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