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:...........
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| 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.
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| 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
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| SNOW! |
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