October 15, 2012

Hola friends and family,

This week has been one of the best weeks of my entire life! And I'm not just saying that! Lets start with the highlight of the whole week. Bryan's baptism! It was Saturday at 11, so me and Sister Stanford got to the church around 8:30, set up the chairs, filled the font, copied the programs, and got ready for everything! The baptism itself was amazing, and the other Elders in our zone came and brought their investigators, so that was awesome! Bryan is so solid, and he is meeting with Bishop this week to get going on receiving the aaronic priesthood. When we taught him earlier this week about Priesthood he was just saying how great that sounds and how he was excited! What an awesome guy he is! I'm so excited for him! And then on Sunday when he got confirmed was absolutely amazing! We had another investigator named Amber come to church on Sunday, so that was a great time for us to teach her more about confirmation and the gift of the Holy Ghost. She seems really awesome too, but she's going to Law School right now, so she couldn't stay all three hours because she had so much homework and things to do, but still... it was an amazing experience to see him get confirmed and to have her there!

Another girl we are working with is probably one of the sweetest girls ever! She's 26, and just really amazing. She didn't want to pray out loud or in front of us earlier this week, but we met with her on Friday and talked about prayer and she totally said the closing prayer! It was such a great prayer too! Sometimes I still think about her and just smile because of how amazing she is! We are meeting with her tonight and I honestly cannot wait. As much as I love p-days, I just want it to be over so we can meet with her! 

We have a few "eternal investigators" that have been meeting with missionaries for years and are still not baptized. Its a little bit frustrating because I feel like everything I want to teach them they've already heard, and I don't know how I can teach it better or different than the last set of missionaries, but we are working hard. One of them is married to a great member, and I think he will eventually get baptized, he just needs to know for himself that it is right, and the other is an older lady who just is more interested in reading the Book of Mormon and asking us random questions than she is actually seeking answers from Heavenly Father about the truthfullness of the book. She has been doing it for a long time, and she is in 3rd Nephi 28. Last time we visited we talked about the 3 Nephites. Theres a lesson I never thought I'd give on the mission. It was hard because she cared so much on the details, and I just had to tell her that we didn't know much about them, other than what is in this chapter. We encourage her to pray about it, which she likes because the other churches would tell her "its confusing because it got lost in translation" and we tell her to ask God about it... but I don't know if she really is.

We have a new investigator this week. She is a member referral and her sister recently passed away, so we are thinking the Plan of Salvation is going to be a great lesson! Also she is native american, and I cannot wait to teach her about the Book of Mormon. She's really into history though, so I'm afraid that she won't accept our opinion on where her ancestors came from, but she is really great and I can't wait to teach her. She also has the best dog in the whole state of Indiana. Its a little chiwawa that just climbed on my lap and just sat there while I petted it. I love that dog! (And dad, I am starting to love the dogs here!)

During our morning studies we always role play how we would teach a certain concept or invite someone to something. This past week I asked Sister Stanford if we could role play us as a companionship talking to someone instead of just Sister Cordner talking to someone, that way we could work together as a companionship. So we pretended to talk to someone whilst just looking at the wall, and then the brilliant Sister Stanford came up with the best idea ever! We made Jackie, our own personal eternal investigator. We stuffed an old BYU shirt and sweatpants with plastic bags, blew up a balloon and drew a face on it, and put a beanie on it. We named her Jackie, and we use her to help us teach lessons together! Basically we are just really cool people who talk to a balloon placed on clothes to help us be better missionaries!!!! lol

One more story before I end! There is a really great baptist women that Sister Stanford and Sister Hill tracted into before I got to Lafayette. She called us a cult and explained that she was not interested, but said they could come back to discuss it a little more. They had one lesson with her and told her she could always contact us, but she wasn't interested. Well last week she texted us and asked us if we would help her fill bags with cotton candy for a carnival she was volunteering at. We went to her house Friday morning and she had breakfast for us, and then as we made cotton candy we had a great discussion on Christ, and then on our prophet, the organization of our church, the plan of salvation, and other questions she had about our church. Even though she isn't interested in joining, she now knows that we believe in Christ the same way she does, and that we are not the same religion that has the show about Sister Wives. She totes thought we were poligimists! Crazyness!!!

Okay, basically I can't wait until elections are over and we do not look like we are inviting people to vote for Mitt Romney. I love the man, but people need to realize that we as missionaries are not out campaigning for him, but are inviting people to Christ. Its crazy how many people want to talk politics with us! We just want to talk about religion! 

Also, I know I said I would end earlier but I'm not... if you have not read the book "Our Search For Happiness" I would suggest you read it. I am reading it on my breaks now and it is SO GOOD!!! I just love it!

The weather here is basically amazing, chilly fall days. We were talking to someone on their porch the other day and started to pray with them when it started to downpour on us. Nothing like praying in someones doorway while being rained on! I loved it! It rained pretty crazy yesterday, like I thought we were going to be in a tornado warning because the wind was going cray cray too! But today is a bright sunny day and I love it. Before we came to the library we stopped at the mall and hit up Bath and Body Works. So wonderful!!!

I love you all, thanks for your prayers in my behave. Send me letters, I love hearing from everyone! 

Sister Cordner

October 8, 2012

Friends and Family!!!!

Do you like the title, it was on a fortune cookie I ate my second day in the field, I thought it was pretty relevant! Well I hope you are ready for this, because I have a novel coming your way!

First of all, I'm just going to jump ahead to conference! THE NEW AGE IS TOTALLY AWESOME!!! We were watching conference in the church building, and it was only me and my companion and the 2 spanish elders, and the 4 of us were just freaking out! We are so so so excited for the new opportunity for more sisters to serve as well as for young men to get out here faster! I can't wait for all the young teenagers we are going to be working with! I just think that this is truly inspired, and am so excited for the more sisters we are going to get because of this! I'm thinking with sisters being RMs at 20, there is no stopping what we can do! I'm so so so excited about this!!!

Okay, for the real stuff you all want to know. I got to Indiana on Tuesday and we had a great night at the mission home. Then on Wednesday we went to the Fishers building (just a church building they call Fishers) and had transfer meeting. Here I am watching all of these missionaries get called to new companionships and new areas, and I'm just sitting on the stand waiting for them to be done so they can introduce us and assign us to our trainers. Finally it gets to us newbies, and I am the last sister to be called. I am put with Sister Berrett, and we are assigned to go to Bloomington! So naturally I'm super excited to be born in Bloomington, just like mom was, and I am really excited to get to know my companion. All of us sisters go out to lunch and get back for another training meeting before we head to our areas. Before the training starts however, the president needed to see me and Sister Berrett, Sister Palmberg and her new comp Sister Stanford. Sister Stanford was in a car accident a year ago, and doesn't have driving privileges, and Sister Palmberg never got her drivers license, and they were a companionship... so we had to make an emergency transfer right then and there. Sister Palmberg is now in Bloomington with Sister Berrett, and I have been in Layfette with Sister Stanford! And before you get really bummed out that I'm not in Bloomington, I need to tell you just how amazing Layfette is! I'm in Layfette 3rd ward, which I'm convinced is the greatest ward in the state of Indiana! And I am super close to Purdue, so naturally I'm a huge Boilermakers fan now! The area is so nice, a little bit cold for my liking, but beautiful. Its actually a big nice city with a WalMart and everything! I just really love it here and even though I was sad at first that its not Bloomington, I know this is where I'm supposed to be!

The first week has just flown by! Its so weird how it has been working. Our first day we had three appointments and I'm already jumping in and teaching people! I love it! We also went tracting on my first day, which was probably the best fun ever! Some people are not interested, well most people actually, but just meeting people and talking about Purdue, or their children, or whatever we notice about them we can start a conversation about has been so fun! Not so much fun is when we knock on the door and three huge pit-bulls come running out and chase us... We thought they were stuck on us since no person came out, so we just walked away with these dogs running all around us, and the lady finally comes running out asking us to grab her dogs for her! Um, excuse me, your dog almost killed me, and now you want me to catch it! AHHH!!! That was literally my 5th house that I knocked on! I love missionary work! lol

But seriously, everybody in Indiana has dogs! Its pretty insane. President Collins joked about it on our first day here, but he wasn't kidding. I'm not sure if I'm allergic to dogs, cats, or the entire state of Indiana, but I have been having pretty bad allergies. Yesterday my eyes were so red and I started sneezing so much my companion thought I was going to die, okay not die, but she was freaking out more than I was. But no need to worry about me, I bought some claritin today and I'm feeling good! 

We have a baptism this Saturday. They have been teaching him for a while and he had his interview yesterday... and he passed!!! We are so excited for him and the covenant he is about the make with our Father in Heaven! I can't wait for the baptism, I think about it everyday, and we talk with him everyday and he is excited. Tonight we are going to be teaching him about the priesthood and how he can have it soon after his baptism. I hope he is as excited as I am, because this is the real deal, and I'm STOKED!!!

We have been eating with members in the ward almost every night. One of our first nights we went to the bishops and actually taught a lesson to Bryan there (Bryan is the one getting baptized). The bishops family is great! He is so funny, and their kids are just relaxed and sweet! Their oldest son is serving in Mexico and he went to BYUI, and so they are always talking about him. We watched conference at the church building for the first three sessions, but then for Sunday afternoon we watched it at the bishops, and they fed us snacks, dinner (at half time, as the bishop called it) and a huge brownie with ice cream on it for desert. Oh thats another thing, the members love to feed us desert! YIKES!!!

We tracted into a lady named Amy two nights ago, and I just really like her! Her daughters were outside playing and they talked to us so much! They were so cute, and they asked us if we were really sisters, and then told us how beautiful we were and how we look like we could be sisters. The girls said they loved Jesus Christ and believed in God, but haven't been to church in a while. Their mom, Amy, works a lot and is too tired on Sundays to bring them to church, so we are going to be meeting with her soon, and I can't wait! She has been to a lot of different churches and I think she just hasn't chosen one because she somehow knows that ours is the true church and she has just been waiting for us to come find her! Anyway, just keep Amy and her family in your prayers!

Lets see... what else! My zone is so awesome, we had a zone training on Friday that blew my mind. Like honestly, one of the most spiritual moments of my life! I was just so happy leaving that training. Sometimes I'm just smiling and I have no reason other than the fact that this gospel brings so much joy to my life!

My companion is probably the coolest person in the world! Me and her are SO SIMILAR! She is from Fullerton California (and she is REALLY happy that I'm not from Utah). We get along so well because we have the same ideas on so many things. I love studying with her because she is a spiritual giant, and I love teaching with her, because she is just so good at putting the investigator at ease and just talking! We have 4 investigators right now, and I have only met 1, but we have appointments to meet the others later this week! 

I told you I would be writing a novel. I just am going to end by saying that I love being a missionary! I love this gospel, and oh man, did I love conference! The doctrine of Christ was in every single talk given! I loved it!!! One of my favorites was Elder Bednars talk on conversion, its so true that testimonys can fade, but conversion is different. We are out here to convert people, not to just give them a small testimony that might fade a year or two after they join! And of course I also loved Elder Nelson's talk! Ask a missionary, because apparently we know everything! It made me feel so good to listen to him promote us like that! President Uchtdorfs talk was also mindblowing, and I related it to missionary work of course. I am not on a mission just to wait for the end to happen, I am enjoying every moment of it! And Sister Burtons talk about observing and serving was amazing. She is going to be in Indiana in a few weeks so I'm pretty excited to go to that!

Thanks for your letters family! My P-days are always on Monday's up here, so I will be writing you weekly at this time from here on out. I'm going to be in Layfette guarenteed for the next two transfers, but then after that Sister Stanford goes home, so unless they transfer both of us out (which I doubt) I will be here well into Feburary at least. My real address here is 

3111 New London Ct. #529

Layfette, IN 47909

If you write to that it will come straight to me instead of going through the mission home in Carmel first. I am off now to play some frisbee with the spanish elders. I challenged them to some ping pong, but I think we are going to take advantage of the fall weather now before it gets to winter, and then bust out the ping pong battles at the institute once its freezing. 

I love you all so much, sorry for the novel! GO BOILERMAKERS!!!

Sister Tara Cordner

p.s. Mom, Sister Collins wants to know where you got my bag, because she has the same bag, but she got it at goodwill, and wants to get a new one because hers is really old! Thanks!

First E-Mail Home

Dear Family and Friends, 

Hola, mi hable Hermana Cordner, und ich liebe die MTC! (I'm trying out the languages I have been picking up here!)

The MTC is probably the greatest place to be in the whole world. I have learned so much about myself as a person and a missionary in just a few days. I think the thing I have learned best is how to multi-task. Don't get me wrong, I have multi-tasked before, but there seems to be a greater need here. I have studied while eating my cereal, I have memorized while blowdrying my hair, and most impressively I ate an apple while I put my contacts in. Just picture it, an apple in my mouth, and contacts in my hands and eyes, it was a pretty sweet moment! 

The language is going great, we only have about an hour a day to learn spanish, and it happens to be at the same time as gym time! (okay not really, but during gym time the language missionaries are encouraged to speak their language, so I try to help them by speaking espanol or asking them how to say certain things... Como se desa, volleyball? And then they tell me how to say it! Its been great fun! 

Speaking of volleyball, I was thinking that in all of my youth experiences in the church, the one I am most thankful for this week is YW volleyball! There's no way I would be up against these Elders the way I have been without that prior training! So shout out to my leaders for making me a volleyball extrodianre! 

Okay, for the real stuff now! My district is SO GREAT! We have 7 elders, 3 that are going to Mesa, and the other 4 to Indianapolis, and then the three of us Sisters! Sister Pitcher is 24, from Orem Utah, and is 6 foot 2. Sister Palmberg is 23, from Conneticut, and is 5 foot and 1/2 inch! The three of us get along so well and are basically just best friends! We go everywhere together, as companions should, and just have such a blast doing it! We always stand in order, Sister Palmberg, me and then Sister Pitcher, and people tell us we look like the cell phone company who raises  the bar! It's quite a sight to see the three of us! We have been trying to become best friends with the Elders so that they won't think that Sister Missionarys are weirdos who are only out because they couldn't get married and what not... Sister Palmberg pointed out that its a good thing we're all good looking! The elders seem to like us just as much as we like them, and the 10 of us just have so much fun together! We usually are all on the same court for volleyball, we eat together, we are in classes together, and we study together! I can honestly not think of a better district to be in! 

Our teachers are super fantastic (and cute, but I'm not supposed to notice that ;). They are just so amazing, and with them and the 10 of us, lessons are always filled to the brim with the spirit and are so great! Both teachers portray an investigator from their mission, and we have been teaching them. Luke was our first investigator that we taught and he committed to pray about God's love for him, and we have a return appointment on Monday! We are meeting with Doug later today, and we seem to have a pretty sweet lesson plan ready for that meeting! Its so great the way the MTC is set up and the role playing that we are doing! 

I love being a missionary so much! I can't even imagine a place I would rather be. The spirit is so great and the God loves all of us! I'm not going to lie, its pretty hard here! Imagine having a to-do list that never ends, and literally zero time to do it. I compare it to EFY where we have a schedule given to us and a group of guys and girls, and we all work together all day long. But the only difference is we don't have a counselor to watch over us and make sure we are where we are supposed to be. It is up to us to be where we need to be when we need to be there. It would be easy to take study time to sleep, or to be late to lunch or not go to planning meetings or what not, but we have been promised that if we obey with EXACT obedience we will be greatly blessed! We have been trying really hard to be where we need to be on time, my companion struggles a little with punctuality but she knows it is something I love and she is working really hard to be on time. Its a struggle at times but we seem to make it to everything on time without too much stress! 

Thats probably all I have time for, I love all of you so much and I can feel your prayers. Dad, I absolutely LOVED the letter you sent me on the first day. Thank you so much for remembering me and writing me! Being a missionary is great and I just love every second of it.

Love, 

Sister Cordner

Farewell Talk

You know when you picture something in your mind and the real thing turns out NOTHING like how you pictured it. Ya, I know the feeling!

Today I was in my parents home ward and I gave my farewell talk. I have been so worried about what I was going to say I didn't even think about anything else. Once I was sitting on the stand it all felt so real. This was my farewell talk, I was leaving on Wednesday, and I am really, FINALLY, going to be a missionary. My head was spinning! I was thinking at a hundred miles per hour. I was the last speaker which was great, because I had a lot that I wanted to say. But by the time the speaker before me ended, I realized I had about 15 minutes, and the musical number still had to go. During the musical number I am thinking about what I should cut out because I know my talk, the way it was written, would have been too long.

The musical number was over and it was time for me to get up and speak. I honestly don't even know how to put into words what happened after that. I was wearing heels, and my ankle twisted a little over my left heel, and I started to fall to my left. I stood up on my right foot trying to catch myself, only to fall even more to my left, almost landing on the ground in front of the bishopric. Luckily I never did fall all the way down, but based on the congregations reaction you would have thought I did. I throw myself up and stand in front of the podium at a loss of words. Everybody did a collective gasp, and then fell silent. The next few minutes were a blur, but my mom told me later that the first thing I said was, "Well that was embarrassing, I hope I don't do that on my mission!"

I honestly don't know how I made it the whole way through my talk, I fumbled so much at the beginning before I could really jump into my talk that by the time I had finished telling my intro story about my Nauvoo trip my time was basically up. This is when I remembered that I had to cut out a lot of my talk based on time, so I start scanning the page looking for what I need to keep. I tell a story from Young Womens, then I actually talk about what my talk was one, which was blessings from perseverance, and finally find my way to the end of the talk. I bear a short testimony because I was over time and still probably completely beet red.

Once I sat down I lost it! The closing hymn started and I couldn't stop shaking from the silent laughing I was doing. The guy I was sitting at laughed too because I was shaking the hymn book so bad. I looked down at my family and Staci and could tell they saw me laughing because they were laughing just as hard. I had to cover my mouth and bury my face for the majority of the song because I was just so embarrassed.

Lots of people came up to talk to me afterwards to say goodbye. Most of them told me how excited they were for my homecoming talk in 18 months and asked me how I was going to top this!

And now, from now on, I will forever be known to Vintage Ranch Ward as the girl who fell on the stand before her farewell talk. Great!

Goodbye Christine

5 days until I leave! FIVE DAYS!!! I have already wrote a whole blog about things that I'm missing out on, but I didn't mention one of my most favorite possessions that I am leaving behind. My car! 2 years and 1 month ago I bought Christine, and she has been nothing but good to me! But I can't take her with me, and its not worth it to sell her, so I am storing her for 18 months. Today I cleaned her out, put her away, and hung up her keys for the last time for a year and a half. My dad is going to take care of her so she's not dead when I get home, so thats nice! For the next few days I'm just using my dads car (which I really am NOT complaining about in the least!)

My dad thinks I'm weird for naming my car... but really I think its rude not to name your car!

Also I forgot a detail about my dentist experience a couple of days ago. When I was getting my cleaning, the song Call Me Maybe came on the radio. I decided there was nothing worse than listening to that song in the dental chair, because I wanted to sing to it so badly! That song is just so hard NOT to sing along to!

In other news, I LEAVE IN 5 DAYS!!! I just need to take a chill pill, because I'm so SO SO excited! I've been wanting to go on a mission since I was 14, and since I turned 20 I've been counting down the days until I could turn in my papers. 6 months ago I turned my papers in and got my call, and I have been anxiously waiting for this week ever since I read that call! It almost seemed like it would never come, but its basically here!

What to expect next: As you may have noticed I have decked my blog out with Sister Cordner stuff. I am no longer a college student named Tara, but a soon to be full time servent of the Lord. I give my farewell talk this Sunday and have a open house that night from 7-9. (Anyone is welcome so feel free to stop by). I will probably blog about that adventure, and then I will head out! I plan on emailing my family every week updating them on the mish, and I'm planning on teaching my mom how to blog so she can put my emails up here! So hopefully you will not be left Tara-less for 18 months! I'm really just looking out for all of you out there!

Okay, well that is all. No puns at the end of this blog! Sorry.

Dentists and Puns

Today I had to go to the dentist. I just needed a cleaning right before I leave. I've never had a cavity, or any other reason to go to the dentist before besides cleanings. But today they noticed a decalcification (I think thats what they called it...) in one tooth that they thought would be best to fix up. So I had to make another appointment for later in the day. 2:30.

What time do you go to the dentist? Tooth-Hurty! (2:30) Get it... its a pun! And today when I made my appointment for 2:30 I felt like I was living in a pun! If you didn't know this about me, puns are my most favorite kinds of jokes ever.

Back to my real life story of going to the dentist... As I was sitting there in the chair, I was basically hating life. I don't know how you could enjoy yourself while having 4 hands, cotton swabs, a pokey thing, a mirror, a sucky thing, and a curing light in your mouth at the same time... I feel like I'm gagging, choking, and drowning all at the same time! And then I started thinking, whats worse than getting your teeth worked on... probably being the person who has to work on my teeth!

I just don't know what my brother-in-law and my brother were thinking when they signed up for dental school. Being a dentist would be the worst, you're in peoples mouths all day long, all the while being hated by your patients. So then I started to think of jobs I would do before I became a dentist. I would so much rather be a...

• foot doctor (podiatrist)
• garbage man
• plumber
• the night shift cashier at 7/11
• off shore oil rig worker
• fishermen out of Alaska
• septic tank cleaner
• David Archuleta's personal assistant

Well... that last one I would do regardless! But seriously, the thought of having my hands in other peoples mouths all day long just grosses me out...

But then, when the whole thing was over (a long ten minutes later) I go to the front desk and pay $110! Plus they got like $300 from my insurance company! HOLY COW! That right there is the reason people become dentists, between my 45 minute cleaning and my 10 minute filling thing, he made $397. I would say thats a pretty good hourly wage if you ask me! Now I understand why my family is interested in this business! 

And since I brought puns up earlier in my blog, I thought I would leave you with a few more:

• If a clock gets hungry, it goes back four seconds.
• Once you've seen one shopping center, you've seen the mall. 
• I usually take steps to avoid elevators.
• He has been a jogger for three years running!