"We sacrifice the things we love and we love the things we sacrifice"

This week I am doing fantastic! I am definitely getting whiter! ha-ha Every time I get out of the shower I’m a little bit sad cause my tan lines are almost totally gone! Me and Justin see each other a couple times a day and so we've gotten to talk a little bit which is good! Sounds like the companionships are going well but they will only be together for like 12 days so they won’t know each other well enough by then to have any problems! haha I’ve been eating good but I haven't been working out as much! I decided to play volleyball with our district most days cause it's fun and let's be honest, every missionary comes home out of shape anyway so I might as well have fun! I do go to the gym a couple times a week though just because it’s still fun and switches things up a little bit.

That’s funny you all thought my hair looked darker! Probably just cause I wasn't tan! At this point in the MTC we follow the exact same schedule as every other week ha-ha so weeks 2-9 are exactly the same schedule except that on week 9 there is an infield orientation. It’s weird cause the weeks go by really fast! I feel like I just wrote you guys an email yesterday! ha-ha but the days take FOR-EV-ER  the days here are sooo long! But the weeks are fast! If that makes sense? It’s kind of a weird phenomenon! ha-ha well let me think... at our Tuesday devotional we had apostle Neil l. Anderson speak to us!  He talked mostly about missionary work (duh) and he made a couple cool points! He said to put "I" away and only think about others while on your mission.  He also said " We sacrifice the things we love and we love the things we sacrifice".  Look up 1 Cor 13:13 and D&C 97:8 if you get a chance along with Matt 22:37-39 and Alma 26:27-29 and Alma 5:7 13 14.  I’m not really sure what they say but I wrote them down so there ya go! Also at the end of that devotional the closing song was "Come to Zion" you know, the one on 17 miracles?  I cried a little bit while we sang that song because the whole time I could hear Melissa in my head singing that song! I still remember exactly what her voice sounds like when she used to sing that song "Come to Zion, Come to Zion".   I miss that! So Melissa, you better remember that song so that when I get home you can sing it for me again!  After our trials, we are blessed.  Straight up, this is hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. No matter how prepared you think you are you are never prepared enough. All we do here is study study, study, eat, then study, study some more. The language is soo hard and by the end of the day I am soo exhausted I just want to fall asleep but I don't. The Lord will bless us if we follow his commandments with exactness and use up all of the study time we are given! Even though this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I love this experience and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. I’m so blessed to have this opportunity to share the gospel. I’ve had a little glimpse of what it'll be like out in the field cause we have volunteers come here that we teach as well as other people we teach that act as real investigators and they don’t understand English, and they know exactly what it is like to be an investigator and they follow the promptings of the spirit. I love giving lessons to those people. I feel a love for them even though they aren't "real" investigators. I pray for them every night that they will be receptive the message of the restored gospel and Jesus Christ! This truly is a beautiful work and I can't wait to be able to share it with new investigators everyday! The language is coming along! The spirit definitely has a huge role in that part and it’s funny because during the day I won’t be able to remember a lot of words but all of a sudden once I get in a teaching setting BAM!!!  I can remember all the words I’ve learned and maybe some other random words I may not have even really studied. 

My companion and I gave the lesson for our district on Sunday and it went very well! We even had a member of our branch presidency in there! We watched a talk by Jeffrey R. Holland back in 2009 conference where he talked about the Book of Mormon, I definitely recommend watching that)  he posed a question and then answered it. He said why don't people flock to the fount? The gospel is soo amazing so why aren’t there people just running to the missionaries begging to be baptized? It’s because salvation is not a cheap experience. If we say we follow Christ, then we better prepare to suffer a little bit like he did! We all have to be willing to take our little part in the garden as well as pick up our crosses! Missions as well as life aren't supposed to be easy! But it is worth it. "If we're almost obedient we almost get the blessings" "we are not obedient because we are blind, we are obedient because we can see."  I’m not sure where those are from either but I wrote them down.   I love all of you and hope you are enjoying everything back home! My letters will probably get more exciting once I’m actually in Hong Kong but for now that's all I got for ya;) haha love you and see ya next week!

Love, Elder Cederlof