Hi family!
One thing I have learned this week
is nobody is promised a tomorrow. Oftentimes many of us (myself included)
live as if we will live until we are ripe with age, but in reality today could
be our last day. It's something I've thought before, but I've never felt that a
reality more in my life until now. As I've felt this and continually feel it
throughout the day, it makes me want to do everything with my full heart,
including changing my life. We waste this point of life if we just stay in the
same place. We must strive to continually progress mentally, physically, and
spiritually.
This week has been a great week.
When i leave this area, I'm really going to miss a lot of the people here. It's
kind of crazy how you come to a pm insane place like this, yet there are still
some amazing people here amongst all the chaos.
BRANDON - he came to church this
week, but had a hard time speaking Spanish so we might be transferring him over
to the English Ward. He is all ready to go! We had two more lessons with him
this week and on Friday he is going to have his baptismal interview!
It's great to see his progression. Please pray for him to stay strong.
There are so many amazing families
here and one of those families is the Hernandez family. They have three kids
who are amazing! I'll attach a picture we all took together. Don't mess with
us. We go over to their house every Sunday.
I'm getting really tired of
Dominican Food, especially this dish they call sancocho. It's this soup they
make with yuca, yams, plantains, oil, fat, and different kinds of meat. Like I
said, they just drop huge bits of animal into the soup, bones, fat, meat,
gizzards and all. One of our members offered to feed us chicken feet and grasshoppers
this week. Ha we said we were good, so luckily we didn't have to eat that. I've
come to the conclusion that this place is nothing like America. The most used
language is Spanish, and there are no real grocery stores here like we have
back home (just big Latino based supermarkets), there are almost no real stores
either (just tiny hole-in-the-wall type of joints, and everything is crammed
in, super dirty and you have tons of different people from all different
countries. Everyone I have talked to from Mexico says this place is exactly
like Mexico City.
There is this family that I love
named the Vega family. The dad who was the only active member had three strokes
and almost died (early 40's), and almost left his two young kids (Melissa who
is 10 and Julio who is 7) behind on this earth. He shared the experience with
us this week. It was very amazing how spiritually it was and how much faith he
had. They said the doctors were going to do brain surgery (I'm not sure why),
but as they were rolling him in, he told the doctor no because he knew it
wasn't his time yet and he would be fine without the surgery. He was then in
the hospital for a few months, and finally got to go back home about 5 weeks
ago. Their son Julio has autism and we have been trying to figure out a way to
teach him about baptism. He absolutely loves super heroes and knows all of
their names and stories, so we were looking for a way to relate that to baptism
this week. We told him that he was going to begin training for a special
mission to become a super hero. We told him that every super hero had some kind
of suit (the white baptismal suit), and then we told him that when we get
baptized, it renews us, and enhances us, and that is when we get our super
powers (the cleansing effect of baptism). We then showed him a picture of
Spider-Man shaking President Uchtdorf's hand and told him the church and super
heroes are allies. It was pretty fun because he thought it was cool! He's super
hard to handle and the parents were afraid that they wouldn't be able to have
him be baptized. It was cute too because at the end, he asked his mom "mom
can we keep the Hermanos (brothers in Spanish)???"
It was great! I don't have much more
this week. There is tons that happened but I simply don't have time to write it
all. We are going to Harlem today to get our haircuts from a member who owns a
dominican barbershop. Ha that should be interesting. Then we are going to the
city and checking out the legendary Nike store that apparently is 5 floors, and
then we are going to the little island right in between Manhattan and
Brooklyn. It's going to be a great day. I love you so very much and have
a fantastic week.
- Elder Celaya
P.S. Zach Snyder! I heard about your
mission call to Mexico! We visited two members from Mexico last night and I
asked him what he knew about the city you have been called to. He says the
people are very outgoing and loud and speak fast like the Dominicans. He said
it's pretty dangerous there too but it has its nice parts too. He said you will
like it. He said down south by Pueblo (where he's from) it's a lot more
relaxed, and the closer you get to the border the more crazy it is! So have fun
brother! I look forward to being able to speak to you in Spanish when you get
back!
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