Tag Archives: MTC

Hello hello hello!

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Hello

The MTC is a very interesting place indeed! You may have heard stories and they are probably all true! The food kills you, Sundays are like holidays, the sisters are too serious, and man the growth of the language will surprise you!

This last week was awesome! Me and my companion Elder Cederlof decided we need to rely on the gift of tongues! A companionship from the other cantonese district gave us the idea. Basically you need to have complete faith for the spirit to help you! Previously we would teach our investigator using lots of notes and reading them. But this last week we decided to go in with no help and just pray for the spirit. I could not believe the difference that made we did the whole thing, taught how to pray and the importance of obedience, I was having words come to my mind that I forgot I knew! From then on we decided that we weren’t going back it has also helped are study because we know we have to be more prepared! Also its tough here it really is, when your spending 55 hours a week in a classroom not hearing a single word in English it wears on you!

My teacher though is really amazing! He has such patience, he knows the importance of SYL(Speak your language) It must be so hard when you have 8 missionary staring at you blank faced because they have no idea what your saying! But his knowledge is amazing! He speaks 7 languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, Loa, Malaysian, Japanese, English, and I think Mong. But yeah that gives you an idea! He is also just a spiritual giant as well he does a great job and teaching the gospel principles in a way thats simple and you can feel the spirit!

But everyone here is amazing I have made a lot of friends in my Zone and in the weight room! I have a nickname here and that’s Captain Joseph Because everyone thinks I look like Joseph Smith and Captain America! I wont complain about that one! But this place is truly amazing and I learn so much here about people, the gospel and especially myself! I hope everyone is doing just splendid!

Elder Jared Cordon

1 Down… 103 More to Go!

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Dear Everyone,

This first few days in the MTC! What an adventure they have been!

The food has successfully made me and my companion spend a lot of time in the Bathroom, more him than me! It is gonna be easy to cut back, I dont know how people eat so much here! But the learning is coming a long surely! The Language is truly amazing though my teacher has not said a single word in english since I have been here! I can tell you that the gift of tounges is real because of how much I have learned! The first investigator we taught was defiantly a humbling experience though! I couldn’t understand anything she was saying and she couldn’t understand me at all! I might have accidently said something offensive haha. But today it will be another test how that language break this last day has treated me!

Sundays here are like a Holiday going to church and hearing english is like music to my ears! Also speaking of music I will be in the october Conference Choir! But sundays are great Sacrement, Priesthood and Sunday School are broken up which is kinda nice then in the evening there is a Fireside and we then will watch a recorded fireside afterwards! I have some great notes from yesterday it was so great!

My companion here is really awesome he is a twin also! and he is from centerville so right next door! His twin also not learning a language and he will be here in a few weeks! They are not Identical though, they dont even look like brothers haha! Its interesting here though because there is only 13 people learning cantonese two districts mine has 8 the other has five 3 of the people are going to Sydney australia! I Had two guys whose flight got cancelled they were going to toronto so we had two many guys in my room tell 2:00 this morning I didn’t sleep much! but I loved both of those Elders I actually knew them from BYU so that was cool! The first two names on my flag! Maybe things wont be as crazy now that we are down to 4 in the room! But we have so much junk food! like 4 big boxes just pilled high so I wont be needed to spend my money we just got all the great leftovers from a bunch of Elders who just left!

Man its crazy that Its only been 5 days I feel like I have been here for 5 weeks! It seems like by the time lunch roles around it should be dinner and then we have a 5 hour class…. But I love this wonderful opportunity to learn so its all worth it! My zone is awesome! its us Cantonese and then a bunch of people going to the Phillipines! So its a great group there is a lot more elders in my zone than Sisters but the MTC over all right now its like 50/50. Its probably because there is no sisters learning Cantonese right now, So we are like a little band of brothers!

Its been amazing here and I will be sure to be a little more thorough once I get a full week! But if you feel like your life isn’t that motivated or you need a spiritual recharge or you think your doing well enough in gods eyes. Well then go watch or read the Character of Christ! I love everyone who read this! And ill be back next week!

Sincerely

Elder Cordon

First Week in the Field

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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!

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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

Has it really not even been a full two days???

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Dear Family and Friends,

 
So the Missionary Training Center (MTC), isn’t really what I expected, but then again I didn’t know what I expected. After getting dropped off on Wednesday I got a quick tour of the campus, and then I was dropped off in a classroom where I met my district and my companion.

 
So a quick explanation on districts and zones. The split everyone at the MTC into zones, we were divided up by language and region. In my zone I have all the english speaking missionaries going to the Florida, Jacksonville mission, the Arkansas, Little Rock mission, and the Indian, Indianapolis mission. Basically, there are some really great missionaries in my zone. Then from there they split every zone into districts. My district has only 10 missionaries in it, and we are all going to the Florida, Jacksonville mission. There are also more Sisters than Elders in my district.

 
Now for my companion. His name is Elder Searle, and he is from Holiday, Utah. The first thing that I found out about him is that he loves to fish, more so than anyone I have ever met, which is pretty cool. I also found out he attended BYU last year as well and is thinking about doing Mechanical Engineering as well. So we got a lot in common. We have gotten along very well and I am glad he is my companion, we teach are first mock investigator lesson tomorrow, and I feel like we will work really well together.

 
Some big new from yesterday is that I was asked to be the District leader. I guess it means that I am basically the Father of the group. I make sure that an opening and closing prayer is said, I check on the companionships and make sure that they are doing well, and provide them with council when appropriate. I also have the responsibility of getting the mail, the one job that my district thinks is the most important.

 
Some antics went on in the residence hall last night. Some of the guys were having a competition to see if they could jump high enough to hit their head against the ceiling, and many were successful. Also my roommates and I (which are the other 3 guys in my district) noticed that there where these metal outlet cover things on the wall, and we figured that it would be a good place to hide something for future Elders. Well we weren’t the only ones with that idea. We opened the first one up and it was packed full of candy. Like bit size snickers and baby ruths, and tootsie rolls. And a letter from the Elders who said that it was put there on 4/19/13, so still fresh :). Then we excitedly opened up the other one and found a chocolate orange, left there by some elders in January I think, also still fresh. Right now we are brainstorming on what awesome thing to replace it with.

 
Despite all the antics, the spirit is very strong here. I have been full of peace for every single minute that I have been here and with every meeting and lesson, I become happier and happier. I wish you all could feel the awesome feeling that exists on this campus. It feels every once of your soul, with a warm and cozy burning. I want to feel this way the rest of my life.

Have an awesome week,

 
Sincerely, 

Elder Joshua Cordon