Tag Archives: teaching

Temple Day

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Dear Family & Friends,

Today was amazing! I love the Hong Kong temple it really is such a special place and I feel so blessed to have so many opportunities to be able to go! Also we had interviews today and I really love president and Sister Lam they are really so amazing!

This last week was truly amazing and it felt really long but was very event filled! Being with summer missionaries was challenging in a great way it taught me so much and I really grew a lot. I really feel like the summer missionary program is amazing and a wonderful way to build more unity between members and missionaries because both of those brothers are going home with a new determination to do more missionary work in their own wards! Also us missionaries learn to appreciate more and more the members of Hong Kong!

Some other eventful things is on Friday we ran into the Branch President as he was cleaning the chapel! And after talking for a short time we were able to plan a BBQ for the next day. It was a bit of a rush, and when the BBQ started there was only one person there other than us but shortly later we had a lot of people show up. It was all the younger men of the branch and the Branch president. We had a Less Active a recent convert and 3 investigators there and they all loved it. It was a wonderful success and it was a wonderful time to get some relationships start building. I really feel that the branches or wards that embrace lots of activities really have better unity!

I love working with the branch and we are seeing a lot of members open up to us more!

The Home teaching plan and action is working so well! The whole zone is doing amazing! We had set a goal for 80 lessons at homes but we already have 93 and still another week to go! When we started this plan Elder Dale prophesied to the whole zone that we would see miracles in teaching families and that has totally come true! We really reached hi when we set our family lesson goal and we are on track to be making it. we are seeing that almost every unit is working at least one family now. I know that getting more families in the church is really whats going to boost the work in Hong Kong, because peoples spiritual potential is so limited without families!

Really the mission life is the best life I am loving and just want to enjoy every minute that I have left!

Thank you all for being so supportive.

Elder Jared Cordon

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Staying Busy

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well its been a powerful week. We were quite busy and did not have any time to really get out and its weird I thought we worked hard but it seemed weird by the end of the week. But as we look back over our week, we saw we did a lot of teaching and still had opportunities to find people. Looking into July I am a little nervous as far as achieving our future goals there is only 4 solid dates in the zone leading into July and 3 of them are from us. I feel like what helped our dates become solid is putting a quicker date and adding urgency I feel like there is a few investigators in the zone that could be ready for July if we add some urgency.

The 3 people that we have for July are Sister Wong and her Daughter Lindy, they are really great and they have really answered the call to prepare themselves for baptism. Both are doing really good about reading, in fact Sister Wong has been doing some really cool studies after each of our lessons. She uses the pamphlets and does a deeper study on the lessons using the questions in the back. The other date is Ho Siu Ming also a great guy who is willing to keep going, he wants his family to have the gospel and with all three of these people they will be planning on us introducing them to their families here soon.

We have some other Baptismal dates and a handful of other investigators that could all be starting to really progress here shortly. The Lord is really blessing us. We go out the door everyday expecting Miracles and everday they keep happening. We are constantly finding those opportunities arise that requires to be brave and open our mouths. One for instance Elder Dale really impressed me as he contacted this man sitting next to us on a bus, luckily it was a long one out to the Village of Mui Wo. I had seen the guy and shy away but he just moved over a seat and said “do you mind if I practice my Chinese”. Well the man was happy to accept then Elder Dale practiced all of his first lesson vocab while he was at it. We ended up getting off the bus at the same stop, taught him prayer and rescheduled him and his girlfriend for next week. I guess there used to be a branch out here in Mui Wo. We would love to bring it back! We are also working with a less active out there as well and found that there is two full families that are less active that live out there.

Things really are going so well. Elder Dale and I have very similar mindsets which has made having unity come really easy! We also are both just really excited about the work and have a real good vision for this area.

Love You all!

Elder Jared Cordon

Bright Times Ahead

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Dear Family & Friends,

Well it was a sad weekend, but it will all work out in the end.

Arnoldo didn’t get baptized… that is the sad news. His grandmother didn’t feel that he was ready to. She wants him to wait a while longer to really see that he is taking it serious. So… the good news is that in talking to her, through the aunt cause the grandmother doesn’t speak English, she said that she would like to sit in on lessons to learn what he is learning. So we may have found our way into getting his whole family. We are going to be working with the Spanish elders to help with this family. He still came to church on Sunday and still loves Primary.

We have Damion getting baptized this weekend He had his interview last night and it went great he is so excited for it. Our WML is baptizing him.

We had to move some baptism dates that we have Abel and Kristina need to get married but Kristina needs to get unmarried first. O.O She has been separated from him for over 12 years she has just not done it out of fear. But we pushed that fear right out of here and DUN DUN DUN DUN!! We are also teaching her oldest daughter now too she is 17 and going through the “Im a rebel teen” phase but she is taking interest and she is starting to soften to us. Walls are coming down!! We are now working with them to getting baptized on July 25th.

What a wonderful day at the temple. It is always wonderful to get the spiritual recharge that you get there. Sometimes you just need it. The spirit was able to testify of some amazing truths and wonderful talents that have been given me, so that I may put them to good use.

I love the work that is happening here. I love missionary work all together but it is always great when you are just focused on the work.

I love you all so very much and pray for you. We are having a mission wide fast this weekend for our investigators if you would like to pray for some of mine you are more then welcome to. You are all fantastic people.

Love Elder Cordon

I Didn’t Even Realize It Was Raining…

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Dear Family and Friends,

It has been a pretty amazing week and a half. The work is moving along great and it humbles me more and more everyday as I see the lord at work. We hard 3 exchanges happen and so plenty of learning has taken place! We have also seen some cool success with our investigators!

The first exchange: I went with Elder Anderson(we share an apartment) to his area in Kowloon City. At the start of the exchange we set some lofty goals in contrast to the numbers that they had been seeing. But we were determined. We had a six hour finding block and we wanted to have 3 lessons and 2 of those rescheduled. Well the first hour and half burned by real quick. But as we were passing through a pretty quiet estate we saw a street cleaner resting in the shade we said hello and he didnt respond so we keep going. As we walked away I had this really strong impression that we had to go back and talk and I questioned the thought at firs, then I had the thought “this is a test go back and talk to him”. Well we went back and talked to him and we sparked a really good conversation. We were not able to get him to interested in listening but it brought a smile to all of our faces. 

After him it was only about a minute and we already contacting, later teaching someone else. We couldn’t reschedule, then right after we said good bye there was another lady that we contacted who was a former from Tai Po, we got here number, then we needed to head to a new area just shortly after being there we met someone just getting off work and taught him a lesson, we rescheduled him. At this point its raining really hard but, we didn’t care we were gonna reach our goal. Just shortly later almost out of finding we were teaching someone else and we were able to reschedule him. This exchange was great for the both of us and we really learned a lot, also a great blessing is one of those people is still meeting with those elders!

The second Exchange: This was with the Assistants and it was great! The day we switched Elder Williams and I had already been fonged by 7 people(thats a new record for me), but just right before we switched we went out to make up for our losses and taught two lessons and rescheduled both of them. Putting us in a great mood for exchanges. Elder Ly and I were able to teach another lesson that night as well. The next day was mainly teaching which was really good we had some great lesson and I was able to learn and absorb his great teaching skills. He is really good at being simple, bold, and too the point!

The Third Exchange: This one was was with Elder Ah Mu over in Tsuen Wan. We were also able to have a lot of great success together, given only about and hour of finding time we made several great contacts and taught two lessons. That area is really a great place to find. It was great as well being reminded of what its like training and focusing on a district as well. Elder Ah Mu really knows how to focus on other people. He really has excelled in his assignments. It was also really cool to see how the apartment was so focused that night we all had a really great discussion on teaching skills and how we could improve our studies. Elder Ah Mu came up with a great plan, using President Hawks advice and preach my gospel, on how to improve teaching skills. I took a copy and I am going to try it out over the next couple of days.

These exchanges were all very beneficial and very focused. Another interesting note is everyone that i went with entered the MTC with me. So it was really cool to see how we all have been progressing and working so hard. Truly you can see how the lord has shaped us all so differently!

On another note we saw two of our investigators really start moving along. Emiley a new one we been able to see a few times has accepted a date. Edward another who has been seeing missionaries for several months has finally come to church, although he missed sacrament he enjoyed the other stuff. Things are really going well here and we hope they just keep getting better.

It was an exciting time I love you all and hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love Elder Jared Cordon!

1 Word…. MACAU! 

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Dear Family and Friends, 

Well a lot of stuff went down last week we got a referral and it turned out to be Elder Wongs mom’s cousin and well she recognized him right away and it turns out she is a lost sheep from about 20 years back. She was anti’d by her family really bad and then went less active then fell off the radar and after having an amazing visit with her, she referred us to a bunch of others and I was very happy but even more than me elder wong is very happy because these are all his family! So we got the go from President Hawks and started working on them! 
Well last night we had to head to Wanchai to do our turn at this welcome center thing the church is trying here (its like a visiting center). Well right when we were wrapping up we went and got some dinner and then we get a call from the zone leaders saying Elder Wong will be leaving to Macau!! This is crazy we have only been together 3 weeks and something must have happened because its only our companionship and the Macau companionship that are affected. I was pretty happy for Elder Wong but he was not to happy because we just found all his family and he is really the key to it all working out. Well we forgot something at the church so we had to head back and as we walked down some stairs we ran into President and Sister Hawks just before they walked into the Elevator so we talked for a minute then I informed them that Elder Wong got the news and President asked him how he was feeling about it. Well Elder Wong was not gonna say he was not happy but you could tell he wasn’t too pleased to be leaving. 
Well we scheduled an appointment with his aunt so he could get a goodbye before he headed out and so hopefully I could get to know her better. Well when we were talking with her. We got a call from President and he asked what we were doing and we said we were in a lesson so he said okay I will call you back but when I call you don’t answer the phone (a little weird). Well he called and elder wong answered the phone anyway then president said I thought I told you not to answer the phone, but I am glad you did because I had the right companionship but the wrong Elder, Elder Cordon will be packing his bags. 
We’ll it was Ironic because when Elder wong was talking to president I was talking to his aunt telling her how I would love to switch Elder Wong places then he hangs up comes and grabs my shoulder and says well thats what just happened. I was very very surprised because I thought I had no hope in going to macau. Only the Uk and Locals get to go there, but sure enough I am going so it won’t be for more than 2 months but its happening! 

Well love you all! 
Elder Jared Cordon

Record Setter!

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well what a wonderful week in Aberdeen. This was the first full week that we had together here and it really shows that we work well together. I don’t think I have had better unity with any companion previous. We set a mission high for both of us at a good 16 other lessons (editors note: lesson without a member present) which is about twice as much as what people call a good week. I am not saying this to gloat but only to glorify God because this is also 4x the high for lessons in the last 5-6 months for the area. We had a pretty crazy schedule this last week with three trips to the north side of the island during the week for activities and missionary meetings & a birthday party at a mental rehabilitation center. Still with time being short throughout all this we often filled those random gaps of time with some great finding and the Lord always put someone in our path who was ready to listen. I have not done really anything different with people than I normally do. Just the Lord felt it was time to really do some work.

With that we also made great progress with Simon who before was really confused and not motivated to being focused and eager to learn more. He really likes speaking English which is good and all but there is a reason the Lord called me Chinese speaking I have a hard time keeping things simple in my native tongue. Although we overcame these barriers and did well. We are also working with two potential families which is so great! next week they should be at church. Also with hope of a third on the way. Things are so good here in Aberdeen! My area is just almost all predominant finding.

We see boats for days and plenty of huge yachts here in Aberdeen, which finds me having a desire to live in a yacht.

Here are some pictures of my last two p-days in butterfly I will get some of Aberdeen soon.

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Love you all,

Elder Jared Cordon

The Work!

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Dear Family and Friends,

We have put our heads down in prayer and our feet forward in faith and it has, as it always does, created amazing results. We found 4 new investigators this week, and looking for 4 more this next week. We are teaching a lot of people and the ward is seeing it. We had a family that we made contact with last week come to church this week. It was so wonderful to see them make that step towards God. We found a couple that live at the very edge of our boarders, we have to drive 1 hour to get to them, it was a referral from a missionary serving in the Salt Lake Central mission for us to go see his brother. It was a great lesson and they want us to come back. It kinda holds a special place in my heart to be able to teach this couple, he is a less active member and she is a non member.

So this last week I got to go on exchanges with my MTC companion. He is serving in a wonderful place called Leavenworth. If you haven’t heard of this place you need to Google it. I really hope that I get to stay around here for the holidays, so that I am able to see this place at Christmas. I met the best member missionaries up there, they talk to everyone about the gospel. It was a wonderful place that I will 100% be going back to.

I am so grateful to all of you that are supporting me on my mission.

I keep you in my prayers daily.

Elder S Cordon.

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Training!!

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well a wonderful week has passed by. I got my trainee last week and he is super awesome I love him he is so diligent and hardworking and fluent in the language and his teaching skills are awesome and we have fantastic unity. Well I think my job is done. Now comes the part were he starts training me. I really have learned a lot from my trainee already as far as teaching and preparing for lessons, not to mention the language. Its pretty awesome! One good thing is he hasn’t even had to go finding yet. We have been teaching so many lessons that sadly we haven’t had to be out in the heat sweating our brains out.

We also had our first ward activity in Butterfly ward and its been almost 6 months. It was a lot of fun and yielded some great results! A member brought along a family with him and they had a wonderful time and we were able to earn the trust of the husband its not to the stage of teaching yet but it will get there and then we also met a kid I have been hoping to see again he is so prepared!

Also got called as the district leader so I moved up a lot this last week from junior to senior, trainer, and district leader. Its a lot to take in all at once but Its been going pretty well so far and should keep getting better!

Love you all,

Elder Jared Cordon

How Great Shall Be Your Joy D&C 18:15-16

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Dear Family and Friends,

As with all transfers, there are missionaries entering into the mission field and some headed home leaving two years behind them and taking a lifetime of experience with them. It gives you a chance to ponder and reflect as you see contrasting differences between the two groups.

Considering where I was at a little over a year ago when I stepped off the plane into the mission field in comparison to now, it caused me to throw my arm over the shoulder of some of those elders that looked more afraid then the others and tell them that there is no reason to be worried or afraid because you will soon come to find that if you put your trust in God, then despite anything that happens all things will work out for the best. For much of my mission so far I feel as if I have been carried on the wings of  angels from one challenge to the next. I felt the love of God so profoundly in my life that any fear that was there was burned out like the refiners fire. We told those missionaries that if they were obedient and followed the inspired counsel of their leaders than they would also have no reason to fear, and that god would make them into great leaders and teachers. It helped a little, but to be honest, a testimony of something like that will only come from living it.

At the transfer meeting the departing missionaries shared their final testimonies. It is interesting to see what each one has made of themselves over the past two years. Having worked around most of the elders, I knew which was ones were more diligent and which ones were not. Which ones lost themselves in the work and which ones merely did their time. The difference in the spirit that was brought by their testimonies was profound. While the words and the sentiments they shared were similar I could tell that the power of one was far greater than the power of another. I made a commitment right than and there that I would never quite improving and growing. That I would be fully engaged in the Lord’s work not only for every moment of my entire mission, but for the rest of my life. While it is true that the nature of the work changes quite dramatically when I eventually return home, but the spirit should not change. I am excited to see what I can make of myself for this second year of my mission. In the mean time I will just take it one week at a time.

I do want to take a quick moment and share how the lord has blessed us this week. We have been blessed beyond imagination this past week! Every time the knuckle hits the wood a miracles presents itself. We were able to find so many prepared people this past week! It seemed as if every single day we had someone come out of the wood work for us to teach. The lord is taking good care of us. One continuous miracle would be Tara. Teaching her is like teaching Jim if you remember me mentioning him. She is just beyond ready. We taught her the word of wisdom this week and she told us that she already knew it was a commandment and that she knew we were going to teach it to her, so she started cutting down the coffee already! Need I say more?! She makes it so easy. She came to church again and the whole ward just wrapped their arms around her–Literally and socially. She also is very much committed to her date of July 13th.

In other great news, Lilly finally entered the waters of baptism this past Wednesday. While it was hard that I was unable to attend, it brings joy to my heart that someone i had worked with for so long has finally made that step. To add even more to my joy, I was able to witness Alfred get baptized on Sunday. It was one of the best baptismal services i have ever attended because the love in the room was tangible. With being able to see so many people I have come to love and also being able to have Tara come and watch it as well, I thought I was going to lose strength like Ammon in Alma 26 from an overabundance of joy! I have a testimony that true and lasting joy only comes through living the gospel and being engaged in this work! I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen

I love y’all!

Elder Joshua Cordon

P.S. 15 And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! 
16 And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me! (D&C 18)