Sean McAlister Called to Serve: A hard week

Sounds like I was a hard week for Sean. Struggling with Spanish, lost some investigators, and having a hard time finding new ones. But as he recognizes in his email that there are a lot of up’s and down’s while on a mission, and you just need to continue to work through it.

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Hey everyone,

Sounds like Sabrina's birthday was super fun and now she is the big 9 year old bum!!! I just thought about this, Sabrina and mom are both going to be better with technology then I will when I get back. A tablet is pretty cool present so happy birthday Sabrina. Sounds like I need to come up and help out Todd and Derek´s team. I will talk to president today, and what’s going on there I don't want to hear an excuse! The opera sounds interesting, and to my understanding it wasn't in English, but sounds like you guys had fun.

This last week went by super-fast and next week we have our cambios, so this cambio went by fast too. Everything has been going by super-fast and all I want is to know Spanish, soon I hope. This last week we were really focused in finding people to teach and Hualpen is really a hard place to find people. The family Burgaos Arabena are no longer progressing, because every time we go to visit they are starting to take out alcohol and drink it in front of us, and offering it to us, so we have stopped going to their house. This week we walked every day, and just searched because we need to find people to teach. We have been teaching them the first lesson and the next visit they don't want us. So you could say it’s been really hard this week. When it’s my companions turn to start the lesson he always teaches the Sabbath for the first lesson, so all the people are like yeah I’m keeping this commandment now get out of my house. This week I told him the restoration is the first lesson or baptism, so I am going to see what happens this week. We are searching and searching for people that want to hear our message and it’s been super hard to find people. We are working with faith and hope that we can find some good investigators soon. We find kids in the street all the time, and play some fútbol, and got some lessons with our skills that I don’t have (HaHa) No I’m okay at fútbol and it’s probably because I played with Tillie in the backyard.

This week we contacted a dad and his son. It turns out his son is a gangster of some kind but doesn't seem very mean or scary to me. I found out that his son is Benjamin who is the one kid I have pictures with the toy guns. I showed him the pictures and he’s like let’s take pictures and it turns out he loves to take pictures (HaHa)! It was super funny, so now we have a friend that is a gangster, but is interested in the church so we are working with him.

This week we found out that Chile and Peru are close to going to war over some of the ocean, and every house that we go to that is a member is super funny because they attack my companion because he is from Peru. We also found out that the 27 of January, Chile is going to vote to send the people from Peru back to Peru or not. So my companion might go back to Peru a little bit early. That's all we know about it!

This last week was hard for me I, could not speak at all in Spanish. I couldn't pronounce anything and it’s been just beating me up. I’m having a hard time a memorizing words and things like that, so please pray for my Spanish!

Thanks for everything that you guys do and I want you guys to know I love you. The mission has been an eye opener and a true blessing. You get a little bit of everything in your mission but I wouldn't change it at all. I feel like I’m getting dumber with English and I’m still learning Spanish, so right now I’m dumb (HaHa). I know this church is true and it’s a true blessing. I love you guys and work with the less active people or non-members because we are all children of our heavenly father.

Love you guys!!!

Elder McAlister

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This week’s thought shared with Sean was a quote from Russell M. Nelson from broadcast called "The Work of Salvation: Parable of a Father at Bedtime" on every member being a missionary. He said:

"The work of salvation excludes no one! Missionaries and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are sent forth to labor in the Lord’s vineyard for the salvation of the souls of men. This includes member missionary work at its best, with activation of less-active members and preparation of God’s children for all the blessings of the temple.”

This is an import message for all members of the church to think about on how we should be sharing the blessings of the gospel with those around us.

Until next week enjoy this week’s pictures from Sean…