Week #5: "Good news never ends when you are doing your best"

Hello family!!

It has again been a wonderful week, the good news never ends when you are doing your best. The Lord loves His missionaries, and I love serving Him!! I'm so grateful for my testimony, and I'm so grateful for the wonderful family I have back at home. I know He is watching over all of you as you continue to stay close to Him, and diligently pray. Thank you for being the wonderful people and examples you are. As we teach so many different people, (I may have mentioned this before), and we talk about the importance of families, it makes me apprieciate my family (and friends) that much more. I'm so blessed to have such wonderful people supporting me, and I'm so glad that I was raised in this true gospel!
So, something random that is pretty cool.. It's been announced that an apostle will be visiting our mission sometime next month! We don't know exactly when or who yet, but rumors are that it will be Elder Oaks.. I guess we'll see! I'm excited for that. Everyone talks about when Elder Pearson from the Seventy came and spoke a month or two ago. I've heard it's pretty awesome when they come. Hmm.. another random thing. Missionaries will be able to use Facebook eventually! Probably in about a year.. I don't know if it's just our mission or all missionaries, but that should be interesting! I don't know how that will work exactly..
Thank you so much for all the updates and the mail. Dad, I did get your letter on P-Day last week! The only problem was that I wasn't able to get the mail until that night, so I wasn't able to write back. If I get mail on P-Day again, I'll have to remember to try to check it earlier in the day! Also, thank you so much for sending the Empower! I got it just at the perfect time. It was kinda funny when I got the box because I immediately recognized the box. It looked so familiar! haha.. It reminded me of work. Tell everyone at work hi for me!!  I'll try to get out another letter to you today! Tell the kids thank you so much for the things they sent me. Isaac, Ashley, Brynlee, Chloe I love you!! Thank you, thank you. I'm excited to use that Empower. It does seem to help, so I'm so glad I'll be able to take it. :)
Thank you to the Smarts for the wonderful package! Me and my companion are loving all the easter candy and toys! haha.. They are really awesome!! Thank you so much. I love that scripture that you shared in Jeremiah. That is PERFECT for the MTC food! ;) I loved that.
Mom, Heather, wow. So many exciting things this week! I continue to be so happy for all the things that are happening! Heather, thanks for sharing those pictures. I loved them! That is so funny, you're going to do so awesome as an SBO, and [nominated for] prom queen. That is all so awesome. No suprise. :)  That was cool to hear about Jason and Julie's new life style! That sounds pretty exotic and exciting! Mom, that's so crazy about the Blood's. They're in my ward! I've heard about them but haven't met them yet. I will have to go talk to them!! Also, congrats to Tyler Johnson! He will love it there I'm sure. Hopefully I'll be able to get his mailing address when he's gone.
Thank you Mom for the wonderful email all together! I always love reading it all. I loved what you said about the tithing being a "love letter to the Lord". That's a really cool analogy. Thanks for everything. Alright, for my favorite scripture.. it's so hard, but I would say 2 Nephi 32:9. That's a really good one that gives me strength, and helps me remember who I am really doing this work for. We must always pray to God, and always keep a prayer in our hearts! That's so important.
Well, I'm a little short on time. But I will share an experience we had. Las week we were knocking on doors and we met a guy who didn't have much background with any religion, and he just seemed really curious to learn something. So, we taught him a lesson. It was pretty cool to do that and to see him get excited. At the end he said his first prayer and it was just a pretty cool experience. A couple days later, we were on exchanges so I wasn't there, but my companion and another elder went back to the house to see him, and a cop pulled up just as they got there. They thought the cop was there to get mad at them, but as they walked up to the door, the door opened and the cop walked in and the guy was in a big fight with his fiance. Apparantly it was pretty bad. The officer had to pull the guy away and eventually escorted him out. So, me and my companion went back over to that house a couple days ago and the fiance was there. She is having a really hard time right now because of all of that and she has three kids. We were able to teach her though, and it's been really cool. It's just interesting how the Lord really puts people in our path and things like that happen for a reason. She's really interested and she said she would come to church. So yesterday for the first time I was able to see an investigator come to church. It's a really great feeling. We'll try to get over there again soon to commit them to baptism, and to teach them more!
This week I've learned that I have a long way to go in learning things. We ran into a guy who "knew the bible". :) It is hard when you have someone like that, and my companion has read the bible a couple times, so he knows it really well. I want to be able to understand it like that, but without bible bashing. That's probably the single one thing Elder Cisternas is good at that I won't take from him. haha.. We talked to this guy for like an hour and a half, and the whole thing was basically an argument. You don't get anywhere when the spirit isn't there. It's so important to teach with the spirit always!
Well, I need to get going. But thank you so much again to everyone for everything you do. I appriciate it so much. Braydon, I love you bud! You're so awesome. Are you enjoying Tangled? Mom told me you have been watching it and popping popcorn! ;) That's so awesome.
One other quck thing, I love the Testaments movie. We've shown the ending clip of it a couple times to some families. It is so powerful. It hits me every time when the Savior comes to the people, and when he heals Helam. Wow. So powerful.
I love you all. This is the true gospel. I know it!
-Elder Egan :)