11 Months (Week 46)

I have been set apart as a full time (full-time?) missionary now for 11 Months! Kinda super crazy and it has honestly gone by fast but also slow. Does that make sense? Time as a missionary is crazy haha, but anyway this past week was super solid. We had Zone Conference on Wednesday and it was super sweet! Elder Mark Bragg of the Seventy and his wife came and addressed us. It was just one of those things that you had to be there for. Later on Wednesday, my companion and I were making some phone calls. We called this bro named James. He is a Chaplain (?) at Camp Pendleton military base, just south of San Clemente (If you don't know what I am talking about, it is pretty much a military base that is close to us ). We got into this conversation about what I believe and the Restoration. As I was teaching him about it, he would stop very frequently and say something along the lines of, "Wait, wait, hold on, hold on. So you're telling me you believe that...?" I would answer with a yes that got bolder and more resounding as he continued to question me. It made me think to myself, 'Do I believe what I believe?' The answer is YES. The conversation ended with an unspoken feeling of his uncertainty about what is true. As missionaries love to do, we invited him to read from and pray about the  Book of Mormon. He pondered the invitation and told us about all the other books he has to read and how busy he is and all that good stuff. We promised him some mad blessings and re invited him. Now it's just a hope to whether he'll read it or not. Truth is out there, we just have to be willing to seek it.

On Saturday, we were out knocking on some people's doors. Just on the absolute grind, and as Elder Calhoun, from the movie The Best Two Years, puts it "we had door after door slammed in our faces. Finally we get to this one door.... Nothin." Haha and so it was with us. Nothin. There was this last neighborhood with a couple people that we could stop by and as much as I didn't necessarily want to, we kept going and hit the last few people. Two more doors left. The first of these last looked promising. They even had a micro pond in their front yard, and anyone with a micro pond in their front yard has to be somewhat nice. Sadly, they didn't answer. We walked around to this final door, and to save any suspense that might be building up, they answered haha. It was this less active family and they were super grateful to see us. It made the whole day worth it. That's how it goes. Endure to the end. I like to look at that principle as thrive to the End (especially when you have the Gospel of Jesus Christ), but sometimes it truly is ENDURE to the End.

Anyway, there are a whole lot more experiences to write about but all in all, Jesus is the Christ and His Gospel and Church are here upon the Earth. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us more than we know and are doing everything to see us safely home.

-Elder Shockley

P.S. I gave my companion a haircut last P-day. Shout-out to Grandma Barbs, Sports Clips, and Jackson for teaching me how🤙

Another Bash (Week 45)

Well, first off, Happy Mother's Day to all Mother's out there. I am beyond grateful for Mothers and would be absolutely nothing without my own. I love you mom!

Haha, well this week was interesting. Every week we go do service up in Irvine at this food pantry. It's a nice change of pace and a good way to give some meaningful service. It's kind of like a mini store for people who are less fortunate. We get to fill up grocery carts for these people, take it out to them, and help them put it into their vehicles. I enjoy it a lot. There are other volunteers there as well but the difference between them and us missionaries is that we LOAD UP the grocery carts and just stuff it full of food. People gotta eat haha, so we give them as much as we can. 

On Thursday, I was able to go on an exchange with my old companion, Elder Lundgreen!! We were companions when I was in Escondido and now he is my Zone Leader here in Mission Viejo. Kind of neat, haha. We had a good time and just got to catch up a little. 

Saturday was eventful. This dude named Kevin had invited us over to his backyard to share a message. We showed up and he had one of his friends with him. Super cool, right? Nope. Honestly my first thought when I saw both of them was that we were going to get bashed haha. Leading up to Saturday, during the week and right beforehand, I just felt kind of uneasy about it all. Well, it was another bash. Yay. Haha. These guys were going ham. They tried using the Book of Mormon to bash us and we were like BRO, you don't even know. I don't have too much time so this email won't be as detailed but basically everything they said didn't mean anything to me, haha. In those moments I became this indestructible waterproof jacket (rain jacket?) and they were harmless drops of rain. That was a terrible analogy but it's the best I got right now for on the spot, haha. Anyway, they told us they were doing this because they cared for us and just so worried that we were brainwashed.  Oh man, they don't even know, and they didn't want to know. They were just so bent on proving us wrong. It was a great trial of faith though, haha.

I know that the Book of Mormon is true. It is truly Another Testament of Jesus Christ and has changed who I am. I know Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God and God's prophet for this dispensation. NOTHING can shake me from that.

-Elder Shockley 

Wild One! (Week 44)

 As the title of the email suggests, this week was a wild one for sure! We've got to go back to last Monday. We got up and went to the church to play some basketball. Classic missionary thing to do on P-day. It was just me and my companion. We decided to do a couple of shooting competitions and what not until right at the very end. My comp wanted to go one on one. Good times. During our little game, I drove to the hoop and came to a jump stop and did a pump fake. It worked and I got my companion to jump, except it wasn't too much of a jump. I had accidentally stepped on his foot and when he jumped he came back down on it all weird  and that pretty much ended the game. He had a pretty gnarly ankle sprain. We came home and took it pretty easy the rest of the day. His foot was super swollen and only looked slightly dislocated so we used our judgement and deemed it best to wait a day or 2 before calling someone about it. The next morning his ankle was still super swollen and it had also bruised and after much consideration, we decided we should probably just tell the nurse now because she is going to find out about it at some point or another. She suggested that we go to the Urgent care to get it x-rayed for fear of it being broken. And she also had us set up an appointment with a doctor that does stuff with feet (what are those called?)............... So we went to the urgent care for the x-ray and after about 2 hours they came back and told us that he had just had a moderate ankle sprain. It looked a lot worse than that but hey, if that's all it was, then we are good to go! 

The next day we had his doctor appointment and I had to wait in the lobby. After about an hour of watching this super intriguing shoe about houses, my companion came out in a boot... The doctor had reexamined the x-ray and apparently my comp broke his tibia and his fibula near his foot. Good stuff. So now he is in a boot for the next 6-8 weeks. Crazy stuff right there haha.

On Friday we were going about doing good and we got a text from this man. This dude had bashed with the missionaries in the past but has since made amends with the missionaries. He told us about his friend that wanted to learn more about "the Mormon view of the trinity." Seemed like a potential bash, but you never know. We said we could help out his friend and the dude gave us his friend's number. The friend (I should just start using names) named Greg reached out to us. He asked when we could meet and where. He lives in San Clemente about 15ish minutes south of us. He said he would come up to Mission Viejo to talk with us. Definitely smelling like a bash at this point. My companion said he has never been in a bash so he was going to let me handle it. Thanks, haha. Anyway, I had an awesome personal study preparing for our meeting. I put a few scriptures up my sleeve that I might need but I was actually directed to President Nelson's talk from April 2020, 'Hear Him." In the talk President Nelson gives 4 different accounts of when Heavenly Father speaks. The Father speaks to proclaim the divine sonship of His only begotten, Jesus the Christ. I decided to use this as the main way of teaching Greg. When we got to the park we decided to meet at, we picked out a table and started our comp study until Greg got there. He pulled up in a white SUV and on the side of his back left window he had a car sticker. The sticker said COMPASS BIBLE on it. Great. It was definitely going to be a bash. Compass Bible church and Saddleback church are 2 big churches in this part of California who are big time bashers, haha. In my mind I had thoughts along the line of, well at least this will be fun to write home about. So here we are, a one on one bash. As we start talking I come to find out that the dude isn't actually wanting to bash. I end up not having to use my bashing scriptures but end up reading with him the four accounts of Heavenly Father speaking directly to his from Him. It was super cool! We had an hour conversation of how we know it to be the Godhead instead of the Trinity and we got into a lot of fun, deep, stuff like Exaltation and becoming like God to Premortal Jesus. Good Stuff. We taught him the Restoration and invited him to read the Book of Mormon. He declined the invitation and told us how he has a Book of Mormon and how he has problems with Joseph Smith. I asked him if he has read the Book of Mormon and if he has read it recently. He said no. Well, there is the problem, haha. We walked over to his car and before he got in the car I said, " If you never try, you'll never know with the Book of Mormon." Isn't that just the truth.

In 3 of the 4 accounts mentioned above, Heavenly Father says, "This is my beloved Son, hear Him." Those words fill me with the Spirit each time I read and ponder them. It is a loving, caring invitation to Hear His Son and to be led to Life Eternal. How have you been able to 'Hear Him'?

-Elder Shockley :D