mending a broken rib. We talked with him for a bit and asked if any of his neighbors would be interested in hearing our message. He pointed out two of his neighbors and told us about them. We thanked him and went a nearby appointment that ended canceling on us. We decided then to go meet Br. Greens neighbors. The first house was home to Karen G.. As she answered the door she was a bit reserved at first, but decided to let us in to teach her about our message (first lesson of my mission). We got to know her for a little while and found out pretty quickly that she has a very close relationship with God. We taught her about Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and then after talking about the book of Mormon and other things, taught her about God’s Plan of Happiness. I could feel the presence of the Holy Ghost so powerfully and constant the entire lesson, and she really liked our message. After about an 1 hr and 40 min we finally closed with a prayer and left her with the commitment to read and pray to know if the Book of Mormon was true. We plan on stopping by again this week.
Miracle #2

We were knocking doors yesterday after little success for the day and finally someone answered the door. This happy guy answered the door and accepted our offer to here a message about Jesus Christ. He rounded up his wife and son, turned the T.V. off and was ready to listen. After getting to know them a little more we found out that they were knew to the area and that they were originally from Louisiana. We also found out that he was pastor in Louisiana for over 10 years though he pastured for nearly every denomination from Methodist to Baptist. We shared our message about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through Joseph Smith and introduced the Book of Mormon. He was very open to our message and said that he knows that God sent us to his home to share that message with him and he was very eager for a return appointment. He also shared with us some wonderful words of encouragement and told us to never give up no matter how much rejection we face. And he said never complain about experiencing some hard times simply just say that you are “In between blessing.” I Really love that quote from him. We ended the lesson by leaving the Saviors peace and blessing on his home and family and he thanked us for the spirit that we brought into his home. O what a blessing it was to meet that family.
I know it was a lot, but a lot has happened. I hope everything is going well for y’all

Elder Joshua Cordon

Life is Good!

Dear Friends & Family,
 
My time here at the MTC has been awesome!!! I have learned so much and I have already had the opportunity to hear two amazing devotionals. The first was by Ted Gibbons, who did a narative about Joseph Smith’s his finals days from the eyes of Willard Richards. They guy talked really fast and loud, but I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. It was one of those ones that when you get out you are completely speechless and you feel like you are walking on a cloud.
 
Then on Tuesday we had a devotional by Tad R. Callister of the Presidency of the Seventy. (I think it is really funny that the two devotionals are given by Ted and Tad. I hope the next guy is a Todd.) It was literally perfect for a Southern mission in the bible belt. I have never taken notes so furiously in my life. He gave scripture after scripture, and showed how the blueprints for Christ’s church can be found completely in the New Testament, and that we are the only church that matches those blueprints. My district and the Branch presidency collaborated for an hour afterwards, combining notes to make a handout for everyone to put in their scriptures.
 
On other news, our zone lost three districts on Tuesday, but we only had one show up. So our zone consists of only 22 people. Basically it is tiny it feels like. The new district seems really cool we just haven’t had much opportunity to interact with them.
 
I finally get to do some much needed laundery today. I personally hate re-wearing workout shirts, I am just saying.
 
One of the biggest lessons I have learned over the past week, is the role the Holy Ghost plays in my life. I am comforted by it everytime I pray and read the scriptures, but as far as it guiding my actions, I supposed I didn’t understand it fully. I wanted the Holy Ghost to either comfirm or chastise everyone of my actions, but more often than not I will be acting by the spirit and never even realize it. As Elder Bednar put it, “Be a good boy, honor your covenants, keep that commandments, and STOP worrying about it.” A lesson I very much need to learn.
 
I just want to say that I have such a powerful testimony of prayer. I know that if you prayer with a sincere heart, and a true desire for answers that you will receive answers. If you feel like this is not the case, I challenge you to pray tonight if your Heavenly Father loves, and ask with a true desire to know, and with faith that he will answer, and I promise that the Holy Ghost will confirm it to you.
 
I love you all!
 
Elder Joshua Cordon