Great news!

Well it's come to the end of another transfer already. That one snuck up on us real fast. So as it is transfers I guess I should share the news about who is transferring. Elder Ramsay is going to Aparri in Cagayan. I'm going to Batac (just below Laoag) and my new companion will be Elder Larson. He kind of reminds me of brother Larsen from our home ward from when we met him once in Laoag. So yeah, I'll be getting a new apartment and then Sister missionaries will be coming in to our old apartment here. Everything is going good here in the Philippines. I'm doing good and the Philippines is still as beautiful as ever. Oh and I have some great news! Jimmy and Lilibeth's family from Cabugao just got baptized a couple weeks ago! I was getting a little worried about them, but it was so good to hear that. I'm so excited for them. It took almost 4 transfers for them to be prepared for baptism and almost 2 full transfers after I left it happens. Some people just need more time, but eventually they are ready to enter into the covenant of baptism. Great news!

Well as usual, the last week of the transfer happened to be one of our best weeks. We have 8 people with baptismal dates (albeit a little ways down the road since marriage is a problem for most of them). In July I'm expecting to hear a lot about the baptisms of some of our investigators here. We had 7 investigators from our area come to church yesterday. One was from Caunayan (15 minute bus ride) that hadn't even been taught by us yet. We gave him a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet and he said he'd read almost all of Moroni 10 and it was really beautiful. He was interested so he rode his mountain bike from Cauanayan to the church. That's some pretty crazy miraculous stuff. Another person that we had been teaching in Caunayan came too. (she took the bus though). And we had almost all of the Ramirez family and Sheilla. That was awesome! Looking back from the first transfer to this one, we made some improvements and we've experienced a lot of growth. We've learned so much and you can see the results after a long period of time. We found a lot of people these last couple weeks and there are some good potentials that I feel will accept baptism after being taught the lessons. We've left the area in pretty good shape for the Elders and Sisters that will be teaching here. Pagudpud will be a really great place for progression.

So here's a story that I can share that was a negative turned into positive experience. We teach a family and one of the daughters is a tour guide and it so happened that a white tourist was staying at the house as part of the tour. He is an older American and as soon as he walks out he refuses to shake our hands and asks us where the gold plates are and how many wives John Smith had (he was talking about Joseph Smith but he didn't know his name). We handled it pretty calmly and told him that the record from the gold plates was now known as the Book of Mormon and he could read it if he'd like to and find out for himself if Joseph Smith was a prophet. He wouldn't have any of it and any attempt to be kind to him just ended up with him ignoring us. So we were about to teach the family now and he asks everyone if they want a beer or a whiskey. People drink here, it's natural to them. So of course they said sure and he says "well you don't want to be a Mormon then because they can't drink." So he walks off to get the beer and the Philipinos ask us why we can't drink. So we took the wonderful opportunity that our friend gave us and talked about the Word of Wisdom. Crazily enough, the tour guide thought that was great and is really interested now and wants to learn more about the gospel. The nanay that we teach talked about how her husband and two brothers died early because they had drinking problems and they understand now that it's not good for us. So when the guy comes back with the whiskey the nanay says just go put it in the fridge, we aren't drinking it now. The daughter said she's going to try not drinking and not having coffee. The experience turned out great even though it started out with a guy attacking our religion and telling us all sorts of pleasant things. Just keep positive! Or as mother Teresa would say, be positive anyway. 

Those Sunday Stations sound really good. Mia told me last week ;) It's great to hear from you all and here's a big "hello" and "Mahal kayo" to the Richins family. You should send some pictures *cough* *hint, hint*. Anyway, love you all and miss you so much. I'm sure you'll all just move along with life in the Americas. I still have no idea what's going on over there. The Gospel is true. The Book of Mormon is true. Jesus is the savior and through His Atonement we can come closer to God and find true happiness in life. Share the gospel with all those who don't have it yet because it truly helps.

Drying octopus skin

 Mahal ko kayong lahat!
-Elder Egan

Here's the Tagumdin family.  Boy will I miss them.  So poor, but the kids are so happy.  The gospel will bless them so much.

Fun with the machete

"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.

"we were reassured that there's diamonds and gold deep down in Pagudpud."

Hello again to family and friends. As usual I can't believe it's been another week and I get to email again already. Yep, trying to help people understand that they not only need to change their behavior, but that it will ultimately be for their good in every way is pretty hard. That pretty much describes perfectly what it's been like on the mission. People don't even know what their missing and most of the time they really don't have a desire to experience anything else. But there are those people out there that have already had their hearts opened by the Lord (just like mom and President Barrientos said) so those are the people we need to find. That's awesome for Nick, Danny, Ryan, and Jacob. They're all going to be great missionaries. Tell 'em congrats and good luck if you can for me. That's an awesome story about Mia. Two thumbs up for her. Keep the piano up Kol, it'll be worth it. Well I'm sure the world is still changing at a rapid pace and I probably won't have a clue about some of the newest and greatest things in America, but I'm sure the stuff that's new right now will make it's way to the Philippines by the time I'm coming home.

So this week...we had exchanges on Wednesday and I got to show Elder Jones (guess what! He's from Utah! go figure) around our area. We found some new people to teach and hopefully we they turn into people that really want to know about the gospel. It was a long day with a lot of walking and we ran into a preacher from a different religion called dating daan (it means old path/way) that Elder Jones had met before and he decided he was going to try and tear down some of the beliefs we have. I just feel bad for him because he said we wouldn't even ask God to know the truth. It's shocking how many people won't do that. Elder Jones is a really great guy and we had a good time on exchanges even though it was a really long day full of walking.

On Thursday we had interviews with President and trainings from the APs about finding those people whose hearts are open and being strictly obedient to be able to do that. When we find these people, the APs encouraged us to give them a baptismal invitation and date if possible and then to help them know the importance of the Restored gospel, the sacrament, and the blessings that come from the sacrament. That way we can find out who are wheat and who are tares. It seems like right now there are a lot of tares in the area, but we were reassured that there's diamonds and gold deep down in Pagudpud.

Friday we had a really thorough weekly planning session and a good companionship inventory. Time is a huge struggle when there's only two missionaries in an apartment. We have so much to do that I honestly haven't had even a second to spare for writing in my journal for over a week now. We realized that we weren't having as much fun with missionary work and we weren't having as much success. I feel like we can do what President says and be strictly obedient, but Elder Ramsay isn't so sure about taking that literally. So we compromise some of the things we want to do to try and get in all of the things we need to do. I feel like a lot of things are sacrificed to help our investigators. It's still slow though. So we're going to try getting in all of the things we need to. Elder Ramsay and I work really good together and we've gone through a lot together. It's going to be interesting to see what happens with transfers next weekend.

We've set a long term goal with the Ramirez family for baptism. Jun. 28th for nanay, Jhesir, Jellamaica, and Jomar. Tatay wasn't there when we taught so we plan on setting the date with him when we can teach him next. It's going to be really hard to try and figure out work schedule with tatay since he's always gone on Sundays. Nanay and Jellamiaca came to church on Sunday even though nanay was sick. They're so prepared to accept the gospel and Satan throws a trial at them with tatay's work. It's always the hardest for the ones that are honestly striving to do what's right.

Well this week is going to be the best week yet I'm sure, and then next week will be even better!!! It's always great to hear from everyone. I love and miss you all. Thanks for everything.

Mahal ko kayong lahat!
-Elder Egan

Here's the house of Sheilla and Rex.  They came to church!!! We're helping them get marriage sorted out so they can be baptized on the 22nd next month!  Rex lost his job though and it might be pretty rough for them so prayers would be appreciated.

On Saturday there was an activity for the Priesthood in the Branch and we went to Dampig to do a workshop on Priesthood responsibilities.  The turnout wasn't too great and unfortunately the Branch is struggling and has a few problems right now...It's a good thing the leaders here are very good though.

"It's been 6 months already since I entered the MTC!!"

Hello again from the Philippines.  Well it's been plenty hot here for the last 3 weeks or so.  We'd say high 80s to 90s.  Good job Kolsen, keep up the good work in soccer and keep taking those piano lessons.  Well, congratulations to Cassie Howard whatever new last name she has.  Emma, you don't have to worry about dating because it's bawal until I get back.

Well what can I say about this week...we haven't moved into a new apartment yet.  March na lang! (In March now!).  We're busy every hour of every day still, but we had some good insights about planning and evaluating that will hopefully help us get the most out of our time.  So when Kolsen asked about doing service to help people I decided to look for opportunities.  Well on Wednesday we were talking with some guy who was weeding and I just started pulling along side him.  We were able to finish the little section he was doing and he let us speak to him.  He didn't seem too interested at first, but then he asked us why there were so many churches on earth.  The Apostasy pretty much sums that up.  We started talking a little about Jesus Christ establishing His church though, and then the guy told us he had to go somewhere.  So the lesson there is to teach to the people's needs especially when you get an opportunity like that to teach someone (pretty sure the Spirit put that question in his mind).  Hopefully we can meet him again to answer that question.  Sheilla came back from Manila!!!!! We're really excited about that and got to teach her on Thursday.  She's still as ready for the gospel. We taught a family with our fellowshipper and extended a baptismal invitation.  They accepted, but they want to study the Book of Mormon a little more first before we set a date.  

We had ZTM and we got pumped about our purpose and how we can touch the hearts of our investigators to help them come closer to Christ.  Valentines was an interesting day because I realized something on that day...It's been 6 months already since I entered the MTC!!  Time is flying way too fast.  I don't feel like I've learned enough for it to have been 6 months already.  And to top it all off, I must've eaten a bad mango or something because I got lbm.  Happy 6 months!!!  We taught the Ramirez family and were able to teach tatay the Word of Wisdom.  He committed to quit smoking, but said he needed to do it gradually because it's hard to stop cold turkey.  So we said 1 a day this week and next week none.  He was a little surprised at that, but we know he can do it.  Great Sabbath day.  All our Recent converts came (they always do) and Sister Ramirez came with her daughter Jellamaica (that's a first for her).  It was only them, but it was great to see investigators that truly have a desire to be a part of the Church.  Sunday we were able to work with a recent convert named Bro. Calibuyot.  His daughter in law is the daughter of one of our investigators named tatay Norberte and he insists that we have an Ilokano fellowshipper.  It was pretty stinking awesome all of the things Bro. Calibuyot said (like savoring the experience of the true Church of Jesus Christ and if he came one time he would get to feel what that's like.)  Afterward he said he felt really invigorated and filled with the Spirit so he's going to come with us every Sunday now!  Rani and Janette Ramos are doing a lot better with the Word of Wisdom, but Rani complains a lot about his body feeling different  and it being hard to sleep now and he wants the alcohol because it's like his medicine now.  We told him he's got to overcome the addiction if he ever wants to feel good physically and spiritually.

So it's still really hard out here, but we're trucking along everyday.  There's progression going on here, just more slowly than I want.  Well that's all I've got for this week.  Oh quick little insert.  We just had an earthquake here that shook the computer shop.  It was pretty cool to feel one actually, I wonder where it originated and how strong it was.  Well have a good week everyone.

Mahal ko kayo lahat!

-Elder Egan

Here's a family (yep they're all family and they live in this little complex of houses) that we teach.  We don't teach them all, but there's quite a few that sit in and listen to us talk about the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation.  We have a lot of people here asking for a copy of the Book of Mormon, especially in Ilokano.  They love hearing our message and they all had a picnic lunch and fed us just before this picture.  The only problem is that they don't understand that there's only one true church on the earth so they don't see a need to come to our church.  We're still working on how to handle that one.

The Work is Progressing...

Naimbag a aldaw!  Or in other words, good day!  I loved hearing all sorts of great stuff from the fam.  So thanks for all the things that you've written and thanks for the thoughts and prayers.  Sounds like you had a great trip in Cancun.  That's sweet you got to see all of the Nephite/Lamanite temples in Cancun.  Helaman sounds like an awesome guy.  I'd really like to see the temples in Southern America from sinaunang Amerika (that's ancient America in Tagalog book of Mormon speak).  So who won the Super Bowl??  Who was even playing in it??  I voted for the 49ers just so you all know.  So it sounds like Kolsen did a good job even if I didn't get to give him any super neato experiences.  Good job bro.  I never had Bro. Petersen, but I know him a little bit from seminary.  Emma, Emma, Emma.  She'll be fine at driving, just keep practicing.  Good old Mia.  I'll have to take a look at that moment once we're in heaven.  Olympics are going on?  Well there hasn't been much talk about that at all, it's not like the Phillipines is known for outstanding athletes though.  They have a gay olympics here in Pagudpud... there are plenty of them to participate.  Bawal na manood.  (bawal to watch t.v.).  It's super sunny and hot here, trust me you'd get tired of it (it beats the cold though).  That sounds like the Danny I know, kudos to him.

It's true about taking generations to establish a good foundation for the Church to grow and for children to grow in the gospel.  I was talking with the Second counselor in the Branch Presidency and he talked about how when he first moved here there were about 30 members that would attend sacrament.  50 was a miracle.  Now there's around 80.  It's definitely grown and there's people who are now starting their families and giving their children the gospel from when they are born.  Missionary efforts may seem slow sometimes, but every moment of it counts!  Thanks for the words about the setting apart.  I forgot a lot of that, but it brings back a lot of things that I felt and thought at that time.

Hey that was really nice to get an email forwarded from Elder Snow.  That's a pretty neat experience, there's been some experiences like that here...but more just crazy things.  Russians and Filipinos think alike when it comes to what church you should go to.  There's people here that say they know the Book of Mormon is true, but they say they believe the same thing in their old church and God won't mind if they just stick with that.  It's like a lot of people don't understand the Apostasy even though in history we can see this time of the world known as the Dark Ages which correlates pretty much exactly with the Apostasy time period.  But yeah there's a lot of Jehovah witnesses here too and about a billion different versions of the Bible (each one more and more messed up than the first). A lot of people actually understand that there's a whole lot of different translations of the Bible and not each one says the same things about certain points, what they don't get is the part about God giving us the Book of Mormon so we could know the fulness of His Gospel.

Quick story on that.  We went out to Caparispisan (it's a pretty far out area that looks like Jurassic park) and when we went to teach a couple of our investigators, we found out one was in the hospital and another went to Vigan (that's basically my old area) to work and left his wife and four kids here and they have to use credit to buy all of their food now.  We were exhausted because we had been walking around a long ways and we were starting to wonder if there was anyone that even wanted to listen to us.  We decided to try one house that we had previously had a bad experience at.  Well this time we found the tatay there and he's never at home because he works as a security guard nearly 24/7.  Strangely enough, this man wanted to know who of all the churches was right (sort of like a young boy named Joseph Smith).  He knew the Bible was different for every religion, but he didn't know how to find out for himself.  So we introduced him to the Book of Mormon and told him he could ask God to tell him which church is true.  So we committed him to read and pray and hopefully we can find times to teach him again.  Then we got to teach another guy we hadn't been able to visit in a while and a couple of his friends were pretty interested.  And then (lots of and thens) a guy offered us a ride in a van back to sentro.  He talked a little about religion and asked if it was alright to visit our church during our meetings.  We said of course he could.  Unfortunately he didn't come, but the free ride was still nice.  

Perfection is an interesting concept.  There's something that somebody told me once and I've pondered on it a lot.  People always say here that we aren't perfect.  Everyone knows that (or should).  When we think about mistakes we've made it would be easy just to say "well I'm not perfect" and give up.  But the thing that's interesting is the Jesus Christ commands us to be perfect like our Father in Heaven.  He always provides a way for us to fulfill his commandments.  That way is the Atonement.  When we are using the Atonement and looking at the mistakes we've made saying "well I'm not perfect, but how can I get better" it's called repentance.  Through true repentance we are becoming more like the Savior (a.k.a. perfect).  Perfecting ourselves a little bit each day is part of repentance.  We can perfect things in our own personal capabilities and capacities, but we can't be completely perfect because we have a mortal body subject to physical and spiritual death, but because of the Atonement we will have a perfect body due to the resurrection and on conditions of our repentance we will be made perfect through the grace of the Redeemer.  It's interesting to look at that in terms of the Atonement and the Plan of Happiness.  Beautiful isn't it?

Well that may or may not have seemed like a bunch of blabbering on.  Hopefully the latter.  Work has been progressing along here.  We have reached a record high of lessons taught this week.  We still fall short of our goals sometimes, but they're helping us stretch ourselves and improve.  Little by little we will have success.  The Lord has plans for all these people and we just need to make sure we're worthy instruments to help bring about those plans.

So on a note about service that Kolsen mentioned... people here are kind of selfish about letting you serve them.  I'm pretty sure there's actually only been one time here where we've actually been able to help someone and we really had to persist before they let us.  Every time we offer to help they say "huwag na, kaya ko." (Don't, I can do it).  But that's a great way to try and find people to teach.  Even if you don't get the chance to serve, people appreciate the offer and it can open up a conversation where you can bring up the gospel.  

So I guess I'll wrap this up now.  When I'm homeless I think I'll come live in the Philippines ;) That one's for you bud.  If the car wash isn't available you might as well use a bucket for your shower like I do.  Love you bud.

Mahal ko kayo

-Elder Egan

A Valentine for Christopher from a recent young convert

Lessons to Learn...

Helo to all family and friends, kumusta?

Well it's been a somewhat crazy week due to the hospital trip and such, I feel like I was just emailing the other day.  So I forgot to mention some interesting news about transfers.  We have a new Zone Leader here and his name is....Elder Lynn!  I can't believe he followed me all the way up to Pagudpud just to be my Zone Leader. What a great guy.  We'll have a lot of fun catching up about Cabugao.  One more exciting bit; remember the pictures of the apartment? (the rather pangit (ugly) one).  Well we're moving out soon!  All the missionaries are moving out either this week or next into a new apartment.  It'll be like being in Cabugao again!

Enough about that, let's talk about the good stuff.  We went to Caunayan again and first off we gave a guy a copy of the Book of Mormon.  He told us thank you like a million times for giving him something to read.  I hope his whole family is that excited about it.  Then we went to the Lagalo's again and they were excited to see us and asked why we didn't come the other day.  We said sorry because Elder Ramsay had to go to the hospital and it messed up our schedule and we felt bummed because they invited a whole bunch of people over to hear us and we never showed up.  Sayan! (what a waste).  Tomorrow we're going back for sure though.  Tons of people out there are willing to listen.

We had a District meeting about helping people overcome addictions.  It was really good and then the thought occurred to me that we can use a lot of that to help people overcome the addiction of missing church.  It's become a huge problem lately and yesterday for the first time in a while we had 0 investigators at church.  It's heartbreaking.  Well while we're on the sad stuff I might as well mention this next experience.  One of the coolest guys that lived a lot of the gospel (including the Word of Wisdom) told us he hadn't read and he didn't want us to come back anymore because he was more interested in focusing on being a born again Christian.  I really appreciate that he was being honest with us instead of hiding or trying to make excuses to avoid us, but at the same time it was sad becuase he hadn't done his part in trying to know.  We bore strong testimony that he needs to read it and ponder it in order to know it's true.  We left him with the Book of Mormon and I sincerely hope and pray that he reads it, for now he isn't ready yet.

Thursday we got to work with the best (well really the only one too, but still the best) fellowshipper in the branch. Bro. Carlo!  He's such a hard working and gospel loving guy.  We had a really good lesson with one of our investigators with a baptismal date and then another girl that has lots of questions about the gospel.  Two of the greatest lessons this week by far.

And then things got hard again.  The next day we had a lesson where the Spirit just wasn't strong at all and the nanay refused to show any interest.  So we cut it short to go find a way to teach where we could have the Spirit. The next lesson was much better.  We were dropped by that investigator on Saturday, but before his lesson we were having amazing finding and teaching opportunities in one of our weakest areas.  We got a lesson to people that we hadn't been able to teach since I'd been here.  Then we found a guy who had no religion and he wanted to know if we believed in the Bible or something else.  We got to share to him about Joseph Smith's experience and the restored Church of Jesus Christ on the earth and how the Book of Mormon is the additional word of God that helps us know that this gospel is true.  I thought that was a great lesson.  Then on Sunday after we had been dropped by the investigator the previous day, had 0 investigators at church, and then ended up breaking our fast early because the branch brought food for a baptismal service we had (that was a really great baptism though), Elder Ramsay got frustrated because none of the branch was doing anything to help clean up after the lunch and one of the branch presidency was telling him he broke the sabbath since he was sweeping the church.  Elder Ramsay made a smart comment to him and you could feel the spirit...the spirit of contention.  So we tried to learn from that and try to handle things more like Jesus so we have the Spirit of Truth with us.  And then I screwed up in the lesson we had and tried being a little too aggressive in saying that this is the only true church. I try too hard sometimes to say that not all churches are right.  Jesus only taught one faith, one baptism but people tend to think that means whatever you do as long as you had faith and baptism Jesus will be alright with that.  I just don't want to lose these investigators like we lost the other one on Saturday.  Unfortunately I was a little too bold and less loving than I should have been and the Spirit in consequence was not strong during the lesson.  

Well I hope we've learned everything that we need to so we can keep growing and progressing.  It's still hard and tiring, but every time a child smiles and someone's life is made a little brighter by the missionaries it's all worth it. I imagine Jesus smiling right alongside the kids every time and I can't help but desire to be more like him and to help others receive his saving grace.  Love the mission, every day is the great day.

Mahal ko kayo lahat

-Elder Egan

A Hospital Adventure

Hello pamiliya!!

So there's been some concern about why I didn't send an email last week (and yesterday).  Let me explain, no, there is too much.  Let me sum up.  So last week we went to do emailing and the computers were really slow.  It took forever just to load the email page and then we couldn't read any of the emails, just see that we had some.  So we left and tried every other computer shop in Pagudpud.  Turns out we lost internet connection right as we were trying to email.  Bummer naman! (naman pretty much = !).  So we didn't get a chance last week.  Now to explain why we couldn't yesterday is going to take some more time.

Friday after lunch Elder R said his stomach felt bloated.  We thought he just ate a lot.  So we went out to teach and coming back he said it still felt that way.  Little blessing that I'm just realizing now, a truck driver gave us a ride from where we were teaching which happened to be really far out in the bundok (mountain) and we would have had to walk a long way.  But we went to a members for MCM/FHE/dinner.  Well Elder R. said he felt a little hot and dizzy and needed some air.  So we waited outside a bit and then went back in to eat, but Elder R's stomach was hurting again.  So he had just a little bit of energen (it's like hot chocolate packets but with oatmeal and protein stuff) and then lied down.  The members said he might have an ulcer so we were about to go get some hyoscine pills for him, but Elder R couldn't walk very far without his stomach hurting really bad.  So the member went and got some and he just lied down while we cleaned up dinner and started FHE.  Well he decided he'd better go home because of how he was feeling and we got about 50 yds down the road when he said he couldn't walk anymore and we had to get a tricey back to the apartment.  We told President and he sort of freaked out (since Sister Barrientos usually takes care of that but she left to go visit her sick father).  So Elder R just rested and we were both pretty exhausted and just fell asleep.

Next day he said it was still like that and he felt like his intestine was all blocked up.  So that Elder J. gave President some instructions and told us we should go to Laoag hospital if his pain still persisted by .  Well it did and miraculously the office elders were up in Pagudpud looking at a new apartment for the missionaries here when we decided we needed to go to the hospital.  So we packed some clothes and left and when we got there the doctor's first observation was appendicitis. So he was admitted into the hospital and hooked up to an IV and told not to eat or drink for a day.  So thus began our wait in the hospital.  3rd world hospitals are exactly like they sound: 3rd world.  So the food they gave him was very measly and we were basically trapped in prison cell for 2 days (well it was a prison cell with tiles and a nice bathroom).  President came and checked on us Saturday and Sunday night (he brought McDonalds when Elder R. couldn't eat so it was all for me :) ) and the sister that works at the mission home came and brought us better meals every day. Sunday morning they said it wasn't appendicitis because the appendix was softer and not swollen.  So he had to stay there on Sunday and they said he could be released on Monday if the pain went down.  

We got a lot of studies on Sunday.  I read a good deal of the Bible Dictionary.  It's fascinating.  Most of the time we were bored out of our minds though.  (I did write a letter so look out for that!).  Monday they said he could go, but none of the office Elders were in Laoag to pay for the bill and as such we had to wait in the prison until 3:00.  He had a UTI and we needed to go buy some drugs for him and by the time we got on the bus it was 5:00 and arrived in Pagudpud around 7:00.  So today is our P-day instead of yesterday.  And what's more fun is that we're really poor from that adventure until the mission can reimburse us.

So there you have the last few adventurous days.  It's been fun.  What else... well it's been a whole two weeks so there's plenty to say.  So last Sunday we went out to Hannah's resort and had a Zone activity.  It was really fun and I would send pictures, but I can't exactly do that because my pictures from that and a lot of other ones are all missing now.  That sucks...

We went out to Caunayan this last week and that was interesting.  It's way far, but there's a ton of people that were willing to let us in and listen to our message.  I have a feeling that it will become a very good place to go and work.  We had exchanges on Wednesday and I went with Elder D. We had a lot of fun, but it was stinking cold and that's why I'm wearing a jacket in the picture.  He's a really good missionary.  We were going to go to District meeting the next day and exchange back, but there was a landslide that blocked the passage through to Claveria so we just cancelled District meeting.  That was a bummer too because it's nice to go and learn from our leaders and have spiritual meetings with other missionaries in the District.

Well that's about all that I think I have time for, but I'll tell you a quick bit about a guy named R. He's S.'s mister right now (they aren't married yet).  He has problems with the Word of Wisdom and he drinks about every night.  Before I got here he was smoking everyday, but now he's down to about 10 pesos a week.  We taught him the Word of Wisdom straight up and told him he needs to start coming to church again and give it up.  He said it's hard since he works everyday from about 8 to 8, but he said he would.  Well we were in the hospital and the Zone Leaders told us he came to church!!  That's pretty huge and we'll follow up with the Word of Wisdom when we can teach him again.  Our work has been paying off.  We increased our lessons by 20 from lat transfer and we have been finding a lot of new investigators.  It's funny though, the lessons go up and then baptismal dates and church attendance goes down.  We'll just have to work harder to fix that!  Quick update with Sh. and L's family.  Their parents said by April they can start coming to church because their jobs won't be as busy.  We told them that's good, but not good enough.  We encouraged them to try now to get work off.  We don't think tatay's drinking as much anymore and they just seem happier right now.  Thank you for your prayers and keep it up.

I got that scripture email and that was awesome.  Soccer sounds like it was fun.  I like hearing stuff like that.  Keep me updated and have fun in Cancun.

Mahal ko kayo lahat!

Welcome to the Jungle!

The "prison cell" at the hospital. There may have been boredom, but at least the bathroom was a welcome change!

Zone activity at Harrah's resort

-Elder Egan