"this week has been yet another week full of challenges and trials, but also full of blessings."

Kumusta kayo? Well it's been yet another week and this is the beginning of the last week of the transfer. That's still crazy to me. Congrats to Danny. That'll be great for him. I got that letter from Chase. Sounds pretty hectic to me. Here people just live in really poor conditions; they don't have a lot of protests against the government though. So to get married Sheilla needs a birth certificate which was destroyed when the municipal hall of her hometown was burned. So she can do late registration, but she needs a paper from the NSO in Laoag. So we stopped by to see if we could get that for her since they have absolutely no money and found out that you actually need ID (duh) to get the paper. So we're going to have to wait still for the marriage. I wouldn't be surprised though if they waited until July because they have free weddings in July for an anniversary celebration in Pagudpud. That's good for them though and we're getting things started for them.

So this week has been yet another week full of challenges and trials, but also full of blessings. We're doing a lot of finding to try and find those diamonds and gold (investigator versions) here in Pagudpud. We found some families that we think could be very ready to accept the gospel and we had some really good lessons (albeit few in number). We were really excited to see if people would actually follow through with their commitment to come to church. We set a pretty high goal and had really strong commitments for church. Sunday came and only Sister Ramirez came. Disappointing? Yes. Sad? A little bit. And what's even more sad is that only we had an investigator show up. The area is really hard right now. It's been really hard and it's been a trial and a test for all of us. But we are NOT disappointed in our efforts.

We've just been getting better and working harder. Instead of 110%, we give 120%. The Lord is hastening his work so we just need to trust in him that we'll find those people whose hearts have been opened. The thing with hastening of the work is that Satan tries even harder as well. All the people who are ready and prepared for the gospel have the greatest trials to deal with. So many problems have come for the Ramirez family, Rex and Sheilla, even our recent converts. We're finding those ways to succeed, we just might have to be patient and wait to see the results of our success.

I can't thank all of you enough for the prayers, love, and support for me and for the people here. The mission experience is helping me learn and grow a lot, but I hope I've been able to touch at least one of the people here and helped them to feel the truth of this gospel. The Spirit is so strong on a mission and it's always there testifying of truth, now it's up to our investigators to decide whether or not to act. This is God's work on the earth.
 Mahal ko kayong lahat,
 -Elder Egan

We were walking through our area and found a family that had a pet monkey

Here's a family that we've been visiting in one of our far areas called Caparispisan.  As you might be able to tell from the pictures, they are extremely poor.  There's 4 kids and their mom is pregnant.  They're dad went to Vigan (my old area had Zone meetings there) to work.  So they buy food off credit and live with next to nothing.  They're one of the happiest families I've seen though; very humble.  The tatay gets back next week so we can start teaching again and hopefully they can start coming to church.  Nanay reads the Book of Mormon nearly every day and in about 6 weeks time she's made it up to half way through 2 Nep.  They're incredible and I pray they will acquire the means to come to church.