Sean McAlister Called to Serve: Where are those scriptures?

Busy week for Elder McAlister and Ponce. People to teach, funny experiences and a good p-day, except for getting his legs beat up (picture below). Lot's of pictures this week!

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The MAC Family,

Hey glad to hear all is well in the house of the McAlister’s! Sounds like you guys had an exciting week and I hope you had a good Valentine’s Day! Sorry to hear mom is sick but I hope that you will get better in this week. The little puppy is pretty cute and how big will she get? Sabrina looks like she is getting close to dunking in the pictures! The next star in the WNBA! Utah looks like it’s pretty hot, and its February still, so that's what Chile is like!!

This last week was pretty good and we are really pumped with what’s going on in our sector. All is going well with Cristina and she is progressing and we changed her dated for the 7 of March. We have noticed that she is learning slowly! We are teaching her and she wants to be baptized. She went to church and she really likes it and she has gone to church three times now and she wants to keep on going. Luis and Romina have left on vacations, like every single person in the Concepcion area because its summer time and everything starts back up in March so they are all leaving to have vacations and sector seems to be empty at times! We have been finding and working on finding. We are really working with the members and hoping that the ward can be a little bit stronger! This last Sunday we had only two Elders in the ward and five High Priests and this ward will soon turn into a rama if we don’t get the ward into it!

This last week my comp went to get a shot and we went up to Pedro de Valdivia and he got his shot there. When we were waiting, this guy walks in with his child. The kid says to his Dad that there isn’t that many people in the hospital today, but in ingles. So I sat there a little confused if I heard ingles or Spanish. I went over to talk to him and sure enough he is gringo. So I sat there and talked to him for about ten minutes and he seemed really cool. He is living here in Chile working in something?? I didn’t understand what he said haha! Oops! He is from Oregon and that was something weird that happened in this week!

Today we played some more soccer in the grass courts and we played against a different zone. We destroyed them, but it didn’t help that half of their team was Sister Missionaries and they were taking pictures while playing, so we had to split up the teams to make it even. It was really fun, but my legs got destroyed by getting nailed by two Elders, so we will see how I will be walking tomorrow. It was a lot of fun and I heard next week we are going to the beach!

This week we had a pretty funny visit where we went and visited an older woman from our ward. We have visited her before, and we left her a scripture to read in the book of Mormon. So we asked her if she read the scripture that we left her and so she left and went looking for her book of Mormon. 15 minutes pass and she tells us that she can’t find her scriptures and so I said that we will help her find them and we walk into a room and there is a stack of the Book of Mormon and D&C and the Pearl of Great Price together (I don’t remember how to say the book triple in English). She’s like I found these Bibles but I can’t find the Book of Mormon and we sat there and explained that those books were the Book of Mormon! She still didn’t get it! So we just shared a scripture from the "Bible!"

I love you guys and have a fantastic week! February is flying by and we are entering into March in two weeks, I thought New Years was last week! I hope to hear from you guys next week and I am hoping that all goes well. I want to thank you guys for everything and I am happy I have your support. Love you guys and have a good and fun week!

Elder McAlister

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Spiritual thought time! This week it's on Jesus Christ. President Thomas S. Monson, in his talk from October 2014 Conference "Ponder the Path of Thy Feet" said the following two quotes about our following our Savior and what he has done for us:

"As we strive to place Christ at the center of our lives by learning His words, by following His teachings, and by walking in His path, He has promised to share with us the eternal life that He died to gain. There is no higher end than this, that we should choose to accept His discipline and become His disciples and do His work throughout our lives. Nothing else, no other choice we make, can make of us what He can."

He then goes on to say...

"We need not walk by the shores of Galilee or among the Judean hills to walk where Jesus walked. All of us can walk the path He walked when, with His words ringing in our ears, His Spirit filling our hearts, and His teachings guiding our lives, we choose to follow Him as we journey through mortality. His example lights the way. Said He, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

What incredible gifts he has given up with the atonement, and his example to follow. Not only has he provided the way, and shown us the way, but will help us along the way to returning to both him and our Heavenly Father with our families.

Have a safe week everyone and enjoy a the pictures this week...