Zooiogioc

¡Buenas Tardes! 

Today as Hermanas we went to Baños again and went to the zoo there! It was really cool! I especially enjoyed all the monkeys, they had some pretty cool monkeys and a lot of them as well. I enjoyed the morning with the hermanas and getting to know more of this beautiful country where I have the opportunity to live right now. I will include some pictures :) It is also really humid in Baños so my hair was going crazy!

Also it is "summer" here. But, there summer is when it is really cold and rains alot. I am not really quite sure how that works out, but thats what everyone keeps saying. But, it rained like everyday all day for the last 4 days, it rains a lot here, but not that much, and its been so cold!!! The only downside of wearing a skirt all day, is that when it is cold and windy, your legs are cold. But, gratefully I am always warm in my bed, with my 2 blankets, soaks, and sweatpants :) I feel like I am probably not actually in Ecuador.. haha 

beautiful Ambato

Mira Flores just likes to be a challenging area, but we keep going and working and we are giving it our all. It is a good thing we enjoy contacting. :) I am doing good and really a lot less worried about the numbers and that as a gauge of success, I have been starting focusing alot more on what would the Lord think about the effort I gave that day. I am not a perfect missionary and I have a lot to improve still, but I know that the Lord knows my heart and sees that I am trying to do my best. I just got to keep moving forward and doing whatever I can to help the people in my surroundings. We are doing a lot better at contacting every family, it doesn`t matter if we are running for an appointment or not. I had that goal before, but somehow it got pushed down on the list, I have reput it as number one, because that should be our focus finding families to help them to become an eternal family. So that is my goal this week, to talk to EVERY family. Maybe we might be running between every contact so that we can still get to our appointment, but I am really going to focus on this and ask in my prayers for help to really accomplish this goal.

This week we were able to talk to Stanley more about baptism. We committed him to pray about the date of the 18th and asking God for help to prepare himself for that day. He didn`t accept a date, but he is preparing himself, and he is reading in the BOM everyday and he has come to church the last 3 weeks in a row all 3 hours. We just have to teach more clearly repentance so he has a desire to be baptized and be baptized as soon as possible. He just wants to be sure he isn`t going to break a commandment after his baptism, so thats a good thing. 

We were able to visit with a member this week, who we have been wanting to visit since I have got here, we just haven`t been able to get a hold of her to set up an appointment. And she is the greatest! She has 2 years as a member, but has a lot of difficulties and is fighting with a lot of opposition from her kids, they are all grown up. And she said in her prayer after the lesson thanking God for sending us to her, because we were exactly what she needed in this moment. It really made me feel grateful for this calling and time I have to dedicate myself to the Lord, because we are able to be answers to peoples prayers and quite often. Sometimes I don`t think to much about that aspect, and then moments like this remind me that we really are servants and representatives of Jesus Christ in every moment and I can`t take for granted all these moments we have to be answers to peoples prayers. It really is a great blessing we have. 

We had divisions with the Hermana Leaders this week and I was with Hna Peralta. She is a really great missionary and I learned alot from her, one thing that she mentioned was testify more frequently in the contacts. I sometimes find myself wanting to teach the person so bad that I start trying to convince them, but that never works. I have put that in to practice and I always feel good and full of the spirit walking away from a contact, whether they said no or yes. Because, I know that I was teaching with the Spirit helping these people feel something from our message. Hopefully I don`t forget that again. I just love divisions, it is a time to learn something from the Hna Leaders and really reflect about the work that I am doing in my sector. We also were able to find some new investigators for them and they are really great and seem really prepared to hear this message. I was really happy to find them and I hope that the Hna Leaders can help them to progress. 

Also there is a less active here in our sector who has been less active for over 30 years, and we contacted her about a month ago and have been trying to visit with her. At first she didn`t really trust us and always avoided a lot of contact with us, but this last week we were able to visit her and were able to share a message about the importance of keeping the promises we make with God. Then a couple of times this week she thanked me for actually teaching her something and helping her to recognize that if she is going to make a promise with God, she is going to keep it. Hopefully we can help her to realized what kind of promise she made with baptism and help her to have a testimony of our church. 

Also I am on my way to Quito this week to renew my visa.. that means I have been in Ecuador for a year now. How crazy how fast time is flying by! 

I love this sector and I just keep working and doing all I can to help the people all around us. 

I hope you all have an amazing week and realize all the little blessings that the Lord is sending our way.

Muchísimo Amor,

Hermana Cordon

Here is a sign in Baños for all the gringos that are there, I thought it was really funny

Rain

¡Hola! 

All of december was really dry and really hot, but this week the rain started back up again and it has cooled down a bit! Its been a welcome change, but it makes for an interesting time when we get caught outside in the downpour and we get soaked through, whether we have our rain jacket or not :) haha I have learned to love the rain and make the most of it, this rain storm that happened this last week we were completely soaked, but I had my water bottle with the filter that the church gives to us and so I just took the cap off and tried filling up my water bottle with the rain, but I never ended up drinking it, because it grossed me out when I saw dirt and stuff floating in the water. The filter would have been able to handle it, but my mind wasn`t able to :) haha My companion was making fun of me the whole time I was filling my water bottle, because she kept saying how gross it was!

We finally were able to locate an investigator again this week! We haven`t been able to teach him for almost 3 weeks and he was progressing really well, but then we weren`t able to teach him. But, when we finally were able to teach him this week it was a great lesson! He has been having a lot of problems and difficulties and that is why he was hard to find. He told us how he felt completely alone and how his only comfort during this last couple of weeks was the Book Of Mormon which he was reading everyday. This lesson we were able to explain to him the power of the Atonement and how Christ truly knows how he feels and he never needs to feel alone, because Christ always understands. I truly felt the Spirit testify the truth of this to me, which was something I needed to hear as we were teaching it to him. It was a little aha moment for me where I was able to truly feel the love a Christ and really begin to truly understand the power of the Atonement. I read a talk the other day, The Atonement: Our Greatest Hope by James E Faust, and he explained that this is something that we need to focus on learning and understanding everyday of our lives. It is a power greater that in its fulness is greater than our comprehension, but everyday we can focus to understand it even more and truly apply it in our lives. This is something that I want to focus on even more to truly let the Atonement into my life to become an even greater person.

Thank you for all your love and your support and remember that Christ loves you!

Les Quiero Muchisimo!

Hermana Cordon

Aftermath from the Rain Storm

A Bunny and a Cat eating Corn Together

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

So Much Rain

This week has had a couple days of complete downpours here. The first time it downpoured this week we were walking to the church with some investigators for a family home evening and it just started coming down so hard! We just started sprinting to get to the church, but we were still a good 10 minutes away from the church, so we got there soaked.. but we were all laughing so hard and no one ended up coming to the church because of the weather so we just taught our investigators a lesson and left :), so we ended up running through the rain for no reason.. The other time it just downpoured was on sunday during the third hour, relief society. And it was coming down so hard and pounding on the roof that we were literally inable to hear anyone except the person right next to you. So it made it a little difficult to have a lesson, but after a good 10 minutes of a straight downpour, it finally let up a little bit and we were able to hear and they taught a great lesson on the dangers of pride. The rain here is crazy, but makes for good stories :) Also everytime I wear my rainboots, people make fun of me. Because no one wears rainboots here and most people think I look like some irrigation person, but it keeps my feet dry so that´s nice :)

The Lord really blessed our work last week. We have been working hard since the beginning of the last change trying to find new investigators and people to teach and haven´t had much success, but this last week the Lord guided us to 3 new families who are all really prepared to hear the gospel and are really interested in our message and are excited to hear more. The Lord really has his hands in all things and really has helped us with the work here. I am just so grateful for the watchful eye the Lord has in his work and the opportunity to that we have to be teaching these new families and introducing the gospel into their homes. I am seriously so blessed to be able to help these families and to share my testimony everyday. 

I love you all and never be afraid to share your testimony!!

Love, Hermana Cordon