Tag Archives: members

Opps

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Well another wonderful week with a baptism ending.

Eric was baptized this week. His wife (atheist) came to the baptism and wants to take the lessons. She doesnt know how it will all turn out but she is willing to listen because of her love for her husband.

  
We had dinner at Tiffany’s house this week, her husband was there and was very nice. He has also come to 4 parties of members that have invited their family. The members of the willo**** ward are amazing. We have great members in both wards, we found 3 new investigators in the ranc***** ward last week and they were all from members. So we know that the miracles could be flowing like crazy if we could get some more members as excited.
Flor in the willo***** ward is moving along and she is reading the BoM and praying with her husband.

We are going to be starting the New Member lessons with Tiffany this week and getting the HT & VT involved. Bishop met with her this week to talk with her about her temple recommend. She is very excited to get to the temple with her own family names. She got to bring her son to church with with on Sunday, he had a huge smile on his face.

And then to end it all off I got bit in the face by a dog on sunday night and had to go and get 4 stitches in my lip. It is from a PMF that we are trying to work with so I do hope that they are not to embarrassed when I have to go back and tell them today, to find out if their dog has had all the shots it needs.

  
Elder Steven Cordon

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Old York and New York

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Dear Family and Friends,

My new companion is so powerful and so awesome! Elder Dale from Yorkshire England! So we are getting the Old York (He is from “Old” York) and the New York (I am from New York).

Well I cannot be more excited about the new opportunities I was sad to leave TST and now I am excited to serve Tung Chung. Again I am extremely blessed to move into an area that is prospering from the efforts of these amazing Elders I hope to only Establish and take it beyond that. Elder Dale and I had some immediate excitement with shortly after being together we met with two investigators and we decided to set and short date with a lady and her daughter. they have been coming to church and still have a good amount to learn but the spirit was strong and they both accepted with a lot of excitement. We are trying to apply the wisdom Elder Holbrook taught: that big commitment and follow through get people to really change.

This area has a lot of excitement with 3 baptismal dates coming up quick and a few to quickly follow there is a lot to do to make sure these people make their dates. Well after discussing how we could do that we came up with two idea. First is what we call “Home Teaching” we are going to get rid of the mission culture of always teaching people at the church and start teaching people in their homes, and if not their homes then in members homes. We have already scheduled all our appointments thus far this week. It has multiple benefits that we can see:

  • 1 we know where they live now
  • 2 it takes a lot less of their time if they don’t need to travel
  • 3 it allows for quick follow up visits
  • 4 it gives us exposure to potentially their families for more investigators
  • 5 they are more comfortable
  • 6 if we get fonged (they don’t show up) then at least we know quickly and we are already out among people to easily start finding
  • 7 it allows us to get into places we normally cant go (which can help the Lord put people in our path)
  • 8 if a member lives near by it would take less of their time.

These are some of the ideas we thought of. The other thing we are planning on doing is Daily Contact from ward members. We have drawn up a calender and are going to get the ward members to sign up to have a member whats app our investigators everyday and then call a few times a week. We realize its extremely important to keep that contact so we can have people effectively reach quicker baptismal dates.

I think its awesome that almost all the elders appartments in the zone only have one set of elders. I feel like it will be one of our most effective moves yet. I myself am very excited to be able to remove more distractions that might be keeping me from working and staying focus. Elder Dale is so focused and I can honestly say that I have not met a missionary yet who loves all of their investigators and ward members as much as he does. I think his ability to love them is a big part of why he is so successful!

We have a busy week ahead and it looks like we wont have very much if any time to find but we are trying our best to be talking to people at all times and in all places!

Happy Fathers Day

Love
Elder Jared Cordon

Who Are You Representing?

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Dear Family and Friends,

I have come into an area that, for some time now, missionaries have not been truly teaching the people that they have been seeing. They have been building friendships but havent been really teaching. Not that we shouldnt be trying to form friendships, but that comes with teaching the restored gospel and seeing their lives change and their minds open to truth. So this week was spent going to everyone that has just been “visiting” and setting the expectations of why we are really there.

We have been called by a prophet to teach the gospel. We have been given priesthood to accomplish that call. We have the message of the restored gospel that gives the truths to this world and answers the questions of the soul. We have been tasked with that responsibility and if we are not doing things that could lead to teaching, or teaching when people are there to listen we are not doing what we have been called to do.

I am very excited for this new change in my mission. I have a companion that is 24 years old and we are learning so much from each other. We are gaining member trust back in the ward and showing them that we are missionaries that are living up to our call.

I am so grateful for your prayers and support. You are all in my prayers.

Thank you.
Elder S Cordon

The Power of Prayer

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well this was an amazing week! A lot of great things happened! To start the week right I went on splits with my MTC companion because he is in my district. Its crazy how far we have come! It was cool to see how we have both changed so much. But some great things came of this experience.

We were both quite thirsty and while searching for water in a park we ran into a man who we just jumped right into a gospel discussion. We found out quickly that he was out pondering because he had really taken his life downhill through bad decision making. He had many drugs problems in the past and after going through the prison system of Hong Kong he is now in a probationary state, but will need to check into a prison soon for his last 2 months then he is done. So he had some time to visit friends and we had caught him on his ponder through the park. He was so prepared and he sincerely wanted to change. One thing he said was he has not been in contact with his family for many years because he has no means to contact them and has no idea where any one of them are. Well after explaining more about God and prayer we invited him to pray. He was a little hesitant not knowing what to pray about so we invited him to pray and ask God for him to reunite him with his family. He did and it was a powerful faith filled prayer of a son longing for love. He said he felt amazing and so did we.

Well that was my role in his conversion to the Gospel, because I headed back to my own area. But the next day when they saw him again (because he was heading back to prison soon they wanted to teach him as much as possible) He was overcome with Joy! That morning his mother had come knocking on his door and it was an amazing reunion. He then took the missionaries to his house to meet his mom. He expressed answers to other prayers about the gospel. He had 4 more lessons and a chance to come to church before he heads out today. He has gained for himself a burning testimony of the work. He will be baptized after he is out. Also the missionaries can visit him while he is in prison so they can keep teaching him.

Another great thing is I was able to see my recent convert who dropped off the map. He is doing great, however he has a tough family life but he will be back into activity shortly. It just breaks my heart to see someone so changed and blessed turn-away from their perfectly loving Father. But he is back.

Another great thing was during the second set of splits that went down this week I had a chance to go with Elder Beal. He is a district leader and Elder Townsend the zone leader went with Elder Nestman the other district leader so we had all the district leaders with 1 zone leader in the appartment. So we took advantage of the situation and had a meeting. What came out of this meeting was pretty awesome. We have all gained new motivation and resolutions. We were able to establish some new plans and actions to increase accountability for goals and inspire and motivate our districts. We all realized we need to be the examples of the change we want to see so we are turning up the heat. New Territories will be number 1.

Taking that motivation I took it to the ward. The sisters wanted to meet and talk about receiving more referrals and with the inpsiration from the district leader meeting we came up with a great plan to jump start the ward. We planned a Teaching No Greater Call seminar for the ward using the same module president has set up for our district meetings, we cleared it with the bishop and then took the idea before the ward council and it was accepted. So we will have great things coming! They are working on some translations and hopefully we can do this in the next two weeks.

Amazing things are coming!

Love you all! God really does live.

Elder Jared Cordon