Greetings and salutations :) (11 March 2015)

Photo from 2 weeks ago

- Winter is ending. Every day here it has been very cold. The snow is absolutely nasty in the city. It turns to black mush and slush. Finally it's warming up here! That alone makes missionary work a lot more enjoyable. The only bad thing about it warming up is that here there are only two seasons - winter and summer. So that means pretty soon it is going to get very hot and humid, so I'm enjoying this "transition" time.

- Little miracles. Little miracles happen every day and you can truly see God’s hand in the work. Last Wednesday our appointments fell through, so we had a member who was having a birthday so we wrote a card to her and silvered the card with her favorite cookies. We were praying all night to be able to find someone new who needed to hear the gospel at that moment. Well as we knocked on this member’s house door, a completely random guy opened the door. We started talking to him and come to find out that he is renting a room in that member’s house and that day is his only day off. We talked to him for a while and we asked if we could come back and he said yes. Anyways, last night we were teaching a man named Uziel who is in the church but works on Sundays down in Harlem. We wanted to set a time to go teach the other man this week (Victor) and turns out Uziel works with him in Harlem. We talked to Uziel for a while and got a lot of information about him that will help us.  

After that appointment, we needed to pick up laundry detergent so we walked into the store and guess who was right in front of us in line? Victor! So we were able to talk with him and potentially set something up for tonight. There are many things like that that happen that truly remind me that God is here and he will place us where we need to go if we just follow the Spirit.

- Exercise. I've been running 4 miles every morning. That is going good but wow is it tiring. On Wednesdays (today for example), we go to the church and play basketball with our district and zone leaders at 5:40. It's so much easier to cope when you feel alive physically. 

- I went on a split with an elder in my district, Elder Cordon, and we were in a bus, and this huge guy comes up to us and asks us "do you know who died two hundred years ago today?" And we said, "no who?" He said "Malcom X." Then he gave us a bad look and walked to the front of the bus. Then it looked like he was getting angry and came back and asked us, "Do you know what is significant about this month?" Then Elder Cordon said "Valentine's Day haha" and that got him more angry and I said no. Then he was like "BLACK HISTORY MONTH. That's why I ain't Neva gunna join y'all Mormons.” He got really angry and walked away and cursed us out and I didn't really hear what he said so I said “thank you sir." But, Elder Cordon told me after what he said. It was honestly funny. Elder Cordon is rather new, so he kind of freaked out a bit but I thought it was hilarious. These kinds of things happen all the time and I just like seeing what they are going to do next. 

- Faith. It is EXTREMELY powerful. When we let God take the wheel, we can do things that are humanly impossible. It allows us not to be scared, it allows us to be great. Just imagine if you were the shrimp in high school who walked around the hall getting beat up all the time. You would sit there and think to yourself, oh how can I get bigger so I won't get beat up all the time? It would take a long time to get bigger and your progression would stop at some point because you are human and only one person. Now let's say you instead make friends with all the big guys at school and you walk into the cafeteria together, you aren't going to be afraid at all because you have something much, much bigger there than yourself protecting you (all your big friends). It's the same with God.

When we know we are nothing, that is when we can rely on God to do everything we can't, but only as we apply the almost "impossible" faith. We can only do so much as humans, but what we can't do, God promises we can do it with his help. I think we cheat ourselves sometimes. Here is a scripture that describes it (Mormon 9:21):

“Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.”

With God’s help we can literally accomplish ANYTHING! We just need to believe and doubt nothing! God, self belief, and hustle are the only things we need to make it happen. Apply greater faith and set higher goals than you are not capable of obtaining, because with God's help, we can do anything. I love you all.

- Elder Celaya

P.S. I don't have any photos this week because we are getting new iPads tomorrow so we had to clean off all our photos. We are going to flight club, checking out the Atlantic records building, going to Times Square, going to the Central Park zoo and then going to a restaurant in Central Park that one of our investigators works at, so I will take a lot of pictures today! Preparation day here is great! Haha. Have a magnificent week.