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Dear Family,
First off, sorry for the lame emails lately. I have come up with a plan to make my emails better and more spiritual and longer. Second off, it is Halloween in the Maritimes this week which means people are putting there costumes over their winter gear which should look pretty hilarious. For Halloween, I am going as Clayton M. Christensen. If you don't know who that is, I would exhort you to look that man up. On to the week
Quote of the Week
It's lunch time and I am juicing. Elder Wolvers is making a salad and Elder Collett is making breakfast potatoes. He's adding onions and salt and peppers and it smells amazing. He then goes to the fridge and pulls out some eggs to fry up with his potatoes.
Elder McGuire: What are you doing?
Elder Collett: I'm making breakfast potatoes
Elder McGuire: You're going to adulterate that perfectly good hash!
So anyways, this has probably been the hardest week physically in my life. We are out of kilometres for the month which means we are walking to Nottingham and pretty much everywhere. If we do the math: The average Elder walks about 4 kilometres an hour, we walked for 21 hours this week. Add 10ks for the distance we cover running each morning during the week and we get about 94 kilometres! I don't know how many miles that is, but I am so exhausted out of my mind. The Spirit and kale have carried me this week and the best news is! We get to do it all again this week!! Yayyyyyy. Cannot wait until our ks are renewed this Saturday. Our area is so large we should be wiser with car use. Walking is great exercise though!
Pics from Eastport, Maine. My first lobster dinner!! Officially a maritimer now
This past Monday I had my first ever lobster dinner! Lobster is like 3 bucks a lobster out here so there was no problem in getting some. We ate with this less-active member, Shawn, who's a member of the coast guard. Originally from California and stationed out here in Maine, he doesn't come to church because there's no YSA in Atlantic Canada. I think there's a YSA branch in Halifax and maybe one in Portland, Maine, but that's out of the mission. He's moving to Ohio for school and fell away from the church because of the lack of the church out here. Nevertheless, we challenged him to get involved with YSA in Ohio, so I think our efforts are not wasted, even if people are moving away.
Some other great news this week was that I gave two blessings! It's interesting to see how Heavenly Father counsels His children. The very first thing He does is let them know He loves them. Heavenly Father does love all of His children and loves them enough to send His son to give us the gospel to then return to Him. The gospel is beautifully simple.
The first blessing we gave was to another missionary at District Meeting who has a hand, mouth, and foot disease that's going around. Incredibly, bacteria can survive out here. The second was very special for me. We were street contacting in Maine and we were in the middle of a contact when this one man comes up to us to introduce himself. Aaron is from North Carolina and suffers from depression and anxiety. He really opened up and I really opened up. Probably one of the more tender experiences on my mission. I think Heavenly Father was speaking to both of us as I was the voice for blessing Aaron. We'll continue to work with Aaron as he is less-active and will only be in Calais, Maine for a short while. He needs to come to church.
An interesting thing about Aaron is that he approached us. That just doesn't happen around here. In our member-visits, we have been challenging members to pray for the missionaries in their ward by name daily. A member here, Brother Murray (amazing wood carver and ward missionary) told us that he had been praying for people to approach us on the street. So far we have had three people approach us and we've set up three potential investigator return appointments.
One of the persons who stopped us on the street was a woman named Meredith. She goes to the non-denominational church and is losing her grandmother to cancer. She stopped her truck and called us over. "Are you Jehovah Witnesses?" And I was thinking, "Oh great here we go." Like she was going to bash with us, but she explained her situation and was saying that she's really looking for some direction in her life. We will be meeting with her Tuesday to teach The Plan of Happiness!!!!
With all of this walking, we had a large thunderstorm this past week that lasted for three days. Of course we still go to work despite the elements, so we proselyted for seven hours in the rain. Bleck I have never been more wet in my entire life! It definitely showed Heavenly Father that we are willing to do His Will, despite the elements.
Despite the potential investigator lessons we have set up, Dennis is struggling. He doesn't want to keep commitments or get across the border. There's a big temptation for Maritime missionaries to stick with the people they teach even if they aren't progressing. Elder Collett was in Cambellton, NB for 8 months and only taught one man who didn't even progress. It takes faith to let these people go until they are prepared to receive the gospel and change their lives to be in more harmony with Christ's, but it is necessary.
When we are not wasting our time with people who don't want to progress, we find the ones that do! We contacted this young teenage couple who have both come from rough homes and have attended a pentacostal church. They were worried that our meetings would be just as weird, but THEY CAME TO CHURCH!!! BOOYAH!!! Stayed for almost all of it and we taught the Restoration in Gospel Principles. AMAZING!!! Return appointment and follow-up are in order.
Something that I would love to mention. I love calling people, committing people to change, and following up with them. There's so much power behind a phone call and using the tools necessary to move the work forward. There's more than one way to preach the gospel. If all you can do is pray for your missionaries, then do that every time you pray and mean it!
As you saw in the pictures, we had an excellent Halloween party at the Hansens. This is so incredible. The Gordon's taught a lesson about putting on the armour of God and doing missionary work. They made it fun for all of the kids and then we decorated pumpkins. All of the missionaries got together and we made President Leavitt into a pumpkin. Don't think we'll be emailing the picture haha. Also, to be festive, I will be juicing a pumpkin this Friday to celebrate health and Halloween. Brother Hansen wants to return to the fold I just know it. He just needs to know that the atonement is for everyone.
The Gordon's did a fantastic job at our first ward FHE!!!
What a great party!
We all make mistakes in life, but these mistakes are taken away through the atonement. No matter how far you've strayed from the iron rod, the atonement will take you back.
A scripture I would like to share with you all is Moroni 8:6
And now, my son, I desire that ye should labour diligently, that this gross error should be removed from among you; for, for this intent I have written this epistle.
Even if we are not seeing the first successes of our work, we must press forward. Even when nothing has been produced or we don't think what we're doing is going anywhere, we must labour diligently.
Thank you all for writing me!
HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!
Love,
Elder McGuire
Seriously the best day of knocking. Knocked into this one wiccan woman who was trying to learn how to play the drums. She wasn't interested in the gospel, but she wanted to hear me play!
Halloween in St. Stephen :D AND My first cup of Tim Horton hot chocolate. Now I'm a Canadian eh!
Fireworks from the evening :D
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