Three Baptisms, One Zone Conference, Eight Billion Emotions

Blessings

Imagine combining every rollercoaster that has ever and will ever existed into one ride. Thats effectively been this week. Then add a hurricane. The words do not exist to properly and effectively describe this week.

Warning: I just kind of word vomited this week into this email. For a detail account (so, pretty much Mom) you can read down here. But if you just want the gist of what happened. Just scroll to the bottom.

So. From the beginning. The start of this week was relatively uneventful. We helped out Lídia and Glide a bit more with cutting grape vines, rose bushes, fixing clippers and such. They are really starting to warm up to us and trust us. We fixed their window latch from outside and cut more vines and roses. They are super sweet. Also near by is this street where a whole bunch of gypsies live that we have started doing service at. They are super friendly and their yards and neighborhood is a mess! So we are starting to clean up the area and they are super grateful! We are going to try to bring them all the gospel too. Should be a party.

Well the real exciting stuff happens on Wednesday. We were finishing up our personal study when we get a call from Marlyne. I'm not even sure if I've told anything about their situation or teaching them or anything which adds to the idea of how out of the blue this was. We had marked them a while back for this weekend but because of various issues we didn't feel that they were perhaps ready. Anyways, she calls us and is like "I was talking to the Relief Society President and I just wanted to know how things are going to work for our baptism this Saturday." So, I said something like, "...uh...you kind of need to teach you a bit more stuff (all of the commandments and 5th lesson)" to which she very directly replied that when people are ready, they are ready and that they may not know everything yet but that doesn't mean they have to have all of the scriptures memorized before baptism and what not. This went on for several minutes. At the end I was like, "Yup. We can do a baptism Saturday."

We met with them later at six. I had been praying like none other from the end of that call up until we met with them. We explained to them how the baptism was going to work. We tore out a page in our agendas that has all of the baptismal interview questions and gave them that and asked them to read through and see what they didn't understand. They said they understood everything but we left them with the pamphlets for the Law of Chastity, Word of Wisdom, and Tithes and Offerings. Later that night we get a text saying, "Whats the law of tithing?" When we got it me and my comp just looked at each other in a kind of 'well now what?' So we told them. They still were determined to be baptized. YES.

Thursday. Oh yes we are only on Thursday. We had Zone Conference which was flipping awesome. We had some great practices from President, the Assistents, and the Zone Leaders. We received the announcements for the temple ground breaking on December 5! We also found out that our stake is doing some Halloween Party this next Saturday that all missionaries are supposed to come to. We live as far as possible from this activity so unfortunately it may not be very effective for us to go but it will really help out that ward in Lapa.

Friday. We did a companionship inventory that lasted perhaps two hours or so. No elephant in any room for the next mile could be hidden from us. It was super needed and will help us work more effectively together in this work. That was the day we helped the gypsy home! 

Then Saturday we had the baptismal interviews for the three. Marlyne, Marilene, and Leila! The mother's interview went for two hours. When she finally came out, Elder Bethers who did the interview happily proclaimed she was good and asked who was next. The two daughters were much quicker. When we finally left a lot of stress we had been feeling was now relieved.

Sunday came around. E. Lowry and I both spoke in Sacrament with the theme of Member Missionary Work! It was awesome. We had the baptism at the chapel in Alverca later that day combined with the Sisters' baptism. We found out however that there wasn't enough baptismal suits and all sorts of problems started popping up. Somehow, not sure how, all of them were addressed and we finally started one hour later.

Then there was the baptism in and of itself. AH. It was so great. That was definitely the highlight of the week. I was so nervous about saying her name right I forgot to close my eyes for the prayer. But hey! It all worked out!

Well, I just realized that this letter is massive and it in no way fully describes nor conveys even slightly the breadth of craziness that went on. Its been nuts. But. If you just kind of skipped through all of that to get to the end I can't blame you. For you who didn't want to read all of that. This is effectively what happened: Service, Zone Conference, Temple Construction Announcment, Companionship Inventory, Super Suprise Baptisms.

You guys are great. This letter is long. And I now I don't really know what to say. So...k thanx bai.

Love,

Elder Cordon

Insert Clever Title Alluding to Elder Cordon's Past Week Here

Dallin's Mom inserting information.  This entry is from last week.  I have been out of town so we are playing catch up...

Salutations,

I luckily thought of that one last minute ;)

SO, good to see you! Its been about, what, a week since we last talked? Things in Vila Franca de Xira are going swell. We have had some pretty neat stories this past week. First things first is the window. Our house is slightly weird so we have a glass window in our study that looks into a small apendage of our kitchen where our washer is. Its funny because there is a window in there that looks outside so in the study we can look out one window to look out the other window to look outside. Hard to explain, maybe I'll send a picture. But anyways, the window in our study. We found a dry erase marker and are now using the window as a big list of all of the people we have contacted with potential, our formal list of our investigators and their individual needs, and other relevant information such as that mentioned. Its really nice for planning because we will think "who on earth can we call or plan for?" then we just look at that window and a lot of times we find someone to call!

The other day we had Ivan up on the window (contacted him once) and we were having no success in getting in contact again so we decided that we would give him a call and if nothing came out of it we would take his name down. We called him and, to our suprise, we marked a time to meet with him! Who knew? We were both like, well, I guess he's staying up there. 

We also were walking at night and passed a couple who seemed to be having a deep conversation of sorts and as we passed I thought "maybe we should contact them" but I just kept going. Well, whatever happened we were walking back that way and he calls out to us and asks "Are you guys Jehovah's Witnesses?" And we flip around and we're all "Nope! We are missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Have you heard of us?" We left him with a Book of Mormon and are excited to see them again.

We met this week with those two old ladies, Lídia let us in and we took more bags of garden waste out to the trash, sweeped up, helped pick grapes, and took the head of a garden hoe that she was very attatched to, and, using a branch she had picked out for just this purpose, put the head on. She now uses that for her cane. She was pretty excited and praised Elder Lowry endlessly for his genius as an engineer and his capability in using a screw driver! Really fun.

All sorts of stories and miracles. We got hold of a family we have been trying to meet with for a really long time and will be teaching them tonight. YES!!

Well, love you all. You are great! Happy Flippin birthday Rachel (that kills people)!

Stay awesome!

Elder Cordon

Conference, Bulls, and such

For some reason I always want to start off with something like "Hi" or "Hey everyone" or "Hello once again" but each time I always want to say something different in fear of getting repetitive so I decided to explain this dilemma to buy me some more time until next week to figure out what my opening will be.

View from My home

ANYWAYS, things are still going! I've been awful at writing in my journal which is my usual source of inspiration for writing my weekly letters as it helps me to remember what I actually did this week. However, in recent memory is (trumpet fanfare) CONFERENCE!! Ahh. It was so awesome. On Saturday we watched the Morning Session then on Sunday we watched Priesthood Session, Saturday Afternoon Session, and Sunday Morning Session. It was funny because it all happened in that order. As we were watching Priesthood session they mentioned the three new apostles and all of us Elders were like, "wait, what?!" It was simply awesome. Also, my comp just taught me how to write in italics after I accidentally pressed it. Super neat. Off topic, my bad. The Church is true. Nothing could affirm that more to me at the moment than having seen the calling of three new apostles and hearing the words and testimonies of our leaders including our wonderful prophet. One of the topics of conference I loved was that of eternal progression. I loved the talks that spoke on getting up and pushing forward in faith. One talk said something along the lines that we should not focus on the size or speed of our steps, but rather the direction we are facing.

That really hit me personally I felt. The mission will definitely show you personal weakness and I found mine: I am not patient with myself. I found that if I do not make progress quickly and immediately I become frustrated and dismayed, mostly with myself. However, as we turn to the Lord all things can be made strong. The message that I loved was that if you struggle with anything; addiction, depression, work overload, heart break, or individual weaknesses; ANYTHING, by turning to the Lord He can and will build us stronger. The scripture Ether 12:27 comes to mind: "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

I remember Dad once telling me of Captain Moroni (pretty sure). The Lamanites were preparing to attack. Moroni knew his weak cities and knew likewise that it was these places that the Lamanites would focus on to attack and take over. So he went about strengthening and fortifying these, the weakest cities, until they were nearly impossible to overcome. When the Lamanites came in an attempt to take Nephite land, they were suprised to find that the weakest cities had become some of the strongest. Taken back by the preparations of the city they vowed to attack the next...only to find that the next city was even greater than the last. They had truly made weak things strong and the Lamanites had no chance.

Dad compared this to our lives. We have our cities. The city of patience, of honesty, of virtue, of humility, and many others. Some are stronger than others. We all have cities that are weak. When we humble ourselves the Lord will show us our weaknesses. This way we may know where we can fortify, resupply, and defend and with the Lord these weak cities can become truly strong. I also would add that I don't think any city is ever done fortifying or becoming stronger. Even in moments of peace, Moroni continued to fortify. Even though there may have been a lack of immediate conflict he did not relax and say 'all is well in Zion'. He continued to strengthen. Hence the eternal perfection as we continue constantly to strengthen ourselves and our cities to the point where we become like Moroni, and the powers of hell are shaken forever (Alma 48:17).

In my excitement for talking about conference I think I partially wrote my own conference talk. The past two weeks or so we have only had about half an hour to write email so now that we've finally found a place I suddenly seem capable of writing a whole lot more.

Recently, President Tavarez has been focusing on power as well. Gaining power in the work. Power behind our words and actions. He talked of two missionaries who could say the exact same thing to the exact same person with the exact same tone of voice and yet that person would react differently to the invitation of the two missionaries. What was the difference between the two? That difference comes from power. Where does that power come from? Okay, obviously from the Lord but how do we obtain that power? Dignity, faith, obedience, morning studies, prayer, diligence, hope and the time of our service are some of the things he mentioned.

Well, maybe some fun stories now. Today, my comp and I went and had the chance to see the bull runs. They had maybe a dozen people on horses, six in front, six in back, and the bulls in between. They all ran down the fenced street that had been filled with sand. Then, after a bit, they assigned one bull to each fenced off section and then let them go. People would run around with umbrellas, coats, and capes trying to get the bull to charge them. It was awesome.

Well thats it for me I believe. Prayer works. Try it.

Love you all,

Elder Cordon

Elder Jones

People and Contacts

Hello everyone! Nice to see you all today! 

That BYU game sounded incredible! I'm was pretty stoked reading about that! 

Alright. Well, lets get this letter going. Fasting brings the powers of heaven. We had a fast with our investigator this last week to help her with quitting alcohol. We have been taking a ward member Sofia with us to lessons with the couple and many times Sofia and Namí talk with one another. Marriage is still a big issue.  Do or don’t get married that is still the question. Things just got really complicated. Plus, the man didn't come to church because he decided to visit another church for fun. We'll figure it out! It comes with the mission I guess! I pray and hope everything works out well with them!

We have started doing more contacts and talking with more people. YES!! 

We were having fun contacting some people and we decided to contact a man who (so we thought) was looking grumpy in his semi truck. So we went up to the truck, knocked on the window, and he rolled it down and we came to find out that he was a man named Paulo from Brazil who has lived here in Portugal for the past 24 years or so! He is Evangelical and was extremely happy to talk to us! 

He wants our help talking to his wife about God and religion without her knowing and she goes to a Pastelaria every day in the morning. So now it is our little mission. We are starting to go to this little cafe Novo Horizonte more frequently to scout out the area and figure out which is the Brazilian and get to know her! We think we know who it is now but we just need to figure out how to be friends with her. She wasn't giving us the time of day in our small attempts at contacts. This extraction will be more difficult. I feel like a ninja of eternal salvation. We hope we can make some things happen with this family!

Oh ya, that Bruno guy who was super excited to talk to us on the phone? Ya we talked to him! He is quite interesting. Apparently has a chip in his mind of some sort. We had a sort of half lesson with him because he had to go to do something so we are working on getting a follow up lesson to help him out.

We met with a man named Ruí who is a big painter. Very into painting. He studied at Picasso's School in France for some five years. We talked with him about his painting for a while and shared a gospel message. He has had some experience with the church long ago. He didn't come to church, but we are hoping we can meet more with him to help him out! He seems really cool and ready!

We talked to a man yesterday who had tons of deep questions that were really good! He wanted to know where we could find truth and why there are so many religions and such and where are the miracles on Earth. People speak of miracles but they aren't there. We shared with him the Book of Mormon and explained the miracle that it contains. Through prayer and reading we can gain the truth of all things and that the gospel can answer his questions. He wanted a miracle and we told him he would need to put effort in to receive one. Then he wasn't interested! He just wanted his health to magically be fixed and his suffering to be suddenly taken away from him. Anything short of that was no miracle. We shared that these things come after the trial of our faith and we were there to help him gain a knowledge or response to his doubts but at this point he was tired with us and excused us from his bench. He seemed like a great man and it was hard to leave him but he was tired with us. Some seem to be kept from the truth because they know not where to find it whereas others choose to keep themselves from the truth because the refuse to believe it once they find it. We all have our agency though and so we went on our way.

The mission is fun. Its still hard though and it requires your everything. The Lord will test you every which way to see if we will give of our everything and will try us in every aspect. The days and weeks are simultaneously exauhstingly long and freakishly short. Time is a very strange thing on the mission. We talk to crazy people all the time! They are awesome! We meet all sorts! One step at a time! I like the words of the hymn that say, "Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven!"

Follow the prophet! Jesus Christ is our Savior! Heavenly Father loves you and wants to hear from you! Pray to him!

Love you all, keep up the everything that you may be doing and stop doing the things you shouldn't be!

Elder Cordon

P.S. Today for P Day we rode bumper cars and I picked up the wax seal I ordered. Its pretty neat.

Elder Jones 

The Great Area Book Search

Oh hey, didn't see you there.

So this week has been area book week it seems. A lot of our work this week has been focused on that book! On Tuesday we spent a good couple hours going through names and records in there, calling people, writing down people with potential, filling out incomplete records, and devouring Maria Bolachas. We got out our map of the area and got some sticky notes and marked where all of these people were.

Then comes the finding. We have been everywhere in our area it seems on this mad hunt to find the people in our area books. Some have phone numbers. Of those we call some answer, some have their phones off, and some numbers don't actually exist. Of those that answer, we try to mark something with them and most all of them are 'de férias'. On vacation. So many people are on vacation! Hopefully we can get more people at home now that August is ending! Some people however are just barely leaving now for September! Férias are the worst! But thats okay.

Anyways, those that we can't get contact of we have been trying to go to their houses. That is another beast entirely! Some houses we can't find, don't exist, the people that supposedly live there have  never lived there for the past fifty years, the person has died; all of these things have happened! We called this one guy named Bruno who, when we said who we were, got super excited and told us he really needed to talk to us. He was also gone on férias but we are going to pass by on Wednesday of this week because he gets back on Tuesday.

We are still working with Eduardo and Namí trying to help her overcome alcohol and drugs. She is having a bit of a hard time but is really anxious to stop. We taught them about prayer and fasting and will be doing a joint fast with them soon. We passed by Ana, the lady who we found knocking doors, and she wanted us to pass by next Tuesday but she has apparently been reading the Book of Mormon and had some questions about it. I just really hope we can get a solid lesson with her to teach her. Lets hope and pray she can be willing to accept us and listen to our message! 

Fun things that have happened? 
Well, we have had some people contact us! Kind of...they come out of nowhere speaking English at us and asking about the church. Before we can say much and do much more than give them a pass along card with the address to the church they are gone again. We need to figure out how to get these random people to give us more to go on than a name and a promise to go to church!

This week we have a lot more work ahead of us. The mission president has set out a mission standard that we are going to start hitting every day. This will be the week of lots of new people to teach! It will be exciting!

We had transfers today. Nothing is changing for us except for one of the Elders in our house is switching out with another. We are losing Elder Ormond to Elder Yansey.

Thats about it for now, expect better story telling next week!

Love you all,

Elder Cordon

Zone Conference Part 2: The Mysterious Baptism and Division

I hope the title was as attention getting as I wanted it to be. 

This Tuesday I went on a division with the District Leader to his area Lapa! Man that area is super pretty! Its the really old part of Portugal! We didn't have a terribly successful day, lots of walking and lots of appointments that fell through. But it was nice to be able to walk around so much if nothing else but to see a bit of the area and the beauty of Portugal! I also got to try my hand at teaching in their English class! English is hard! We have weird speaking rules! The best part about this division however was what went on at home. I learned a lot regarding planning and studying with Elder Williams, he is a really great leader.

So, then there is Thursday! Zone Conference Part 2! Because of my transfer to Teijo in the other zone I got to hear this zone conference as well! A lot of the same topics but that doesn't mean it wasn't just as enlightening and just as helpful as the first time! I probably learned even more! Unfortunately I forgot to bring both my journal and my notes to the computer today so I can't share a ton of specifics. But once again, don't play with your salvation by becoming content with what you already have or are.

So, the mysterious baptism. The wife and son of this previously inactive man were scheduled to be baptized since I got here. Since they were on vacation the entire time until the day of their baptism I had never met them. I literally met them at their baptism when they showed up! I'm not even sure if we taught them. They live up in the North I think during the week but live down here during the weekends and hence go to church here in Teijo. This is sincerely just a blessing from the Lord at this point!  The family seems pretty cool. Family now completed!

Church was really nice, I love getting to know the members! The ward is really awesome. 

Fun story, I was asked to introduce myself in sacrament meeting and leave a short message. I talked a bit on our purpose as missionaries but when I stood up to talk I told everyone that I was excited to be here in Brazil! Not Portugal!   Everyone kind of gave me that same look a dog gives when confused, you know that slight tilt of the head and the eyebrow thing?   Then I realized, and was like ''Ah! I meant Portugal!'' Ya fun times!

Not much time to write nor do I have my journal to fill in as many details and fun things and spiritual experiences that have gone on. Next week will have more information and more stories! Stay tuned. Next time on this blog, Elder Cordon finds super elect family ready for baptism by talking to lots of people, getting lots of rejections, and sharing the gospel!

Love you all! Thanks for you continual support!

-Elder Cordon

P.S. Elder Jones was upset he wasn't mentioned. He's fine.

New Area, New Missionaries, New People!

Hey everyone!

This week has been, man, I´m trying to think of a good analogy to describe this week. 

Its been crazy, hows that? 

With a brand new area, new companions and new work styles, things have been quite interesting. It feels like undergoing waterboarding simultaneously while riding Space Mountain.

But anyways, to the good stuff! What is happening?

My new companion is a way cool guy. Really friendly and good to talk to! He wants to train to become an Army Ranger when he gets home which is after next transfer. We sometimes like to play basketball in the morning even though both of us are awful. 

We have a couple of people on our radar right now. We have been visiting a part member family. They are from Cabo Verde I think? The household has so many kids I'm not sure who is actually her children and which kids are cousins. We have been helping this nine year old towards baptism in the family and working on reactivating some of the older teenagers. There are two young adults, one who is very interested and one less so, however this one seems to have a ton of history according to the area book with the missionaries and the lessons. We are trying to get them to come to church and want to set up a time to talk with them individually without the entire family. We showed up at their house early this Sunday to help them come to church. The mother came with three CRAZY kids. Almost terrifyingly crazy. As well as the daughter (neice?) who is in a wheelchair and has some mental issues. The older kids didn't come because they didn't want to go to church with the crazy young kids. One, the more enthusiastic one, really wants to but doesn't seem willing to have to deal with all the kids. We'll work on something to get them to come. Working with that wheel chair and the cobblestones and the bus was really hard. Apparently she comes every week doing this. My respect for her rocketed. She is truly incredible to be able to do that. Her patience is great.

We have a member who has provided food for us and has come to teach with us once. When we arrived some Jehovah's Witnesses were already there! It ended up that in one room was my companion, the husband, and I and in the other room was the member, the wife, and the two Jehovah's Witnesses! A house divided indeed! We had a good talk about the Word of Wisdom with this man, Eduardo. The couple (we are working on getting them married) are awesome and pretty set on the church and good friends with this member we were working with. At the end of our lesson with Eduardo we went into the other room to save our member who was doing all she could do to be kind and patient with the Jehovah's Witnesses but were throwing all sorts of scriptures at her. We carefully bore testimony of Christ and our Heavenly Father and left when we could. We will return to teach the Namy, the wife. She only had them over because they had asked if they could come by when they met in the street and they were to kind to say no. They are great people! Very humble. We had to explain why the sun changes color throughout the day and moves from one side to the other and disappears to him. Very interesting discussion.

Funny story, we are standing on the bus and standing with us is a bit grungy looking man and sitting down next to him and the door is this old lady. We are all just standing when the bus arrives at the bus stop; not ours. He looks outside, looks at the old lady (who is looking out the window), he looks back outside, casually lifts up his leg and kicks the lady in the face and walks out. We were taken back! What just happened!? The lady felt her face and looked around agahst. She wasn't hurt or anything, just got a fat lip. We were all like, "Do you know him?" And she's like, "No!" Then all the old Portuguese people on the bus start gossiping about what happened talking all sorts of things about crazy people. The old lady starts going off about "If my leg wasn't as it is I would go running after him and blah blah blah, let me tell you about this one  time, I was somewhere and this guy came..." and she goes off telling a story and all the people are all throwing in whatever word of wisdom comes to them. It was really funny to hear all the Portuguese people going off on something. The kick itself was less funny. The whole thing was super random. The guy hardly thought about it it seemed.

We were talking to an older member outside of her house as she was leaving. Elder Dayton simply introduced me and as we were leaving I had the feeling that I need to ask her for references. I shook it off and kept walking. Soon I couldn't ignore that feeling. I turned back and called for the member and asked her if she had any references or anyone that would be willing to hear about the gospel. Low and behold she rattled off a list of everyone in her street and who would be willing to listen to the gospel! We are going to try to set up a time when they can meet with her in her house and we can talk to them as well. Friends I've decided is the way to get past the hard shell a lot of Portuguese have! Follow the promptings of the spirit!

Also, for preparation day we went to this sweet castle! The Castle of Saint George I think its called. Then, after that, we went to a sweet old Catholic church. Usually you have to pay to get into the cloister but I think the guy saw our name tags and just let us in. In the back they have this massive archeological dig! It was super neat! Elder Jones was really thrilled. That was his element. I'll send a photo with him there!

Anyways I have been doing a whole lot more studying then ever! Lots of insight and lots of learning experiences! The mission is good at putting you out of your comfort zone I'll tell you. It will push you and pull you in every direction! All of your guys' support means so much! You guys are great!

Love,

Elder Cordon

Zone Conference Aug 2015

Elder Jones at a historical site