Enjoying Mexican Mother's Day. Always on May 10th.
The wedding!
Little Yammi! The daughter of the couple who got married.
The pizza party after the wedding!
The baptism after the wedding!
The serious pose...
Goofing off! This is what happens when 8 boys get together!
train tracks for the brothers!
The two sisters in the ward who help out the most!
Dear Family and Friends,
This week was great! We had some crazy weather, spent a lot of time contacting and knocking doors. This is most likely the last week that Elder Smith and I are going to have together because it is the last week of the transfer! It's crazy that we have reached the end of another transfer here in Corona!
The funniest thing that happened this week was when a man that was selling popcorn outside of an elementary school, yelled across the street at us, in English, and asked us to come over and talk with him. We of course, crossed the street and began to talk to him in English.
It was perhaps the most interesting street contacts of my entire mission. This man was convinced that the Illuminati have control over the entire world, that dragons, aliens are here on the Earth and are beings of higher intelligence. He described his beliefs as a mix of Buddhist, Christian, and Ancient Egyptian. When I started asking about Jesus Christ and what he thought about Him, he just stopped talking to us and walked away. It was a great moment on the mission and Elder Smith and I just laughed.
The best and most important thing that happened this week was definitely the wedding of Antonio and Karla and their baptism on Saturday!!! We have been working with this couple for a couple of months now and it was such a gratifying and joyful experience to see their wedding.
The wedding itself was actually incredibly short. It lasted about 10-15 minutes! However, it was awesome to see the commitment of this young couple to get married and then in the evening get baptized. In the evening, we had a wonderful baptismal service! I baptized Antonio and Elder Smith baptized Karla.
I had two favorite parts of the baptismal service. The first was when Antonio shared his testimony after his baptism. He said that his testimony of the Restored Gospel has grown so much and that he will always be thankful for Elder Smith and I because we never left him and always supported him. He also expressed his desire to go to the temple in May of 2017 to get sealed to his wife for time and all eternity.
My other favorite part was the closing hymn of the baptismal service. Elder Smith and I sang the closing song together. We sang Nearer my God to Thee. Elder Smith accompanied with his guitar and it was a truly spiritual and peaceful moment.
I hope you all have a great week!
Much love!
Elder Shipley
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