New Companion!

Well, I know you already know, but I feel like this requires a second announcement: I'm Elder Pigott's companion!!! To answer your possible questions, I never said a word to our mission president about him coming, yes it was VERY weird the first few days, we do our best not to talk about home too much (haha that's probably the biggest obstacle of the situation), and yes, Elder Pigott is a great missionary. He's bold, motivated, obedient, and trying to help the people we teach come as close to the Savior as possible. And his Spanish is incredible for not having any pre-MTC experience. Almost every missionary I told about Elder Pigott said I would be his first companion, but I didn't believe it! It seemed to good to be true.

   Here's the crazy part of the story: we had some complications with our ride to transfers, and we got there about 40 minutes late. We got there and waited in the foyer while the Mission President and Assistants finished their comments in a meeting with all the missionaries coming, leaving, and being transferred to a new area. What you have to understand is that I still thought I was a long ways off from finding out which new missionary I would receive, which is usually the last thing they announce after training the "trainers" (the missionaries that will be companions with a new missionary) and the new missionaries.Then a missionary friend came out to the foyer to greet me during the closing hymn of the Transfer meeting and said, "Hey, I met the missionary you're going to train--he said you grew up together!" I asked how he knew it was my companion and he said, "There's only one Spanish Elder coming in." Long story short, I was the only spanish-speaking Elder that would be training, and he was the only spanish-speaking Elder in a group of over twenty new missionaries.

   And we had some crazy miracles when he got here! Yesterday a young girl from a family we visit (if you remember Ana from two or three weeks ago, it's her daughter) passed her baptismal interview and will be baptized this Sunday! Also, Nora, a woman the missionaries have been visiting since early this year, announced to us Friday night that she wants to be baptized!!!  

   Now, quick lesson about trusting impressions and revelation. About 4 weeks ago we were lost as to what to do with Nora. She felt confused and unable to decide between the church she grew up in and our church, even though she had a testimony of the Book of Mormon and of the divine calling of Joseph Smith. She told us how she had felt the Spirit as we visited with her, and had seen a positive change in her husband. As I prayed one night over what we needed to do with her, the answer came very strongly, "Drop her." "Drop" is the term we use to describe when we no longer visit a person or focus our efforts on them. Elder Fisi'iahi agreed, so the next day we told her that we would continue to stop by occasionally to visit her recently baptized husband Alfredo, but that we would not focus our lessons and visits towards helping her prepare for baptism.
     For the next few weeks we looked back and ask each other, "Why did we give up the best investigator we had?" She stopped attending church with us and reading the scriptures, and started attending her current church weekly. We wondered if we had lost her forever. We continued to see her and share messages with both her and her husband, but she didn't seem to respond very well. Then, Friday night we came by and she told us that she had been reading the Book of Mormon and that her previous confusion was waning. She said she felt more confident that this was the right path to follow, and that she wanted to be baptized.  

    The Lord's answers do not always make sense to us immediately. Think of how Joshua was instructed to conquer Jericho, or how the Lord initially guided the Brother of Jared to build boats without means of obtaining light or air (compliments to a good friend Allison Walker for pointing that one out to me). He knows the correct way, and if we will follow His promptings, even if it seems like foolishness for a time, He will, to roughly translate a Spanish hymn, "reveal His purposes with all splendor." 

Running out of time, love you and pray for each of you!  

Elder Gaughan

And here's a picture! Elder Pigott also got some sweet ones of a storm that hit Grand Prairie the other day, but then he accidentally deleted all of his pictures...

   It's hard not to slip and call him "Kyler"! Elder Pigott still just sounds weird. Haha also, we weigh exactly the same and are exactly the same height. From the same town. I'm pretty sure he could visit my old areas and impersonate me.