First Transfer said and Done!

¡Hola familia y amigos!

Well my first transfers are said and done, and I am staying in my area and I received a new companion, Hermana Greer. I had met her before, because she was training this last transfer so she was at all the same meetings as me for new missionaries and we had talked a couple of times, which was cool! So I get to finish out my training with her! She is also from the united states so we will stand out that much more here, because it´s a small area and we are basically the only Americans here :)

We had some really good investigator lessons yesterday with commandments. It is definitely important when teaching someone about a commandment to give a very firm and direct commitment and make sure to get a very firm and direct ¨Yes I will follow that commandment¨ in response from the person. Because if they agree with hesitancy Satan will have more power, because he knows our doubts and works on that. If we decide to follow a commandment with a firm commitment The Lord will bless us if we know that through His power we can accomplish all things. And if the Lord sees that we have a desire and that we are committed to do all we can to follow a commandment He will bless us and help us keep our commitment. So decide now, with a strong conviction, to follow all the commandments of God, and it will make it that much easier to follow when temptations arises. 

I am excited for the opportunity to stay here in the same area for another transfer and help our current investigators to progress and move forward. And to continue to help the work move forward here. I am needed here for another transfer and I am going to work hard and to accomplish the things that I am needed here for. Whatever it may be!

Just keep looking to the Lord and continually working on increasing your faith in Him and through that you can accomplish anything that is put in your path! 

Love you all!

Hermana Cordon

First Baptism!

Well as the subject suggests, my first investigator baptism was yesterday! Him and his younger brother were both baptised, he is 11 and his brother is 8, which now makes their whole family members and their parents are recent converts so the next goal is to get them to go to the temple and make the next step. We have them starting looking to that, but we got to get the dad more active. It was such a great spirit at the baptism and it was a cool experience for me to have someone that I helped bring to the gospel be baptised. That truly is the reason why I am here and it helps fuel the desire to be on a mission when you can see your efforts paying off and helping move the Lord´s work forward.

My spanish is truly improving and the Lord is definitely blessing me with the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues. My first week in the field it would take me about 30 minutes to get through 5 verses in the spanish scriptures trying to understand them fully. But today, I read 3 full chapters in less than 30 minutes and understood the story line and only had to look up about a dozen words rather than every other word. It truly is a blessing from the Lord and I am truly grateful for my rapid progress. But, my spanish is still far from fluent and I still get lost in casual conversation, but I am taking whatever progress I can and I know that the rest will come with time through my efforts and the Lord´s blessings. 

The lesson I learned this week is that God answers prayers in His own way and in His own timing. I definitely am grateful for this lesson and the renewed testimony of prayers, because now I can testify with more power and trust in God when talking about prayer with an investigator. I also had a very strong renewed conviction of the Book of Mormon with an investigator lesson. I had her read Moroni 10:3- 5 and when she finished I started to testify and the Spirit just filled me and I could tell the spirit was in the room and that she could feel it. And that renewed my testimony of the veracity of the Book of Mormon and the way the spirit works. Open your mouth and testify and the spirit will add power to your words.

I hope everyone had a great week. Thank you for all the love and prayers you send my way. Trust God and everything will be brighter. 

Love,

Hermana Cordon

"Fear Not, I am with Thee"

¡Hola familia y amigos!

Yesterday a great thing happened 2 less-actives, that we have been meeting with since my first week, showed up to church! It was there first time since I´ve been here and it was such a great feeling seeing them come into church and to see how much they enjoyed the meetings and the change I saw in them! It was truly a blessing from the Lord helping them to have a desire to attend church and to receive the blessings from learning more about the gospel and feeling the spirit! Also one of our investigators finally came to church and was excited to be there! He is 11 and his parents are recent converts, and he hasn´t really been super interested and we have been trying to increase his desire and we finally were able to reach him and to help him understand why the gospel is important for him! It was honestly so great to see all of them come to church. The Lord truly gave us that blessing on helping us help these people and help them understand the importance of attending church! 

The Lord is truly blessing us with great opportunities to meet people and to teach them, we contacted 4 new people this week that are interested and want to learn more! Hopefully they stay interested and that we have the opportunity to see them progress and accept this gospel into their lives. I truly want everyone to accept this gospel, because through this gospel we recieve more strength and through this gospel we can truly be happy. 

Just remember that when life gets hard to fear not, because the Lord is with you when you are obedient to him. So do what you can in times of trials to bring your life in alliance with Christ and to continually recognize his hand in your life through your trial, because He does not and will not leave you alone when you are focused on Him. 

Love you all!

Hermana Cordon

2 Months

¡Hola!

 Well like the subject says, yesterday marked 2 months since I left for the mission field. And boy has it been a crazy 2 months full of experiences that have made me learn about myself, God, and this gospel. But along with realizing 2 months are already done, is realizing the time I have left. I started with only 18 months and that means that in all reality I don´t have that much time here. And so I need to give everything I got for these next 16 months completely to the work and the Lord. I have a wonderful blessing to be here in Ecuador to preach the gospel and to give my all to this gospel and to the people here. And I need to work harder and be more focused to do all I can with these next 16 months.

 We didn´t get to meet with many of our investigators this week, because they have all been really busy with work and being out of town. But one was able to attend church this sunday, Santiago, and he seemed to really enjoy it and had some really good questions in the gospel principles class. He has been reading the Book of Mormon and is really interested, we get to teach him again for the 3rd time tonight so it will be cool to see what he thought of church and finally get to teach him the Plan of Salvation.

 But since we didn´t meet with many investigators we did a lot of walking around and knocking doors and trying to share our message, but just like any other missionary could tell you, this method isn´t very effective. We really need to get the members more involved and being led to people through them. If you are struggling to find a way you can help at home with mission work, I encourage you all to pray and ask for a missionary opportunity. And then LOOK for the opportunity to come about. If you ask you shall recieve, you just may miss it if you aren´t focusing on it. Do all you can now and at all times to continually help move God´s work forward. You don´t need a nametag to share the gospel :)

 But we have also had the opportunity to meet with members this week so that they can get to know us. And that is a great treat. The members here are so loving and so kind and all want to help, we just need to guide them on how they can help us. :)

 Love you all and I hope you are all having fabulous weeks! What blessing did the Lord give you this week?

 Love, Hermana Cordon