November and More Pictures!

Hey everyone! 

I had a pretty cool experience on Friday and Saturday this week. A few weeks ago I mentioned that I had the opportunity to see Steve Valdez, a man my trainer and I found the first week of my mission in Oak Cliff, be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. Well, on Friday we did exchanges with our zone leaders, who are currently serving in Oak Cliff, and Friday night we picked up Brother Valdez and he came to our lessons! If you had told me that would happen a year ago, I never would have believed it. It's amazing to see how he's changed and grown, and I could tell by the way he speaks now that he's put his trust in the Lord in a way he didn't before. Haha it was a little surreal when he accompanied us back to Grand Prairie to exchange back and met Elder Pigott, seeing as they are two of the biggest miracles of my mission. It struck me how the Lord really does send us tender mercies and miracles that increase our faith. 

     There's a possibility that one of us will get transferred tomorrow, but we still don't know! Normally we get the call Saturday night, but this time we'll get the call tonight just to know IF we'll be transferred, and won't find out where to or who will be our companion until we get to the meeting on Tuesday. 

      I learned a pretty important last night about helping ourselves and other repent and keep the commandments. As Chapter 3 of Preach My Gospel points out in the section about the commandments, “God gave unto them commandments, after having made known unto them the plan of redemption” (Alma 12:32). We're teaching a couple that is living together but are not married, and yesterday we felt the need to talk to them about that. Rather than just jumping into how they are breaking a commandment and it's really important that they start keeping it, we tied it back into really good lesson we had a week or two ago about the plan of salvation, the role of the Atonement and what we need to do in order to access its power. It tied the commandment back into something they already understood and accepted as important, and why a change is necessary in their lives in order to progress in God's plan. They understood, and accepted the invitation to pray about it. 

   As in all things, God is our perfect example. It's important that we explain or consider the plan of salvation--our purpose, who we, our Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ are, the importance of His sacrifice, and where we're going after this life--as we strive to live or help others live the gospel. It gives it clarity, purpose, and strength do what is difficult and not give up on God when things when things get hard. 

   Love you! I hope each of you have a great week! 

Elder Gaughan

The Molina family. Bro Molina is the Elders Quorum President, and their whole family is awesome!

Bishop & Sister Weenig. Bishop Weenig served in Salt Lake Spanish speaking, and is one of the most missionary-work oriented leaders I've ever seen. Another great family! He's also a hard core Star Wars fan, in case you were wondering. 

 The result of our struggles two weeks ago with the time change: