okay here we go-----
how is ereryone i hope that everything is as well as it sounds like it is from your emails! happy birthday natalie and i wasnt even going to forget it ea\ither ha. proud of me?
things are mahirap (hard) here as im getting more used to being here. but still amazing. i havent been able to be in my area very much this week because i went on splits with the zone leaders in bambang and elder bangal is the district leader so we have been going to baptisms and zone conference was on tuesday too haa haa very busy and not busy at the same time.
i havent been feeling like ive beenable to work hard. i dono wat to do really i didnt realize napping was such a big part of a mission for some people lol. i dont wanna do this but ive gotta tell this story its hindi mabuti but i might as well get it out. we were doing our weakly planning in our room and the other two elders i dono what happened but they went crazy and got in a fight broke some chairs and i was honestly worried one would end up seriously hurt or dead. lets just say philipinos are like polynesians i guess the most kind and loving people you meetbut when mad bad things happen. we had to hide all the knives and anything that could be used as a weapon. it was pretty crazy llol and for some reason we didnt report it.. i dono why but now theyre just fine again ha hopefully that doesnt happen again.
but for lamut.....
i dont actually live in lamut ha my house is in bagabag we have to take a jeepnee to and from our area every day. thats part of the problem with not being in my area is the jeepnees end at seven at night so we have to leave early. but its been good the times we have been out there. we had a few really great lessons and we are teaching a family where the mom sister joy gamboa is inactive member and the rest (there are three kids) and the father are not members but arer all so nice. its hard for manuel (the dad) cause he has been hiding when we come but we had a really good lesswon about prayer last night and hopefully he will stick around now.
everyone here belives in christ whether they show it or not everyone will at least say they bel;ieve and after coming from america where well i guess its not terrible but a lot of people dont believe in god, i havent met one athiest. and only one muslim ha. but generally all believe and i think that is so amazing. problem is they arent sure what it means to believe and frollow him. but most have a genuine desire. id have to say amos put it best cause they dont know where to find it.
there was one guy his name is romey we were walkiing down the road and he just said hey how bout you come teach me and maybe you can help me change. just like that. the lesson was very interesting. im pretty sure he was drunk or high on something but nevertheless his intent seemed gwnuine. his nanay(mother) is a very devoted catholic and during our lesson he grabbed the crucifix they had and started explaining it because when we prayed at the begionning of our lesson he didnt understand how if we are christians we didnt do the cross thing in our prayer. then he went and got coffee and sasked if he could drink it and then just said sorry and put it back and shook our hands again ha ha. he was funny but nice and his nanay was very faithful and it ended up being a great lesson.
so one more things..
ugh i hate complaining but oh well elder bangal just told me the other day he only read his handbook once his whole mission and as far as rules more than happy to just not worry about it. which is hard when its the trainer ha and district leader. he is an amazing teacher and hard worker... when were in lamut but at home ha study......not. the new program for missionary training is two hours of companion study unstead of one and i think we have had maybe two hours my whole time here. and i dono how the bill is going to happen. ive heard out of money from the other elders quite a few times and dont worry about it but ive heard from the older american elders that theres a terndancy to blow money and just leave it to the americans to take care of the slack. im not sure how to ahandle it because i dont think its even intentional but i cant get a straite answer about it and its kinda worrying me. but i guess ill figure it out some time right.
ive been getting so many itchy bumps that well im just gona assume there but bites cause there is bugs on everything.. or theres something werong with me but im gona say no to that one. still have a caugh and the members are worried cause ive had it since i got here so keep the prayer a coming hopefully it will go away soon.
im happy here i love the culture the people are sooooooo nice i went to a family day thing on saturday while i was on splits, and it was a service project where after we went back to the church and had food and i guess we were supposed to bring our own rice or something i dono but anyways i asked a nanay (thats what you a\call older ladies here) where i can find a polate and she just took off the lid to her baby wipes filled it with food and gave me her spoon and a tupperware of rice ha ha i had no idea what was goiing on but i can never refune a nanay thats a bad idea ha so im greatful that the people here are so loving.

anyways im runnin out of time and if i dont say lets go we will be here in the computer shop for hours so i guess thats it for the week. im great and i miss you all but not too much ha ha jk. jonathan email me quit bein lazy ha you cant be thaaaaat busy.
as for things to be send in a package... maybe add some recipis of foods a could cook they all want american food but i dono how to cook anything other than breakfast burritos./ and theres not really the right ingridients for that. milk and dairy is super expensive here. just send the same kinds of stuff as before maybe more chocolate stuff reeces fast beaks and if you can find my idod send it i cant remember where i put it. just delete anything that you wouldnt listen to dad ha like any of the rap stuff and then send it if you would that would be sooo greeat! other than that i think im just great here. im gettin a christmas package ready and i think shipping it will bankrupt me bangal said for 10 kilos its about 100 dollars to ship so i dono how much it will be for less but either way this maybe will be the only package i send and will bring the rest of the stuff home when i leave. im super excited for you to get it im pretty sure you will ass really like what you find.
well until next week. mahal na mahal kita talaga ! ingat po kayo! elder landeen

sorry po for it being so late i just got back from benaue rice terraces! wow how incredible were they i cant even explain how beautiful it was there. they are apparently around 2000 years old so lots of work went into building them. so i got some pictures i cant send them right now because i dont have a v\card reader with me but i didnt get very many goot pictures of the good terraces because of coure\se my camera died befor i could. but look at them online and see how incredible they are. we also hiked to a huge waterfall man ive never climbed so many stairs in my life.i have jelly legs like lone peak ha but ayos lang kasi it was so beautiful there.
so this past week... i think i derfinately have got something wrong with my health. i still have this caugh and its getting worse i thing its been waking me up at night, and i still have something going on with my skin ive been getting itchy rash things poppin up all over so maybe i am going to the doctor sometime this week. but surprisingly im not really too worried about it im not sure how cause if i was in the mtc i would be freaking out right now. i guess the lord really does lighten the load on our backs.
my area is honestly pretty difficult i had my first experience with we dont like your message, it was weird i didnt know what to do ha. sunday was especially hard because two out of our five appointments werent home, one said she doesnt like it and no actually three werent there. but we were able to meet with less active families and hopefully have a family home evening with them later so that was great. im getting hopefully better with my tracting im gettin more comffortable woth taking myself and ive even taught some lessons in complete tegalag that is fun ive realized the only way i can be affective is if i dont think and only li\sten to what they are saying. if i do that and rely on the lord to give me in the hour i need it what to say somehow he actually does.i usually walk away thinkking wow what did you even say in there but sometimes i know that it was the spirit and it feels so good when that happens. sorry for bad spelling tryiong to type fast.
there is a looooooot of ilocano speaking here so im definately going to learn ilocano also ive picked up w\a few phrases. it sounds honestly so crazy ive never heard a crazier language. im kinda excited to be able to speak it.
its weird the things that are becoming normal to me. i saw a hunband,wife,daughter,and baby all piled onto a motorcycle without helmets yesterday (noone wears helmets really) , i road all the way to benaue on the top of a jeepnee and it was just .... normal ha we had 6 people pined in and on a tricee going to solano for a baptism on saturday ( elder bangal is the district leader so we have to go and do things for others a lot) so as for time spent in lamut its getting kinda hard because the jeepnees we take to get home all end at 7:00. and district leader stuff and new program for missionaries thats hard to get into its been mahirap ( hard ) but its also been sooooooo great i cant believe how great this is even without very many people that care about what we say. mostly well amost completely so far its in one ear out the other. we have one nanay, nanay dorin that we gave a book of mormon and commited her to reading she seems excited so im hoping t\she actually reads am\nd prays! cause walang tanont, walang sagot ha ha (without a question, without an answer)
im havin kinda a hard time with just a few cultural things here that conflict with mission and just well i dono. like some of the toher elders walk around outside in their garments and have people over to eat they stay outside but im not sure if theres really a difference... but the garment thing kinda bothers me so i think i will talk about it. i love the culture here so much. just some of the culture i think conflicts with missionary standards and when im trying to fit into the culture causer i live with 3 pilipinos and also treying to be as obedient as i can its kinda hard to choose which things are just gonna have to be accepted. kung may advice si brother welch gusto ko para sa iyo ibabahagi sa akin, maraming salamat po ha.
so mom im glad to hear school is going good and thats so funny that sophia is a little mechanic. i can just imagine how helpful she is! while i was at benaue i was thinking about when you said in your mission when you starting visiting the different churches and learning about their history you really started to love the people and i now know at least a little of what that means. so thank you for that advice. :)
dad i am glad things with choir are going good , and ha ha muhammad did email me it was kinda funny cause he did keep it super short. just how w\are you is it boring there ha ha. so im actually not suppiosed to email anyone but you guys but i can include him in this email and he can be free to respond. its weird i was explained that people can respond to what i add to the letter thats forwared but im not supposed to respond directly to them. but at least i get to emailso im not complaining.
but say to him its not boring at all i love it here i miss him and go to church ha ha. hope things are well with work at merit tell everyone hi for me.
i cant believe its two weeks in time goes crazy fast its kinda scary but i guess thats how you know your working hard is if the sun going down is the last thing you want to happen cause that means your out of time to teach.
i miss you all jonathan you should write me an email and tell me whats up with life im, im trying to find something for you for christmas and if i can find it by then your gonna like it.
kevin i dono whats up with you either so shoot me an email too so i can keep caught up. and just a heads up if i acci\dently forget to say heppy birthday forgive me i alrady forgot dads ha but hopefully i wont for the rest of you.
mahal na mahal kita talaga and miss you all . take care, and ingat po kayo

alllllright where to begin, i guess kumusta kayo? thsi will be
extremely unorganized cause i need to say things befor i forget so
here we go.
happy burthday sophia sorry i couldnt be there! i cant believe your
two! ang aking area ( my area ) is called lamut, its an area that is
just being re opened by elder bangal and i ( elder bangal is my
trainer, he is a philipino he speaks great english and wow he hes good
people skills im going to learn a lot from him) so anyways.. because
its a new area wala (wala means without or we dont have )
investigators, wala just about everything ha pero( but) okay lang
dahil malakas and aming pananampalataya (our faith is strong) i think
ha ha its pretty crazy.
everyone here in the philippines is soooo nice it is anmost unnatural
how nice everyone is, all the kids and especially the girls laugh when
they see me and especially when i talk to them. maraming palibira dito
( there are a lot of jokers) here and sometimes i wonder if im
learning the wrong words in tagalag but its alright ha. so some crazy
things.... first off the bathrom situation. this is the way it
works... :) wala toilet paper so theres a bucket of water with a
dipper in it and after you go you use the dipper to dump the water
down your lower back and wash with soap/ fuuuuuuun ha ha ha ha ha ill
be honest i was a little terrified at first but ill get used to it.
hmmm what else. driving here is crazy especiaslly in manilla theres
lanes but they basically mean nothing ha everyone just drives
everywhere, like organized chaos.
the place that i live il a house with to olther elders elder sarignaya
and elder estanislao. so i live with 3 pilipinos and its great. elder
stanislao is probably the funniest person ive ever met. and whever
said they dont have sarcasm here was only half right cause i sure have
heward a lot of sarcastic things! but its just not the same kind its
hard to explain. but anyways... working out here is... something else its a new definition
of sweat.
ano pa... (what more) oh doing laundry was fun washing in a tub and
with a board. its kinda hard on the back but i just needa get my back
stronger.
theres a lot of coconut treet everywhere and so many shops for just
odds and ends, drinks candy shoes clothes etc and everything is so
cheap. i think an ok price for a nice pair of levis is equevalent to
about 8 dollars. craaaazy.
im getting most of my shirts altered today and my pants. i have no
idea whats going on most the time where were gong what people are
saying what were doing but that wioll come with time. humidity is ...
different but its good because im in the coolest part of my mission
and the famous rice terraces banaue are in my zone so i will be able
to go there im excited! we eat with our hards a lot and its lots of
rice and chicken, i like everything ive eaten so far chow king is
pinakamasarap (the most delicious) and everything else isnt far behind
especially elder stanislaus cooking. there was one thing that was
absolutuly gross it was dried fish (little like six inch fish)
suuuuper salty and it was the whole fish and you dip it in vinegar
garlic sauce ah i almost threw up it was horrible. but othere than
that great food! i havent eaten balut yet but im gong to tonight so
ill let you know how that is.

brother welch --- you were right about people saying just for kicks ha
ha and its so funny with the accents ! sobrang palibiro dito at i got
ang aking unang "hey joe" ka hapon mula sa mga anak ng babae
pagkatapos sinabe ko kumusta sa kanila, it took a while for them to
stop laughing long anough to reply though, palagi lauging sa akin pero
ayos lang, oh yea tell brother hyde i went to some teaching
appointments with one of sa kanyang kasamas, his name was brother
bryan i dono his last lame so sana pweda siya malalaman sa kanya. i
will continue to include inyong asawa sa aking panalanging. sana
maging healthy siya soon.

my companion is super nice and caring like all the people here. he is
the first misionary in his family but they are all menbers. i told him
if he needs anything that he can ask and so he did, and if its
posible, would you sent some perfect push ups for him? they dont have
those here and he really would like some. if yo can that would be so
great.

ano pa hmmm im about out of time... but well i just wanna tell
everyone thanks for your prayers, anxiety lower now that im out
working and thats good. i wanna tell you something i learned this few
days about the gift of tounges as well as all gifts of the spirit. its
exatly that. maybe part of it is that i can learn tagalag but i dont
really think so. i believe is more that people willl be able to under
stand and feel the things im saying are true. but just like the holy
ghost and just like all things spiritual it can be carried unto their
hearts not into their hearts. we have to choose to let the spirit work
on us and let it in. me having the gift of tongues means i have to
study my butt of to learn tagalag because thats what they speak, and
they work my but off talking to everyone i can to find those people
that are willing to let this gift of tongues and let the holy ghost
enter into their hearts. i really believ thats what it means. its
realllllllllllly hard to keep those things seperated when your having
a hard time and then you can almost get prideful when you learn the
words and you worked reallt hard for them. its really mentally
strenuous honestly to keep thoughts organized and keep so spiritual
when people always will listen to youe but its just to be polite and
you wonder whey arent they feeling the spirit that everyone told me in
the mtc that they would feel and why arent they running towards
baptism when i bear my testimony, but its because they have to let the
spirit in. agency is whats its all about we are free to choose what we
want. we literally choose wheter we want to have faith or not. i have
a choice whether to belive i can find people that will listen to the
message and accpet it or not and its hard sometimes, well honestly its
been hard the whole mission for me and i dont know why but as for now
im choosing to have faith. i think thats the right decision de ba?
lets all make that choice. because without that first principle , were
lost. you could believe your whole life let go of your faith and be
just as lost as someone that never knew the truth. so well we all need
to keep our faith. well puta time i love you all ! until next week!
elder landeen

that is my companion we have our business faces are but its always smiles for real ha ha mahal kita

I got a call from Allen yesterday afternoon at about 5 pm. I got to talk a minute to his mission president - who sounds fabulous! - and to Allen, too. He also sounded well. His mission president said he always has the missionaries call their moms so they know their kids arrived safely. It was 7 am in the Philippines! Allen said they got to go through the temple in Manilla and spent the evening in the mission home there and then at 8 pm caught a bus that drove all night to get to his mission. Quite an adventure, it sounds like!

He sounded well and excited to be there. I didn't think about asking him what his pday was but I don't know if he would have known at that point in time. When we hear from him I will forward the email. Thanks for all you have done to support him this far. He mentioned when we talked to him Monday how much he appreciated all the support he had from all of you.

Love you!

Paula

Philippines address

Allen leaves today. We talked to him on the phone while he was on a layover in LA. He flies to Hong Kong and then Manilla and then he doesn't know for sure. He heard he has a 12 hour bus ride from there to his mission but he isn't sure.

He gave us the address he has for the mission home. It is:

Philippines Cauayan Mission

Pres. Rodofo A. Carlos

Burgos St.

District 3

Cauayan City

3305 Isabela

Philippines

I don't know if that is how it is written, but when we get more information I will send it on.

Allen sounded good and excited to start this next part of the mission. Thanks for all your support of him so far.

Mike and Paula

kumusta pamilya ko, sobrang crazy talaga that its in field orientation and i leave on monday! i think? ( ill explain why i think ) i dont even know where to start. first off thank you so much mom for sending tomale that camera i had no idea he asked for one! isnt tonggan culture ..... different? i doubt he told you why he needed one.. his friend that came from tonga the other week didnt have a camera and so tomale just gave him his. isnt that just well crazy? its like definately a new world i havent been in but i have to say i really like it. he takes whatever he wants i take whatever i want and its not weird never thought id see the day! but i have a story for you....

here it is last p day ha its super crazy and i dono where to start i guess ill start with the craziest thing first.

so theres an elder in my room that had been dealing with this rash for a while and was still dealing with it when he entered the mtc- and about a month into the mtc he informed us that he has scabies and if any of us get them hes sorry and they dont show up until a little after a month so we wont even know if we have them for a little while still. as you can assume i started to worry about it but i was alright for a while until one day i had a bump on my knee that was getting bigger and bigger and was really sore that was to my knowledge an ingrown hair- so i decided i was going to pop it because i was hurting when i kneeled and just bothering me and i tried and it kinda went down but i realized that it was red for a while and the next day on my other leg i becan to start itching kinda bad  and it started to appear that i had something showing up there, and then eventually another one came up on the back of my leg and as you can probbably assume again it really started to worry me. then when i got my second round of being sick i was laying in my bed during gym i think because i had super hot (the thermometer i brought doesnt work so i dono what my temperature really was) but anyways i woke up and staerted caughing and had to go throw up, and to my great surprise when i looked there just had to be blood in it. so as you can assume again my stress level went skyrocketing again seeing as how it was tuesday night and im going to a different county in a very short ammount of days- so i went to the docter and got an appointment fot the next day. when i went to the doctor he told me the blood is just something that can happen sometimes especially when you have been caughing but then he told me that i should not ever pop in grown hairs because theyre bacterial infections and when you try to pop them it can make that spread to other parts of the body so thats probably what the little rashes are and not scabies because scabies would be showing up in the webs of fingers, armpits and groin area . so he said what was happening was called faliculitis or something and gave me antibiotics to take care of it.... so then the fun began. apparently among other things a have acquired an allergy to penacillin since ive been hare! a broke out in a bad rash all over and it just so happened the place it was the worst was my armpits and my groin. so again as you can assume i thought oh great the antibiotics have made the scabies come out and well the mind spiral kept going from there ha. lots of great fun. so anyways went back to the docter he gave me a new antibiotic and i dono about it i feel like sick from it and i dono if thats just the way it is because im already sick or what but basically what it boils down to is theres a possibility that i dont head out on monday depending on how things turn out by sunday and if im doing better health wise. mix that up with the anxiety of leaving to another country and as you can assume again its been an extremly exciting week!

 

well now that thats off my chest.... ill talk about some good things.

one of the things i will miss the most about being here is brother welch (and in case you get this email brother welch hows it going) he has definately been an angel here to bear me up. its amazing how much the trials we go through and how we CHOOSE to deal with them determines the kind of person we will become.

oh before i run out of time, i plan on calling at about five o clock california time so that makes it 400 at home i think... but i dono how things will work out so expect it to be any time but if all goes well it will be at around that time. i will definately try and call right before i leave for china to see if kevin is home too. im the travel leader for our group and i really have no idea whats goiing on so pray that all goes well!

i wish i had more amail time! ah maybe ill get back on tomorrow during my all day p day to finish cause theres a lot to say but heres my final thoughts t minus 60 seconds.

somehow the lord has given me tender mercies of feeling the spirit or bearing a strong testimony right at the time he felt i needed it not when i felt like it or wanted but when i did. out of time mahal kita elder landeen