Dear Everyone,

Many things have been learned this past week. One experience that I'll mention is when Elder Samuela and I were teaching a new investigator about the Book of Mormon. The spirit was there and ever sweet. Both Elder Samuea, who is a zone leader and we were on trade-offs, and I felt that spirit and we know that the man, Dave, felt it too. He was very excited to receive the Book of Mormon. That day with the zone leader testified to me how if we work hard and give our all, we have the spirit with us. With that spirit comes joy and guidance. Who doesn't want that?

We also had the privilege of going to a conference for hearing from Elder Bednar. In advance, he had us study talks he'd given on a few occasions. The talks focused on putting action with our prayers and action with our faith. True prayer should be exercising faith in Him, and exercising our faith in Him through action. That same thing occurs with learning by faith. We must act in accordance to correct principles and must show the Lord that we are acting on the gospel and the things we know and desire to know. Then he'll bless us with knowledge. The best way to gain a testimony is to share that which we have. When we give that which we have, we receive it back and more. I also learned that we are agents, and so our learning and growth must be based upon that. We must act on our faith, and experiment with the word of God. Missionary work is an example.

It was remarkable to have Elder Bednar come to our area, and I will most assuredly act upon those things we learned. He didn't even speak the whole time of his portion given. He had the congregation of missionaries get involved. The answers came as he gave us agency with our learning, by letting us participate and act in accordance to our desires to learn. At the end it was open question for Him and the four other quorum of the seventy in attendance. A great opportunity and lots of inspired questions with inspired answers. The spirit was there. I gained a greater testimony that we have living apostles today, and that they are inspired in their duties and also that we can receive great revelation if we act - for we act in faith, and then are empowered. The mission has been wonderful thus far and I'll be enjoying the final quarter I have left. Love you all!

Love,

Elder J. Cederlof
 
P.S. By the way, an Elder asked Elder Bednar how he could know what questions to ask God in prayer. The invitation by Elder Bednar to the missionary was to go through all of the standard works and mark the questions asked by the Godhead and those of God, including prophets and angels. Study the circumstance and why they asked the question, and then you'll gain understanding of asking the right questions in prayer.

 

 

Justin & Elder Gardner stuck in an elevator for an hour!

Hey Everybody,

Time is definitely speeding up. I am coming on my six months left mark, and it really makes the missionary work more urgent. Time has gone by so fast, and there is just so much to do with finding people, teaching, and working with members, and helping the ward, and strengthening the members. Sometimes I feel like there needs to be more of me than just one, but that just means that the work needs to be done in line with the Lord's will and the goals set with the area presidency and ward. We had an area presidency broadcast which talked about the goals for the Pacific area, and the goals that they had for the wards and stakes. It was great because the focus was on the temple and family history work. One of those things was the "Family History: 15 in 15" which is having four generations on family history with all of their temple work done by the end of 2015. Family history is a great work, and it is missionary work, and the greatest of joy comes with missionary work. That is for certain. Missionary work is evidence of love, which the Lord is eager to change into charity. A great quote that our mission president told us on his weekly letter is: “the measuring stick of your love of the Savior and our Heavenly Father is the same measurement of your love of your fellow men". Not completely quoted right but the idea is there - how much you love your fellow men is how much you truly love God. And charity never fails, so we are ever empowered when we have charity. Charity is the motive of God, and so when we develop Charity, we can begin to see more of God's will, for we can understand the why more. "For God so loves the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son.” and there are far more examples of His love for us, being why He does what He does. The more love we have, the greater we can understand Him. Love is so important. When we focus on other people we accomplish greater things than we thought we could and we are empowered. When one reaches out to others, not thinking of one's self, they overcome fears and worries because they aren't focused on such emotions, for that would be focusing on the self. Selflessness is self-empowerment. Charity is power, and pure.

 

This past week was great because we had a baptism on Saturday, an investigator of our wonderful sister missionaries in our ward. It was wonderful to see him take on the covenant of baptism, especially since I got to know him from church since he's been coming so many times. There was a sense of joy in the meeting, especially after he was baptized, and that was a witness to me of the greatness of missionary work and a motivator for me to keep ploughing on and doing all I can to serve the Lord fully.  

 
Well, you all are wonderful, and it will be an amazing day when we come to realize who we really are and just how precious we truly are. Love you all, and take care.
 
Love,
 
Elder J. Cederlof

It has been good this week in Campbelltown. Though we are now on foot and using the bus, we were able to see quite a few people and were able to talk to Miranda and Tim. Tim we called when we got to his house and he wasn't there. He has had people from work tell him things about our religion and so he's been shaken a bit from it. When he called it was a drop call where he said he wanted to find out on his own. But we were able to talk to him and testify to him that he will find out if he prays. By the end of the conversation we were able to commit him to pray and ask God if it is true. It's a funny thing how the other religions don't tell you to do that. But when he gets his answer that will be great. We are going to follow up on him with that this week.
As for Miranda we are working with her. Her health is now in the way of her getting to church, so we'll be talking to our mission president and asking what we should do. She still reads and prays and wants to be baptized so we aren't giving up.
Another person we saw this week was a less active named Darryl. He hasn't been to church for over a year. He suffers from anxiety. We have talked to him and have committed him to come to church this upcoming Sunday and he is still for it. He's nervous and all, especially with the anxiety, but we assured him that nothing bad will happen and at the end of it he will not regret it, but will be happy that he did it. I really liked that because I related it to missionary work. We shouldn't let any fears drive us in missionary work because we know that during it nothing bad will happen, for we are on the Lord's errand. And secondly, at the end we will be grateful and happy that we did it. There is no sad or bad ending to doing missionary work or any efforts. That was something I learned while teaching him.

The rest of the week was good. We are focusing on getting members on the missionary-work bandwagon and if they all are then they will become a united ward.

Love you so much, Mom, and I hope you have a lovely week!

Love,
Elder Justin Cederlof

Dear Mom, I am doing good. That sounds like out of getting a dog, you've been given the perfect one, and great to hear that Landon and Melissa love her. T is struggling but we are still seeing him. It's hard for him to give up some things, but we are working on helping him to see that what the gospel has to offer is infinitely worth more than those things he would give up in becoming a disciple of Christ. Elder Thomas is a great missionary and we've been able to get to work and Miranda has a baptismal date which is the 21st but will probably move to the 28th since we've stake conference and a conference with Elder Pearson and Elder David A. Bednar around that time. She came to church yesterday and that was awesome. As for Samah we didn't see him last week - wasn't feeling up for it the day we had scheduled - but we'll be stopping by this week and will talk about his reading of the Book of Mormon. As for those heaps of lessons we had visited lots of members and less actives which we didn't get to last week with getting Elder Thomas and then us cleaning the flat for an inspection on it, but we are going to work hard this week, though sad news is that Elder Thomas's bike got stolen from our flat. T'was not in the garage, but under a covered part of the drive way. It was a planned occurrence because they knew our schedule and where the bikes were, so for now we'll be on foot or bus. That'll make things harder, but we'll work with what we've got. Besides that the weeks have been really good. How's your time been besides all of the different things you've been doing? Love you Mom, and hopefully I'll be able to send you pics. Love,   Elder Justin Cederlof

 

Dear Mom,

I am doing well. That sounds like out of getting a dog, you've been given the perfect one, and great to hear that Landon and Melissa love her. As for the camera, I am going to send you some pics which I have printed out, or I will send you the storage chip. I cannot find that white cord that you gave me and my companion forgot his card reader but I'll be using another missionary's camera to do it. Hopefully it will work. T is struggling but we are still seeing him. It's hard for him to give up some things, but we are working on helping him to see that what the gospel has to offer is infinitely worth more than those things he would give up in becoming a disciple of Christ. Elder Thomas is a great missionary and we've been able to get to work and Miranda has a baptismal date which is the 21st but will probably move to the 28th since we've stake conference and a conference with Elder Pearson and Elder David A. Bednar around that time. She came to church yesterday and that was awesome. As for Samah we didn't see him last week - wasn't feeling up for it the day we had scheduled - but we'll be stopping by this week and will talk about his reading of the Book of Mormon. As for those heaps of lessons we had visited lots of members and less actives which we didn't get to last week with getting Elder Thomas and then us cleaning the flat for an inspection on it, but we are going to work hard this week, though sad news is that Elder Thomas's bike got stolen from our flat. T'was not in the garage, but under a covered part of the drive way. It was a planned occurrence because they knew our schedule and where the bikes were, so for now we'll be on foot or bus. That'll make things harder, but we'll work with what we've got. Besides that the weeks have been really good. How's your time been besides all of the different things you've been doing?

Love you Mom, and hopefully I'll be able to send you pics.

Love,

 
Elder Justin Cederlof