Sean McAlister Called to Serve: Ice Ice Baby

Another good week on the mission for Elder McAlister. Investigators progressing, working to bring the Chillan ward closer together (but I’m not sure the food combination they prepared and singing Ice Ice Baby is going to help J), the weird guy found Sean again, they had a fun activity in the snow. An action packed week. This coming week is Elder Cortez’s last week on his mission, he has been one of Sean’s favorite companions.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

McAlisters,

It’s already my birthday! I am so old it’s really weird to think that! I am glad to hear everyone is doing well in the house. Today I am short on time and I will explain why, but first off the family room looks really different without the desk there. I am interested in how the house looks now!!

We had a really good week and Manuel was progressing super good, but then he got sick and couldn't go to church. He is still progressing and he will now have fecha for the 4 of julio. Please pray that he can go to church this week. Also we are working with a guy named Francisco and he is progressing very well. He is reading the things that we leave him and he is very interested. But we will see what happens with him this week.

We also had an activity in our ward that me and my companion planned and set up. This ward hasn't had an activity for a very very long time. So we had a quick lesson and then we sang karaoke. There was also sushi and brownies that me and my companion made and a few other things. But our ward is very separated and we are helping them grow together. Me and Elder Allen, who is the other American in our ward, we sang Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. I can tell I have never made so many errors in ingles in my life

Well I did ended up running into the weird, strange guy that hugged me and we actually had to throw him out of the church for disturbing our district meetings. He waited outside to shake my hand for about 1 an hour and a half. All the missionary's circled me and we left like that and he never found me. He is creeping me out but it’s still funny.

Well today we went to the Termas De Chillan where there is snow! At first I was like wow I have seen snow all my life but I have completely forgotten how cold snow is and I was dying after a while. We hiked a mountain in the snow and after a while we decided to head back down. Then there was a giant snowball fight between three zones, so around 60 people in total. It was crazy but really cool. We woke up at 4 in the morning to go to the activity, and when we were leaving it was about 10:30, but our bus had problems and we got stuck in the snow. In reality the guy driving the bus has never driven in snow. He was really scared. We got back to the house around 4:30 and we headed right over to the internet to write. We were stuck on a bus from 10:30 to 4:30, which reminded me of Colorado and how we got stuck in the bus for 16 hours for handball! (HaHa)

In our mission we got permission to watch the soccer games of the South Cup, which is really cool, it’s going to start this week and I can’t wait to see Chile play!!!

Thank you guys for wishing me a happy birthday, I will not get the package for my birthday because I am on the outside of the mission and the office is far from my house. I love you guys and really thank you for everything that you guys have done for me. I really hope you guys have a fantastic week and I can’t wait to hear from you next week. Love you guys tons!

Elder McAlister

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spiritual thought time! In honor of Elder L Tom Perry, I remember a talk he gave a few years ago in General Conference. The talk was "Obedience to Law is Liberty" and Elder Perry said:

"God reveals to His prophets that there are moral absolutes. Sin will always be sin. Disobedience to the Lord’s commandments will always deprive us of His blessings. The world changes constantly and dramatically, but God, His commandments, and promised blessings do not change. They are immutable and unchanging. Men and women receive their agency as a gift from God, but their liberty and, in turn, their eternal happiness come from obedience to His laws. As Alma counseled his errant son Corianton, “Wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10)."

I like what he says there, because in today's world people are constantly trying to push the limits of God's laws, and justify them in ways to make it seem ok, or at least justify it in their own minds, but the reality is that sin is sin, whether we like it or not. God does not change, and we should not expect him to, so we need to learn to live accordingly, and we will be blessed.

Elder McAlister sent a bunch of pictures this week, mostly from the p-day snow activity. Enjoy the pictures and be safe until next week…