Tag Archives: repentance

PASCO!!!

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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!

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LET IT BEGIN!

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I am so excited for this transfer! Things are just going so well. I am so grateful to have learned what I have throughout my mission and now being able to just hammer through till the end. This last week after transfers Elder Whiting and I were able to talk about some things that we wanted to focus on this transfer. Acting and not being Acted upon, is what we had decided was going to be a big focus for us this transfer. And wouldn’t you know it we got the chance to apply it right away.

Sense Wednesday we have been having a lot of appointments fall through, and putting our faith in God we ACTED. We knew that we had planned by the spirit and so we set out to find out why we needed to be there. We saw so many miracles come from just being willing to ACT in Faith and find Joy and Trust in Christ. We found in faith and that led to us getting in and teaching almost every door we knocked on. Not everyone but most. We were finding every day and that lead to 7 new investigators sense Wednesday. It was so awesome to see the very clear hand that was leading us in the work. We are so excited to carry this into next week. We are going to but a big focus on getting the members out with us, so that they can see all this amazing work that is going on.

I am also feeling very spoiled in who the Lord has put around me. We probably have the best Zone Leadership in the mission. We had a Zone Leadership Council and what an amazing time that was. We really focused on the need to really teach the Zone the true doctrine of repentance so that they can find the Joy in it and that they can have better faith in the great power of the Atonement. That really only happens through repentance. I truly do feel spoiled to be able to be around such great missionary fire at this point in my mission; The WKM is full of it, but I certainly feel blessed and wouldn’t trade any of them. Elder Whiting adds such and wonderful spirit and drive, Sister Christiansen has great faith and knows were to put it, and Elder Thompson is going to bring a great understanding of the Doctrine of Christ to the Spanish District. And that is just adding to the already great missionaries of Sister Bland and Elder Burton. How did I get so lucky!!!

I am grateful for the power of Repentance and the real change it can make to the very nature of who we are. I love Jesus Christ and will never be able to truly put into words what a wonderful blessing it is to be able to have the gift of the Atonement to shape me and mold me into someone that I would never be able to be without HIM.

I am looking forward to the blessing and miracles in store for this next week.

LOVE
Elder Cordon

#FWB

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Dear Family and Friends,

So this week was wonderful and full of HEAT, from the Spirit and the weather. We are teaching every day and teaching a lot. Talking to everyone is really helping us find those that God has been preparing. We didnt talk to as many people this week that we could have but there is always room to improve. We are committed to refocus on it this week. REPENTANCE that is what it is all about. Finding those small things that you can work on each day and each week. Doing the small repenting every day and week keeps the big ones away.
WE HAD A BAPTISM YAY!! Damien has made the choice to become a member of the church. What a Spirit filled baptism that was Donna his grandmother that is currently praying about a date for baptism really loved it. She is making the changes in her life that are necessary for her to be ready for when she does get a date. Watching Damien go through this has really helped her. She is such a wonderful lady that I am so glad to have been watching her grow.
Kathy is making the step of baptism this weekend. Her baptism is Saturday she is so very excited. What a wonderful miracle it has been with Kathy, her friend is a Recent Convert that took the courage to talk to her friend about the gospel. Both of them have been receiving blessings through this whole experience. We are going to be asking her to give a talk at the baptism.
It has really been able to give me a testimony of the power that comes when friends talk to there friends and are involved with the whole thing.
It is such a wonderful time to be apart of this work, and the blessings don’t have to be just for the full-time missionaries. I am trying to share that with the members that we have dinner with, and when we see them anywhere else. God wants to bless all of his children that get involved with sharing his work with the world. This gospel was restored so that it could be shared with the world.

Love you,
Elder Steven Cordon

#ActInFaith

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Dear Family & Friends,

It is always amazing to see people, reach the gate of baptism. To make that step towards our Heavenly Father and to make that first of many covenants with Him. Brian made that step on Saturday, he has used the last 7 weeks to seek after and find truth. He has taken the challenge that we issue to everyone, to search, ponder, and pray about the Book of Mormon. To live the commandments and see if they do indeed bless your life, and then when this does happen, (for it always does) and when you receive your answer that the Book of Mormon is true, (which also always happens if done with real intent) then it is the simple step to follow the example of Jesus Christ and to be baptized by someone that holds the priesthood of God that was restored to Joseph Smith.

The miracles that take place in someones life helps to build my testimony. To see the restored gospel bring such light and knowledge into someones life is the miracle. It is the proof that the fullness of the gospel has been restored. There is no cap on the spiritual knowledge that can be received when given the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, and when we make and keep the sacred covenants with the Lord. As one uses those gifts given freely, those are to steps on the climb to become like the savior, and to be eligible for the full birthright from our Father.

These are established laws to which the world is run on. It doesn’t matter what faith you are or if you even have faith at all. God is God and always will be God whether you believe in Him or not. So that being a truth God has established his plan and his laws that if lived will bring blessings from God, Regardless Of Your Belief. For if God did not honor His laws then he would cease to be God. Doctrine and Covenants 82:10 “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.”
In this verse we have our salvation, or our damnation. We have our gift or our curse. We have our joy or our sorrow. We have our freedom or our chains. For in this verse we are shown the nature of the double edge of our agency.

God lives, He has restored his church to its fullness, Jesus Christ is at the head of this church, our prophet Thomas S Monson is guided by Him, and anyone can know this by accepting the same challenge that Brian took. Test it for yourselves, Read, Ponder, and Pray with real intent and you will receive the same answer Brian did. Then when you do, ACT!

Elder Cordon

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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

The Small & Simple Things

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Dear Family and Friends,

It seems like it was only four days ago that I was writing y’all… o wait… So it was a wonderful weekend. A lot of really good things happened as usual. One notable event of this past weekend was going to a party on Saturday. So we have a recent convert that we have been working with and she is just wonderful! She has been a member for about 4 months now and has grown so much in that time. She made some dramatic changes in her life in order to get baptized and still has been battling with some of the lasting effects. One of those is her relationship with her family. Because of who she was before she has spent the last little while repairing those relationships and building the family she wishes she always had. It was her birthday this past weekend so we got together with her and another one of our recent converts to celebrate and have a lesson with them. It was a really great time and we even took a fun picture to commemorate the event. After the lesson she had plans to go over to her uncles house to have a family get together for her birthday. She really wasn’t looking forward to the event because it potentially was going to be a really awkward get together. After encouraging her to still go to the party and giving her our two cents of advice, the idea came to me to just have us go with her and take some of the focus off of her so that it wouldn’t be awkward any more. It was more of a facetious comment at first but then she loved the idea so we decided to go for it. The party ended being a really fun event. We got to see her dad and brother who are investigators of ours and to get to know the rest of her family. One of her cousins had even flown in from Peru (which is where her family is from) to be there and had fun getting to know all of them. She ended up having a wonderful time and really felt like it helped to make it one of the best birthdays that she had had.

It was such a simple thing that we had done, but it really brought about amazing results. On top of everything else we also got to expose her whole family to fact that Mormon Missionaries are normal people behind the shirt and tie. I wouldn’t be surprised if this could open up the door to some more baptisms in the future in her family. “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass” (Alma 37:6) is the principle that I learned from all of this. Never underestimate the powerful impact of simple expressions of love and kindness. There is a wonderful Mormon Message that just came out that illustrates this principle rather nicely and touches those who view it in a variety of ways. If you want the link, here it is http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=3792885561001.

Another wonderful thing is that we found out that one of our investigators will be able to get baptized sooner than we had expected. Her father wanted to baptize and confirm her, but was living with his girlfriend so he wasn’t going to be able to, and her mother wouldn’t agree to let her get baptized, so we had expected for it to be a much more distant event. However, her dad just split up with his girlfriend so he could be worthy and he is going through the court system to get full custody back. It is amazing how what seemed to be a very difficult and near impossible task has become a reality almost overnight. Truly there is no commandment that God won’t provide a way for a us to accomplish (1 Nephi 3:7) if we simply just try our best.

I love this work so much! The wonderful thing about the gospel is that whenever you give it away you always get more of it, whether it be love, joy, or even yourself, it doesn’t really make sense but that is what is so wonderful about it.

I hope every one of you takes advantage of the opportunity to watch general conference this weekend. I am stoked! It is like the super bowl for missionaries!

I love y’all!

Elder Joshua Cordon

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A Message of Joy

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Dear Family and Friends,

I try to reflect on my life as much as I can. Even on a mission its hard to find time. But when I do its always a joyous experience. A principle that I have striven to get my investigators and recent converts to understand and is simply and clearly laid out in 2 Nephi 28:30–

“For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.”

The Lord knows when we are ready to receive new revelation. You must do all you can to seek what God has and to always do his will. I think a big part of that is receiving the revelation in the order which he desires us to receive it. We can all strive to understand the basic ordinances and principles of the gospel being first faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and second Repentance. If we all devoted our entire lives to studying these two principles then we truly would only understand a fragment of what they mean, there is so much to learn. There is a reason that truly all conference talks relate back to these two things.

On an even deeper note– How many of us truly love our Savior Jesus Christ? How many of us really love our neighbor? I dont know if I have ever heard someone express the intensity of Joy they felt as did Ammon or Alma after having given everything to the Lord and learning to love their enemies who countlessly tried to end their lives. I know that their is no greater joy in this life than that of a servant of the Lord. No matter how much money, material wealth, or excitement you can draw from a temporal nature it cannot and will not compare. If you find your life not were you desire it then I invite you to choose this day to serve the Lord and partake of incomprehensible JOY.

I love you all and appreciate all the support.

Elder Jared Cordon

Atonement & Agency

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Dear Family and Friends,

What a wonderful strength it gives me to know that I am a son of Heavenly Father. To know that I have a Father that has that much knowledge and wisdom. To know that he loves me forever no matter the circumstances. He will always be there for us when we truly seek him in our lives, even sometimes when we don’t he is still there.

Just like my parents told me not to run in the road, or not to touch the hot stove. I didn’t know why, I didn’t know that a car moving 25 mph hitting me would lead to a lot of suffering, but they did. Heavenly Father has the knowledge to know that the way that I can find the least amount of suffering in this life is to follow the plan that He has created. Just like I didn’t know about the cars or what a hot stove would do to my tiny hands; I don’t always know why he has asked me to do things or what the out come would be if I disobey. However I do have the trust to know that if He has asked me to do it then it is for my benefit, safety, and salvation and is of the utmost importance.

Just like my parents want me achieve all that I am able. Heavenly Father wants me to achieve everything that I am able, which is more then we can dream of. I, and everyone that has ever lived and will ever live, am part of the lineage of Heavenly Father. I am a heir to a throne and kingdom, as is everyone, because we are children of a Heavenly Father. I have a birth rite to claim, but He has given us agency to choose. I for a long time in my life was using that agency to chose to not follow the path that Heavenly Father has laid out. I chose to wonder down paths of un-inheritance choosing to throw away my birth rite. The inheritance that He has to give is one of eternal happiness, full of our families and loved ones with the rites to an eternal family that will grow forever.

I have let this knowledge shape my life to what it is today, I have been able to use my agency to turn my life around from what it was to what it is; made possible through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Without that sacrifice there would be no way to receive the inheritance. I have been able to see and feel the change in my own life that has come from becoming like a child, and just trusting that Heavenly Father knows what I need and knows the way back.

To end here is a scripture to that sums it up very clearly
Mosiah 3:19 in the Book of Mormon

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love,willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

I love all of you so much thank you for you prayers and love

Love,
Elder Steven Cordon

This has been a GREAT year!

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Dear Family and Friends,

This coming Saturday will be one year, one year sense I knew that this gospel was the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. That Joseph Smith saw God the Father and his son, our brother, Jesus Christ in a grove of trees in Palmyra NY in 1820. It has been such a wonderful year I am so glad that I had the courage to go to the pageant.

In this last year I have let the gospel change my life. The promise that we get, that following the gospel makes us the best that we can be is VERY TRUE. It is so weird to think that it was only just a year ago that I didn’t know that this church was true and now I am on a mission and am through my first transfer.

So crazy news about this first transfer I am getting a new trainer. Elder Lafond is getting transferred and I am getting Elder Butters to finish out my next 6 weeks of training. SO… it is kinda weird to think, we just assumed that we had 3 months together and so it did come as a shock. I am excited though because God is in the details of the mission and so I know that I am supposed to learn something from this so can’t wait to see what that is. A quote from President Lorenzo Snow, who was the prophet from 1898-1901.

“There is no mortal man that is so much interested in the success of an elder when he is preaching the gospel as the Lord that sent him to preach to the people who are the Lord’s children.”

The Lord is invested in the success of our missions and He wants us to grow in the gospel and He wants us to become the best missionaries that we can be. He knows what that will take and he will give us the things and challenges that we need to mold us into the missionaries he needs us to be and the best we can be.

I am so excited about this next transfer and what it will bring. So a quote from me.

“There are many things a person CAN be, but the focus needs to be on what you SHOULD be.”

The gospel can change you to the best person that you can be so let it. Everyone can be perfected, so don’t get distracted by the things that aren’t in that direction.

Sorry this letter is so short next week will be longer 🙂

I love you all
Elder Steven Cordon
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Update on Sister Feathers (the bird we are teaching the gospel to) eggs have hatched and now we have two babies living on our porch.

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Washington Sunset