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.
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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
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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…
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| Ward activity with a lesson, food and karaoke! |
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| More from the Ward activity. |
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| Elder McAlister at the P-day activity |
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| Elder McAlister at Termas De Chillan |
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| Elders Allen and McAlister at Termas De Chillan |
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| Elder McAllister at zone activity (a snowball may be coming from behind) |
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| Snowy Chillan countryside |
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| Elder McAlister looking over a snowy Chillan countryside |
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| View of a mountain on the zone hike |
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| A snowfie? |
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| On the hike up the mountain |
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| Three zone snowball fight!!! |
