The Lord Has Need of Willing Men

Dear Family,

Could I just be the first one to say that your letters were exceptional this week. Thank you for telling me about your families and what you've been up to. You all look so happy. The family love that I can see motivates me in a way that nothing else seems to. You show the model for what I am trying to make happen in the lives of those whom we are working with. So keep up the great work. The Family is of God. Our Heavenly Father has a family therefore it just makes sense for us to have a family. God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be. Salvation is a family affair and you all are headed in the right direction.

This past week was one of the most successful weeks I've ever had on my mission. It has come down to using time wisely. If we have goals and plans then we will naturally just get what the Lord wants us to do done. I had a large revelation this past week or maybe it was confirming revelation. I can't remember what I have told people from time to time. Anyways, I realized something significant this week. People are usually home between the hours of 3 and 9. This means that I have to be out on the streets at least by 3 to do traditional contacting and proselyting. Now comes the question in my mind, what do I do from the hours of 10 to 3? I have to be making phone calls and gathering information about specific less-actives and former investigators that I want to teach this week. This past week was the first time I tried out this method that came to me as I was studying from chapter 8 of Preach My Gospel. We had an amazing week.

One thing that I've been developing is something I've termed a 'contact run.' It really helps me figure out the city and I'm able to kill two birds with one stone. We pick a point A to start with. Maybe a member we have a dinner appointment with or a less-active lesson. Then we select a point B that's in the same area but far enough away that we can hit other former investigators and less-actives on the way there. This has proved very beneficial. We are street contacting in between stop-by visits and the results are astounding. We taught seven less-active members this way where in the past I would only see two less-actives and only if I had an appointment with them.

The streets of Lunenburg. Gorgeous place

In terms of our less-active work, we have got some great members that are making some progress. I won't tell you their names because they are dealing with some addictions but it's amazing to watch the atonement work in their lives. I'll tell you about Jerry though that isn't his real name. Jerry has severe depression and has a hard time dealing with drugs and pornography. He is really turning his life around though. He's been reading and praying every day and hasn't views porn in more than a month. Incredible. Coming to church is still a challenge for him because he doesn't have a ride, but in our lesson talking about faith and Ether 12 the Spirit was just so strong. He gave us a few referrals even though they didn't work out. Jerry is coming back slowly but steadily. It's amazing to watch it all happen.

Another less-active that we are working with whom we'll call Susan really opened up with us this past week. She brought up every concern under the sun about the church. From tattoos to gay marriage to the temple to Christ actually existing. In the past it was just an awkward lesson where we would follow-up about her reading or praying and trying to find out why she wasn't doing that. She has about 6 main concerns and we are taking on one concern per week. The Lord has commanded that we seek learning by study and by faith. I've printed off a lot of material frommormonsandgays.org and we're going back this Thursday for dinner. Less-active work is missionary work. Things are taking a turn for the better.

LaHave River

We've also been visiting lot of members either through dinner appointments or stopping by on a contact run. The way the members reacted in Cole Harbour to referral asking made me stop asking because my relationship with some of the members would have been hindered. Can't believe asking for someone to try would offend someone but apparently it just does. For the most part the members we asked really took it seriously and gave us great people to contact. We got eight names to contact and out of all of them one man told us to come back. His name is Horst and he is from Germany. Straight up German. We could hardly understand each other but we are going back to teach him on Tuesday. I found a copy of Das Buch Mormon in the library that we're going to give to him. 

Another large success this past week was reserving names to take to the temple. We only did about three hours of Family History work but I found eleven people in need of ordinances. Seriously you all could go on familysearch.org right now and probably find some. After an hour of doing record hints I found five. It was a great week for family history work. You would be proud of me Lindsay. I love taking the time to find the information. Take the cover off your hatchets!!

All in all it was a very good week for the work of salvation. Our investigator on date to be baptized has fallen off the face of the earth but other than that I had a great week. Thank you all for your prayers. I am learning so much from being on a mission. I still need to work on my patience but I am coming along. The atonement is real. The truth is on the earth once more.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

The people were mean but the cat was nice. Always can count on the cats

Love,

 Elder McGuire

Arise O God and Shine

Dear Family,

It was so great to you all on Skype yesterday. Or at least you on the phone through the Skype. I thought that was pretty funny. Thank you all for being there for the call. It means a lot to me to hear from you all each week and it was rewarding to have the whole family there for the call, active and in their Sunday best. Looking back on the call I wish I had more funny and spiritual stories to tell you that can only be explained through talking not typing. I'll have to prepare for the next call in December. I'm especially grateful that Mum and Grandma were there. It's great to have the two mothers that really helped me get on a mission and keep me on a mission. No calling is greater than motherhood. Only Heavenly Father's most chosen spirits are mothers because they are filled with charity from the get-go. So thank you Mum and thank you Grandma. I owe a lot to your example and your teachings. 

One of my favorite things that mum would do on Sunday mornings was put on Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It really brought the Spirit to the house in the morning while everyone got ready for church. Now when driving on my mission, I hear familiar songs that take me back to those mornings where it was Sunday. "People die in bed!" Mum would say. Or my personal favorite "It's 6:30, are you planning on going to Seminary today?" How do I respond to that question? Mum always did her best to teach her children the gospel every day. I remember that year that she had to teach seminary and she would ask for our input on her lessons. Some afternoons I remember coming home and seeing her scriptures and study journal on the table. Make no mistake, our mother has a testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Now look at all of us as her children. Would three of her daughters be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity were she not faithful? Would both of her sons have served missions were she not diligent? If you want to know of the grandest and greatest calling in the world, in the church, it's the calling of motherhood. No calling is greater. I love you Mum!

Yes we live in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere

So yes, things are heating up here in Canada. We've got about another month before it starts to snow again. I love the sunshine. I never knew how much I missed it until I didn't get to see it for half the year. One important thing Mum stressed growing up was vitamins. You don't have strength to preach the gospel if you don't have any iron or vitamin D in your system. Vitamin D comes from the sun. Maritimers love to talk about the weather. Especially this winter compared to last winter and this spring compared to last spring. I'd say that's how I start most conversations with people on the street.

Bridgewater is a great little place. In a way it reminds me a lot of St. Stephen. Small town, everyone's related to each other everyone knows the missionaries and where they live. When I was in Cole Harbour, living in Dartmouth, I would meet people that hadn't even heard of the church before. It always shocked me because there's a temple in Cole Harbour. Most of everyone walks in Bridgewater to get places so we can go street contacting fairly often next to the river. The town is split in two by the LaHave river and there are two bridges, not one, in Bridgewater. For the most part people are friendly. They don't brush us off when we go to stop them and they will really talk about anything with us so that's good. I haven't gotten a potential from street contacting in a long time and this time we found three potential investigators just by contacting people down by the river.

Elder O'Brien approves 

Like St. Stephen, we have all of these little towns that are also in our area. There used to be a branch in Liverpool about 30 minutes south of Bridgewater so we go down there about once a week to see members and talk to people on the street. There are a lot of less-active members in Liverpool that don't come to church because they are bitter their branch got shut down. It is a great place to be at. It reminds me of downtown Flagstaff where there's lots of people to talk to in the park.

This area has so much potential to really take off this summer. In our mission we like to create maps that show us where the members, less-active members, and former investigators are living. This way we can make a solid weekly plan of who to get in contact with for the week. We have about 140 former investigators which is twice the size of the formers I had to work with in Cole Harbour. It's nice too that they are fairly close together. Many of you might wonder what we do all day as missionaries. No people are not always home throughout the day or on the street until the afternoon. Out of the 9 hours in a day we have to proselyte, we spend about 7 of those hours hunting down information about people and getting an idea of how to help them. Lots of phone calls and stalking them on Facebook. Then once we start to get appointments and plans created and filled up the real work begins. Only about 10 hours in the week do we spend street contacting and knocking. I sometimes feel like a private investigator. Figuring out where people live, where they go to school, to work, how many kids do they have, where do those kids go to school, and then the same information about the members or less-actives that live around them. It's fun to learn about people and find the most effective way to serve them.

You always need a proper wall map

When I got here we found out that we didn't have the sisters area book to work from (No sisters in Bridgewater this transfer). They had a number of investigators that had consequently been dropped because sisters got transferred. Just after an hour of making calls we had appointments with most of them. We now have 8 investigators, two of them are on date to be baptized in June. It's exciting to actually be working with people that want to join the church. I felt like in Cole Harbour I was hitting my head against a brick wall most of the time. I think in a way I learned a lot about how to be a more effective missionary in Cole Harbour and now I can put those skills to the test here in Bridgewater. The members here love us. We've had a dinner appointment almost every night and the ward council is just amazing. Our ward mission leader personally goes out to each of the members and teaches them principles from The Power of Everyday Missionaries. Bridgewater is the promised land.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Gettin it done!

Elder McGuire 

I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go

Dear Family,

Let's see, where to start. Ultimately I will start with a thank you to all that wrote me this week. Especially to those that faithfully write me. I love hearing about your lives. Your experiences with the gospel. How it blesses your life. This gospel is a gospel of joy of happiness. We are to have joy. One of my favourite sayings comes from a drummer named Scott Johnson. He says that "If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong." If you feel the gospel to be a burden then you're doing it wrong. Figure it out and have joy. The prophet Nephi put it this way "Adam fell that man might be and men are that they might HAVE JOY." Before I tell you some very big news, I would like to tell you of a parable that hit me this week in a dream.

Tell that primary 9 class that they're awesome

The Parable of the Child on Christmas Morning

I remember every Christmas morning with the family. We would wake up early to get dad and mum up so that dad could go and light the tree and we could open presents. One time Jessica got up at 3 or 4 in the morning to get everyone going and Lindsay laughed at her and told her to go back to sleep. Personally from my perspective I was bummed out that we had to wait a couple more hours to open presents. So good on you Jess, you had your priorities in order. Ultimately we would get mum and dad up, dad would go and light the tree then we had to get our lavish camcorder to film all of us lined up. We've got some great pictures from over the years. Go and look at those, our parents rock. We had to line up in order from youngest to oldest and then make our way to the tree. One year, I remember getting a Rescue Heroes command centre that was also a boat. That was an awesome toy. Mum clearly recognized that I had a passion for Rescue Heroes. I played with that thing all the time. One time I remember I had to take a bath and Jess was in charge and we put the expensive command centre in the bath tub. Smooth move. Hey I thought you were an awesome baby sitter. There were other Christmases where the very routine occurred for the waking up early, lining up, and getting the camcorder charged and rolling. The only difference on occasion was my reaction to different gifts. Sometimes I loved those presents like the command centre. Other times I didn't care much for some presents and didn't use them as much or hardly at all. How sad it may have been for mum and dad or my brother and sisters to watch me not play with something. I remember one time I was upset with a gift that grandma gave me. I don't remember what it was, but I didn't play with it.

An interesting thing about all of the presents given to me is that they were free. They were bought and paid for. I didn't have to pay any of you back or get you gifts of equal value. I simply was presented the gift and had the option of playing with it. This is how our salvation works. Let me tell you all this right now. Write this down. Our salvation is bought and paid for. That was the whole purpose of the atonement. It was because of Christ that we are saved. We are saved by grace. Christ gave us the ultimate gift-salvation. Indeed we are saved because of grace, we are saved because Christ saved us. The gift of salvation is already bought and paid for. Think about that. Your salvation. You in the celestial kingdom is already paid for. It's done. Now the ultimate question you have to ask yourself is "Will I choose to play with the gift?" "Will I choose liberty and eternal life?" Our faith, our repentance, our good works, all of those times we give service to others will not save us. I will point out that that doesn't mean to sit back and say "Whelp I have been saved by grace! No use in doing anything because I've already been saved" Yes you have already been saved. We all have. To say the 'Whelp I've been saved' is like the child on Christmas morning who says "Whelp thanks, this is great" with a disappointed heart. No. The gift of the atonement is ours for the taking. Pick up the toy and play with it. It's for our benefit. It is to make us happy. 

Elder Blum and Elder Ray. Great missionaries that I've served with or around. I will certainly miss them

Now for the big news. I am being transferred to Bridgewater, Nova Scotia in an hour. I am released from training and being a zone leader. I will be a regular missionary. You all are now probably wondering "WHY!?" Well I will tell you why. Before my mission I was naturally a perfectionist and I would get depressed when my current skills were not where I felt they should be. I took counselling for this and worked through most of my problems. Now I have gotten better but I've still got a long way to go. This zone wasn't performing up to my expectation. I felt like a complete stranger when I was training the zone this past Wednesday. I just demanded too much from them. Not to say that they threw me out of leadership-they didn't. The assistants sat in on my zone training and noticed the tension. My zone has struggled for the longest time. I would say that I gave it my best effort, but ultimately I was pessimistic towards the whole situation. I had an interview with President Leavitt and we talked about my history with perfectionism. He said that I do a great job and that the zone does a great job, but I've just got to sort out my expectations for my mission. I'll be honest, I've never really thought about my actual expectations of my mission. How many people do I want to baptize. How many people will I find and teach. It's important to go for those things. The ultimate success as a missionary is not in achieving goals but focusing our time on activities that will. Now this will probably be a subject of our skype call, but bottom line. I am fine. I am not depressed or anxious. I didn't offend anyone. I just need a reboot and President Leavitt is making that happen for me.

This past week other than that was decent. We had to drop the Pasquels because they wouldn't return phone calls or keep appointments. Steven is coming along. He is somewhat soft-spoken but is still diligently reading and praying. He texts us everyday about his reading and praying. That is when the real conversion happens. Not during the appointments but in between visits. Where he can read and pray. I'll be sad to not be there when he gets baptized. He was an amazing experience and we're friends on Facebook so we'll keep in touch. 

In terms of Alex, he unfortunately dropped us. We went in to teach him more about keeping the sabbath day holy because he was doing great job with keeping commitments. However, his parents were talking with him the past week and Elder Ray and I came up and with their Baptist background they just into Alex for meeting with us. Then Alex said that we couldn't meet anymore and he can't come to church. Granted this droppage was an hour after the news that I was to be released and transferred. Needless to say we went to Dairy Queen and I like a teenage girl after a break-up ordered a large chocolate shake and drank my feelings. As mum would put it sometimes you just need a good cry. If any of you are feeling down about anything I would say do that, pick yourself back up and move on. If we could, let's not focus the majority of the skype call on these things that have happened but on other positive things. It would really help me out. I'm sure you want to know more details but let's just focus on the positive.

I love you all,

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Elder McGuire 

Another contender for the slam dunk competition. Nice Claim. Only in Preston

p.s. where is Luke going on his
mission???

Pday percussion =)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rnoi9kbkcq1ffat/MVI_4514.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i1xf7iqly3znnkb/MVI_4515.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hvzo3qx0w7gfe8k/MVI_4516.MOV?dl=0

April 27, 2015

Dear Family,

Thank you so much for your letters and for your prayers. They really do make a difference and I thank you all in particular those that make the effort to write each week. This past week was one of the most successful weeks of my mission. Especially for a transfer week where a lot of missionaries just slack off and don't even work because they are either going home, going to a new area, or being around those that are moving. Nevertheless, we worked our tails off this week with finding and teaching. If I were to compare this past transfer to my first three months in Cole Harbour I would tell you that things are certainly better than when I got here. When I got here we weren't teaching anyone, not even a less-active member. Not that it's about the numbers, but in just reviewing the numbers we are working 500% better in our finding. My first transfer here we only found one person to teach, Lana, and the same thing happened my second transfer-we found Sandy. Just an update for any of you that were wondering about those two, Lana has gone MIA and no one can get a hold of her and Sandy we dropped because she was using us for service. Only teaching two people in three months was not fun and in particular not fun as a zone leader.

Nevertheless, like the sons of Mosiah we have been blessed to find softened hearts and greater success this past transfer. In total we found five new investigators. Some we are still teaching and others we dropped (We dropped Helena and Michael because they aren't willing to make commitments they're just really nice). Now we are teaching Alex who is progressing greatly and Steven is just on fire. This whole time in Cole Harbour has been a period of testing. A test of my faith and a test of my physical strength. I knew that when I was being transferred from St. Stephen to Cole Harbour that the devil didn't want me to make it. He caused me (Well it could have been a joint effort) to spin off the road twice in a freezing snow storm. I think of Joseph Smith being attacked by Satan before Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him to usher in the Restoration. In the end, Cole Harbour is stronger than when I found it. It has been so hard and it continues to be hard, but I believe that we have come very far. Key indicator wise we did 100% better than the previous two transfers this transfer. I think now is the time to really make my mark here in Cole Harbour. Thank you so much for your prayers and for your love. This has been a group effort so I'm very grateful for you.

This previous week was amazing. Just a good quality, hit the streets, find, teach and baptize focused week. After Preparation Day concluded last week, Elder Ray and I went tracting on Elm st. We said a prayer to find someone, grabbed a Book of Mormon and made our way through the street. Like most tracting experiences in Cole Harbour we faced a lot of straight rejection, lots of nice people, and lots of interesting people. We had been at it for about an hour when finally we knocked on one door. I hate to tell you this story because usually I'm an advocate for working with the members over everything but there is something about finding solid people by yourself that every missionary wants. This doesn't mean that you can think that missionary work is just up to the missionaries to do and that this happens all the time. Nevertheless, we knocked on this door and this sweet Filipino family opened up the door, saw our name tags and invited us in. They grabbed two chairs for us and gathered all of the children in the house to listen. 

I for one was blown away at how fast the whole thing happened. I didn't say much in the contact. I wasn't persuasive or convincing or asking questions that would enable me to find an interest level. I just contacted. We taught the Pasquels a short lesson about the Book of Mormon and they invited us back for Friday. Carmil, the wife, said the closing prayer and took our copy of the Book of Mormon. Elder Ray and I left and we could not understand what happened. The first thing that came to my mind was "ARE YOU FLIPPING KIDDING ME IT IS THIS EASY IN THE PHILIPPINES TO FIND FAMILIES TO TEACH?!?!?!?!?!" And then Elder Ray and I said a prayer of gratitude to Heavenly Father. Now, I'm sure it's not that easy in the Philippines, but I was just amazed at how simple the whole situation happened. Definitely a blessing from having a brother that served there. So yes, we found a fantastic family from the Philippines that lives in Cole Harbour. The Pasquels are awesome.

Another great thing that happened this past week was we taught Steven twice. He is committed to reading the Book of Mormon with us this whole transfer so he's doing the 12 pages a day. Believe me, we tried for putting him on date again, but he doesn't know if he'll stay in Nova Scotia if he doesn't have sufficient YSA friends. He really just needs friends here and he'll stay and join the church. Not a significant hurdle to overcome but trying to get YSA in Cole Harbour to his lessons when all of them are writing exams is like pulling teeth. We had a great lesson talking about the tree of life and reading the scriptures. I realized that my teaching could really improve. I have gotten so used to contacting people and teaching in a way that is trying to find out if people are actually interested that I don't know how to teach someone that is actually interested. You would think that it would be easier, but for some reason it's not.

Alex is really progressing as well. We taught him on Saturday about the Plan of Salvation. He's the type of person that I know how to teach not that he isn't interested but that he just lacks a lot of spiritual understanding so I have to teach very simply. I've realized that applying the points in "Teaching People without a Christian Background" in Preach My Gospel is actually very useful because although many people say that they are catholic, they don't actually understand who God and Jesus Christ are and why they are important. I couldn't really reason with Alex's Catholic background, but he is always so willing to make commitments to read. At the end we invited him to pray and HE PRAYED! It was a great prayer and slowly but slowly he is progressing. Another exciting thing was that he came to church! I wish that the members would have gone up to him and greeted him more proactively, but he loved church. It was a special area broadcast for the North America North East Area. Great broadcast. Elder Andersen and Elder Hales spoke along with Sister Reeves. Just classic talks about repentance and missionary work. They also did a brief slideshow of some of the converts in our area. They didn't really mention the Canadian parts of the area, but it was great to hear some of the stories about the saints in New England.

I invite you all to read the Book of Mormon with me. 12 pages a day for 6 weeks.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire 

Cease to Be Idle

Dear Family,

This past week was a great week. Every time I get to P-Day I think, where did the week even go? As a young missionary you just think like it's going to be hard all of the time and it's going to be so long and difficult. Two years on your feet preaching the gospel all day. We got transfer letters yesterday. I will be remaining in Cole Harbour with Elder Ray to complete his training. This is the longest I will have ever been in an area and it's unique because I'll skype home from the exact same spot I did five months ago. Can you believe that I've almost been out a year? I can't. In the gospel reference manual 'True to the Faith.' We read a great section about agency.

Elder Ray gearing up for another transfer with his favourite trainer in Cole Harbour :D

Really you and I have to make a choice. We have a choice to choose eternal life. It's literally up to us to choose if we are going to be with Heavenly Father forever. Have we made that choice? Do our daily choices reflect our choice to live with God forever? There is an interesting balance between faith and works, justice and mercy, grace and effort, in the scriptures. Our works reflect our faith. The mercy we are given is a just amount of mercy. We obtain grace after all we can do. True to the Faith states that we are to not idle away our time, that we should cease to be idle. We should not blame others for difficult circumstances or make excuses for lack of progress in our own lives. It is said that our greatest hindrance to whom we will betomorrow is our perception of who we were yesterday. We literally get to decide our fate. Our fate is not determined by Heavenly Father (although He has created a perfect plan for eternal happiness) nor is it determined by the devil. Our fate is not determined by our family situation whether good or bad nor is it decided by how many church callings we have or if we serve as a bishop or Relief Society President. No, we get to choose if we live with God forever. We are able to make this choice because our Heavenly Father gave us a will. Interesting enough everything in the entire universe is God's except for one thing. Our will. The scriptures illustrate this point clearly. 

 the snow is melting!!!!

Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life... 2 Nephi 2:27

This previous week we continued to follow through with our goals and plans. It was a great week of contacting people. One would assume that if you talked to over 300 people that at least one would be a potential investigator. Not the case. I'm usually capable of facing rejection even lots of it one after the other, but this week just seemed different. I think I really know why I'm in the Maritimes. It's giving me a taste of how my Heavenly Father feels about me. Explaining everything so clearly and then just dumbfounded when people still lack understanding. We found a great new place to street contact in Eastern Passage. Eastern Passage is kind of like a quasi-California beech town. It has a boardwalk with all of these little shops and loads of people are out walking on the boardwalk. Contacting there is like contacting in downtown Halifax. Hundreds of people all over the place. We talked to about 60 people in half an hour. So much straight rejection I was getting pretty depressed that no one would even stop for a gospel conversation much less a normal conversation.

One of the final contacts I had a weaker moment. Most of the contacts with baptists and born-again Christians around here don't go that well to begin with, but I was out of patience with these people. It is so difficult to keep my head level and be patient when it's like I'm the mayor of rejectionville, Nova Scotia. This man was going off about not having to go to church to keep the sabbath day holy and grace and a bunch of anti that he had read about the Book of Mormon to where finally I just lost it with the guy. In a fit of anger I threw every scripture I knew at him from the bible. Ripping apart every concept he had about prophets, priesthood, and works and faith. For those of you keeping score, trying to prove every bit of LDS doctrine using the bible is not what Christ would do. The bible is more of a battleground than common ground. Yes I had taught this man the scriptures (One of my zingers "I can't believe I have to tell you to read your own book!"), but I had done it with the wrong intentions. I'm not proud of that contact. Satisfying my pride and yelling at this guy wasn't what Christ would have done. I should have just testified of the Book of Mormon and walked away. Need to work on my patience.

We found two new investigators this past week. Helena and Michael are a mother and son that we found while knocking. It blows my mind how people are found by knocking. It is so ineffective and yet it still produces people to teach. Helena is a little bit harder to teach than Michael. She's very nice, but very catholic. She fed us a whole meal that was amazing. Michael is her 12 year old son who is very willing to learn and read the Book of Mormon. Helena likes to learn but I'm really sure her whole intent level with meeting with us. She does keep commitments and so does Michael but teaching her just feels strange. Michael is awesome. He told me that he wants to be a missionary when he grows up. Getting people to come to church is like pulling teeth.

Sadly Steven was very sick and couldn't meet this past week and couldn't go to church and Alex was slammed with exams to write so we couldn't meet with either of them. I do think our finding could still improve. We have consistently found new people each week this transfer, but they aren't the most solid. I think now we can focus on finding more solid people like Steven. We do have a pretty sound weekly plan that should produce people to teach. I really have to thank my mission for teaching me how to plan. I had no idea how to plan before my mission and I think I am just learning how to do it now. I wish you all knew how amazing our church organization is. I love being a missionary and being enveloped in the gospel. Just the way lds.org runs amazes me. How people can send in their information for missionaries to track them down and then we get directions on how to get there sent to us. Our church is not only amazing it is true.

This is Dave. I don't think I even mentioned him in the past, but he was taught in Cole Harbour when I first got here. The sisters had taught him a little bit and we were trading off appointments with him. He wasn't really going anywhere when we were teaching him, but he moved in to Dartmouth and things really picked up for him. Yes we do baptize people in the CHM

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!!

Love,

Elder McGuire

p.s. Ask Bishop Fisher the areas where he's served. I've always wondered where he has been

An Effective Advocate and Messenger of the Truth

Dear Family,

Two things: Goals, plans. That is how baptisms are obtained. This past week was an amazing week. I think the best way someone could prepare for a mission is to learn how to plan to achieve a goal. It's not enough to write down a goal and hope that it will happen. The plans are where the rubber meets to road. Goals and plans are of divine nature. Our Heavenly Father has a goal and he has a plan. His goal is found in Moses 1:39. He desires that all of His children receive eternal life and immortality. What a goal. His plan to achieve this goal is called the Plan of Happiness. If we desire to achieve anything in life, whether it be in work, church, repentance, or our hobbies, we ought to have a meaningful goal that will make a difference and a sound plan.

President Leavitt hammered us during MLC considering the gold and silver standards-what is expected key indicator wise from President Leavitt each week. He has trained extensively on using the area book, the wall maps, the member book, and our planners to achieve the gold and silver standards. To be honest I am the only leader in the whole mission that hasn't hit the standard ever. That's not something to be proud of. After some serious pondering and studying and training, this past week we had a sound plan that actually helped us achieve our goals. The result-we were one on-date investigator from reaching the silver standard. I don't thing many of you know how big this is because this is huge. Reaching it every week I am still getting there, but we were so close this week. Ridiculously close.

In MLC President Leavitt trained about weekly planning. If we want to achieve something we have to have a plan. We can't just go out and say "Well Lord bless me with achieving my goals." It doesn't work that way. The Lord is logical. He has a plan, he remembers his plan, and he follows his plan. President Leavitt gave the training that the key indicator goals we have must only be 20% of the names we actually must have to achieve our goals. This meant that the standard for each companionship for finding new investigators each week is 2. To be honest, I have been in Cole Harbour for 4 months and I have only taught about 5 people. That is certainly not 2 new people a week. So we wrote down ten people who we thought had potential to become new investigators.

From that point, Elder Ray and I went to our wall map and identified the former investigators around these selected individuals and we wrote them down to follow-up on. We also identified the less-active members to follow up on and the active members to follow-up on. This ensured that if we had appointments around the people that could potentially become new investigators that we could save time by being in the same area. With this large list of people to follow up on we knew that if we didn't have more names to work on we would never achieve our goals. 

We began to whittle down the list until we found those who would become new investigators. The first man we had identified to become a new investigator was Dustin who wanted to change his life and get off drugs. We had an appointment set up and everything with a member coming, but unfortunately Dustin backed out right before we got there because he doesn't like the church's stance on gay marriage. So close. Not to worry, we had 9 other people that could potentially investigate the church. The next two people was Richard and Madhu-referrals from a less-active couple we are working on reactivating to get sealed. Sadly Richard only wanted to bash, but hey we got in the door and testified about the Book of Mormon. Now we had 7 people left to follow-up on. The next one was Mark. Mark was about to be baptized 3 years ago but backed out at the last minute. We phoned him and set up an appointment. Had a member coming. Unfortunately his parents called us very upset that we were coming by. His baptist mum and dad totally ripped into us and the church. That was not a fun phone call. It seemed like all of our potential investigators were falling through and there was no way that we were going to get one new investigator or even two new investigators.

We continued contacting the rest of the people on our list. After some member visits and less-active lessons we had eventually gotten through some more names who weren't interested. We only had three people left to follow-up on and it was Saturday afternoon. They weren't picking up the phone (so they are still on our list right now to track down) and we were feeling discouraged especially after the phone call from Mark's parents. We decided to take a break for the night and do some tracting. After talking to about 40 uninterested people we had an hour left in the night and so we did some updating in the area book.

Then come Sunday I knew we hadn't found anyone and we had followed up on even more formers around those whom we thought would investigate. Feeling pretty depressed the night before I couldn't sleep and just sat there at my desk crying. I had no clue how we were going to accomplish the simple silver standard that President Leavitt had said only 5 days earlier that it was the easiest thing to accomplish. It's the strangest thing on a mission. You are so stressed out all the time and you talk to a lot of angry people each day that you just get used to it.

In tears, I got on my knees and was so upset with my Heavenly Father. That he had put me in a cold and boring place where the people's hearts were so hard. The same feelings before my mission about feeling inadequate because of my call began to creep in and I felt as though I understood nothing about God, His gospel, or even the atonement. I expressed that I knew nothing of how works and grace or mercy and justice even worked and that it was impossible for me to find anyone. Nothing is more frustrating than obeying a commandment (this training on planning) and not seeing blessings. But that's not how God works. After an angry prayer I went to bed. We keep God's commandments because we love him. Certainly blessings can and do come. God is logical.

No worries. Canada in April. Spring is not as bad as winter I will say that much

After a pretty depressing Sunday we had three hours left in the week and I felt like God had abandoned Cole Harbour. I could deal in the previous weeks not finding anyone to teach and just getting used to it. But this time was different. I had followed training as best as I could. I had seen success (Appointments and getting into doors). But we were still short. We were a new investigator, a member present lesson, an investigator at church, and an on-date investigator away from hitting "the easiest standard of them all." I knew I had failed. I had done my very best and had fallen short. 

We are all like this. We strive to do our best. Even when we have done our absolute best, we fall short. How is this even fair? Why keep the commandments at all if the world and the devil are just going to throw them back at our face? 

We had one more appointment that night with a less-active sister and I felt that I couldn't make an impact in anyone's life. The beautiful thing about the atonement is that it makes up for the rest of our efforts. You will fall short. You will feel as though you have failed. You may feel like you don't even have a testimony that this is just all made up by people that want to govern our lives because that's the nature of people.

Grace is the greatest blessing the atonement granted for us. I had done all I could. We do all we can. Then grace comes into our lives and we wonder why we had even doubted in the first place.

I saw the hand of God last night with one hour to go before the proselyting week ended. In our lesson with this less-active sister, her cousin from Labrador had just moved in to stay with her family. Steven is from the North Shore of Labrador close to Greenland. He came downstairs to listen to our lesson and then relayed the greatest miracle I have ever heard. Steven went to the YSA branch that Sunday morning. He had loved every second of it and he said he wants to be a member. He began reading the first book of Nephi all afternoon and was so happy to see us when we stopped by. We taught Steven with this less-active sister there. He wants to meet three times a week and he wants to join. The only reason why he wasn't put on date was because he doesn't know if he'll get called back to Labrador and if he does there would be no point to being a member out there (There's only 4 members in Labrador and 3 of them need to be excommunicated). But Steven is the real deal. Prepared by the Lord.

I know that the atonement and grace are real.

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire

Our apartment has a pool table! This was last P day

 

His Grace is Sufficient

Dear Family,

I am so pleased that you all enjoyed conference. Conference is like the Super Bowl for missionaries. This particular conference was very well done. I particularly enjoyed President Uchtdorf's talk about grace. That shattered my entire ideas about grace and repentance and obedience. So powerful. I have misinterpreted that scripture for years. After does not mean because. That statement brought tears to my eyes. We don't earn our way into heaven. We become converted in this life and perfected in the next. I don't really have too many thoughts about grace because I realize that I don't entirely understand that yet so I'll be studying that this week. I really liked Sister Burton's talk as well. I don't know about you, but her tone was just very powerful and commanding. Not that I don't enjoy a good talk by Sister Esplin, but Sister Burton laid it down. I don't usually watch or read from the women's session, but I wanted to start reading more of Sister Burton's talks. Conference is such a special time for the church. We hear all of these great talks and then we go home and keep doing what we've always been doing. How can we do that?

Conference is not some movie or distraction from our regular activities. If you were an accountant and you went to a workshop on how to be a better accountant wouldn't you apply what you learned in the work shop? I think too often it is said in prayers "Please bless us that we'll be able to take what we learned and apply it to our daily lives." The question is "How?" How are you going to apply Elder Nielson's talk about rescuing less-active members or Elder Holland's talk about the atonement and the fall? The bridge between theory and reality is goals. Elder Nielson tells us to go after less-active members. What could be a goal for us to accomplish that? A goal involves a number and a deadline. This isn't some business thing, but President Monson said that when performance is measured performance improves. Our goals have to be geared towards making a difference as President Uchtdorf put it. We could say that we want to rescue 2 less-active members by August 1st, 2015. Elder Nielson has given us instructions on how that is to be accomplished. The bridge between theory and reality is goals, plans, and holding ourselves accountable. I promise that as you prayerfully ponder a conference talk and set a real goal then you will make a difference and come closer to your Saviour.

Quote of the week:

*Contacting a referral (The member didn't know the exact address so he gave us the street to knock and we had to knock a few houses before finding these people)

Elder McGuire: Hey how are you doing today?

Contact: What's up?

Elder McGuire: We're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Have you heard about that church before?

Contact: Yes, give me your address

*Elder Ray takes out a pass-along card and starts to write the address of the church on it

Contact: No I mean where you live

Elder McGuire (Joking): Well we live in Dartmouth, and I guess you could come over but we don't have too many chairs and we're making Kraft Dinner.

Contact (Unimpressed): I don't come knocking on your door and you shouldn't come knocking on mine! Please don't come back!

So where do we go from here?

I need to work on my jokes. Most of my stories are tracting stories, but hey they are good tracting stories. We had a decent week. I'm a little frustrated with the zone, but things theoretically should improve. I went old school last night and collected district totals for key indicators and talked with the district leaders about what they'll be training on in district meeting. The zone only found one new investigator this past week. I can't really blame them because I didn't find anyone to teach this past week. I think it really just comes down to planning it out how we are going to get one.

I like the metro of Halifax because it forces me to do real work. In southern New Brunswick where I could find a lot of flaky people to teach I really wasn't learning anything. How to actually accomplish real work. We had an excellent leadership meeting about finding people to teach. President Leavitt is a genius when it comes to planning. He has devised this system where we have all of the members, less-actives, and formers on a large map of our area. Say when we have a dinner appointment or when we get a referral we just check the surrounding dots around that area and we are able to visit more people that we are supposed to each day. It really helps reduce travel time and we're able to speak with more people when we focus on just one area of Cole Harbour. Not driving all over the place looking for certain formers or less-actives. President Leavitt said that the head trainer for the missionary department said that chapter 8 of Preach My Gospel is the most important chapter out of the whole book. In the point 10 of weekly planning we are supposed to be setting goals and making plans to find people to teach. This includes identifying people with potential to actually investigate. Then we work around that area where that person lives so that we reduce travel time. You would be amazed how effective President Leavitt's system works. In the past I would look for all of these less-actives that needed information or a particular former I may have called and left a message for. Anyways, I was wasting a lot of time. 

For example on Thursday night in two hours we contacted three less-actives, one member of the ward council, a part-member family that wants to feed us, and a former that wants to join the church but is facing a lot of opposition from her family. In addition to that we spoke with about 50 people for that day. Super effective. We have also gone through the ward and divided the members according to who would be better to work with them-elders or sisters. This ensures that all of our member records are up to date and we aren't wasting time copying records that we don't need. My next plan is to swap area books with the sisters and put eachother's formers on our maps so that we see even more people to visit. Similar to how we have split things up with the members. It's not like I'm not trying to find people to teach. I just don't think I did it in an effective way.

Yes, I can give myself a haircut

I have also noticed that university students are way more open to meeting with missionaries. The key was to find when and where all of the students from Dalhousie were in Cole Harbour. Unfortunately we don't have a university in Cole Harbour, but we found that Cole Harbour Road is very busy between the hours of 4 to 6 because that's when all of the students are getting off the bus from Halifax and walking back to their apartments in Cole Harbour. I'm still determining effective uses for time in the early morning. Street contacting is decent at 10am but the other hours are a little slow. We were blessed this past week to receive 5 member referrals. One family that we were referred to was an east indian family that we contacted in between sessions yesterday. I love people from that part of the world. They just want to know all about your family and if you have food to eat. Richard and Madhu are actually from Bangladesh and they have been searching. They invited us right in. I was blown away. This was maybe the second time I have ever gotten in to a door on my mission. We are going back tomorrow to pick them up as new investigators. Elder Ray and I decided to fast for new investigators. I wanted to fast until we got one but I couldn't physically do it. Nevertheless, we were blessed with Richard and Madhu.

Go to the temple!

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

Love,

Elder McGuire