 |
| Elder G fixin' the dishwasher |
Dear Family,
Today marks my 90th P-day. Thank you for writing me consistently for
the past 90 weeks. I am so blessed to have a family like you. Caribou
is still cold in case you were wondering. It snowed today and I don't
think we're out of the woods just yet with Canadian winters.
This past week I was reading the Old Testament and I came across the
story of Naaman in 2 Kings 5. I love this story. I've read it recently
but I decided to read it again because of the interesting principle it
teaches. Naaman afflicted with leprosy is commanded by Elisha to bathe
in the river Jordan. The river Jordan was dirty and simple and there
were other rivers that were much cleaner and attractive. Naaman's
servant tells him that if the prophet told him to do some great thing
he would do it. Naaman does eventually wash in the River jordan and is
healed. For most of my life in the church I wanted the other rivers I
didn't want the boring jordan river. I saw coming to Eastern Canada as
a waste of time when I first opened my call. Cold place, old white
catholic uninterested people, and large and barren. I admit when I
opened my call I didn't want to go. I wanted an exotic mission where
I'd have to preach the gospel in a foreign tongue and do things
extravagant on P-day. Too often in the gospel we think we need divine
manifestations to believe in the truth. The truth is simple and yes
sometimes the truth is boring. I honestly came on my mission because I
wanted to please my parents and I wanted to look good to others in the
church. After months of humbling, rejection after rejection my initial
thoughts about my mission seemed like they were true. Then I had to
really take a deep look as to why I even believed in God, why I even
was on a mission, or why I should even continue believing in the
gospel and serving a mission. Honestly, I am on a mission and I remain
on my mission because I want to be a better man. When I came out I
said that I just wanted to give others the blessings of the atonement.
That's a noble reason. But it wasn't authentic. I am on a mission
because I find that my potential is being reached here. We don't need
grand revelations or flashy leadership responsibilities. Sometimes
it's perfectly okay to live a perfectly ordinary life. I know that God
called me to Canada because I needed to learn this principle. I'm
grateful for all the things I have learned and continue to learn.
 |
| The power bars are great by the way! |
pool, we set out to find some people that actually wanted to know the
truth. The first man we found that was interested was Joe. Joe is an
older guy, about 50 that has a lot of questions about the bible. He is
born-again Christian and hasn't gotten some answers about the plan of
salvation from some pastors he's talked to. He has lots of questions
about fate and God judging His people. We taught the Restoration
briefly and then started to use the Book of Mormon to answer a lot of
his questions. I love that about the Book of Mormon. Alma 40-42 really
struck a chord with him. He's definitely a truth seeker. Not as
scrutinizing as the boys from Moncton but he asks some really tough
questions. Awesome investigator though. He's on date for the end of
May. Born and raised Maineiac.
The next investigator we found was Kim in Presque Isle. Kim is also in
her 50s and wants to quit smoking. She doesn't really like the
Wesleyan Church set-up. We found her knocking on some doors around
former investigators. She is investigating not really to find the
truth because she already believes in the Book of Mormon when we
taught it. She just wants to quit smoking and overcome some other
problems. I love that about the gospel. Sometimes on my mission I've
tried to just doctrinally prove to people that we're right and not
really go for the spiritual side of things. I need to do a better job
with just focusing on the doctrine of Christ rather than just every
point of each lesson. We teach repentance and we baptize converts.
Yes we got fed by the Himes. Fajitas! It was delicious!
 |
| Power bars from home |
Love,
Elder McGuire
No comments:
Post a Comment