Diabolical Rascality

Dear Family,

Thank you for your letters faithfully. I know it gets sort of
monotonous to write me every week, but I love to hear from you. Your
experiences with the gospel as well as just what's going on in your
life is fun to read about. I try to respond to everyone. Thank you
also for your prayers for me and the investigators we are teaching. We
witnessed lots of miracles this past week. I am loving Newfoundland. I
honestly think this place was the reason I got called to serve in
Atlantic Canada. I didn't figure that out until a year into my
mission. Sometimes we just have to be patient and work and humble
ourselves before we know why we've been given a circumstance. I didn't
really want to serve in Canada when I got my call. Now I am grateful
every single day to be here. I have never been happier. I love to
spend time with others and my mission has gotten me out of my shell.
I'm not much of an introvert anymore.

We had a fantastic week. I have had some great weeks on my mission and
some really bad ones, but this past week may have been the best one.
They just keep getting better and better. We smashed our previous
teaching record of 12 lessons with members present with 18 lessons
taught with members present. Not bad for only having three active
members to call upon for teaching appointments. It's really boiled
down to charity.

There's a great scripture that talks about personal development in
Proverbs 23:7 "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." We cannot
wait to be successful, we have to believe we already are and act
accordingly. This is the "as if" principle. If we desire to be a faith
filled person that knows that scriptures we have to act like it. It
sounds simple, but this is true. We can't be almost something. Those
that are lukewarm the Lord will spew out of his mouth. No man can
serve two masters. There's terrible stories about people almost
repenting, almost magnifying their calling, almost doing their home
teaching, almost being a Latter-day Saint. Almost is probably the
worst definition someone could be. President Uchtdorf said "Whether
your testimony is thriving and healthy or your activity in the Church
more closely resembles a Potemkin village, the good news is that you
can build on whatever strength you have. Here in the Church of Jesus
Christ you can mature spiritually and draw closer to the Savior by
applying gospel principles day by day." The power is in us.

Elder Hardesty and I found the best scriptural line that could be a
rapper's name in Doctrine and Covenants 123:5. Diabolical Rascality. I
couldn't really think of a could subject line for the email other than
that.

We began the week with a huge miracle. Darren approached us before
Family Home Evening last Monday night and said that he wanted to know
the soonest he could get baptized. We said two weeks. That seems a
little bit soon for someone that needs to quit smoking and drinking so
we settled for October 17. So yes, Darren moved his date up and we are
going to have THREE baptisms on October 17 instead of just two. Darren
is really making an effort to quit. We are doing to stop smoking
program with him and making daily contact. He's going to get there. We
also began to teach his two children who are 9 and 11. Buddy and
Erica. Buddy's actually name is Darren but in Newfoundland it's common
to refer to a male as buddy when you either don't know their name or
just don't feel like calling them by their real name. Teaching kids is
a challenge. Lots of visual aids. Lots of videos. Lots of simple
questions and short scriptures. It's good because breaking down the
gospel into small chunks is helpful for understanding deeper stuff
better. They all came to church so woohoo, a family is joining the
church in Grand Falls!

Donna is coming along. The commandments are the kicker for people that
want to get baptized. She is still all for everything and she has no
addictions, but just making changes with Sunday and money is something
different for new converts. She is ready more than ever to get
baptized. We are going to be teaching her the final lesson (lesson 5
in PMG) this week and we can't wait to start taking her out to
lessons. She feeds us all of the time which is good because buying new
scriptures sort of set me back in terms of funds. She was sick this
past week but she still made the effort to come to sacrament meeting
for the sacrament. We had 13 people out to church. When I first got
here we only had 4-5 every week, but now we are on our way to
establishing a branch here.

I really need you all to pray for Helen. She is trying to quit smoking
and after 40 years of smoking that is a hard thing to do. Some days
she's really good and cuts back big time but other times she doesn't
think she can do it and gets depressed about it. She wants to be
baptized, but doesn't have much faith that she can do it. I know
she'll eventually get there, but she won't if she doesn't have faith
and makes the effort. We had good and bad lessons with her this past
week. For one lesson we went walking on a trail to get out of the
house and another one at the church so that she could feel the spirit
more. It's all about environment. She will get there. We will see what
happens.

We were blessed to find another new investigator this week and put her
on date for baptism. We met Nicole street contacting my first week
here with Elder Cox and we finally got in with her to teach the
Restoration. It was great how it worked out because she said 'I only
have 10 minutes.' We had role-played this situation so we knew exactly
what to do. We got through the whole lesson in 10 minutes and put her
on date for baptism for November 7!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire

Question of the week: Who wrote the introduction to the Book of Mormon?

Elder H making carnitas. Mexican food in Newfoundland yes b'y

A member had to write a reminder on my hand so that we'll return her
dishes. The struggle is real.

The Sleep of a Labouring Man is Sweet

Dear Family,

If you ain't talking Oh Henry I don't want to talk. I'm really going
to fill a whole suitcase with these candy bars when I go home

What a crazy week! Thank you for your prayers for our investigators
and for our little twig in Northern Canada. Joseph Smith wrote a great
quote about missionary work in this dispensation. It's called The
Standard of Truth. The Standard of Truth has been erected no
unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing, persecutions may
rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble and calumny may defame,
but the truth of God will go forth boldly nobly independent til it has
penetrated every continent visited every clime swept every country and
sounded in every ear. Til the purposes of God shall be accomplished
and the Great Jehovah shall say, The Work is Done. I like to think
about that quote whenever I get discouraged about missionary work or
talking to people. We don't really have to worry about things
happening. We're not going to wait forever for the Saviour to come.
We're going to see miracles in this church. I have witnessed so many
miracles you would not even believe me. God is a God of miracles.

Elder Beacham is excited to be on exchanges :D

Another great thing about miracles is that they signify the blessings
that have been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I was
reading over the hymn The Morning Breaks a few days ago. This is a
great hymn for those of you that like to get up early and jog some
before the day gets going. "The clouds of error disappear Before the
rays of truth divine." The restoration is like a sunrise. In the
morning if you get up early enough you will be surrounded by the dark.
This is like the apostasy. Gradually the sun rises and the earth heats
up. This is the restoration. It is gradual, but the mysteries of God
are being revealed just as they were in ancient times. I know that
just like a sunrise overcomes the darkness, so too does the
restoration overcome apostasy.

This week was a week focusing on the Restoration. We had a great zone
conference with Elder Perkins. General Authorities are great. He
understood the scriptures so well it was incredible to watch him
teach. We role-played for 10 minutes teaching the Restoration and then
he would give us feedback. Whooo I was sweating through the whole
thing. Case and point we didn't get to the message of the actual
restoration fast enough. I even noticed this in my street contacts. We
ask a few questions to sort of break the ice, sometimes it works
sometimes it doesn't, but people really just want to hear what we are
there to tell them. That God speaks again. We did this activity trying
to teach the whole restoration in 10 words or less. I got it down to
6. God speaks again, here is evidence *pointing to the Book of Mormon.
It's good and it's bad. I like to ask people questions and listen to
them, get to know them a bit before I just launch into prophets,
priesthood, golden plates, and Joseph Smith. It comes down to
following the Spirit. It was a fantastic zone conference.

I ordered some new scriptures the other week and they came! 

Mind you St. John's got the tail end of a hurricane that hit the east
coast last week so it was just raining buckets all of last week.
Driving out of there was rough and we were hydroplaning and blah it
was just bad. With a car full of hungry and tired missionaries and
then forgetting to fill up on gas and just everything that could have
possibly gone wrong, we rolled into Grand Falls at about 11pm, three
hours later than we should have gotten there. The next morning I woke
up with a cold and headache, but two days out of our area just isn't
good so we hit the town proselyting the whole day. We talked to a lot
of people and taught most of our investigators, but my headache was
something fierce and the rain wasn't helping.

Could have been the Spirit or shear stupidity working with a cold but
we ended up finding two new investigators and teaching up a storm with
our investigators. The first lady we found is Susan. She is originally
anglican but doesn't go to church. Sort of your standard
I-still-believe-in-God-even-though-I-don't-go-to-church. It was a
great lesson. We hammered through the message of the restoration in 5
minutes and ended up bearing our testimonies about the Book of Mormon
for the next 25. She wants to read the whole book in a week. It's a
miracle when you apply training from a general authority. The other
investigator we found was Krystal the girlfriend of a less-active. We
found her through visiting a less active. It's always key to ask
everyone who is there in the house if they want to join in on the
lesson.

Here's a miracle for the week:

Once a month the members in Grand Falls and Gander attend church in

Corner Brook, which is a near 3 hour trip. Combine that with a branch
activity the Saturday night before, and you have quite the time
commitment for the Grand Falls members. One of our
investigators-Helen-was prepared to come with us. This morning she was
feeling a bit overwhelmed and texted us saying she would not be able
to come. We did our best to resolve her concerns but did not have any
success. We prayed for her and hoped that we would be able to help in
any way possible, and then went on with our day.

Near the end of our parking lot contacting, we felt that we should
wrap up that activity just a little earlier than usual. As we began to
drive out of the parking lot we saw Helen walking through the parking
lot and drove over and said hi! We talked more with her about how she
was feeling, testified of the comfort that comes through praying,
reading our scriptures, and coming to church. We offered for her to
come with us to Corner Brook again and she accepted! We parted ways at
her apartment building with a big smile on her face. She loved Corner
Brook and is excited for next month.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire

Savior Redeemer of My Soul

Our little twig is referred to as The Squad

Dear Family,

Thank you for your letters and for your prayers. Unfortunately this is
going to be a short letter because we've got to head to St. John's for
a special zone conference with Elder Perkins from the seventy. It
should be exciting. Nothing like a giant drive to fill a Preparation
Day. It's also very foggy because a hurricane is coming up the coast.
We like to keep it real on the rock.

St. John's or bust!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m6tgnpdxht0k4wa/702_0018.MP3?dl=0

(audio clip of a typical morning of street contacting for Elder McGuire)

Perhaps some of you heard a sampling from what we do everyday all day.
I think it's interesting how people react to missionaries. I love it.
I get to be myself around strangers and learn how to think on my feet.
It's taken some time to contact well. I've talked to thousands of
people over the past year. Thought it would be good to give you a
taste of my day in actuality.

This past week we set another mission record. We taught 12 member
presents. We are getting to the point of teaching so much that we
hardly have time to find new people to teach. Three of our
investigators are coming along really well. Darren is cutting back
hard on smoking. He only smoked two cigarettes a day this past week.
Much better than his usual two packs. The atonement is real.

Donna got her answer that this is the Lord's church. She decided that
she is going to get baptized. We taught a lot about priesthood
authority and just bore testimony that this is the only true and
living church on the face of the earth. We will have a branch in Grand
Falls.

Helen is going to be the next Relief Society president. She came to
church in a dress which is way more than any of the members do.
Absolutely amazing how the spirit works with conversion.

Everyone needs a good whiteboard

I love studying!

To close here's a miracle from the week.

On an exchange on Wednesday Elder Sortomme and I were out checking
formers and potentials. We had originally planned to go parking lot
contacting but we felt prompted to stay in the neigborhood and contact
around there. After talking with a few potentials and referrals I had
to use the washroom, so we started to walk down to a member. Walking
down the street we 'clover knocked' around a less-active and met this
woman who was actually a minister for the United Church. She said we
were a cult but we asked for a referral and she said that there was a
Muslim family that just moved in down the street. We were walking down
the road when we saw a man standing outside of a house near the corner
of the street. He definitely wasn't from Newfoundland. We began to
contact him but he spoke no English and only a little bit of French.
He decided to go and get his son Hement. Hement then had us in for
juice and a first lesson. He had actually met with the missionaries in
Montreal when he was studying Biology at McGill University. Hement
learned French there as his second language and he's learning English.
He isn't too sure if Joseph Smith was a prophet but he wants to read
the Book of Mormon. He and his wife just moved into Grand Falls about
two weeks ago so she could work at the hospital. They have two
children. The Lord will have a branch in Grand Falls!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire

P-days are for conference talks

Question for the week: How many fruits are on the Tree of Life?

Branch Activity - Corner Brook

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4zaq2sa28csosi5/MVI_4997.MOV?dl=0

The Screeching in of Elder McGuire---Yes b'y

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e90m9izrmq9x7ox/MVI_4994.MOV?dl=0



I am now a NewFoundlander!!