Tearful Goodbyes and a Baptism!

Dear Family,

As you probably guessed from the subject line, I am getting transferred. I will be leaving on Wednesday. :( I am so sad to be saying goodbye to Medford! I can hardly believe that I have already been here for over 4 months and that I am now leaving. The people here have truly become my Family. But, I know that this isn't goodbye forever. I will be back someday!
Other than that, it has been an amazing week full of miracles! It started off with Tuesday morning. We had an appointment fall through on Tuesday morning. We also had a media referral to contact in that area. So we decided to park our car and walk to the referral and back and try to talk to as many people as we could on the way. While we were walking we saw a woman painting her porch. So, of course we go over and say hi. She looked at us and said, "are you sisters new?" We were stunned..... "Uh, yeah we are. Did you meet with the sisters before?" We asked. She just laughed and said, "No, I'm a member!" It turned out to be a less active woman that we have been trying to get in contact with for months! We talked to her right there on the porch and shared our testimonies and words of encouragement with her. She expressed her desire to go back to the temple. We even set up a time for us to go and help her do yard work at their house.
It was a miracle! We will be working with her a lot now, and hopefully we will be getting her to the temple really soon!
The best part of the whole week was Sue's baptism. She had her interview on Thursday and it went so well! And yesterday she was baptized! I am so blessed to be a part of this great work! I get to see people covenant with their Father in Heaven. I get to see them change their life. I am so lucky and so blessed to be a part of it.
Missionary work is the best!
I love you all! Have an amazing week!

Love,
Sister McGuire

Pictures!!!!

Awesome Week!!

Dear Family,

This week was amazing! So many cool things happened! Unfortunately I
will have to keep this short, because we went to Philly today.
Stories!
Miracle 1: Peter. We got to church yesterday morning and there was a
man sitting alone in the back of the chapel. Neither of us knew so we
went and introduced ourselves. He said that he had a lot of Mormon
friends and so he just decided to show up and see what the church was
like! We were so excited! We told him a little about the Church and we
gave him a Book of Mormon. After sacrament meeting was over, he said
that he had really enjoyed it and he can't wait to come back next
week! It was a miracle! Hopefully we will start teaching him soon!
Miracle 2: We have been working with a less active woman in our Ward.
She is very sweet and loves meeting with us, but she can't seem to
ever make it to church. Well, this morning she called us out of the
blue and she said, "Sisters, I actually started reading the Book of
Mormon again. I feel a fire and a need to come back to church now."
Amazing!!!!! This just shows the power of the Book of Mormon. It
changes our hearts. I know it's true!
I wish I had more time! But, I love you!

Love, Sister McGuire

Last week I missed a couple pictures, sorry! Here they are!

I'm on an Adventure!!!!!!!!

Dear Family,

After the many stories of the week and seeing the pictures of Grandma
Simpson in the Shire, I thought that it was only appropriate that I
quote the great Bilbo Baggins! "I'm... on an Adventure!!!!!!!" That
phrase has come to describe every day of my life! Hahaha! I LOVE IT!
The main adventure this week, led to many of the other adventures that
we had. It all started with a phone call from Elder Rose, our vehicle
coordinator. He told us that during the car inspections at Zone
Conference he discovered some work that needed to be done on our car,
so we had to turn in our car on Wednesday morning to the body shop.
Wow! Suddenly, our area just got a lot bigger! Hahaha! Needless to
say, we have put a lot of miles on our shoes this week. Luckily the
weather warmed up on Friday, so it wasn't to bad.
Wednesday's adventure was that we went to a volunteer appreciation
night for the organization that we help at every week. We thought it
would be a good time to get to know people and maybe even talk to a
few people about the gospel. We got there and discovered that it was
actually a Wine and Cheese evening. Haha! Whoops! Luckily, no one got
too tipsy! It was actually awesome because we got talking to one woman
about being missionaries and she said, "Oh you're from the LDS
Church!?!?!?!?!? I have been wanting to do my genealogy for so long!
Can you help me get started?" Wow! We said of Course! We made an
appointment with her to go to the family history center on Thursday
and get her signed up for Family Search. We're SUPER EXCITED!!!! It
will be amazing!
Thursday we had another adventure called Zone Training! Haha! We ended
up riding with the Zone Leaders. It's super funny because they have a
7 seater town and country van. It's the ultimate soccer Mom vehicle!
It was crazy because they picked us up, and then we all had to go pick
up the Camden Elders from the Train Station as well. So it was full
van of missionaries. Zone Training was amazing though. We learned so
much about finding new investigators and preparing ourselves to be led
by the Spirit to find them. It was great.
Friday we got to see Juliana again! She is amazing! She is the Recent
Convert from Sierra Lione. She has such great faith! A few weeks ago,
she quit her job so that she can come back to church. She has now come
every week since then! She is preparing to go to the temple soon and
we can't wait for her to get there! This week we are going to help her
find family names so that when she goes, she can take them with her!
On Saturday we were invited to help out at a funeral for the brother
of a member of our ward. It was a nice service. It was very
interesting to see the group of people that all came. The man who had
passed away was not a member, neither was most of the people there.
But, it was neat to see the chapel so full! It just made me SO
GRATEFUL for the knowledge that I have of the plan of salvation! It
truly gives us such a hope that you can't find anywhere else!
Especially at a time like that.
And today we got our car back!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!! I have been
humbled and I have such a new found respect for missionaries that do
work without a car! I salute you all! Hahaha.
I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!! Have many more safe and fun adventures this
week! Life is an adventure!

Love,
Sister McGuire

What a Week!!!

Dear Family,

Sounds like your week was as hectic and amazing as mine was! Here's the stories!

Wednesday we went on exchanges. That's where we switch companions for
a day with Sister Training Leaders. I went to Vineland with Sister
Baluyot and Sister Roesch stayed in Medford with Sister Wilko.
Vineland was great! We volunteered at the soup kitchen in the morning,
which was amazing! I love volunteering there. The people that we help
are really so grateful and they really need the help. It also makes me
so grateful for my many blessings. We also were able to find a new
Spanish Speaking investigator! The sisters that serve in Vineland
don't speak any Spanish at all, but it just so happened that I was
with Sister B when we knocked on Linda's door. Linda is from Puerto
Rico and doesn't speak English at all. With my small grasp of Spanish
I was able to explain that we are missionaries and we wanted to share
a message about Jesus Christ. She let us right in! We talked for a
little bit and we were able to set up a rerun appointment with her, so
that the Spanish Elders from Bridgeton could come and teach her. It
was awesome!
That night we were able to attend the mutual activity about Family
History with George! We got him on the computer and doing his own
family history. He is pretty excited about it! He especially can't
wait to use ancestry.com once he's baptized!
On Thursday I was back in Medford. We had District Meeting and then
that night we hosted a family history class at the Medford library. We
had 10 people come! It went so well! We were able to get people signed
up with accounts and teach them more about familysearch. We also made
sure that everyone had the address for the church's Family History
Center in Cherry Hill before they left! It was a huge success!
On Friday we had Zone Conference. What can I say? It was amazing too!
President and Sister Anderson spoke. So did the Assistants and many
others. It was incredible to receive so much direction and support
from the mission leaders. We also got to drive through Philly on the
way home. I really love that crazy city!
Saturday was incredible as well! It was conference! We were able to
watch the Morning session with a recent convert family at their house.
It was so inspiring.
Then we drove up to Mt Holly and we were able to watch the Saturday
afternoon session with a recent convert there! During that session I
was really touched by Elder Bednars talk. I loved that he pointed out
how important it is to keep focused on the Savior. It is when we get
distracted from Him that we begin to fear and fall like Peter when he
saw the waves.
Sunday was also amazing! We watched conference at the church and
afterwards we had our Easter Feast with a Columbian family in our
Ward! They are so crazy and so much fun! They made sopa de queso
Tropical or Tropical Cheese Soup. It was so good!
So, all in all, it was an amazing week!
I'm so glad that Bradley made it home safe! Good luck with everything
this week! Have fun and be safe in New Zealand!!!!!! I love you!!!!!!!

Love,
Sister McGuire

P.S. Today we went hiking in Medford and this what we found!