Gratsgiving (Week 19)

Aloha mi amigos! These past 2 weeks were awesome! 

If you are struggling with negativity or negative judgment of others then instead replace that with gratitude and charity and your mindset will completely change and you will be happier. I can testify of that as I have seen it happen in my life over these past couple weeks! Alma 7:24 "And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works."

We've been very busy and the work is SO GOOD! I also hit my 4 month mark so that's nuts!

2 weeks ago on Thursday I was able to confer the Aaronic Priesthood upon Jocinto and that was a very memorable and special experience. On Saturday, Jocinto was able to take family names to the Temple with the ward! Everything we do points toward the Temple and the sacred covenants that are made there! Last Tuesday I was able to go to the Temple with my Zone and let's just say the temple is the best! And I immediately felt the spirit so strong and I'll admit that I've become a cry baby on the mission and I shed a couple tears in the temple, haha. These past couple of weeks my heart has been so full of gratitude for the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for Joseph Smith and above all for Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice! 

It was a shorter week this past week because my pday was on Tuesday last week. On Wednesday we setup a Turkey Bowl with all of the Marshallese kids for Thanksgiving morning. The next day on Thanksgiving we went to the park but of course it was pouring rain. Elder Becker and I still threw the football around for a bit and waited for anyone to show up but nobody came; however on Saturday we figured out that they all went earlier at 7 so they could play longer but it was just pouring rain so we missed each other, haha. We got to talk to our families on Thanksgiving and that was awesome! I also decorated our pad with Christmas decorations while we were waiting to go to dinner, haha. We went to a members house and some other members joined us and we had a feast. So I just went all out and had a cheat day but I ate a little to much and felt terrible afterward, lol. Thanksgiving was awesome all around though. 

On Friday we passed out a ton of flyers for a Marshallese devotional on Saturday and we invited almost every Marshallese person at these Green Apartments and there are a ton! We played some Pros Volleyball with all of these Marshallese teenagers and we're really trying to grow our relationship with them and teach them because these kids need the gospel more than anything in their lives.  Afterward, we told them all about the devotional on Saturday and Elder Becker had some pure revelation come to him to tell these kids that we would play basketball in the gym after the devotional. And once we told them that we were going to play basketball after they were all down to come. So we set it up and got rides arranged and we were expecting like 15+ kids. So the next day we showed up and the kids got all flaky and weren't going to come, all but 2 younger kids; an 11 year old and 6 year old. We had our Bishop and some other members come to give rides because of how many we thought were going to come but we told them we didn't know how many would come. I was trying to round up as many as I could and the ring leader of this group of kids originally said he couldn't come which influenced all of the other kids to not come. But the Spirit worked on this leader and he totally switched his mind. So out of nowhere we had 8 more kids want to come. It was a miracle! We watched the Marshallese devotional and then we played some basketball with these kids and all I can say is that as long as the Lord continues to pour out His spirit upon these kids then only good things will happen!

Love you all,

Elder Alec Shockley

Elder Bednar (Week 17)

This is a long email but it's a good one, haha!!

This week was so eventful and awesome! Highlight was having Elder Bednar speak to us! 

Me and my companion have just been working our butts off, just doing the work. It has been awesome! Since my companion is Marshallese speaking we've been finding a lot of Marshallese friends to teach, and we've been talking with a lot of them and I love it. They are all so humble and kind and so they talk to us and are very respectful and if you can speak their language (like my comp can) then there's a pretty good chance that they'll want to learn more. The only problem is that a lot of them are pastors for their own churches but also that's a good thing because they might be converted then they can introduce the gospel of Jesus Christ to their congregations and then the whole congregation can be converted. So bottom line, good things are happening with all of the Marshallese people!

On Wednesday, we were helping our new convert Jocinto and his sister (who is on date for Dec. 4th!) get in touch with some members that were going to take him to a youth activity and his sisters friend wanted to go with them. I told her that she would have to ask her mom so she did and her mom wanted to talk to me. At first she was skeptical about letting her go because she didn't know anybody but then I just started talking with her and she said that her family needs to start going back to church. So I told her about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and how we can teach her all about it and that they can go to church there.

 And it was the coolest thing because after I told her about that she completely changed her mind and said that her daughter could go to the activity and that she would like to meet with us and learn. The spirit just worked on her; it was amazing! We taught her the next day and she said that she would like to go to church but she wouldn't have a ride so we set up a ride for them. We went to check Saturday night if they were still going to go and she said she might not but after talking again with her the spirit worked on her and she said she would. The next day her and 4 kids went to church! So many miracles with this family and the spirt being poured out on them! It proves that there really are no coincidences in this life!

On Sunday we flew to Honolulu, then drove up to Laie and we got there a little early so we went to the Laie Temple grounds and it's soooo beautiful! 

We took a little tour of the Visitors Center and we watched a little clip on the Restoration and it was so spiritual! At that moment I felt the Love of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ so much, and I got teary eyed and was feeling all of the feels. Then I looked at the Temple replica and I saw the Sealing room and it reminded me of my brother Jackson getting sealed to his beautiful wife Karen just the day before on Saturday, and the Spirit was just so strong and I was little homesick because I wanted to be with them. Just a lot of the feels haha, and I about just let my tears flow out but I held them in. 

We then got to hear from an Apostle of Jesus Christ, Elder Bednar, and it was not what I was expecting at all. He got up and said "Stop taking notes on the things that are being said. Write down the things that aren't being said that the Holy Ghost is telling you. He talked with us about the talks that we were assigned to read before the meeting and it was interactive between him and all 423ish missionaries minus the senior missionaries, so still a lot, about 370, I don't know, haha. At the end he told us to come up with 5 words or less from what we learned and these are mine, "Personal revelation is everything!" The Holy Ghost is the teacher, comforter, and communicator and our Faith in Jesus Christ is essential to hearing the Holy Ghost and being humble enough to accept God's will for us. At the end he bore a short testimony that Christ lives and the tomb is empty. The spirt was so insanely powerful at that moment as a literal witness of the resurrected Savior, a man who has seen Jesus in the flesh, told us that. Jesus Christ LIVES! 

LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!

-Elder Alec Shockley 

Blessings for Obedience (Week 16)

 Aloha everybody! This week was awesome! 

Obedience to God's commandments brings blessings. D&C 130:20-21 says "20 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—

21 And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."

   My new companion, that I'm training, told me that he's going to be obedient and work hard and that is the best thing that a trainer can hear! This past week we strived to be exactly obedient and we worked our hardest and we saw blessings come from it! We have new friends that we're teaching and we've been talking with lots of people, and I know that even when we are obedient sometimes we aren't blessed with temporal things like for me as a missionary that would be new people to teach or people that will talk to us, but I am blessed with happiness and joy in the work regardless if our numbers are high.

My week was wild and good, Tuesday I woke up and after praying, my Zone Leader said, "Yeah we've got to go take this Elder to the airport because the other Elders that they live with went and slept over at another pad (which you're not supposed to do)." So we drove over, dropped him off at the airport, then when we drove back to the Stake Center. Then the Elder that we dropped off called my Zone leader and said that he missed his flight, so we went back to the airport and picked him up and called the Assistants and then they told the whole mission that everybody getting transferred needs to be at the airport 2 hours before their flight (because the Elder in our zone missed his flight). We went back to my Zone Leaders pad and that's when my Zone leader told me that my new comp is Marshallese speaking. That got me so excited because there are so many Marshallese people in these apartments in our area so that will be really good. That night, I wasn't able to pick up my new comp at the airport because I was cleaning out my car so that was awkward and I felt so bad haha.

On Wednesday we just went and grinded, taught a couple of lessons, and had dinner with some members. Thursday just grinded again; Friday got stood up for a lesson, did some Marshallese study with all of the Marshallese Elders on the island, found a new friend to teach who has 1 arm and in lots of pain and my comp had the idea to give him a blessing so we did it and it was awesome! 

On Saturday we did service in the morning and chopped down some GNARLY grass for an inactive member, then we did a zone car wash and those are always fun, and we talked to some Marshallese guys who were HIGH OUT OF THEIR MINDS LOLLL, so that was funny. Then we taught a guy about the Restoration and he got chicken skin when we were talking about how the Priesthood was gone but now it's back and how there's one true church on the Earth; it was awesome, haha.

Sunday was good. Church was super spiritual and the Reeds (who have a house in the ward but live in Arizona most of the time) had all of Sister Reeds living siblings here for vacation. They all sang a song during sacrament meeting and it was awesome! Afterwards we went to give this lady named Linda a blessing and after the blessing she asked if we could cast out the devils in her home because some creepy things have been happening to her in her home. So I did exactly that and in the name of Jesus Christ I cast out the evil spirits, so that was quite the experience! We had dinner with this family and they make some absolute fire fried chicken, it was so good lol.

Today we went to waterfall called Pe'epe'e falls or Peepee falls, and an Elder in my zone tried box jumping onto this rock wall and slipped and fell on his butt and landed on his wrist and at first nobody thought anything of it.  He was sitting by himself and looked super depressed but I thought maybe he was having a spiritual moment but then my Zone Leader went over and checked on him and then they started walking away and I realized that something was wrong. So I followed and the Elder totally looked like he broke his wrist so they went to the ER to get x-rays, but then they came back and he said it was just a severe sprain and the bump on his arm was just a blood clot and bruise that came together. I keep seeing these injuries and stuff and it makes me want to study more about it and be an MD, lol. But the Elder is all good so that's such a blessing that he doesn't have to go home and get surgery! 

Have an amazing week and live the gospel of Jesus Christ in your lives and as you are obedient to God's commandments you will be blessed!

-Elder Alec Shockley 

The Work (Week 15)

Howdy everybody! This past week was pretty eventful! 

Think about what you covenanted to do at Baptism and how we renew that covenant each week by partaking of the sacrament. This picture says it all. 

Funny story, so on Tuesday I went on exchanges down to Ka'u again with Elder Lee. As soon as we got there after the 1 1/2 hour drive I went to get my suitcase out of the trunk but I didn't see it. I realized that I never got it out of my car and put it into the car that we took down, so after talking about it we just decided that after dinner that night we would drive back up and me and Elder Lee would stay at my pad. So we did some solid finding and this one guy talked to us for an hour about all sorts of conspiracy theories and mob families running the USA. It was very interesting stuff to say the least, lol.

 

On Wednesday, I was on exchanges again and we went to go finding at the green apartments and as soon as we got there, I saw Jocinto hiding behind a car and a girl said, "He's hiding from you because he just crashed on his skateboard." He was hill bombing on his skateboard and then his skateboard started to speed wobble and he ate it hard; he wasn't wearing any pads or a helmet. We told him last week on Saturday that the devil would try as hard as he could to stop him from getting baptized the whole week. He told us that before he went down something was telling him to not do it (the Spirit) and another voice was telling him to do it (the devil), and we helped him recognize that it was the spirit and the devil. Jocinto went inside and showered and asked if we had band-aids because they didn't have any in their apartment. So we drove to our pad and I grabbed all of our first aid stuff then drove back and I threw on some blue latex gloves.  I got to be the doctor and clean up Jocinto. He called me Doctor Shockley at one point, and at the point I enjoyed what I was doing and thought "Hmmmm maybe I'll just full send the 10 years of schooling and 2 years of residency and be an MD." Probably not, but maybe, but it was a fun thought, haha. The next day, we came back and Jocinto said that his mom and dad wondered if he could still be baptized even though he had those wounds, so once again the devil trying everything to stop him from getting baptized. We told him it wouldn't matter and the water doesn't have chlorine in it. 

On Friday, we had a fun time and went and chopped trees down in the jungle, and the mosquitos are insane but of course we didn't have any big spray and neither did the people we were helping but instead they just throw baby powder on and it works lol! So I was looking like a ghost with baby powder all over me, haha.

 

Saturday was an awesome day. We started with Jocinto's Baptism and it was awesome! The spirit was so strong and and his whole family who aren't members came so there is definitely potential there. It was a such a special day for him as he made his first covenant with God. 

Jocinto's baptism

Later on Saturday I get a call from Sister Walker who's the Mission President's wife and she asked me if I would like to train this next transfer so, starting on Tuesday I'll be training a new missionary! It's quite exciting and a little bit terrifying as we'll haha. The next day on Sunday, Jocinto was confirmed and received the gift of the Holy Ghost and he is such a bright shining son of God! I'm so grateful that I was able to introduce him to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ! The rest of sacrament meeting was very special as our Branch was turned into Ward, and me and Elder Buka totally called who the first Bishop of the Honomu Ward is, his name is Bishop Younger and he's absolutely amazing!

This morning on Monday I said goodbye to Elder Buka and wow such crazy, fun, spiritual and amazing memories that I'll never forget that I had with him!

Alec and Elder Buka

Love you all, keep up the good work and follow Jesus Christ to the end!

-Elder Alec Shockley