Sean McAlister Called to Serve: Elder Cortez returns with honor

As always it is exciting to hear from Elder McAlister, sounds like they had a great week and a strong finish to Elder Cortez’s mission. Glad he had a nice birthday surprise, and that he will get his birthday package we sent tomorrow, even though it’s a couple days late. Sean finds out who his next, and last companion will be tomorrow!

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Well thank you guys for everything for my birthday it really means a lot to me even though I totally forgot and I remembered at 8:30 at night, but thank you guys! I really looks warm there and I kind of miss the heat (HaHa). Sabrina looks like a pro out there playing softball and I can’t believe that you and your team are doing so well. The windows sound like a really good idea and I really feel like the house looks a lot different now. Glad to hear that Jessica and Brooke are doing well. Happy anniversary parents, if that how you spell it! I hope you guys had a good day. Dad Happy Father’s day this next Sunday. I really hope you have a good day and I really want you to know that I love you guys! I hope you are feeling and doing well and I really want you to know that I miss you and I look up to you as an example, especially in my mission I have tried to be like you and follow all the things that you have taught me! Thank you dad for everything that you are and do! Love you

Well this week was a little crazy because it was the last week in the mission for my companion. It was a weird, but good week. Yesterday we spent the whole time running place to place trying to say goodbye to all the members and I don’t think we have run so much in our missions. I dropped Elder Cortez at the bus station at 6:30am today and he left and he will get home tomorrow morning! WEIRD! I found out what’s happening with me, and I am training again!!! I’m having another kid, so in other words I’m pregnant! I am pretty sure that I will have a gringo and I am interested in what will happen. I will find out tomorrow who he is, and where he is from! I am excited and tomorrow I will get my package YES!!!

Manuel finally came to church and right now he has fecha for the 27 of junio. So all seems really good right now, but he needs to keep on coming to church. He has all the teachings and he has progressed a ton. We are still working with Francisco who is doing really well also, but he couldn’t come to church and I don’t know why. We are also working with the family Soliz Moya and they are a little bit harder to teach. We are teaching some other families, but really we are more focused on helping some less active families and they are doing amazing. We are looking at a good week this week!

Everyone here is going really crazy about the American Copa, and I am hoping that Chile does well. I am really excited because tonight we get to watch the game. It will be Chile against Mexico and it will be crazy!

I really don’t know what to tell you guys, we had a good week and really my companion was just preparing to go home. I didn’t tell anyone about my birthday because I wanted people to focus more on my comp because it was his last week, but one family made me a cake and it was awesome and I really liked it!

Well I really don’t know what to tell you guys this week, sometimes when Monday gets here my mind plays the dumb game with me to make me forget everything. I did want you guys to know that I probably have had one of the most spiritual experiences in my mission this last week. We have taught a family of semi-active members whose family was completely crazy, the parents on the edge of separating, and the kids wanting to leave the house and get away from the parents. My comp and I helped them change the things around in their lives, and there is love in their house and there is a special unity in the house with them. I am really a witness of the gospel and how it can change anything. I saw a whole family crying out of gratitude this last Friday, giving thanks to us for helping them with their family! It got down to my soul in that moment! I just want you guys to know that this gospel can and does help us!!!

I really love you guys and I can’t wait for next week! Time is getting faster every day. Thank you for everything and I really love you, have a good and safe week!

Elder McAlister

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Spiritual thought time! This week’s thought comes from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's testimony of the Book of Mormon from his October 2009 General Conference talk "Safety for the Soul". In the talk he said:

“No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so...I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true, that it came forth the way Joseph said it came forth and was given to bring happiness and hope to the faithful in the travail of the latter days.”

The Book of Mormon is such an important book, and really is the keystone to our religion. If it is true, and I testify that it is, then Joseph Smith was a prophet, which he was, and then the rest of the basic principles of the church are true, which they are. As Joseph Smith said, “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book”. This is true, and why it has been such a powerful tool for Sean on his mission.

Until next week enjoy a few birthday pictures, and Elder Cortez and Elder McAlister last picture together before Elder Cortez left for home…