Hey everyone!

Hey everyone! 

All sorts of fun stuff this week, first District Meeting w/ training, the worldwide missionary transmission, the search for less actives, climbing hills, forging rivers, discovering territories, conquering armies, and all those things that are included in saving the world. Its a party. 

I want to start off with the story of this family we found through the less actives list. Oh man. We were like "hey who is this family" and the member who is helping us clean out our members list (it seriously needs it, we have like 600+ members on that list) tells us that the family lives in an area thats pretty dangerous and we need to know the locals to go in there. ...Awesome. So we decided to head over there. Come to find out, we had actually crossed that area one night with this old guy who was showing us how to get to some other place. Anywho, we get there and find the mother and we set up to talk a bit more the next day (Sunday). Sunday comes and Church was awesome. We head up to their house and walk in to find a ton of people in there! We sit down to talk with everyone and at the end there was a total of maybe seventeen people all in this room listening to us. It was super cool. Many are less actives, some were little kids, some aren't members. Most are children of this widowed lady. She, and several of the others want to come back to church. Oh man. It was fantastic.

Funny story, across from the hill where this family lives is another hill where some modern art/city scaper decided to make massive letters A B C and D to put randomly on this hill sticking out like darts haphazardly thrown into a dartboard. This other lady walks past us and I stop her and ask her why the letters were on the mountain. Her response. "So that when you are talking to someone trying to explain where you are you can say, 'I'm at the place with the big A B C and D on the hill,' and they'll know exactly where you are!" Oh, of course, silly me. 

There was also a baptism this week for the daughter of a member. I don't even know what happened. A random mix of brazilians, emotion, spirit, ordinances, PSY, Minnie Mouse, and embarrassing baby stories from the pulpit. Don't forget the investigators! It was interesting :) we had a good laugh.

Well this week, I had an interesting testimony about the importance of showing patience and love with everyone. People in all times and in all places be you missionary or not, will intereact with you and many times these interactions are less than pleasant. How we handle those interactions make all the difference. I love the saying that people will hardly ever remember what you said to them but they will remember how you made them feel, and that feeling is created by the words we speak. As missionaries the when we express love and patience for those who attempt to frustrate or distract us, they can recognize our calling as representatives of Jesus Christ. That was really cool. Its hard to forget that you are a missionary but its something different for someone to tell you, you must be a true servant of God.

Jesus Christ lives. He is the Savior and Redeemer of mankind. He knows us all individually and knows how to help us. If we will turn to Him, he will lift us.

Love you all,

Elder Cordon

Contacting the Elect

Hello Everybody!!

This week was pretty impressive. Numerically not so much but in finding, oh ya. We found so many people this week it was awesome. We had lots of things that fell through but becasue of that we found lots through contacts.

Well, to start off there was Sunday. We had our Ward Council and then the day before we had the Bishopric Meeting. The ward leadership is really excited to get involved in the missionary work and are SO helpful. Our ward is truely amazing. They are so awesome. We have a member who was the old ward mission leader who showed us a closet filled with binders all seperated and filled to the brim with information about the ward, members, past investigators, baptisms, and all sorts of stuff. This will be fun. We also had the confirmation of Joanita and Leo this week! So great to be able to participate in that and see the progress they are making!

Well, awesome story of tracting for the week goes to our meeting with a less active. He is a semi active/less active member from Colombia. We arranged to meet up with him one night. He took us to his home and we found a couple that also lived there, husband from Cabo Verde and wife from Brazil. We invited them in to talk with us and taught the first lesson. Holy goodness. They are awesome! They understood everything perfectly. The lesson however was extremely interesting. We began to teach when suddenly our friend half interrupts us to share a scripture. I was like, "ok, cool, scriptures, those are always nice" however, it became a very slippery slope. Well, lets put it this way, we taught for probably a sum total of 15 minutes. The rest of the hour was our friend telling this couple that the need to "enjoy the opportunity to listen to the missionaries, they don't have much time." Or in other words, "aproveita. Aproveita! Aproveita! APROVEITA!" yA. It was a little ridiculous but they understood! They are scheduled to be baptized in two weeks!

Anyways! No time! I love you all!

Elder Cordon

Special Letter to Dallin From his DAD

Special Letter from Dallin's Dad...Derek Cordon

Dear Dallin,

It is Sunday afternoon and I am home alone.  Tanner came home for the weekend but is attending the singles ward this afternoon and mom is attending Madi Violette's mission farewell.  She said you would know her.  I attended our ward this morning by myself.  Mom was attending other wards with her calling.  I taught High Priest Quorum today.  The topic was Chapter 2 of Teachings of the Living Prophets: Howard W. Hunter.  I loved the topic of Peace.  In this world of commotion and strife the question is often asked, "Where can I find shelter or peace?"  Pres. Hunter does a great job of answering this through the scriptures.  I really liked preparing for this lesson.  We truly live in a mixed up world that only associates peace with the hope of an end to armed clashes and border issues.  We as children of our Father in Heaven wish for so much more.  We need to know where we can find refuge from the world's bombardment of Satan's filth including pornography, same sex marriage, and infidelity.  We need to know where we can rest our weary souls and forget the rollercoaster stock markets, flipped government policies, and financial schemes.  It is only in and through the atonement of Christ we can find that peace.  As Christ met with his apostles at the last supper he promised them "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."  Wow, what a gift! Imagine, immediately after that sacred meeting Christ headed to the Garden to take upon himself the pains of a sick world.  What peace could he give to his beloved apostles who after his departure would take the gospel message to the gentiles, suffering persecution and painful deaths? It certainly was not a peace as the world knows it.  He even told them, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."  He gave them the peace that only comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and obedience to his gospel.  I love you for your obedience and steadfastness.  Don't succumb to the world.  Though the world's storms rage around you remember that you can peace in your soul through your Savior.  As President Hunter stated, "Jesus was not spared grief and pain and anguish and buffeting.  No tongue can speak the unutterable burden he carried, nor have we the wisdom to understand the prophet Isaiah's description of him as "a man of sorrows." His ship was tossed most of his life, and, at least to mortal eyes, it crashed fatally on the rocky coast of Calvary.  We are asked not to look on life with mortal eyes; with spiritual vision we know something quite different was happening upon the cross." 

He continued, "Peace was on the lips and in the heart of the Savior no matter how fiercely the tempest was raging.  May it so be with us-in our hearts, in our own homes, in our nations of the world, and even in the buffetings face from time to time by the Church."

You my son have this fleeting opportunity to share this great message of peace with the wonderful people of Portugal.  Christ is the Prince of Peace.  He is the only source of true peace to the souls of man.  Work tirelessly to spread this message.  Don't let the voices in the "great and spacious building" sway you in the least!  Unfortunately sometimes the voices come from fellow missionaries or members.  Press forward with Faith in Him who is the author of this peace.

I love you,

Dad

"Oh look, a title!"

Hi everyone!

This week, I don't have a ton of time, sorry, I spent most of it organizing my email. IT was really needed and now its all nice and clean and awesome. Lets see if it can stay that way!

This week was really nice, lots of learning, lots of changes. We have in our house now four elders, me and my comp Elder Ramos from Brazil and awesome! HE is super spiritual, and then we have the other companionship Elder Simpson and Elder Taylor. Elder Simpson has been in the office since I got here in the mission. He is amazing. He knows how to work and its been awesome to learn from his example.

Well, as I said not much time so, experience! We went to the house of a lady me and Elder Castro taught once, in the doorway, the restauration. We both went there and ended up teaching in the doorway again, the restauration, gospel of jesus christ with 2 Nephi 31 and Elder Ramos after reading verse repent ye repent ye, gave her the baptismal invitation. She accepted. OH YA!! It was great! So that was fun.

This P Day will be organization and cleaning. Ainda bem. We really need it. 

Not much else to report with so little time so, I promise more awesomness next week with photos!

Love you all, a lot!

Elder Cordon

Baptism and Tranfers and Airports and Fun

Hello everybody!

Well, this week has been filled with interesting adventures! Lets start off with some of them!

We were knocking doors when an old lady opened up. We introduced ourselves and she told us to wait a moment and shuffled off. We stood there for a bit until she came back, held out her hands and showed us the small pile of coins telling us, "its not much but here you are." We were like, "...wait, what are you...AH, NO! No we aren't here for your money!" We explained why we were there and she was like, "oh, I'm not interested in any of that" and shut the door on us. We were standing there fairly confused.

That was actually a couple of weeks ago but I told the story to Presidente Tavarez and he made me promise to send it home. Next on our list was last P-Day! We went to Belem and ate pasteis de nata and saw all sorts of monuments. It was sic! Soon after, we received the announcement that we were going to cut back P-Day to end at 4:30 from there on! I'm actually super stoked for that, I know that may sound weird but I was like, "less free time? AWESOME!"

Well, then we had the baptism!! We taught Joanita and Leo every day but once at the beginning of the week. They are awesome. When we taught all the commandments they straight up accepted. It was fantastic. Interview on Saturday then baptism on Sunday! So Sunday was nuts. Ediene was being confirmed and Joanita and Leo being baptised then a lady from Spain brought three new investigators. Well sacrament started but Joanita and Leo weren't there! We grabbed a member (blessings for that man) and went to pick them up! We found them by the park, picked them up and a recent convert we found walking to church and sped back in time for the sacrament! Answers to so many prayers. We did unfortunately miss the confirmation of Ediene but...more member integration right? The baptism was after. Elder Castro baptised! I got that proud mama bear feeling when he said all the words right. They grow up so fast *sniff*. 

Then there are transfers! Oh man. So I'll just get straight too it. I'm staying. Ya, thats not to different. But I'm now District Leader, I'm training, we have the Zone Leader in our house and he's training and its going to be awesome. I don't know my comp but the new Zone Leader Elder Simpson is awesome. He waited with me at the airport when I first got here to Portugal!

Elder Castro had plans to go to the airport at three in the morning so we slept over at the office in Benfica. We had three alarms set. None of them went off. We woke up at five. Ya. We missed his flight. It was slightly lame. So now we are still here at the office and have no idea what we are doing. Its a total party! I think he'll stay here for another day, we'll see. The airport early in the morning was a flippen awesome.

Anyways! Thats about it. You guys are awesome! Thank you guys for the letters, I promise I'll try to write back handwritten things in response to your handwritten things.

Love you all,

Elder Cordon