Dear Family,
Happy Father's Day to Dad! And to all of you other fathers and future
fathers out there. There is much power behind the influence of a
righteous priesthood holder in a home. I remember growing up with Dad
dutyfully taking JT and I to Fathers and Sons even though we weren't
campers or outdoorsy people. I remember all of the fun trips we went
on to Lake Powell, every year to add! Dad was always looking to
improve his health and would work out consistently. I remember when
Dad took me to get my drivers license and he was teaching me how to
parallel park. That was stressful. Dad is the best boat driver because
he slows down on the reentry (You'll never live that one down Shirl).
I remember one time when we went to watch the fire works at Lake
Powell and someone (We still don't know who) let the rope fall off the
side of the boat so it got stuck in the prop. Then dad diving into the
water to untangle it and then coming back up for air to hear his
family hush their laughter. Most profoundly, I remember Dad taking the
time on a drive back from Utah to talk to me and JT about the
importance of honouring the priesthood and being worthy to hold it-why
that's important. There are a slew of other stories about dad. I love
you dad!
This past week we really had our nets out. Usually a missionary in the
North America North Eastern area teaches about 5 lessons a week
whether it be to less-active members or recent converts and of course
investigators. There have been weeks where I would on average only get
one lesson taught. I remember skyping home and delivering that
sobering news. Yes this is still Canada. With lots of planning and
hard work, we taught 12 lessons this week. That is something
significant. We got out a time table and planned out all of our time
so that we would have all of our finding mapped out. After we broke
down the things we couldn't control like meetings and meals and what
not we started to plan in our time to be balanced in the work of
salvation. It was a great way to focus us and see that hey we are in a
yellow hour right now we need to be talking to people and finding them
to teach. There have been weeks where we would manage to only get like
6 hours of finding. When I mapped it all out I realized that we have
40 hours to look for people to teach. That's a lot of time. When I've
got a solid map to see where all of the members, less-actives, former
investigators, and potential investigators, our finding becomes more
effective. We are lighting the south shore up with new investigators.
We found 4 this past week.
In terms of those whom we are already teaching, Jasmine and Burlynn
are doing well. We shared the Family a proclamation to the world and
talked about some things they could do to improve their family and
their relationship with one another. We are essentially marriage
counselors. They are committed to coming to church this week which is
good because in weeks past they didn't want to. I think what made the
difference was getting a recent convert in the lesson to bear
testimony about his conversion. We took Brother Harlow. The Harlows
are great. They are converts of three years, from Newfoundland, and
they love being ward missionaries. Missionaries literally knocked at
their door in Bridgewater for 30 years and they finally let them in to
learn more. They are some of my favourite people of all time on my
mission. They feed us just about every week. Recent converts are
dynamite in lessons.
Troy is coming along. He is still having a hard time believing in God
with all of the pain that he has to go through and the accidents he
has been in. He said the pray at the end of the lesson but he's not
too keen about coming to church or reading. I'm afraid he might be
doing this just for his wife, but we'll see. If you could pray for him
that would be great.
In terms of our other investigators we had to drop Rodney and Desmond
because of opposition from family members and girlfriends. Frustrating
when we finally get in with someone but we have to get past the whole
family and peer group. We did find a great new investigator this past
week named Jason. He is studying culinary arts and has been searching
religions for 20 years. Right now he's a freemason and he has a lot of
mormon coworkers that got him interested in the church. Before you
freak out about mormons and masons, Jason has a lot of real intent.
He's probably one of the most solid people that I've taught on my
mission. He is reading the Book of Mormon studiously and he said the
closing prayer. The other investigators we found were Dianne who's the
mother of an excommunicated member who used to investigate. Another
big find was Juanita and Bob. They are a young couple that
missionaries gave a Restoration DVD to but never followed up on. We
are having a lot of success.
I love you all so much. I wish I could tell you more about what goes
on in the week, but there's never enough time.
HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!!
Elder McGuire
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