Greetings
from the beloved city of New York!
Time
is starting to really fly by on the mission. At first it was going very slow,
but now it has sped up more than it ever has in my life. Time completely feels
different when you are on a mission. It's almost like, because you are
forgetting yourself, you don't worry about time as much, and so you forget it.
Time leaves the mind and the mission has felt like a really long day. Like I
said, I feel like I am in a dream, and the day I fly back to LA will be the day
that I wake up. It is very weird. None of this feels real.
I
want to start off with something that is very interesting. We teach every kind
of hispanic culture. We talk to people from the Dominican Republic, Puerto
Rico, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, and I have yet to have Hispanic food like I
have had in California. You can't beat it. We eat dominican food a lot and
their special dish is Plantains that are fried. The common meal here is
Chicken, Rice, and Plantains. Most of the time the chicken is not cooked. Last
week, our church had a Thanksgiving party, and we all ate chicken that was pink
and wasn't cooked all the way. We got home and all of us spent the night
throwing up. We took turns who got the bathroom for throwing up. Nasty right?
Haha it gave us a good laugh though. Thank goodness that's over!
My
new companion is very interesting. He speaks great Spanish. He is from Madrid
in Spain and has grown up there so he speaks really well, which is nice,
because I can now really learn from him. He speaks english pretty well, but his
accent is horrible. He even says it is. Haha. It's nice because he is bold and
just get things done, but this week I have been struggling. Whenever he wants
to do something, he says to me "ok this is what we are going to do...this
is what YOU are going to do".... he doesn't let me suggest anything. If I
don't understand his idea and even begin to question it, he pulls out a quote,
and starts to chastise me saying I am breaking the rules. This whole week,
whenever I have done something that he doesn't agree with, he writes it down on
his Ipad. There are some other things going on between him and the companions
we are living with, but I won't mention them. I just know that this cycle (6
weeks) is going to be extremely difficult. He and I do not get along when we
are doing missionary work. When we are doing anything else, we are fine, but
mostly all you do on a mission is related to missionary work.
I am
struggling with him. He even told me he would be my hardest companion. Maybe
it's just the culture, but that still is not an excuse. He is overly bold with
people and extremely negative and uses the rules to condemn you rather than to
inspire and uplift you (the reason we have them in the first place). I don't
know what to do, but I think for now, I am going to try my best to just do
whatever he says and try to go with the flow. Hopefully I will learn something
from him. He works very hard, which is something I really do like about him.
He
has served in Newburgh (the highest murder rate in the entire nation) and in
Harlem. He says Yonkers is by far more depressing and scary than in either
places. That makes me feel good! Haha. That means wherever I go from here will
be great!
Sister
and Elder Wilson are the senior couples who live in our apartment building and
we went up the other day to ask them a question and we started talking and
turns out their son served in Compton California during the riots in LA back in
the day. I asked him how he liked it and they said it was not a good experience
at all. There was a member who asked them to help him with some service. For
their service they helped him take the dead bodies from the street and
"dispose of them." Can you imagine? --as a 19-year-old
having to be stuck in Compton during the riots dragging away bodies every day.
He was stuck in his apartment for a good 2-3 weeks. I felt really fortunate for
serving in Yonkers after hearing that.
I don't have much this week. This has been one of the hardest
weeks in my mission because of the challenges I have been dealing with my
companion. It really is a good learning experience because when you go on a
mission you are assigned with many different companions throughout your mission
whether you love them or highly dislike them, and you two have to figure out
(with God being at the top of the relationship) how to make it work. You are
with them 24/7, day and night, for months at a time. You see a completely
different side of people when you are with them that much. Never in my life
will I ever have to be with someone for 24/7 every second of the day. It makes
you grow up fast. It's great preparation for marriage and learning how to deal
with situations. This week I have really been hit with the reality of a
mission. It's everything what I didn't expect. It's a lot more real than I ever
expected. It's good though because even though these have by far been the
hardest days of my life, I am learning so much. It teaches you how to survive
with nobody there to help you, with nothing but God by your side. That is
literally all I feel like I have at times. The hard times heavily outweigh the
great times, but the magnitude of the great times are so much better and
completely outweigh the hard times.
-Elder Celaya
No comments:
Post a Comment