Wake Up and Do Something More

Dear Family,

What a week. One of the best weeks of my mission by far. Thank you for
all of your letters. Thank you to those that take the time to
consistently write me every week. It means a lot that you remember me
and think about me. I love to hear from you and your thoughts about
the gospel. I hope you enjoy hearing from me because I love writing an
email each week. Thank you for your prayers and for your own diligence
in reading the scriptures and keeping the sabbath day holy. There is
so much power behind doing the little things well.

Whatchyou kno bout crock potting?!

The era of President Leavitt has ended and now we roll into the era of
President Pratt. For those of you that don't know already, President
Pratt is from Orlando, Florida. Originally he is from Utah but he's
lived the past 30 years in Florida. It's also been 30 years since he
has shoveled snow. He came to the right place. He is (or was) a real
estate lawyer and he was very successful from what I read in his
biography. It will be interesting to see the changes he makes or what
he will keep doing. We had a zone conference this past week so that he
could observe how we plan and how we teach. He is not as outgoing as
President Leavitt (at least not yet), but he is very intelligent. He
understands the scriptures well and can express himself well. He took
some time to teach us the church's actual stance on gay marriage and
the supreme court so that we all understood it. I've gotten a lot of
questions from people about that lately. The zone conference was good.
Nothing too new in terms of skills. It was more of a meeting so that
President Pratt could get to know his missionaries and see what they
can do. I feel like I'm fairly skilled, but you can always learn
something new. I feel blessed that I have two mission presidents to
learn from. He is also related to President Tingey in Flagstaff. Give
President Tingey's email, I need to say hi to him from President
Pratt.

Elder O'Brien enjoying some lunch made by his favorite comp

This past week was incredible. We worked harder than I ever have my
whole mission. Usually in a day we will talk to about 40-50 people.
And that's above average for an area. My philosophy is that you
contact people until you find someone that wants to meet and then you
keep contacting. I try to mix things up so we aren't just knocking for
four hours. The mission average is more around 20-25 people a day. We
are required to speak with 140 people a week. However this Saturday
after two teaching appointments (more about those later) we had no
more appointments and 10 hours filled with finding. This was a great
opportunity to buckle down and get to work. We began the afternoon
with calling people that we had planned to get in contact with. I like
to have a large list of part-member families, less-actives, members,
former investigators, potential investigators etc. to get in touch
with. When we are driving we can still make phone calls and we avoid
wasting time. Wasting time in my mind is doing things to avoid talking
with people. It is impossible to invite others to come unto Christ
when we aren't talking to them. Then after two hours of tracking down
information and calling people we went to Lunenburg to contact people.
Lunenburg is a great place to go street contacting. In many ways it is
like Halifax or Eastern Passage with people on the street. After about
an hour, we had talked to 90 people. It was sort of funny because the
very first lady we stopped wanted to learn more and it was a good
conversation, but the other 89 people after that had no interest
whatsoever. After eating dinner we went on a contact run/route. Really
a series of stop by visits to former investigators, old potential
investigators, and less-actives that we put together in nightly
planning. After a long hard day we had spoken with 127 people. At this

Set a new record for how many people we have talked to in a day. Only
one potential investigator from all of those contacts

point I thought the Lord just had to bless us because we were working
so hard.

The next day at church we had 5 investigators at church! Bridgewater
is the Brazil of the North. New Utah. Carrots in jello. Funeral
potatoes. Quilts. Snow cave camp outs. Ward basketball. Wellness
fairs. Softball. I've got big plans for this place. The next temple to
come to the Maritimes will be in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. Jasmine
came to church and loved testimony meeting. She said that she felt
empty all week but when she came to church she felt complete. Such
sweet testimonies were given. Jasmine said that she cried twice
because of the spirit she felt. After the meeting I invited her to be
baptized and she said she wants to so bad. SO WE ARE HAVING A BAPTISM!
She asked Elder O'Brien to baptize her. Burlynn unfortunately hasn't
been able to come to church because of the situation with their son
being in foster care. We need to get him to church somehow. He can
only visit their son on Sundays. Jasmine has a lot of real intent. She
was taking notes in Gospel Principles and the Relief Society sisters
really took her in. Got to love great members. Another miracle was
that Troy whom we've been teaching and it hasn't really been going
anywhere came to church! He stayed all three hours and even
contributed in Elders' quorum! I seriously was so happy.

We also found two new investigators this past week. We had planned to
meet with them a few weeks ago but the meeting fell through. Juanita
and Bob are a great young couple. They were turned off by the
leadership in their catholic church and so they told us they are
"windowshopping" for a new church. Such a joy to visit. We went over
some expectations and got to know them a little bit more. They really
miss taking their boys to Sunday School. Things are lighting up in
Bridgewater. We also met with 8 less-active members and two of them
came to church yesterday. Someone coming to church is the highlight of
the week. Those 15 minutes that we are waiting before the meeting is
crunch time. One less-active, Damon has been promising us church ever
since I got here and finally we got him to come around. He stayed all
three hours and loved being back. Another was Clint whom we met with
for the first time last week. I didn't think he had much potential

It's another exciting day! :D

because he has a lot of issues to overcome but he came to church and
that's what matters. Such an amazing week.

I love you all. I am immensely grateful for your prayers

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire