well to start off this letter i will tell you it does stink to get sick every month but well lifes still good ha at least im not like an elder right now that had to get sent to manila because of a spider bite he got that got super infected. that would be a scary adventure when your new in the philippines. a trip to manila by yourself! now that sounds almost kinda fun ha other than the whole being super sick part of it., so ive made a goal. no lonely trips to manila until AFTER i finish my mission. that would probably be the better thing to do.


another thing on my mind the whole girl who developed an anxiety disorder that started in the mtc. i know how that goes an learning how to fight through that was honestly probably the hardest thing ive ever had to do. cause your fighting a physical problem in a spiritual environment so you feel like if you dont get better its because your faith is too weak or something like that man its hard but hindi pala ginoon life just happens whether your a missionary or not. as much as you wish things were perfect when you put that name tag on its not that way. life is the same you are the one who has to set yourself apart from the world. from all things that are "WORLDLY" everyone that i have known in the mission that goes home says how much they hate it at home cause everyone is so wicked ha ha it makes me laugh. but when you come from an environment when the worst thing you can think of doing is staying up past bed time or sleeping in or things like that no wonder missionaries are wierdos when they come home ha cause well ayon sa standards of the world we are definately weirdos while we are here. hopefuly when i come hope i dont judge everyone ha dont ya just hate that a new rm coming home and it just feels like hes judging you? man its the worst ha ha


so anyways im feeling fantastic now tapos na ang sakit ko and ive had a really good past few days. gods decided to bless my work lately weve found a whole bunch of new investigators and its like they have just fallen out of the sky while we are working with less actives, so now we get to not only help inactive members come back to enjoy the blessings of the gospel but we also get to see families being completed and people being baptised into the true church. the TRUE CHURCH man that takes on a whole new meaning when you come here to the philippines theres a million churches here theres more churches than languages and i swear theyre speaking a new language every time i go outside ha. sometimes it makes me sad to think how comfused people are especially the good people that really believe in their religion cause thats how they were raised. then it makes it hard for them to open their hearts to the truth. but i guess that their time will come.


i wanna talk a little bit about sister ali aly. shes 19 and her husband is 37 ( yeah weird i know ) and they have 2 kids santino (whos name should have been satan) and shaohanna.. (this is the coupple that was finally married and baptised on february 4 ) anyways sister ali aly is just abnormally faithful especially for how old she is. 1 nephi 3: 7 is like just how her mind works it is kinda hard for me to understand ha her husband is atruggling right now with not going to church cause hes working on sunday and not reading his scriptures and kinda falling back to old habbits but evvery week without fail she is there with her two kids struggling through sacrament and then not being able to attend classes cause her kids are too crazy, but everyweek she comes and is happy as can be. the other week brother got mad at her because she didnt but the medicine their son needs and he asked her why and she said she had to pay tithing and its okay cause even if she cant buy gamot (medicine) if she pays her tithing she knows god will take care of her sick kid. and then the other day we were reading in the book of mormon and she was basically teaching us and her husband said she should go teach sunday school and she said bakit hindi tutulungan ako ng dios bale bakit na hindi kaya... which means why couldnt i do it the lord would help me so of course i could do it. its just such a strong faith i dono if i have ever met anyone with faith like that and shes only 19 years old.


the reason i brought that up is cause this whole cycle ive had 1 nephi 3: 7 playing in my head. i can do anything the lord has comanded especialy the things that are hard. because he already gave me a way to do it befor he gave the commandment to me. this applies to all aspects of the gospel and for me all the mission rules. if im ever disobedient even to the little things it is because i didnt do my part in finding the way that the lord gave to me to follow his commandment. its pretty simple. and when we somehow develp the faith to decide to follow ALL the commandments of the lord something magic happens. things just starts to work out i dont even know how either. this is my experience for the week here...


we just barely found out that when we need a fellowshipper to teach a nanay or a girl that there isnt a guy present we arent allowed to use out support money to help them get to the appointment. two problems with this.. elder riner noon told me that we are supposed to pay for their ways on tricees because its for missionary work that they are coming and so i had already been doing it, and everyone is dirt poor they dont have any way to do so. and the only ones that we need fellowshippers for are in really far barungays so its super far. i asked president carlos about it if it was ok just for a couple appointments and of coulrse he said no this is the standard so i said okay and tried to find a way to "follow the commandment" we had arranged splits earlier that day in order to make it to all of our appointments and well when the people found out we couldnt pay for their pamasahe they symply said sorry i wanna come but i have no money to come with you. so when you think about in the book of mormon when they were trying to get the brass plates did they get the on their first try? no.... so nephi just looked for a different way. we tried to arrange it so we could still do splits but it didnt actually happen so we did all we could do and change our schedule to make the best of it. And what happened to work out was just so cool every one of our appointments went through except 1 that wasnt home ( which we are almost always punted from at least 2 or 3 on sundays ) and all the lessons we had were just really good lessons where we could feel the spirit with us. then at one of our last we found two new investigators and are working with this sister to help her come back to church after over 10 years of inactivity. and man it just felt good to know your doin wats right it just feels good to be obedient. thats probably the best blessing of all to feel like your pleasing your heavenly father.


ive learned something this cycle and i hope my faith here comtinues to build.... that i can go and do all the things the lord commands because he really doesnt give commandments to us, his children unless he has already prepared for us a way to follow that commandment he has given us. its so dang simple you wonder why all of our heads are so thick. ha imagine what nephi must have felt living with laman and lemuel.


well everyone things here are good transfer day is next week and theres about a 90 percent chance that either me or my companion (probably me) will get transfered so well see how that goes next week ha. mahal na mahal ko kayo and i miss you all. ingat elder landeen