Another Update!

This week it rained a ton! It´s the rainy season now, so I need to always leave with my raincoat or I will end up being soaked and unable to return home until the night, because our house is far away from all of our appointments. So don´t worry I always have my raincoat with me! But I love the smell of the rain so it always smells really nice here! 

This week I have been focusing a lot on improving my pronunciation with my companion, because I am making the most of having a Latina companion! And I am finding that Spanish is a lot more difficult then I ever realized and my accent is terrible! But, little by little I may be able to say the 'dr' and 'tr' combinations! I just have to trust in God´s power with the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues to understand what´s important and that what I say in lessons will be understood by the spirit. 

We focused a lot on the importance of going to church this week, because a lot of our investigators don´t understand. The church is the most important thing to do every week, because we need to take the sacrament every week to make sure our lives are in line with God´s. Make sure you put that as a priority in your life to get the most out of it! 

I love you all and the scripture I "ponderized" this week was 2 Samuel 22:2-4. It´s a great scripture about trusting in God.

I know that God is there and has a plan, and that we need to trust Him and He will guide us to where He needs us to be. I know without a doubt that He is my Heavenly Father and that He knows me and every one of you personally. He loves us so very much and wants us all to succeed in this life. Trust God and make Him the rock of your life and you will never falter or fail. I love you all!

Love, Hermana Cordon

Love and Laughter

¡Hola familia y amigos!

First off me and Hermana Greer get along great! We are always laughing and both have a lot of goals to get the work moving along which is awesome! Laughter is seriously the cure for anything, if you´re frustrated or down in anyway just laugh! But it has definitely made a difference and it is continually strengthening our relationship! One funny thing is the public transportation here. There is one thing called an eclovia (I have literally no idea how to spell this word) but it´s basically kind of like the trax in Utah, but 5 billion people use it. So when you want to get on you basically are crammed up against everyone else and have literally no space to even take a step in either direction and you´re all moving with the car and so people are falling on top of people and when me and Hermana Greer had to get on it, we were basically dying of laughing. It was quite the experience and I realized that in that moment I could have been annoyed about how crowed it was or found how humorous it was that we were falling on top of each other. And laughing about things are always a better option! So my advice just laugh!

One huge blessing from the Lord this week is that we were able to find and contact two families, which added 12 investigators to our teaching pool! It definitely was a huge blessing and hopefully we can do all we can through the spirit and our willingness to work hard to teach these people and help them to accept the gospel and recieve all the blessings that it has! And the fact that is families is awesome! Because families help each other to progress and families stay so much stronger in the gospel, because they have a good support system!

One big lesson I learned this week is the importance of loving everyone that you are teaching, whether it be the first lesson with this person or the tenth lesson. Because when you love them the spirit is so much stronger in the lesson and you are able to be guided more by the spirit to know what to say to help these people exactly for their specific needs! This trait is definitely a gift from God and something that doesn´t come with no effort, so I am working and focusing day to day to just love everyone I come into contact with, and basically everyone in Ecuador so that I have a desire to talk to everyone and to teach everyone.

I love you all and thank you for your prayers and your love!

Love, 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

First Week in Ecuador

Well 5 days in my area is said and done! I am in the Turubamba Norte Area and my companion is Hermana López. She doesn´t speak any english and we are opening a sector. So basically my mission president threw me into the water head first, but for that I am grateful, because I feel like I am going to learn so much faster this way and so much more about what I need to do to find people and to get the work moving. My patience is definitely being tried, but everyday I am striving to be more and more patient. I am grateful for this opportunity to improve my weaknesses.

The area we are in used to be a Elder´s only area, but we are the first hermana´s in this area for over a year. Which is exciting, but the work has been pretty slow, because we are both new to the area so we are trying to figure things out and get things going. We were are able to meet with three investigators though and set a baptismal date for all of them! Two are the kids of a recent convert and they all came to church which was awesome! The other met with the elders previously, and came to the ward activity on saturday, but did not come to church and we were unable to meet with her yesterday. Hopefully we can meet with her soon and figure out why she didn´t attend church. It was a new experience for me sitting in church hoping and praying she would show up. I just want everyone to accept this gospel and I have such a strong desire for everyone to keep commitments.

My spanish is rapidly progressing. I can understand a lot more things and I get the basic idea of every conversation which is such a huge blessing! The Lord is definitely blessing me with the gift of tongues and the interpretation of tongues. I am still not able to communicate cery well and I am not able to express myself very well, but everyday is better than the last. One day at a time, I just have to remember that I have only been learning spanish for 1.5 months, and so I cannot be expected to be perfect or even close to knowing everything! But the Lord is definitely helping me to understand a lot more and do as much as I can in his hands. 

A huge blessing is the Lord helping me to be positive when everything seems to be going wrong or I feel completely alone. I continually have a prayer in my heart to be strengthened through His atonement to bear this time with patience and happiness. If you need help, pray to Him with faith and He will help you.

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thine ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths." Proverbs 3:5-6

 Much Love, Hermana Cordon

Just Two Weeks Left in the MTC!

¡Hola!

Well basically my weekend was the normal MTC routine of class and more class and learning a lot of Spanish! But that is what I am doing, learning Spanish and I notice it more and more everyday and it`s awesome! The Lord really is blessing me! I also did the temple session is Spanish today, and I understood quite a bit, which surprised me!! :)

Today was definitely the big highlight of my time here in the CCM. My district, for our last day as a district, got to go on a "tour" of Colombia! We went to this mountain tourist thing called Monserrate. It is at an elevation of 10,000+ feet and had the coolest views of Bogota. Bogota is a GIANT city. I never realized just how massive it was, till we could see the entire thing! 

On top of Monserrat overlooking Bogota City 

We rode this really sketchy tram type thing that we rode up the mountain in. And it basically going straight up or straight down, which was kind of intense! The mountain itself is pretty with really tall trees on it, since it basically rains everyday the mountain is really green! At the top we just looked around and saw the view and it was awesome just being able to walk around. 

Then we went into the church that was built on the top, because it was originally a religious sanctuary type place. It was a cool church, but it definitely was centered around Christ`s death. That`s something I really appreciate about our church is that we focus on the Resurrection and how that was why he had to suffer for us. I did appreciate the elegance of the church though and how much religious devotion they have, whoever built it. After we came back down, which was really sketchy cause it basically like we were staring at the ground because of all the windows. But it was fun!

Then we went shopping at a little flea market type place, and I got a Colombian souvenir of a llama sweater! It`s awesome. It was cool to see the little trinkets they all have and I am sure I am going to be coming back with a lot of Ecuadorian trinkets after my time there! :)

Hermana Cordon in her Llama sweater along with two missionaries who got one as well!

This picture is of me and my companion in front of our picture that they have hanging up in the CCM. We are CCM famous now! They will probably leave it up for several months even!

I get my Latina companion tomorrow and I am more than excited! It`s going to be hard, but it`s going to push me to use my Spanish more than I have been using it now being surrounded by people that speak English! I`m gonna miss English, but my mission is Spanish, it`s time to say goodbye to English! :) Thank you for the support and love and all the updates! I am blessed with many wonderful people who are sending love my way!

Love, Hermana Cordon 

First week is DONE!

¡Hola!

The MTC is hard work, learning Spanish is hard work, and focusing when you´re tired is hard work. Though most things about the MTC is hard work, I´ve enjoyed it! My district is a lot of fun, it´s all Norte´s (North Americans) and all of us are always laughing about how we don´t understand anything, it makes the frustration of not learning spanish not so bad when there are other´s struggling with you! :)

My favorite day this week was sunday, because besides sacrament meeting and relief society all my meetings were in ENGLISH :) We were able to go in depth in doctrinal subjects and we combined with the other Norte district and got to have really good conversations. It was a good reminder why I am on a mission and why I want to share the gospel, because I just love the Gospel so much! Especially when I can understand what they are talking about. haha :)

I can definitely feel the Lord´s hand in my time here, because I understand more than I probably should being here for only and week, and I can remember a lot more words that I only learned once or twice. It´s wonderful. The Lord truly is remarkable and I truly love this Gospel!

Oh I got to go to the Colombia, Bogota temple today and that was cool! I truly love going to the temple and I´m gonna miss being able to go once I get to the mission field. But, I am doing a different kind of temple work :) 

Thank you for all the love and prayers! Have a great week!

Amor, Hermana Cordon

P.S. this picture is me and my district