By understanding the love He has for me, I have come to have a deep love for Him

Um…. So I guess I'll actually write a normal letter. Haha

Shoutout to Brody because itss his birthday and I love him even though he never writes me!!!! 

anyway.. 

Since you won't be hearing from me for 2 weeks because… it's that time again!!! CARNAVAL.

Today I hit 16 months… sadly. Once the missionary starts getting old, everyone just stops celebrating so that the elder/sister doesn't burst into tears and fall into depression before they even get home. So there's that.

So, on Wednesday, we had a Zone Conference with Presidente y Hermana Willard and I just can't get it out of my head. I learned so many things and I felt like I really learned so much more about Christ.

During the conference, we were studying and looking for examples in the scriptures, I found Alma 32:15-16. This is when Alma is teaching the poor…

El deseo de bautizarse realmente debe nacer de uno. A mi me encanta este escritura porque no dice ni una vez que para seguir a Jesucristo, se tiene que "haber leído todo el Libro de Mormon" ni "saber todo" ni "ser perfecto"… nada asi. El vivir la doctrina de Cristo es el esforzarse a llegar a ser como Él era. Como Él es.

Translation: ( The desire to be baptized should really be born of one.  I really love this scripture that says not a time to follow Jesus.  You don't have to "read the entire Book of Mormon", or "know everything", or "be perfect"...nothing like that.  Living the Doctrine of Christ is Striving to become as He was.  As He is.)

I loved what President Willard said in the Conference..

"It doesn't matter what you say or if you say Christ's name 100 times during the lesson. What matters is that those words come from your converted heart."

I realized that it doesn't matter if I'm talking about Christ like crazy or not. What matters is that the people I teach really, but REALLY, feel His love and understand what His purpose really was. If we aren't willing to live the doctrine of Christ, or walk in His footsteps, we wont see miracles. Not until after our faith has been tried.

I've realized that I really need to humble myself and just be His. Just be His servant. Sometimes we think we know more than Him. And we don't. Everything I do in this area has to be done because HE wanted it to be done, not because I wanted it to be done.

I loved what Hermana Pucheta said during the Conference: That being obedient is the ONLY way we can show Christ and Heavenly Father that we have faith in them… there is no other way. We have to obey them with willing hearts.

My heart was so full after the conference. I just realized really.. how much I love Them. I just love Them. Christ and our Heavenly Father. I want everyone I come in contact with to know of Christ and to know and see the love that I have for Him and of the love that He has for them. Al entender el amor que Él me tiene, he llegado a tener un amor profundo por Él.  (By understanding the love He has for me, I have come to have a deep love for Him).  I don't know how I didn't feel it before. I just didn't understand.

I want to give Him more. Because I love Him.

And… I'm going to always pray on my knees :-) Thanks to President for the object lesson.

NEXT week, Marcelo is getting baptized. On the 21st. Just letting you know since… I'm not gonna be on the computer next week haha He actually got to church yesterday before us and helped the rest of the Young Men prepare the sacrament, set up chairs, pick what hymns we were going to sing. We are so excited for him. And he is beyond excited :-)

The Familia Yampara, the couple that couldn't get their divorce through, is still planning on getting married and baptized the weekend of the 28 of February! They put their papers through this week and it should come out as a settled divorce in the next few days!! We are so excited for them!!!

We have found a lot of new people to teach and we're just going to have to see how we go with them this week. I love this area though and I love the members. They are amazing!!

Also. We changed Pensionistas. It's just that Charito was sooo busy. So for the month of February we are eating with the family Chavez. And oh my gosh, we love them!!!! They are a Young couple with two crazy Little boys and their isn't a lunch that goes by that we aren't just laughing and laughing… and laughing. Yuri and Silvia Chavez :-) Yuri went to Colombia on his misión, so he is always talking to me about Colombia… even though the only Colombian things about me are my blood, hair and last name…

He still kills me with all of his misión stories. We love Los Colombianos :-)

I love you all.

Love,

Hermana Cedeno

A dirty rag can't clean a dirty floor...

Presidente Willard,

I love fast weekend because we always see miracles :) It's the best.  I thought it would be sooo hard to be in a trio... but I actually love it. Probably becaue I have the best companions on planet earth. They are so amazing and i keep learning more and more from them every day. 

So... Veronica got baptized!! It was a beautiful Service and the whole ward showed up to support her!! What a blessing. When we first started to teach her, she was so confused of WHY we wanted to convert her so bad. Why did we always take members with us to teach her and why did we want her to know the "truth"? But after her baptism, she shared her testimony and said that all she wanted was to share the Gospel with her family. She is the only Mormon in her Family now. And she now understands WHY members of the church want to share the gospel so often... because... it's what makes us happy :) We are going to have  family home evening with her and her family this Friday and hopefully everything comes out great. It makes me happy that she wants her family to live the gospel as well. I'm so proud of her.

Yesterday at church, we were asked to teach the class in Young Women's. We weren't really sure what to give the class on, so we decided to talk about the importance of Young Women's and how it has blessed our lives. When actually.... the Young Women's program changed my life completely. As I told those girls about how Young Women's had had such an imprint on my life... I sincerely felt the love that Christ and Heavenly Father have for each of those girls. They are so special to Them and I just wanted them to know that. 

I realized that that love stayed with me all day, and all of the women we taught that day... I just saw them as daughters of God that they are and I just wanted them to KNOW THAT! Because sometimes... we just don't know how special we really are to Him. 

After church, we got a reference from Presidente Enrique. He is now the Young Men's President in our ward, and he introduced us to Marcelo. A young 15 year old boy that has been going to church for a month in a white shirt and tie. No wonder we never realized he wasn't a member!! We went and taught him yesterday and he is amazing. He wants to be baptized. His parents are super supportive, but want nothing to do with the church themselves...

The best part was that we scheduled an appointment to go visit him in front of the rest of the Young Men... and when we showed up to the appointment... 8 of the young men were there to support him as he listened to "the missionaries".. (us) :)

He is great andI'm so proud of the Young men and their willingness to share the gospel with their friends. We're going to have some great Elders coming out of Guaracal for the next couple of years. 

The appointments we've set this week fell through... a lot. We, as in Briviesca, Pucheta and I, have decided that we need to make our first contact with the people we talk to more meaningful so that they wont fall through on us. So that they'll wait for us all week to go visit them!

This morning I started my personal study with a question "How can I become more like Christ?"

I read about the sacrament in this month's Liahona and realized that in order to become like Christ, I have to, HAVE TO perfeccionarme. I have to repent and be clean of every mistake. I can't invite people to repent if I myself am not clean of my mistakes. I want to really use the sacrament every week. 

Because a dirty rag can't clean a dirty floor. If i want to help people become clean, I myself have to be clean :)

Thanks for everything President! Here's to another amazing week in Guaracal 

Love,

Hermana Cedeño