hello everyone. another speedy week ha. we had a lot of "success" this week that im pretty happy about so ill share some of them with you,, first off sister tumalliwan. this is one of the less active members we have been working with. she was being visited by the elders before i got here and 2 times a week since i got here but she hadnt come to church for i dont know how long its been months. self declared "inactive" ha. she used to be active used to participate in missionary work and her family would all go to church together. but when her friends started moving away and her family imigrated to america she eventually just stopped going to church. anyone that has been on a mission ya know how theres some people that you just are feeling close with? like for no res\ason in particular you just feel like you are closer to them that others. well thats kinda how it feels with sister tumaliwan lessons here have been so great. so on monday we had set a family home evening at her house and had talked to a whole bunch of members to come with us to her house and a lot agreed the be there at 600 monday night. one family the albanos have a van that they agreed to load up some plastic chairs from the church and take then to sisters house and then the cabalsas (another family) said they would all go and some few others. anyways on monday this is the story. of course things dont ever go smoothely... the first problem we encountered was the albanos van wasnt going to be available until 700 at night and sister tumalliwans house is about 15 minuted away so probably around 730 or 745 they could be there. next we were trying to get ahold of cabalsas because brother albano wasnt going to come so they needed to have someone else drive their van but the cabalsas werent answering texts and it was getting close to 6 and sana we were already at sisters house but we had to go to the cabalsas house to see if brother can drive their van... so we hoped in a tricee and got to cabalsas house and then we found out that brother could drive the van and everything was gong to be fine it was just going to start late. but then i got a text that i couldnt understand because it was in tagalag text language so i gave it to brother chua to translate and we got in a tricee and guess what happened.. within a matter of seconds the phone was gone. we looked everywhere on the road in the tricee an our pockets it was just gone. and when that happened we couldnt even text and say we were going to be late cause we didnt have her number anymore! then by the time we arrived at sister house we had to go around inviting the members down there to come ... and there ended up being bery few that were going to be able to come... and then we ended up being kinda far from he house again inviting people and it was late and no trcees to give us a ride and no phone to tell them where we are so we just ran back w\and when we got there we were dieing of sweat.... and the other familys hadt showed up yet... and it was stressfull.... and then finally after we did everything we could people finaly showed up and it was a great night. and the best part was after months pf being inactive.... she used her faith.... got rid of her fear and shyness and came to church again. man what a feeling. that was a pretty cool experience. things dont ever seem to work out how you expect or how you want them to but when you do your best and do your part which is usually stinkin hard god steps in and the miracle happens. its such a great experience to see people coming back. im so glad to be able to be here now doing what im doing. helping members come back to christ that have lost there way., love you family and hope you are all doing well.... elder landeen

hello everyday what a fast week thats gone by. its like i skyped yesterday and now im back to typing. lots has happened so ill get started right away! first of all wednesday was transfer day and my comp got transfered! he had been saying that hes been feeling the transfer for weeks and he knows hes getting transfered.. and of course i had to tell him that he doesnt know that gods in charge and he just kept saying he knows so i made a bet that all pay for mcdonalds if he gets transfered but if he doesnt he had to buy me 1.5 liter ice cream (chocolate temptations) well i learned my lesson dont gamble on a mission ha ha. so since my comp got transfered it means of course theres a new missionary staying in the appartment with me.,... you would think right? ha well this is what happened on trsnfer day they do power point slides for all the areas. they have pictures of the companionships and when one gets transfered the picture of your new companion takes its place. when it finally came to cabagan ( my area ) the picture that came up was ... a picture of a missionaary name tag. that said future missionary. i was confused..... my companion is a name tag? ( my mind shorted out for a second ) but then i realized that my companion was a part time missionary! thats why it said future missionay. cause hes not yet a missionary. its an interesting situation ha ill try to explain why. with part time missionaries they arent set apart, he wasnt given any kind of directions really just basically president carlos went to his ward and said "do you want to come be a companion of a missionary for 6 weeks " ? when he accepted he said get ready and be in cauayan on wednesday ha ha (3 days later) its pretty crazy if you ask me. its weird having a companion that hasnt been through the temple and stuff i have to keep reminding myself that i dont have to call him elder ha just bropther/ anyways his name is brother chua hes half chineese ill send a picture of us next week. things are going great with us and it has been a really good week. now ive got just 2 short little things to share that happened in the same day and then one more another day. first we were in a bayan (like a town) called san pable working with in active members. we had a lesson plan made and we were going to teach them about joseph smith again. when we got there tatay( the dad) wasnt there and nanay ( the mom) hadnt read her reading assignment. so it was pretty natural that we were going to change our plan but before we started the lesson or decided what we were going to teach we had been talking for 5 or so minutes about different types of food. whats are our favorite foods and how to make them and things like that. then we ended up sharing in 2 nephi 32 about feasting on the words of christ. and in the lesson it related parfectly to what we were sharing and nanay told us this is just the kind of thing she had needed to hear that it was masarap sa mga pakiramdam (literal translation is delicious to the feelings) but basically she said its made her feel good inside while listening. it was just a cool little thing on how the spirit works even though our plan changed that ended up being what she needed to hear that day. next later that day i had been thinking to change our plans for that night and go teach one of our new investigators. we are teaching him at thte house of his friend which happens to be that recent convert that i wrote about two weeks ago that got a little offended at the members. when we got there our investigator wasnt available so we just asked romel if we could share some scriptures with him and he didnt wanna listen he was being a punk ha but then i just started the lesson anywhays ha we were there so we were goint to share. and what happened was we just picked randon\mly some scriptures in 3 nephi 9 when christ is inviting the people to come unto him and repent and be saved.,... and we talked about it and romel endeed the lesson saying thanks a lot i realized in the lesson that me being mad at members isnt right cause noones perfect and i felt the spirit thanks a lot for sharing that its exactly what i needed to hear. so 2 times in 1 day i heard someone say that its just what they needed to hear ha ha pretty cool stuff. the next one was on friday we were walking to our first appointment and it started to r\ain... and i mean rain it just poured and lightning and man it was crazy weather. we were standing uder an overhang of a roof and a random guy came and told us to take his umbrella and just bring it back the next day ha. then we kept gpoing out to our appointments and man the wind was hard enought to make it hard to walk and we were soaked from head to toe and it was a brown out and the streets were flooded above our ankles but we just kept going and we were able to teach some really great lessons and touch some hearts ha. long story short it was a cool week and im glad im here. well i love you all and ill talk to you next week ! elder landeen

Helllllo again. Ill get right to it Things in cabagan went alright this week. We had quite a few appointments that fell thtough because it was fiesta in a lot of the barangays here. And because you probably don’t know what that means ill explain it ha. For every barangay ( a barangay is like a small city. That is subdivided into puroks or little neighborhoods ) but anyways thay all heve a date once a year for a fiesta in celebration of their santo or the saint of their barangay ( it’s a catholic thing ) and when its fiesta they make a ridiculous amount of rice and lecheon pigs ( when they cook the pig over the fire ) and all sorts of other food basically a big party. we didn’t get to eat unfortunately cause we went by when they were still cooking but hopefully ill still be in cabagan in june for their fiesta its apparently a pretty big celebration with food everywhere you go. I think we should adopt that in America and unstead of having (block parties) have whole neighborhood parties where everyone spends all their money and goes into debt to have more food than anyone can possibly eat and just go house to house eating and talking and all that fun stuff ( that’s about what it comes down to ha add the drinking and it’s a real party ha ha) anyways it’s a pretty fun part of philipino culture theyre sure not shy about things. Next yesterday (Sunday) we were pretty disappointed cause church was starting and none of our inestigators gad showed up ha.. then there was an opening prayer( of course) and when I opened my eyes there they were ha nanay gonzales and her son and brother bautista snuck in during the opening prayer. And then after sacrament meeting they were out the door in seconds ha. That’s when you know an investigator is still not quite there yet when they don’t want to attend classes after sacrament. Ive learned that one in Santiago when they start coming to all 3 hours of church its like magic happens. Something just clicks in their minds and then you don’t have to ask them to read they just read and they just come to church. Man I cant wait till the day that nanay Gonzales has that click shes got some weird idead about things when we say are you going to come to church tomorrow this is her reply… bust kung dadalhin ako ng dios sa simbahan ninyo… nandoon ako. Which what she is saying means if he lord carries her or directs her to our church then shell be there ha ha. Weve figured out her problem but not what to do. She has a testimony she knows its true shes just afraid of her family because her husband is in America looking for work and he doesn’t have a job yet so her family is helping to support her and shes afraid if she is baptized they will stop supporting her. Hard problem. But well just keep on working with her theres always a barrier but nothings impossible. I heard something pretty sad yesterday from a recent convert. He was baptized about 6 or seven months ago, he is the only member in his family.. and he has been wanting to go on a mission so bad but recently hes been coming to church for only sacrament and not weiring a white shirt and tie and I was able to talk to him last night and found out what was going on in his life. He said when he was an investigator he was so impressed with the members when he came to church there was someone that sat next to him and everyone shook his hand and made him feel important.. the missionaries were good examples of being christlike and everything was great and he got a testimony of the gospel and was baptized. Then he said the past few months his desire to go on a mission has be going away and I asked him why and he said im disappointed with the members and with missionaries. He said this is the true church and they act the same way all the other people act. The youth lieing to their parents and missionaries that hes seen disobeying rules that even he a recent convert knows they shouldn’t be doing. He said I believe the church is true but I just thought better of the members and am really dissipointed in them and missionaries ive seen coming here when theyre not supposed to facebooking and not being obedient to mission rules. The reason im sharing this with you is because us as members we know the truth and is makes me sad to see someone discouraged because members of the true church aren’t good examples of how to live or what to do.. of course no ones perfect and cast the mote out of your own eye before your brothers but you never know whos watching. And when they hear gossip and all these other things ( I know im guilty in the past ) it hurts the image of the church. Just thought id add that in there cause sometimes we forget that as members we honestly have to keep a standard.. of being Christ like. Of NOT judging others for what theyre doing and NOT lieing and spreading gossip and NOT looking down on our neighbors cause they live a different lifestyle. We help our fellow men and we do nice things for them member or non member and we do things that Christ would do if he were here. Anyways sorry that’s just whats on my mind right now. For all of you mothers happy mothers day! Mahal ko kayo elder landeen