The Lord Qualifies Whom He Calls

Dear Family,

Here we go!  Halifax in the Spring!

Thank you so much again for your letters and prayers. What a time to be alive. The sun, although an endangered species in Nova Scotia, has made its appearance in Halifax and the ice is melting. One thing that I learned this week is to never ask a maritimer about the weather and why it's the way it is. Global warming, Terrorists, 'you people!' the illuminati, and a whole slew of other reasons. Things are shaping up from a climate standpoint and I couldn't be happier. I love the cold maritime air next to the ocean. Very east coast and I love that the whole place always smells like the ocean. It's only expected to get warmer from here on out (I hope) and we will continue to preach the gospel no matter what the weather is like. I want you all to know that I am doing well. I don't watch the news but if you all do and pay attention to what goes on in Halifax I just want you to know that I am safe. We live right next to the Mic Mac Mall and some bonehead called in with a bomb threat. I thought everyone had gone on holiday when we were driving past the empty parking lot, but apparently that wasn't the case. I'm so glad I don't watch the news.

Quote of the week:

*At the door

Contact: Oh yeah I know yous guys. I've read your pamphlet and pretty much what you guys believe in we believe in (She was a baptist by the way)

Elder McGuire: Really? Why aren't you a member?

Contact: Well because you guys believe another book that's not the bible.

Most people if they believed in our church would be members. I have learned a lot this past week about how to study Preach My Gospel. I don't know if you've ever read the introduction to that manual but let me tell you, I have finally figured out how to study the book that is supposed to tell me how to do this thing. What a realization. Thank you so much for your prayers. Prayer really does work. I have learned that we create interesting thoughts in our heads that aren't pure doctrine. Many people-even very faithful members of the church-believe that there is life and then there is religion. Some may profess "This church really fits my life, it fits my family, it just fits" Like the gospel of Jesus Christ is some kind of piece of clothing. No, life is not this some giant superior concept that envelops the gospel. Life is not a pie chart where we have the gospel filling up a certain percentage, our career filling up a percentage, our hobbies filling up a certain percentage, or our family filling up a certain percentage. The gospel on the other hand is a superior concept to everything. It is the only thing ever, that if applied will bring eternal life and happiness and progression. Life is not a foundation to which we then place religion on top of it. No, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the foundation. My point is that if we fail to make the gospel our whole life then we fail to build on correct principles.

First you shovel then deal with the 6 inches of ice!

Sandy's driveway didn't stand a chance

We were blessed to find people to teach this week. Yes a real life human being-a family!-who wanted to learn more about the gospel. They really do exist. The Canada Halifax Mission is a baptizing mission. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. We found Sandy by shoveling her large driveway and then asking her if she wanted to learn more. Ammon would have been proud. It was just so painfully easy I don't know why we haven't been doing more service in our week. The difference between this past week and the previous 10 weeks where we have struggled so much to find people to teach is because we have lacked the mindset, the attitude to actually be looking for people to teach. Since this realization I have come to another breakthrough in my personal contacting. If you turn in your Preach My Gospel to the teaching skills portion (If you ever want to know how to talk to people this is the chapter for you) you will come across a great section called "How to Begin Teaching." These 10 points are gold. I've used them in the past when I'm knocking but they haven't really done much. Until now. The key phrase that came into my head one snowy Thursday night was "if you knew that" So thus the contact went "Would you be interested in learning more if you knew that this could improve the quality of your life?" We went from getting three potential investigators a week to getting three potential investigators in an hour. The potential investigators section of my planner is starting to fill up! I want you to know that I know that revelation, if applied, will change your life.

Sandy is great. She has two children, is African American (African Canadian?) and really wants a religion in her life. She's not too familiar with any church but she wants us to teach her family and she even has some friends she wants to bring to church next week. Yes, your beloved Elder McGuire taught a restoration lesson for the fourth time on his mission. Hooyah!!

You will always be tired in this church!

In terms of this upcoming transfer, I've got some exciting news. We are no longer doing the whole co-zone leader thing so I'll be the sole zone leader for the Nova Scotia North Zone. In other news, I am not currently the grim reaper of the mission. By that I mean I won't be with a companion concluding their mission for this next transfer. Instead, I will be training a new missionary! This will be exciting. I've never trained before but I've always wanted to. I don't know who it is until Thursday as President Leavitt doesn't make the decision until he shakes the new missionary's hand and looks them in the eye. I also get to go to the temple this week so I'm excited.

I invite you all to keep praying. Pray always. Pray more. Pray for specifics. Pray for things to happen. Pray like you're talking to God because you are.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire 

Walls of ice!

Happy Birthday from Sarah!

Pictures March 2015

Elder Blum, one of the district leaders on an exchange agreed to fix our member book :D

Haircuts woohoo. It was teach your barber about the law of chastity day

Key indicators woohoooooo

Six inches of ice!!

Driving around missionaries whose car won't start because it's frozen

Definitely wasn't a shoe night

The Best Character is Built When You're Winning

Dear Family,

Thank you for your birthday wishes. It was an interesting birthday. Didn't really even feel like a birthday, but Christmas was the same way. Everyday is awesome regardless of what day it is. We had a very spiritual fast and testimony meeting which I thought was my birthday present from Heavenly Father. Over the past few weeks we have been committing some members of the ward council to bear their testimonies about a missionary experience they've had or will have in fast and testimony meeting. What an electric meeting. Even some members whom we didn't ask got up and bore their testimonies about a missionary experience that they had. One member who told me in a dinner appointment about a month ago that she thought that missionary work was just being an example or whatever came up to me and said "There's a missionary spirit that's starting to grow in the Cole Harbour ward." Almost made me cry I was so happy. No we aren't having many outward results but I think that the ward is starting to catch the wave. Your prayers are working. We still haven't found a non-member to teach. I don't think the Lord wants me to go my whole mission and never baptise anyone. He doesn't want me to go a whole day without teaching someone in their homes about the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

President Leavitt invited us over last night because he wanted us to be apart of a training video because we aren't having much outward success. He also wanted to do something for my birthday so don't worry-Sister Leavitt made a birthday dinner and made a chocolate cake. I was feeling very loved. President Leavitt makes training videos for district meeting that he sends out for all of the 13 districts to use and he usually invites the assistants and another companionship that's seeing a lot of success to be apart of the training. It was unique to be in on the discussion for what needed to be trained on in the mission. Overall we came to the conclusion that what needed to be trained on wasn't another training. We could throw training after training about member-work, contacting, follow-up, or teaching and the results still wouldn't improve. We will be training on Preach My Gospel ch. 1. If we don't understand the why behind our missionary work, everything we do won't make sense to us and the harvest will be meager. If you are preparing for a mission and someone asks you why you are going on a mission this should be your response 'Invite others to Come unto Christ.' If we don't invite people to get better then we are a failure. Not that we are a failure we are a bad person, but we just failed to accomplish something. One of the best pieces of advice that President Leavitt gave to me was "The best character is built when you're winning, not when you're losing, not when things aren't happening or getting done, let's go missionary!" 'You don't work hard so that you can quit and rest, you work hard so that you can work harder'

We have seen some good success with less-active members and recent converts. We taught one woman, Sister Boudreau who lives in West Chezzetcook, a french community that I had not idea was even in my area. She was offended by a member about 5 years ago and simply needed to be invited back to partake of the sacrament. She teared up in our lesson and the Spirit was very powerful. Although she did not come to church yesterday she is committed to coming to church this week. Her Acadian Catholic husband despises the church and didn't even want us to be there so Sister Boudreau set it up so that he was at work when we came over to teach about Faith. He does have more potential than we thought because he painted her a picture of the Salt Lake Temple. Small and simple things.

Another success we had was we are starting to work with prospective elders. We finally got in to see Ace who is 21 and hasn't been to church in 4 years. He didn't want to talk about the gospel when we came by, so we just chatted for a bit and he agreed to do some service with us-shoveling out his driveway. Some maritimers use kitty litter on their driveways so that their cars can get some traction. It was gross-I will leave it at that. He still has potential to serve a mission, but he is taking glacial steps to get there. He's going to get there. There's not doubt in my mind that he will progress.

I invite you to pray that you will have a missionary experience this week.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,
Elder McGuire

Elder McGuire 

This is the Doctrine of Christ

Dear Family,

Thank you for your letters. This past week was a good learning experience. The devil will always be on us hard enough before we are about to do something extraordinary. I think that's the case with my time in Cole Harbour. This place is nicknamed by other missionaries as "Cold Hearted Harbour." Even when I was getting transferred from St. Stephen to Cole Harbour I experienced great physical danger (Which granted could have been prevented had I been more cautious), and even now I have experienced intense mental and spiritual exhaustion. I will be the first to tell you that being the lowest in the mission for key indicators does not give me warm fuzzies. We have a lot of problems yet to be solved. This past week I was just so frustrated with the people, myself, my companion, the ward council, and the ward members. I was frustrated with the Lord. I had lost sight or maybe I didn't even know what is the purpose of missionary work. The purpose of missionary work is stated very simply on the first page of Preach My Gospel: "Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End.

The weather is just dandy!

Fundamental to the missionary purpose is the word 'invite.' Invitation is a request to exercise agency. My success as a missionary will never be measured by the amount of baptisms I get, the number of investigators taught with a member present, or how well I talk to people on the street. My success as a missionary will be measured by my commitment to invite others to come unto Christ. I am a success when I invite. I am a failure when I don't invite. Invitation doesn't need to be scary. It's just a request. It's not manipulation, it's just a request. When we invite others to come unto Christ we invite them to get better, to change, to improve, to repent. A lot of people in the world don't want to do that. A lot of missionaries, a lot of members, non-members, and children. But we are never failures when these people fail to act on invitation. We are a success because we invited them to come unto Christ. They are a failure if they refuse to come unto Christ.

Quote of the week ( I got out of this habit and I invited myself to be more humorous in my letters home)

*Elder McGuire to a less-active member

Elder McGuire: Can't you just record the hockey games and then watch them later? We want you to come to church

LA: Hockey season is only on one time a year. Church is always going on throughout the year.

Elder Henderson: Would Jesus want you to be watching hockey instead of going to church?

LA: No Jesus would have church at the rink if He wanted more people in Canada to go to church

See what we have to deal with? Haha, It reminded me of Dad's story about knocking on people's doors in Portugal during the world cup. Canadians are a riot when it comes to hockey.

I realized that I don't really tell you about what happens from week to week. I just write what looks like a talk about a gospel subject rather than share with you my experiences.

So this previous week we got a call from the assistants to go to the airport to pick up Elder Allard-the area seventy-because he had a regional meeting with stake presidents, temple president, and mission president. Elder Allard is a convert from Montreal and worked for FamilySearch for thirty years. He wanted to ask us questions for the afternoon on Thursday. Maybe not the best idea if you are an area authority to review the least productive area in the mission to get a feel for the missionaries working with the ward council. He grilled our area book for two hours and then talked to us about the ward council and the members: how often they give us referrals, if they've given us any less-actives to go see, etc. Elder Allard was not impressed with Cole Harbour, but he told us that we were very helpful. Not every day you get to spend the afternoon with a general authority. 

Summer goals at their finest

We are working hard and with the members. Tracting in Cole Harbour is like trying pull water with a rope up a hill. Every single door this past week was "No we are catholic, have a nice night, boys SLAM." But I am a success because I invited people to come unto Christ. We taught 8 members about the atonement and missionary work this past week. It is stated in chapter one of Preach My Gospel that as our understanding of the atonement increases so too will our desire to share the gospel. Another thing that we are committing the members to do is study from Preach My Gospel. I invite you all to study from Preach My Gospel. It is an excellent manual to study from. It is a great source for spiritual strength and is filled with study activities that will increase your faith. Its principles only work if applied. Another thing that we have committed the members to do is to bear their testimonies in this upcoming fast and testimony meeting about a missionary experience they had. I think this will make the members feel a missionary spirit in the ward. And we'll get more referrals.

I know that the gospel is true. I know it will bless everyone's life and solve any problem. I know that Jesus Christ is our Saviour and that He died so that we may live. The purpose of the gospel is to make bad men good and good men better. Don't even think for one second that you can't change, that others can't change or that the atonement only covers so much. The atonement is an infinite atonement. It is the only thing in this world that brings forth progress. Don't ever think that change is not possible. The atonement is real. I bear testimony of this.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire

We can truly command in the name Jesus

Dear Family,

Bluberry muffins!!!
(Elder McGuire FINALLY got his Christmas package last week)

What a week! The weather. An attempted shooting. Good gravy this was a crazy week. I think that sometimes it's easy to make excuses for our circumstances. We may say that really it's okay for me not to go to church because I read and pray everyday and God knows that I'm doing my best. There are no exceptions for the gospel. If you want to know how to receive answers to your questions you have to do four things: study your scriptures, pray with faith, voluntarily be obedient, and go to church. So often we sidestep these fundamental stepping stones to receiving revelation. We get offended about a doctrine in the church and resolve that we can't go to church because we don't understand the gospel. We get offended when someone asks us to repent. We can't resolve our own concerns if we aren't doing our part to receive revelation. You will be unable to understand why Joseph Smith was a prophet if you don't read the Book of Mormon. This is the Law of the Harvest. What you reap is what you sow.

In general the week was an excellent stepping stone in receiving revelation. I know that as we search the scriptures and diligently try and understand the words of the prophets that our hearts will be filled with understanding. I remember before my mission thinking there was no point in looking for answers in the scriptures because I wasn't going to like what it was going to say. Gospel understanding is not about finding some kind of missing piece or loophole to a commandment. It is understanding what we must do to align ourselves with the will of God. Sometimes we look at the answer and still don't understand-because we don't want to. We lack faith. If we lack faith there are three things that need to be happening to promote faith and then knowledge. Read the scriptures, pray, and be obedient. If you want faith do those three things. 

Found my new favorite scripture.

I was listening to President Monson's talk about a man having a purpose. After much prayer and contemplation-I devised my personal vision. This is pretty much what I worked on for most of my personal studies this week. I realized that really this mission is not about me. This time is the Lord's time. It is not my will by the Lord's. I have set some lofty goals, but I think I have a good idea of what it takes to turn my mission around. Not to say that my mission hasn't already been successful, but I know I am capable of more. I have revamped my planner to ensure that I am not stopped with obtaining my goals. I simply place a sticky note over the notes section for my initial plans and the on the actual notes section I write down my back-up plan. I used to hate back-up plans and planning in general but now I don't want to do anything without having a back-up plan. A back-up plan helps relieve a ton of stress. That way I don't have to put all I have into one plan and waste myself away. I think I'm going to have a planner for the rest of my life.

Also here's what one of my days looks like for those who were wondering

So many things in the gospel are meant to remind us. We are forgetful people. I don't know why we forget things, but I know the solution is writing things down. This is why we have the scriptures. Heavenly Father keeps a planner. The scriptures are His planner. He has prophets write His plan and then tell us all what Heavenly Father's plan is. This way we are all on the same page. I am a large fan of Preach My Gospel Ch. 8. It's going to be a great week.

The very trees obey us. Jacob 4:6

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Elder McGuire

Elder Henderson and the mission cook book

Here's what you've all been waiting for I'm sure. This is my personal vision for 2015

Exchange in Halifax with Ryan Gao the super mormon

So thrilled about the weather!

Which Way Do You Face?

Dear Family,

Thank you all for your letters. Although many of you have unique situations, circumstances and problems, the gospel of Jesus Christ will help you. One thing that I think is funny in the church-one of those false social norms of this ugly thing called the mormon club that looks like the Church of Jesus Christ-is when a missionary or any other member bears testimony to another member or non-member outside of testimony meeting. Even in dinner appointments I'm surprised when I bear my testimony about missionary work that members get uncomfortable or when I declare that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. We don't bear our testimonies to eachother enough. When was the last time you looked yourself in the eye in a mirror and told yourself that Joseph Smith was a prophet? Not many of us do that because that would be out of the ordinary. I'm worried that many of us think we are okay, that we are content, that no one needs to tell us that we need to improve. I am no excuse. Plenty times growing up, Mom being the great missionary that she is told me to improve. Wake up and pee! Maybe not the most elegant invitation, but still the spirit of inviting blessed my life. The purpose of missionary work is to invite others to come unto Christ. We can invite ourselves, our friends, our bishop, our children, our neighbour, and strangers. Others is a blanket term.

When we aren't inviting we aren't accomplishing much. This idea that all is well in Zion is false. One thing that I am starting to do in my personal studies is to ask myself really hard questions to receive revelation. Often we think we know what the problem is. Our problems are like a tree. We are a lumberjack. We may identify one problem "I am not smart enough." But is this really our problem? Asking why over and over again will get to the root of the problem and when we can't go any further it is time to start asking 'how' to fix the problem. So here was my experience. I wrote down what I thought the problem was: I can't find anyone to teach. Why? I'm not bold enough. Why? I'm afraid. Why? I don't have faith. Why? Do I not read the scriptures? Do I not pray? Do I not go to church? What is the issue here? I don't apply revelation or the scriptures or PMG. Why? I don't seek the will of God. Why? I seek my own. Why? I am prideful. Why? I am not humble. Why? And this is about as far as I've gotten. Thus is the reason for the title of this letter. We cannot serve two masters. I will be applying PMG in more aspects of my life. To be humble means to seek the will of the Lord over one's own. It means to listen to the prophet and apply his counsel. Elder Ballard said to write down a date-a deadline. So this means that by February 28th-someone will enter into the waters of baptism.

I encourage you to write down where you think it hurts. What you think the problem is. I promise that as you do you will get to the root of the problem. Then start cutting at the root. The whole tree will come down as you solve the root of the problem. It won't if you start hacking at the branches. Your problem will still be there. Make sure what you think the problem is is actually the problem.

I am too much of the Relief Society President or Elders Quorum President. By this I mean that we shoveled out most of the ward this past week with the amount of snowfall we had. Shoveling for a whole day is not a good idea. We then also moved one family in the ward. It's important to serve the members but we shouldn't replace the efforts of other members and family. After being physically spent we ended up with no non-members talked to and none of the members we served had any referrals for us. I just need to stop saying yes to people and focus on the task at hand. Not that service isn't important. The most important duty is to preach the gospel. We aren't going to lift someone out of the slums. We are going to invite them to come unto Christ and by becoming more like Christ they will lift themselves out of the slums. I'm 18 and not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but I am learning. We haven't found anyone to teach this week and this was my lowest week in terms of key indicators. We even dropped one less-active who wasn't progressing. Real growth. Real active members is what we are going for.

Not the most exciting week, but I learnt a lot!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire 

Yes I am very lame for the lack of pics. I made some shrimp pasta and was feeling very accomplished. This is a picture of my companion during companion study

And He Shall Come into the World to Redeem His People

Richard McGuire

Dear Family,

Thank you for all of your prayers. Prayer is such a crucial element to obtaining the Spirit and the Spirit is the most important element in the Work of Salvation. Serving in Cole Harbour has its blessings and its challenges. We were able to clean the temple this morning and I got to work in the Celestial room cleaning the mirrors and polishing the lamps. The temple is the House of the Lord. My new companion, Elder Henderson got to escort one of his converts, Xi Gao for his endowments and I did two family names. I want to get to that point to where I get to sit in the celestial room with one of my converts. Such a goal. It's interesting, in Cole Harbour with the temple being around you would think that there would be a ton of members and it would be like New Utah and everyone be eating carrots in jello or whatever. However, this is still Nova Scotia. Not everyone is a member and in fact a lot of the people we meet have read some anti-mormon information about the temple and they have a large Spirit of contention with them. These things are spiritual. They just are. I can't convince anyone that there is a God, that the church has been restored, and that families can be together forever. I can only share with them what I know because I have prayed and fasted.

Do you ever wonder why there is a lot of anti-mormon information? Whenever we sin we sin. What keeps us in sin? Pride. I invite you to look up Beware of Pride by President Benson. Say we make some mistakes at work, or with money, or with other people. The church tells us that we must repent, make retribution, and change to become more like our Saviour. How many people actually want to do that. When people are in sin they either do two things: repent or look for information that will disprove the church. Such searching for a way to get out of eating healthy, get out of going to the temple, get out of not looking at pornography, get out of paying tithing, being kind to their spouse, spending time with their children, or anything else, mocks the atonement. Whenever we even think about taking a different stance on anything that is not in harmony with the church we mock the atonement. Christ descended above everything so that we could live again. When we look for fault in the church it is because we do not want to repent of something.

This week was an excellent week. Our investigator Lana, loves the Book of Mormon. She is willing to be exactly obedient and follow Jesus Christ. She even messaged us over Facebook "Are we allowed to eat chocolate?" "Yes Lana we are allowed to eat chocolate." She was reading about Lehi's family going out into the wilderness and she thought that she needed to go out into the wilderness. Not the brightest idea when we are in the middle of a Canadian winter, but I just love her willingness to repent and be baptized. She is going through a very difficult situation with her boyfriend and three kids. This is somewhat sad news, but she actually lives just outside of Cole Harbour in Dartmouth so we passed her off to the Dartmouth missionaries. So now we are still in need of finding new investigators. Will you all continue to pray for her? She is very exited to get baptized. I think it is better this way because the Dartmouth sister missionaries have been really struggling with even being missionaries and this will increase their confidence because Lana is very prepared.

I am looking forward to this upcoming zone conference. It's great to be a zone leader and have a better idea of what you are doing. Last transfer I was all over the place being in contact with every zone member rather than just working on my relationship with the district leaders. I have resolved that if I get into the mindset that I am the district leader of the district leaders then things will flow more smoothly and I'll be less-stressed. Reporting numbers was a gong show last night. We have three new district leaders and they just didn't get the memo that they needed to collect key indicators and evaluate their districts. After several phone calls and being on the phone with President Leavitt until 1 in the morning we finally got all of the standards in. We have also created some Facebook groups to promote communication between the district leaders and us.

Communication and thought is what will assist Heavenly Father move the work forward. Had some great revelation concerning chapter 8 of Preach My Gospel. We have to seriously consider the spiritual progression of others. What will help them progress, make a plan and then do it. Too many missionaries knock doors for 9 hours a day. There is a higher law. After each visit we write in the area book or member book about the visit. We write down "What did we learn, how did we feel? What's the plan?" Then transferring this information to the planner and doing some meaningful work. We visited with some less-actives last night. I won't go in to too many details, but we resolved that they want to come back, but they don't have the Spirit and they have had some bad experiences with elders in the past. So what's the plan? The plan is to follow up with them over Facebook in one week regarding their family history work and to also write them a thank you card. Then we will write down what happens in the area book and continue to see what we can do to help them.

So many ward councils fail to solve problems. They just go around and ask eachother if they have anything. No no no no no no! Talk about less-actives and how to help them, talk about recent-converts and how to help them, talk about potential members of the church and how to invite them to learn more about the restored gospel. The last thing that needs to be happening in a ward council meeting is talking about activities. Plans need to be made to determine how to help people. People fall away because others fail to love them.

I love you all

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Elder McGuire 

Elder Corbett packing up and leaving 

There is a Scottish/Irish store in Halifax which is pretty great

It's Elder Henderson from Idaho! He has 6 weeks left

Sorry for the lack of pictures. It's difficult to take pictures when I'll get frostbite if my hands are out of my gloves for too long

I got my Christmas package. Christmas in February! I've got a lot of oils. I've got deep blue and serenity so I think I'm good. The stocking was awesome!!!! Don't think many cats would be out and about in minus 30 weather. Unless they were bears or something. Thank you thank thank you for sending me a Christmas package. You are the best.

Love,

Elder McGuire