Jesus Saviour Pilot Me

Dear Family,

And thus we embark on the second to last transfer! It's going to be a
fun ride. I'm back in Halifax (Sackville) with one of my old
companions Elder O'Brien. Sackville is right in the middle of the
Halifax Harbour. It's about 20 minutes from Cole Harbour so I'm back
in my old stomping grounds. The ward is pretty great. Lots of young
Canadian families with jobs and little kids. Halifax is so different
from the rest of the mission. I feel that although this is the city of
my calling I have spent more time in other places than actually in
Halifax. That's to be expected though.

This morning I was studying from the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi 1 and
2. We live in a world with lots of interesting philosophies.
Everything is neither bad nor good but 'okay.' People say that we
can't judge people because it's their life and they can do whatever
they want. Who are we to say what is right and what is wrong? Lehi
defeats this argument when in verse 11 of chapter two he states: "For
it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things."
Everything has an opposite even when we say that all is good and okay.
God's laws don't change when we state that there is no God. There is
evil and there is good. There is wickedness and there is
righteousness. There is virtue and there is vice. We can avoid
deception by studying the scriptures and observing the lives of church
leaders. I know that there is opposition in the world. If there wasn't
then things would be a compound in one which means that the world
would be pointless. There would be no point in trying if we didn't
have opposition.

Then there's the whole 'well it's my life, it's my agency!' argument.
Lehi again confounds this false doctrine in verses 27-29. When we make
poor decisions we are choosing captivity and death. There's no way
around it. We are free to choose liberty and eternal life or captivity
and death.

This past week was eventful. We don't have P-days on Monday when it's
a transfer week. Working Monday and Tuesday is not my favorite because
it's like running on fumes but once we get to Wednesday which is P-day
my mind is put at ease a little bit more. I got the news on Tuesday
that I was going to be serving in Sackville with Elder O'Brien. He has
been in this district for 15 months. Most of his whole mission. The
other area is Bridgewater so I'm right around all my old areas again.
Thursday we drove up from Caribou to Moncton and then on to Halifax
for a temple session.


The temple was great! I went with the question of 'What prevents us
from sinning?' And while going through the endowment session I
realized that accountability doesn't exactly prevent us but it does
raise a guard. I also realized that partaking of the fruit didn't make
Adam and Even knowledgeable about good and evil, rather it made them
accountable. They already knew good and evil (it was bad to partake of
the fruit) from the Pre-earth life. Rather when they partook of the
fruit they were accountable for their sins. Perhaps this
interpretation of the Fall is incorrect. Let me know what you think.

In Sackville we found a new investigator Friday night. Our plans fell
through for correlation with our Ward Mission Leader and so we decided
to stop by a less-active. We began to teach his girlfriend Kathy more
about what happens to us after we die. Kathy has a ton of questions
from gays/lesbians to polygamy to modern prophets to the Book of
Mormon. She wants to be baptized but is hesitant to set a date. Things
are kicking up though in Sackville. We also got three member referrals
and I haven't had a problem with the law other than getting a speeding
ticket on the way to Stake Conference. Lame. My first one.

We have a general authority with us this week. It's Elder Bennett of
the Seventy. He is from Alberta and is a very kind man. For the adult
session he based the whole thing off of three 5 minute talks and
allowed people to state their comments. It was a very spiritual
meeting. Elder Bennett shared a very powerful story about how his mum
left the church for 30 years while he was in his youth but eventually
came back and became a temple worker. He should be at zone conference
this Wednesday so that's exciting!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire

Look who I ran into going through Moncton?

Saying good bye to Brother Stiggle a recent convert in Caribou

Shaq and Kobe back together about to take on the world

Sackville has a canoe club

The ducks don't care though

Still snow on the beach. Spring might show up by the time I go home

Trail contacting! :D

Follow up!

Still got it! A less-active has an e-kit