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Wednesday, October 29, 2014

It's Halloween Week!!

Dear Family,

This week has been great week. it sounds like everyone is ready for another long weekend! but it also sounds like you have already had a lot of the halloween fun! this week we are going to carve watermelons because we dont have any pumpkins it should be fun though.

As for life on this end things are pretty normal. We had a pretty slow week this week but things are progressing steadily. We are actually having alot of success in a new area. We base out of one small village but sometimes we go to the other small villages around. For a long time we were going to a place called manso. The stake patriarch lives there and we figured we would have some good success out there but as we were going the people just werent receptive and we had a difficult time teaching people. On a visit to the patriarch he suggested that we go to another town instead of his. So we started going out there and man o man that place has done so great! we have already baptized one young man there and we have many more that we are working with closely. Now every time we see our patriarch we ask him for any other suggestions he has for us;) hahaha

This week i also had my first real run in with Anti-mormon material. being out here in africa we havent had to deal with it to much so much as just small rumors. This week on of our investigators asked us about an article he had found on the internet and he asked us to explain a lot of things to him. We did our best but in the end our efforts were futile. he had already invested so much into it that he thought it was all true and wasnt really listening to anything that we would say. Its so sad how a little thing like that can cause someone to not want to listen to the message of the restored gospel. Satan really is working hard. Luckily we know he will never win!

It was Elder Bolabasaga's (an elder in the apartment) birthday this week so his companion took us all out to pizza! it was so good! hahaha its been a while. i have gotten adventurous though and ive started making banana bread and its so good! i got the recipe from a member and its great!

Also exciting news this week. we found a new family to work with. Actually we didnt find them the other elders in our apartment did. They were walking home from their area one night and met a woman on the street with her kids and invited her to com to the church. She did and brought her husband along with her and they are solid. They have told us that they have already made up their mind to join our church and they are so receptive to the message to the gospel. They truly have been prepared. I love working with families!

We have been working with a few part member families lately and they are all progressing really well. We are hoping to have 6 baptisms this weekend so we are working hard to prepare them all for their day. This work is so great!!!!

This week i applied President Monsons talk from priesthood session. Ive learned so much! i think the biggest one was about planning effectively. Ive always noticed that the days we plan more in depth always go better! The days we dont plan as in depth dont always work out so well. So like a ship with out a rudder, a day with not good planning will not go very well!!!! obviously this is not new but ive noticed it in a new light this week.

I hope you all have a great week and have a great halloween!!! make sure to eat some extra candy for me okay!!! and take plenty of pictures!!!!! i love you all!!

love,
Elder James Bradley McGuire

Monday, October 20, 2014

Top 10! (Well, actually 4, but who's counting?) ;)

Dear Family,

This week was another good one!!! i guess im gonna copy mom and do the top 10 of my week!!!!

10. i guess this one should really be 100 though. Last night We got robbed! not by gun point or anything but while we were in the apartment someone reached through our window and stole my camera off my bed. we have 2 sets of bars on our windows to prevent that. its happened before in our apartment but i wanst here yet. so yeah it was as big bummer but im learning from it and trying to make the most of the experience!

 The teteh family, the family recently baptized have had some challenges this week. One of their sons fell sick and has been in the hospital for 5 days. Thankfully today he is coming home and he is doing okay now. We have been praying for them and we are trying hard to help them continue their conversion to this wonderful gospel.

We had a really nice lesson this week. We have an investigator that we have been struggling with for quite a long time now. We would teach and on a follow up appointment we would ask if he remembered what we taught and he couldnt recall a single thought. We decided to bring an art book to teach him with. As we went to the appointment we were missing one thing, a translator. The young man doesnt speak english at all. All of our members were busy and didnt have time to accompany us to the lesson. We went hoping to just help him see a few things with the pictures. As my companion and i stumbled through all of the fante we new in describing the pictures and connecting them to the restoration of the gospel he understood everything we said. Some would say that is a small thing but it really was a miracle.

Okay i guess im not doing 10 but ive got some more good stuff;) hahaha

Today WE did a service project as a zone and went and helped one of our recent converts plant his farm with corn. He is disabled and could have done it himself but it would have taken forever. So it was a great service project. The sky opened up while we were planting and we got soaked but we had a blast.

i just wanted to tell you guys thankyou so much for the voice recordings you sent me last week. they were exactly what i needed to get through a hard time. im taking the challenge that you came up with after conference to apply one thing a week till next conference. this week i started with Pres. Uchtdorfs talk in priesthood session. "Lord is it i?" as i have applied this this week i have learned alot about myself and about others. But all in all i have learned a lot. I think the biggest thing is that no matter what we are doing there is always something to be learned! so look for it and learn it! i love you all! have a great week!!

Love, Bradley

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Autumn

Dear Family,

This week has been hahaha another week. time keeps on moving and so does the work! things are good and they are moving along slowly but surely.

We had Mission Leadership Council this week and it was great! my favorite part was that President Stevenson Shared a talk with us given by Pres. Uctdorf while he was in the mtc. It is called "Fear Not, I am with thee" it was about being bold as a missionary and not having fear. He made a statement that when we are bold people should be able to feel our love for them. to be overbearing is to be bold without showing love. so many times people like to challenge your testimony and we tend to become annoyed with it but as we strive to show our love for the people we serve they will be able to feel it and we will show that christlkike love that we are supposed to have.

We had an interesting first this week. Ever since Elder Tembedza has come here to be my companion we have always had a member with us to help. every single day! not once have we gone with out a member. even if we only had them for an hour we had them. this week we had a whole day where a member didnt help us and it was horrible!!! we had some really rough lessons and the day just didnt go right. so yes you members are all incredible and you help us in the work so much! so please if the missionaries ask for help do all you can to do so!! we really appreciate it!

This week i have been lucky enough to be able to listen to a lot of the new General Conference talks and they are great!!! i feel like the overall message of conference was about repentance and strengthening our testimonies. so i am doing my best to work on both of those. obviously there were tons of other messages so im studying them so i can be closer to my Heavenly Father.

Another cool thing this week. We were over at bishops house and i looked in his garden and i noticed a tiny little pumpkin growing!!! i asked him where he got it and he said that the mission couple had given him the seeds. it was a pathetic little thing but it was a pumpkin!!! it reminded me of home hahaha. i think im gonna buy a watermelon and carve it for halloween this year, doesnt that sound like a good idea? haha

The Teteh family is doing good and we are trying hard to work very closely with them. they still have a lot of steps to take. their main source of income is a Fruit stand and they are struggling with closing it on Sundays. were praying for them and doiing our best at helping them understand the importance of keeping the sabbath day holy. i think one of the hardest challenges to overcome with almost everyone here is just the putting away of tradition. these are a very tradition oreinted people and its difficult to bring them into the culture of the church. Thanks to our Heavenly Father he helps us a lot in that aspect.

the work is great and i love it!!! im sad to hear about pat. i hope and pray that everything goes well these last 2 months. everyone sounds so happy and busy and im so grateful to all of you and the support you give me!!! have a great week!!! i love you!!

love,
Elder McGuire

Friday, October 10, 2014

Conference!

Dear Family,

This week was a great week for us with a lot of surprises. from week to week the missionary work is about the same but the surprises are not.....i guess thats why they are called surprises hahaha.

Things in our ward have been very busy lately because we are preparing for a split. it takes a lot of work!!!! thankfully we are just he helpers in that effort but there is a lot to be done and we are doing our best to reactivate members and work with more families.

This week we went to see the Teteh family and when we got there we noticed the father had a huge bandage on his middle finger. When we asked him what had happened he told us a big long story....so to cut a long story short, he got in fight with his neighbor that was high on weed and his neighbor bit the top of his finger off!!! all that was holding on was a little piece of skin! so crazy!! but he was bandaged up and ready to listen to us. He was much more attentive this week....hahaha i think he had been humbled a little bit;) When we had been planning for this week we felt we needed to wait a bit to baptize the father and mother just so they would be more prepared, but as we came to meet with them  we realized they really were ready so this weekend we had a baptism! Last week Evans and Precious were baptized (son and daughter), and this weekend Mary, Samuel, and Patrick were all baptized( mom, dad, and son). they have 2 other children that are not 8 years old yet. but this week was great! We were able to help an entire family learn about the gospel and in turn they chose to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized! this work is so incredible and so true!!!

I think the most amazing thing about this work is that it is perfect! it is worked by imperfect people but it is perfect! i was studying in mormon this week and i came across a great scripture. In chapter 9:31 moroni talks to us about imperfections. He said we should not ridicule or criticize but we should thank God that we can see them and then we should learn from them! John Bytheway has a quote in a fireside that goes like this "wise people learn from experience. Super Wise people learn from others experiences" the scriptures are full of others experiences and they help us so much today! we should all study the words of the prophets so that we can learn as much as possible!

Not much else happened this week except that on sunday i hit my 18 month mark! so crazy! the time is going by too fast! but i am going to work my hardest to make the most of this time the lord has given me to work in his vineyard. i love you all so much and i hope you have a great week!

love, Bradley