Arise O God and Shine

Dear Family,

It was so great to you all on Skype yesterday. Or at least you on the phone through the Skype. I thought that was pretty funny. Thank you all for being there for the call. It means a lot to me to hear from you all each week and it was rewarding to have the whole family there for the call, active and in their Sunday best. Looking back on the call I wish I had more funny and spiritual stories to tell you that can only be explained through talking not typing. I'll have to prepare for the next call in December. I'm especially grateful that Mum and Grandma were there. It's great to have the two mothers that really helped me get on a mission and keep me on a mission. No calling is greater than motherhood. Only Heavenly Father's most chosen spirits are mothers because they are filled with charity from the get-go. So thank you Mum and thank you Grandma. I owe a lot to your example and your teachings. 

One of my favorite things that mum would do on Sunday mornings was put on Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It really brought the Spirit to the house in the morning while everyone got ready for church. Now when driving on my mission, I hear familiar songs that take me back to those mornings where it was Sunday. "People die in bed!" Mum would say. Or my personal favorite "It's 6:30, are you planning on going to Seminary today?" How do I respond to that question? Mum always did her best to teach her children the gospel every day. I remember that year that she had to teach seminary and she would ask for our input on her lessons. Some afternoons I remember coming home and seeing her scriptures and study journal on the table. Make no mistake, our mother has a testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Now look at all of us as her children. Would three of her daughters be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity were she not faithful? Would both of her sons have served missions were she not diligent? If you want to know of the grandest and greatest calling in the world, in the church, it's the calling of motherhood. No calling is greater. I love you Mum!

Yes we live in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere

So yes, things are heating up here in Canada. We've got about another month before it starts to snow again. I love the sunshine. I never knew how much I missed it until I didn't get to see it for half the year. One important thing Mum stressed growing up was vitamins. You don't have strength to preach the gospel if you don't have any iron or vitamin D in your system. Vitamin D comes from the sun. Maritimers love to talk about the weather. Especially this winter compared to last winter and this spring compared to last spring. I'd say that's how I start most conversations with people on the street.

Bridgewater is a great little place. In a way it reminds me a lot of St. Stephen. Small town, everyone's related to each other everyone knows the missionaries and where they live. When I was in Cole Harbour, living in Dartmouth, I would meet people that hadn't even heard of the church before. It always shocked me because there's a temple in Cole Harbour. Most of everyone walks in Bridgewater to get places so we can go street contacting fairly often next to the river. The town is split in two by the LaHave river and there are two bridges, not one, in Bridgewater. For the most part people are friendly. They don't brush us off when we go to stop them and they will really talk about anything with us so that's good. I haven't gotten a potential from street contacting in a long time and this time we found three potential investigators just by contacting people down by the river.

Elder O'Brien approves 

Like St. Stephen, we have all of these little towns that are also in our area. There used to be a branch in Liverpool about 30 minutes south of Bridgewater so we go down there about once a week to see members and talk to people on the street. There are a lot of less-active members in Liverpool that don't come to church because they are bitter their branch got shut down. It is a great place to be at. It reminds me of downtown Flagstaff where there's lots of people to talk to in the park.

This area has so much potential to really take off this summer. In our mission we like to create maps that show us where the members, less-active members, and former investigators are living. This way we can make a solid weekly plan of who to get in contact with for the week. We have about 140 former investigators which is twice the size of the formers I had to work with in Cole Harbour. It's nice too that they are fairly close together. Many of you might wonder what we do all day as missionaries. No people are not always home throughout the day or on the street until the afternoon. Out of the 9 hours in a day we have to proselyte, we spend about 7 of those hours hunting down information about people and getting an idea of how to help them. Lots of phone calls and stalking them on Facebook. Then once we start to get appointments and plans created and filled up the real work begins. Only about 10 hours in the week do we spend street contacting and knocking. I sometimes feel like a private investigator. Figuring out where people live, where they go to school, to work, how many kids do they have, where do those kids go to school, and then the same information about the members or less-actives that live around them. It's fun to learn about people and find the most effective way to serve them.

You always need a proper wall map

When I got here we found out that we didn't have the sisters area book to work from (No sisters in Bridgewater this transfer). They had a number of investigators that had consequently been dropped because sisters got transferred. Just after an hour of making calls we had appointments with most of them. We now have 8 investigators, two of them are on date to be baptized in June. It's exciting to actually be working with people that want to join the church. I felt like in Cole Harbour I was hitting my head against a brick wall most of the time. I think in a way I learned a lot about how to be a more effective missionary in Cole Harbour and now I can put those skills to the test here in Bridgewater. The members here love us. We've had a dinner appointment almost every night and the ward council is just amazing. Our ward mission leader personally goes out to each of the members and teaches them principles from The Power of Everyday Missionaries. Bridgewater is the promised land.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Gettin it done!

Elder McGuire