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.