September 28

Well its been another great week in Chesterfield!! I just love this area. The weather has been celestial and its been great to work in.


Our investigators are doing really well. We had an appointment with Chris yesterday. This guy is just so solid. We was telling us that he wanted to move his baptismal date back because he didn't feel ready. Then when we asked him how his prayers were going he said that the Lord keeps telling him to keep his baptism on the 10th!!! He still isn't sure, but the fact that he is recognizing the Lords answers and knows what he NEEDS to do is great, so were still planning on the 10th between the two of us.



Vita is still thinking about baptism. We were on splits the other night and the member I was with asked her about it and she spoke really positively about it, the thing is is that she is scared of water (due to a near drowning experience when she was a kid). No worries though. There is this part member family that the elders have been working with for a while that is starting to show a lot of interest. She is going to have a baby in a few months and was asking questions about them all being sealed. We are trying to get her husband more active so that he can baptize her. We'll see.



We have a new investigator, Kevin, I'm not sure if I told you about. We found him tracting a few weeks ago and have since gone back twice. This last time we talked about authority and the Prophet and Apostles and told him how we have General Conference coming up. He immediately got up from the table and left. We were a little nervous, but he had gone to the TV and was setting it to record conference on the BYU station. Not only did he record that, but everything he saw that had to do with Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon. It was a really neat experience. We hope that we'll get to teach his wife this week too. We'll call him today.


This week we are going to try and work a ton with the members and get some referrals. We've set some pretty high goals, with the help of the Spirit, and are going to use every tool available to us to accomplish them. Even with that said its going to stretch our faith a lot, but all things are possible to the Lord (1 Nephi 7:12).


Nonetheless its going to be a really good transfer. With General Conference, another special Zone conference with Elder Walker of the 1st Quorum of 70, and everything that's going to happen in our area, how could it not be.


Neat little story:
We were planning one night and were not sure where to go the next morning. We sat looking at the map for ever and nothing came. Then Elder Nelson had this great idea. We each looked at the map and picked five streets. then the other person would do the same. When we had each picked our five we came back together and saw which ones (if any) matched. One did!!! We tracted it that next morning and found a new investigator!!! It was really neat seeing how the Lord guides us when we exercise faith.


Mom-tell Kersie congrats. There was a girl from our ward that just got back from the Boston mission and just loves that area. it will be fun. A name would be nice for Sis. Plessingers niece, but I'll see what I can find out. Is she from our area? I've already got a really GOOD flower tie :) actually its really ugly but a member gave us a bunch and so i got it. You can only get so far with ultra conservative ties, haha. Its also starting to get kinda cold at night, do you think you could send me my BYUI blanket? That'd be great.


Dad-If you see Aunt Marilyn any time soon, let her know that Sis. Parks is in my ward, I said hi for her and she says hi back. I don't know when I'll have an opportunity to write them anytime soon. We are going to the arch today and iIdon't know how much time we'll have after. Get a picture of Mitt for me, everyone out here loves him!!


Anyway, keep us in your prayers (I know you do anyway),
Love,
Elder Egan

I Survived!!

It has been another amazing week in Chesterfield!! Transfers are on wed. and the phone calls were going out last night. We jumped every time that the phone made a noise, but the call never came. We are really excited to serve another transfer together.

So i must tell you about the wonderful food that St. Louis has. Since I've been here Elder Nelson has been going on about this dish that a family in the ward makes. I was skeptical until I had some. Its Chicken 'n Waffles and is literally what it says. You put a waffle down with some fried chicken on top of it and then you pour gravy and maple syrup on top of that. Its actually really good. Then a St. Louis dessert is even healthier, Gooey Butter Cake. All it is is a lot of butter and sugar made into a cake, and if your lucky they'll put chocolate chips in it. Its definitely an acquired taste, it was for me anyway, but it is delicious nonetheless.

Another thing that is big around here is Tropical Sno. It's a snow cone place that is really good. I'm pretty sure that they're back home too, you should look and see. anyway, one of our investigators, Vita, owns it down here and so we get free snow cones every time we go and visit her. That snow cone shack has been our best proselyting activity. Besides Vita, we found another lady that works for Vita that we're going to start teaching, Lisa, and another worker that is a potential investigator, Jessica. Lisa we found tracting but Jessica we see all the time when we get our snow cones. We both had the feeling that we needed to share the gospel with her but then she was never working when we went there. Then finally one night we went and not only was she working, but there weren't any other customers. Neither of us were sure how to bring up the gospel and were praying really hard so we could do it in a way that it needed to be done. But as we were just talking with her, she asked us what we do!! We were more than glad to answer her question and got her address and stuff. Lets just hope her parents are OK with it (She's a Senior this year and you know of our luck with teaching youth, haha). The Lords hand is definitely in this work.

Yesterday we took Vita on a quick tour of the font after sacrament (she couldn't stay the whole time because of work). She said that she would keep thinking about baptism. We're pretty sure that she'll go down this next transfer and are really excited for her.

We also met with Chris yesterday. He is so awesome. The lesson previous we talked about prayer and how we can make our prayers more meaningful. We told him that this is something that we were going to work on with him. So yesterday after we asked him how his prayers were, he followed up with us on how our prayers were!!! What investigator follows up with the missionaries?!? There are going to be choirs of angels singing at his baptism.

We've been tracting a lot these past few weeks and have found a lot of potential people to teach. We have high hope for a lot of them and are looking forward to once again having a large teaching pool.

The weather has been wonderful. Cool with a little rain. However, this week its supposed to rain all week, but we'll see. We may not be dry again till next monday, I'll let you know.
We got our new car last week. Its our baby now. I was going to send some pics today of it and a bunch of other things but I just realized that I left my camera in the car, too bad. They'll come next week. I also parted my hair last week. I never thought it would be possible but i did it!! My head was about 5 lbs. heavier because of all the gel but it worked. There are some pics of that too.

We had this really great experience with a man named Ed. He is some kind of born again preacher but not really a preacher or born again. hopefully that only confused you a little. Anyway we are talking with him and teaching him a little, then he would talk and tell us his ideas. He is an old southern guy that is really funny. at the end, he asked "do you guys hug in your church?" and we're like "of course we hug!!" and he gives us this big hug, and then asks if he can bless us. He grabs our hands and blesses us thanking the Lord for us and all that we do. It was awesome and really funny at the same time!!!! At times during our visit, Elder Nelson and I were just cracking up because of the things that he was saying. We meet all kinds of people and I love it!!

Mom-we eat out every once in a while but not too often, and no there isn't a Panda around here. actually there isn't much chinese around here at all. We keep our bikes. If we were ever to use up all of our miles before the month was over we would have to ride. We're pretty good about staying under though and haven't had to use them yet. Well if you are already sending some stuff out, silk ties are really bad in the rain and that's almost all I have. If you see any non-silk those would be nice. I also have a lot of dark ties. so if you see any bright non-silk ties that would be even better :)

Dad-its fun reading about the pioneers and what they went through especially when they are our family. I would like to know what happened after the Major and Mary Ann divorced. How did we end up in Idaho? Also I was reading and it said that the Major was in St. Louis a little bit getting supplies and what not. Do you know any more about that?

Josh-keep that melloline on track for me and don't let them slack off. When do you start driving? its weird thinking that its almost time for that.

Keep strong in the faith and the Lord will be on your right hand and on your left. He will go before your face and send His angels round about you.

Love
Elder Egan

P.S. can you believe I've been out for almost 5 months!!!!!! Crazy how fast time flies.

Ever Onward

This was in some pictures we recieved a few weeks ago......

Hi everyone!
We just got a phone call from the mission office telling us that we're getting a new car!! It was a good morning to begin with, we both just felt really good and cheerful, and then we got the call about the new car, which made it even better.

We set a baptismal date with one of our investigators and this time we don't have to worry about his parents. His name is Chris. I may have mentioned him in a pervious letter but I don't remember. He is a med. student at SLU and is roommates with a member and has lots of member friends. He went to a baptism Sat. afternoon that the Zone Leaders had and loved it. Then when we taught him yesterday we set the date for the 10th of Oct. He is really solid and we don't have any worries. The only thing that would keep him from getting dunked on the 10th would be if he decided to move it sooner, which is a possibility he was thinking about.

Other than that we still don't have any solid investigators in the Chesterfield ward and depending on the week we have about three in the Parkway ward with Chris being the only one in the Singles Branch. We have done TONS of tracting this past week and it looks like its going to pay off. We have about 12 potentials in Chesterfield and a few more in Parkway and a lot of members have told us that they have friends that they want us to start teaching soon, a lot of them youth again but we'll take 'em.

Mom-you're right. the weather has been wonderful here. No, we have our own music so yeah you can send some if you would like. ....and yes Elder Nelson has the conference cds. Our money carries over from month to month. You know my feelings on dance festival, however, it could be a great missionary opportunity. Speaking of missionary opportunities, have you invited your friend over for dinner yet? Don't let that slip through the cracks.

Dad-I looked through my stuff and couldn't find a pedigree chart. I have stuff about the Major and about Idaho but nothing in-between. I was a little confused about how we got up there and which family we were from (Tuttle maybe?).

Keep opening your mouths and let the Lord guide you in your words. I can't begin to tell you how much easier tracting is when people know members.
Love,
Elder Egan

Tuesday Sept. 8th

They say dogs are mans best friend.....here is a picture of the McCords dog in the basement apartment where Elders Egan and Nelson live:)

It's great that the missionaries are so loved!!

It has been another eventful week in Chesterfield. We had Zone conference this past Wed. It was really good and uplifting, like always. The transfer theme is "getting back to basics" and so all our trainings had something to do with that. We've been doing a lot of tracting this week. Almost all day every day. We're trying to find some new investigators. We were tracting one day and everything was going pretty good. Everyone was polite and rejected us nicely. We thought that it was too good to be true not to have any rude people on a street, then we came to this one house. It started off kind, but quickly went into bashing. Voices were harsh and the spirit quickly left. It took us a while to get it back but we're glad that we did. We came to our last house of the evening and knocked (we hate tracting at night because people are always asleep, but we do). We see this guy get up without his shirt and we just look at each other thinking "oh great." Turns out that he let us in to teach him a first lesson. Then he unexpectedly called his two kids in and started telling them how good we were to do what we do. Needless to say that we were both really embarrassed but it felt good to be praised a little bit. some how it was mentioned that his little daughter was learning the piano and he tried to get her to play, of course she wouldn't, so I offered to play. I played "We thank thee oh God for a Prophet" he really enjoyed it. We're going to go back tomorrow and he said that he'd feed us dinner, so we'll see what comes out of this.

Then on Thursday we taught one of our investigators, Mae, some of the commandments; obedience, pray often, study scriptures, and follow the prophet. The cool thing was though that we were teaching in Bishop Blairs house and Sis Blair is the granddaughter of Pres. Hinckley. It was an intense follow the prophet lesson.

On friday we tracted some section 9 housing. It was really fun. We met all kinds of people. Elder Nelson was a spanish missionary when he first came out, and so we were able to teach all the hispanics that we ran into. We also met an Egyptian Muslim that wanted a BoM in Arabic so he could read it. We also ran into a bunch of Hindu's. It is just a really diverse area out here. There is also a large Jewish population. It was really fun tracting that day though.

On Sat. it was pouring down rain. We were drenched from head to foot, and we were tracting. The only person that let us teach them didn't have a covering over their door so we just taught in the rain. Despite the rain, it was really fun, because who else would go door to door in the rain? no one.

Sunday was kind of disappointing but really awesome at the same time. Only two investigators came to any of our wards. But we are teaching this guy in the singles branch and he is really solid. We started the plan of salvation, then the branch had a bbq yesterday so afterwards we met at the church and finished the plan. He said that things just started to click. he could easily get baptized this transfer (only 3 weeks left). Then, on sunday evening there was a fireside for a RM. She just finished serving in Boston. It is always fun to go to missionaries homecomings. They have great stories and get us pumped for our own work. After it was over we pulled one of the recent converts aside and started teaching him the new member lessons, the restoration. It was really good and the Spirit was already there because of the fireside.

Yesterday. it started off really good. I wasn't tired and had a really good personal study. As we were finishing up our comp. study we got a phone call from Mae. She said that her mom wont let her take the lessons any more!! We were devastated. that's been the 3rd one whose parents wont let them learn. We'll keep working on her and her mom through the members though. So, we were a little down that morning. Then we came to the library to email, not thinking that it would be closed for the holiday, only to find it empty. then in the evening we had our really good appointment with Chris (the guy in the singles branch). Once again, before our greatest joys there is always deep sorrow. I've found that out alot since I've been out.

Anyway, that's how my week has been. Oh yeah. i found out from Elder Reese that Denise has dropped them and has stopped coming to church.

Mom-Yes i do know Elder Hinckley. he's in my zone. we talk when we see each other. We eat normal things but its all been really good. I haven't had anything that I haven't had multiple helpings. My pants are fine thank you very much :) My weight has been all over the place. I lost ten pounds in St. Peters but have put it all back on plus 5 or so pounds since I've been out here (hopefully not all fat either). We get 1000 miles a month on the car, which is fine. We were under last month and are doing really good so far this month. We get about 35 ish a day and we rarely use over 30. Yeah we listen to music/conference cd's/instumental.

Dad-I've read through all the family history stuff that you sent me with. Could you send a pedigree chart going back a ways? and maybe some more stories and things, its nice to read. interesting that the Major came to St. Louis a few times.

Josh-sounds like you've got a full schedule. Keep up in your homework and LEARN A LANGUAGE!! It will help you more than you know later on. I wish I would have worked harder at spanish. And of course you're in wind symphony. All you have to do now is make sure you don't make me look bad :)

Keep reading the scriptures/PMG and praying daily. its those small and simple things that keep you strong.

Love,
Elder Egan

August 31st

Hello,
It has been another great week in Chesterfield!! Lots and lots of tracting this week. The weather has been wonderful so we thought that we'd take advantage of it and find some new people to teach. We didn't find any new investigators from it, but we were able to teach a lot of door step lessons.

So this last Saturday was Adria's baptism in St. Peters. I wasn't able to go. Elder Nelson, who is also the DL, discouraged it and so I decided not to go. I called Elder Reese today to see how it went and he said that she was glowing afterwards. It was a long path for her but she finally made it!!

So we had an appointment with some investigators that Elder Nelson started teaching before i was here, and because of schedules and vacations i we didn't have the opportunity to teach them until this last week. I mentioned that this area is for the most part really rich, well this family exceeds everything i had seen so far. Elder Nelson warned me about it but when we pulled up to their "house" i was shocked. This thing was a gigantic castle. They had like two, four car garages with nice cars in each and our house could easily fit inside their kitchen. It was almost sick how big this thing was. With that in mind, he is in real estate (which isn't doing very well right now) and so they are having to move. The sad part is is that they'll be no longer in our ward. They are really solid too. The dad is a Jew and the mom is Christian, the daughter was kinda brought up in both faiths, and the son goes to a private christian school.

We also got one of our investigators, Vita, who the missionaries have been working with for a long time to come to church. She owns a Snow Cone stand and every time we go see her see gives us snow cones. They are the best snow cones I've ever had. She loves church and even came to a ward activity. We are planning on setting a date with her this coming week.

We have to push back Colleen's date because she hasn't been to church yet. But that's ok because we want to teach her son too and baptize them at the same time. We're meeting with her tonight and figure it all out.

We are still planning on Mitchell's baptism coming up. His mom is still against it, but we know that God is a God of miracles and have faith that it'll happen. If not, we know that Gods will be done.

Last Sunday we started teaching a way sweet new investigator. one of the young men, Sumner, referred his friend Natalie to us. We taught her the Restoration and she really felt the Spirit. We found out that she had been reading every night but when she told her mom that she wanted to meet with us again, she flat out refused. When she told this to Sumner she said that her mom can stop her from meeting with us but she cant stop her from reading the Book of Mormon!!!! We just felt so good after hearing that.

Mae is doing really well too. She is the girlfriend of one of the recent converts. We are trying to meet with her mom before we set a date. We don't see any real road blocks with her though. Her mom has alot of member friends and has even been to a baptism before.

Its just so great teaching the youth because their hearts aren't hardened yet like their parents and they are much more receptive to the Spirit.

Mom-yeah, obedience is a big thing out here. Most of the missionaries are really good but there are always a few who aren't. Pres. Turley is big on exact obedience and has given many trainings on it. Its true what Elder Nord said. You don't get the blessings otherwise. Thanks for the card. I didn't mean to sound so down in my last letter, the work has been going great, just a little slower week last week. The card was good none the less.

Dad- I still look for some of my things where they'd be in St Peters but other than that, i'm pretty well settled in. I still don't know the area very well yet but Elder Nelson has a GPS so we don't really get lost (every once in a while i'll take a wrong turn still ...but that'll always happen, just ask Rachel, ha-ha). Our members have a piano too, so i play every once in a while and sometimes Elder Nelson makes me play at District Meetings. There are only four of us in our district, the two of us and two sister missionaries. So for our meetings the Zone leaders have to come otherwise it'd pretty much be a double date, not good on a mission, ha-ha.

Well the beach trip sounds like it was a lot of fun. Don't spare any trouble having fun while I'm gone :)

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. We were tracting the other day and while we walk from house to house we always wave at people driving by. There was this old lady that we waved to that just got this sour face and violently shook a thumbs down at us. Elder Nelson and I couldn't stop laughing. It was too much.

The weather looks like it'll be in the 70's this next week, so its pretty much Zion out here......well almost.

Love you lots,
Elder Egan