Wow, what
adventures I’ve had these past weeks! I have been so extremely busy, that is
the reason I did not write last week. Where do I start?
Well, I guess I will talk about
transfers. My companion Elder Hausenfluck finished his mission last week and
went home. I am so happy to have been able to serve with him. He taught me so
much and I will use that knowledge the rest of my mission and even my
life.
I now have a new companion named
Elder Richards. He is just awesome! We have a great time together. He is from
Utah and has only been out for five months, but he is a stud! He's not afraid
to talk to anyone and he's so good at doing it. He's very patient and loving
and virtuous and is always looking for ways to show how much he cares. It's
amazing how much you learn from your companions.
- Elder Cook from the Quorum of the
Twelve Apostles came and visited our mission. That was just unbelievable. I got to
sing before he talked and it was such a good and crazy experience. It was
incredible how much love he had for us. You could really feel it and I have
never felt it like I did then.
- We have been trying to talk to
everyone in the streets here that we can. Elder Richards is so willing to talk
with anyone and so we have been coming up with good ways to contact people.
Sometimes it can be scary, but then after you do it, it's no big deal! I think
I enjoy it a little more than tracting, but tracting is great too!
- Contacting at a hip-hop concert in
the park.
So there are these crossroads that
we always walk across every day. We were walking to a family’s house that we
usually teach, and all of a sudden we saw tons of people and heard this loud
music. As we got closer we saw they closed off all the roads, set up tons of
pop-up tents, and they had a huge stage in the middle of the road. It was
absolutely wild! We went to the family’s house and after we had the appointment
with them, we had planned to go look up a person before our next appointment.
Well, we then asked ourselves, "How often in our area are there thousands
of people all gathered together at one spot?" Really it's not that often.
So we decided to go contact people and try to talk to them. We spotted this
family on a bench and we went up to them and asked them if they knew who was
performing. They told us, and they started talking and it was great. The man had
been in an accident and the bone in his leg broke sideways, so they cut out the
bone and put in a metal rod. He then started talking about how real God was to
him in that moment. He is from Brooklyn and turns out he is a music producer.
Since I love to do the same thing, we connected well on that level. He told us
how he's seen everything worldly in his life, and has realized that family is
what he really wants. So, we were able to talk about the plan that God has for
us on the earth and they really loved it! We took their information down and we
will keep in contact with them. This is just one of the amazing experiences we
have had this week by talking to people on the street. It is amazing what
happens when you simply open your mouth.
- I have learned this week a little
bit more about how God works with us. We must first do our part (to show Him
our desire and our faith), and then He will do the rest. For example, the
hardest part about contacting people is convincing yourself to go talk to that
person, but after you do that, you feel the spirit speaking through you to
them, and it becomes a beautiful thing. It really is true how they say faith always
precedes the miracle.
I have been thinking about really
how simple life can be if we allow it to be. We are all here on this
earth. As far as we know, we sometimes feel as if we have no direction. It
really is simple. There was a man who came to the earth and lived a perfect
life, and showed us the way to happiness here in this life, and eternal bliss
in the world to come. That man is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Sometimes I ask
myself why we don't just give our full hearts to Him and follow His example
when we know it will lead us to happiness that in our human state we aren't
able to comprehend. Do we not want happiness? Haha, at least that's the
question I ask myself when I don't fully give my heart to Him and trust Him. I sometimes
ask myself why I don't fully do that. But it's rather simple. God's given
us the way to happiness in every area we could possibly think of, want, or
envision and far beyond that. All we have to do is give our hearts to Him and
exercise our free agency and choose to follow Him, because that's the one thing
he doesn't have - our hearts. How can we simply give Him our hearts, and start
ourselves on the path to infinite eternal bliss? I guess a good question to ask
is what would we change if we knew we were to meet God today? I have been
thinking a lot about that. And the answer that comes into my mind is I would
give him my full heart. What would you change?
I love you all!
- Elder Celaya
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