Tag Archives: mission

General Conference

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What an Easter, Spirit filled.

This last week was a wonderful time to share with everyone the blessings of Easter and what it means to me. The Easter Bunny is cool and all but the best gift that was ever given to us, really the only gift that truly matters, is the reason why we truly celebrate this Holiday. It was wonderful to deeply reflect on the wonderful blessings of the Atonement in my life and to really see who I have been able to become because of the Savior Jesus Christ and the wonderful Gift that he gives us. I love Him so much.

He truly has become a friend to me, he is on my thoughts and in my heart and will always be someone that I go to for safety and council and direction. I am so grateful for him.

I have loved seeing what he does for people around me, and not just investigators of the church but members and other missionaries. Watching the gospel work in their lives is wonderful and brings such joy into my heart. Some of my favorite moments have been to watch my companions grow, to see the Atonement work in them and then to watch how in reaching out to others it changes me as well.  I truly have had a life changing mission, one that has set my path for the rest of my life I now can truly see how the Mission is the MTC for life. There are things in my Blessing that would have never been able to be fulfilled had I used my agency and not gone on a mission I am so glad that I made that choice.

These last couple of weeks while reflecting on the questions that MyPlan asks I have really been able to see how the mission is going to effect every part of my life to come. WOW so great!

This week we had Cierra and John at church. We also had two of the LA that we are working with at church as well, Ryan and Jacinda. What a great sunday for them to be there. The spirit was so strong and the all loved being there and celebrating Easter!

GENERAL CONFERENCE here we come!!
LOVE YOU
ELDER CORDON

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OH BOY! 

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So there was an amazing miracle this week!

Elizabeth was found, which was an answer to her prayers. SHE IS AWESOME. She has a lot of family that is LDS and she was in the hospital last week that got her thinking about her life. She was talking to her aunt that is LDS and she wanted her to find Missionaries and get a blessing. SO Wednesday she prayed that she would be able to find them, Next day we knocked on her door!!! WHAT. She is working towards a date of Feb. 27th and is reading and praying. She is the fulltime caregiver for her father who is suffering from a lot of illness, working around that schedule is going to be our biggest road bump.This week we also had a Part Member family that came to church!  

We have our bishop that is getting really excited about missionary work and he went and talked to 2 Part Member families this week that we are going to start teaching, one of them is going to FHE at his house tonight. Miracles happen when the work is done in His way. I am so excited about the broadcast and striving to become a strict PMG missionary. Such a wonderful focus to Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts!  

We had a wonderful lesson with Nathen this week as well, he is dealing with a lot of stress in his life right now due to his job. He did however make the wonderful connection that in those stressful times is when you need to be reminded that God needs your attention. He really is a wonderful person and has wonderful talent. He builds custom guitars for a living 0.0 and they are beautiful! We have a few musicians in our ward that we are going to be bringing by, they also want to see if he wants to play with them at the church dance that is coming up for Valentines day. It always brings success when the Members wrap themselves into the work, and into the people. The wonderful law of Sacrifice for others, boy oh boy, such a wonderful way to live. 

I love that I have this time in my life to truly turn outward and learn this wonderful truth that this is the way to the most happiness, turning out to help those around you, that is the place where miracles are. I have such a testimony of this that I will be able to apply for the rest of my mission and life. When priesthood callings are magnified and selfless service is given that is truly the life that I want to model after.  

Thank you for all you do for me.  

Elder Cordon 

Let the Spirit Work Through You!

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What a week we had.

It was a very humbling week, I am beginning to take the humbling a little bit faster now. I am working on trying to just be humble and then this wont happen 🙂 Something that I really learned this week is how easy it is to slip into doing this mission on my own “flesh”. Not that I forget about god but I lose focus just a little, and then I become a cap on the Holy Ghost. He is the real teacher and I am just here to be able to be worked through, and this week I got in the way. I didn’t notice until the end of the week. But we are going to be able to repent, change, and do better. That is the wonderful story of the gospel, it is a gospel of change and progression, recognizing the things that can be worked on and using the Atonement to change the very nature of where those things come from. What wonderful and beautiful doctrine that we now are able to access in full, because of the restoration of the Priesthood.

WOW this was such a crazy week!! We had an investigator who died, we had a PMF that broke up, and we have an investigator that we found out has some crazy hallucinations. We had Alex that dropped off the face of the earth. 0.0 SO MANY CRAZY THINGS! I am excited to go out and be the conduit for the Spirit this week and not get in the way. I am grateful to be able to learn these lessons and learn them well, that I will be able to be a strong life long disciple of the Lord.

I love you all so much!!

Elder Cordon

A Lot of New

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Dear Family and Friends,

We got summer missionaries, priority is to strengthen them and help them want to serve full missions!   

 We are already seeing miracles in the part member family area of this Branch. One Sister wants us to help her Husband who has been staying away for over 20 years! But he has just had a big change of heart and is searching for more in Life! So we have followed our mission Presidents advice and strengthened that sister and she is really doing all the work! It would be great if he could meet him later.

Well work in Tung Chung is flourishing and it seems to keep getting better. We have 6 baptismal Dates and 3 of them will get baptized next week! All of which are very excited about their Dates and its a great motivation for the Branch. Our other dates are not that solid but this last week we saw two of our other dates who were laying pretty low start taking off! Both were because of of cool miracles, One we had a bunch of stuff change our schedule but it ended up that we ran into him on the street and he had a total change of perspective. The other we had a last minute member willing to help teach so we taught at their house and it was really good they will be great new long term fellowshippers.

We had a great church miracle yesterday we brought this kid to church and he has come before but he thought it was boring but yesterday he became good friends with another young men and now he loves church! Real friends makes all the difference!

Everything is going so well! We are really so blessed.

Love Elder Cordon

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

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

Happy New Year!!

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Dear Family & Friends,

Well what an awesome week! Could not have thought of a better way to start 2015! I have been becoming the best missionary of my mission which is I guess what should be expected, but even more than I thought.

Talks that changed my life this last week were two A consecrated missionary and one by my mission president when he spoke at BYU. Both are just awesome and have really changed the way that I work. One thing the consecrated missionary talked about was the commandment to open our mouths and find by the way. Whether its on the elevator, parking lot, grocery store, the ferry finding by the way is the best way to find. I have been taking this to heart and it doesnt matter the setting I have been opening my mouth I feel like fear of contacting anyone any place any time has almost left me completely there is still work to do. I also went singing in public which is something I never thought I would do in a million years. But hey I think singing everyday to start comp study has done wonders for my voice plus when you learn a tonal language its helped me to be not so tone deaf. Basically we got some slow but solid work moving we are not looking for dramatic spurts that look good but dont retain but the solid consistency of the line upon line approach. I got a lot of time left in my mission still but I am treating every week as the final stretch.

Plus a quote that I came up with for you all to think about is:

“Salvation is as hard as your heart”

Love you All
Elder Jared Cordon

Let Us Act

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Dear Family & Friends,

We’ll last week was a busy one a good one for some ups and downs. We were able to add a few more people to the teaching pool so we are seeing some great success from our finding efforts, we have been really consistent since I got here. Some of our investigators made some huge improvement this last week, like one brought his father to church who is so cool! Which is so good cause we need more priesthood holders. One has a really strong desire and has had a lot of anti and family opposition and its cool to see her fighting through all of it. Because conference taught us “having sincere questions is not the question but, where you go for answers”. We have some investigators who have listened to our exhortation to read and pray to know for themselves and nothing is sweeter for a missionary when they do it and find that it works. But on the flipside this week we had two who would not, no matter how much we did on our end, read and pray. Its a simple fact, missionaries can bring the spirit unto people but we cannot bring it into people as 2 Nephi 32 teaches us that it is the spirits job and the individual through there agency to act is what allows the spirit to do that. I think if we apply these principles in any teaching situation whether it be in church, families, schools, sports, or military. Its all the same we need to teach and help people to do it themselves we are objects to act, any other way is simply contrary to our nature and the way God made us.

I love you and hope the holidays are full of happiness and joy as we ponder the glad tidings of great joy which is our Savior Jesus Christ who came to save us all if we come unto to Him. Let us show our true gratitude by coming unto to him and helping all that we can remember the true reason for Christmas.

Love you all

Elder Jared Cordon

P.S. Here is some pictures! BTW my pose is demonstrating how main landers sit everywhere, bus lines, when reading the paper, really anywhere.

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What A Wonderful Time

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Dear Family and Friends,

What a wonderful time of year. I have always loved the holidays for so many reasons. There is a different feeling that you get when on the mission. I think it is really a kind of spiritual help given to me when I have needed it.
This is a great time of year to strengthen family relations, and it is no exception for our Father in Heaven trying to strengthen his family. What a wonderful time when all over the world people our having their hearts warmed by the spirit of giving. Having their Light of Christ touched and grown. What a wonderful spirit this holiday season brings to people that focus on the true reasons for these wonderful days that are celebrated.
Jesus Christ gave us a gift that every soul that has ever lived need. A gift that is eternal and everlasting. A gift that was freely given and can be freely received. A gift that will never have a price tag. A gift that was prepared for us before our creation. The gift that we all said we would accept. Jesus Christ is the gift of the season. Share this gift with everyone that you meet.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has a campaign that was shared in the latest Ensign #ShareTheGift. They have put a wonderful video together to get people focused on the real gift of the season. share it with others to bless their lives this season. You can even print your own pass-a-long cards.

Love you all so much thank you for you prayers and support.
Elder S Cordon

Protest in Hong Kong

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well there is protest all this week. (*editors note: Meaning he has to stay in his apartment this week and he is not happy about that. Also he is safe and a long distance away from the protest.)

Well a wonderful week in the life of someone on the Lords errand! I feel like I can’t even blink and the week is gone. But as I reflect back I am able to see how much has really happened! We had started the week off with doing that planned district meeting by President Hawks were we watch and discuss the videos of teaching no greater call with Elder Bednar and to say the least they have totally changed my mission. President has made leaps and bounds in pushing people to become better teachers! He bought all the missionaries the church manual Teaching No Greater Call. I think any member who has not taken time to read that especially those in a church calling are doing a huge disservice to the potential they have. Its honestly a life changing process I am going through. I have learned a lot about the principle of Agency which like most principles in the church could use further study. I think what I like most is the focus of diligent learning that is required from each member of the church. We don’t have to be a prophet to have a prophetic knowledge of the gospel. I know for myself daily scripture study is not something I will miss for the rest of my life I love it to much not to. I receive more revelation everyday that studying the gospel is now fun!

This week I also had the opportunity to give my first baptismal interview! It was awesome to be able to take part in some of the responsibilities as a district leader. This lady was amazing and she only a few months ago had never heard of the Church but now has a burning testimony of the love and power of God! She got baptized this Sunday into my ward its great to truly see the hastening of the work in this little piece of zion!

Also with my efforts in working with the young men in the ward they have become some of the greatest missionaries I have ever met. 1 young man is way into double digits as far as people he has introduced to me and has almost now brought close to 10 diferent people to church. He is the young man in the ward who everyone wrote off as punk teenager is now the only one in the ward brave enough to talk to people about the gospel and is having great success doing it. This activity I am planning with him has already gotten a lot of people signed up! I really would not mind being here for 10 months!

Love you All

Elder Jared Cordon