Pictures from Christmas

 Elder Corbett's apple pastry squares were tasty 

 Elder Corbett is ready to experience Nova Scotia

Christmas morning missionary style!

Sarah's package was the only one that made it.  

 Scenes from our dinner with a recent convert Sister Lloyd

Love being a zone leader

Scenes from service with our HPG (High Priest Group Leader) Brother Smith. We cleared a trail and then took some pictures by the ocean. We wear our sweaters to the beach

He is the Gift

Richard McGuire

Dear Family,

It was wonderful to skype you all this past Christmas. I love hearing your voices and telling you about funny stories and spiritual experiences. I know it might be hard for you to hear that yes, a good week is when we get one lesson. That's just how things are in the Maritimes. Personally I think there are plenty of prepared and interested people to teach the gospel to. We come in contact with lots of them every single day. People are interested and prepared. They are not interested or prepared in dissapointing their families. There is hard tradition here, but that's really okay. How can we expect to be blessed with the blessings of Heaven when the saints traveling across in handcarts kept going when their feet were bleeding and freezing off and we are complaining about not teaching enough people. I like what Elder Ballard says about this situation "If you want more people to teach, you have to talk to more people." This isn't some gross numbers game or factory machine to where we talk to X amount of people and out plomps a baptism. The principle behind talking with everyone is just that. We aren't here to convert people. We are here to invite people. Many non-members and even members look at missionaries and conclude that we are just baptizing machines, that's all we are here for. That is not our purpose. Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them partake of the restored gospel. We simply invite. That's about it. The Spirit's job on the other hand is to convert willing souls. 

I'd like to talk about questions again. We learn in the Doctrine and Covenants that the Glory of God is intelligence. God gave us brains to think and to reason. It is offensive to our Heavenly Father when we aren't learning or don't think we have to learn. We learn by asking questions. We are not sponges who soak up the scriptures by reading. We are children of our Heavenly Father. We learn when there's a conversation occuring. Satan understands this entirely. Whenever we don't want to ask questions or learn, whenever there's that resistance, that is Satan. Especially with 'why' questions. Asking 'why' always produces more information and knowledge for us. It is hard to ask why people are not interested in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, but it is necessary. Information precedes revelation. Try this out. Ask people why throughout the day. See how hard it is to ask why. You may feel like you'll offend someone, but no, that's just Satan. Ask why

This week being Christmas was an enjoyable week. It's always a blessing to be set-apart to represent the Saviour. We have been knocking and street contacting more. More people just need to know about the restored gospel. I have felt some resistance from Satan this past week as we are out contacting people. Satan just tries so hard in Atlantic Canada because he knows the potential this place has. The active members, the members that attend the temple regularly (I'd say out of the 7000 that are members only about 400 attend the temple, do their home teaching and visiting teaching, and pay their tithing) are just amazing. They understand the scriptures in a marvelous way. One thing that I'm learning on my mission is to apply the scriptures, that's how we gain a testimony. Dad you would call it the follow-through when we're shooting hoops. Yes, clearly we read, pray, and ponder. The capstone is the application!! Cool beans we've read about fasting or taught a class about tithing. We need to set goals and make plans for the scriptures we study. The Spirit that comes from applying and living the gospel is unreal-it's amazing!

We are also focusing on planning more effectively. Many missionaries in our zone are making the same mistakes that ward councils often make. Planning activities not planning for people. How many ward councils get together and plan this extravagent ward party for the active ward members who don't need any help while the less-active and struggling members aren't even invited personally? There are plenty of missionaries  that just go out and knock because it's an activity. They aren't focusing on helping people progress towards the next available ordinance they can receive. We are following the planning guidelines in our planners more fervently. Things just make sense when you follow the Prophet.

Plenty of the people we talk to flip out that we don't worship on Saturday, we believe marriage to be between a man and a woman, we don't support drinking smoking, or sex or that we go to the temple to make additional covenants. These are all valid concerns that are important to understand. What matters is that we understand that Jesus Christ restored His church through the prophet Joseph Smith. If we don't understand why we need to pay tithing, or do family history work, or do home teaching. If we don't understand the church's stance on abortion or divorce. All we need to do is read the Book of Mormon, ponder, pray willingly and apply. President Uchtdorf said to experiment! Our real concern is whether Jesus Christ restored His church. We can understand this by reading the Book of Mormon.

We are just pushing forward and working hard. That's all we really can do. Yes it would be great if we could teach more people, get into a door, bring someone back into activity, have a functioning ward council. But even the saints as their feet were bleeding press forward, they didn't forget who their Saviour was. I know that any miracle is caused by the Atonement. The Saviour may have wanted to give up in Gethsemane. Nephi may have wanted to quit and not get the plates. Alma could have desired to lose faith with the Zoramites. But they didn't. They press forward. God has commanded that missionaries be in Atlantic Canada to preach the gospel. When God makes a commandment He provides a way. He doesn't change His mind. We can't go back without the plates, walk away from the garden, or not walk up Calvary Hill. I know that we can do this. Heavenly Father is real and He knows what He is doing. This is His work and we are here to assist Him. He understands that Maritimers need to take things slow, relax, and just progress at a comfortable pace. I need to capture that vision. I know this church is true!  #Coleharbour #newutah #jello #eastcoast

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire

Happy Christmas!

Richard McGuire

Dear Family!

Happy Christmas as they say in Nova Scotia! I look forward to skyping all of youthis Thursday at 4pm Canadian Atlantic time. Should be 1 or 2pm your time but you'll have to check on that. Unfortunately I can't do that. Cole Harbour is the promised land. There is just so much untapped potential here it's insane. So much to do and get done. I am officially serving in the Canadian equivalent of the Bronx. Don't worry one bit about me, Mom-MEMS trained me for this. I know we all joked about the places I would go before I came out on my mission and so far I have served in the Canadian equivalent of the places you have stated in the past. St. Stephen-Kanab UT and Cole Harbour-the Bronx. I love it here. I can't wait to tell you this hilarious story this Thursday about knocking. Lemme just tell you we keep it real here in Cole Harbour. I wish I could talk to Elder Stubbs about how he does work in Detroit because city life is way different than backwoods life. More to come in our skype call. I get 45 minutes. I don't care who comes or who gets on as long as Mom and Dad are there.

So I really faced some physical adversity this past week going into this new transfer. On Tuesday I had a really bad migraine. To the point of taking a ton of medicine and passing out for like three hours before going back out to work again. Sister Leavitt told Elder Wolvers to hold me down to rest. If there's one thing that I don't like doing is not proselyting. We have to do all that we can to invite others to come unto Christ. This is eternal life.

So plenty of tylenol, ibuprofen and peppermint oil later my migraine was going in to remission. It's a funny thing about the maritimes because migraines just happen a lot out here because of the storms we get. The pressure changes and that messes with everyone's head. I'm sure there's some kind of wikipedia article about it. Got good to go and met with Brother and Sister Hansen for one last time.

I will continue to write them on Facebook. We had an excellent lesson with them about the Restoration. We asked if Brother Hansen wanted to meet with missionaries again and come back to membership. He explained that he just wasn't ready. It's a funny thing about how we hold ourselves back from the blessings of heaven. When priesthood holders declare that we are worthy then we are worthy. We are truly great in the eyes of the Lord.

Here's the next part of the story that you may hurt me over Mom. We drove up from St Stephen to Fredericton Wednesday night and that was the craziest thing that I've ever done. Icy rain that turned into snow. We are on the backroads in the middle of the woods and our car doesn't have winter tires yet. Not the ideal situation to be in in Canada. We don't know how we got up the hill but plenty of prayer, pushing the car, and Heavenly Father, we made it into Fredericton by late that night. It was pleasant to be with more missionaries. 6 of us all in the same apartment. Not a whole lot of sleep went on. Just swapping stories and talking about frustrations and successes. It was great to be with my brothers. We'll bring the world his truth.

The next day was my dance with fate (Man I should crochet that on to a pillow or something, dance with fate? who am I like Edgar Allen Poe?). We swapped cars with the Fredericton sisters car because they weren't being transferred and I was driving. It's just this thing about New Brunswick. The government and economy aren't the hottest so the roads don't get plowed all that often. We needed to be in Moncton by 10 in the morning to then go on to Halifax. We were headed up the hill when we hit black ice and spun off the highway. Thankfully because we were in a caravan we had help to push us back on to the high way. God must really love his missionaries because spinning off the highway didn't happen once, but twice. I know I know I know, Mom you're just reading this wondering how I'm still alive. But hey! We got to Moncton around 11 and the weather had improved for our drive to Halifax.

Said goodbye to Elder Wolvers who is now serving with Elder Tincher in St. Stephen. Drove up with Elder Waldie, the senior companion assisstant to the president and he answered questions about zone leadership and general questions. Love to hear all of the different schools of thought around street contacting, knocking, working with the ward council and members and just thoughts about the gospel. Got to love real people who show Christlike love. Went to the temple in Cole Harbour. It's a small temple and what keeps that open are senior missionaries who serve temple missions. So great to do an endownment with the metro missionaries and President Leavitt. Was just the best Christmas present.

Brother Wood

Brother Arnold

Met my new companion at the session. Elder Corbett is from West Jordan, Utah. Is a huge Star Wars fan. Has 6 weeks left. Is 25. And is just filled with a lot of knowledge about the gospel. He is my favorite companion so far because we have zero differences in personality and we both want the same things in the work. We will be visiting more less-actives and part-member familes over street contacting and knocking. There's plenty to be done in Cole Harbour. We have a serious ward out here. 125 active members!!!! And yesterday we had 200 plus at church!! It was like coming home. Our ward mission leader could seriously be the next prophet.

Brother Moses gets his own paragraph because he's that legit. He is a Cole Harbour Native. Served a mission in England. Has been Stake President twice. Branch President of the YSA in Halifax three times. Mission president once. And the majority of the recent converts in Cole Harbour are is friends. He is a killer Gospel Principles teacher. We are having a baptism for his friend Terry in January. The sisters have been teaching Terry, but we'll be teaching him the Law of Chastitytomorrow. Terry is not on welfare, has a job, comes to church in a suit, and said the closing prayer in Gospel Principles!!! Brother Moses is the man! He just radiates the Spirit. He's going to send you a letter some time. We had an actual coordination meeting and he ran the show instead of us! He's called Brother Frank as his assisstant to oversee the Cole Harbour Digital Mission-our missionary work on social media and blogs. We are going to get so much done!!!

We get fed plenty out here. Oh my gosh it's like coming home and just having so much to work with. We need to get home teachers and visiting teachers involved with fellowshipping less-active members and part-member families. We also are teaching one stable clear minded individual, Alex from Eastern Passage. He's a very logical guy so we really have to explain the gospel as if we were teaching math. Went over the priesthood yesterday with him and the sisters. He asks great questions but doesn't really do much to resolve his concerns. We got him out to church yesterday!!! President Leavitt was around also and we gave a church tour with him and Alex. Alex loved the Christmas program-the ward indepently does stuff without us asking them to!-and said he will be back to church next week. He hasn't been to church in 20 years! GAH COLE HARBOUR WILL BE NEW UTAH! This place is going to be eating jello with carrots in 6 weeks. You can count us

Love you all and look forward to skyping you!

Happy Christmas!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Elder McGuire

New apartment in Nova Scotia

Transfers!

Dear Family,

So we got transfer letters yesterday morning. Got to love transfer letters because it's like getting your mission call all over again every six weeks. I will be leaving St. Stephen after serving here for three transfers. I have really come to love this place. It's like home. I've said it before and I will say it again-St. Stephen is the Canadian equivalent to Kanab. So don't worry Mom, I did make it to Kanab on my mission. Here's the big news. I am being transferred to Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. Guess what my new calling is? I AM THE YOUNGEST ZONE LEADER IN THE HISTORY OF THE MISSION! I cannot even begin to describe how crazy this is. However, the Lord qualifies whom He calls. Just to give you some background information about the little information I know about Cole Harbour: It's where the Halifax temple is (Lindsay I need you to get me some kind of name in the next hour to do an endowment for because I get to go on Thursday!) and also contains the largest black community in Canada. I am so excited. One of Canada's greatest hockey players, Sidney Crosby, grew up in Cole Harbour. My new companion is Elder Corbett from Utah. He's been out for 22 months and goes home at the end of next transfer. It's going to be fun serving around a dying missionary. I will turn Nova Scotia north zone around. Missionaries would just be so much more successful if they involved members.

This goes into some insights from my studies this week. Really a mission is the best way to prepare for eternal marriage and eternal marriage is the best way to prepare for our lives in Heaven. The best mission prep advice I could give to anyone is to live the way a missionary lives before becoming a full-time missionary. We all just need to talk about the gospel with everyone. Sharing the gospel with each other in the home will create a missionary spirit. I promise that discussing the gospel openly and honestly will obligate you to live the gospel. This is eternal life. We need to talk about the way to achieve eternal life. Some people just don't share the gospel because they don't live it. You wonder why people are awkward about opening their mouth is because they don't have a complete testimony. It has nothing to do with being shy or not wanting to force your beliefs on others. It matters if you have a testimony. If you don't have a testimony you won't share the gospel. When you are obligated to share the gospel you have to live the gospel. If you want to prepare for life in heaven you have to live that way now.

Quote of the week:

*Teaching a new investigator, Arnold (Brother Wood invited him to learn more! Everyone needs a Frere Bois I am telling you!)

Arnold: Yeah I'll read the Book of Mormon. I'll start tonight. (Hoo yah!!!)

Elder McGuire: Arnold, will you follow the example of your saviour Jesus Christ and be baptised by someone holding the proper priestho....

*Arnolds dog just starts writhing on the floor and is coughing up a lung. Arnold starts to just kick his dog to get whatever he ate out of him.

*Arnold drags his dog into the bathroom and starts washing him and kicking him to get whatever is in his throat out.

*Dog coughs up a chicken bone

*Arnold comes back

Elder Wolvers: Will you be baptised?

Arnold: I'll have to think about that. I'll get back to you on Wednesday

Crimany, Satan just ruins everything. Anyways, Arnold is a great guy. I'll tell you more about him later.

So this past week was a good learning week for me. We had a gong show preparation day last week after I concluded emailing. Just things not being open and things taking too long. We had set up a dinner appointment with a less-active family and we were really excited because they haven't come to church in a long time. They even invited their home teaching family, Brother Murray to go and eat with us. The Shaws are some of the kindest people, but the church in the maritimes is just different than the way the church is in the Book of Mormon belt. We were driving in  the rain and had some car trouble so we couldn't get to the Shaws until 5 minutes past 6. Never be one minute late with anyone in the Maritimes if you value your eardrums. I don't think I know of other place where members just yell at missionaries-like to the point of "Hey I thought I was coming for a dinner appointment, I didn't know I was tracting"

Anyways, so I just felt like garbage for the rest of the night. Didn't help that the next day was Christmas zone conference. I'm sure some of you saw the pictures on our Facebook page, Mormons of Atlantic Canada. I wasn't feeling too great because Brother Shaw was on my mind. I will never be the least bit late again. Christmas zone conference was fun overall. We got special permission to watch "Meet the Mormons" which was really great. I love how diverse our religion is. All of the missionaries were just bawling when they showed the Missionary Mom part of the film. That is our lives every day. We see people who have just gone through hell and then we invite them to change. Life is hard. It's harder when you don't keep the commandments.

Random tangent time. God will not give us more than we can handle. He knows that if we do what He asks then we can accomplish a lot and grow. However, when we take it on ourselves to take on the world we will have a hard time. God can't give us more than we can handle, but we can.

Then for Christmas Zone Conference we had visits by Santa, Elder Jason, the blackest man from France, and the other AP, Elder Waldie who's a convert of two years as Santa's elf. So much fun! I'll show you the pictures. We got gift cards to Tim Hortons (I swear that's a food group in the Canadian diet, that's all they eat!) and a letter from President Leavitt. Then a good Christmas dinner from some of the members in Moncton and a talent show. The French missionaries hunted me down to beat box for their number "Les Pommes et Les Bananas." So much fun! Then some testimonies and we drove back to St. Stephen.

The next day I thought that I need to apologize to Brother Shaw. The more difficult conversations you have, the more you will grow. I think that's why missionaries grow so much on missions. They have a hundred difficult conversations a day. Drove out to the Shaws, knocked on the door, he opened and we just explained that we were sorry. He accepted our apology and then I felt a huge weight just lift. I was so happy for the rest of the day. It was weird to be more happy on a proselyting day than on a zone conference day.

We have made some great progress with the work here in St. Stephen. I was going through our area book and the thing was just a mess. Elder Wolvers and I took some time to just rewrite some records and get the thing in working condition. When the Lord saw that we cared about the missionary work here in St. Stephen, He blessed us. We then met with Brother Wood to teach him more about the priesthood. Decided that we just need to have the members with us. They need to see what we do and how they can contribute. Took the High Priest Group leader and Brother Kenny Peterson. Instead of me offering most of the testimony I invited them to. Brother Wood just had a different spirit about him. He committed to get the priesthood and had an interview with Bishop Doskas yesterday. I was cheering when he came out. Need to get a picture with him today.

Overall, I've loved serving in St. Stephen. I have grown so much and my faith has really grown. Not a lot of people are Mormon out here. They are like you and me, but the church just doesn't have a presence here yet. You need to have a testimony to share the gospel. That is what St Stephen has taught me.

I know that you all pray for me and I love to have your prayers bless your life. Before you pray for me, I need you, and I challenge you to pray for missionary opportunities. I really need you to do this. Visit hasteningthework.lds.org andeverydaymissionaries.org

Eternal life hangs in the balance. We are the doors to people's salvation. We need to open the door and introduce the Spirit to these people.

I love you all!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder McGuire

Ye Have Done It Unto Me

Web Clip

Richard McGuire Dear Family, It's terrific to hear that you are home safe, JT! Way to serve honourably and fight as hard as you could until the end of your mission. You have always set a beautiful Christlike example for me over the years and I hope to continue to emulate your love for people out here in Atlantic Canada. Just want to let you know that your mission is not done. None of our missions are ever done. This is the Work of Salvation. It was Elder Bednar who stated this concerning how to do the work of salvation: "With everyone that you interact with, ensure that you are preparing them for the next ordinance that they can receive." With a lot of people in our lives, the next ordinance that they can receive is baptism, but if you look at your family, and your member friends, help them prepare for the sacred ordinances they can receive in the temple.                                       I usually update you all about my studies from the week and the insights that I have gained, so I will do that now. This ward/branch is in need of a lot of help. The church in the maritimes is a lot of converts who don't exactly know what they are doing. So, because as representatives of Jesus Christ we fill people's needs, this means that my studies are focused on how a ward/branch should function. I downloaded the entire handbook 2, and that with PMG Ch. 13, I will know how the ward works and how best I can help people in their calling. It's an interesting role to play as a missionary. You aren't supposed to run the show. I feel like a lot of missionaries feel like they can receive revelation for the ward and then just usurp authority from the bishop. Doesn't work like that. It requires faith to do what other people want who have authority. We had a terrific pow wow with Bishop Doskas yesterday and just talked about how we can serve the ward better. To be brief: no one besides the missionaries and bishop, fulfill their callings or do their home teaching. I will explain how I plan to solve this problem later. Quote of the Week: *Elder McGuire and Elder Wolvers street contacting in -15 degree weather *In mid contact Elder Wolvers: (Total church history films moment): The Book of Mormon is the fruit prophesied in the Bible that testifies that God has reached out in love and restored His church through a prophet. Elder McGuire: We'd love to share more of this message with you. Will you allow us to? Contact: Yeah I'm pretty sure I've heard that message before from my Baptist church. St. Stephen Elders:...... So yes, many people blantantly reject the gospel even when it's laid out for them. It's frustrating as a missionary because you have to arrange your vocabulary to explain gospel truths in a non-gospel. We are like physicians who have a unique vocabulary. Something new that just really hit me this week while we were out street contacting, is to just bear testimony of the restoration. The restoration is our unique message to the world. No other church believes that. It's great to think that original truths have been restored. We have the priesthood. We have personal revelation. We have prophets. No other church has that. This past week I have been trying to solve this problem: "No one is fulfilling their calling, but I can't usurp authority by asking people to do so, that's the bishop's job." So here's what has come to my mind as I studied from PMG Ch. 13. With each member that we interact with, we inform their home and visiting teachers and their quorum or auxiliary president. The members seem to be fine with this. Even last night we were making these contacts and one member remarked as I explained one of their families was going through a rough time: "Well he was doing just fine last month" Your home and visiting teaching is never done!!!!!!! I think Heavenly Father is prepping me to be an Elders Quorum president or something. The more things that remind us of the gospel, the more we stay in tune with the gospel. This is why we take the sacrament, go to church, wear garments, do home teaching, go to seminary etc. They are a reminder of the covenants we have made. The promises we have made. Heavenly Father sets up these contracts called covenants so that we do what we need to do. I haven't been as diligent in updating you all about my district meetings. They have gone well. I created feedback sheets and with everything that I do for the district I do follow-up calls with them for how I can improve. This past district meeting, I did a training and presentation on change. Using the liahona as a parable I explained this: Had there been no change in religion, we would still be in apostasy. If you aren't changing, if you don't apply revelation and the atonement, then you are in a state of apostasy. Through explaining all of this and motivating my district members to change their finding activities (NO MORE KNOCKING!) we did role-plays on using Facebook. Seriously, you can contact members, the ward council, non-members, potential investigators, pretty much anyone over Facebook. The best part: you don't have to expend the tithing money of church members by using gas to contact these people who may not even be home. I want to spend time on Facebook every day because it is seriously the most effective thing we do. We were teaching two member present lessons at the same time. You just can't do that without Facebook.                                    (Every one needs a Brother Wood (Frere Bois as he says-he's from the north shore of Ontario next to Quebec). He gave us 15 referrals, and invited one woman he drives around for a church tour! I don't know of any other members in the world that would do that. This is him helping us set up appointments with people he's asked to learn about the gospel) Brother Wood is seriously the man. We need to get him a Preach My Gospel and Power of Everyday Missionaries book because he just loves missionary work. Personally it would be nice if he were the ward mission leader because we don't have one right now. He invited one of our new investigators, Tina, to learn more about the gospel. We gave Tina a church tour and she just loved the whole thing. She remarked that had we just knocked on her door she would have said no, but that "I think you just need that initial contact before missionaries start teaching" Words from an investigator for why member-missionary work is the best way to do this thing. Tina is a single mother and has been through a hard time with her ex-husband. She really wants to change her life and start going to church more. The prepared people are the one's the members know. That's the Work of Salvation. I love you all so much. Have a gospel conversation with one non-member daily and I can promise you that you will feel a different spirit that you have never felt before. HURRAH FOR ISRAEL! Elder McGuire (Now the one and only :D) We were teaching two member present lessons over Facebook at one time. Tell me Facebook isn't an effective missionary tool. This is the Work of Salvation!!!! Cooking breakfast before zone leadership council