You Can Make a Pathway Bright

Still frozen over

Dear Family,
Thanks for your letters! So many of you are so solid with life and the
gospel it's great. Keep doing the basics! As mom would say, when you
wake up, get up, when you get up, stay up. Mom knew what she was
doing. You would not believe all of the life skills I have had to
teach to people on my mission. Praise for living the gospel and making
something of yourselves.

This past week I studied a variety of things. I am focusing on

U gone drive. I love Maine

studying the 9 basic doctrines of the church. It takes a life time of
study to understand the church. I remember being in my interview with
the Temple President in Snowflake and he said that after almost 50
years of going to the temple consistently he is just beginning to
understand the endowment. For those of you that are endowed, read over
3 Nephi 11-14. Those chapters contain a lot of references to the
Temple Endowment.

This past week we continued to look for people to teach. It's an
interesting thing about finding. We can literally work all hours of
the week and still not find anyone through our own efforts. Most of
the week was finding. Finally on Saturday, we had a member introduce
us to one of her friends, Colby. He is 25 and awesome. He does a lot
of community service and has been to Africa to help kids get fresh
water and stable housing. Colby also has a tattoo of the eagle scout
medal on his forearm. Yes you could say he's the real deal. He has a
firm belief in Jesus Christ. Can you say golden?!

We unfortunately had to drop Jason. He was doing so well, but when we
dropped by the other day a lady came to the door and well let's just
say this is one of those times where I don't write home about all the
details to an investigators story. I'll tell you after the mission. So
yeah, Thursday was a rough day. I don't like it when we put so much
work into an investigator and they just stumble. I can only imagine

Possibly the greatest bumper sticker ever made. There's a lot of
elderly people in Maine

how the prophet feels when after a general conference he learns of
people leaving their families or leaving the church. It's sad.

Tia and Riley and the whole gang are doing great. We taught them about
three times this past week. Riley still isn't sure about baptism but
he's warming up to the idea. We got them out to the ward sports night
to play volleyball and basketball. Riley was having a blast. They
invited us over this week for St. Patrick's Day. We're going to have
Corn beef and cabbage and watch the Restoration video. They are so
solid. We're going to have some April showers if you know what I mean.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire

Elder McGuire's first principle of working with less-actives: "If you
get their cat to like you they'll come back to church"

Here's a cat

I Love to See the Temple

Halifax Nova Scotia temple

Dear Family,

Thank you for your letters! Everyone is so consistent it's great
(except for that JT he is wiley, he's up to no good). We had a great
week up here in Maine. It's interesting to think that we are in the
same country. It seems like I'm so far away but so close at the same
time. This past week we went to the French Temple session with all of
the French members and missionaries in the mission. It was a huge
session. Probably the biggest one I've ever been in on my mission
minus the MTC. I had the headphones for most of the session. I think
it's interesting how you can change the channel and listen in
different languages. I listened to most of it in English and a little
bit in Spanish and French. The gospel is the same no matter what
language you speak. On the way to the temple we listened to a great
devotional by Liz Wiseman. It's one of the best talks I have ever
heard. I recommend that you listen to it.
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/liz-wiseman_the-power-of-not-knowing/

In the devotional Sister Wiseman makes the case that 100% certainty
can be a dangerous thing. When we think that we know it all that's
when we are most dangerous. I think this is why a lot of people get
bored in church meetings. They think that they've heard this all
before and they don't make an effort to ask any questions or go deeper
into the gospel. Many church members, even if they have a strong
testimony can hit a plateau and become like the people Jacob describes
in 2 Nephi 9:28. I don't think we should be afraid to ask questions.
The entire Doctrine and Covenants was written because of the prophet's
desire to ask, seek, and knock. A lot of the how questions are pretty
simple. Probably the worst question to ask in a sunday school scenario
is "How can we better come closer to Christ, find peace, be happy,
etc." We've been saying it for years: church, pray, read. Better
questions for understanding the doctrine is "Why" "So what" "What's
the big deal about?" Through these questions we gain a deeper
understanding of the gospel. An answer without a question has no
meaning. Doctrine and Covenants 4:7

Like I said this past week we got to go to the temple. It was nice to
see so many missionaries that I used to be around in Canada. There's
actually quite a few French members out here in Atlantic Canada. Half

Temple trip!

of New Brunswick is French and there are pockets of French communities
in Nova Scotia and quite a few French speakers in Halifax. I remember
at the beginning of my mission I wanted to learn French so bad but
after a couple of weeks in Dieppe I was like "get me out of here." I'm
pretty content not knowing another language right now. I can get my
point across when I'm proselyting easier. We got into Halifax after 6
hours of driving and went to the mission home with the rest of the
French missionaries and members for a classic missionary meal: Taco
Bell. I had 6 tacos. It was great. We then went to a huge session in
French. The room was packed full of French. I had headphones to listen
in English. Headphones sort of gum up the whole project for an
endowment haha. I then got the opportunity to sleep at my old
apartment in Dartmouth. A lot changes in an area when you aren't there
for a year. We stayed up until 2 talking. So many mission stories.
Every day is amazing.

The next morning we woke up at 6 for another temple session at 9. The
storm was getting pretty bad so we had to remain in Halifax for a
couple of hours before we could make it home to Caribou. I do not like
how big the mission is and all of the travelling we have to do. We did
manage to get home before 11. The next day was a little hectic because
we didn't plan the night previous (the first cardinal sin of a
missionary). But we did manage to set up some lessons with

investigators. We met with Tia and Riley that night. We also picked up
Logan and Crystal as investigators, Riley's mom and brother. We are
legitely teaching a family! I love teaching families! An interested
family in New England/Atlantic Canada is few and far between. We
invited Riley to be baptized for April 9th with Tia. We are going to
have a baptism in April. Our teaching pool is fairly large right now
and we're finding consistently. I think it all comes down to finding
out here and not being afraid to invite people to be baptized in the
first lesson. My mission has really helped me get out of my comfort
zone. Difficult conversations always build character.

I love you all

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire

Don't worry, Brother Stiggle a recent convert is a professional chef.
He made me Boston Cream Pie for my birthday

Cats everywhere!

The moustaches on the birthday card were great!

Thanks for the birthday package!

We All Need Saving

Dear Family,

Thank you for the birthday wishes! I really appreciate that you
remembered! I can't believe that tomorrow I'll be 20 years old. Last
year for my birthday I was in Halifax and it was a fast sunday. I got
up to bear my testimony about missionary work and a less-active who
had previously denied us coming over then came up to me after the
meeting and said that we could stop by around 3. We didn't have much
going on in Cole Harbour. Just lots of knocking and lots of phone
calls. Not too many people to teach. I was feeling pretty down about
the work there. Then we got a phone call from President Leavitt and he
invited us over for dinner and to make a training video for the whole
mission to watch about our purpose as missionaries. It was nice
because he didn't even know it was my birthday and I got steak and
cake. Tender mercies.

This past week we focused a lot on the Book of Mormon with the
families we visited. We committed three families to read it in 100
days and then write their testimony in the copy we gave them so that
we can then hand it out to a friend of theirs (or they can personally
hand it out.) I'm not much for reading the Book of Mormon in X amount
of days but if anything it keeps people in the scriptures. I think
it's interesting how we need somewhat of the Law of Moses to get us
into the scriptures. We have prizes in primary for memorizing the
articles of faith like candy or icecream, we have missionaries that
are getting cars for serving a mission, there are dinners held for
young women because they beat the young men in who could do the most
member-missionary work. Here's the thing about prizes. Prizes motivate
people to get prizes. Fame among church members gets a lot of people
to serve missions, do their home teaching, or get their kids to church
on time. We like to look good to others and we like to accumulate
things. When the prizes stop people stop. To be honest, I memorized
the 13 articles of faith when I was in primary so that I could get
candy. Now guess what, I don't have the articles of faith memorized.
People need something more than prizes. Fame motivates people, money
motivates people, prizes motivate people. However, none of these
things motivate people like love motivates people. Passion is the best
motivator. We need examples of great theologians if we're going to
properly motivate people to read the scriptures. People need an idea.
A story. As Babe Ruth once said "Heroes get remembered, but legends
never die." Prizes don't belong in the Lord's church.

This past week we were blessed to find two new investigators to teach.
The first one is David from West Virginia. West Virginia sounds like a
beautiful place I'm telling you what. David is very gung-ho about the
bible and the Saviour and he asks a ton of questions. I think that if
I wasn't called to serve in the Maritimes I would have been called to
serve in the south. David just moved up here and we had a great lesson
about the Restoration and focused primarily on the apostasy. He
doesn't think he's worthy to be baptized yet so we'll be working on
that with him. He wants to take us moose hunting. If only we were
allowed to handle guns as missionaries. Anyway, it was a great lesson.

The next investigator we found was Dan. He's an older man that is
involved with the NRA up here in Aroostook County. He taught us the
'Let My Aim Be True" prayer: "Lord, make me fast and accurate let my
aim be true and my hand faster than those who would seek to destroy
me. Grant me victory over my foes, and those that wish to do harm to
me and mine. Let NOT my last thought be, if I only had a gun, and lord
if today is truly the day that you call me home, let me die in a pile
of empty brass…" Amen. Dan had a concern about modern day prophets but
once we showed him in the scriptures how it was all put together he
understood it. He has a very strong testimony of repentance. He has
really worked through a lot of his problems which is really good
because the heavy lifting is already done for getting ready for
baptism.

Carla is now on date for April 9th so we now have three people getting
ready for baptism! The lesson with Carla was powerful. We read through
the testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and she was just amazed that
not everyone knew about the Restoration. We had invited her to be
baptized a week earlier and she accepted. I made a really dumb folly
and forgot to select a date. In this lesson she was like "So when
would I be getting baptized?" Obviously she needs a date! She's
excited to be baptized by immersion. We're cooking with peanut oil
now!

Jason needs a lot of prayers right now. He is still meeting with us
but the word of wisdom is a giant roadblock for him. We've been
calling him every day and doing push-ups with him when he gets an urge
to smoke, but I think he needs some more help. He loves the church
videos like Joseph Smith the Prophet of the Restoration and The
Testaments:of one fold and one shepherd. He reminds me a lot of Darren
in Newfoundland. Good heart, but just having a hard time living the
commandments. Also if you could pray for Tia because she dislocated
her shoulder and is now in the ER.

Things are coming along in Caribou lou. We get to go all the way to
Halifax this weekend for the French temple trip (Elder Von Trapp is a
French missionary). Thank you for writing me every week everybody!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire

Cheer and Bless and Brighten

Dear Family,

What an amazing week! I'm starting to love Maine more and more. When I
first showed up I was really missing Canada and all of its little
perks. I miss Newfoundland the most but Maine is growing on me. I
really love how no one here knows much about Canada, even New
Brunswick. It's really bizarre because New Brunswick is literally 20
minutes north. That's just how Americans are though.

I read a great talk this week by President Uchtdorf. In "It works
Wonderfully!" In there he makes the point that many questions people
ask often lead them to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints. I studied one of his questions this morning during personal
study. Do I really believe in God? Obviously I believe in God
otherwise I wouldn't be on a mission but I looked at it more as "Why
do I believe in God?" I want you to think why you believe in God. For
me it comes down to this. God is the most supreme and intelligent
being in the universe. He teaches us by calling prophets. By obeying
the words of prophets we can grow in knowledge and eventually become
Godlike. I know for sure that I believe in improvement and growth.
Becoming better to the point of being God (that's the goal), is the
reason why I believe in God (Mosiah 4:9)

This past week we were blessed to hit the mission standard. I haven't
hit the mission standard since the week before Christmas. Before that
I had hit it every week for 6 months. It was nice to get back on
track.

We found three new investigators this week. The first was a lady named
Carla. She's about Mum and Dad's age. She just went through a divorce
and moved out to Northern Maine and she was looking for a church to go
to. It was kind of cool how we found her. She's actually a former from
3 years ago and when we went by to her old address her ex-husband told
us to beat the feat and that he wasn't interested. Not really a
problem because that literally happens every day. We were then
contacting some other people up the road and while we were walking
back to the car her ex-husband yells out for us to help him push his
truck off the icy driveway. We went over and pushed him out and then
he said that we could have Carla's phone number. We then called it a
couple of hours later and Carla picked up. She gave us her address
which was a little outside of Caribou and then we drove up to teach
her last Friday. She accepted to be baptized and she came to church!

                                                                                  

Cats are everywhere in Maine. it's great

                                                                                 Now for one of the biggest miracles of my mission.

We get a text from Church Headquarters about a lady that wanted a Book
of Mormon. She lived out in Presque Isle which is 10 minutes from
Caribou. We don't have a gps but we have a map from the gas station so
we just headed out to Presque Isle on a prayer that we'd find the
house. After getting lost for half an hour we finally found the
address...to a trailer park which had dozens of trailers (I can see
your frustration with trailer parks Dad!) we didn't know which trailer
to knock on so we just tried a random one and BOOM. We found Tia and
Riley. Tia is originally from Cedar City, Utah. She was meeting with
the missionaries out there, but crap hit the fan with her family so
she ended up moving out to Presque Isle with her boyfriend. We taught
both of them and they are like a young power couple that want to serve
missions and get married in the temple. They are on date for the
weekend after general conference. skadoosh!

So yes it was a great week!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Zone Training in Fredericton! I didn't have to prepare it for once :D

Elder McGuire

Rapstoration

Yes you could say missionaries are cool

https://www.facebook.com/PreachMyGospelMissionaryGuide/videos/vb.426894107392195/564651010283170/?type=2&theater

Forward Pressing Forward

Myldsmail was down the other day but we got permission to resend things today

Dear Family,

Greetings from Caribou, Maine! I'm back in America. It's weird to be
back in the States. When I was in Canada I didn't really feel that
much different than when I was back home in Arizona but in comparing
the two there are a lot of differences. I would say in general
Americans are a lot more honest about rejecting us than their Canadian
counterparts. There's about 6,000 people that live in Caribou and we
also work in Presque Isle which is about 10 miles (weird to say miles)
south. Why anyone would live this far north in the states beats me.
Maine is for sure the coldest area I have been in. It's like a dry
cold too because we are inland away from the sea. I don't really
understand Fahrenheit anymore but it got as cold as -30F the other
night. Don't worry we weren't out in the thick of it til later in the
day. So yes, Maine is cold.

I have been studying a lot about faith lately. Faith has sort of been
the theme for the past 6 months for me. In the scriptures, miracles
occur in response to faith. When we lack faith we lack intelligence.
This is because faith is what leads to knowledge. Faith is not merely
believing in a principle of the gospel, it is the application of that
principle. Faith and works are as inseparable as fire and light are
inseparable. The Brother of Jared's faith was dormant when he saw the
finger of the Lord. This is because he exercised faith to the point of
obtaining knowledge. This is why the Nephites were not as intelligent
or wise as the Ammonites (Alma 30:20). When faith stops the miracles
stop. Think of Martin Harris in the Doctrine and Covenants (D&C 5:28).
I know that it is by faith that miracles are wrought.

This past week was bittersweet leaving Moncton. We said good bye to
our investigators and a few of the members. I'm going to miss teaching
Judith. She was progressing well and she was almost certain that she
needed to be baptized under the proper authority. I was learning all
sorts of Kirwandan as well. I now know how to say: hello, thank you,
good bye, I want a banana, come to church, and elephant. Shock
enzohfoe means I want an elephant. So it's going to be a bummer not
seeing one of my favourite families every week.

We also said good bye to Brother Williams. He is seriously the rock
for that ward. He's the only one that really cares about the work of
salvation there. He would literally go to every appointment with us
because other members were unwilling. As a momento he gave me his
Phantom of the Opera leathermans jacket that he's had for 20 years
going out with the missionaries. I was feeling honoured. I thought I
had two more transfers in Moncton and then somewhere else but I guess
the Lord had other things in mind.

Now here in Caribou I'm serving with Elder Von Trapp from Dohah,
Qatar. He's been on his mission about a year and has been in Caribou
about three months. He's a hard worker and very bold. We are going to
get a lot done this transfer.

My first day that I got here we found a YSA to teach, Jacob. He was
very gung-ho about the gospel and the Book of Mormon. We put him on
date in the first lesson and committed him to come to church. The very
next day we got a text from him saying that he doesn't want to be
baptized because he's not ready to give up his lifestyle. SO CLOSE.

Not to worry though we found two other investigators to teach. Jason
is originally from Van Buren which is down state a bit. He has been
taught before but it didn't really go anywhere a few years back. We
put him on date for March 19, taught him the Plan of Salvation and
committed him to live the Word of Wisdom. #can'tholdus. The other
investigator we found through trying to find an old potential
investigator from a few months ago. Devin has a young family and let
us right in when we explained who we were. The church has a really
strong presence here. The ward has about 200 active members. There's
also a different dynamic here. It's more American. People wearing guns
to church. Young families. It's weird too because mostly everyone has
a solid understanding of the basic fundamentals of the gospel. I'm
loving it here. Even though New England is the least religious part of
the country we're seeing some success. It's a lot smaller than
Moncton, but the people give us more time to preach to them.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire