Tag Archives: zone Conference

Awesome Less Active Finding

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Dear Family & Friends,

Well it has not been to long since we were last on. But some good stuff has happened between now and then. We were able to get our plans put together for zone training, it will be good we are focusing a lot on teaching skills borrowing heavily from what you taught at zone conference.

We have also been able to use our time to be able to complete some assignments from the ward. Its good we have a good relationship with them and they are constantly thinking of new ideas. One big the ward is working on is utilizing the RM’s because we have about 15 of them, so the idea is to put them in a committee and have them prepare missionary focused activities.

Still getting better everyday, one thing we have been trying to focus on more as a companionship is something from the China Dedicatory Prayer, which is: Making the proper appeal to the Chinese mindset. In the prayer he prays that missionaries will be able to understand the Chinese people more and the way they think. we have been trying to work on showing even more love and interest in these people so we can truly understand their concerns and be able to teach how they think. Its not an easy task but its one we are praying about and trying to apply in our teaching and finding.

Elder Williams really has been teaching me so much. Maybe he hasn’t had the opportunity to train someone who just got out of the MTC but he is training me. One of the biggest things he has awoken inside me is finding. Although people might say that TST is a hard Finding area I think its great! Elder Williams doesn’t teach as much with words as he does with actions though, which is why i think I am learning so much from him.

Our investigators are moving along well, We had two with dates come to church, one being Bro Mak. He is doing really well and very receptive, we moved his date back a week so we can make sure he can have time to apply the commandments well in his life, but he seems to be doing awesome. Emily is still pretty new but she came as well, church was not too good because she was so tired so hopefully she can have a good experience next time. The ward actually invited her to a singles activity without us even knowing so thats cool. She is getting to know the members well from the beginning. Frankie also came to church and he is making great progress he is doing well at getting to know the ward members so hopefully he can make some great friends.

A crazy story that just happened this last week is we were LA finding and we met this man who was really old, first his wife answered and then she let us in and woke him up he came out of the room sat down and was quiet while we talked to the wife for a few minutes then he started talking. He said (in chinese) Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and this the true church, then he went on to tell us how he had a vision of joseph smith having the first vision before he met the missionaries then when the missionaries shared the first vision with him he knew it was true. Then he also told us how he fights with people who anti the church, because everyone thinks we are a wicked church so he goes around helps people know that we aren’t. He also fell off a 28 story building and lived and, he also prophecied Gordon B Hinckley’s death. I love LA finding.

Love you all have a great week.

Elder Jared Cordon

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Keep on Running

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Dear Family and Friends,

This past week was a wild one for sure. We had zone conferences, which considering the fact that they were 9 hour meetings it made for a long but a very fun week! The meetings we jam packed with great training’s on maintaining a balanced work, the atonement, public speaking skills, and then the training that we gave on finding people to teach. It is great to see all the missionaries that I was able to see all the missionaries that I have served around. This week we had a couple of miracles, but one in particular I would like to mention.

We were on our way to a dinner appointment and when we walked up to the apartment that the members lived in, it looked like the lights were off so, I doubted myself and thought that I must be at the wrong
building. So, we started running so we wouldn’t be late to one of the other buildings. We ran through one cluster of buildings and I still didn’t feel like that was it, so we ran over to another cluster of
buildings and as we got there we saw a dog running in the side walk, so we stopped so it wouldn’t follow us. We made some small talk with the owner until she grabbed her dog and then we were about the run off
to get to our dinner, but then I felt that I should at least see if she would be interested in hearing our message.

So I stopped and said, “We share a wonderful message about our Savior Jesus Christ that has blessed our own lives, could we share that with you?” Surprisingly she replied with, “Ya sure come on over and share
it with me.” 20 minutes later we had taught her about he Book of Mormon and learned that she is about to graduate law school, and she is engaged and plans to be married after she graduates. Even though she is active in the Methodist church she was excited to learn more and said we could come back. She is very elect.

Seeing as how we were then very late to our appointment we checked the address on the church app and realized that it was the first place we had gone to. Thank goodness we kept running though.

I love y’all!

Elder Joshua Cordon

#PerfectedInHim

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Dear Family and Friends,

We got to have a General Authority tour the mission this week. Elder Arnold and his wife came throughout the mission. Friday was our Zone Conference that we were able to have such a wonderful experience with the spirit and learn truth. Starting at 7am and going till 2:30pm with a 30 min lunch break was our time for the conference. From start to finish it was a wonderful experience to learn and to grow. Saturday and Sunday was Stake Conference.

The topic was on getting involved in the work of salvation. Tying into the “Hastening of the Work” topic that was going this year. Are we all doing everything that we can to be fully engaged in the work of salvation? Is there more that we could be doing? Our there people that are within our reach of influence, that we have not yet talked to? Are we really prepared to do what is asked of us, an if not are we working towards being prepared?

I know where I stand on these questions, and I hit my knees that night to ask God to help me do better. To really become who He needs me to be. It is so easy to just get a little off course, and then next moment you look back to see that you are dramatically off course. #ElderUchtdorf

I am so very grateful to be able to have the ability to repent and change, Really change who I am and become better.

Love Elder S Cordon.

Love you all so much thank you for your prayers and support.

PS WE GOT SNOW! Only for like two days though.

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Great Time to Be Serving

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Dear Family and Friends,

Well it feels like yesterday but what happened for the last week and a half? that is a great question. We have been doing some solid work! We have been so blessed when it come to street finding because thats mainly all we have done for the last little bit. last week everybody was sick and out of town but its all good because they were feeling a lot better this week. We ran into Irene now for the 3rd time on the street and all three lessons she says she doesn’t have that much interest but we keep seeing her and she keeps listening… she’s getting baptized. We also ran into simon in central. That was super random since we were both far away from home on a very random street but it was good because we had not seen him for almost 2 weeks at that point but he came to an activity that the sisters planned. He likes speaking english which is good and all but i don’t know how to teach the gospel in english I talk to much I complicate things, thats probably why the lord called me cantonese speaking.

We also had a book of mormon find we gave out about 60 book of mormons in about an hour. That planted some great seeds and people were just walking up to us. Also planned a couple sweet ideas for the ward to really spark missionary. Well I guess they already got the spark just throwing some more wood on. But we are going to do a online missionary work training. Helping them use our email program, Facebook and other multimedia and mormon.org so it should be sweet.

The ward is really liking us and so is the bishop. Because we found the sweetest guy on the street and he came to church and next week he is going to bring his two kids and his wife! So things have been slow but now we got a family and simon coming to church the Lord is really blessin us right now!

I got a feeling I am gonna love this ward just like I loved butterfly. Speaking of butterfly the ward split two weeks ago so right after i left. A guy we found has a baptismal date and brother chan(my ward mission leader) is the new wards bishop. An eternal investigator that I prayed for so hard would be our december baptism is going to be baptised in december(answer to my prayers). He had a vision that told him he needed to be baptized. Also he has to quit smoking because he has a liver problem.

The work is good i love it. I also love the temple its an amazing experience everytime. Its such a wonderful blessing to be able to go as frequent as we do.

Oh also had a really cool zone conference last week. It was all about the mission culture and the kind of attitude that we are going to set for all new missionaries.

love you all have a great week!

Elder Jared Cordon

Zone Conference in Gainesville

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Dear Family and Friends,

On Tuesday, I did my first exchange with the Zone Leaders because Elder Newbold is the district leader. I ended up going over to the neighboring area none as Cannon Creek. It is directly west of our area. The missionary crib in that area is actually really nice. It is this small house that is on the backside of a lot with a nicer house that nobody lives in… a bit of a waste if you ask me. At the end of the day though I was very glad that I am in Deep Creek. In my opinion our area is far more ripe even though we have twice as many missionaries in it. Elder Clark, who I did the exchange with is a great missionary! I made sure to take some time at the end of the exchange to get some specific advice from him on how I can be a better missionary. His tips really have made a difference! One of my favorites was to look for ways to serve your companion. I find that as I make the effort to do that I am far less prideful.

Apparently, getting an unusual amount of sleep last Sunday wasn’t enough because we had to get up an hour and half early this past Thursday for a Zone Conference in Gainesville. It was totally worth it though. We got there at a quarter to eight and found out pretty quickly that we have the best car of all the missionaries in the two zones. Which is the classy 2013 Ford Fusion. We are so very blessed 🙂

The Conference was very powerful though and was a great spiritually renewing experience. I got to see Elder Williams too, who was one of the Elders in my MTC district with me. He is doing really well which is great! One of the changes we found out from the conference is that we are expected to no longer fully share our area with the Sister Missionaries here, but rather we need to geographically cut it in half so we have individual jurisdiction over our parts. This is intended to prevent the missionaries from stepping on each other’s toes. I made sure to immediately set up a meeting with our bishop so that we can do that. The meeting is on Tuesday. Another terrific part of the conference was just hearing the testimony of many wonderful missionaries and being able to see and visit with President and Sister Craig! Those two are so awesome, and President Craig just has incredible vision for the future of the zone.

One of the terrific lessons we had this week was with Nick Harwell. He was a referral from his neighbor who said that he was a pastor for 10 years and would probably be open to hearing a message about Christ. Personally I love talking to pastors. It forces me to know what I am talking about and they actually understand scriptural language, and have read the Bible. This guy was awesome though when we first met him. So I was really excited to go back. When we went by, he let us right inside and we sat down at his table and proceeded to have one of the most powerful restoration lessons we have ever given. I believe it was because I relied on the spirit in fear that if I said something wrong that it would kill the spirit in the room. He agreed with everything and is really excited to dig into the Book of Mormon. He had a few questions about baptism, so we left him some chapters to read for homework. We are going to meet with him tonight at the church to play some basketball and follow up on his reading.

To finish it off. I found out on Saturday from President Craig that I will be training a new missionary next transfer which begins on the 4th of September. I am really excited to train. I just hope that I can be a great example and help this new Elder hit the ground running so that he wont feel like a new missionary. Also we find out tonight who is going to be district leader next month and if the district remains the same areas than it is either me or Elder Jensen. He has been out for a year now so it will probably be him. It is just interesting that at 3 months I has a 50/50 chance to be a district leader.

I love the work here! I wish I could say that we are baptizing someone this Saturday, but since we can’t get our investigators to church it will be a few weeks until we get one. All in due time though! I know that God is in charge here. I also know that nothing in the word makes me feel better than sharing the Gospel, reading the Book of Mormon, and bearing testimony! That feeling alone is absolute confirmation to me that this message I bear is true! I don’t doubt that for a minute! 🙂

I love ya’ll!

Elder Joshua Cordon