Happy New Year!!!!!

Dear Family,

It was so good to see you and talk to you this past week! I loved it! The time went too fast. I can't believe how big Parker and Preston and Amelia are! (Hahaha!) The rest of you are all pretty much the same. You all made my day!
The rest of Christmas was amazing! I loved going to Christmas dinner with people in our ward. I also loved going to an assisted living home. There we visited a woman that we know who had to work on Christmas. She told us that we made her day! That made me feel so good! We also visited a lot of other people too.
There is a Less-Active member of our ward who just got her temple recommend for the first time! And we got permission to go with her to the D.C. this Saturday to do baptisms for the dead with her and her family. We are so excited! One of the rules with a temple trip though, is that we will be switching our next P-Day with the day that we go to the temple. So, I will be able to email you all again on Saturday, but next Monday will be a normal proselyting day for me. SO, sorry I am messing that all up. But I am SO Excited to go to the temple!!!!!!!!!!!!! It really is something I took so much for granted at home. I can hardly believe how close we live to one. Go to the temple whenever you get the chance!
Sorry that I'm short today, but I've got to go!
I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!! Happy New Year!

Love,
Sister McGuire

The Medford Beach!!

Christmas with a Charlie Brown Tree! Love it!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Dear Family,

It has been a wild week! I can't believe that I was in Salisbury 7 days ago! Since then, I have traveled to 3 other states and had 2 other companions! Crazy!
But, I am now serving in Medford, New Jersey with my companion Sister Veater!!! We are in the Cherry Hill North Stake. Guess who our Stake President is??? Yep! It is President Vaia Sikahema! So Cool!!!! I'll try to get an autograph for you! ;) haha JK! Another fun fact about Medford is that we are about 30 minutes east of Camden. Yep, THE Camden. But, don't worry Mom, because Medford is a cute little town that is in the middle of a rural farming community! It's great though!
On Tuesday we got our new companions and drove back to our area. Lucky for us, we had to drive through downtown Philly to get there! It was so cool!!! I can't wait to be able to come and tour there someday!
The rest of the week has pretty much been a blur of meeting new people and settling in. Remember Sister Wilko, my companion from the MTC? Well, her uncle is the Bishop of the Medford Ward!
We also had the Christmas Conference yesterday, that's why I am emailing today. It was awesome! Sister Anderson shared some incredible insights about the Shepherds in the nativity. Just read Ezekiel 34 and it will blow your mind. I loved it! President Anderson spoke about using our time wisely and finding those who will be alone for Christmas. Then we watched 17 Miracles. It was so good! After the movie we had a talent show. I played the piano and Sister Wilko sang. I also played the Ukulele and sang the song, How Can I Be. I think it went well. We also had a group of Elders that performed a skit about what it's like to be a Camden Elder. It was hilarious! There was also a group of Elders that did a dance in the dark with glowsticks taped on them. It was so cool! It looked like it came off of America's Got Talent. The best part was at the end, when Santa's Elves came and passed out packages! We loved it! I was showered!!! Thank you all so much! I was touched. I just can't wait for Thursday!
We are so excited for Christmas! We are super excited because we will be caroling at two nursing homes and visiting lots of other people. I also can't wait to talk to you all!!!! I love you!!!! See you soon!!!!!! :) <3

Love,
Sister McGuire

Me and Sister Veater, my new companion! She is awesome!!! :)

We had drive through Philly on our way home from transfers! Here's the Philly skyline!!

This is a picture of Philadelphia City Hall. It is so cool! 

A famous mural on a wall!

Santa came through on a fire truck!!!

Sister Wilko is now in my district! At District Meeting we both wore the same outfit (totally NOT planned!)

This is a jug in the Medford apartment that all the missionaries sign. Check out who's name is at the bottom of the jug!!!! You'll have to ask Thom if that is the Elder Call that I think it is!

Surprise!!!!

Dear Family,

I have a surprise for you!!!! I am getting transferred! Again!
Surprised? Me too! They called us on Friday and told us that I was
leaving! It's crazy! Right now, Sister Oveson and Hermana Sturgess are
in Philly for their last day in the mission. I am in Middletown
Deleware with another Sister until transfer meeting tomorrow. I am
excited to see where I will go next! I will let you know next week
where I end up!
This week has been so full of miracles! The biggest one was Jack! He
is a man who has been meeting with missionaries for years! Actually,
most of his life. When I got here, he was having a rough time. He
didn't believe in God, he had no purpose in life, and he had given up.
This week, we felt inspired to teach him the word of wisdom. We were
pretty nervous, because that did not seem like something he would want
to hear about. But, we did it! During our lesson we finally found out
his real problem. His real problem is that he has been smoking for
over 50 years and he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to quit
smoking. We were able to encourage him and help him see that with God,
nothing is impossible. Then, we went back to see him a second time
this week. He had completely changed. He was happy. He was smiling! He
had hope! We talked about setting goals that will help him quit
smoking. We asked him what goal he wanted to set for himself. We were
excepting him to say, "not buy cigarettes" or "cut back by one each
day." Nope! Instead he said. "I want to get baptized"!!!!!!!! We
practically fell off the couch! When we finally scraped our jaw up off
the floor, we helped him set the goal of being baptized in June. It
was the best moment ever! Truly a Christmas miracle! This is what the
gospel of Jesus Christ does for people. It gives hope to those who
have given up. It brings light into the darkness. It helps us find
love and joy and happiness. That is how Jesus Christ can change your
life.
Also, I have eaten so much food this week, I'm going to pop! I hope
you don't mind a daughter that looks like a balloon! The ward loves us
out here and everyone wanted to take us out to dinner or lunch all
week long! We had two or three dinner appointments every day! Haha!
I'm hoping that I go to an area that has a lot of walking, because I
have some work to do.... :)
On Thursday we drove up to Smyrna DE. I stayed the night there while
my companions went on to the mission home. They spent the night there,
and then they got to go to the Washington D.C. Temple the next day.
They loved it! They spent the entire day in the car! Haha! It was 3
hours to Broomall, then 3 hours to the temple, then 3 hours back to
Broomall, then 3 hours home. It was a long day! Luckily for me, I was
able to spend the day planning and studying and preparing to take over
the area..... But, then Friday they told me I was leaving! Woops! It
worked out good though, because now I can hand all of the plans to the
new missionaries who will come in to the area.
While I was in Smyrna, sister Zeller and I were having our morning
studies when we heard a knock on the door. Guess who it was? It was
the Jehovah's witnesses. Hahaha! It was kind of funny! They were very
kind and talked to us for a little while and then left. It was just so
weird to be on the other side of the door for once.
Anyway, I love you all and I am so excited to talk to y'all for
Christmas!!!!!!!! Have an awesome week!

Love,
Sister McGuire

Peace on Earth

Dear Family,

This week has been so busy again! I hardly believe how much we manage to pack into one day, let alone a week. Both of my companions are going home next week, so we have been working harder than ever. They want to make these last few days count! Here's a couple stories for the week.
We found a new FAMILY to teach! I am so excited! I've never had the chance to teach a whole family before! The Mom, Hilda, is from Honduras, and she doesnt speak English. Her oldest son Freddie doesnt speak English either. Her son Christian and daughter Ricxi both speak English though. So, we have been teaching them in some strange form of Spanglish. Hahaha! But, it works! We invited them to be baptized, and they accepted! We will be helping them choose a date this week.
This week was also our ward Christmas party. We had a huge dinner and tons of people came! We had many less active and non-members come! Hilda and Rixci came too! All of us missionaries were like little kids in a candy store! It was awesome! I also got to play the piano in the program while the Young Women sang.
We got to see the Christmas Devotional last night as well. It was incredible! And we had a part-member family come too! We loved it! And, I LOVED what President Eyring said about Jesus Christ being the light of the World. I have been studying that this season. In the topical guide, just look up Jesus Christ, light of the world, and read all of the scriptures! They're amazing!
The biggest news of the week is the He is the Gift initiative. The Church made a 3 minute video about the true meaning of Christmas. They have given every missionary enough pass-along cards to give out ten per day. We have been doing it! This has been a huge miracle! And to top it off, all of the advertising on Youtube is for this video during the month of December. It is a missionary Christmas Miracle! How great!
I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,
Sister McGuire

December Already????

Dear Family,

Time sure does fly out here in the mission! I can hardly believe that
it is December already! And this week was so packed full of stuff that
I feel like Thanksgiving was a month ago!
I can't remember the order of all of these stories, so I'm just going
to write a bunch of random stories today in no specific order. Here's
the adventures for the week!
Thanksgiving was awesome! We had a ward Turkey Bowl on the practice
fields of a local high school. I was so sore by the end of it, that I
couldn't move for about three days! And neither could my companions!
But, we had a great turnout, and a bunch of nonmembers and less
actives came.
We went to the Mull family's house for Turkey dinner. They deep fry
their turkeys every year, and it was so good! They also had invited
the Joy family, so we had a big party! When we were all talking about
what we were grateful for, the Joy's 4 year old daughter, Emma, said,
"I'm grateful for clothes so we don't have to be naked all the time!
That would be so embarrassing!" Hahahaha! We nearly died of laughter!
That evening we visited a woman in our Ward, who lost her husband 2
months ago. We sang Christmas carols and helped her decorate her house
for Christmas. She is so sweet and we love her so much. She was having
a really hard day, because all of her children live out west and she
had spent the day alone. I felt so blessed and so lucky to have been
there for her when she needed us.
This week we had to drop 2 of our investigators. It is just so sad to
me that people have the gospel right in front of them, and they know
it's true, but the simply don't want to act on it. It's true that
faith without works is dead.
On the other hand, we had a miracle this week! We finally were able to
schedule an appointment with a man, named Parker, we have been
teaching. But, the member who was going to come with us canceled at
the last minute. We didn't know what to do, because we aren't allowed
to be alone with a man. So, we called up a random member that none of
us even knew and invited her to come with us. She did and she brought
her daughter too! Her testimony ended up helping Parker in so many
ways! And, he came to church yesterday!!!! It was great! And Sister
Jennens was so excited about what her testimony had done, that she
invited us to come have dinner with her family next week, so we can
meet her nonmember husband! The Lord is guiding this work!
Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love, Sister McGuire

P.S. We have heard about a lot of missionaries online accounts being
hacked and so in order to keep people's privacy safe, I have changed
all of the names in this email. I will change all of the names from
here on out too. But I LOVE YOU ALL!