Prophet, Hamster and Best Friend

Well sorry for missing the week before; I was a little busy but a tonnnnn has happened in these past few weeks. 

Well 2 Saturdays ago, we got to have a special meeting with the Prophet and with Elder Stevenson and let me just say that is going to be something that I can never forget. Our zone left early to get to the stake center of where the meeting was at, so we got wayyy close like 5 rows up in the front. Right when the prophet walked in, BAM, the spirit all smacked us in the face. It was probably the hardest I have ever been hit with the spirit. My whole body was just on fire, haha. I can truly testify that President Nelson is a man of God and he has been called as a prophet of God. 

President Nelson in Peru.

Elder Stevenson

SO we got to hear him and Elder Stevenson speak and they talked about how we are gathering the Tribes of Israel and how we are gathering the sheep of the Lord. They also talked about the importance of doing family history work with our converts and how there are tons of spirits waiting on the other side just waiting to be baptized. Also, as President Nelson walked in he saw the little daughter of the Amatos (Jackson's mission president) and he brought her up on stage with him and he was holding her hand and Hermana Amato was crying and everyone could just feel the spirit so strong. 

Anyway, right now we have two escogidos, Gino and Nefi. We are working with three other sisters, Sandra, Fortuna and Rosalia. I found Sandra in the street contacting and she told us how she wanted to change her life so we went to her house and taught her and her sisters. They have a family business so their schedule is super crazy but we are trying to work with them. We have dates for them but we haven't confirmed them yet because we are waiting to see in the next lesson if they really have desires to change. But Gino is a beast, haha. One day we were contacting and I started to contact his mom and she was trying to catch her dog running away and she told me to talk to her son and he was standing in the doorway so we talked to him and yeah. His date is for the 17th of October but he's definitely an escogido. He has gone to church with us and he also keeps his commitments. He's 17 and he plays for a soccer a club team in Lima so he's pretty dope. Nefi is a ten year old kid of this less active guy but his dad wants him to get baptized and so does he. 

Well last p-day we went to this other area in the zone and we got papa johns and fetch it was good. 

Papa Johns

So in our area we have a ton of just empty lots in between houses and they are great places to take a quick pee if you want..... at least for guys. So this past week me and my comp were contacting and then we just look over in this lot and there's this old Peruvian lady and she like leaning forward and she kind of has her skirt pulled up but it was kind of dark so we were like ok yeah but then we hear the sound of a stream of pee hitting the ground and we look over again and the lady is freakin just peeing on the ground. It was a gnarly image to try and get out of my head, lol. 

So on Saturday we went over to this member's house to do some service to try and help get this huge dresser onto the second floor. After we were done, the owner of the house, who is also the elder's quorum leader, is giving us some water to drink and his 10 year old little son comes in holding what looks like an almost dead hamster. He's crying and he's like trying to put this weird plastic thing into its mouth so it can breath but who knows, it was just a weird sight to see. Then the elders quorum president's son asks us if we can give his freaking hamster a blessing. Elder Morris and I just give each other that weird look and we look back at the dad and he says how his son had a hamster before that had been sick and how he had given it a blessing and how it had gotten better.................................... well obviously not because it had died; but anyways Elder Morris and I look at each other again and Elder Morris wasn't saying anything so I was like fine. I guess I'll do the talking. So I had to tell a ten year old, little, crying boy that we couldn't bless his dying hamster because it's against the rules, but I said how we could say a prayer instead. Haha so we said a prayer and after when we were leaving the dad was trying to guilt trip us and was saying, "What would Jesus have done if he was in my house?"' But we just walked out and didn't say anything, hah. So we really need to have a talk with the elders quorum president about how to use our priesthood, lol. 

Jackson and Owen the day Jackson left on his mission

Alright so the best for last. So we had CCM attack last Wednesday but usually they are on Saturdays. When I hear that Owen, I mean Elder Huff was in the Lima CCM, I was like ooh I hope that they do the attack in my area with him and I had been praying that if there is any way possible that it could happen. Usually they take out the missionaries who have been at the CCM for 5 weeks and so when they said that we were doing the attack I was like, dang it, because Elder Huff only had 2 weeks in the CCM. 

SO the morning of, right before the attack, I decided to say a quick little prayer in my heart, and I said if there is any way possible that I could somehow see Owen and that it could work out. Well, I was contacting when the bus pulled up to the area and I wasn't paying attention but I hear someone shout "JACKSON!" LOL, and I look over and I see my best friend. 

Elder Huff and Elder Shockley

Wow.... the emotions were pretty strong. I can't describe what it was like, haha. Kind of how in Alma when he had been preaching for a long time and then he finally sees the sons of Mosiah and he is just filled with joy... kind of like that. But we gave each other a huge man hug and then we got to go contacting for 2 hours in Peru. I never ever would have thought that I would have been able to go spread the gospel in Peru with my best friend. It was such an amazing experience and man that was the fastest 2 hours of my life. Owen's Spanish is crazy, crazy good for being two flipping weeks in the CCM. He was able to to contact someone by himself like the whole time. It was awesome. He is going to be an incredible missionary. This just shows that miracles really do happen and God does answer our prayers. Well I hope everyone is doing great back home. 

Love, Elder Shockley