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

A lot of greeeeen!

Wow so let's just say I saw a lot of green this past week, a lot more green than I thought existed in Lima Peru lol. 

Graduation from training

For the boys. Anthony, Diego and Jhair (from his last area)

Argentina!

Tuesday was transfers and so I left to pick up Elder Pierce in the stake center in Campoy and then we went to La Molina after for a training for the trainers. Elder Pierce is from Arizona and he's 6'4 so we're both pretty tall for Peru, haha; two tall gringos. He is really goofy, holy cow, and a little bit awkward but it's whatever; haha he's great. He played basketball in high school so it's dope to finally have met someone that knows about basketball like I do. 

Elder Pierce, LOL

Elder Morris and his new comp from the CCM are in our room with us. Elder Morris is from Layton and he has about 16 months and he's training Elder Gonzalez from Mexico so the people in our room are pretty young. The thing is, we split our area and the other elders have pretty much all of the dirt. Our part of the area is pretty nice and yesterday when we were contacting we found all of this green because there is this river that flows right next to us, and man it was just so good to actually see some green, haha. 

Elder Pierce, Elder Morris and Elder Gonzalez

Carapongo is pretty chill though, kinda like my past two areas. Not a whole lot goes on. The people here are pretty fun to talk to though, so that's good. Right now we have one investigator named Carlos and he has a little boy. He wants to get married to his girlfriend but she doesn't want to so they aren't living together right now and he's trying to finalize this job that he's trying to get. He's a great guy but finding time to teach him has been a struggle but he really wants to change his life to please pray for him.  

The miracle of the week was literally seeing alll of the green, haha; super nice to see. Well I hope everyone has a great week. 

GREEN!

Love, Elder Shockley

Carapongo!

Well this past week flew by, holy cow. Last Tuesday I finished my 12 week training so that was dope. I am pretty sure everyone enjoyed conference. It was pretty great. Elder Holland, Elder Anderson, President Nelson, President Oaks, and a lot of other general authorities brought the fire to conference, haha; they just said it how it is. This weekend was elections in Peru so no one could go to church so we just watched conference in the chapel by ourselves. Elder Burley and I watched conference in another room in English so that was good to hear some stuff in English. I really enjoyed President Nelson's talk. If you haven't watched conference yet go freakin watch it! 

This weekend kind of sucked too. We lost Brayan and Guillermo. It was weird because they were both progressing so well and they both had really good desires to be baptized. On Sunday we were going to pick the both of them up to go to conference so that it could count as an attendance. We got to Guillermo's house and we were a bit late because of the traffic but I had called him 4 times but he hadn't answered. He asked us why we were late and we told him because of the traffic but that we had also called him 4 times but he didn't answer. He said he hadn't gotten any calls but who knows. He said that he couldn't go watch conference because he had to work for his brother. 

The same kind of thing happened with Brayan. We called him in the morning but he said he was still coming back from work and we asked if he could watch the second session and he said yeah of course. So we called him after the first session to go pick him up but he said he was still coming back from work and that he was super tired and he needed to go rest. I told him it was only two hours and that he could go rest after, and I asked if he even wanted to watch conference and he said no, so we invited him to church the next week. If Guillermo and Brayan both come to church next week we'll probably start teaching them again but as of right now we dropped them because they aren't showing us they really want to change. That was pretty sad to lose them for now. 

The exciting is... transfers are on Tuesday and I am going to Carapongo Campóy to finish the training of Elder Pierce! I am going to train a white person! Lol, president told me that I can only speak Spanish to him so I'll do my best with that. Apparently the Zone Campoy is only dust or polvo so that's going to be fun and it's really starting to heat up down here so things are starting to get real interesting. 

Elder Burley is going to be a zone leader in Chosica and Elder Martinez and Elder Monzon are staying and Elder Monzon is a district leader.  Well I flippin forgot my converter again so I'll send more photos next week.

Love, Elder Shockley

New room...again

Well this last week not too much happened. Last P-day Elder Burley, Monzon, Martinez and I went to Rodizio's which is pretty much an American buffet in Peru. We got permission to go to La Molina and we went and pigged, out holy cow. That was the most food I have ever eaten in my life. When you have to eat flippin rice, chicken, and potatoes everyday, and then you eat some real American meat, you can't help yourself. We all had to wait 30 minutes after we ate to leave because it would hurt if we tried to move.  Even the day after, my stomach kind of hurt from eating so much, haha. 

After Rodizio's.

Yesterday we were able to get Jhair confirmed so that was great. 

So what was gonna happen was Elder Monzon and I were going to move rooms to Amauta because it took us 20 minutes everyday to walk to our area. Our room we were currently living in, a single mom was going to move in so the ZLs had to move so we found a room that was in the ZLs area and that is right next to our area. Our old room was quack anyways and our new room we have is amazing. We learned from our mistakes from changing rooms last time and we got all of our stuff ready in the mornings and nights after contacting. Today in the morning we got a huge truck over to our old room, our district to help us, and we changed rooms in two hours. It was insanely fast how we were able to move and change rooms, holy cow haha. 

On Saturday we a CCM attack and so we got to help the new missionaries out and Hermano Soto was there! It was super cool to see him again and everything. There were a ton of Elders from Utah that were there and I saw two kids that I played football and basketball against, haha. I got to take Elder Blood contacting haha; what a freakin cool name. 

Hermano Soto and Elder Woolf.

So we contacted  this Old Peruvian man and we were talking with him and he told us this story about how he was lifting something super heavy and it ripped the tip of his finger off. The thing was was, he didn't get his finger taken care of and he showed us his finger and all of his fingertip was just gone and you could see his bone. The skin around his bone was super dry but it was blood red. It was pretty cool to see. 

Well the miracle of the week was last night one of our appointments fell through and we were going to go contacting up this hill and then this kid named Guillermo popped into my head. Guillermo was an investigator of the Elders in Amauta before us and Elder Garbett told me that he was really smart and wanted to know about the church but didn't really want to change or get baptized. Anyways he popped into my head and we called him and went and visited him and taught him and we have a date for him now for the 27th of October! so that was pretty flippin sweet! Well I love everyone.

Elder Shockley

BDAY Week!

Well last week was pretty dang great. It was my B-day on Saturday and we had four baptisms and I got a cake from my pensionista! My b-day was pretty great.

We had interviews with Presidente Amato last Friday and that was awesome. It is always good to see and talk with President. He is such an amazing man. Also on Friday, me and my compy went to a lesson with the ZL's. During the lesson, I was sharing a story about my dad when he was 14 years old and años is years and I didn't really stress the Ñ and so I said anos. I said when my dad had 14 anuses and after I was done telling the story I look over and my comp and the ZL's are just dying and I had no idea why and it took them a while to recover. 

Elder Binford and Elder Thomsen; we all have bdays in September.

 Anyways on Saturday we baptized Elizabeth, Jesira, Esmeralda and Jhair. Lol, Elizabeth was so scared that we had to close the doors because she didn't want anyone to see her. She was crying and the first time the priest baptized her, of course, she didn't go all the way under so we had to do it again and it took like 20 minutes, haha, but she got baptized. 

Elizabeth, haha

On Sunday Jhair wouldn't get his butt out of bed so he didn't get confirmed. We are going to have to confirm him next week, but it was great because I got to confirm two of them so that was pretty cool. It's amazing how merciful the Lord is and how He has blessed me with baptisms. I am also very grateful to help bring these precious souls closer to living with their Father in Heaven once again. 

Jhair

So the miracle of the week was we were in church yesterday and Elder Martinez sends me a reference and told me to call him. I called him and we got an appointment set up an hour after church. His name is Brayan and he lived allllllllllllll the way at the very top of the edge of our area in the mountains. We had ward counsel after church and we had to leave that early and hustle over to his house. We were in our suits and we were sweating hard core, but we got to his house and taught him and man, this guy is chosen! He's a pretty cool guy. He works super hard form 11 am unto 2 am. He says that he wants to change his life and that he wants to be a member of our church and be baptized. After the lesson we asked him how he felt and he said he felt a warm feeling inside of him that felt really good, so we have a date with him. YAYYY! 

Esmeralda and Jesira

Love, Elder Shockley

¡Primer Bautismo!

Well this last week was pretty great. For last P-day we played sports together as a zone and we played some good ole american football and that was super fun especially because we have a lot of gringos in our district. After, we went and had a weight lifting competition to see who could do the most curls and stuff and other stuff. 

On Tuesday I had like 3 ingrown toenails so that sucked. I just got my toenail clippers and ripped em out so that hurt a little, haha. 

Pero Peruana

So last Wednesday after lunch my comp was feeling sick, so he and Elder Martinez went back to the room so he could get some rest and Elder Burley and I went to teach this lesson. The lady we were teaching was named Rosa and her parents weren't in her house and we didn't have a dude member with us so we taught her in her door. During the lesson I was explaining about how we receive the Holy Ghost and I told her that men with the authority of God put their hands in your mouth.... I accidentally said boca which is mouth instead of cabeza which is head, haha. Thankfully Elder Burley corrected me and we just kept going. Haha. So this whole week Elder Burley and Elder Martinez have been making so many jokes about this, haha. 

Yeah so last Friday we had this incredible experience to have Elder Renlund come speak to only just our mission. It was absolutely amazing! He's a pretty big guy and he has such a strong spirit. He taught us about how to be effective missionaries and just this other amazing stuff. After he left the room you kinda wanted him to come back just because of how strong his spirit is. Afterwards, we had some pizza from Pizza Hut which was amazing. I was finally able to have some type of American food! 

Yeah so Saturday I had my first baptisms! Carmen and Anthony! Usually Presidente Amato wants the priests of the ward to baptize the people but because it was my first baptism I got to baptize Carmen. It was an incredible experience. After the baptism, I just felt so much peace; I can't describe it. It was just an amazing experience to bring 2 souls unto Christ. 

Anthony

Haha, so apparently when I baptized Carmen, I liked dunked her pretty hard. I had to baptize her twice because the first time her feet came up out of the water so I probably baptized her hard. Elder Martinez was saying how I did a John Cena and I took a video of him demonstrating how I baptized her. 

James, Anthony, Valeria (Elder Burley's investigator)  and Carmen

So for this Saturday we have 4 with (baptismal) dates and all of them needed one more asisstance in the church to be baptized but the last Sunday the mom of Elizabeth and Jesira wouldn't let Elizabeth go. I was super worried that she wouldn't let her and Jesira go to church but miracles do happen and we were able to get all 4 of our investigators to church, Elizabeth and Jesira who are sisters, Esmeralda the daughter of Carmen and Jhair the bro of Anthony.  We went and taught Jenny the mom of Elizabeth and Jesira and she accepted to be baptized for the 6th of October! We also had 44 members attend the house chapel and that is 10 more than the last week. My comp and I are working hard to get all of the converts and menos activo to church so that we can have enough to make Amauta a branch and then a ward; so we have been working hard. 

I also confirmed Carmen yesterday and that was crazy because she said that she wanted me to confirm her and I had no idea how to confirm in Spanish but the counselor helped me out and I was able to do it. It really is crazy how giving a blessing works. The spirit just guides you. 

Anyways, I hope everyone back home is doing great and I'll keep everyone in my prayers with the fires and everything. That looks pretty crazy.

Pole Creek Fire

Camel Loveee

Yeah so last week flew by way fast, holy cow. It's probably because we actually have people that we are teaching and they are progressing. 

So last P-day we went to the Zoo. That was pretty great, haha. We saw some pretty crazy stuff. 

It was normal for Peru but it was a flip´pin weird Zoo. We saw these weird camel things making love and that was just hilarious, haha. Everyone was dying. 

Weird camel dude

There was also this old guy selling ice cream and treats through the fence and I just thought it was so hilarious. 

Dude selling his ice cream, lol

On Wednesday we had immigrations and we had to get up at 5:30 so we could get to the place early to get our cards. Well... I'm Peruvian now! YAAA, haha. 

So we now have 6 people with fecha (baptismal dates) which is great! Carmen, her daughter Esmeralda, her niece Elizabeth and Jesira and Anthony and Jhair who are brothers. We are baptizing Carmen and Anthony this week and the rest next week on my birthday so that will be cool to have 4 baptisms on my birthday. We would've baptized Elizabeth this Saturday but her mom wouldn't let her go to church because she said she had to do laundry and she needs one more asistencia. We are going to try and talk to her mom and hopefully we get her baptized the next week for the 29th. Please  pray for all of them especially for the mom of Elizabeth and Jesira that she'll let her daughters be baptized and that we'll be able to teach her and baptize her as well. 

Elder Munoz in district meeting, lol

Last week we went contacting in this freakin mountain and it was sick. Like I said, our new area is a huge valley and we have a lot of cerros which are hills. 

Our casa capilla! Lol, we don't even have a real church but it's awesome

Our pension is still making some good food and I can't wait for my birthday because she's going to make me a cake and her cake is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo amazing! 

Ceviche for P-day

The miracle that happened last week was we started off with just teaching Carmen and her daughter and then we got her nieces to teach and we have the permission papers. Yeah, well I love everyone and I hope ya'll are doing great! 

Love Elder Shockley