Small Miracles are Still Miracles (Week 25)

Buenos Nachos everyone, (I know my Spanish is A1)

Our friend, Sabina, is getting baptized on Saturday!! Please pray for her! She is amazing 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I am grateful for all of you :) This past week was pretty solid. On Christmas Eve and Christmas day we made and delivered a bunch of cookies. We also spent time with some of the people we are teaching and some awesome members! On Christmas day we talked to our families, which made me a little trunky, honestly,  haha, and we had an amazing steak dinner with our bishop and his family. Christmas was different on the mission for sure, but definitely memorable. Jesus Christ is truly the greatest gift of Christmas! He fills me with so much love and is the biggest source of motivation in my life!

A miracle we had this past week happened with this lady named Judy. Being on a mission has helped me to see how many miracles there truly are in the day that we might be taking for granted. A couple of weeks ago we called Judy. We had a member join the call with us. Turns out that both Judy and the member had done the same line of work for their careers. They had also lived in the same apartment complex at some point and were getting along really well on the phone call! We were able to set up a return appointment. On the day of the appointment we were just about to leave and one of my companions suggested that we give her a fancy thing of cookies that had been given to us. (Yes, we re-gifted it. Classic. I know.) Anyway we show up and she gives us some treats and then we give her these cookies. She told us they were her favorite cookies! Maybe she was just being nice, haha, but I think not. We had planned to share a short Christmas message with her but we ended up sharing the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we shared Joseph Smith's first vision with her, the spirit hit like a nuke. Now the spirit doesn't actually do that but you know what I mean. It pierced our hearts, haha, there we go. Anyway, the whole thing is all kind of small but there are so many small things like this that happen everyday that makes it absolutely impossible to deny the power of God! 

Mormon 6:19 says "And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles."

He is in our everyday lives, we just have to look for it!

P.S. My companions almost lit the apartment on fire. We'll talk about it when I'm home, haha.

MERRY CHRISTMAS (Week 24)

 Merry Christmas to everyone!

This time of year has always been my favorite! We get to focus on not only the baby Jesus Christ, but that He is Jesus The Living Christ! It truly is the most wonderful time of the year :)

Soooo I got transferred. I am now in Aliso Viejo, which is a super nice area just north (I think) of Laguna Niguel. I am back in the blessed Orange county. 

My two companions are Elder Ward and Elder Gregory. 

They are two stud missionaries from really small towns in Idaho. They are my two favorite hicks, haha. When we aren't talking about the Gospel they are talking about 1 of 4 things: hunting, guns, horses, and trucks. Literally that is all they talk about . I try not to laugh when they stare at trucks in awe and say "dang." Now say that again in your head like you're from Idaho. Haha, it's awesome! 

This past week was good! It was slower on the teaching side of things but we had a lot of service! The Laguna Niguel stake puts on this thing every year called "The chalk walk." They use one of the church building's parking lot and they have a bunch of different people set up these amazing art pieces made from chalk. They are absolutely amazing haha. I'll send a couple of pictures. 

We are also teaching this awesome lady named Sabina!! She has a baptismal date for January 2nd! And she is absolutely Golden, she loves everything we teach her and her understanding of Gospel topics is amazing! I'm using a lot of exclamation points but oh well. Anyway we are super excited for her.

The ward here is super awesome. The members are loading us up with food and it's just a great area. 

Jesus Christ truly is the greatest gift of Christmas! He is the gift that I will be eternally grateful for. Take some time to ponder all He has done for you and think of something you can give to Him, or give up for Him. He truly is the light and life of the world!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

Elder Shockley 

December 🎅 (Week 22)

Family and friends,

Not that anyone reads these  but I'll write one anyway. How are you all doing? I love hearing from you all and am grateful for your support! I think I say that every time, but it's the truth! We had a pretty busy week. We have been super blessed in this area to be busy with work. We are currently teaching 7 people and could pick up 11 more (2 families) of God's children to teach the restored gospel to this week! The Lord is truly blessing us. This week I had one of the most scarring experiences of my life  so much so that we can talk about it after the mission. Besides that we have had a pretty stellar week.

 We started teaching this Lady named Janice! She is super nice and also super ready. We met her about a month ago when we were getting haircuts. She was giving Elder Lundgreen a haircut and starting talking about how she knew some "Mormons" and we met with her since then and have a return appointment and she is just super awesome! We also picked up this guy named Jesus. The Spanish Elders passed him off to us. He is super funny and we are excited to be teaching him. This week I also saw Elder Wyatt Mortensen!! He is also serving in the Newport Beach mission. There was a meeting up in Laguna Niguel that we both had to go to and it was so awesome to see him! He is a stud missionary and Aspen Meadows 3rd ward is being well represented here in the West coast. 

The Christmas devotional was amazing yesterday and if you haven't got the chance to watch it I highly recommend it! I love this time of year and I love focusing on Jesus Christ :) Romans 8:37 says  "...we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." I love this and I know that we truly can become and are so much more through Jesus Christ than we all think we are!

I love you all!

Elder Shockley