A Mom Note!

I have joined a "Missionary Moms" list that a friend of mine recommended.  She said she heard it was a great way for moms of missionaries serving in the same area to connect.  It took me several months to finally subscribe, but I am glad I did.  There are several posts that are for other missions, but every once in awhile I connect with someone that makes me smile.

Today, one mom remembered my original post describing my son and sent me an email.  Her daughter is serving in his area and Tyler is her Zone Leader.  She said her daughter sends tons of pictures to her each week (so jealous) and when this mom asked her daughter if she knew him, she said "Yes...he is awesome!"  And she sent me this picture......I love pictures! (and she said she would send me more if she gets any others with him in it!)

Even if I don't make any other connections with people, it was worth it for this ONE picture!  I am such a sucker for my son!  :)

(by the way.....the daughter is the cute blonde!)

Oct 28, 2013

Hey Yal,

This week has been crazy...

I'm super stressedddddd...... Lavelua's leaving and I don't know the wards or area too well and I'm training and ZL over 30 missionaries...........stressville population me. I probably feel like Meg before 4 AP tests.... yeah, so we'll see how it goes. I know the Lord will qualify me. I was told an awesome quote......"Don't tell your God how big your storms are... tell your storms how big your God is"

Man that just pumps me up! Makes me feel (backed by the Savior) invincible.(oh no, fell back into the teenage years of invincibility) haha but spiritually. yeah just a great quote and is the best thing ever.

I've really dove into my prayers trying to make em more personal and a conversation not a grocery list and its amazing what comes from having a conversation with Heavenly Father.  He is the best listener and the best giver.
 

This past Sunday in 2nd ward(older ones), we had an "intro to church" day. We had Pres. Clark from the mission presidency and Elder Packer from the area 70 come talk to everyone and we gave out a bazillion pass along cards for the event and we packed the chapel! It was sweet and went perfect! I cant wait to see the work and interest that comes from it! I'm just nervous.... Lavelua's a really good talker and idk why but the wards intimidate the heck outta me. So instead of the Lord blessing me to be more outgoing and such, he gives me opportunities to grow my outgoing trait. I just love how Heavenly Father works! its great!

Life on the mission is fantastic.... I couldn't imagine my life any other way. I just love it.

Went to the outgoing fireside last night and I'm like wow.   I remember when I thought I'd never be up there and now I'm like, I pack my suitcases like 2 more times and I'm home...........ay carumba!!

Love yal so much! This is the Lord's church. He could pull people into the gospel any way He wants and in way more effective ways and yet he chooses 18-23 year olds to bear humble testimonies of His church and Gospel. Speaking of which.... so testament means covenant too like they're the same word and a covenant is a promise between us and God himself. So if you look at the old "Testament" it was the covenant that Christ would come. The New "testament" was that Christ would set the means for us to return home to Heavenly Father and the Book of Mormon or "another Testament of Jesus Christ" is a covenant that the Christ will come again and that through Christ, the Plan of Salvation can be accomplished. Go through the whole plan of salvation..... every single fraction of it goes back to Christ. that's crazy! blew my mind! reading the scriptures is God's easiest, for lack of a better term, covenant for us to keep. WOW! haha good stuff
 

Love yal have a good week. Some extra prayers would be fantastic.... strength and ability to cope with stress.

 

Love you so much! It finally dawned on me when a missionary was talking last night that he was going home and will be sealed to his family. It dawned on me that I get to be with you each for Eternity. I cannot think of a better way to spend eternity. It clicked and I almost broke down in the meeting but I didn't because I'm a man(football) haha but it means the world to me. Thank you both parents for raising us up in the covenant of eternal families. I love it so much.....so grateful. It means everything to me! I love it:) and I love all of yal!

-Elder McAllister

October 21, 2013

Hey yal,

 

Sounds like Jenna's gonna be varsity next yr just sayin....

 

Meg.... talked to a lot of missionaries and singles here and they all keep saying Utah State..... all of em. UVU.... everyone gets accepted and its like older people too. Utah State is more of a college town and more fun they all say :)

 

So we had interviews with president and I was talkin about yal and told him about meg and school and pres was like..... are you going to college?? and basically I didn't know how to answer and so we talked and he wants me to start lookin at colleges, like Utah state or u of u. or byui so I'm gonna take a gander at em and see... my futures so blank and black right now idk whats gonna happen after mission... but pres was like, yeah you get home in  August so you should be gone to school by Sept. I was like dang .... well looks like I gotta step it up and see where the Lord wants me! sooo yeahhhhh and so I'm gonna stop running away from the blessings given me in my P blessing and see where the Lord wants me to go.

 

This week has been one of miracles. We started inviting people to be baptized randomly on the street and got 5 new investigators! so cool! plus 3 old investigators randomly came back to church so that was wayyyyyyyy cool!! Dinners can be awkward and there's a sister Gregerson who is from Georgia and is the biggest "me monster" I have ever seen.(Brian Regan skit) oh my gosh, its soooooo annoying..............and pres says that she told him that she thinks I hate her. So now its my fault that she's a me monster and annoying haha so looks like I've got my work cut out for me... other than that life is so good.... I love it.

 

Lavelua and I get along super super well. Transfers are coming next Tue though :/ hopefully he stays another. The missionaries here are so much fun.

 

Last Monday was "poly day" and and we played volleyball the whole day.... it was sweet. I hung with some of the Tongans for most of it but 2 of em were just Olympians it was insane. but super fun. and they're so chill and laid back I just want them as companions all the time..... so much more fun and productive because no one's stressing out so bad...

 

miracles miracles miracles.... I love it.

 

I love Ether 12 too.... I love the precursor to that verse.....verses 11-22, all those miracles and great things were done "by Faith".   Count how many times the phrase "by faith" or "have faith" or just "faith" is in those 10 verses. Its remarkable and lays it out how we should live and what faith can do!

 

love yal.... have a good week. Know that I'm super happy and loving every second right now.... even the morning when I'm tired haha

 

-Elder McAllister

Oct 14, 2013

Hey yal,

MEEEEEEEGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I'm doing jumping jacks and did 20 laps round the church!!!!!! that's so awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you get free college!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ssoooooo happy for you Meg and the best part is..... there both solid LDS colleges and will let you go on a mish and still honor the scholorship!!!!!!!!!!!! aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ssssssooooooooooooo haaaaaaaaaaapppppppppppppppyyyyyyyyyyy for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that's amazing!!! Meg do you realize what you have??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? you can study whatever you want for free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ssooo cool!!!!!!(have fun reading that aloud) hahahahahaha

Man that makes me wish I did better in school.... kind of... haha man I can't do nothing!!(George Lopez for ya meg)

Wow, then to add to that Jenna's a VB playmaker!!! golleeeee why's everyone deciding to grow up now??? Jenna's gonna break some records for sure!!! plus Megan's on an all star softball game. All Star meaning best of the best. meaning your crazy good! AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

This is great news!!!!!! I am sooo happy.... you have no idea! ask Lavelua.... I'm so happy! way to go!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The only thing that could top them is if KK wrassled a Grizzly while at cave of the winds....and won!!

Man that's crazy! and Logan's getting married?? man life is marching forward... fast! like Stripling warriors march fast....

Wow, did dad win a new car too? Mom, are you goin be going to Australia? What next! haha so happy!!!

Life here on the mish is fantastic! Great week.... went to the temple with Courtney (the one like Claire) and a ridiculous RM tried to just impress and hit on her the whole time........ killed the Spirit. and boy he was talkin about all sorts of inappropriate stuff in general and even more when on temple grounds.... it was straight up terrible. The RM doesn't even wear his G's.... who is this guy?? But we left him in Oakland.... hahaha and the ride back was super spiritual and man she is gonna get baptized soon.

Really cool experience....... sooo we were contacting on Stanford campus and joking with each other. I kept lockin Lavelua out of the car and this guy walked by and he went to go contact him and I followed after and the guy turns out to be a member and thought God gave him bad revelation and such and didn't want anything to do with the faith. And then we asked for just 1 visit and he agreed but said he was super unoptimistic because he's been through it all before and his dad's a Stake pres and yah. Here the crazy part that Sunday we were talkin to bishop and said a David Christensen called to meet with him and such and it was the same guy!!!! The Rescue is so easy when you have the Spirit! These LA and inactive people only are because they forgot what the Spirit feels like and the happiness it brings and bam in Santa Clara and here it's the same. Bring the Spirit and they do the rest. sooooo coooolllll!!!

I love the zone so much.... A team of missionaries here. Everything is good. No, its actually fantastic. I love it...... every second. The good, the bad, and the ok. Its all great. Time is flying by. I've already been here a month..... that's insane. My mission is flying before my eyes..... it needs to slow down! haha I love it out here too much... I've only got 3 more transfers here and then 1 more area...... AAAAHHHH!!!! that's crazy to think!!!!!!!! I go home in August.... not in 2 Augusts or next August but August. what!! where'd the last year go??? Man its crazy. I love it out here..... every second. Best decision I made with the help of some severe kickin in my chops to get me movin haha ....thanks you yal. man thank you.

Oh crazy last experience..... so went to visit a member from Sunnyvale in the Stanford psychiatric ward.............. 2 steel doors and separate buzzers and getting our packs taken we were in... felt like I entered a prison... There were some crazy people in there and then the guy we met............. thinks he saw Christ and that Christ is evil and he prayed for Satan to be good and free and it happened and alot of shady stuff.. He kept shaking like he was shivering kinda and would have to calm himself down alot to keep from shaking outta his seat. Then at the end, was like you, need to pray to know what I saw was true and we were like no we need to go! It was insane. Then he wouldn't let us leave and whew... someone thinks there Korihor like straight up...

Love yal so much! Maybe Meg we'll be at UVU or USU together or maybe me and Jenna will be at a beach in Santa Cruz kickin Cali trash at beach volleyball. or ya know maybe me and KK will go put bullet proof vests on grizzlies and create invincible bears. Who knows what time will bring especially now. soooo coooll. Meg... pray about it.... Heavenly Father knows where and what you need to be and do. Go to Him:) He answers in His own way and in His own time but He DOES answer.

Love yal!

-Elder McAllister

MOM NOTE:  He finally sent some updated pictures....ok so not really updated since these are from Santa Clara area and he is now in Palo Alto, but you get it! We don't get many, so these were so fun to get.  They were mailed so these are scanned into my computer so I could put them on his blog... the quality looks really bad.  But you get the idea.....

 Carlos Ayala after his endowment (most recent picture because Tyler was able to go for his big day even though he is not in the same area anymore)

 Elder Lavelua tryin to be American (his companion NOW)

 Lewis Davis

 Geo Tkach...going to the Colorado Springs mission...RIGHT NOW!

 The Yuen's...had lunch every Sunday with them...funniest kids ever!

Oct 7, 2013

Hey yal,

So glad to hear the good things comin to our family.... love it!!

So before I forget.... I figured the money in my account was for the suit and the stores in Gilroy so I've got the reciept and waitin on Pres to give my the green light to go down. Its hard with all the mission rules to go an hr south for a suit and back.... so we'll see.  It'll happen in the next monthish. The longer it takes, the nicer the suit will be looking when I get home and better condition it'll be in haha!! So I'm OK with patience. Yeah so I'll let you go for the shoes unless you want me to shop around. There's a nordstroms rack here which I hear is fantastic! Nordstrom stuff for like Ross prices, so I can try that out and if I don't find anything, we can go from there? idk how you'd like to go forward.

Cinnamon rolls were fantastic! Loved em and Lavelua ....aka lava girl.... never had one before so he tried one and fell in love with em haha.

Yeah singles are weird looking at it from a missionary point. Theres some really great girls and the guys are all super shy and scared kids to ask em on a date. Rations like 10 guys to a girl in the younger ward and like 14 girls to 1 guy in the older ones. Really interesting haha. Yeah our WML is a RM and we didn't have a chat yet cause conference and we tried talkin to him at a ward function and yeah didn't even acknowledge us... oh well..

Yeah I probably showed how tired I was haha I couldn't keep my eyes open while emailing haha but Lavelua told me something interesting.... he was like " when I prayed I asked to not be so tired and God like was angry with me like you signed up for this and you want me to take it away?" and so I got thinking... man that's so true how would we grow if we just had God change our natures to give us what we need. If we gave a kid candy every time he wanted it he'd be like Fat Albert "hey hey hey" and I think its the same with God. He knows we're tired and stressed and working hard and he's happy and he can see the growth even if I can't.

This week was crazy jammed. 4 district meetings to go to 6 hrs total. Mission leadership council for 8hrs. Temple twice! 1 for endowment 6 hrs. one for visitor center. 4hrs. man oh man plus 10 hrs of General Conference. And that's how you get a really really busy week haha. But it was great!   I loved every tired eyelid falling second of it, specially the temple. Its always amazing to go there and to take place in the work of salvation for the dead. You should go do baptisms for the dead some time soon.

We picked up a new investigator and she reminds me so much of Claire Genesy, the girl that was baptized in hollister. same voice and concerns mostly and everything. Its so cool! She wants to be baptized and just doesn't know what church and is having spiritual experiences and knows it and is so happy. Like on the drive home from our lesson, she asked HF to play a church song on the way home if what she's doing is right and boom last song before she got in the driveway. And now she can't find it on her ipod of 2500 songs. Heavenly Father has a special love for her. She is so prepared and is going to do such great things when she starts acting on faith more and more. Really cool experience. plus over the past 2 weeks, 4 investigators have randomly come to church and 3 are solid courtneys one and the other 2 the sisters are teaching. I love singles ward..... so much fun! I've just got my family ward cobwebs covering my singles ward self so I'm workin on dustin it off.

Conference was fantastic.... best one yet! totally get that one on DVD.

So best part! Sister Latu, my MTC teacher, is dating a guy in my ward and came to conference! We got to catch up and all... it was so cool!  Who sees their MTC teacher on a mission??? no one! haha it was sick! SO happy! 1st thing she said was "awww you've gotten fat" I was like great.... haha but it was hilarious. We talked about the whole district and all. She apparently still talks to missionaries about us and stuff, its crazy! She still remembers us haha even though we were all like lil pups there in that MTC. so cool.

Ah, so E. Baumert.... he's in the zone and a total kill joy basically so I took him at the last DM and broke him and I was planning on being really mean and just getting inside him and tearin him apart because he doesn't want to be out here and is dragging everyone down and out right hating life right now. But the spirit was so strong and all that came out was love and cheerleading and told him to go to the temple looking for joy and happiness from Heavenly Father and oh man I saw him on Sunday, 4 days after the temple, and he had a smile on his face and was laughing and talking and his whole countenance turned happy and positive ahhhh!!! I'm sooooo happy for him! Hes on his was to loving his mission and the great miracles that come! So happy.... sooo sooo happy! What a change the spirit can bring to anyone. Hopefully the momentum continues.

Life's great. I keep feeling that this won't end and I'll be a missionary forever and I'm in love with it. Serving the Lord and being dead tired at 5 in the afternoon is the best feeling ever...looking back on it. In the moment, it bites but that's OK haha..

Loving every second of it out here. I wish I had like a go pro camera and you could follow me around for a day.... its sooo amazing. Ah, I just love it haha

Have a good week.... enjoy break! Remember I'm still waking up at that crack of dawn Meg when you wake up at noon............. hahahahah

love yal

-Elder McAllister

Sep 30, 2013

Hey yal,

So glad to hear the week was good. My week was alright. I am so stinkin tired all the time here. idk why just am.... like I feel my eyes burnin and could fall asleep at a moments notice haha. Guess that's what happens when you work nonstop for a yr. The area's great.... we cover the whole stake. Lavelua's from New Zealand but is Tongan.

Sorry I ran outta money last month a little early and spent a few of my personal. So that musta been what did it. sorry!

So this area is super hard even without fightin my sleep deprivation. The singles..... 2 singles wards I cover.....they are only concerned with flirting and impressing and so on Sunday not even possible to get anything done haha But during the week it's sweet..... they do alot for us. So is pros and cons. and our WML for the younger singles is a total jerk..... like flat out jerk.... acts like a know it all. Doesn't know a thing, is critical of us and murmurs to the ward members about made up things, he's just a total me monster jerk faced kinda guy.... so I ain't gonna take it. We're havin a big pow wow on Saturday to figure out why he's got so much beef with us..... we'll see how that goes.

I am so tired! and sadly I wore the soles of my everyday shoes and now wearin my Sunday shoes each day. Man I just can't seem to keep stuff from going south sorry. Maybe for Christmas I could get a new pair? I'm lookin at Ross but the last ones that wore out were from there... where as the ones from Kohl's that ya got me like 5 yrs ago just barely wore out before these. Anyway, just never was good with shoes was I mom?

Sorry can't think.... I'm just so fried... think I'm burning myself out or I'm just out a yr and that's what happens. Who knows. oh lavagirls been out for 19 months.

Temple tomorrow..... interviews with pres 16th.

Keep up the VB. Meg seriously enjoy senior yr cause you only get one.

love yal.... enjoy the spirit of conference

 

-Elder McAllister