10 Months + Shout Out to Kansas (Week 42)

Hey everyone! This past week was a great one for sure! It was also the last week of the transfer. We found out on Saturday if we were getting transferred or not. I am now in Mission Viejo! My new companion is Elder Fuiava and he is just the greatest. He is from California and he plays college football. He redshirted a year at USC and then transferred over to BYU where he will start playing when he gets back from his mission. I am also finishing his training and am super excited about it! 

So many experiences to share but the email would be way too long and I just don't have enough time haha but the couple of things I have to share should hopefully be awesome! First things first, I hit my 10 months as a missionary just a couple of days ago, so that's always exciting. Time as a missionary is pretty weird haha. This past week some birds tried to come nest on our "porch" light out back. They weren't super successful and they didn't have a ton of space, so we decided to help them out. We taped a Granola Bar box on top of the light to provide them with better living conditions.  They are starting to nest there, so that's awesome haha.

 Anyway, on Saturday or Friday maybe, or whenever it was, we were stopping by some people in these weird apartments that were pretty nice. Anyway as we were walking down one of the streets we saw this young couple walking a dog. Perfect. Easiest street contacting approach ever. Before we could day anything the guy said, "Hey Elders!" We had no idea who he was and I thought that maybe he just hadn't been to church in awhile. Turns out he was from Kansas and he comes and visits his girlfriend in California every weekend. Dedication. Haha but anyway he asked if we were giving out Books of Mormon and we said of course. I went to hand him one but he said that it was for her. The thought came that maybe she wasn't a member, turns out that was right. We started talking about the Book of Mormon and then Johnny (the guy from Kansas) told Ladan (his girlfriend) what we did as missionaries and then said how he did the same thing in Korea. Kind of cool. Then we tag team taught her the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and man, it was super cool. We got her information and will be teaching her in the future (or whoever is in Aliso Viejo)!

God is so good, and He loves each of us. He ALWAYS keeps His promises and truly makes more out of our efforts than we ever could. I love you all!

-Elder Shockley 

Uee or Yue E? (Week 41)

Every week brings something different and this past week was no exception. Last Monday, after I finished talking to my family, we were driving back to our apartment and we saw this incredible sunset and a super sweet spot to take a picture of it. So naturally we drove to the spot. We got up there, took some pretty neat pictures, and then went back to the grind. 

As we were driving back, the dude driving in front of my decided to flip around. He slightly pulled into the street on the right side and began to flip a uee (Uie, you ee? Yue E? I dont know how to spell that one to be honest). I wasn't following him close at all nor was I speeding (like the responsible driver that I am) and I assumed that he had seen me. Apparently he hadn't and kept turning. At the last second, I veered to the left to avoid a collision and barely avoided him. Until he gave us a nice little smack on the back right side of the car. Yay. I contemplated just driving off, but we decided against it. So we had to get a bunch of information and some pictures and all that good stuff. No one was injured and both cars had fairly minimal damage. Now the dude's mom is trying to sue me............................ Nah just kidding, we got it all figured out. Just a little scratch really. It did make me ponder on if the accident were more serious. I also though of car wrecks that turn out to be fatal. That stuff is super gnarly and life is precious, it's jest best to drive safe. A great way to start the week off that was, haha, but hey we got some solid pictures.

I have met some super solid Christian people out here that have super strong faith. It has been awesome to see that despite the world ever turning away from Jesus Christ, there are still good people who have faith in Christ and who have hope. It is beyond important to display our faith and to be bold about it. 

Yesterday we decided to do some contacting by these shops and we saw this dude who was reading. I have always wanted to approach someone who is reading and ask them if they would like to read a better book and then give them a Book of Mormon, haha. That was what I was going to do. We saw that he was reading a book about Jesus Christ and so we started talking to him about it a lot. Then we got talking A LOT. This guy had so many deep thoughts and questions that were super good. He was super curious about what we believed and loved what we had to say. He wasn't bashing but he was so curious to hear from us about the things he has read about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was super solid. He told us toward the end of our 1 hour conversation that he had been wondering a lot recently about what "Mormons" believe and he couldn't believe it that there were 3 "Mormon missionaries" who literally came and talked to him. Super cool. It reminds me of the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants that talks about how so many people are kept from the truth only because they don't know where to find it. He then asked the best way he could better learn about what we believe. That is one of our favorite questions to hear. We gave him a Book of Mormon, which he graciously accepted, and wrote down a few chapters that would answer his questions about our beliefs. The dude's name is Keith and we will see where that goes

One last super cool thing was that I went on an exchange with one of the Elders in my district and in the meantime, my companions finally got in with this family of 6 that we have been trying to ever since February. Missionaries have been hit or miss with them for like 8 years but they haven't been fully immersed and taught yet. They play basketball and we are going to set something up with them this week! Super sweet, and I will keep you updated on how that goes.

-Elder Shockley