#ShareEaster

This was a great week and I feel so grateful to have the knowledge that Christ makes up the difference. When I am to weak and not enough, which when it comes to the work of salvation is like always. 🙂 I love how much I get to grow through the Atonement! I love it so much I love the joy that comes with living the gospel and changing and helping people change and watching people change. I love watching the gospel in action in other peoples lives. It changes you in a way that couldn’t be done with just trying to apply the gospel to yourself. “After all that has been said the, greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel” Joseph Smith. No wonder that is the case there is so much about the gospel that we miss out on if we dont share it, if we are not helping the people around us to be lifted up by the gospel then we ourselves are missing out on a lot of what the gospel has to share.

We just had a baptism in the Zone. It was a husband and wife that were baptized together. The husband grew up in a church that teaches anti mormon every week, he only just six months ago said that he was never going to be mormon. He said that to the friend that eventually listened to a spiritual prompting that was telling her that the people placed in her life where there so that she could share the gospel and help build people around her. She was very scared and knew that he had said that, and knew that the wife had a lot of problems with the church as well. BUT she listened and let faith conquer fear, she has now been sharing the gospel with everyone that she can and has been able to see her friends be baptized. The truth of this gospel is ringing from the rooftops and being a “good example” is a good start but there is so much more to be done with the people that surround us.

This week when I was out talking with people we met a man, Robert, he was very nice but he didnt want to hear us out right away we kept asking questions and sharing testimony and then finally he cracked and told us why he didnt want to talk to us. This hit me so hard…. He told us that he didnt want to talk to us because he had many friends that went on missions and then when they came back then they didnt share it with him, he talked about how it was weird that they would spend two years talking about it and then come home and not continue to do that. He thought that it must not be all that it is cracked up to be if that was the case. We then were able to help him see that the gospel would bless him in his life now and he should at least ask God about it.

I couldnt believe how hard that hit, he even talked about how they are good people and live good lives and loves their families but he didnt see how he couldnt just do those things, why the gospel was an important factor and if it was to them why they never talked about it.

This is so very true, we can live good lives and do good things and love our families, but if we never share and invite people around us to do something about it and to come to know for themselves that the gospel is important and vital, then a good example only goes so far.

We also have a family that we just started to teach that are both less active from the church, they came to church this week for ward conference. They want to come back to church and want to work for the temple. We are also going to be planning a wedding for them!!! The Ward is going to love that.

Cierra Came to church and loved it. She bought all three of her kids and they loved it as well. She has told us that she has found a church that really makes her happy. SHE IS SO AWESOME!!!I I love the gospel.

My challenge to everyone this week is to share the goepel with someone this week, with an INVITATION to do something to act on your testimony. An invitation is the only way they are going to change. Sharing the new video would be a great way to start the conversation!

Love you all

Elder Cordon.

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PASCO!!!

I am so excited that I get to stay here in this wonderful place. Not gonna lie and say it was a little shocking when I heard Elder Whiting was leaving but I have already spent enough time building my faith about transfers that I knew it was from the Lord. Because then I got Elders Scott! He is a great companion to be around, plus I will get to learn a little bit more Spanish. I think I talk to more people a day that speak Spanish then English especially if you include the people that are Bilingual. So it is nice to be able to learn at least a little to be able to say hi. I am understanding a lot more but speaking it is a whole other level. I feel very grateful to have been called on a English mission. Not that learning a new language wouldn’t have been great it just would have been Really hard!!

The Pasco Zone had 5!!!! People baptized this week, Rosario, Rager, Rochelle, Santi, and Exavier. What a wonderful week it was! There was so much excitement happening! We had investigators come to them and had church tours afterwards. Members where helping to pick them up and take them. It was just a great week. We had dinner with a family with Non Member kids and now all three of the kids want to learn more. Rial, Rochelle, and Colt.

We also found are now teaching two other wonderful families starting last night. One of them is a PMF where the dad is the member but went less active as a teen, so about ten years ago. The wife is a non member, and last night was the first night that we have been able to catch them both home at the same time. We had a wonderful lesson and the committed to read and pray as a family and to come to church on Sunday, they also excepted to continue to meet and learn more. Right now Martin is out of work so we are going to help him find a job, but in the mean time we have lots of time to teach the family.

Ciere and her three kids is another family that we are teaching, she has studied with missionaries before over in Kennewick like 4 years ago. Last week she was praying for help and we knocked on her door just a few minutes later. She told us last night that every time she has asked God to send her help the missionaries always show up. MIRACLE She is going to be coming over to our WML’s home this evening for FHE.

We have 6 trainers in the Pasco Zone for this transfer, you can already feel the fresh fire that is brought into the area. Lots of them even got to do Ministering visits on their first night. 🙂 Baptism by Fire! We are so excited for all the great things that are happening here in Pasco what a great place for New Missionaries to come. God truly does desire that every one of his children come back to Him and He is allowing us to be able to help with that, we have to be able to stay worthy of that blessing and be willing to look outwards to others. Missionary work can never and will never be a inward effort the only way it can be done is to be humbly and look out past yourself and seek to help Gods children. The greatest work that we can be involved in in this life will always and has always been missionary work. Teach Repentance and Baptize converts! Just like the Priesthood, because it is a priesthood work, it cant be inward it only works in helping others, and by doing so it helps us.

I have spent some many times on my mission looking inwards when really it is so much faster, easier and better to look OUT.

I love you all so much and am thankful for your prayers and love!

Elder Cordon!

#ForeverBlessings

So this week was stake conference week, SOO good.

On wednesday they did a youth session, I had the great opportunity to be a part of that by being on a missionary panel.  There was a ton of youth there and that whole thing was completely missionary minded.  I love this about the Pasco Stake they are very missionary minded here.  I think it is that way in all of pasco, I talked with a family last night in the 11th ward and the wife told me that she and the other den leaders are going to the schools and recruiting for cub scouts. They have already got 9 non members to sign up.  What a wonderful way to give kids a chance to rub shoulders with non members and give them a chance to be a light house to others.  It all comes from a true desire to bless our brothers and sisters.

I love that it is such a focus because it should be, missionary work is one of the most important things that we can do. To be able to help with bring Fathers family back together that is what it is all about.

The best blessing of this work is seeing people change and come closer to Christ, to watch them become something better.  I had the cool expereince this week to see someone that I started teaching almost 2 years ago. She was baptized after I left to Wenatchee.  Her name is Peyton, she was the youngest daughter of a LA family and she was 14 at the time I was teaching her. She is still very strong in the gospel and sense has seen her older brother Gavin come back to church and receive the Priesthood. She is a light house and she still shines so bright!  What a great blessing it was to see her.

This week we had a lot of things that seemed to get in the way of the work, Satan was really trying to combat our efforts this week.  It was a powerful testimony to me that Gods power is always going to trump Satan and when you act in faith to access that power you are always going to feel confident in the presence of God.  Jason a new investigator came to church and is preparing for baptism on March 26th.  We are going to have to move Johns date, He is doing really well but he is just taking longer to teach then we thought, he has come to church 2 times and has liked it both times he would have been this week but he was really sick.  We also just found this wonderful family that is going to have their lives changed from the gospel.  The Mothers name is Cierra and she has three kids.

I love the people of this work, there are so many people that just get caught up in the world and it seems so dark such a blessing to see the Light of Christ bring them out of that.  AAAAAHHHHHH WOW    I love The Atonement so much.

I love you
Elder Cordon

Brenda Gilbert was baptized and so many missionaries worked with her.  She is so wonderful.

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Let the Spirit Work Through You!

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

2016

What a week!

UPs and DOWNs, we were going strong preparing for the baptism of Kristy and then she didn’t come to church and sent us a text that she didn’t want to meet anymore. We went by and she wouldn’t answer the door, or our texts. She just dropped us and we don’t know why, that really is the hard part when you don’t know why. Because that is when you just come up with the craziest reasons. We spread the word to her member friendship and they are on their game already.

I am grateful for the faith that I have in agency and knowing that it is such a necessary part, also knowing that not everyone is going to use it wisely either. It helps it times like this to then just go out and use my agency to go find those that are willing to fulling accept this truth. So Sunday night we went out and found two new friends. A wonderful young family that is wanting to start of right and center their family around Christ. That happened on the last door on Sunday night.!!!

We also have another family that we have started to teach they are also a young family that wants the truth of the gospel and willing to act. wow so many miracles.

I got to go on exchanges this week with Elder Sedrick. What a wonderful time that was. He is a wonderful missionary and very sincere he is a great listener. We set a goal to find and teach simply, and boy did we do that. We talked to people like crazy and found a new friend Shyael, and taught several other lessons that day. I love missionary work! So during that day we had a lesson that we just let get taught by the Holy Ghost. there was SO much silence and it never got weird not once. We were silent for 4 minutes one time, literally, and we just soaked up the Spirit.

I am looking forward to MLC, what wonderful counsel that is. I am grateful for all the guidance from the Spirit that I get to receive on a daily basis as long as I am doing what I need to to get it. Even on a mission the simple things is what makes or breaks it. it is especially so in life. My scripture of the week is Alma 31:5 I read it this morning for personal study and it just rang out to me. The answers to life is always in the Gospel of Christ.

I love this work!

LOVE EVERYONE
Elder Cordon.

RollarCoaster

Well another awesome, happy, sad, up and down, week.

We had a lot of things this week. New assignment does come with more to do, more to learn, and more growth.
This week was MLC and WOW what a great meeting that was. It was truly awesome to be ready to receive revelation at meetings, the Spirit is just ready and waiting to be the teacher to a willing heart. Then that night was stake correlation, having just spent all day learning from the spirit I didn’t want it to be anything like I have heard it being at times. Come in and sit down and just read over the report. So Elder Schulzke and I counseled together on what we needed to do to help make that meeting a revelatory experience. We decided that we needed to make sure it was just that, a counsel. So we went in and set the report aside and asked inspired questions. So no surprise there, IT WENT GREAT. We were able to use the report as a help to refer to instead of the dialog.

Friday got a sneak peek at the Christmas Conf. we also had to fit in Zone Meeting Planning, and Weekly Planning. So that we could have time to go out Saturday.

Saturday was a Miracle day. It was already a crammed week and we were already feeling hurt for time to find but we made sure that the time we did have we but all of our faith into. We were knocking at some apartments and found two doors right in a row of people that have met with missionaries before and been invited be members but there was no record of them and we had no idea they were there. We then were in the other building and found another lady that told us to come back next week, Tami.

So the only reason that we went to this place was that we wanted to contact a girl that had been taught before. We just didnt have the address so we went to this close apartment complex. Tami the lady that we found is the girls mother! We had no idea. MIRACLE.

Saturday was our Ward Christmas party and we got and investigator to it. Jessica and her two sons!!! We committed her to church, But she woke up really sick and didnt come.:( Nathan was are Sunday at 8:59 Miracle! He is a single dad and looking to really be able to guide his two girls in the correct path towards God. That is going to be a good family in the gospel soon.

The down part is that I found out that Mike Gilbert, Baptized in September, died this weekend unexpectedly. He was preparing to go to the temple when I left the area just 2 weeks ago. That was not something that I was expecting to have to deal with on the mission. Death really is an interesting thing. I am just so VERY GRATEFUL for the knowledge the gospel gives in regards to death and the part that it plays in our lives. It is necessary and an important part of the plan. I love that I know that I will see him again.

If you would be willing to say a prayer for his wife Brenda she is a wonderful lady.

The VERY UP SIDE.
Temple for the Oberweiser’s is tomorrow morning!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love you all so very much. You are all so awesome.
LOVE
ELDER CORDON

Prayer Is Awesome

WOW! A new area, new assignment, and a new companion! This is one week that I am grateful for prayer. To be able to truly talk to Father and receive direction. What comfort it is to know that prayer truly is communication with Father and that He hears and answers prayers.

I am also very grateful for the power of the Atonement. It truly gives us power to do things that are beyond our own capacity to do. Jesus Christ lifts us to where he needs us to be if we allow him to. the only way to do that is through the Doctrine of Christ. I took me a long time out to realize all of this but now that it has finally clicked I can continue to master this skill of “using” the Atonement and not just “needing” it.
I got here to the new area ready and excited to work. This ward is about the size of both my previous wards and LOTS of people to talk to. I got so excited about coming to Pasco ready to apply all the things that I have been learning in the last transfer. Elder Schulzke (new companion) and I got right to work, well after having two long days of planning and meeting with everyone that we needed to and going to another meetings, we got right out and talked with everyone that we could.

We found 4 new friends to teach and part of that is a family, the Mendoza Family. We first talked to there son and the taught the parents on Sat. We will be teaching the two sisters as well come Sunday. Crystal was another that we found and she told us that she is on a spiritual journey right now trying to have a better relationship with God. 🙂 Well we certainly can help with that.

SO CRAZY STORY TIME……

There was sister missionary that was in the other MTC district in the MTC zone that I was in that was from Kennewick and was called to serve in the Ogden Mission, later after the split finished in the Logan UT Mission. SO I was eating at Costa Vida for the last time while in kennewick right before transfer meeting and ……… That sister missionary recently, of 2 weeks, home from her mission is standing right in front of me. OUCH That was a hard reality check. She came in after me to the MTC and is now home and eating at costa vida with her mom and grandma 0.0 WOW where as the time gone.

AND IN OTHER NEWS.
SO NEXT WEEK IS GOING TO BE THE BEST DAY OF THE MISSION.
DEC 15th Converts are getting sealed in the temple. YEAH. I have been having butterflies about this day for so long I cant wait for it. 8 MORE DAYS!

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Elder Steven Cordon

PMG Is the BEST

This was a week that was full of new and wonderful things.

This week I studied PMG everyday! I am studying out of the fundamental lessons and I am learning a lot. The more and more that I study the more that I learn that I have no idea how to do missionary work. 🙂 I am starting to realize that PMG has all of the answers for my questions, whether it is for recent converts, investigators, even my companion. What a wonderful book and I dont understand why I have not had my noes in it my whole mission.

The last couple of days I have been studying the fundamental lesson of revelation through prayer. We have a couple of people that we are teaching that are in need of the knowledge that is in that lesson, but I am also studying it for myself. I am really trying to have more faith in my prayer and to receive more revelation through them. I am trying to have a more personal communication with Heavenly Father. I know that it can be my favorite moments in my life to communicate with Heavenly Father and so I am trying to seek for knowledge on the thing I need to do different to make that happen. I also know that it will greatly help me as a missionary and His tool if I can talk with him better.

SO WE MET MARSHAL.

So for those of you that don’t know who that is, which is everyone that is reading this. He is the BIGGEST ANTI in the TriCities, teaches classes and protests, the whole nine yards. He has been doing it for like 30 years. Boy he needs to get a life.

He came to one of our lessons!! Georgiana the New Investigator lesson that we taught is taking a Mormonisom 101 class that is being taught by him and she invited him the come to the lesson. 0.0 We received a great blessing, he showed up 35 minutes late so we got through basically all of the first lesson. We had Brother Blaser with us, 1st counselor in the bishopric, he shared great testimony. We left as soon as Marshal got contentious which not surprisingly didnt take him to long. What a crazy experience!

Thank you for everything that you do.
Love you all so much.

Elder Cordon

What a Great Week

Changes are going to happen to that ward soon, the WML is moving to SLC for a new job, so we will be getting a new WML here soon. So always brings a change. Last we heard was that is was going to be happening within a couple of weeks.

Nicole and Isiah had a wonderful baptism and confirmation this week. They had family that came, and lots of people from the ward. They are both full of light with the new conversion that they have in the Lord. Nicole is already sharing her testimony with her nonmember family members and is gladly reporting it back to us. We will hopefully be sending a referral down to Cali here soon. So wonderful to see that family coming together in unity in the gospel. WOW what a great day when they are sealed in the temple. I will definitely be there for that one.

I am so grateful to come to know Jesus Christ more and more each day. I love the strength that is given to me through him. There is no better way to go through this life then by and through Christ. He is the source of full and complete joy in this life, and He is there to help us grow and develop into the the person that we can be.

Well I love you all soo much thank you for everything that you do!

Love
Elder Cordon

White September

So this week ended in another Great Brother of God joining the ranks and entering into the waters of baptism. Mike Gilbert was baptized and then confirmed Saturday and Sunday. Sunday he had a miracle opportunity to share with someone who is making that step here this weekend in Richland his testimony of the whole process for him. SO Very Cool. Already being a missionary and sharing it with people.

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I love seeing the fire that is in the new converts, burning so bright and they don’t know what to do other then share it with those around them. So great to see how much of a change happens instantly when they make a sacred covenant through priesthood authority.

We went over to Tiffany’s and had a very good lesson on faith with her husband. He is a very open minded person but his default is the world and science because it is easier. So we will have to work on that. 🙂

Flor and her husband Dallen was at church another awesome miracle. ( sadly their was a member that got a little over zealous in inviting Dallen to sunday-school and grabbed his face 😦 he left mad. Later when we saw him he was not that mad anymore so hopefully that doesn’t harm him coming to church when he can again. He has a crazy work schedule and doesnt get many sundays off.

Linda was a new investigator that we had at church. We had a lesson with her and her husband, Mike, 2 weeks ago and then their life got a little crazy, she had to get her wisdom teeth out so we have not been able to meet with her sense. SO it was so awesome to see that she came to church as soon as she was able. She also stayed for all three hours, and loved it! She and her husband were found and invited by their member neighbors and are going to be taught in members home every time!I am so grateful for all the miracles that are happening in the area and all the wonderful ways that the Lord is moving his work forward.

Love you all so very much
Elder Steven Cordon