kamusta kamu dang kunnasi i mga aggau nu?  ( crazy ibanug it means how are all of you doing and hows your day been or something like that )

things here in cabaggan are going good my comp is going home... he will be entering into the mtc on july 21 and will be serving in the philippines olangopo mission. which isnt all that far away from him ha its probably the equivalent of arizona or something like that. about 7 or 8 hours on a bus. thats pretty cool i was there when he opened his call and everything. its crazy how im already sending a son on a mission ha i never thought that would happen!

working hard this week man by the time i get to the house at night i can barely keep my eyes open to do nightly planning. one night at the ende of nightly planning i dont know what happened but i was the one praying... and i fell asleep while i was praying then i snapped out of it and brother chua was staring at me and then we laughed and prayed again and i just fell on my bed and went to sleep right there. 

ive come to appreciate what they mean when they say teach the doctrine... man the word of wisdom theres some crazy things flying around the philippines about the word of wisdom! tea gives you cancer and coke was also added apparently to the word of wisdom and all sorts of just rediculous things. ive found the most simple answer to everything and noone has yet to question it. what it comes down to is god is smarter than us ha and he said dont do it so we just dont do it. its amazing how simple things really are when you arent an idiot. ( like i was ha ) 

i dont have all that much to write about this week next week ill have a lot to write about cause ill have a new companion. just know mahal ko kayo and i miss you all ! take care elder landeen

hello everyone wow another week down just a few more and its a year ha image that.... hopefully things are going good there things are going good here. i have an announcement to make. all the muscle i gained and worked for is officially gone and im just skinny skinny again! i huess with sweating all the time and getting sick go figure. but im happy dealing with a million problems so thats something ha. who woulda thought that a person thats got a million problems and none of them belong to him could still be happy. its crazy how it works. ive just got a couple experiences to share with you all... one happened yesterday actually and it was after church. we had a coorelation meeting and man its one of those things where you think after why am i trying to have coorelation meeting that was kinda a waste of time because nothing really happened... one of those meetings. its a hard thing to coordinate when people dont have phones or dont attend meetings. but anyways so what happened was after the meeting we went home and i was feeling pretty bummed cause we had thought out a whole lot of things we needed help with the ward with and nothing really ended up happened everyone is too busy and while we were at the house i just kept wondering what are we doing wrong for the ward to get active in the work... and when i kept thinking ill be honest i felt pretty down about myself like we were doing something wrong cause im no expert on meetings the only thing i know about them is whats in preach my gospel ha. but anyways it was just one of those times you needed to just have a good prayer. mataimtim na panalangin.. and so thats what happened. i really prayed. and its not always when you pray that you almost feel someone listening but this was one of those times that it was just a different feeling talaga. then at our first appointment we get there this guy named henry pelo hes inactive and he said he was going to come to church this week but when we went to go pick him up he wasnt there and his family said he was too sick to come. anyways a little background on him hes huge 6 foot 3 and thats rediculously big for a philipino ... and he has a lot of health problems. anyways so were at his house and it starts to rain and always they have tin or metal roofs so when its rainy you can barely hear each other talking .. and so we had this lesson planned but we strayed away from it just a little bit and then it just turned into one of those lessons just completely guided by the spirit. to make something clear my companion is 22 years old and hes a really good teacher and ive been so impressed with how well hes been able to learn how to follow the spirit with his short few weeks here, anyways in the lesson man everything he said was the things i was thinking and it flowed good and then at the end of the lesson after he had prayed out of nowhere his concern just came out and he said some of the reasons that he hadnt been comeing to church and we were abe to encourage him and commit him to coming to church next week. pretty dang cool experience, it just comes back down to the whole obedience brings blessings. that the whole gospel in a nutshell to mee thats all we are really teaching to people. if you become obedient to the commandments of god and follow his plan then he will bless you now in life and forever in the life to come. its stinking hard to do but when you think about it its all pretty simple. if theres anything ive learned here its ... that its not always easy to do whats right. doesnt make you cool or get you very many friends. even mission rules by following them you sometimes seem to be losing the love of the members because your not as cool as the missionaries before cause they used to do this and that at it wasnt a problem. nephi had a pretty hard lot with his brothers and they triend to kill him for him just trying to do whats right. im no nephi and i hope to someday come even 1/2 of who he was but ive learned is if you are willing to do whats right evern if your not very cool for it then you at least have the promise that you will have the spitit in your work and then miracles happen.\\ random though before i forget here in cabagan its just like in the times of joseph smith. "great religious excitement" along the highway on a strip of land about as long as the hills house down a little bit past the rollmans... all these riligions have a church, iglesia ni cristo ( a.k.a. the church of satan) catholics, jehovas witness, born again christian , methodistand then mormons. and then not to far away theres protestant meeting house, theres a baptist compound, and other little born again christian groups. i get why joseph was confused. im glad to know the truth and sad to know others are to blind to even really pray about it. im glad to have the opportunity and had the pppurtunity to see people accept it and change their lifes and see their countanence change cause its true what they say about "light". i never saw it before here but now i can and its something else talaga.... anyways just want you all to know im happy to be out here and i love you all hope you are all happy and hope you know im greatful for your love and support. mahal ko kayo. elder landeen

hello again / ive got another story to tell... or a few. man i hope i can get these right its hard to explain sometimes the things that happen i always feel like my words dont give it justice. but well ill do my best. seguro first ill talk about nanay gonzales because ive talked about her before. we went and taught her and she hadnt done her reading and didnt seem like she was planning on attending sunday school or relief spciety. weve had a problem with her since ive been here she sure does pray but reading and church is a real hard thing for her for some reason.she knows its right just doesnt do it. anyways this sunday she wasnt at church, it started at 900 and it was 920 and we had just accepted she wasnt comeing then out of nowhere she showed up and then after sacrament she said she was going to attend 1 class. she was very specific that she would attend 1 class only and not relief society. well long story short the relief society here is amazing and she attended relief society too. when we went to her house she talked about how good of an experience it was and how she felt the spirit and how important she felt to all of them... and it was such a relief to hear and almost like man havent we been telling you that for 2 months.... ha ha but anyways during the lesson she said that she believes its true 100 percent... then we talked about baptism and she started to shy away ha i dono what it is with this lady 100 percent she knws its true and right but then when baptism comes up she shys away... we know she has other reasons but anyways she said im still not sure but its close. thats a big progression! she had read, she went to church, she prayed and she felt the spirit confirm its right. thats just pretty cool how simple it all is. just do these few things and god will tell you its right ha. anyways i was pretty happy about that. next story brother dan. \\\ we were walking one day to an appointment and it was super hot so we stopped to get a halo halo. ( this is like a smoothie almost but a little different, is had crushed ice, evaporated milk, and a whole bunch of random ingredients like brown sugar, coconut, these jello squares, seeds, and other things ) anyways when we got there there was a guy sitting there just relaxing and we started talking to him. i figured i better act like a missionary so we shared a little bit about the restoration and the apostasy and anyways long story short we gave him a pamphlet and asked if we could come to his house and share more... and he said sure why not. we set up an appointment and didnt think all that much about it. ( people here will say that you can come teach them whether they mean it or not theyre aftaid that well get mad or something ha ) anyways the day came and we went to his house.. and we got to know his wife a little and him a little bit better and we asked him if he had read anything from the pamphlet and he said he had read all of it and asked if we had any more pamphlets we can give him ha ha. then he asked some questions ive never heard before this guy is a really really smart guy. he asked about joseph smith, and he had read in the pamphlet that john the baptist gave josepth smitht he priesthood but his question was who was it that baptised joseph was it john the baptist or someone else.. i was like blown away that he even considered that ha. anyways this is what happened. the first time my whole mission.. we taught the whole first lesson and he actually understhood it .. . the principle his mind actually grasped the concept of priesthood authority and the apostasy and how important joseph being a prophet was. i thought i was dreaming. i didnt think that would ever happen in the philippines ha. anyways at the end of the lesson we invited him to pray... he had never prayed out loud before. in his whole life. the only thing he had done out loud was the lords pray or hail marry and all that fun stuff. so we taught him how, we encouraged him and he prayed. at the end of the prayer we could just see on his face that something happened. he started saying how great he felt. he couldnt find his words it was like he didnt speak his own language ha, he immediately asked when we are coming back.. and we told him in 2 days and long story short now he accapted the baptismal commitment hes reading ( hopefully ) the book of mormon, and well he didnt show up to church ( its never as easy as you think its going to be ) but weve got another appointment with him this week. its still a long way to go we know hes a coffee fanatic and drinkings a hobby... so theres still some mountains to climb but even so it was pretty dang cool to see something like that. and to thin if we had just drank our halo halos and went on our way we never would have got to known him. ha crazy ang buhay! i got sick again this weekend but its going away ha. can you guys believe its almost a year/ ? crazy. anyways love you all take care in america.... elder landeen