Loved ones remember pastor who was shot, killed in Ramona

RAMONA, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) -- Deputies with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office arrested 22-year-old Joel Martin Dukes III in connection to the shooting at a home in Ramona that killed 40-year-old Felipe Ascencio.

Ascencio's family held his funeral on Friday and say they’re still processing the loss even after their final goodbye.

Led by Pastor Ascencio, Templo Mount Horeb is a church full of praise on Sunday morning.

“You can be around him for a second and you’d start jumping around and having fun too," said Gabriela Ledezma, Ascencio's niece. "That’s just the kind of person he was.”

Congregants now fall to their knees praying as they mourn their lead pastor.

“At the end of each service, he would come up to us and lay his hand on us to pray for us, and I’ll kneel there with my eyes closed, and I’m still waiting to feel his hand," said Viviana Fonseca, a church member.

The reality of his loss still sinks in for the people who loved him.

“I don’t think I’ve really realized that he’s not coming back,” Gabriela said.

Around 2:35 p.m. on Sept. 7, deputies responded to a shooting at a home in Ramona.

“My mother-in-law called my wife, crying hysterical, and my wife ran out the house crying not knowing what to do,” said Jose Ledezma, Ascencio's brother-in-law.

Family and friends rushed to the scene where deputies found Ascencio inside suffering from a gunshot wound.

“We were asking ourselves a million questions of where was he? What could have happened? Who could have done it? I mean just my mind was racing a million miles a minute,” Fonseca said.

Paramedics arrived to take care of Ascencio but he died at the home because of his injuries.

“For the person that he was, we couldn’t imagine him passing in that way,” Ledezma said.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested Dukes III on suspicion of murder in connection to the shooting, but the family says they want to forgive like their pastor would.

“In the Bible, there’s a verse about turning the other cheek, and he lived it to a tee,” Ledezma said.

As Ascencio’s family laid him to rest during Friday afternoon’s funeral, loved ones cherish their memories with him to keep them going.

“His last words to me were, here there’s no going back, only forward,” she said.

While he’ll never preach a message at this pulpit again, his family has found some comfort.

“As Christians we believe that we’ll see him again,” Ledezma said, and it gives his family peace knowing he’s in the better place he always spoke about.

“As horrible as the situation is, he’s in the place where he dreamed of being,” Gabriela said.

The family started a GoFundMe page raising more than $30,000 so far for his wife and kids he left behind.

If you would like to support them, you can find more information here.