Elder McGuire in the Maritimes: I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go

Monday, May 4, 2015

I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go

Dear Family,

Let's see, where to start. Ultimately I will start with a thank you to all that wrote me this week. Especially to those that faithfully write me. I love hearing about your lives. Your experiences with the gospel. How it blesses your life. This gospel is a gospel of joy of happiness. We are to have joy. One of my favourite sayings comes from a drummer named Scott Johnson. He says that "If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong." If you feel the gospel to be a burden then you're doing it wrong. Figure it out and have joy. The prophet Nephi put it this way "Adam fell that man might be and men are that they might HAVE JOY." Before I tell you some very big news, I would like to tell you of a parable that hit me this week in a dream.

Tell that primary 9 class that they're awesome

The Parable of the Child on Christmas Morning

I remember every Christmas morning with the family. We would wake up early to get dad and mum up so that dad could go and light the tree and we could open presents. One time Jessica got up at 3 or 4 in the morning to get everyone going and Lindsay laughed at her and told her to go back to sleep. Personally from my perspective I was bummed out that we had to wait a couple more hours to open presents. So good on you Jess, you had your priorities in order. Ultimately we would get mum and dad up, dad would go and light the tree then we had to get our lavish camcorder to film all of us lined up. We've got some great pictures from over the years. Go and look at those, our parents rock. We had to line up in order from youngest to oldest and then make our way to the tree. One year, I remember getting a Rescue Heroes command centre that was also a boat. That was an awesome toy. Mum clearly recognized that I had a passion for Rescue Heroes. I played with that thing all the time. One time I remember I had to take a bath and Jess was in charge and we put the expensive command centre in the bath tub. Smooth move. Hey I thought you were an awesome baby sitter. There were other Christmases where the very routine occurred for the waking up early, lining up, and getting the camcorder charged and rolling. The only difference on occasion was my reaction to different gifts. Sometimes I loved those presents like the command centre. Other times I didn't care much for some presents and didn't use them as much or hardly at all. How sad it may have been for mum and dad or my brother and sisters to watch me not play with something. I remember one time I was upset with a gift that grandma gave me. I don't remember what it was, but I didn't play with it.

An interesting thing about all of the presents given to me is that they were free. They were bought and paid for. I didn't have to pay any of you back or get you gifts of equal value. I simply was presented the gift and had the option of playing with it. This is how our salvation works. Let me tell you all this right now. Write this down. Our salvation is bought and paid for. That was the whole purpose of the atonement. It was because of Christ that we are saved. We are saved by grace. Christ gave us the ultimate gift-salvation. Indeed we are saved because of grace, we are saved because Christ saved us. The gift of salvation is already bought and paid for. Think about that. Your salvation. You in the celestial kingdom is already paid for. It's done. Now the ultimate question you have to ask yourself is "Will I choose to play with the gift?" "Will I choose liberty and eternal life?" Our faith, our repentance, our good works, all of those times we give service to others will not save us. I will point out that that doesn't mean to sit back and say "Whelp I have been saved by grace! No use in doing anything because I've already been saved" Yes you have already been saved. We all have. To say the 'Whelp I've been saved' is like the child on Christmas morning who says "Whelp thanks, this is great" with a disappointed heart. No. The gift of the atonement is ours for the taking. Pick up the toy and play with it. It's for our benefit. It is to make us happy.

Elder Blum and Elder Ray. Great missionaries that I've served with or around. I will certainly miss them

Now for the big news. I am being transferred to Bridgewater, Nova Scotia in an hour. I am released from training and being a zone leader. I will be a regular missionary. You all are now probably wondering "WHY!?" Well I will tell you why. Before my mission I was naturally a perfectionist and I would get depressed when my current skills were not where I felt they should be. I took counselling for this and worked through most of my problems. Now I have gotten better but I've still got a long way to go. This zone wasn't performing up to my expectation. I felt like a complete stranger when I was training the zone this past Wednesday. I just demanded too much from them. Not to say that they threw me out of leadership-they didn't. The assistants sat in on my zone training and noticed the tension. My zone has struggled for the longest time. I would say that I gave it my best effort, but ultimately I was pessimistic towards the whole situation. I had an interview with President Leavitt and we talked about my history with perfectionism. He said that I do a great job and that the zone does a great job, but I've just got to sort out my expectations for my mission. I'll be honest, I've never really thought about my actual expectations of my mission. How many people do I want to baptize. How many people will I find and teach. It's important to go for those things. The ultimate success as a missionary is not in achieving goals but focusing our time on activities that will. Now this will probably be a subject of our skype call, but bottom line. I am fine. I am not depressed or anxious. I didn't offend anyone. I just need a reboot and President Leavitt is making that happen for me.

This past week other than that was decent. We had to drop the Pasquels because they wouldn't return phone calls or keep appointments. Steven is coming along. He is somewhat soft-spoken but is still diligently reading and praying. He texts us everyday about his reading and praying. That is when the real conversion happens. Not during the appointments but in between visits. Where he can read and pray. I'll be sad to not be there when he gets baptized. He was an amazing experience and we're friends on Facebook so we'll keep in touch.

In terms of Alex, he unfortunately dropped us. We went in to teach him more about keeping the sabbath day holy because he was doing great job with keeping commitments. However, his parents were talking with him the past week and Elder Ray and I came up and with their Baptist background they just into Alex for meeting with us. Then Alex said that we couldn't meet anymore and he can't come to church. Granted this droppage was an hour after the news that I was to be released and transferred. Needless to say we went to Dairy Queen and I like a teenage girl after a break-up ordered a large chocolate shake and drank my feelings. As mum would put it sometimes you just need a good cry. If any of you are feeling down about anything I would say do that, pick yourself back up and move on. If we could, let's not focus the majority of the skype call on these things that have happened but on other positive things. It would really help me out. I'm sure you want to know more details but let's just focus on the positive.

I love you all,

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Elder McGuire