The Devil Is Within the Ice Cream and the French Fry (26 August 2015)

Wow what a few weeks and how they have flown by! 

So, to explain the subject of this email...Remember how in the Bronx I told you that there are ice-cream trucks EVERYWHERE and they all play the one same song (I haven't heard this one until I came to NY), and there is no way to get away from it. You hear it all day long and because of how close everything is, you always hear it...on the streets, in appointments, at home...there is no running from it. Well, I thought I would get away from it coming to Harlem, but it just got worse. This is a tiny island and there are so many buildings, so everything echoes off of everything. It is the creepiest and most horrible song ever. It drives you crazy. So, that is why the devil is within the ice-cream trucks. The funny thing about it though is that the ice-cream trucks look very inviting and innocent—then you look at the driver and he looks like some thug that's coming out of the projects, covered in tattoos and piercings—and the best thing about it is they ALWAYS have their earphones in or headphones on listening to music because they know how annoying this song sounds. This song has been carrying over into my dreams too. I can't get away from it. It's going to haunt me the rest of my life. 

About the french fry. Well, I haven't written an email for a while, so for those who don't know, I have been blessed to receive a brand new missionary! I love him and he is great. There are some things he is still getting used to, but everything has been so fun and I have learned so much about how to be yourself on the mission from him. But last night, we were at an appointment and he ate one french fry. There were about 10 people. All of a sudden he started choking and mucous starting flowing out of his mouth. He couldn't talk and we had no idea what was going on. Everyone began to be frazzled and he rushed to the bathroom. We all thought he had a bad allergic reaction and that we were going to have to take out an epi-pen and jab it in his leg and get him to the hospital. Everyone was yelling in Spanish "HE'S DYING, HE IS DYING. CALL THE HOSPITAL!!". He came out, and as embarrassing as it was for him, he told everyone that he choked on one french fry. Haha. It was such a good old rookie mistake :) Ah, it was very funny. We all laughed it off and enjoyed the night together. So yes, the devil is in the ice-cream truck and the french fry. Be careful kids ;)

We have been trying to find new ways to find people. So we thought, hey, this is Harlem. Everyone is addicted to drugs, everyone plays basketball, people are into poetry, and people are into spray painting everything, so let’s take our finding to a very personalized outline specifically for Harlem. We are thinking about starting an addiction recovery class, a Spanish class, a basketball class, a poetry class, and one thing we already found was this: There is a big place where anyone can place their art on a big wall here in Harlem, so we went and got a big board and spray paint and decided to spray paint a scripture on the board and hang it up on the wall. We put the scripture and then "call for hope" with our number attached. It looks pretty cool. (see picture attached)

-We met this guy and started teaching the restoration and something we call "How to Begin Teaching" and then he interrupted us and said, "Listen....you aren’t here so that I can learn, so you can teach me. I already know everything about God....You are here so I can see if your religion is wrong." He was pulling out scriptures left and right from his Bible in Romans and a bunch of other really complicated scriptures. It was amazing to see how the Spirit was able to guide me with such hard questions in a whole other language. My companion didn’t say a word because he can’t understand or speak yet...so it was all me...and lucky the Spirit. :) So, eventually we started teaching the plan of salvation...and he said it contradicted with the Bible. We asked him to show us where...so he did...and then we showed him the scripture in Corinthians which talks about the three degrees of heaven...and then he was like "Wow, so you are saying that the Bible contradicts the Bible!" and I said "YES!" (he was expecting me to say no). We then shared what the Book of Mormon was. And the thought came to me to teach him through his own Bible. So I grabbed his Bible and looked up a scripture in Corinthians that said basically that man cannot know things of God unless they are manifested through the spirit of God...and it was insane....because I was able to testify of the Book of Mormon and how to know if it’s true, and it was wild to see him finally submit and listen...you could literally see the Spirit working within him. It was a two-hour lesson (super stressful considering my companion didn’t say a word), but it was amazing how the Spirit turned it all around. So, we are going to teach him about the restoration of the gospel by using his Bible this week. It will be great!

Luis - So this is a little interesting. Luis and his wife are two people that the English elders found and passed off to us. They are an interesting couple. We got into the appointment and we started talking, and right away he wanted to get down to business. He pulled out this list that looks like he started making it in the 40's. It was covered in scribbles with all colors of different pens. So we are thinking "YES! He read and actually studied the Book of Mormon." It was very different than that indeed. We prayed, and then we planned to share with him the talk called "What is the Blueprint of Christ's Church?" He then stopped us in the middle of us saying the title and said, "No we can't look at Jesus’ plan...we need to look at God's." He started going off with all these weird calculations on his list about everything from when Jesus will come again, when the Millennium will start and end, etc...He talked straight for an hour and a half, and whenever we would try to say something, he would ignore us and continue talking louder. We didn't know what to do. Finally we had it. The spirit was not there, and there was a very dark, contentious feeling that was being radiated. So, we knew we needed to change something. We interrupted him and asked him, "What is the purpose of our visits to you?” And he said, "So you guys can come and learn from me." Then we asked, "Why do you think we choose to come over here as missionaries?" He answered, "So I can see if your church is right, and if it is, I want to baptize myself in it, and if it's not, I won't." We said, "Exactly! And how can you know our beliefs if you won't listen to us?" It was like a light switch popped into his head and he let us talk. We ended up sharing the talk, and I felt a very different spirit enter the room. You could feel the spirit of truth and love. It was amazing to see because at the end of the lesson, he completely changed. His countenance changed, and he couldn't argue about what he was feeling.  You can never deny what you truly feel from God. You will always know deep in your heart that what you felt was true. And it was a miracle to me to see how the Spirit was able to crush the contention and open the eyes of someone who truly thought he was right. I love the gospel. It brings ultimate peace. Read or listen to that talk! It is amazing. "What Is the Blueprint of Christ's Church?" by Tad R. Callister.

https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/ces-devotionals/2014/01/what-is-the-blueprint-of-christs-church?lang=eng

For those of you who know Elder Fagan, the wonderful young man who served in our church ward 21 months ago and came back to our ward to finish his mission, he just went home today. I have been meditating on the great example he has been to all of us, and in a very personal way, to me. He saved me. He taught me in a very personal way how the spirit works - how it completely changes who people are. There is a better world out there. There is this dream world that so many of us have deep within us, but the hope of it flees so easily away as we let what we call "reality" shape what we believe. It is out there and it starts within ourselves. That is something Elder Fagan has taught me. If that endless love, that hopeful and pure blissful spirit is possessed within us, it will spread to others as we share with them what has made us that way. The gospel of Jesus Christ, when fully embraced, turns us into that. He has led so many of us out of the old world and into this new, fuller, more satisfying, enjoyable world, and to Elder Fagan I will be forever grateful. He taught me how to be a missionary and I hope one day to be even half as humble, compassionate, deep thinking, and Christlike as he is.

Turn to love. Let us not judge, but love. Let's create a different world here. It all starts within ourselves. 

- Elder Celaya

This is the sign we made.

My dog friend Romero. Isn't he just so Happy?

This is a sign they made next to our apartment because every day at 7:00 am there is this Asian lady that comes by to dig for bottles and she just puts down her pants and starts peeing on the street. My companion every morning opens the window and starts yelling at her, but it's funny because she can't tell where it's coming from. Haha. So, kids, don't pee on the streets. :)

We got glasses so people will take us more seriously...

and wow does it work! 

We just went to the new World Trade Center 

and ground zero....and wow do you feel what happened there...

it feels hallowed there. It's a sacred place. You feel different there - almost empty...

you can feel the history there.

This is the Drake Face....they have pictures of Drake all over Harlem with this face...so 

we do it every time we see a poster of Drake.  

Just imagine a bunch of missionaries 

walking around Harlem amongst all the 

people, acting all tough doing our Drake face.

Zone Conference August 2015

"My Jesus" (5 August 2015)

This transfer meeting was a tender moment for me. First as they announced who I was training, you could see him stand up in front of the 100 missionaries, looking around, and up pops me from my seat in the back with a big smile on my face (a big guy training a little guy), and I run over and give him a big hug. Everyone, when they found out that I was training him, was in awe and they got pretty loud. It was a very tender moment. 

Then, the final testimony by President Smith really stuck deep within my heart. When he gets spiritual, he gets really quiet and soft and gentle.... and he was talking about the missionaries going home. He was like, you never "die" on the mission...you will continue your service for the rest of your life....and when all of you go home, and life moves on, I hope every time someone mentions New York City, your heart skips a beat, because you think to yourself, "Those are my people....they are my family. And that place is where I came to know God. That was the place I came to know my Father, and I found them." Tears flooded my eyes when he said that because that is truly how I feel. I have come to know how to love out here on my mission. My heart has gotten a lot bigger out here. I just think of my heart skipping a beat later on down the road when I am caught up in business, in the rush of life and having a family, and I think back to this solitary time where I came to know my family. Where I put everything I had into finding them (that includes President Morgan and President Smith, all the missionaries I have been able to grow extremely close to, the people we teach, this place... everything). I couldn't help but cry. The spirit was so strong. President calls Christ "my Jesus"... and his wife explained why. She said that he calls him that because he feels like he found him, and once we find him, we should call him that too. I tear up just thinking about it. Words are so limited as to what I truly feel about God now.

Anyways, I just thought I would share that with you guys. I love this experience. It is extremely hard, but at the end of the day, when all the hard sorrows fade away, I am left with the feeling I just described and with me personally knowing my Heavenly Father. What more could I ask for?

I love you so very much!

Elder Austin Celaya

p.s. BTW, I am going into the chiropractor tomorrow (there is a chiro here that treats the missionaries for free) because I have been experiencing really bad neck and back pains (from when I injured my neck at the gym before I left...the gymnastics type of gym) ...so hopefully he will be able to help me.

Transfer Meeting (I'm in the back left)

Meeting my new companion

Training Elder Wadsworth (from Lehi UT to Harlem NY!)

Goodbye Sister Smoot!  (with Elder Nelson)

Hi Mom

All the trainers for the new missionaries

Why Happiness Exists (29 July 2015)

This week has been one of the hardest weeks of my mission mentally. This week has been downright hard, draining, and difficult. But, looking back on it all, and what happened, I count it as a blessing.

The Heat - The heat here is unbelievable. The sun is so hot, the humidity is so thick it feels like you are being cooked in an oven full of boiling water. It drains you completely. 

Hermana Feliz' niece. So my old companion Elder Hausenfluck served in Harlem before. He told us to go look up the Feliz family. Well, we did, and we have been meeting with them every week now. Sister Feliz has a niece who is visiting from the Dominican Republic for the summer. We have been teaching her for the last month and she is really receptive. She has come to church three weeks in a row and all is going well. It is interesting because we have been teaching a lot of people who came to this country from their native country to find work and opportunity. It is amazing to see those who "mistakingly" run into the gospel. The Lord sees these things and He gives us these tender mercies that just make it all fit together.  We will see how she continues to go!

Fashion designer - There is this guy in our church who is in charge of dressing models and celebrities. He creates their outfits and packs them to go on tours (if they are music artists) or for photo shoots (if they are models). He has dressed some very famous people and he was telling us all about it. MY favorite was him telling us how he was in charge of putting all the outfits together for Justin Timberlake. That was a very fun visit. You just find so many awesome people here in NYC. 

Tender Mercies of the Lord - 

This week has been extremely difficult. Almost everyone we talked to was extremely rude to us. I felt like everyone we talked to cussed us out this week or threatened us, or to put it plainly, just didn't want us to exist. Yesterday we were feeling really down. I haven't felt that way for a long time. We decided to go and knock one more building. We knocked the building, and everyone was super angry with us. One guy started yelling at us in French, and then changed to English and cussed us out for a while. This happened with about 15 doors. Everyone answered (which is extremely unusual), and they all had something to say. So we were down with one floor left. We were not feeling happy at all at this point. We knock the next door, and this lady answers the door, and said, "HI! How in the world did you get in the building?" And I said, giving a smirk like we are some secret agents, "We have our ways..." Then she got super scared...and then I busted up laughing -- "no we are kidding, we just rung the bell and someone let us in." Then she asked us if we had been out all day and we said yes, and she told us to come in. She already knew who we were. Turns out, she is from southern California too. She just moved into her apartment a month ago and lives with a guy roommate. She is 23, and we came to find out that in high school she dated a Mormon guy. He left on his mission and they ended it and she felt pretty bitter about the whole thing. Well, that was the reason she let us in. She was extremely kind and we ended up talking for about an hour. Elder Merrell and I felt like we found our friend. I felt the spirit confirming to us that everything we had to go through that week led us to this. We had one of the greatest conversations I think I have ever had on my mission about life and who we are and what our purpose is as humans. The spirit was there, and the joy that we felt was so full of the love that comes from God. It was awesome. She just moved in. She was telling us how she doesn't have any friends here yet. We were going to leave after 20 minutes, but then she asked us if we could stay a little bit longer...she even told us she was feeling extremely depressed before we came. I find it funny that people think "we" make them feel good, when it isn't us, it's the Lord’s spirit. They cling to it. 

It was wild because I kind of have forgotten what normal people are like. People say "New Yorkers" for a reason. They are rough, tough, and straight up blunt about everything. She was kind and understanding and normal. This whole week was filled with rejection, but we both left feeling very edified and filled with the Spirit. It was a tender mercy to me to see that God was truly looking out for all three of us. He knew we needed something to lift our spirits, and even more, He knew that she needed it. We are going back to visit with her and her guy roommate within the next few weeks. They are going to make us dinner and we are going to go over to talk again with them. To explain the feelings I felt, I felt like I found my friend. That has been the most amazing feeling on the mission. When you feel like you find the person God wanted you to find. And when you find them, you can feel it by the spirit. Anyone who has served a mission knows exactly what I am talking about. The joy you feel is indescribable. 

This experience seems so meaningless, but that is what I have been learning. This mission, serving in the areas I have served in, has been hard. I don't like the atmosphere here. But I have come to LOVE the things that are good, because of how much bad I have been experiencing. I have come to see for myself that the greater bad I can experience, the greater good I then can enjoy, and things that are so simply good mean the world to me now. Buddha said, "Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."

The way to know joy is to know misery. The more misery you experience, the greater you will seek after joy, and the greater capacity you will have to experience it. I am learning this first hand and I love it. 

As they say,

Come what may,

and LOVE IT!

That is something that makes this mission all worth it. Finding your friends who are in the darkness, and you both come into the light together.

Sincerely,

Elder Celaya

The view outside our apartment in Harlem

with Elder Merrell

Our Harlem Zone with President Smith

Killers (22 July 2015)

Hello family and friends:)

What a wonderful week.

I have realized that you guys cannot be with me here as I serve this mission, and because of that, I have attempted to describe the daily life here in Harlem with some of the events that have taken place over the last week. It is long. It isn't just an email updating you on what happened, but rather a little book of my experiences and feelings this week. :) 

I love you guys!

HARLEM - Apartment. Wake up. Pray. Exercise. Study. Pray. Eat. Pray.

Leave, feeling uplifted and feeling energized with what we learned in the morning. Walk down the stairs. Open the doors of the apartment and out from our sanctuary into the dark world...then you hear yelling. Spanish and English. English you wouldn't understand. Dirty, uneducated and with drunkenness or anger.  Look to the left. People who look like they have walked through the desert without water and food for years laying on the ground. Out cold. A lighter, with homemade blunts filled with weed. Empty syringes lay worn out on the sidewalk. Blood filled pricked scars on their arms. Older and some fresh. Selling their future to substances. Cart filled with bottles and bags full of clothes. We walk by, put a Book of Mormon in their cart as they are deep within the sleeping spell of the after effects of the heavy drugs. The grand hope we have for the small possibility of complete change.

As we walk, we hear the yelling off in the distance. We walk towards the main road. Smells of rotting meat dwell within the air and fill your nostrils until it rubs you the wrong way. Turn the corner. Liquor stores all on the left filled with people who want to forget their reality. People without homes lay all over the sidewalk. Yelling in slurred Spanish and English affected by the effects of their drink. Brown bag in hand. Bottle in the brown bag. No life. All hope is gone. African Americans yelling, arguing in altered English. Continue to walk towards the train. Little venders (street meat) on the street corners. People come up and start yelling at us, trying to open our bags. Screaming at us about Jesus. Jump at us trying to scare us. We don't move. They eventually, with an impulse reaction, walk off and continue to yell to the invisible voices in their heads. Many people walking with a drunken spirit possessed within them, all talking to the members of their family that they have created over the years from so much drug use in their own minds. Exchanging sanity, progression, and the very point of life for temporary satisfaction and indulgement.

We walk down into the train station. The train comes. We take it. Everyone looks at us. Get out at our stop. People rushing. We hear yelling. Louder than before. We walk up onto the main road. More delinquents. African Americans dressed in robes with swords, professing that the devil as we know him doesn't exist, but rather how instead the devil is the white man -- just waiting for Jesus to come and tell them to kill us. They start yelling at us over the loud speaker. Everyone can hear. They start filming. Asking questions. Yelling furiously. We keep walking. Humid. Hot. You breathe and it feels like you are holding your breath. That feeling exists literally physically and emotionally as you walk the Harlem streets not knowing what is going to happen next. Walking through a sea of people. Nobody is smiling. If you are smiling, you are either drunk or have something up your sleeve.

We walk into project grounds. Big reddish-brown buildings shaped like an X, all placed in one area. Five or six of them all together. Walk onto the grounds. No Caucasion Americans anywhere. Everyone staring, wondering what we are doing there. People smoking and drinking. Cops stand watching, stationed throughout the projects. They watch with memories and regrets of not being there when previous murders have taken place. As you walk by the fence, there is an old antique bicycle all painted in white, symbolizing a young family member’s death. Next to the bike is placed holy candles with money, and with a rosary draped around the neck of the bike with a picture of the young person who was murdered due to something gang related. Their name flees away as the candles burn down to the end. The meaning of life to these people, fleeting away, means less and less the more their loved ones are taken from the earth.

Basketball court in the middle of the projects. People stare as we try to find the right project building. We enter. Smells of rotten meat, pee, sweat, mildew, and weed all enter your nose at once. You hit the elevator button. Nothing happens. We wait for ten minutes. A bell rings every time the elevator changes floors. Finally it arrives. It opens. All the smells go away, except the intake of pee increases. Old pee stains on the wall of the elevator. Fresh pee puddles on the ground. Walk in. Squeeze in with too many people. They are dressed in almost no clothing. You say hi how are you? They look and say nothing, as if we are not worthy enough for them. We exit out of the elevator on our floor. The smell of drugs envelop our noses and then enter the brain. We find our door, knock it. No answer. Arguing and strife mixed with music. Dark music. People see us knocking, come out the door and rudely ask us what we are doing and who we are. We tell them. They say nothing, just slam the door. You hear muddled cursing as they walk back to continue what they were doing. (Isn’t it ironic that the most successful people treat other people like they mean more to them than themselves, and, well...these people...treat others like they are less than life?...like they are kings who demand all the honor themselves?...sorry, just thoughts.)

We knock. They come to the door. "¿Quién?" (Who?). “The missionaries.” They open. We enter. Finally in the safe haven of the members home. You can see our skin as our shirts become see-through because of the amount of sweat. We sit down to beans, rice, and chicken -- all cooked in loads of corn oil. As we eat, the sweat drips into the food. Eating your own fluids twice. Drink water just to sweat it out, just to eat it again. We eat until our stomachs feel like a time bomb just waiting to explode as they bring out more and more food. We eat, trying not to offend their quick offending personalities. We thank them, talk with them, learn of them, and then share scripture with them. We hear gun shots in the near distance. Sirens approach. Almost unnoticed because of how frequent you hear them. As the world turns darker, we try to turn together to God. They become family. They become your anchor. You become family in Him. We end with a prayer, asking us to be so different from the world outside. We go hoping to be filled with His strength because we know there is no way we can do it on our own.

We exit. Elevator...waiting. Ten minutes later, the elevator arrives. That familiar smell of hot, elevating pee. The elevator beeping, sounding like an EKG as we pass down the 20 floors, counting the floors as it would a person’s heartbeat. We exit the building to see cops everywhere. Someone killed in cold blood. The same way they were conceived is the same way they are taken out of the world (with no meaning). People watching as cops clear the scene. We try to go unnoticed. People stare. Sounds of fighting. Sounds of lust. Sounds of the natural man. Creating man and eliminating man both very quickly and without purpose. Solely on impulse. Sounds of "English" that has been altered from lack of education and substance abuse.

We walk outside of the project grounds and back onto the road again.  We walk. Slow at first. Pace begins to pick up. Taking in mentally everything we just saw. As we brush it off, a man in front of us looks behind us. Suspicious. All dressed in black. Hood over his head. He gets more and more agitated. He keeps walking. Faster, more rapidly and more aware of us. Pulls out a knife. Raises it high above his head as a warning to us. He keeps walking, putting the knife high in the air like he is chanting in a parade. We stop as we feel the soft warning of God's spirit, pressing upon us to stop. We slowly walk...calmly, knowing all is well. He pulls out something else in his other hand and raises it above his head as he looks at us. We stop. We turn down the road. We walk and walk and walk. We get away. We walk for 30 minutes.

We walk....we see Caucasian Americans all wearing red, with tents set up on the streets of Harlem. We walk up to them and start talking to them. They are the same age as us. They are here for a week to go around the city to pray with people. They come from all over the country. As we are talking, two African Americans get into a bad fight right in front of us. Other people start joining in, and I am a little irritated because it completely interrupts our conversation. I see the fear fall into this young woman's eyes as she watches. I ask her how she likes Harlem. She says with horror in her voice, "I'm from a cornfield in Idaho. I've never seen anything like this. This scares me to death." We tell them not to worry about it. We understand how they feel :) We were once there, new, not too long ago. We decide to put off the chaos around us, and we all come together and put our arms around each other (like a team huddling). In the middle of the streets of Harlem, with all the chaos going on, we start praying, as strangers, but as brothers and sisters united in God. I leave that little circle with a smile on my face for the hope that is still out there in this world. I love good people. We smile. We thank them. We walk away to our next goal.

We turn down the next street and continue on our way, searching for a building to knock. We go in faith that God will place in our path someone He has prepared. The day passes, full of extreme experiences. We go home. Plan for the next day. I look in the mirror. I wash my face and thank God for preserving me another day. I open up my email. I see letters from friends and my family explaining about the tests they have taken, about the people they are interested in dating, and how they are going on vacations. Pictures of them at the ocean with their family and friends. Happy. My mom sends me a picture of my dog. This simple life. It is now foreign. It confuses me. School? Sports? Family?  It now feels like that life never existed. I wonder how I will transition back into that life after experiencing this. I am different. I am not the same Austin Celaya anymore. Before this, I had seen so little compared to what's out in the world, but I have seen enough and I can no longer be the same. The Lord is bringing me low so I can learn how to build up the life I so dearly now want for the future. The things that matter. I know what they are now. I don't just know them as one knows that two plus two equals four. I know them as I have experienced them, as someone experiences walking into the ocean. Feeling the cold water rush upon your legs as you dig your feet into the sand, sand crabs tickling your feet as the waves come crashing against your shins. I know it in a different way than I have ever known before.

This place is a very dark world. We know in the end God will win, but I feel as if evil is winning. God has promised us another world. If we live faithful here and live according to His words, he promises us a different world where we may dwell in a state of forever-ending possibilities and ultimate happiness; with His son, Jesus Christ, with our families and with Him forever. I don't want to do anything that would take me or my family away from that. That is why I love this truth. God has given us the way to endure this dark world, to create that heaven here on earth, and has given us the power and the guarantee to be able to have this world in the future. It has come through His authority that He has given to His prophets. We can know for ourselves through prayer as we pray and ask. God will press upon us the very Spirit He possesses Himself, and He will show us through many hand-crafted experiences that only He could craft because of their perfection, that these things are true. We will know it. He will show it to us. Is everything else not just a mere hope anyway? I need more than just a wish to be able to know that this world that we all hope for will come and that I will be with my family forever. I need it manifested to me. That is why I am so grateful for the knowledge of God's power that He has given to his prophet here on the earth today. His power, His priesthood, is the only way to make anything sure in that world we all hope for. I am so grateful for the sealing power we possess to be able to be sealed to our families for time and all eternity with our Heavenly Father and His Son. The Prophet Joseph Smith’s testament was that God had revealed through him the sealing power by which “all covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations” shall be in force and recognized as valid in the eternal worlds (D&C 132:7).

Suffering is ok. Hurting is ok. Feeling hopeless is ok sometimes. It is all ok, because I feel the greater amount we see and experience, the greater capacity for good we will know and be able to experience. The next world will come if we like it or not, just as the sun will fall in the night whether we wished for it or not. But, thankfully, God has given us the daytime to choose which side we will follow. When the sun falls, it will be too late for us to choose whom to serve. As C.S. Lewis puts it:

"God Will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else-something it never entered your head to conceive -- comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back go give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it."

As C.S. Lewis said so perfectly,

"Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side.

God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever.

We must take it.......or leave it."

I'm still trying to convince myself to take it. I'm in this with you all just the same. I just hope we can take it together.

Your brother and friend,

Elder Austin Celaya