SUp

Well not too much happened last week but it's chill. 

So last p-day we were contacting in the huge park that we have at night and we had been calling Gino trying to see if we could go and visit him to make sure that he was ok. We found him and his mom in the park and they were crying, and we went over and talked with them and gave Gino a hug. It was pretty sad but we were able to talk to his mom about the Plan of Salvation and how she can see her husband again, and she told us how she wants that and how she wants to feel at peace. We had already had the first lesson with her when we taught Gino but she didn't have a ton of interest. We visited her and we are going to baptize her on the 22nd of next month. 

Gino received the priesthood yesterday and it was pretty dope cus he had a soccer game but he told us that God comes first and he went to church with us to receive the priesthood. We're going to have him baptize his mom so that will be awesome. 

Elder Alonso

We had our multi-zone conference, another one, last Wednesday. Elder Alonso, a member of the seventy, came and talked to us about working with the members and always asking for references. It  was really good to hear especially because Elder Pierce and I do a flip ton of walking and contacting everyday, so this past week we did a lot of working with the members. 

Emilio is doing great he is just searching for work right now so pray for him that he can find work where he doesn't have to work on Sundays. 






Miguel and Michele are doing great as well. Miguel is struggling a bit though with keeping his commitments and he missed church yesterday again but he had to work. His job ends this week too so pray for him as well that he can find work that he doesn't have to work on Sunday in the morning. We are also working on their marriage and papers so pray that we can get all of their papers from Venezuela. 

Nefi's baptism on November 18, 2018

At the multi-zone conference a lot of the new missionaries were talking to me about Owen so that was good to hear about Elder Huff again. I hope he is doing good. 

When no one is on the street you are contacting...

I just want to testify that I know there are only a certain few elect of the Lord. How blessed are we to have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives and that we are choosing to live it and that we are the Lord's chosen. I can't tell you how many people I have contacted that want nothing at all to do with the Church and it makes me a little frustrated and sad because I want them to be truly happy. Share the gospel with everyone! The Lord's elect are out there; we just need to open our mouths and share the gospel with others.

Love, 
Elder Shockley

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well this week flew by again. Another transfer holy cow. I am staying in Carapongo with Elder Pierce for this transfer so that's great. Haha, Elder Pierce is a bit weird but he's super goofy and funny so it should be chill.  

Last Tuesday we went to the stake center in La Molina and finished the training of Elder Pierce. 

On Wednesday, we had an earthquake drill training and then went and had a session at the temple. It was the best thing ever. It was super relaxing. I wish I could go every week, haha. 

With Gino

Well we had the baptism of Gino and Nefi this weekend. Gino's baptism was on Friday in the stake center and we had a white night where everyone wore white. I was able to baptism him and it was a neat experience. Only his mom was able to come but thankfully there were other people there for his baptism. 

We had Nefi's baptism yesterday and boy was that a miracle. So last week we were trying to confirm his baptism date and stuff and his dad said it was all good but his less active mom told us he wasn't ready. We straight up ask him if he's ready and wants to be baptized and he says yes. Like this 10-year-old is asking us who the dad of Alma is and why it says wine in the Sacrament Prayer in Moroni and not water. His Book of Mormon that we gave him is all marked up and he has all of these questions written in the book and he keeps telling us he wants to serve a mission but his mom says he's not ready! We try to convince her for 20 minutes but no, she says he needs time; so we leave to go contact. We pray that night and I just keep praying that we can have his baptism. The next day we find him in the streets and he tells us his baptism is this Sunday and were all like "WHAT?" and then we sprint over to his house and were talking to his dad and he's like, "Yeah my wife said it was ok." So we baptized him, YES! 

Nefi

There was also something really tragic that happened. Last night we were contacting and Gino calls us on his mom's phone and he tells me that his dad passed away. I am not completely sure, because when he was explaining to me I was kind of in shock, but his dad was a truck driver and so I am guessing that his dad died in a crash or from age or a heart attack. His dad wasn't super old but probably like in his late 50's or maybe 60. He asked if we could go with him today to the misa of his dad which is a catholic church thing. It was being held in my first area in Vitarte.  We asked permission to leave but they said no because it's a p-day cleaning, so I am still pretty ticked because I spent all last night cleaning up the room past bedtime so that we could go with him in the morning but they won't let us. I told him that we will take him out to dinner sometime this week though, but please everyone pray for Gino. 

White Night

Right now we have 3 Venezuelans that we are teaching, Omilio, Miguel, and Michel. Miguel and Michel are a couple and have a son so we are trying to get them married and it is a bit difficult with all the papers and stuff but we are working on it so please pray for them that we can get the papers for them. Omilio lives with them and he's 30 years old and his other family is in Venezuela but he is an escogido. He's super smart and he has already finished first Nephi. We got Omilio and Michel to church yesterday for Stake Conference but not Miguel so we really need to work with him. 

Ok, lol, so there's this thing in Peru where woman breastfeeding their children in public is normal especially in the poorer parts so its normal to see in a bus or a combi. Yesterday during Nefi's baptism his mom just keeps on whipping that thing out and breastfeeding her daughter. So we start the baptism and we go out front to take pics and me and Elder Pierce are trying to take a pic with Nefi. Then his parents just pop in with us out of nowhere and his mom is breastfeeding, of course, and they're about to take the picture and they don't even care that she's breastfeeding at all, so I hurry and say that we should first get a picture with just us and Nefi and after we can take a picture with them, haha. And when we take the pic after her shirt is on ............... THANK GOODNESS, because I ain't trying to have this apostasy on my camera, lol.

Our baptismal font for our branch 

Well happy thanksgiving this week, and take care everyone!

Love, Elder Shockley

Milagros

Well..... it's week 6 again. That means transfers are next week. It's pretty crazy how fast time goes out here in the mission.  Happy Birthday shout out to mah bro Hayden last Friday. 

This week I was able to see the hand of the Lord and a lot of miracles happen. So on Monday it was a couple of days after Elder Pierces and Elder Gonzales b-day so we went to eat at Papa Johns and after we bought a tres leches cake which was flippin good. 

On Wednesday we went to the temple as a stake and it was pretty chill. We took Gino and Brad and Victor. The later two are converts. We helped Brad look for family names in Family Search for 2 hours. We found his grandpa and we were trying to print out the name card but it wouldn't print. Finally we got it to work, but when we got to the temple he lost his recommend and his family name, haha. It was kind of annoying but he still got in and was able to do some temple names. 

For Victor, we had spent time searching for family but we couldn't find anyone that we could print or he just didn't know enough info about his family so he came anyway. So we are in the temple and I'm waiting with him to get some clothes and then all of a sudden he's like, "I am not going to be baptized again." Apparently he had been baptized like 5 times for his baptism and it wasn't a good experience. I was trying to tell him that we could just do confirmations but our branch pres told me that he could talk to Victor and that I could go wait outside with Gino. So I just left and then 10 minutes later, Victor comes out, lol, so we just hung out outside with Gino and Victor and walked around. 

There were quite a few miracles the rest of the week. First on Friday, we were just walking and this one lady was putting up signs outside of her shop and we went to help her and after we were inviting her to the church and she says, "Oh yeah I've already been." We were pretty shocked and so we talk to her some more and apparently we had given her a contact card one time and she had gone for the first hour and had just left. We took out a lesson with her and now we have a date for the 8th of December so that's awesome. Her name is Julisa. 

The other miracles happened yesterday. We were able to get Nefi to church, hallelujah. The kid has been wanting to go to church for a long time and has a strong desire to be baptized. It's his parents that have been the struggle to work with but we got him and his dad to church yesterday as well as Gino. Gino's baptism is this Friday and Nefi's baptism is next Sunday. 

Yesterday we also had two Venezuelans, that we contacted, come to church and that was cool. They came a little late but they apologized and said they would be on time next week. We have a lesson with them today so they are about to get baptized. 

Jhony who is a member, brought two kids who are his neighbors to church, Giovani and Myda. We had a lesson with them yesterday and with their mom and now we have dates for both of them. Their mom wants to get baptized too but she and her partner aren't married so we told her they have to get married first but that we can help her with that. Next lesson we're going to teach her partner. 

Elder Pierce and I have been working really hard and now the Lord is blessing us for our hard work and I am so grateful for his mercifullness, if that's even a word.

Hope everyone has a good week. 

Elder Shockley

Lose yourself in the work...not the freakin phone

Well not to much happened this past week. Last p-day we had another zone p-day and we ate pizza and ice cream and watched Incredibles 2. After we all went and played volleyball and then we played basketball. We have the biggest zone in Campoy and we have a lot of white elders so it was pretty fun. We actually played a game of basketball. Of course I schooled everyone with like 5 reverse layups;  it was dope. 

On Tuesday we had a multi-zone meeting and it was fun to see everyone from my old zone like Elder Burly, Martinez and Monzon. The new AP is Elder Madruga and he's from Brazil, but he looks like a white dude, haha. He talks Spanish, English and Portugese but he freakin plays rugby. He played for the national team in Brazil before the mish so every time we see each other we are like, "Rugby Brother!" Haha we just talk about rugby every time we see each other and it's awesome to talk about rugby with someone. One day we're going to play rugby with our zone or something but he brought his rugby ball with him. I wish I would've remembered to bring my rugby ball but I'll have to have my parents send me mine. 

Moto Taxi

Well so our pension is supposedly sick and she can't be our pension anymore so we're cooking for ourselves now and to be honest..... I kinda like it. I can eat what I want and I don't have to eat chicken, rice and dry potatoes everyday so it's awesome. 

Well on Saturday, Elder Morris had an interview for a baptism in Campoy but they also had a lesson so we went on splits, and I went with Elder Gonzalez and Elder Pierce went with Elder Morris. When they got back we met them at the church and they were sitting on the curb kinda discouraged. We asked what happened and they said they lost the cellphone and the keys to the room. Thankfully we had some other keys to the room but it was the phone to our area with all of our contacts. Apparently it 'fell' out of his pocket in the taxi on the way back, but who knows. I was pretty mad at them but it's chill now. It's a little Nokia brick, haha. 

All the flippin cakes

Also on Saturday, I was contacting with Elder Gonzalez and we invited this 13-yr-old to church and the next day he came! So we taught him after and he accepted a date for December 1 and his name is Mateo. We still need to talk with his mom and get her to sign the permission because she wasn't home when he went. 

Gino is pretty much ready to be baptized. He came to church yesterday barely. That was the miracle, getting him to come. That morning the 2 girls that we had been working with told us that their parents didn't want them to go to church and they didn't want to sign the permission either. The dad of Nefi said that Nefi had gotten home at 1 in the morning from a dance that he been to and that he couldn't go. So we call Gino on the other Elders phone, lol, and he doesn't answer. So we're like flip, and we hurry over and we are yelling his name because he lives on the top floor, and he's not coming and then 5 minutes before church starts, he comes out of his house. Wow, that was way intense. His date is for the 16th and we are having a noche blanca or a white night with all of the zone so it'll be awesome. 

Well I hope everyone is doing great! 

Elder Shockley

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