We can truly command in the name Jesus

Dear Family,

Bluberry muffins!!!
(Elder McGuire FINALLY got his Christmas package last week)

What a week! The weather. An attempted shooting. Good gravy this was a crazy week. I think that sometimes it's easy to make excuses for our circumstances. We may say that really it's okay for me not to go to church because I read and pray everyday and God knows that I'm doing my best. There are no exceptions for the gospel. If you want to know how to receive answers to your questions you have to do four things: study your scriptures, pray with faith, voluntarily be obedient, and go to church. So often we sidestep these fundamental stepping stones to receiving revelation. We get offended about a doctrine in the church and resolve that we can't go to church because we don't understand the gospel. We get offended when someone asks us to repent. We can't resolve our own concerns if we aren't doing our part to receive revelation. You will be unable to understand why Joseph Smith was a prophet if you don't read the Book of Mormon. This is the Law of the Harvest. What you reap is what you sow.

In general the week was an excellent stepping stone in receiving revelation. I know that as we search the scriptures and diligently try and understand the words of the prophets that our hearts will be filled with understanding. I remember before my mission thinking there was no point in looking for answers in the scriptures because I wasn't going to like what it was going to say. Gospel understanding is not about finding some kind of missing piece or loophole to a commandment. It is understanding what we must do to align ourselves with the will of God. Sometimes we look at the answer and still don't understand-because we don't want to. We lack faith. If we lack faith there are three things that need to be happening to promote faith and then knowledge. Read the scriptures, pray, and be obedient. If you want faith do those three things. 

Found my new favorite scripture.

I was listening to President Monson's talk about a man having a purpose. After much prayer and contemplation-I devised my personal vision. This is pretty much what I worked on for most of my personal studies this week. I realized that really this mission is not about me. This time is the Lord's time. It is not my will by the Lord's. I have set some lofty goals, but I think I have a good idea of what it takes to turn my mission around. Not to say that my mission hasn't already been successful, but I know I am capable of more. I have revamped my planner to ensure that I am not stopped with obtaining my goals. I simply place a sticky note over the notes section for my initial plans and the on the actual notes section I write down my back-up plan. I used to hate back-up plans and planning in general but now I don't want to do anything without having a back-up plan. A back-up plan helps relieve a ton of stress. That way I don't have to put all I have into one plan and waste myself away. I think I'm going to have a planner for the rest of my life.

Also here's what one of my days looks like for those who were wondering

So many things in the gospel are meant to remind us. We are forgetful people. I don't know why we forget things, but I know the solution is writing things down. This is why we have the scriptures. Heavenly Father keeps a planner. The scriptures are His planner. He has prophets write His plan and then tell us all what Heavenly Father's plan is. This way we are all on the same page. I am a large fan of Preach My Gospel Ch. 8. It's going to be a great week.

The very trees obey us. Jacob 4:6

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Elder McGuire

Elder Henderson and the mission cook book

Here's what you've all been waiting for I'm sure. This is my personal vision for 2015

Exchange in Halifax with Ryan Gao the super mormon

So thrilled about the weather!

Which Way Do You Face?

Dear Family,

Thank you all for your letters. Although many of you have unique situations, circumstances and problems, the gospel of Jesus Christ will help you. One thing that I think is funny in the church-one of those false social norms of this ugly thing called the mormon club that looks like the Church of Jesus Christ-is when a missionary or any other member bears testimony to another member or non-member outside of testimony meeting. Even in dinner appointments I'm surprised when I bear my testimony about missionary work that members get uncomfortable or when I declare that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. We don't bear our testimonies to eachother enough. When was the last time you looked yourself in the eye in a mirror and told yourself that Joseph Smith was a prophet? Not many of us do that because that would be out of the ordinary. I'm worried that many of us think we are okay, that we are content, that no one needs to tell us that we need to improve. I am no excuse. Plenty times growing up, Mom being the great missionary that she is told me to improve. Wake up and pee! Maybe not the most elegant invitation, but still the spirit of inviting blessed my life. The purpose of missionary work is to invite others to come unto Christ. We can invite ourselves, our friends, our bishop, our children, our neighbour, and strangers. Others is a blanket term.

When we aren't inviting we aren't accomplishing much. This idea that all is well in Zion is false. One thing that I am starting to do in my personal studies is to ask myself really hard questions to receive revelation. Often we think we know what the problem is. Our problems are like a tree. We are a lumberjack. We may identify one problem "I am not smart enough." But is this really our problem? Asking why over and over again will get to the root of the problem and when we can't go any further it is time to start asking 'how' to fix the problem. So here was my experience. I wrote down what I thought the problem was: I can't find anyone to teach. Why? I'm not bold enough. Why? I'm afraid. Why? I don't have faith. Why? Do I not read the scriptures? Do I not pray? Do I not go to church? What is the issue here? I don't apply revelation or the scriptures or PMG. Why? I don't seek the will of God. Why? I seek my own. Why? I am prideful. Why? I am not humble. Why? And this is about as far as I've gotten. Thus is the reason for the title of this letter. We cannot serve two masters. I will be applying PMG in more aspects of my life. To be humble means to seek the will of the Lord over one's own. It means to listen to the prophet and apply his counsel. Elder Ballard said to write down a date-a deadline. So this means that by February 28th-someone will enter into the waters of baptism.

I encourage you to write down where you think it hurts. What you think the problem is. I promise that as you do you will get to the root of the problem. Then start cutting at the root. The whole tree will come down as you solve the root of the problem. It won't if you start hacking at the branches. Your problem will still be there. Make sure what you think the problem is is actually the problem.

I am too much of the Relief Society President or Elders Quorum President. By this I mean that we shoveled out most of the ward this past week with the amount of snowfall we had. Shoveling for a whole day is not a good idea. We then also moved one family in the ward. It's important to serve the members but we shouldn't replace the efforts of other members and family. After being physically spent we ended up with no non-members talked to and none of the members we served had any referrals for us. I just need to stop saying yes to people and focus on the task at hand. Not that service isn't important. The most important duty is to preach the gospel. We aren't going to lift someone out of the slums. We are going to invite them to come unto Christ and by becoming more like Christ they will lift themselves out of the slums. I'm 18 and not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but I am learning. We haven't found anyone to teach this week and this was my lowest week in terms of key indicators. We even dropped one less-active who wasn't progressing. Real growth. Real active members is what we are going for.

Not the most exciting week, but I learnt a lot!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire 

Yes I am very lame for the lack of pics. I made some shrimp pasta and was feeling very accomplished. This is a picture of my companion during companion study

And He Shall Come into the World to Redeem His People

Richard McGuire

Dear Family,

Thank you for all of your prayers. Prayer is such a crucial element to obtaining the Spirit and the Spirit is the most important element in the Work of Salvation. Serving in Cole Harbour has its blessings and its challenges. We were able to clean the temple this morning and I got to work in the Celestial room cleaning the mirrors and polishing the lamps. The temple is the House of the Lord. My new companion, Elder Henderson got to escort one of his converts, Xi Gao for his endowments and I did two family names. I want to get to that point to where I get to sit in the celestial room with one of my converts. Such a goal. It's interesting, in Cole Harbour with the temple being around you would think that there would be a ton of members and it would be like New Utah and everyone be eating carrots in jello or whatever. However, this is still Nova Scotia. Not everyone is a member and in fact a lot of the people we meet have read some anti-mormon information about the temple and they have a large Spirit of contention with them. These things are spiritual. They just are. I can't convince anyone that there is a God, that the church has been restored, and that families can be together forever. I can only share with them what I know because I have prayed and fasted.

Do you ever wonder why there is a lot of anti-mormon information? Whenever we sin we sin. What keeps us in sin? Pride. I invite you to look up Beware of Pride by President Benson. Say we make some mistakes at work, or with money, or with other people. The church tells us that we must repent, make retribution, and change to become more like our Saviour. How many people actually want to do that. When people are in sin they either do two things: repent or look for information that will disprove the church. Such searching for a way to get out of eating healthy, get out of going to the temple, get out of not looking at pornography, get out of paying tithing, being kind to their spouse, spending time with their children, or anything else, mocks the atonement. Whenever we even think about taking a different stance on anything that is not in harmony with the church we mock the atonement. Christ descended above everything so that we could live again. When we look for fault in the church it is because we do not want to repent of something.

This week was an excellent week. Our investigator Lana, loves the Book of Mormon. She is willing to be exactly obedient and follow Jesus Christ. She even messaged us over Facebook "Are we allowed to eat chocolate?" "Yes Lana we are allowed to eat chocolate." She was reading about Lehi's family going out into the wilderness and she thought that she needed to go out into the wilderness. Not the brightest idea when we are in the middle of a Canadian winter, but I just love her willingness to repent and be baptized. She is going through a very difficult situation with her boyfriend and three kids. This is somewhat sad news, but she actually lives just outside of Cole Harbour in Dartmouth so we passed her off to the Dartmouth missionaries. So now we are still in need of finding new investigators. Will you all continue to pray for her? She is very exited to get baptized. I think it is better this way because the Dartmouth sister missionaries have been really struggling with even being missionaries and this will increase their confidence because Lana is very prepared.

I am looking forward to this upcoming zone conference. It's great to be a zone leader and have a better idea of what you are doing. Last transfer I was all over the place being in contact with every zone member rather than just working on my relationship with the district leaders. I have resolved that if I get into the mindset that I am the district leader of the district leaders then things will flow more smoothly and I'll be less-stressed. Reporting numbers was a gong show last night. We have three new district leaders and they just didn't get the memo that they needed to collect key indicators and evaluate their districts. After several phone calls and being on the phone with President Leavitt until 1 in the morning we finally got all of the standards in. We have also created some Facebook groups to promote communication between the district leaders and us.

Communication and thought is what will assist Heavenly Father move the work forward. Had some great revelation concerning chapter 8 of Preach My Gospel. We have to seriously consider the spiritual progression of others. What will help them progress, make a plan and then do it. Too many missionaries knock doors for 9 hours a day. There is a higher law. After each visit we write in the area book or member book about the visit. We write down "What did we learn, how did we feel? What's the plan?" Then transferring this information to the planner and doing some meaningful work. We visited with some less-actives last night. I won't go in to too many details, but we resolved that they want to come back, but they don't have the Spirit and they have had some bad experiences with elders in the past. So what's the plan? The plan is to follow up with them over Facebook in one week regarding their family history work and to also write them a thank you card. Then we will write down what happens in the area book and continue to see what we can do to help them.

So many ward councils fail to solve problems. They just go around and ask eachother if they have anything. No no no no no no! Talk about less-actives and how to help them, talk about recent-converts and how to help them, talk about potential members of the church and how to invite them to learn more about the restored gospel. The last thing that needs to be happening in a ward council meeting is talking about activities. Plans need to be made to determine how to help people. People fall away because others fail to love them.

I love you all

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Elder McGuire 

Elder Corbett packing up and leaving 

There is a Scottish/Irish store in Halifax which is pretty great

It's Elder Henderson from Idaho! He has 6 weeks left

Sorry for the lack of pictures. It's difficult to take pictures when I'll get frostbite if my hands are out of my gloves for too long

I got my Christmas package. Christmas in February! I've got a lot of oils. I've got deep blue and serenity so I think I'm good. The stocking was awesome!!!! Don't think many cats would be out and about in minus 30 weather. Unless they were bears or something. Thank you thank thank you for sending me a Christmas package. You are the best.

Love,

Elder McGuire