Patience, love and charity.

Sounds like Elder McAlister had a hard week.  Just as in everyone’s lives there are high points and low points, but we need to work though the hard times, and that is what it sounds like he is doing.

It is amazing how much he has grown over the last year, and what a great learning opportunity a mission has been for Sean. It’s hard to hear when your kid is having a hard time, and you can do little to help, but I know he is in the right place serving the Lord.   I am very proud of him.

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Hey Everyone,

Thanks for all the letters and what you sent me it really meant a lot. I am glad that everyone is doing well and I am glad that the Steelers won their first game of the season. Mom I hope that work calms down a little bit and thanks for the message about angles. Dad I am glad that you are doing okay and I love the sports update so keep on doing that for me. Brooke I love the videos of your dog, they are pretty funny! Jessica I am glad you didn't have a boring week and tell Derek thanks for the ideas and we call that invasion here, but that is something that we need. Sabrina I hope you are having fun at school and I want to build a snowman!

First off, thanks for all of your guys emails they helped me a ton. This last week was probably one of the hardest weeks in all of my mission. We had a lot of problems working with our members this week and we lost all of our investigators, other than 4 of them and 2 of them we found this week. So it has been pretty hard with the work right now. Also, a lot of the less active members don't want to talk to us anymore. Me and my companion also crashed, and it was a hard week. Then last but not least my district had a really hard and struggling week! I had a little bit of stress this week (HaHaHa). Sunday me and my companion talked it out and now we are back to good. Also we got some good plans to help us out this week. Then we will be having a good district class this week! I hope! (HaHa) And to answer dads question we haven't been able to find Ricardo for some time now.

If you guys could pray for Johanna and Nicolas. We found them both this week and Nicolas lives with his parents and is working as a doctor, but he has a lot of questions about the church. Johanna we found at the last moment on Saturday and she was awesome she really wants to have the spirit in her life. She accepted a date for baptism and said she would come to church with us. So the next day we passed by and its pouring rain and we get to her house and knock on the door. Guess what! She tells us to wait. So we wait for ten minutes and we knock again and she tells us to wait again. So we wait and wait and wait. But she never came and so we just left, and so if you can pray for them that would be great. 

I learned a ton in this week with patience and love and charity. I really am hoping I can change even more than what I am in this moment. I really want to help the children of god. Now I have a really good goal and how I can change.

Elder Hoopes did end up buying an American football so we will be playing a little football today, and yes it feels great to throw a football. The great thing is we have a lot of people that like to play football so we will be playing some real football.

Thank you guys for everything and all the support that you give to me. I love all of you and I hope that you guys will have a great week. Love you a lot and I can’t wait to hear you guys next week.

Love you guys!

Elder McAlister

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Spiritual thought time! I was reading a 2011 Conference talk by Russell M. Nelson called "Covenants", and there were two quotes from it I really liked concerning, oddly enough covenants. He said: 

"Children of the covenant have the right to receive His doctrine and to know the plan of salvation. They claim it by making covenants of sacred significance."

This teaches us the importance of the baptismal covenants we make, and then the covenants in the temple. Then he said:

"Through the ages, God has made covenants with His children. His covenants occur throughout the entire plan of salvation and are therefore part of the fulness of His gospel. For example, God promised to send a Savior for His children, asking in turn for their obedience to His law."

Here we learn that covenants are part of the plan of salvation, and if we do our part, God will do his part. That's a comfort to know that it’s that plain and simple to receive god’s blessings, although it doesn't mean it will be easy.

We until next, everyone be safe and enjoy your week.  Here are a couple pictures from Sean today….enjoy.

Pizza time!!

A well marked up set of missionary scriptures.