In the summer of 2023, professional skateboarder Sean Sheffey was resting at a skatepark in Encinitas, California, when two missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints approached and asked if they could pray with him.
Sheffey had been approached by missionaries and Latter-day Saints before and turned them away. But this time it felt different, and he was open to hearing their message.
“I was missing a lot of my prayers and Bible study for some years then. It was just absent in my life by choice, and I thought at that point I had room to welcome God and religion back in my life,” said the 52-year-old Sheffey, who was recently elected to the Skateboarding Hall of Fame.
Meeting the missionaries signaled the beginning of Sheffey’s journey towards joining the Church, a process that was years in the making.
“This is a story about someone who has found personal peace by finding a new life with Jesus Christ,” said Bishop Jared Archibald of the San Dieguito Ward in California.
Skateboarding pioneer
Sheffey grew up in Maryland. He discovered his passion for skateboarding when some older kids shared a couple of skateboarding magazines with him.
“I was really interested in the culture, like the styles, the look and the art of the skateboard,” he said in a Deseret News interview.
In skateboarding he recognized a resemblance to the BMX riding he was already familiar with, and he appreciated the convenience of meeting up with friends to skateboard together. It also provided an opportunity to be creative.
“I kind of took a liking to that, the way you could create your own jumping and maneuvering around and riding and kind of piece the tricks and maneuverability around together,” he said.
After moving to California, Sheffey was 17 years old when he landed a role in Life Skateboard’s film, “A Soldier’s Story.” Although he had only been on a skateboard for four years, in the film he was the first to perform a series of revolutionary tricks, according to TransWorld Skateboarding.
The Skateboarders Journal said “Sean Sheffey unknowingly becomes a pioneer of the game” after his part in the film.
The film and Sheffey’s abilities were also praised by Thrasher Magazine in 2011.
Following “A Soldier’s Story,” Sheffey’s career in professional skateboarding continued as he appeared in other films and represented multiple skateboarding brands.
R.P. Bess, a Latter-day Saint who has worked in the skateboarding industry for more than 30 years, said Sheffey reached the peak of his skateboarding career in the 1990s and 2000s and many still look up to him today.
In addition to Sheffey’s impressive array of technical flip tricks, Bess still admires one of his classic stunts: an ollie — a skateboarding jump executed without the aid of a takeoff ramp — over his son Julian while the young boy sat in a child’s car.
“He is one of the most influential, notable skaters of his era and has clearly left his mark on the skateboarding industry,” Bess said of Sheffey. “He’s a very noticeable and respected skateboarder within our community, and he is still a big part of the local scene [in southern California]. You can catch him at one of the handful of skate parks around North San Diego County, and he’ll be ripping.”
Reconnecting with God
Sheffey said he grew up in a religious home, attending Christian and Baptist churches with his family.
“[We] always had God in the house,” said Sheffey, who added that he used to carry a Bible with him at the beginning of his skating career.
Sheffey said that during one period of his life, he struggled with alcohol and drugs and served time in both jail and prison. But those experiences motivated him to get clean — he notes that he’s almost 17 years sober — and reconnect with God through Bible study groups and daily prayer circles offered in the correctional facilities.
“Even in jail, there was hope, and there was prayers,” he said. “That was just things that the inmates would do to show their care and their love for God.”
These experiences prepared Sheffey for the day he met the missionaries at the skatepark. For him, “the tradition of the Lord Jesus Christ, His teachings and the responsibility of upholding the teachings and the fact that there was a church continuing on the New Testament” appealed to him, Sheffey said.
Jeff Williams, who served as a missionary in the California San Diego Mission from 2022 to 2024 and witnessed Sheffey’s entire conversion process, said the Lord prepared him.
“The life experiences that God had led him to have in the last 20 to 30 years of his adult life led him to a place where we presented the fullness of the gospel, and he was pretty much already living a life consistent with those standards,” Williams said.
‘Massive turning point’
Progress in teaching Sheffey was slow at first, Williams said.
To help Sheffey feel comfortable, the missionaries continued meeting with him at the skatepark, not far from the sounds of wheels on a half-pipe and where well-meaning friends often interrupted to say hello or demonstrate a skateboarding trick. Sometimes Sheffey even invited other skateboarders to join the lessons, which was good but made it difficult for the missionaries in tailoring the message.
“It was definitely super unique, but not necessarily the most spiritually-conducive environment,” Williams said.
A turning point came when Sheffey attended Sunday worship services at the San Dieguito Ward of the Del Mar California Stake for the first time and reconnected with some friends.
Years earlier, Sheffey and others were skating outside a warehouse where they worked when Daren Collins, an executive who visited the warehouse for work, approached and wanted to give it a try.
“I showed him I could still do a handstand, even though I was old,” he said. “So we became friends in this weird sort of way.”
When Sheffey came to church for the first time, he was thrilled to recognize Daren Collins’ son, Jordy Collins, also a friend and a professional surfer, who had just moved into the ward with his wife.
Upon learning of Sheffey’s interest in the Church, Daren and Jordy Collins began participating in discussions with the missionaries. The meetings also moved from the skatepark to the chapel. Sheffey, who also surfs, began sacrificing the Sunday morning ocean swell to attend church meetings.
“It was a massive turning point for Sean,” Williams said. “He was interested before, but we weren’t yet able to create a strong environment for him to really feel the connection to God. Then God’s hand orchestrated the miracle of bringing Sean and Daren together. … It absolutely changed the game for Sean and made it something more powerful and important for him.”
While giving a tour of the meetinghouse, the missionaries and Daren Collins paused with Sheffey in front of the baptismal font. Sheffey wanted to get baptized but had been reluctant to set a date. On this occasion, the pro skateboarder was committed — but wanted to be baptized on his birthday, which was several months away.
Collins bore his testimony about the importance of baptism and making covenants with God, “as only a friend could do,” Williams said.
“That’s a long way away,” Collins said. “Do you really want to wait that long to get these incredible blessings as a member of the Church?”
Sheffey did not want to wait.
“I could tell it was going to be a real cleansing and a real spiritual uplifting — it’s just getting that much closer to God,” he said.
Williams’ companion, Connor Bushman, of Highland, Utah, added: “We knelt, and Sean prayed. … The Spirit was strong, and he knew it was right.”
The baptism and blessings
Less than a month later, in January 2024, a diverse gathering of more than 60 people attended Sheffey’s baptismal service. He invited everyone he knew to his big day, including professional and local skateboarders.
“It was an amazing scene to have all these people there for Sean,” Bishop Archibald said. “It was an incredible experience for all of us to see that.”
Following the baptism, one of Sheffey’s friends, Marcelle Johnson, asked if there was an extra jumpsuit so he could also be baptized. He wasn’t joking.
“He told us that he had never felt more happy or peaceful than at Sean’s baptism,” Bushman said.
Months later, after lessons with the missionaries and embracing the gospel, Johnson was baptized.
Since that time, Sheffey’s example led to the baptism of his nephew in a neighboring ward. He rides his bike to Church each week, helps bless the sacrament, is a faithful ministering brother and was recently ordained to the office of elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood.
“Sean has been an example and a light,” the bishop said. “He is someone who understands the basic principles of the gospel, has strong faith and is just rock solid and consistent. … He feels like God has continued to reach out to him, and he’s received so many blessings.”
Added Daren Collins, “[Sean] doesn’t care about the voices of the world, he cares about the voice of Christ, and that is the biggest inspiration to me.”
Another blessing came in May when Sheffey was named a 2025 inductee of the Skateboarding Hall of Fame. A group of 10 to 15 members from his ward family traveled from Encinitas to Simi Valley, California, to attend his induction ceremony.
He believes his joining the Church showed God that he was “taking the right, responsible steps in life to receive that blessing,” he said.
“That was very holy, and I really owe that to God,” Sheffey said.
‘New hope’ and perspective
Sheffey says joining the Church and rekindling his faith in God has changed his life.
“I think it’s allowed me to have more faith and believe in others and trust and care more,” he said. “It’s given me that extra love and spiritual emotions I need to get through and have that power to get through day by day. It’s like a new hope.”
For Daren Collins, Sheffey’s conversion is a classic example of the Savior asking Peter and the apostles to leave their fishing nets and follow Him. “That’s all I see when I think about Sean,” he said.
Williams believes the San Dieguito Ward played a critical role in shepherding Sheffey into the flock.
“Their willingness and ability to love Sean unconditionally from the very jump is probably the most important thing,” he said.
Teaching the gospel to Sheffey and Johnson gave Bushman a new perspective.
“It was kind of a shock to be teaching skaters, but the gospel is for everyone,” Bushman said. “Even if someone doesn’t look like the kind of person that would join the Church, it’s for them. [Sheffey and Johnson] were committed, they made the changes, and it was pretty cool to see.”
Jordy Collins agreed.
“Oftentimes it’s easy for us to judge those that don’t look like us, or if we see someone in the congregation that maybe doesn’t fit the same mold,” he said. “Sometimes it can be scary to reach out to those people, but then you get such a good perspective on what the gospel is really about — how lives can change through Jesus Christ.”