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Tuesday, September 30, 2014

We Survived Another Week!!

Dear Family,

Well its business as usual this week and there is never enough time to write but here goes!!

This week we were running running running everywhere. We managed to make it to everywhere in the zone in just two days! we did 6 baptismal interviews for other elders and we had 6 of our own to do. With splits thrown in the mix and the power going on and off constantly it was a challnege just to see straight but we made it! Especially since weve seen it all with Alacrity!

On Wednesday we went out to the other districts district meeting again and the instruction was great. We read Moroni 10:32 and i absolutely love that scripture! if we connect it to Ether 12:27 and 2 Corinthians 12:9 we can learn a lot about how the lord perfects his children and about how we can follow his will. it has helped me a lot this week.

Saturday was our baptism and we felt like everything was going well. but when people started showing up we were short 3 candidates....half of the family we had intended to baptize didnt show up! they had all gone to farm and lost track of time and the mom just didnt come for no reason at all. Despite this set back we felt it important to still baptize the the two that did come. out of the family they have been coming the longest and they were the most prepared to begin with. so we proceeded with the baptism and it was all great!

Immediately following the baptism we had a "new members night" for all of the members who have been in the church for the last 2 years. it was great we watched the restoration and got to discuss about it and any other concerns that they had. A lot of people just ended up sharing their testimonies of the church and the spirit was so strong! After the meeting ended we were walking out of the church when the power went out and then we saw this bright flashing light on the horizon it flashed for quite a while then stopped. a transformer station had blown up in a town about 30 minutes away. man it lit up the entire sky!!! i talked to the missionaries who proselyte there and they said that when it happened people started praying and "repenting" in the streets! they thought it was the second coming! haha others started running to the ocean (idk why??) but he said people were just freaking out! we all got a kick out of that though. there ought to be some sort of missionary opportunity that can come from that huh?;) hahaha

Sunday was a great day with Confirmations of our candidates and 2 of them also Received the priesthood. because of the blown power station we figured the power could be out for about 2 to 3 weeks so we all went to the ivies to charge our battery lights and our phones (they have a generator). While we were there the power came back! hahah we were happy. then we got to our house and the power was stil out over there. but now were pretty sure its back so we are lucky.

thats all i got and my time is out but i hope you all continue to have a great time at home! enjoy conference!!!!! i love you all!!!

love,
Elder McGuire

Thursday, September 25, 2014

What a Week!

Dear Family,

Alacrity sounds great!!! im going to do the same thing this week and
apply it to everything! when the power goes out......when no one
speaks english.......when the water goes out......when investigators
struggle.....when investigators progress......when im on the toilet
for 2 hours because of the meal somebody fed me 3 days ago.....all of
it!!! hahaha

Grandmas recovery sounds great and i hope it continues to go well. i
fasted for her and all of you on sunday. its a bummer to hear about
preston but im glad he is taking it like a trooper. hes got quite the
support system of parker.The missionary opportunities with the cub
scout boys sounds great! i hope things go well with that. I cant
believe we have 5 teenaged girls living next door now! i guess ill
never see kait when i come home hahahaha. just kidding. The mountains
also sound amazing!!! i hope you took pictures!!!!

The missionary life in Ghana never gets dull and new things happen
every week. One of those fun new things was on tuesday. We came to our
chapel to have District meeting and when we got there we noticed a
funny smell. when we went inside we realize the place had been
fumigated for mosquitos so we couldnt stay inside. so we had district
meeting on the lawn! it was fun and hot.

Another new thing happened this week that i enjoyed immensely. We get
non citizen resident cards here that have to get renewed once a year.
the whole missions just expired this month so we had to renew them.
The only place inside the mission that had a place to renew them was 4
hours away. but accra is only 2 hours away......so we got to leave the
mission and go to accra to renew ours!!! it was sweet because the
place was right next to the area office and the temple. so we got to
walk on the temple grounds and stand in the shadow of the lords house.
Even though we didnt get to enter it was great just to feel the spirit
there and to be on holy ground. It took the whole day wednesday and
even though we lost on proseltying time it was well worth the trip.

On thursday we were going to visit an investigator in nearby village
and while we were walking there it started pouring rain!! not just
sprinkling it was shower head rain!!! with no houses on the left and
non on the right all we could do is keep on walking (with Alacrity)
and we got soaked!!!! i felt like i had broken the rules and jumped
into a swimming poool!!! thats about how wet i was hahaha. but it was
okay. thanks to the African sun we were bone dry by the time we got
home hahaha. And the lesson we had was well worth the walk. It was to
see a young man named Kwesi. He doesnt have much but he loves the
church and the gospel. We are preparing him for baptism this weekend
and we are excited for him.

We are also preparing a Family The Teteh Family. with the mom dad and
5 kids 3 of which are baptism age we are sizing up for an incredible
weekend. Ive never worked with an entire family before and i have to
say it truly is amazing!!!! they have struggled for quite some time
but finally they are prepared and we are so happy to be a part of
their progression. They have had to make a lot of sacrifices to be
where they are now and they are just awesome!! so needless to say we
are excited for this weekend.

Fred continues to do great and this week he was called to be the
Secretary in the Young Mens Presidency! we also had an activity at his
house yesterday where we roasted 2 cats!!!(we got 'boared' with pigs
hahaha) but yeah he is doing great and helps us everyday in
proselyting.

Those are the highlights of the week! i hope i got them all! i hope
you all are still having fun and doing great!!! i love you!!!

Love, Bradley

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Good Week!!!!

Dear Family,

Im glad to hear that grandma is doing okay and i hope and pray that her surgery goes well today. im praying for her! im glad to here that everyone is doing well and that you are all happy. like i said before, it does a missionary some good to know that even if it seems everything is challneging out here at least at home things are going well. im excited that all of you guys got to see sharlee!! needless to say i was excited to read all the emails today about everything that is happening with her. thanks for helping me out;)

Things out here are great and crazy as ever! this week we were traveling a lot for meetings and we were just kinda all over the place. Elder Curtis of the Seventy and our Area President came and did a mission tour this week and it was great! on Wednesday we had Missionary leadership Council and on thursday we did a zone Conference and in both cases we were instructed by him and it was great. In his main message he instructed us on Alma Chapter 5 which was right on the money and i loved it! the scriptures are all so full of amazing advice but we need to make sure that we read it and learn it!! if we dont and we dont have the knowledge then its our own fault for not reading it!

This week i want to talk about the importance of being happy!!!! its essential!!! in missionary work and in life in general. Happiness is a choice. In any situation you can choose to be happy or to not be. trust me, its better to choose to be happy!! it makes missionary work so much easier. And when we are happy, other people see it and they want it so it gives them a desire to ask us why?? then we get the chance to share the message of the restoration and invite them to learn more! but i feel like as we choose to be happy we also allow ourselves to look and focus more on the blessings we are recieving then wallow in sorrow for the things we dont have. I dont know if that makes sense but i know its important to be happy and i like it!! haha

Fred is doing great and on saturday he went and did baptisms for the dead at the temple and he absolutely loved it!!! he says he wants to prepare for a mission and he is setting things in order so that when next august rolls around he can submit his mission forms. That is so awesome that grandmas bday is coming up!!!! she is so amazing!!! i hope she is continuing to do okay along with all of you!!! i want you all to know how much i love you and how much i pray for you and care about you!!! i couldnt do this without you and i want you to know how grateful i am for all of the suppport that you give me! you make my life complete!!!! i hope you all have a great week!!!! i love you so much!!!

love,
Elder James Bradley McGuire

Monday, September 8, 2014

Another Great Week in Africa!!!!!

Dear Family,

This week has been Great!!! im sorry my time is really short so i will try and get the  highlights in!!!

This week we had transfers, lessons, walking, talking, confirmations, sweating, struggling, enduring, laughing, crying, miracles, mistakes,learning, and about a million other things.

We had a big transfer this week and about half of the zone got transfered out so you can imagine how fun it was to put people on tro tros and coordinate it all luckily everyone did their job and we have a lot of new faces now. transfers are hard  for a little while because elders have to get to know new companions  and new areas but once things get going they are great! they  boost the zone and things get looked at and done in new ways! everyone has their own thing to offer and it makes something amazing!

there is a brand new missionary in our apartment and his name is elder Brown. he is from Rigby and went to mud lake highschool, mom i figured you might know it since its in idaho falls. he is great and full of energy. culture shock is taking its toll though and i forgot what it was all like! hahaha this place has grown to be my home right now and its all normal to me. i love ghana!

We had a member in our ward pass away last week so his funeral was this weekend. it was....welll....a ghanaian funeral! hahaha it was so funny because there were all these tents and chairs set up in this big place and it was set to start at 8. at 8:40 all the chairs were empty except for where the members were. tons of people always come to funerals, members and nonmembers alike and non of them were there. you thought mormon standard time was bad....hahaha ghana man time is worse!!! but it was great because it was and opportunity to share the gospel with those not of our faith and some things are coming out of it.

This Sunday Fred was confirmed and and recieved the gift of the holy ghost. he was also given the Aaronic priesthood. he is great and he is going to be a big strength to the ward. he says he wants to serve a mission too and  that is pretty exciting.

Guess what! i love being in a companionship. working by yourself is horrible but the two man team is the most effective! right dad??? hahaha i love being here and i love this work!!!!

i love you all and i hope you have a great week!!!!

love,
Elder McGuire

Monday, September 1, 2014

Another week as Zone Leader!! And a Little Sidestory

Dear Family!!!

well.....that was a lot to read.....hahahah you guys are having so much fun!!!!! i absolutely love hearing from all of you and all that is happening. It sounds like Heavenly Father is taking care of our family and then some! its so nice! things can be stressfull on all fronts but my family sends a peace over my mind that is incredible! did you guys know that i love you!!!!!

We had quite a few things happen here this week to so i will try to get it all in!
Tuesday we left for our first appointment and it fell through, and on our way to the next it started raining.....and it rained....and rained....and rained some more....and kept on raining!!! and this wasnt just a sprinkle, this was torrential rain!!!!! it finally stopped about 4 hours later and we said "where did the day go???" so yeah that second lesson was great! hahaha we had all the time in the world.

We traveled all day Wednesday with the ivies. we went to the other side of the zone for district meeting again and also had a couple interviews to do. traveling is fun but it makes me miss my area too hahaha. but i love getting out to see the elders and their areas and talking about the work with all of them. The Ivies are also so helpful and they make being in this zone amazing!!!!

On Friday i got my package with the dresses and on sunday my bishop came home so i am a happy boy!!! thankyou so much for those things they are all incredible and they were much needed/appreciated by myself and the rest of the elders in my apartment. the mcguire family is famous out here!!! the girls loved the dresses so much! im sure you saw in the video. we stayed and played with them for a few minutes and they took the dresses off just as fast as they put them on. they wanted to keep them clean and nice so they all went and put them away to wear on a special occasion. thankyou all so much! you make my mission so amazing!!!!

Saturday we got the transfer news for the zone and there are a lot of changes happening. my companion and i are staying the same as expected but a lot of other things are moving around. we are also having a new area open in the zone so we are growing! mission transfers are always fun and exciting. its also hilarious how much the elders like to talk about them and try to guess what will happen.

Sunday was a sweet day. Church was great and after church we had 3 baptisms for the ward. there are 4 missionaries here so it makes the baptisms so great because a bunch of people come and the converts feel so much support! Fred was so happy and he was truly ready for it! next week he will be confirmed and the following saturday he is gonna go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead for his family! so exciting!!!! Also that evening our bishop came home and he called us over to see him. He gave me the package you sent with him! thankyou so much!!!! the scriptures are amazing and i am so excited to have the new edition! ive been using the ones i got for seminary from when i was 14 hahaha. thank you!!!!!!

 i hope and pray that all of you continue to be safe, have fun, and enjoy! i love you!!!!

love,
Bradley


So about a Month ago, My family got together and made some cute dresses for girls in an orphanage by me and sent them in a package! I got them this week and we delivered them to the girls!!! Here is a picture after we handed them out!