What?!?!

You might be wondering why I made that the subject.  Well I just found out thanks to Emma that you sold the Sentra!?!?!?  Thanks for the notice... I only shed a few tears just now.  I'll miss that black beauty (charcoal gray or whatever it was).  Well I sort of saw that one coming.  How much did you get for it anyways?  And the Randalls are moving eh?  Where to?  Give them my love and goodbyes.  Kudos to the kids for the 4.0s.  Now lets see those ACT scores ;)

Well the letter might be a little short this week because frankly it hasn't been too interesting one way or another. It was a really high lesson week (our second best and a record for member present lessons).  The ward is pretty supportive here (although it definitely could use some improvement).  There's always those really great members that want to help and have a really true conversion and then there's those who seem to coast along in life. Acoba's family and Len-len came to church and they are both progressing very well towards baptism.  Please keep them in your prayers as there are still trials and challenges that they face. Please also keep Aiko in your prayers.  Her grandmother passed away just this week.

Here's some of the people that we teach with in a place called Tungbol, Bil-loca.

Top: Jefferson

Next row: Ninyo, me, the first girl is Len-len (very progressing investigator.  Baptism May 10) and then Rommel (Recent convert) and someone who I can't remember her name for some reason, but for all intents and purposes we'll call her Amanda (that's actually her friend's name)

Elder Larson, Jona, Loyda, (skip the guy in the front and then move to the girl) Jade

bottom: Aiko (Recent convert) and Crismar (coolest fellowshipper ever (for Batac) and also a recent convert that was baptized last May)

We have been doing some good finding but there's always room for improvement.  We have a lot of walking that goes on when we'd much rather be sharing the gospel.  I keep giving my all and yet I somehow still feel inadequate, like I can be doing better.  I suppose that's part of the learning and growing process and I can definitely see the progress I've made and am getting even better at adjusting to missionary life-style.  I have a long ways to go still, but the time is flying so fast.  

Thanks for everything again and I can't express in words how much I love you all.

Mahal ko naman kayong lahat,

-Elder Egan

"...the work is moving along."

Well hello again to everyone at home.  How's it going?  Thanks for the Korean letter, now I'll get them to translate it.  That's really awesome for Addi too.  Tell her that I love her and congratulations.  I hope spring break is enjoyable (especially for those certain individuals that are down in St. George).  Everyone here is graduating and getting summer break now.  The last day of school for all of the college students is the 3rd (wow it's almost April already).  Well it's definitely summer time here.  Batac is HOT!  For some reason our apartment is always super hot too.  We come back from walking in the heat of the day and expect some kind of relief from the sun's merciless rays and then we walk into the apartment and get a nice burst of hot air.  It's always cooler outside so we have windows open, the little back door open, and fans on pretty much every minute that we're in the apartment.  I'm sure Hermana Snow feels the same way as I do about sweat (just take away the "s" sound and that's how I feel every second of the day).  How is Chase doing though?  I heard some more from my companion that they're basically having a civil war/war with Russia.  Keep me updated with that if you could.  One last request: could you send that story of Howard Egan with the eyeball sucking.  I just think that would be pretty cool to have and share with people if the time were right :)

Well I can't believe conference is already coming up again.  So we don't get it in the Philippines in the same week (because by the time it starts there, it's already Monday here and the translation isn't done yet).  So we get to watch conference the next week.  That's exciting and really cool because our recent convert, Aiko, and her friend, Len-len (who is now a progressing investigator), are really interested in conference.  Missionary work is great.  It's awesome when you have recent converts that truly love the gospel and want to share it with friends and family and they end up being the doorway for others to hear and learn about the gospel.  Thanks to Aiko we have a couple really good people to teach.  As I said earlier, one of her friends is a progressing investigator that came to church, downloaded the lds library app and reads the scriptures, always has great questions, and has a bapt. date now all because her friends were really great at telling her about the gospel and supporting her to learn about it.

I want to talk about that family again, Acoba, that decided to live the Word of Wisdom.  We talked to him about how he was doing and he said it was hard to quit.  He has a couple shots just at night to help him sleep.  So we talked about a plan with him to stop and related it to some goals of how quitting now will help him get baptized on Apr. 19 which will help his family be able to enter the temple after another year and become sealed for eternity.  That's his goal, and he plans on quitting in order to achieve that.  He talked about how now that he agrees with what we're teaching he has felt like the devil is pulling on him trying to tempt him even more.  So he shared an experience about how he memorized Jhn. 3:16 and he goes over that in his mind every time he feels temptations and he feels like he's surrounded with protection and good feelings.  We identified that as the Spirit that is helping him withstand temptations.  So we told him if he ever feels like drinking that he can read the scriptures and pray and he will get that Spirit again.  He said that was true and he loves the church and anytime someone says something bad about it he tells them "no, I've seen what they do and it's the best way to teach people about Jesus."  He's a legend.  The problem now is that he didn't come to church on Sunday.  So we believe there's only two things that could have happened: 1) he had a really good reason why and we don't have anything to worry about 2) he had a relapse with alcohol.  In either case, we keep praying for him because we really want him to keep progressing towards Apr. 19 as his bapt. day and it would be really hard if he did relapse and we had to push it back again to at least Apr. 26.  

Well the work is moving along.  We're getting dropped, but we're finding as well.  The problem is we aren't finding at a fast enough rate.  Missionaries really rely on the members to help them with that and if we have them helping us the work is twice as amazing.  It's been an interesting experience my first three weeks here.  I feel like I still have a lot to improve so I'm going to work on being more diligent and being exactly obedient (those are the Christ-like attributes I studied today).  Thanks for your prayers and support.  I love you all and want to thank you all.

Mahal ko kayong lahat,

-Elder Egan