Sean McAlister Called to Serve: Dead refrigerators and cemeteries?

Sounds like Elder McAlister had a much better week than last, and that things are going well in the area and the district. If you want to learn more about the two celebrations Sean references in his email, check out the following Wikipedia links:

Fiestas Patrias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiestas_Patrias_%28Chile%29

1973 Chilean coup d'état
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

Now enjoy this week's email...

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¿Hola como están?

First off HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JESSICA!!!

Cumpleaños feliz, Feliz, Feliz
Te deseamos a ti, a ti, a ti
Feliz cumpleaños Jessica,
Que los cumplas feliz.

Que baca Jessica, no puedo creer que usted cumplió 25 años. yo espero que usted puede tener un bueno cumpleaños. sí yo hice el brazo en el aire! pero tenga un bueno día y come torta para mi! jajaja. But really Jessica I hope that you have a great birthday! Love you so much! Glad to hear everyone is okay. WOW the USA destroyed all the other teams in the FIBA tournament, that's pretty cool. I really miss watching some good American football (HaHa). Sounds like dad is getting better little by little. Do you have to go every day to PT? I am glad that you are making progress. Mom I am glad that things are cooling down at work and there is not that many changes to our Ward. Thank you for the little messages of the talks I really like them! Jessica have a great birthday and eat some brownies for me (HaHa). Brooke I hope that you and Luna are doing well in Oklahoma and I don't know if you knew this but Luna in Spanish is moon! Sabrina you are so much bigger than I can remember stop growing (HaHa), I hope that you are having fun in school and I hope that you have a lot of new friends!!! Best family ever!!!

This last week went really good. We don’t have a lot of investigators, but we worked a lot with the menos activos and we had a lot of progress with them. I was really happy with our week and my district is doing a lot better, so I am happy with them. The sad thing was we didn't bring any investigators to church. More than anything in this moment is we need to find, and I am hoping we will find this week. The 18 of September is this week which is like Independence Day of Chile. It is like a week-long festival and all they do is eat empanadas and other traditional food.

The 11 of September was pretty crazy! Nothing really happen in our sector, other than people started a fire in the middle of the street not to let cars pass by. We heard other parts of the country went out of hand. We had to enter our house early this day because this date deals a little bit with the United States. Nothing happened to us and we just chilled in the house from 8 until night time. To explain this 11 of September, in the year 1973, I think, Chile got out of control and the government was killing people here in Chile. The Government bought guns from the United States and so a lot of Chileans blame us for what happened. Its better if you guys looked it up and you could learn a little bit more.

So funny story, we had an old refrigerator in our house and it was bad, someone cut the wires in the back. The fridge had a ton of mold and smelled terrible. So we put it outside on the curb and said that it was free and within 3 minutes someone took it. The funny thing is we put bets down on how much time it would take for someone to take it, and we all lost. They took it so fast it wasn't even funny! It was super funny for us!!!

I can’t believe it that another month passed in my mission and now time is really flying by. Every day is super short and weeks just fly by, it’s kind of crazy. I am so happy that I am here in Chile. It’s the best mission in the world! We eat bread everyday here, so I will probably be good for bread after my mission! (HaHa)

I can’t believe that another week has gone, but i can’t wait to hear from you next week. I love you guys a lot. I hope that you have a great week and I hope that you guys are studying Spanish so I can talk to you after my mission. Love you guys a ton!!!

Elder McAlister

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Spiritual thought time!! This week comes from Elder Boyd K. Packer in his conference talk titled "The Witness". He said:

"Like most things of great worth, knowledge which is of eternal value comes only through personal prayer and pondering. These, joined with fasting and scripture study, will invite impressions and revelations and the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. This provides us with instruction from on high as we learn precept upon precept."

He makes it pretty simple for us to know how we should be learning the gospel. Study, prayer, fasting and listening to the Holy Ghost. It takes time and effort to learn the principles of the gospel, whether we are long time members, or new and learning things for the first time. These are tools we can all use throughout our lives.

That wraps up another week. Everyone have a great week, and enjoy a few pictures Sean sent from Chile. There was no explanation with the pictures, but it appears they are doing some volunteer work in a local cemetery as a district.