A really hard week...

Well from the sounds of this email, it was a hard week for Elder Ponce and Elder McAlister.  They lost multiple strong investigators during the week.  These are the type of weeks that make being a missionary very difficult sometimes.

If you have a minute to drop Sean an email with some words of encouragement this week, that would be great!


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Hola como estám,

All is well here in Chile and time is really flying by faster every day. I am a little interested in this Chilean rest restaurant! I hope that it was good. Glad to hear all is going well and that everyone is good in health. 

Last Monday I was running around because they decided to have a meeting with all the leaders in the mission and it was at 9 in the morning until about 2:30 so we pretty much lost our p-day last week, and it was a little sad. The meeting was really good and we are seeing how we can help the members and the missionary's to work together and how we can really focus on the vision in the mission. 

Well this week has been really different and a little bit of a shocker. We have been working really hard and everything seem to be going very good and we were pumped that we were going to have two baptisms this week. We ended up hearing from Nancy on last martes (Tuesday), at night that she was leaving to Santiago and she said that she would call us when she would get back. So when she told me that, I got a little worried and then we ended up passing by her house on Friday and she told us that she didn't want to share with us anymore. So we talked to her for a little bit outside her door and she told us that she found god and she doesn't want to share with us anymore. Then she threw us out her house pretty much! That was a really big shocker for us and we got really worried about why she doesn't want to share with us anymore. So we passed by on Saturday seeing if someone said something to her, or just what happened, because she was ready. After a while, she kicked us out of the house and told us that she doesn't want to hear us anymore and that really got us. Also was we passed by Cristina, and she told us that she doesn't want anything to do with us either, which we still have no idea why she doesn't want to share with us. Then we went over to the house of Ignacio who had fecha and he told us that he doesn't have time to share with us because the University is starting up.  

With Juana, who is in the sector of Elder Bryan, the president ended up going to the lesson and she won’t be getting baptized until the guy leaves the house for good and so she is still going to church, but she won’t be getting baptized right now. 

All is well with me and Elder Ponce and we are working harder than ever. It’s gotten really crowded here with all the college students getting back to studying. There are so many people now it’s driving me crazy with two colleges and all types of people. The good part is there are a lot of new people in our sector.  

Elder Ponce and I have started skinning some ties and it turned out really good. I did it with one of the ties that an Elder gave to me and the tie looks 100 times better that before. So I might do it with a few more of my ties because I like them skinny! 

Well thank you guys so much and I really miss you and I hope that you guys have a good week. Keep on following in the Lord’s way and have a safe week. Love you guys a ton!

Elder McAlister

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Spiritual thought time! I read a quote from Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson, Young Women General President, from her October 2013 Conference talk "Be Ye Converted" about becoming truly converted. This quote tied in really well with the the First Presidency Message in the February Ensign that I used in my Home Teaching visits last month.

Sister Oscarson said "True conversion is more than merely having a knowledge of gospel principles and implies even more than just having a testimony of those principles. It is possible to have a testimony of the gospel without living it. Being truly converted means we are acting upon what we believe and allowing it to create ‘a mighty change in us, or in our hearts.’"

This concept of acting upon what we gain a testimony if is so important a outlined in this excerpt from the First Presidency Message:

"We know from our own experience and from observing others that having a few great moments of spiritual power will not be enough. Peter denied he knew the Savior even after he had received a witness by the Spirit that Jesus was the Christ. The Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon had direct testimony given to them that concerns and turned toward service to lift others as they move upward to eternal life. To obtain that conversion, we can pray and work in faith to become the new creature made possible by the Atonement of Jesus Christ."

I thought about this statement a lot in preparation for Home Teaching and shared with my families many of the important events through my life that have really build my testimony and my desire to serve. It was not a single event, but many like my baptism, being in the Washington D.C. with my parent for their temple sealing, seeing a living Prophet (Spencer W. Kimball) for the first time in person in Madison Wisconsin at a regional conference, going through the temple for myself right before my mission, the hundreds of experiences on my mission, taking your mother to the temple to be married, having a family (three great daughters and an incredible son) and being helped trying to raise my children with the influence of the spirit (I messed up so much I need all the help I can get), the many opportunities to use the Priesthood to bless my family, and the many callings I have had over the years.  The list goes on and on, but it is the total sum of all these events and experiences that make up my conversion, not a single event. 

Well Sean didn't send any pictures this week, but I found a few on the Mission blog to share this week.... 

The Mission District Leaders

Elder Ponce and Elder McAlister

At a Mission Conference

Concepcion Mission Conference

The Concepcion District March 2015

Pray for Nancy!

Sounds like a very busy week, like it should be.  Hope things continue to progress with those close to baptism in his district.

As Sean has limited time to read and write emails, sometimes it takes time to cleanup his emails because he writes them so quickly, without proof reading, and often written in spanglish.  I thought it would be good to include some more of the spanglish from the emails, and just provide the English translation in parentheses after the word or phase.
 
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Hey everyone,

Well I am very happy to hear that everyone is doing well and that you guys had a good week. Sorry to hear that Tillie is struggling and I hope that she gets better. Sounds like other than that all is going well, and I can’t believe that we are already in the month of March, time is flying by so fast! Where is the time going! (HaHa)

I have had a really good week and it was pretty fun. We started last week off with some dodge ball, which I think I already told you about that. It was really fun, but the sad thing was we couldn't play as zones and I got put on a very nonathletic team and we got destroyed. At the beginning we started off good and we finished worse than the Jazz. Then we spent rest of the day just running from one side to the other side of the area, and it was a very busy day. 

On Martes (Tuesday) we ended up having a very successful day, we had a ton of visits and we ended up finding a new investigator. His name is Ignacio, and he is a 21 year old guy that is going to college at the university. He lives he in Concepcion with his mom. He was really cool and the spirit was very strong in the lesson that we had with him. We shared about baptism and the restoration of the gospel and the lesson went so well. He also accepted a fecha bautismal (baptismal date) and he was good for the 21 of March. He didn't go to church with us, so he lost his fecha bautismal for not going to church. Also, in one of my districts there is an investigator that was going to be baptized on Saturday and they passed by on Tuesday to verify how she was for the interview that she was going to have with me on Wednesday. They ended up finding out that she took red tea, and it was the missionary's bad because they didn't explain it that well and she got mad and sad because you can’t break the word of wisdom for two weeks before a baptism. So I was calling the missionary and the Zone Leaders and the Assistants about what was happening with her. It was a crazy day with that part!   

On Wednesday we ended up going to a buffet, because the whole entire week we ended up getting money from the members, so we decided to go with the Elder from the office to a buffet and it was so good. For a second I thought I was at the Asian Buffet in American Fork, but this one wasn't as big and menos (less) food. I ate about 5 plates of food, and 2 plates of desserts, and for the rest of the day I was dying. Then after lunch we went to the hospital to help some members out because they needed bendiciónes de salud (health blessings) and I didn’t like it that much. I have always liked visiting the hospitals in the states and here in Chile I feel like I get sick when I walk in. It is really a different place at the hospital in Chile. Then I ended up going over to the sector of Elder Bryan to fix the situation with Juana and I ended up doing a entervista de apoyo (support interview) to help her out and I got her to calm down with the situation that happened with her. They I was given permission to set her with a baptismal date for the 7 of March. So it seemed that all was going well!

On Thursday we ended up having a zone class, which was by far the best zone class that I have had here in this sector in Concepcion. We really focused on our plans and the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which is the key of missionary work. It was a good class and we definitely felt the spirit in the class! Then we ended up having a lesson with Cristina, and she ended up learning a lot more than we thought! She accepted fecha for the 14 of March also. But she didn't go to church this week and that really killed me! We will find out what happened with her today. Then guess what happened again? I had to go back to the sector of Elder Bryan to visit Juana because we found out that her ex-boyfriend, which she doesn't want anything to do with, passes by once a week to sleep in a different room in the house. That only happens once a week, but she can’t let him be in the house. So we went to her house with a lot of caution, and told her that he cannot stay in the house according to the commandments of the Lord. She looked sad because this guy has no house, and no job, but we told her he has to leave so she can be baptized, and she said ok. It was a little crazy, but we had to do it. 

Then the rest of the week we ended up having a lot of conferences with the Stake because we had our Stake Conference this weekend so the rest of the week was just full of meetings, and I really liked it. We got to listen the one of the Seventy and I really liked his talk on obedience. I finally got my scriptures cases for my Bible and they look awesome, I really like them. 

Please pray for Nancy! She is doing very well, she went to church and she is set to be baptized this next week if everything goes well. She is progressing very well, and she is excited to be baptized soon. She is set for the 14 of March!

Well thank you guys so much, and I can’t wait to hear from you guys next week. I love you guys a ton and I hope that all goes well this week. And tell me if you guys ever got that package.

I love you guys and take care!

Elder McAlister 

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Spiritual thought time!  Because of some of things taught at Youth and Ward conferences the last couple weeks, I have been studying on agency this last week. I have three quotes that I think teach us a lot about how agency works and why it is so important.  

First, President Thomas S. Monson from a Brigham Young University devotional address given on January 16, 1973 called "Four Words to Guide You" said:    

"The choice is yours, and the choice is mine, remembering that our choices, our decisions, determine our destiny. God will guide you in your determination to serve Him and keep His commandments as you listen, as you learn, as you labor, and as you love."

Second, Elder Russell M. Nelson, in his October 2013 General Conference talk "Decisions for Eternity" says:   

"A strong human spirit with control over appetites of the flesh is master over emotions and passions and not a slave to them. That kind of freedom is as vital to the spirit as oxygen is to the body! Freedom from self-slavery is true liberation!"

And finally, Elder Henry B. Eyring, in his October 2013 General Conference talk "To My Grandchildren" teaches: 

"We cannot force God’s children to choose the way to happiness. God cannot do that because of the agency He has given us."

These all teach us that even though our Heavenly Father wants us all to succeed in this earthly test, and will give us all the help and guidance he can, the only way this is truly a test of our faith, strength and commitment is by giving us the opportunity to make our own decisions.  This will result in both good and bad decisions in our own lives, and also impact the lives of others. There is a lot of responsibility with agency, but it truly shows how much we are loved by our father to allow this only true path to exaltation.

Have a great week everyone! 

Sean's new scripture covers

Sean's new scripture covers...part 2