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Children of God

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Dear family and friends,

This week was an incredible week! The best part about it though was without a doubt the weekend. This is considering the fact that we had a powerful mission changing meeting on Monday, and that I got to go to the temple in Orlando on Thursday.

The best part about this week was that on Saturday at 5:00 Aniya, Cheyenne, and Marquez were all baptized. It was one of the sweetest baptismal services I have ever been part of. The turnout was great and the spirit was strong. I would like to just take a minute to tell all of you about the three beautiful children we entered into a covenant with their Heavenly Father.

Aniya:
I have been working with Aniya since the first week I got to the area. We never ceased to be amazed at how impressive she was. She was only 11 years old when we first started teaching her and she had a stronger and more doctrinal sound grasp on the gospel than many adults. She carried herself with eloquence and she stood up for what she knew was right among her peers. When she entered young women’s her talents were only magnified. Just a few weeks ago she taught the Family Home Evening lesson to a group of adult converts and she lead the conversation with grace and everyone felt edified.

Cheyenne:
While we were working to the lay the ground work for Aniya so that she could get baptized suddenly after New Years Cheyenne came into the picture. Cheyenne is Aniya’s younger sister. We started the lessons over with her to help her have a good foundation of the gospel and of other restored truths. After a few weeks of working with her we finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel and looked like their dad who was baptized 4 years ago last Friday was able to finally get things lined up for them to be baptized as well. Cheyenne in just a few short weeks has shown immense growth and an increasing level of maturity. By the time the baptism came around she was bearing a strong testimony in the Book of Mormon and in the truthfulness of the church.

Marquez:
We venturing into new neighborhoods about 5 months ago when we saw a dirt road that was off to the side that lead to some distant homes. There are not very many dirt roads in our area so it peaked our curiosity so we went walking down to find some people to share the gospel with. The first house we came to was the home of Ms. Betty, Marquez’ grandmother. We would visit Ms. Betty from time to time and about a month after we started visiting her we became acquainted with Marquez when we helped him get the Christmas lights out of storage for his grandmother. After talking for a bit I told Marquez about scouts on Wednesday night and asked if he would like to come and join the group. He seemed really excited by the idea. He came the next Wednesday and well the rest is history.

This final weekend was a battle to get everyone ready for the baptism, but miracles abounded and right prevailed. Aniya and Cheyenne’s father was able to baptize them, and one of Marquez’ young men’s leaders who has been a great example to him was able to baptize him. While they were all changing, Elder Jorgensen and I were able to stand in front of a large crowd of members and non members and the teach the message of the restoration while wearing our baptismal whites with the font as the backdrop. It was very powerful and probably the best setting I have been afforded to preach the gospel. I never thought that I would be able to say that I had done that. As we taught I felt the spirit speak very powerfully to my the heart that this message is indeed true and I hope that a similar witness was born to the those who sat in the congregation.

On Sunday in order for Aniya and Cheyenne to be confirmed by their farther he was sustained by the congregation to be an elder and then I conferred upon him the Melchizedek priesthood, and ordained him to be an elder. Right after that he stood up and confirmed his daughters by that priesthood. Then I was blessed to confirm Marquez. It was an amazing weekend! I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father that I have been able to be part of the 3 incredible lives. I also found out that I am getting transferred to another part of Jacksonville this week Wednesday so it was a wonderful finished to an life changing experience while I served in the mandarin 2nd ward. I am excited for the amazing adventure ahead.

Thank you for all the love and support you have shown me and I hope that you know how much I love and appreciate every single one of you.

I love y’all!

Elder Joshua Cordon

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Keep on Running

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Dear Family and Friends,

This past week was a wild one for sure. We had zone conferences, which considering the fact that they were 9 hour meetings it made for a long but a very fun week! The meetings we jam packed with great training’s on maintaining a balanced work, the atonement, public speaking skills, and then the training that we gave on finding people to teach. It is great to see all the missionaries that I was able to see all the missionaries that I have served around. This week we had a couple of miracles, but one in particular I would like to mention.

We were on our way to a dinner appointment and when we walked up to the apartment that the members lived in, it looked like the lights were off so, I doubted myself and thought that I must be at the wrong
building. So, we started running so we wouldn’t be late to one of the other buildings. We ran through one cluster of buildings and I still didn’t feel like that was it, so we ran over to another cluster of
buildings and as we got there we saw a dog running in the side walk, so we stopped so it wouldn’t follow us. We made some small talk with the owner until she grabbed her dog and then we were about the run off
to get to our dinner, but then I felt that I should at least see if she would be interested in hearing our message.

So I stopped and said, “We share a wonderful message about our Savior Jesus Christ that has blessed our own lives, could we share that with you?” Surprisingly she replied with, “Ya sure come on over and share
it with me.” 20 minutes later we had taught her about he Book of Mormon and learned that she is about to graduate law school, and she is engaged and plans to be married after she graduates. Even though she is active in the Methodist church she was excited to learn more and said we could come back. She is very elect.

Seeing as how we were then very late to our appointment we checked the address on the church app and realized that it was the first place we had gone to. Thank goodness we kept running though.

I love y’all!

Elder Joshua Cordon

Meetings Galore!

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Dear Family and Friends,

This last week was a bit crazy!! We had 3 zone conferences which are about 10 hours each, then we had a meeting with elder Suarez of the presidency of the seventy on Friday. After a week of that many meetings my brain was fried. I definitely know how a lot of ways that I can begin to change and improve for the better.

It was a really awesome experience being able to spend some time with Elder Suarez. We picked him up from the hotel and took him to the mission home which is about a 25 minutes away, so it afforded us some good opportunity to chat. He knows a Br Cordon who was a mission president in Brazil who lives in bountiful now. Sadly I have never met him but I said he was undoubtedly kin.

He met with us after our general meeting with him and he gave us some good council and commandments, it was stuff I really needed to hear. We left that day with an unconquerable spirit. The very next day we set a date for baptism on the 22nd of this month. Her name is Kristin. Her twin sister was baptized earlier his year. Her twins boyfriend goes to our ward so she started going recently. She is very excited and so are we. There is a new spirit about our work, and I can’t wait to see where we take things.

Love yall!

Elder Joshua Cordon