Week 67 - Lockridge, Dianella Zone, Western Australia - November 21, 2016 - Thanksgiving Down Undah!

Last Thanksgiving I had a massive feast in Kalgoorlie with an American Family. Doesn't look like we will be quite as blessed this year:) Good to hear from home! Sad to hear LP lost in the Finals. That's 2 years in a row isn't it??? Anyways, I can't say much since my senior year we got throttled first game of the playoffs...

This was a super GOOD week. We are still working with R from Afghanistan. He is doing soooo good! He came to church again and loved it! For the third hour we took him and his friend H and another member into a room and taught the Restoration and the Law of Chastity. The Spirit was strong and smashed through the slight language barrier. R is such a humble man. He feels the fruits of the Spirit and he wants to change his life! It is so cool to see how quickly he makes changes. He has 100% completely stopped drinking alcohol, tea, and coffee and is sooo willing to change whatever he needs to, to be baptized. He is the man! 

We called President last night to talk to him about interviewing R. Please pray that everything will work out:) The only road block we can see is President not clearing him for baptism because of his previous religion.

K has been struggling. Apparently church on Sunday isn't quite as exciting as a rap concert or the club? But we are working with him!

Just tracting and contacting heaps trying to use a lot of unique approaches seeing what works well among different kinds of people...I find great satisfaction as I teach, testify, and give people a clear and simple chance to either accept an invitation to come to know if what we share is true??? If the blessings we speak of are real??? Sometimes we can get people to the point where they understand that it is their own pride, laziness, or lack of desire that is putting a pavilion between them and their Father in Heaven.

I have been smashing the general conference talks. We just got the hard copy. Reading through it my favorite two talks are Elder Ballard's and Elder Bednar's.....I love  Elder Ballard's point of "Where would you go if you left the church????" "To where would you turn???" Serving here in Australia, I have witnessed the results of people abandoning God and refusing to believe life has a purpose.... I would never want to trade with them. I thank Heavenly Father for the undeserved, unending blessings of my life. I am forever and eternally indebted to Him! I love you all! Remember How blessed you are! Even if your life seems in shambles you have the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That alone is  a blessing; an understanding greater than any worldly amount of wealth, comfort, or education. 

Elder Cordner

Elder Jakoselam, a missionary from the Philipines, carving some fresh sugar cane.

Week 66 - Lockridge, Dianella Zone, Western Australia - November 14, 2016 - Donald Trump

Everyone has been talking about Donald Trump! The minute they hear our American accents that is the first question everyone asks haha....and when we respond in favor to Donald they all disfigure there faces and scoff at us with disgust! Haha!  The media has portrayed Donald as an absolute Monster here! It is pretty funny:)

So R the Muslim who told us he wants to become a Christian...He came to church again and loved it...We put him on date for the first weekend in Dec! We need to help him with the word of wisdom. He has a super busy schedule so we are gonna have to mainly teach him on the weekends but we are really excited about that!!! 

The heat is comin in full throttle. It's supposed to be a hot one today...

Nothin much new to talk about to be honest...

We are setting up a games night every 2 weeks. We got a bible study going on with this guy in our ward that we are inviting people to and we've got an english class....so we are really trying to find people in different venues then just at doorsteps:)

Our mission is reading the talk "Cast not away therefore Your Confidence" by Elder Holland. It is super good and helped me to learn more how God works with us and invites us to change and grow...

Love you guys:) have a good week:)

Elder Cordner

This was like a month ago with K - the one in the blue top.

Week 65 - Lockridge, Dianella Zone, Western Australia - November 7, 2016 - Muslim Convention and Summer

Hey guys, Its been a while since i have really written so I''ll try to remember some details to try to make it interesting...

President Fife had Elder Jackson and I go to a Muslim Convention in the city to represent the Church...It was quite interesting from songs in Persian to Rebukes from the Koran. The Representative of Australia was there and he told us that he had met Dr. Hinckley and presented him with a Koran. Pretty awesome!

The same night of the Convention we had a sports night for our ward that we had invited some of our gators to but right when we were about to leave the building, they closed the doors and guarded them and started showing a documentary on their leader they call "HIS HOLINESS." They believe that when Christ was on the cross he was really in a coma and he continued to live, traveled down to India and lived the rest of his life. Anyways, we missed the sports night that we had put together. Luckily the sisters had our backs:) 

We have been teaching a Polynesian kid named K and he is going well. He has come to church twice now and we are helping him to move his baptism date forward. Right now he wants to get baptized the 1st of Jan...  We had Zone conference which was awesome! President Fife's mortal hero is Joseph Smith. He talked about him a lot...I also Love the Prophet Joseph! He is my hero!

We had a cool miracle. There is an Afghan who got baptized into the church about a year ago and we have been visiting him. He lives with like 5 other guys from Afghahnistan. We were talking to one the other day who had come to church the previous week and he just opened up to us telling us how he really felt something powerful at church. He said he wants to change his life and become a Christian! It was awesome! So we are working with him and helping him to come to church again!

The work here in our area is pretty usual. We are trying to contact 100 people a day which for our area basically means tracting and contacting all day...There aren't very many people out walking around... I love being a Servant of the Lord so much! The happiness this Gospel brings cannot be emulated by the world...I love you guys!!!

Elder Cordner

My nametag at the Muslim Convention.

D Will

Week 62 - Lockridge, Dianella Zone, Western Australia - October 17, 2016 - Winter For You Summer For Me:)

The weather is perfect these days here in Perth - not too hot not too cold. Probably around 75 degrees most days...but I know better than to get comfortable. The scorching Egyptian Heat is just around the corner:) Good to hear from you guys...S/O to King for winning Sir Knight! I watched the vid! Haha! I was cracking up at Chadwick doing a jig in the corner! You are such an Eagle LOUIE! 

Don't have too much to say since I just wrote...

We have some part member families that have been coming to church pretty regularly so right now we are really focusing in on them. They just need to take that step of faith and Follow the Savior into the water...

This one Mauri dude is about to get married to a member his name is M. He works in the mines; always flying in and flying out but we are going over to see him this weekend...

We are teaching an 18 year old kid from Congo he is super interested but just got baptized like a few weeks ago into a different church so it should be interesting bringing that one up!

I just finished the Book of Mormon again...I know its true; no doubt about it...

While I have logically studied different religions and beliefs throughout my mission, it has become obviously apparent that if there is a God, this is his Church. With the depth of understanding and eternal perspective this gospel gives, everything else just doesn't cut it...Not even beginning to mention the far more important spiritual witnesses I've experienced.  

I love being a missionary, The peace I feel can't be explained! I have faith that God will perform mighty miracles here!

HAVE A MEAN WEEK!!

ELDER CORDNER

Some guys from Afghanistan we are teaching.

Week 61 - Lockridge, Dianella Zone, Western Australia - October 13, 2016 - God Still Speaks

HEY! I am not gonna lie. I have very limited time today due to some unexpected events but I will try to share a few things:) 

MAN it was good to hear from Ryan about his first week in the field. He is gonna be soooo solid! He already is! I loved General Conference of course. I tried to only write down the things that I thought the Spirit was telling me this conference and I really liked it. It gave me more time to actually really listen and to be in constant prayer with Heavenly Father. Although I did have talks that I liked the most the things that stuck with me the most were the personal messages that God gave me as i listened to The Prophet and the Quorum of the Twelve. One of the things that I really loved was the powerful message that God's work is not yet finished. He still speaks today. The Restoration is an ongoing process. I know that is true! One of the missionaries in the mission used to be a Jehovah's Witness a few years ago but he converted to the church and came out on a mission. I was on exchanges with him yesterday and it was super cool to talk to him about all his personal experiences and how he came to know the church was true...Some of these missionaries I get to serve with have THE COOLEST conversion stories. A lot of them come from families where no one is a member of the church...It strengthens my faith serving with them and it's a blessing for me to witness their examples!

We found a really cool couple tracting....most random thing of my mission...one of them is a less active member from Mexico City haha! She is the 2nd Mexican I have ever met in Australia and she is a member...They came to conference and loved it! Her husband is a true blue Aussie. We are working with him. I will write you guys again in a few days! love you so much!

ELDER CORDNER

This is D. He was doing soooo good then he slipped back into the drugs
and we lost contact. Hopefully we can see him again

Elder Zinck and I heading down to the city...He used to be a Jehovah's witness....He is such a wildabeast. 

He does hip hop dancing professionally haha...He has gone to Vegas like 3 times and won competitions. 

Such a Stud!

Elder Sokovakayawa from Fiji. He had a 30,000$ contract per game to play 
rugby professionally for France but he turned it down to serve the Lord.
Such a cool guy. His brother plays pro Rugby for Australia

We taught a pro rugby player named Sham and he gave us a tour of the 
Western Force Training Facility... It was pretty legit! My heart was Yearning to slam 
some biscuits on an Iron bar and start Feeding my writhled 
(cross between withered and shriveled??) mission body haha....