this weekkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

hello everyone its been a week full of excitement so hopefull i can get all the thoughts out! lets give it a shot...

first off.... i got bit by the ali alis dog the other day ha ha it sucks. so if within 11 days the dog shows any sign of sickness or rabies i have to start with a series of rabies shots. all in the butt. not all that excited about that. ive started a new little hobby. s\theres stray dogs everywhere and im kind of bitter about being bit so ive made myself a a flipper crutch as granda hardcaste calls it. or for those of us that werent born in the age of the dinosoars a sling shot. ive really been enjying my time with my new friend ha ha teach those dogs to bite me.

we have a few baptisms cming up this saturday and theyre big oines. im so excited i cant een say it. first off....... after weeks and weeks of effort we finally found a way for ali ali to get their marriage papers done \. so this saturday they are being married and then staight to the baptismal font. second the deguzemans. this is anouther couple we have been teaching for a long time that we found through tracting actually ha. its something that noone that hasnt been on a mission would understand really to see someone youve worked with for so ong go from foubting to being afraid to come to church to the first time to praying in sunday school and comitting to pay tithing and reading in the book of mormon. man its crazy. next we have the Paz family. they have 8 children, 2 dont live at home, one does but isa never at home so we werent able to teach him... but the 13 year old julius and the 9 year old win win aong with their parents are going to all be baptised ( their other three kids are too young for baptism ) and thats just amazing. a family. then the son of the llanetas that were baptuised in decenmber will be baptised by his father this saturday too. tatay and nanay llaneta went from hiding from the missionaries and refusing to listen to eing to first ones to church every week... full tithe papers and tatay is using his frienthood to baptise his son,,, and he \has also come with us to teach some of our investigators about tithing e\because his testimony about it is so strong he wants to share it with people. its absolutely crazy.

im loving the whole stress of training thing ha its super hard and at the same time super rewarding. i have a really different training style than elder riner had on me. i make hm teach a lot of the lesson at least half. this has been helping him become better at teaching and has also added to my anxiety level ha just because im always worried about the investigators of course. ive been learning a lot lately about just trusting in the spirit. none of us out here are perfect teachers and if we learned anything from brigham youngs conversion,,, it wasnt untal a man without elequence had born pure and true testimony to him that he believed. all we have to do is stay clean and worthy of the spirit and give it 100 percent and the promise to us is that if we desire that we will have his spirit and power unto the convincing of men. ginoon din the people have a part to open their heart to it if they didnt opent heir heart they wont feel the spirits voice. so for short its a very complex simple thing teaching the gospel ha ha.

what else happened.. we found another whole family we are beginning to teach. the pascua family. they are kapit bahay ( next door neighbors ) to the degusemans and we started teaching them this past week and man they are absolutely golden investigators. they asked basically any question you can think of that s music to a missionarys ear... and then some. questions like why are there so many churches now, what is the preisthood and who holds it, whose your living prophet, will you teach us about the book of mormon, why is jjoseph smith important and more. and we have only taught them twice! man im excited for them they seem so honest and sincere to just learn the truth. hopefully im seeing it the way it really is!

yesterday ( sunday ) we had a rough teaching or lack of teaching day. we got punted from 9 essons in a row ha everyone of our progressing investigators that we could teach on sunday we went to and then either tatay wasnt there or nanay wasnt there or theyll be back later ha an it was great. but then maybe it had a reason. we went to a pretty far barungay to talk to one of the less active members we are going to start working with and we hadnt planned on going to him at all and the past other times we had gone to him he was at work but this time we went and taught him about the priesthood and about him recieving the melcesidec priesthood when he ecomes worthy and i say a real desire for it, his son had been sick for 3 days with a fever ( if only there were home teachers visiting so someone knew about it ) but anyways we were able to give him a blessing and ya know it was a ton of walking and dif\sappointment but maybe it happened so wed go out there and bess a sick kid. i dont know of course the will of god but i like to think those kinds of things happen for a reason. then we went back to two other appointments that were just great lessons. it was just a pretty cool little experience.

well thats all i can think of for now ! things are great ill let y\you know about their baptisms next week ! mahal ko kayong lahat! ingat elder landeen

whew

kumusta everyone. i just got back from a way cool trip as a district we went to this place called aglipay and went down into the coolest caves ive ever seen! ive got a buncha pictures ill sent in a little but just had to let you know about that.
bein a trainer is super fun and super stressful ha. my comp is a hard worker and a pretty good teacher ive been really impressed. he has a hard time with all the studdying and i think he is homesick while he is at home he seems pretty miserable wehile were at the house i dont really know what to do there but when we get out and working he is super happy so thats good.

my work with the less actives is going okay we actually are going to start working with this couple to get them to the temple. the brother has been a member since youth and the sister for about 2 years and i just dont think anybody has even talked to them about goi9ng but i could see from how they treated each other that they wanted it so that is what we decided to share with them. and... theyre going to start working towards it !

ive noticed a common problem about everyone on the list of names the ward council gave to us to atart working with.. that if people would just do their home and visiting teaching there wouldnt be any problem here!!!!!!!!!! so all you people just do it its suck a small thing that makes a big difference.

we have some baptisms coming up this coming february 4. the paz family ( sana depending on if nanay comes to church and can be interviewed by president carlos before then ) and the de guzemans. (this is for sure they are so ready man this family is ... well i just love em )

we had to move te date of the pascuals because tatay is having some doubts and doesnt have as strong of a testimony as we thought he ddid. he was a part of a religion called dating daan... which means the old way. their pastour guy is a guy names soriano and he is an expert at the bible and basically just talks crap about every other religion and ah man hes such a big problem here. we randomly sometimes have people ask us so where exactly is kolob, or so why did joseph smith have 43 wives and why do you think gods name is elohim blah balah blah its like where in the world t\did they find that out.,..... oh yeah this soriano fool. but anyways ill let you know what happens with them.

im enjoying life here its hard bein in charge my tagalag is okay i can get around just fine but im still a ways from fluent my grammer isnt all that great so its good i have a pilipino companion.

what else has happened.... man i dont even know so much is floating through my head right now! thats about it that i can think of. ill let you all know next week if the baptisms are set for sure or if they will be moved. well mahal kita! elder landeen

its a PINOY BOY

hello everyone its been a fantastic week here in the rainiest place in the world so ill get straite to it

im now a tatay (father) ! my new companion is a pilipino straight from the mtc in manila, he is from a place called tanay rizal i guess its bout an hour away from quezon city (to be honest i have no idea where it is ) its so crazy going from a trainee, to being in a 3some with zone leaders to being a trainer ha but man im lovin it.
one thing i love about [ilipinos ( well i guess most.....) is theyre super humble about things. he was super super tired when we first met up at transfer day and he was pretty homesick too. but now after hes been out a few days hes making the adjustmant quickly. always after lessons he says is their anything i can do to improve? and at the end of each day hes been so happy and so thankful for all hes learned and man its just honestly nice being able to teach someone something unstead of being with someone on the last month of their mission thats got the world figured out. its a lot easier for us to work together this way because well im still pretty new and hes brand new so were both learning a lot everyday with each other.

its now 2 americans (me and elder valdez, probably one of my favorites in the mission) and two pilipinos (my comp elder Garcia and elder valdez's new comp ander vinas) in our house its been quite an adjustment. i hate to admit it but theres just such a culture difference that is almost impossibe to do anything about. when were at home they like to talk to each other and then me and valdez end up talking to each other. maybe its just because its a new situation im hoping that that is all that it is. but any how its been a change but not in a bad way., we had to bust out the rice cooker for the first time since ive been here hha. and its been nice to have elder vinas because he can cook some good pilipino food.

our investigators are doing great. almost everyone came to church. one thing that ive been struggling with though. they all believe its true but havent prayed to know for themselves. and havent done all that much reading in the book of mormon. i think to myself how do you know its true if you havent read it and havent prayed, so i figure they must believe what were saying and our testimonies. that is good they believe, but without a testimony of their own, without their own spiritual witness they wont be able to stay active when the trials come. so lately ive been focusing on praying about the book of mormon. their baptismal dates are getting closer and closer and my anxiety for them is getting higher and higher ha but in a good way it just makes me want to help them more and have our lessons be better so i study and pray harder. in some ways the anxiety thing i guess can be a strenght ha ha.

one thing that happened this past saturday has changed a lot of how the rest of my mission will go. thay had a nationwide broadcast from the area authorities about the new missionary corriculum here. its probably the best thing thats happened in the pilippines as far as the church goes in a long time. the pines is one of the fasting growning part of the church in the world but man the retention rate is absolutely horrible. to make a lont story short.... after these investigators were not going to really be looking for new investigaters. 100 percent focused on re activation. in my ward alone almost have the ward is inactive or less active. so this is sorely needed. and as far as baptisms goes we are basically instructed to only teach people through referrals and part member families. pretty crazy stuff! im so excited for it though we are so busy i dont even wanna sleep because were teaching so much. i feel bad for people in stateside missions theyre a lot tougher than i am. ive only had like 1 person blatently reject me the whole time ive been here, most people are too nice to say anything they just dont keep commitments and dont show up to church and you eventually stop going to them because they dont really care about it. but anyways i respect all you state siders i couildnt do it.

anyways its been a great week very stressful and full of excitement and change. the ali ali family thats been waiting to be married for about 6 months before they can be baptised is at this moment working on finishing their papers so they will soon have a marriage and baptismal date. probably the collest family ever. well i cant say that cause i love everyone here man i love em. anyways i miss you all! mahal na mahal ko kayo at excited ako para sa mga bagong balita sa susunod na lingo! (new news next week) ingat po sa inyo lahat! ! ! ! ! !

new years

well here it is 2012 lets start the count down to the end of the world! i wouldnt mand bein here on the end of the world cause boy do they know how to put on a firework show.. hands down the coolest fireworks display ive ever seen we sat on our roof and watched and everybody was setting them off everywhere! in every direction non stop it was like a war zone ha we had ashes and stuff raining down on us the whole time. i heard over 500 people got hurt from either fireworks or getting hit by stray bullets. which is crazy but its no wonder the fireworks they have here arent like brand name or anything people man them and sell them themselves ha but they are so cool here. they have stuff ive never seen like fire crackers that you lite like a match, strike on box. and theyre twice as powerful ha, but yeah new years here was great.

as for the rest of the week im super sick right now but we had s pretty successful week. im not sure what to even write ha because i just talked to you last week. my investigators are doing good tetay lleneta bore his testimony yesterday for the first time he was super nervous but did a great job. all of our baptismal dates have been moved to february. i really hope they dont have to be moved again. its kinda hard seeing people make dumb little decisions with big consequences i never really appreciated how much of a difference to our lives little choices make i mean just one shot of gsm ( alcohol here ) means you cant be baptised for another 4 weeks, such a simple thing with such big consequences. sorry this is kinda short but my heads spinning ha so i cant really focus on what to say. well ill talk to you all next week im gona upload some pictures for you mahal kita elder landeen