Sean McAlister Called to Serve: P-Day at the Beach!

Another update from Sean today. Sounds like a normal mission week with plenty of ups and downs. The message he shares from the talk at the District Conference is a good one.

After the email there are a bunch of new photos from his last p-day and other events which are great to see, a picture truly is worth a thousand words, so there is a lot said in these pictures for me.

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Hey Everyone,

Its sounds like you guys will have a snowy Christmas and I will have a very hot Christmas! I wish I could have gone to the festival of trees, that sounds really fun and looks like you guys had a good time. I hope that Dad will get better from whatever you had. I can’t believe that Christmas is that close!! Here it’s totally different, not much Christmas lights, so far I have seen a few houses and our house.

This last week was good and bad at the same time. So I will tell you the bad news first. Our investigators are being stubborn right now. We had to move all the baptism dates back. Our first baptism this month is now going to be on the 20 of December and the rest after that. Also we lost one of the baptisms and we are starting to lose the other one. So this week has been hard with that and still looking for good investigators. The good news is that Javiera is still going good for a baptism, and she is the one on the 20 of December. Claudia is doing well she keeps on going to church and she is doing everything we ask her to do. She went from smoking a pack to only two cigarettes in the night. We have seen some blessing with her, now our only problem with her is she needs to get married. We are praying for her and this week we are meeting with her and her boyfriend to talk about a date, and we hope that everything goes well.

On Saturday and Sunday we had our District Conference which is like the Stake Conference in Utah. The President of the Mission came up and talked to our Rama (Ward) and the other Ramas. They talked a lot about working with the miembros and how they are the key part in conversion of investigators. The talks were really good and the spirit was strong. The cool thing was I understood almost every talk really good. One of the speakers said, "Why are we scared to work with the missionaries, why can’t we make time, why do we not want to work with the missionaries? This is not the missionaries work, this is the Lords work, if he has time for you, and then why can’t you make time for him! These are the last days and we as members need to help every missionary with saving peoples souls and bringing them to their salvation," I thought that this quote was really cool and how everyone in the church needs to work together in the last days to save every soul we can.

Also this week we had to mini cambios which is when I work with a different Elder for the day. The first mini cambio was with Elder Sierra which was really good, but he and his companion are having a hard time working and Elder Donoso is the district leader so that one was really good. The other cambio was with the Zone Leaders because we need a baptism interview for Javiera. Which went okay and I was with the other Elder in the house all day because he was sick and that was super boring and felt like the longest day of my life. I would rather work then sit in the house all day.

This next Monday is our cambios so I will get a new companion and I might leave Linares but I will find out next Monday. This cambio was really fast and the time in the mission goes by super fast, it’s not even funny. The days go by so fast it’s like I woke up and then 5 minutes later I’m back in my bed. It has been going so fast i can’t believe it. I have 4 months in the mission and almost 3 months in Chile!

This Christmas I don't get to call you guys! I get to Skype instead which is so much better. I get to Skype for about an hour and a half. So I can’t wait to see you guys. Its sometime after 11:00 AM in Chile, and I don't remember how far ahead Chile is to Utah, but it should be really fun and really cool to Skype you guys and see the good old family.

Thank you guys for everything and the love that you guys have for me. I hope you guys have a good week and I want you guys to know that I love you and think about you all the time.

Elder McAlister

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The spiritual shared with Sean this week comes from something I was reading the other day on the life of Heber C. Kimball. He said:

“Let me say to you, that many of you will see the time when you will have all the trouble, trial and persecution that you can stand, and plenty of opportunities to show that you are true to God and his work. This Church has before it many close places through which it will have to pass before the work of God is crowned with victory. … The time will come when no man nor woman will be able to endure on borrowed light. Each will have to be guided by the light within himself. If you do not have it, how can you stand?”

I think this speaks strongly of what Elder McAlister is out doing on his mission and something for us all to think about. Until next week, enjoy these pictures from Chile…