Sean McAlister Called to Serve: Hugging a crazy guy...

It's hard to believe, but Elder McAlister is now under the two month mark before we get to see him in person. He had a cold, wet, creepy and successful week in Chillan.

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Family,

First off, I have completely forgotten about the JDawgs special sauce and that really sounds good. I really want some JDawgs right now!!! I am happy to hear all is well with the family. The house looks really good and it sounds like it’s a big house that Brooke and Todd have. Sabrina looks, according to the pictures, that she had fun and I wish I could have seen her dance!

Elder Cortez and I are doing really good and we are trying to work our hardest. He only has this week and the next week and then he is done with his mission. Crazy! But we are trying to push our way through and help out all the people we can.

Monday was pretty funny and good. We went shopping at a mall type place that’s all outside and they sell things that are reminders of Chile, which is really cool and I wanted to buy some things from there. We were where there and I was with a group of missionaries and the Elder on my side said oh no he’s going to hug us. I looked at him really confused. We walked about 5 more feet and I look over my shoulder and this weird old guy chases me down and screams good morning and hugs me! I kind of just stood there thinking what should I do, and he let me go and ran off looking at me really weird. So I kind of got scared from that, but I just kept on walking and went to my happy place! But it was so funny!! Later that day we had a really good lesson with a family and their son is really progressing and really wants to learn more, he is 16 years old, and we had a very spiritual blessing with him. His parents are kind of harder to work with.

On every Tuesday we have a meeting with all the missionaries in our district and we had ours at 10:00 in the morning and we really learned about compromisos. After the class we were are leaving, and guess who was outside the church’s gates waiting there?? It was that creepy old guy that hugged me on Monday. He yelled good morning at me and then ran off. At that point I was a little worried and this time I had about 18 missionaries with me, but later on we ran into him again and he was on the other side of the street just staring at us in a creepy way. We had a really good noche de hogar (Family Home Evening) with the family Ruiz and we made a treat called "calzones rotos" which I will send you a picture of them, but the name is really weird! I got to make them and they are really good tasting.

Wednesday and Thursday was really cold, it started raining really hard and we were outside almost all day on Thursday and my hands turned bright red and it was really bad. I couldn’t even snap my hands were so frozen. The rain really hit us Friday in the morning, but then it stopped. It’s going to get a lot rainier here. Thanks to the cold weather, and the rain, I got sick again and I told my comp that Chillan really doesn’t like me because I have never gotten sick so many times in a sector. I am getting sick of being sick. I am still leaving to work, don’t worry about that!

Something really cool happened this week, Manuel came to church!!! So right now he is lined up to be baptized the 20 of June which is awesome. He is doing really well and we only need to teach him a little bit more and then he is ready. He needs to go to church 2 more times and then he can be baptized.

I love you guys a ton and I hope that you guys have a good week and stay safe. Can’t wait for next week and I love you guys a ton!

Elder McAlister

P.S.

I thought I would share my favorite scripture with you guys!

Alma 26:12 It gets to me ever time!

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Spiritual thought time! This weeks thought comes from one of my favorite talks from last conference. Elder L Whitney Clayton in his talk "Choose to Believe" said the following:

"Every day each of us faces a test. It is the test of our lifetimes: will we choose to believe in Him and allow the light of His gospel to grow within us, or will we refuse to believe and insist on traveling alone in the dark? The Savior provides His gospel as a light to guide those who choose to believe in and follow Him."

Ultimately what we believe and how we live in the Gospel is our choice. We are here to be tested and our belief and faithfulness is the outcome of that test. I choose to believe, I know Sean does as well by the commitment he has shown to serve a mission and share the gospel with others. I am so proud of him, and even though I would love for him to be here with the family, I know he is doing what is right, and setting and example for us all to follow.

That another week gone, but he sent a lot of pictures for us to see this week. I plan to try making the "calzones rotos". Enjoy the pics...

Elder McAlister making "calzones rotos"

Elder McAlister making "calzones rotos" with two little helpers

Calzones Rotos (torn underwear cookies) The calzones are a typical sweet of Chile, consisting of a fried dough made from flour, baking powder, powdered sugar and eggs.