Because He Lives

Dear Family,

Cole Harbour will be New Utah you can mark my words. Thank you so much for your prayers in my behalf and for praying for missionary experiences on your own. When you ask, Heavenly Father will give. So, we are moving to the valley, eh? That's exciting. It's funny, when I was being trained, my trainer's family moved to New York from Utah and now when I'm training my family is moving from Flagstaff to Phoenix. That is great. Way to follow the Holy Ghost. Revelation means salvation. It was an excellent week. We had disappointments, triumphs, and much learning. That's what's great about this church, you will always be learning.

I had a huge epiphany about Lehi's dream this past week in my scripture study. It's unique about revelation and understanding spiritual things. We can look right at the answer to our questions for years. We may see in the scriptures that we can only receive mercy until we repent for decades but never really get what that means until one day. Such is what happened as I studied through 1 Nephi 8 and 11. Before I explain that I would like to point out how real the Spirit and pray are. If we sincerely pray and ask Heavenly Father for specifics then the answer will come to us. What I have also learnt about prayer is taking several minutes after we have prayed to just ponder and think about the words we have offered to our Heavenly Father we have a greater possibility of receiving revelation. You can find this principle in Doctrine and Covenants 138. So anyways, there I was pondering over what my role was as a missionary in helping others enjoy the blessings of the gospel. Reading over the chapters and then offering a pray to understand the words. The next part was key, writing down the thoughts that came to my mind in response to the question. After writing about two paragraphs I paused again and then repeated what I had just done, praying, reading, and writing. The Spirit then filled my mind as I realized what I needed to do. The iron rod. The iron rod is the only thing that will take us to the tree of life. I must invite people to read their scriptures, to live the scriptures. It is like I have rediscovered the scriptures. I know spend all of my meal breaks studying and I take additional time to study before personal study. I am so happy with the words of life. 

Another thing that I did this past week was take some serious thought with the Nova Scotia North Zone. For the majority of the time, my zone has struggled. Struggled to meet standards and struggled to find people to teach. This was really stressful for me. I have served as a zone leader the longest out of everyone in the mission and my zone wasn't performing too great. We were just about dead last in the mission for results. So I took some serious time to fix things last P-day. I sat down with each of the district leaders. We went over each companionship who wasn't reaching certain standards such as obedience, member unity, and contacting standards. We talked about why certain things weren't being met and then I asked each district leader to set a goal for that companionship for the week. Whether it be reaching the obedience standard, talking to the standard amount of people we are supposed to talk to in a week (140-Elder Ray and I personally did about 300 this past week) or contacting each member of the ward council. I then asked the district leader to create some plans to accomplish that goal. After reviewing their plans I told them that I would be monitoring the progress of their plans throughout the week. The Nova Scotia North Zone knocked it out of the park this week with results. We had about a 70 percent increase in results. Careful goal setting, planning, and holding ourselves accountable produced real growth. We are still not as good as we could be, but I am confident that we will get there.

Take my fish oil seriously in Nova Scotia. You would be proud mum

Unfortunately we had to drop Sandy. She kept on cancelling our appointments and only called us when she needed help with shoveling. I really understand that people need help and that we need to offer help. People are in hard circumstances. Sometimes being on welfare is a generational thing and there's a certain mindset that accompanies that circumstance. We showed up on Friday for our appointment, mind you the three previous she had all cancelled. She explained that her landlord needed her to widen her driveway so that he could get up it in his truck. Mind you she lives in a house, not an apartment and she didn't have a good reason for why her landlord needed to get up the driveway. I told her that she could call us when she actually could meet on a frequent basis without interruption. She then got out one of her shovels and tried to shovel while we were walking away to make it look like we were abandoning her in her time of need. I didn't buy it. We then got up with Brother Moses who had just gotten there for the lesson. Told him we were dropping her and then invited him to our lesson with Alex the next day. He's a great guy who doesn't get offended when things don't work out. We were then sitting in our car filling out the drop status (This is what I wrote "Wouldn't keep return appointments or commitments, only wanted us around so that we could shovel her driveway. We got used like a napkin. Try in a few months if you're looking for some service") when we see Sandy walking down the path we dug to get in a red car with someone. That car drove off and we decided to follow. The red car then pulled in to a Wendy's drive-thru while we drove by. Yes, we got stood up for Wendy's after digging a trench through 5 feet of ice. Not too happy about that, but I'm still glad we helped her out.

Elder Ray ferociously filling out his planner at the request of his favourite trainer

Alex is coming along. We read the Book of Mormon with him on Saturday and he made some really good comments. I told him a baptismal date could motivate him to find out if it was all true and he declined. It was a great lesson, but things will be slow until he graduates school and can meet with us more. We found two more people to teach this past week. Justin is in the Navy and lives right by Bishop, which is really convenient. We are meeting with them tonight to teach the restoration. And we also picked up Rob who loves going to the gym and just moved in from Dartmouth. We will be having a church tour with him tomorrow. Getting members out to lessons is a bit of a struggle and I don't want to keep relying on Brother Moses. Our ward council is getting there. I'm a little stressed out because I'm the only leader in the mission who hasn't hit the standard of excellence for key indicators. I will be fasting tomorrow to achieve that. It will be a good week.

Ether 12

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire

Ye Have Done It Unto Me

Dear Family,

What a week! Thank you for your prayers, especially for those prayers not to overexert myself helping someone out pshhhh-like I would do that. I will explain more later, but this past week contained the most spiritual experience of my life. Halifax and the surrounding Halifax area got pasted with snow this past week. I think I heard from someone that we got 50 centimeters. I don't know if that's a lot, for you americans out there, it looked like to me about 4 or 5 feet of snow. The weird thing about the Maritimes is that not only is the snow plentiful, but it is very wet and full of water. Then the snow will melt and freeze again with the freezing rain. It's quite the place. I will be honest and tell you all that I cannot wait until Spring. Apparently Spring has already begun but March was no better than February in terms of the weather. I'm now a pro at driving in the snow. That freak snow storm in Flagstaff 5 years ago has got nothing on the Maritimes.

Quote of the week:

*Elders Quorum talking about Missionary work

President Kidd: So what are some ways we can be good member-missionaries?

Member: Setting a good example, serving others, doing your home teaching

President Kidd: Exactly, we do more missionary work than we think we do.

Other member: We can share the gospel with our neighbors and give them pass-along cards

President: Of course. We can share the gospel. We can all share the gospel, through the missionaries 

Elder Ray and I:...........

New companion:  Elder Ray from Mesa, AZ

We are picking up more heat in Cole Harbour. I've got a lot to work with here in what I have now nicknamed "The Boar." Manly. Things missionaries do while they are driving. We finally got to have church yesterday. So good to finally have the sacrament. It is very hard to preach the gospel when church has been cancelled for a few weeks and you haven't partaken of the sacrament. My experience during the sacrament was more meaningful because of this. When we take time to review our week, to review where we have improve, what we need to accomplish, then we have a more meaningful sacrament. We may say that we are to remember Christ during the sacrament but what does that really mean? It is my belief that we have a serious personal inventory during the sacrament. Asking ourselves, what am I good at? Where could I be more obedient? Where did I see the Lord's hand in my life this past week? How could I improve? If we take the time to seriously reflect on the Saviour-what we can do to become more like him then I promise that we will grow significantly. We will begin to develop Christlike qualities that will enable us to withstand our daily challenges. The sacrament is among the most holy of tokens. In the sacrament we renew all of the covenants that we have made whether they be our baptismal covenants, the covenant we made to hold God's priesthood, the covenants we made when we were endowed, and the covenants we made when we were married. If we don't consider these carefully, how can we improve? The sacrament is our spiritual highlight for the week.

We had an excellent leadership meeting last Tuesday in Truro. All of the leaders in the whole mission, every district leader, sister training leader, and zone leader along with the assistants, President and Sister Leavitt all got together to learn how to be better leaders. President Leavitt is a man of business. He is a very successful businessman. It was Joseph Smith that said in this church we embrace all truth. Whether that be from the prophet, our mother, our professor, some guy in a TED talk, or our children. In this church we embrace truth because we are the true church. We all got assigned to analyze a business article from the Harvard Business Review about Leadership. My article that I gave a talk on was called "The Crucible of Leadership." Crucibles are the refiners fire. In the equation of success we only need two things and one of those things is already a constant. Success=trials + us. If we don't show up then we literally can't achieve success. Our trials will always be a constant. They will never be taken away. If we desire success then the first part of the equation is already figured out for us-the trials. The independent variable however is us. If we are willing to show up and figure out our trials. Then we are granted success. The sons of Mosiah had to endure the vilest of sinners. But think of the the results of their proselyting efforts. Thousands baptised. The maritimes will be a hub for the church one day. Temples will dot these provinces. You can mark my words.

We continued on the leadership meeting with talking and roleplaying through some other talks from the business review. Very good material and very motivating. You could probably check the material out online. We then talked about how to build trust. Not only trust with the missionaries that we lead but with the members, the investigators, and ward leaders we work with. We role-played some situations in leadership that require building trust. Each role-play was focused on Stephen Covey's 13 principles of building trust. If you want to build trust with anyone those 13 principles are a great place to start. One of my district leaders and I role-played the principles "Get better" and "Confront Reality." Too often we don't ask others how we are doing. We don't seek feedback. We can't get better if we don't ask people how we can, do it, and then ask them how we did. That is one way to build trust. The other role-play with confronting reality was we got together as a zone leader and a district leader and assumed things. When we listen to the spirit we are better able to discern people as they really are. It's unique on a mission because now with being blessed to have the spirit constantly I can tell when someone is lying to me. I can tell when they aren't being genuine. We role played talking about a companionship and then assuming that they didn't actually get out the door on time even when they told us that they did. We role-played phoning them and finding out the truth. Confronting the reality of the situation.

This leadership meeting was amazing. I learned so much to apply to my missionary work. We then focused on the four types of leadership that are so critical to leading different types of people. The four types of leadership are telling, selling, showing, and delegating. When we are faced with a simple problem and the person we are leading has low skills all we have to do is tell them to do it and they will do it. For example, eating oatmeal is a pretty simple thing to do, Mom would pretty much just have to tell me to eat oatmeal and I would go for it. Then next situation we might be presented with is selling. These are simple tasks but we are dealing with capable and skilled people. For example, eating peas is a very simple thing to do, Dad is a pretty capable person when it comes to eating food, but Mom would need to tell him 'why' he needs to eat peas. He needs to be sold on the idea. The next situation we might encounter is showing, demonstrating things. This is when people have low skills but the task is complex. I would have to demonstrate to you how to play the drums. I would have to show you all of the mechanics behind things and demonstrate how to accomplish something in drumming. The final situation in leadership is delegating. This is when the task is complex but the capability of someone is high. This would be like me asking mom to accompany me for regionals. Accompanying is a complex task but Mom is a capable person. That is how you lead people. Very good knowledge, even in missionary work.

The final part of the meeting wasn't really anything new. Just an emphasis on visions, goals, plans, and monitoring. Doing that to accomplish real work. President Leavitt then wanted us to create leadership visions and accomplish something in the areas where we are over. Guess what Elder McGuire's wonderful leadership vision is? "Elder McGuire lifting and inspiring the Nova Scotia North Zone by setting a bold example in Christlike qualities and proselyting efforts." I have yet to set some solid goals that President approves of but you get the idea. Missionary work is a cycle of sorts. First we plan, then we find, then we teach, then we baptize. It starts with a plan. I'm going back to chapter 8 and really analyzing that thing to figure out a sound plan to always be finding people to teach.

[This is a video that goes with the following story]

And now, the most spiritual experience of my mission. Our investigator Sandy has a huge driveway. We got about 5 feet of snow. Sandy couldn't get out of her house to buy food for her children because the snow was too deep. She didn't have enough money for a plow or family in the area to help her. Thus, it was up to Elder Ray and I to dig a path for her to get out and get some food. After hours upon hours of shoveling, going back several days we finally got her shoveled out. I'll show you the video so that you can get a better idea of what we did. She just called me last P-day in the middle of email time just crying like she was suffocating in her house because she didn't have any food for her children. She was in panic mode. Makes me cry right now even just typing this. But we shoveled the whole thing. 5 feet at a time up the whole driveway. Sandy got out of her house and now has food. Such a huge highlight for my life. In the past I never really felt like I had helped anyone in a major way. This experience changed that. I still can't believe what we did. It was certainly the Spirit who carried us. We got her dugged out and now she can come to church and meet with us again. Thank you for your prayers. My physical strength is increasing with all of the people we have had to shovel out. I can now do about 100 push-ups each morning and I've never had this much upper body strength. I now have a new love for snow shoveling.

Her house is the one way in the back. Not the blue one

We were blessed to find a new investigator this week. Former investigators are a great resource for finding people to teach. We met with Alex, set up an appointment, took the first counselor with us and taught about prayer. He won't commit to a date until he has gotten an answer to prayer. Please please please pray that he will desire to know sincerely through prayer that these things are true. Because I know that they are.

I love you all

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Elder McGuire 

SNOW!

Our Savior's Love

Dear Family,

Thank you all again for your prayers and love. We were in the temple this past with all of the missionaries that were going home (including my trainer Elder Collett) and one of my former zone leaders Elder Torrie made the comment that you lose a lot of prayers when you are released from being a missionary. Thank you for praying for the missionaries. Thank you for also praying for missionary experiences. The missionaries can't run the show, neither can the members. I'm not married, but I think it would be pretty lame for one spouse to be doing all of the work while the other just sits back and prays for them. That doesn't make any sense.

There are a lot of born-again Christians. Many of them make the comment that we are saved by grace and they get really mad at Mormons because they think we 'earn our way into heaven' and deny that it is by Christ's mercy that we are saved. Let me tell you something about Born-again Christians and their thoughts that we are saved by grace. They are right. We are saved by grace. However, that scripture that Born-agains quote is only part of the picture. We are saved by grace after all we can do. After all we can do. Are we doing all we can do? Therefore, we have the full picture of this doctrine of grace. We receive Christ's mercy after we have done our part to repent. That's how it works.

I write this because of some interesting thoughts I've heard on missionary work from members. Not wrong, but not completely right, either. Even within the church there is apostasy (Not like there is no prophet or priesthood anymore) but there are incomplete teachings taught over pulpits and in classrooms. The philosophies of men mingled with scripture. It sounds like the gospel because the scriptures are in there but it actually isn't completely the gospel. Many members express that missionary work is 'being an example, serving and loving others, being a friend, making food for someone and giving it to them.' Then the members get mad when they are told that missionary work is talking about the gospel with people, inviting them to church, inviting them to meet with missionaries. They might think that inviting someone to church is forcing their religion on someone, forcing it down their throat as I have sometimes heard. They also get upset at those that tell them that service isn't missionary work. They think that talking about the gospel and asking people to repent isn't loving them-that service is loving them-inviting them to partake in the gospel is not loving them.

The very definition of missionary work (this isn't the Book of Elder McGuire, this is Preach My Gospel) is inviting others to come unto Christ. That is true love. The gospel is literally the only thing on this entire planet that will grant eternal happiness and eternal life. Yes we have service. I am not condoning service. We need to serve others more in the church. If we don't invite people to actively participate in the gospel then the chances of them proactively engaging in the gospel without being asked are very slim. Invitation is missionary work. Service is not. Service and being an example, being a friend is a means to the ultimate goal of actual missionary work-invitation. It is a tremendous tool. As a matter of fact all of my investigators right now were found through service. But if we think for one second that inviting people to repent and live the gospel isn't loving then we need to reexamine what we think missionary work is. People aren't going to get to the celestial kingdom by the amount of times someone
baked them a pie or trimmed their lawn while they sat back at home on sundays smoking a cigarette. Missionary work is invitation. It is an invitation to get better. 

So no, you are not wrong when you say that missionary work is setting a good example or being a friend, but you're not completely right, either. You're like a born-again Christian

Xi (Ryan) Gao-one of Elder Henderson's converts from back in the day took us to traditional Chinese food in Halifax. Don't know what I ate but it was very good

We had an amazing week. Especially for a transfer week. My new companion is Elder Ray from Mesa, Arizona. Fresh out of the MTC and ready to work. He did musicals and plays through high school and he is happy to be here. Not trunky. Not crazy. Normal and ready to work. He even asked a less-active to get it together and come to church. Too bad church was cancelled because of the weather. He is going to be a great missionary. Still getting there with general contacting but he wants to be here and he wants to work and learn and grow and read his Book of Mormon and apply Preach My Gospel. I am so happy. Two Arizonan elders are going to show Cole Harbour no mercy.

Dartmouth District

We found three more people to teach this week. Sandy's daughter is in high school and knows some of the young women in the ward that go to Auburn High School. So good to have some good youth here. We also will be teaching a man we found from Zambia. Boyd Kaluluma is the real deal. Super prepared. It's nice to get a taste of what the missionaries in Africa get to teach. Boyd is so happy to read the Book of Mormon. Accept all commitments. Not read a bunch of anti. And make us food when we go by. He works for a cable company in Halifax and he loves the snow. We also found a man from Manitoba in Eastern Passage. He's in school right now at Dalhousie. Alex is a pretty sharp guy. We used to teach him but he wasn't mentally stable back then. He is now back and he wants to learn more and go to church. And the ward council is coming out with us this week!!!!!! We are going on splits!!!!!!! Yes, there are people to teach in Atlantic Canada. This is going to be a great transfer.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire

Whiteout-a missionary's best friend 

Thanks for the birthday package!

The Lord Qualifies Whom He Calls

Dear Family,

Here we go!  Halifax in the Spring!

Thank you so much again for your letters and prayers. What a time to be alive. The sun, although an endangered species in Nova Scotia, has made its appearance in Halifax and the ice is melting. One thing that I learned this week is to never ask a maritimer about the weather and why it's the way it is. Global warming, Terrorists, 'you people!' the illuminati, and a whole slew of other reasons. Things are shaping up from a climate standpoint and I couldn't be happier. I love the cold maritime air next to the ocean. Very east coast and I love that the whole place always smells like the ocean. It's only expected to get warmer from here on out (I hope) and we will continue to preach the gospel no matter what the weather is like. I want you all to know that I am doing well. I don't watch the news but if you all do and pay attention to what goes on in Halifax I just want you to know that I am safe. We live right next to the Mic Mac Mall and some bonehead called in with a bomb threat. I thought everyone had gone on holiday when we were driving past the empty parking lot, but apparently that wasn't the case. I'm so glad I don't watch the news.

Quote of the week:

*At the door

Contact: Oh yeah I know yous guys. I've read your pamphlet and pretty much what you guys believe in we believe in (She was a baptist by the way)

Elder McGuire: Really? Why aren't you a member?

Contact: Well because you guys believe another book that's not the bible.

Most people if they believed in our church would be members. I have learned a lot this past week about how to study Preach My Gospel. I don't know if you've ever read the introduction to that manual but let me tell you, I have finally figured out how to study the book that is supposed to tell me how to do this thing. What a realization. Thank you so much for your prayers. Prayer really does work. I have learned that we create interesting thoughts in our heads that aren't pure doctrine. Many people-even very faithful members of the church-believe that there is life and then there is religion. Some may profess "This church really fits my life, it fits my family, it just fits" Like the gospel of Jesus Christ is some kind of piece of clothing. No, life is not this some giant superior concept that envelops the gospel. Life is not a pie chart where we have the gospel filling up a certain percentage, our career filling up a percentage, our hobbies filling up a certain percentage, or our family filling up a certain percentage. The gospel on the other hand is a superior concept to everything. It is the only thing ever, that if applied will bring eternal life and happiness and progression. Life is not a foundation to which we then place religion on top of it. No, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the foundation. My point is that if we fail to make the gospel our whole life then we fail to build on correct principles.

First you shovel then deal with the 6 inches of ice!

Sandy's driveway didn't stand a chance

We were blessed to find people to teach this week. Yes a real life human being-a family!-who wanted to learn more about the gospel. They really do exist. The Canada Halifax Mission is a baptizing mission. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. We found Sandy by shoveling her large driveway and then asking her if she wanted to learn more. Ammon would have been proud. It was just so painfully easy I don't know why we haven't been doing more service in our week. The difference between this past week and the previous 10 weeks where we have struggled so much to find people to teach is because we have lacked the mindset, the attitude to actually be looking for people to teach. Since this realization I have come to another breakthrough in my personal contacting. If you turn in your Preach My Gospel to the teaching skills portion (If you ever want to know how to talk to people this is the chapter for you) you will come across a great section called "How to Begin Teaching." These 10 points are gold. I've used them in the past when I'm knocking but they haven't really done much. Until now. The key phrase that came into my head one snowy Thursday night was "if you knew that" So thus the contact went "Would you be interested in learning more if you knew that this could improve the quality of your life?" We went from getting three potential investigators a week to getting three potential investigators in an hour. The potential investigators section of my planner is starting to fill up! I want you to know that I know that revelation, if applied, will change your life.

Sandy is great. She has two children, is African American (African Canadian?) and really wants a religion in her life. She's not too familiar with any church but she wants us to teach her family and she even has some friends she wants to bring to church next week. Yes, your beloved Elder McGuire taught a restoration lesson for the fourth time on his mission. Hooyah!!

You will always be tired in this church!

In terms of this upcoming transfer, I've got some exciting news. We are no longer doing the whole co-zone leader thing so I'll be the sole zone leader for the Nova Scotia North Zone. In other news, I am not currently the grim reaper of the mission. By that I mean I won't be with a companion concluding their mission for this next transfer. Instead, I will be training a new missionary! This will be exciting. I've never trained before but I've always wanted to. I don't know who it is until Thursday as President Leavitt doesn't make the decision until he shakes the new missionary's hand and looks them in the eye. I also get to go to the temple this week so I'm excited.

I invite you all to keep praying. Pray always. Pray more. Pray for specifics. Pray for things to happen. Pray like you're talking to God because you are.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire 

Walls of ice!

Happy Birthday from Sarah!

Pictures March 2015

Elder Blum, one of the district leaders on an exchange agreed to fix our member book :D

Haircuts woohoo. It was teach your barber about the law of chastity day

Key indicators woohoooooo

Six inches of ice!!

Driving around missionaries whose car won't start because it's frozen

Definitely wasn't a shoe night

The Best Character is Built When You're Winning

Dear Family,

Thank you for your birthday wishes. It was an interesting birthday. Didn't really even feel like a birthday, but Christmas was the same way. Everyday is awesome regardless of what day it is. We had a very spiritual fast and testimony meeting which I thought was my birthday present from Heavenly Father. Over the past few weeks we have been committing some members of the ward council to bear their testimonies about a missionary experience they've had or will have in fast and testimony meeting. What an electric meeting. Even some members whom we didn't ask got up and bore their testimonies about a missionary experience that they had. One member who told me in a dinner appointment about a month ago that she thought that missionary work was just being an example or whatever came up to me and said "There's a missionary spirit that's starting to grow in the Cole Harbour ward." Almost made me cry I was so happy. No we aren't having many outward results but I think that the ward is starting to catch the wave. Your prayers are working. We still haven't found a non-member to teach. I don't think the Lord wants me to go my whole mission and never baptise anyone. He doesn't want me to go a whole day without teaching someone in their homes about the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

President Leavitt invited us over last night because he wanted us to be apart of a training video because we aren't having much outward success. He also wanted to do something for my birthday so don't worry-Sister Leavitt made a birthday dinner and made a chocolate cake. I was feeling very loved. President Leavitt makes training videos for district meeting that he sends out for all of the 13 districts to use and he usually invites the assistants and another companionship that's seeing a lot of success to be apart of the training. It was unique to be in on the discussion for what needed to be trained on in the mission. Overall we came to the conclusion that what needed to be trained on wasn't another training. We could throw training after training about member-work, contacting, follow-up, or teaching and the results still wouldn't improve. We will be training on Preach My Gospel ch. 1. If we don't understand the why behind our missionary work, everything we do won't make sense to us and the harvest will be meager. If you are preparing for a mission and someone asks you why you are going on a mission this should be your response 'Invite others to Come unto Christ.' If we don't invite people to get better then we are a failure. Not that we are a failure we are a bad person, but we just failed to accomplish something. One of the best pieces of advice that President Leavitt gave to me was "The best character is built when you're winning, not when you're losing, not when things aren't happening or getting done, let's go missionary!" 'You don't work hard so that you can quit and rest, you work hard so that you can work harder'

We have seen some good success with less-active members and recent converts. We taught one woman, Sister Boudreau who lives in West Chezzetcook, a french community that I had not idea was even in my area. She was offended by a member about 5 years ago and simply needed to be invited back to partake of the sacrament. She teared up in our lesson and the Spirit was very powerful. Although she did not come to church yesterday she is committed to coming to church this week. Her Acadian Catholic husband despises the church and didn't even want us to be there so Sister Boudreau set it up so that he was at work when we came over to teach about Faith. He does have more potential than we thought because he painted her a picture of the Salt Lake Temple. Small and simple things.

Another success we had was we are starting to work with prospective elders. We finally got in to see Ace who is 21 and hasn't been to church in 4 years. He didn't want to talk about the gospel when we came by, so we just chatted for a bit and he agreed to do some service with us-shoveling out his driveway. Some maritimers use kitty litter on their driveways so that their cars can get some traction. It was gross-I will leave it at that. He still has potential to serve a mission, but he is taking glacial steps to get there. He's going to get there. There's not doubt in my mind that he will progress.

I invite you to pray that you will have a missionary experience this week.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,
Elder McGuire

Elder McGuire 

This is the Doctrine of Christ

Dear Family,

Thank you for your letters. This past week was a good learning experience. The devil will always be on us hard enough before we are about to do something extraordinary. I think that's the case with my time in Cole Harbour. This place is nicknamed by other missionaries as "Cold Hearted Harbour." Even when I was getting transferred from St. Stephen to Cole Harbour I experienced great physical danger (Which granted could have been prevented had I been more cautious), and even now I have experienced intense mental and spiritual exhaustion. I will be the first to tell you that being the lowest in the mission for key indicators does not give me warm fuzzies. We have a lot of problems yet to be solved. This past week I was just so frustrated with the people, myself, my companion, the ward council, and the ward members. I was frustrated with the Lord. I had lost sight or maybe I didn't even know what is the purpose of missionary work. The purpose of missionary work is stated very simply on the first page of Preach My Gospel: "Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End.

The weather is just dandy!

Fundamental to the missionary purpose is the word 'invite.' Invitation is a request to exercise agency. My success as a missionary will never be measured by the amount of baptisms I get, the number of investigators taught with a member present, or how well I talk to people on the street. My success as a missionary will be measured by my commitment to invite others to come unto Christ. I am a success when I invite. I am a failure when I don't invite. Invitation doesn't need to be scary. It's just a request. It's not manipulation, it's just a request. When we invite others to come unto Christ we invite them to get better, to change, to improve, to repent. A lot of people in the world don't want to do that. A lot of missionaries, a lot of members, non-members, and children. But we are never failures when these people fail to act on invitation. We are a success because we invited them to come unto Christ. They are a failure if they refuse to come unto Christ.

Quote of the week ( I got out of this habit and I invited myself to be more humorous in my letters home)

*Elder McGuire to a less-active member

Elder McGuire: Can't you just record the hockey games and then watch them later? We want you to come to church

LA: Hockey season is only on one time a year. Church is always going on throughout the year.

Elder Henderson: Would Jesus want you to be watching hockey instead of going to church?

LA: No Jesus would have church at the rink if He wanted more people in Canada to go to church

See what we have to deal with? Haha, It reminded me of Dad's story about knocking on people's doors in Portugal during the world cup. Canadians are a riot when it comes to hockey.

I realized that I don't really tell you about what happens from week to week. I just write what looks like a talk about a gospel subject rather than share with you my experiences.

So this previous week we got a call from the assistants to go to the airport to pick up Elder Allard-the area seventy-because he had a regional meeting with stake presidents, temple president, and mission president. Elder Allard is a convert from Montreal and worked for FamilySearch for thirty years. He wanted to ask us questions for the afternoon on Thursday. Maybe not the best idea if you are an area authority to review the least productive area in the mission to get a feel for the missionaries working with the ward council. He grilled our area book for two hours and then talked to us about the ward council and the members: how often they give us referrals, if they've given us any less-actives to go see, etc. Elder Allard was not impressed with Cole Harbour, but he told us that we were very helpful. Not every day you get to spend the afternoon with a general authority. 

Summer goals at their finest

We are working hard and with the members. Tracting in Cole Harbour is like trying pull water with a rope up a hill. Every single door this past week was "No we are catholic, have a nice night, boys SLAM." But I am a success because I invited people to come unto Christ. We taught 8 members about the atonement and missionary work this past week. It is stated in chapter one of Preach My Gospel that as our understanding of the atonement increases so too will our desire to share the gospel. Another thing that we are committing the members to do is study from Preach My Gospel. I invite you all to study from Preach My Gospel. It is an excellent manual to study from. It is a great source for spiritual strength and is filled with study activities that will increase your faith. Its principles only work if applied. Another thing that we have committed the members to do is to bear their testimonies in this upcoming fast and testimony meeting about a missionary experience they had. I think this will make the members feel a missionary spirit in the ward. And we'll get more referrals.

I know that the gospel is true. I know it will bless everyone's life and solve any problem. I know that Jesus Christ is our Saviour and that He died so that we may live. The purpose of the gospel is to make bad men good and good men better. Don't even think for one second that you can't change, that others can't change or that the atonement only covers so much. The atonement is an infinite atonement. It is the only thing in this world that brings forth progress. Don't ever think that change is not possible. The atonement is real. I bear testimony of this.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire