another quick week

well kuummmuuuussssttttaaaaaaa everyone how is life in the us? i heard something about obama buying everyones junk cares or something? sounds like hes just as stupid as he was before ha ha .
but about life here......
this hapened last week i cant remember if i shared it or not but the stake im in the santiago stake split into two different stakes. which is kind of a big deal here ha it was pretty exciting we had to members of the seventy i cant remember their names but they were here to conduct that business and that was cool. of course they spoke in english so probably nobody really understood but everyone loves it when white people are here so it was still great.
this last sunday we had 8 of our investigators come to church! we are currently teaching 4 whole families that are progressing and gaining their testimonies, one who is only waiting for the opportunity to marry so they can be baptised, and well its just awesome when someone says they feel like its true when they pray about it, its almost like wait really? its so cool. theres one i wanna talk about...
his name is brother robeless hes a tricee driver, elder riner had been teaching his family before i got here then i got here and he just wasnt progressing, we had a few good lessons but man he just is so bastos ( liike bad or naughty kinda lol hard to explain this word) but anyways he is an alcoholic hes obsessed with girls and he well he just has lots of temptations. we taught him about the book of mormon again and we asked him to read when he wanted to drink and then we came back the next day and he was drinking again, discouraging but i have a lotta faith in him. then we had another lesson and he told us that he was reading the book of mormon and he said with his hand in the air "swear to god" i felt peacefull. which is something you can recognize when you live in a lifestyle void of peace. and then he came to church finally! im so excited for him i hope so much that he can stay strong.
today has been such a fun p day we came down here to cauayan and played football with a whole bunch of elders and then went to the mission home for elder riners birthday (my companion0 and a couple others birthdays. oh my we had enchaladas and mexican food was the greatest thing in the world! soooooo good after so much rice and the same food all the time ha i love filipino food but man this was good, and eating it in air conditionoed mission home after a shower with water you could change the temperature on and get this is didnt even wear sandals in the shower. that was the best part. i do miss the bucket showers outside in lamut, but this was definately a nice change.
as for the cough the docter prescribed allergy medicine that ive been taking and its seemed to help it its still not gone but it has improved so iim gonna count this one as a win.
i did recieve my package and oh my reeses fast breaks are the best thing since water. just candy from america man sooo good. and those vitamins taste like candy too and are good for me. two birds with one stone there! thanks for the work you put into the stuff on my ipod hearing comference again has definately been a blessing.
ano pa... oh yeah one thing i wanted to share that they do here with all the rice that they grow here which is a rediculous ammount and the corn too, when they harvest it and dry it, what they do is just spread it out on the ground to dry. like on the main roads on the streets where people drive and walk and dogs are and other am\nimals and people are all over it, and then eventually we eat it...? hmmm kinda weird ha so basically this is my mentality. ive just acceted things arent sanitary for me to eat and i just hope i dont get sick ha.
things for me are definately going great. the works going good and im dead tired when i come home so iven though key indicators arent always as high as i want them to be i am still working hard so its all gooooooooooooooooooooooooooood, well hanggang (until) next week mahal kita elder landeen

hello again family
before i begin let me clear something up about the whole dangau thing..... thats what doctors here say about EVERYTHING ha ha its kinda like when they told mom she has stomach cancer. its just the generic disease people have ha ha.
i still have a couch. and i thik it might be getting worse. it kinda depends on the day but some times at night i have real trouble breathing. its almost starting to get me down cause ive had a few priesthood blessings and im drinking lots of water and took all the antibiotics they gave me to take and vitamin c and everything but still have a caugh. but when i say almost i mean im still happy ha hindi ko alam kung bakit but it just it like the bugs that are always flying around your head you can either let it bother you so much that you get mad about it or you can just keep working and get over it. this is where its crazy i couldnt do that before i hit the field but somehow now i can. so maybe thats exactly the help im getting is not getting anxious about it.
conference out here was great! it was in english, they had a tagalag translation but the majority just watched in english. they probably didnt understand what was going on but they were still watching and i thought that was awesome.
theres a nanay here in santiago, and she is the coolest ever she lets the missionaries eat for free at her little diner place at the palanke (market with a million little shops) every day. and theres like 7 different companionships that eat there depending on the day. she is awesome. she kinda reminds me of grandma hardcastle because she is really kind and/but she isnt afraid to speak exactly what she thinks, or i guess treats you just like your her own kid. isnt afraid to correct you if your out of line ha but so kind. hard to explain but yeah.
im gwettin my first experience with someone that has been taught for a long time but isnt putting in the effort to get a testimony. my companion is getting really frustrated with him cause well he is the one that has been teaching him but im not ready to give up on him just yet. i feel like i can understand these kind of people better than some others cause im pretty hard headed too.
im guessing this is how it is with all new companionships but kinding unity while teaching is been kind of a strougle. he talks kinda long, then when i get my turn my jealous side of me wants to share at least something so i dont evd up bweing just the testimony at the end, or he lets me start and shempre( of couse) im new and im not perfect at teaching in tagal;ag or at the lessons in general, so i dont teach it perfectly and then i dono. hes pretty patient and stuff and he wants to help me get beter theres been a few days i could feel his frustration but i understand it. this whole divine companionship thing is super hard when my vocabs so small! and bein around 3 americans we speak english quite a bit which i dont really like cause thwey all speak tagalag but dont want to to each other.
one thing about phili[pino culture i do love is they looove to serve you and each other. thweres none of this im not gonna wash that because its not my fork or its your turn to do that. well i guess it just depends on the person but for the most part thats how they are here and thats one downside of bein with americans. that dont want to become like pilipinos. i want to become like the people here so i can teach them and help them! how can you if you dont absorb their culture? so hopefully ill get another pilipino comp AFTER i learn tagalag ebough to communicate and understand. maybe ill even get a masipug( industrious/hard working) comp. that would be awesome.
ano pa.... i found out how cheap making pants are, for the most expensive fabric and for a taylor it comes out to be around 15 dollars for nice tailor made pants. im excited to get them done!
something people love here is chareoke, and i think just talkking in a microphone ha. elder riner and i were walking past a birthday and they had a chareoke machine and this guy was singing some cheesy birthday song and all the sudden we hear hey joe! where you going? ( when you are talking to people you just meet or just anybody its just normal to say saan kayo galing, which means where did you just come from, and saan kayo pupunta whichis where are you going) but to hear it in english after hey joe during a birthday some with a philipino accent we couldnt stop laughing. then i caughed up a lung and laughed again. hey joe and saying anything they can to us in elglish is like the coolest thing for them ha it just makes me laugh. we had a little girl flip us off the other day and say F U as loud as she could, like 3 or four years old maybe.... it was shocking and then funny cause she has no idea what it even means. i wonder who taught it to her.
i saw my first little cock fight two days ago it was crazy! they were just training them so it wasnt to the death but wow. the guy said that a lot of americans come over here for cockfights because its legal here.
still havent eaten dog yet but im just looking for the opportunity my comp said its actually way good.
well i dono what else to say! things are great, theres bugs everywhere our fridge was literally alive with mold because we had no power for a week, stray dogs literally everywhwere roaming the streets, never seen so many naked kids in my life, somethings just cause people dont feel the need to keep their pants on but sometimes, the sad times when theyre too poor to afford anything.
if anyone needs the gospel its these people. i just wish they would realize how much they do. most people so far, cause almost everyone is willing to listen just doesnt really care about it. i guess thats where faith comes in. well mahal kita hanggang susundan na lingo, (until next week) elder landeen

crazzzzzzzy week

kamuuuusta everyone kamusta ang buhay sa america? things hhere are pretty crazy here in case you havent been watching the news..... weve had 2 typhoons in the past week. and wow i thought i knew what a storm was. weve had a brown out for a week now so no electricity thats been fun :) i feel so bad for the people here theres quite a bit of damage. actually ive got some stories to tell you..

the day after the first one we went out to lamut and elder bangal and i both felt like we shuld go see how tatay clarito was doing. when we got to his house..... it wasnt much of a house anymore his roof was gone and some walls were fallen down and he wasnt home at the time it actually was pretty cool because there was a man there who had been baptized about 30 years ago his wife is iglesia ni cristo ( a very very bad church here you should look it up ha theyre crazy) and she burned his book of mormon a long time ago. so we got him excited about going back to church and getting a new bom. he actually asked if we would bring him one! that was cool. when tatay clarito got there he was just fine its just part of life here to have your whole house destroyed in typhoons which is hard to comprehend but everyone is still so happy!!!! garabee i dono how they do it. i guess im pretty happy too but i didnt just loose my house so yeah.ha it was kinda funny we woke up one day and basically all the neighbors were washing their clothes and taking baths in our front yard because their water wasnt working. i thought that was kinda funny they made themselves right at home.

but anyways we apparently have 2 maybe three more on the way so it should be another exciting week!

oh yeah i got transfered already after juust three weeks i am already with my follow up trainer????? my new zone is santiago and my companion is elder riner. i live in a house of 4 again and all americans! its definately a change of pace. we actually had study time and wow it just feels super different. i liked it befor a lot but i wont lie its kinda nice not to be the only one not laughing at the jokes they make about you and wont tell you what they are. i miss the pople in lamut and i didnt get to say goodbye to them so maybe sometime down the road ill be able to return.

elder riner just got released from being the zone leader here not the other two elders in our house are the zone leaders. so i am going to be able to learn how to do all that fun stuff cause im always around it.

things here are fantastic as ever, oh yeah i went to the doctors cause i still have a really bad caugh and they took blood and told me i have dangae which is a bad virus you get from mesquitos. and i have a million mesquito bites so it would be possible but im not convinced thats true. they gave me antibiotivs for the phlem and vitamin c pills and some kinda stuff like mucinex. if you send a package again send me some vitamin c pills or something and different kind of caugh medicine or stuff like mucinex that would be great if i could go a little without caughing!

hmmm what else... oh yeah i wanted to mention this and im not talking bad or anything its just the truth. this place is like sadam and gumorrah with how normal it is for people to be gay. there are so many and ah its so sad.

ive been getting a lot of hey joe's here in santiago way more than i did in lamut. ssantiago is a pretty big city they actually have a place we can take our laundry to!!!! other than garments of course but im excited about that. washing by hand is so time consuming and such a pain.

in the santiago ward 3 (which is the ward im assigned to) the ward mission leader is actually the brother of the branch mission leader in lamut bagabag branch where i just came from and the day that i got here and met him i actually had a dinner appointment at his house that night if i was still in lamuthe (well his parents house but he was going to be there)

hmm i dono what else to say ha so much has happened im kinda without words. oh yeah something you probably didnt know dear elder still works for me for free here so if you would let people know that they can just dear elder me if they want then that is still available and then i can make sure to reply back.

well i miss all of you thanks for everything and i will talk to you in a week! mahal kita! elder landeen