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