This is the Way! (Week 10)

The gospel and church of Jesus Christ HAVE been restored to the Earth. Don't deceive yourselves, don't lie to yourselves, don't make excuses to not follow it or believe it. This is where TRUTH is and where TRUE Happiness is. God knows all things; we do not. Do not counsel Him but instead listen to Him and follow Him because we don't know nor can we can comprehend His ways and His knowledge.

I've had to put away my pride and I invite you all to do this as well, and I testify that you will become a humble servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't let pride be the reason for unbelief. We know this all to be true and we know the judgement of God will be upon us all one day so choose to follow Jesus Christ the right way, the correct way, through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ which is ONLY found in His church upon the Earth today, which is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2 Nephi 31: 21 And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen.

Wild things and wild miracles are about to take place. Be bold, follow Jesus Christ, choose Faith.

Much love to all.

-Elder Alec Shockley

I don't even know what to name this email (Week 9)

Aloha mi amigos! Funny thing about the mission is a lot of the days blend together, so when I'm talking to my family I have to have my journal with me to tell them about my week or else I don't remember a lot of what I did, haha, and I know that it's the same way for Hayden because we'll get on and talk and my mom will ask what he did during his week and he'll just say " I don't even know." So I'm not alone in this, but that being said I'll look at my journal so I can send emails with content, haha.

This past week I decided to pray to recognize God's love for me throughout the week.  I felt and realized personally that I felt God's love through my great parents and family, my friends, The Book of Mormon, and above all through Jesus Christ and His Atonement! I know that God definitely, without a doubt, loves me and each one of us infinitely and equally, if you don't know that He loves you, then ask! And you will receive an answer, and you will realize how much Heavenly Father loves you!

From the dying words of my ZL- Whatever we expect, will happen (the law of attraction). And "The more positive you see, the more positive you'll be!"

Last Monday on P-day we went to volcano national park and it was pretty sick but I thought there was gonna be more to it and maybe there was and we just didn't hit it all. 

After that since it was one of our Zone Leaders last p-day we went where he wanted to eat and he chose Ken's House of Pancakes. At Ken's they have these "sumo" plates and since one of my football coaches gave me some money to spend on me and my trainer (shoutout Coach Kam), I bought me and my companion the Sumo Stacker which was 3 huge "sumo size" buttermilk pancakes with 3 fried eggs on top, Portuguese sausage underneath the 1st pancake, and 3 strips of bacon underneath the 2nd pancake. They had all of these amazing syrups as well. This waiter bet me $10 I wouldn't finish it, so since I hadn't eaten breakfast and it was my cheat day, I decided to eat the whole thing. It was so good and I didn't eat for like a whole day after that, haha. The waiter was shocked and said he hadn't seen anyone finish it before, so I guess I'm just built different (totally kidding) but he offered the $10 and I turned it away but it was nice to see that he kept his word.

On Thursday, I went on exchanges in Pahoa, and Pahoa is one of the most dangerous areas in Hawaii so that's fun. It wasn't actually that bad though. We had a lesson with this member who's trying to get the Melchizedek Priesthood and we taught him about the commandments. This guy is super cool and he coaches like 7 club basketball teams in Hawaii and he played basketball at the University of Hawaii and he was on the team in, I think 1997, who upset Paul Pierce and #2 Kansas, so that's pretty sick. 

Later that day we went to Mark's place to preach the gospel and play cards with his friends. Mark lives in this storage container/makeshift shelter and we got there and he and his 2 friends were absolutely drunk out of their minds. Mark started giving a drunk sermon and his friend started talking during his sermon and Mark threatened to hit him if he didn't shut up and they almost started fighting a couple of different times. His friend at one point decided to challenge me to an arm wrestle. So we did it, and at first I was winning but then this guy started moving his elbow all around the table. Then he got right up next to me and if I would've kept pushing his arm down I would've broken it or dislocated his elbow so I just stopped, and then he moved back and he just dead weighted himself to the floor, so he did win I guess haha. But after he said that I let him win and we'll keep that between us, that I did let him win.

We went to this guys house to help with service and they live on this property that has a ton of fruit trees. And something that I love about Hawai'i is all of the awesome delicious fruit. There are so many that I didn't even know existed but are sooooo GOOD!  I also ate my first mango this week and I think I found my new favorite fruit.

Love you all! Bless up this week.

-Elder Shockley

1 Month (Week 8)

 This week I hit 1 month here in Hawai'i, and it has been quite the experience so far. 

 On Wednesday I went on exchanges with one of my Zone Leaders, Elder Hawkes and he's an absolute grinder. We went to the cliffs and had a comp study and met this guy who's supposedly a member from the island nation of Chuuk, and he's living in a tent while his family is living in a homeless shelter. He was wondering if we could give him a ride to Walmart but we can't let people in our cars so that was really tough to say no, but we offered to go pick up groceries for him but he was trying to pick up money from Walmart so we couldn't really help with that which was hard. 

We sat down on these rocks and started comp study and then this lady, who has made a makeshift house/shelter out of tents and canopies, came up to us and asked if she could use one of our phones to call her girlfriend and we gave it to her. Then Elder Hawkes just got to know her and told her who we were and asked if she wanted to hear a message about Jesus Christ and she said "Yeah, for sure" and I was impressed but Elder Hawkes said "Dude that never happens." We sat down and started doing our comp study again and then 3 cops pulled up and I guess they were trying to kick this lady and whoever else lives in the makeshift shelter out of there because I'm pretty sure it's public ground. At one point when she was yelling at the cops she pointed at us and said "See those guys! They're doing good things! You should be like them!" So that was funny and weird and we felt awkward so we left before we got dragged into it. 

    

On Friday we went to this guys house. We've been waiting for the right moment to teach this guy whose wife is a member and he has a 2 year old boy and a newborn baby boy.  This 2 year old boy loves me and my comp; he's so fun and funny. I gave him my key fob and I showed how to honk the horn by pressing the button and that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do because he then honked the horn a lot and he wouldn't give the key fob back, haha. Anyway, we shared a message with the family after dinner about the restoration and the husband was super into it. He had lots of questions and his wife was super happy so that was awesome. His name is Shawn and we're going back and teaching him again so please pray for him!

Saturday we talked with this guy who is an inactive member and he owns Angel Farms. People come to this farm who have diabetes and organ failures and they get "healed" by this guy's wife. His wife hypnotizes them and takes them back to the God that made them or something wacky like that so I'm not sure what voodoo stuff they're using but it's quite strange. 

Saturday night, I'm just chillin and a video gets sent to our Mission group chat by a former missionary who finished a transfer ago. This video was him on the BYU football field with all of the BYU students after they rushed it after BYU beat Utah and I got literal CHILLS! It's so hype, so shout out to BYU football for making my week.

Also shout-out to Brynlee for being the bestest friend.

This week I challenge you guys to use Moroni's Promise which is found in Moroni 10:3-5 

"3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."

I invite you guys to use this promise, whether it's to find out for yourself if the Book of Mormon is true or anything else that you may be struggling with, or don't know for yourself of it's truthfulness about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 

Love to all

-Elder Alec Shockley

Life (Week 7)

This week was wild. Crazy people and good experiences. 

Highlights from my week:

1. I got to go to the Kona Temple today. It was beautiful.

2. Received a blessing from my mission president, President Walker.

3. Took food to the homeless.

4. One of the homeless we tried to give food too would not take it because she said she was Vegan. She told us that people really need to consider that there might be Vegan homeless people. She also said a good idea would be to find out what she wants from a restaurant and then go pick it up for her. :)

5. I taught my first lesson about The Plan of Salvation and it went great.

6. Had some amazing food on Fast Sunday that reminded me of my mom's home cooking.

7. I got to do lots of service.

A scripture I read this week was Helaman 12:3 "And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him."

    This scripture helps answer the question of "Why do bad things happen to good people?" We need to remember God and remember His Love, mercy and countless blessings that he has blessed us with. We need trials in our life so we can learn to rely on Jesus Christ and His Atonement to give us strength in our trials to overcome. We need these trials to remember God and remember that He is there always, He is waiting for us to open the door to Him and let Him into our lives, we need to remember Jesus Christ's great sacrifice for us. We need to look at ourselves and see where we need to make a change and show that we remember God. We show that we remember Him by living His gospel and keeping His commandments, by serving others and being selfless and by living worthy to have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost then our thoughts are focused on "What would Jesus do?" and we do good for others which helps us remember the Lord. Ether 12:27 "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

    

 If we didn't have weaknesses or trials, then we would forget our Lord and wouldn't turn to Him. We must humble ourselves and be patient in our afflictions by remembering the Lord and His sacrifice for us, then we will be surely be blessed. 

Love you all! 

       - Elder Alec Shockley