Ok, I think I found the problem! After a couple of hours of trying to isolate the problem, I remembered a setting I changed in this project awhile back that I had forgotten about. I’m just posting this in case it helps someone else as well. I went to Project Settings -> Engine Section -> Streaming and set the “Use Background Level Streaming” to true (i.e. check the option). For some reason I had set that option to false when I was trying to debug a performance issue.
That explains why even when I used your default levels that came with the system it wasn’t working either lol. That’s kind of a facepalm moment, but I’m glad I at least found it.
The level transitions are working now. However, I have a feeling I’ll have a lot more questions for you in regards to spawning the default pawn, but this particular issue is resolved. I am very happy now 
Thank you.