anoooother week

hey so i had a whole bunch of cool pictures to send home but the card reader at the computer shop had a virus or something so its not working. bummer.... but i do just have a few quick updates for you all.

first off filipino culture. pilipinos love big noses. not a day has gone by without someone telling me my nose is big or my nose is pointy. strange enough this is actually a compliment! ha ha who woulda thought they loove it here!
they also like it when your bigger too almost fat ha im not quite sure why with that one but busta the culture here is just speak your mind. if your thinking someones nose is big or their fat or handsome or ugly you just tell them to their face and its just like its a fact.
they also all try to get more maputi or they like their skin to be as light as they can get it. they use soap with whiteners in it and always have umbrellas to keep the sun off. its funny cause us white guys are always trying to get more tan.

i ran into a guy from california at mcdonalds the other day. he started talking to us he has been here 7 months speaks no tagalag and has spent over 1000000 pesos gambling and has nothing to show for it. i didnt have a english book of mormon unfortunately and none of the other elders were really concerned about mayybe helping him change so ive got an english one in my backpack always in case we run back into him somehow.

we have 11 investigatirs with baptismal dates! two families and to that are part members. the one family isnt the complete family cause their oldest 2 dont live at home but i think some day they will all be members they are a super strong family and will be great members. they are the paz family and man i love them. next we have the lleneta family ( i will send pictures of thema ll next week ) which is the parents, their son and his wife and another son ( the others are too young to be baptised) but they are super excited about it too. all and all we had 13 investigators at church and others will be there next week our goal is 20 and it really possible im gonna work my butt of to make sure it happens.

we had a way fun family home evening fireside this past saturday. its something the stake is starting every saturday they are having a fireside at the home of one of our investigators or a member and its a great way for them to feel a part of the ward. ill send pictures of that too next week after i buy a card reader.

well my times up thank you everyone for your love and your all in my prayers. one thing about the cauayan mission i thought i would share and these are the words of my mission president

the cauayan mission is the working mans mision. its the only mission in the pilipines without any resorts or beaches, but there are plenty of bukids ( rice fields) which are literally everywhere and plenty of baptisms. he said and i think hes kinda biass cause well hes the mission president here but they only call the hard workers here cause theres none of all that fun p day stuff to do here busta (anyways/just because) im glad to be in a mission thats called the working mans mision. elder riner said that its the armpit of the pillipines and to be quite honest it does smell bad a lot cause theres a lot of polution and pigs and carabou (water buffalo) and animals runnin around everywhere and cockroaches and huge spiders ( there was one in our house as big as my hand on tuesday) send that picture next week but with all that aside its the best place ever. the people are so poor and so happy. they admit life is hard and believe in christ, which is why i think im havin so much success cause for the most part theyre humble. ( again depends on the person theres some rich jerks here too ) but cauayan mission is definately the right place for me to be right now. your all in my prayers especially those of you who are having trails in your life ( alison especially your always in my prayers ) mahal kita and until next week ingat po

p day???

garaaaaaaaabe p day talaga? saan pumunta ang oras ko?
news for the week.....
we had 10 investigators go to church yesterday it was great the church sttendance went down because there was a huge boxing match during church ha and we all know how important the match is right? we have a goal for 20 at church next week and i really think its possible im really excited. we have ten investigators with baptismail dates! 2 on december 10 and 8 on december 24! MAN IM SO EXCITED and we have others taht are progressing talaga so hopefully if things will work out these people will be ready to be baptised in a month ! man i dono how i deserve so much of a blessing to have such a kind and open hearted people to be around pilipinos are almost too nice and too kind. i dono how they do it. and they arent shy abouot it either ha whenever i say salamat po mabait ka talaga ( thanks your so nice ) i get a lont speach on how nice people are in the pillipines ha it just makes me laugh.

so we have an american that l;ives in our ward and he just got called to be elders corrum president. he is a verrrry different kind of person and he speaks very very little tagalag but im excited because hes very serious about his calling. it was a kinda weird experience having him teach ha but those the lord calls he qualifies right?

i went on splits with brother francis yesterday, probably one of my favorite experiences here yet wow god has been answering prayers right and left for me its crazy! francis is the brother of the branch mission leader from lamut so i know his family (well kinds after three weeks you can only know someone so well ) but he is a reterned missionary so he knew what was going on and it just was all around a good experience. elder riner was worried i think. he took all the important lessons cause he only really trusts himself which his heart is in the right place hes just thinking about our investigators but i wont lie its pretty trying on my patience but i was able to teach with francis a couple really great lessons and i was super excited about that because it was the first time i was responsible for the lesson and where we were going and all that jazz and just like the promise says i was given what i needed to say. i dont think i have ever taught as clearly as i did yestewrday yet so i am super thankful for prayer right now for sure.

man im slow at typing... one pagsubok of mine is knowing which people that i need to talk to. when your walking around and theres tons of people everywhere or theres an opportunity to oym someone how do you choose which to talk to or if theres someone else your looking for etc... opening an area before we basically talked to everyone. bangal was a pilipino and a great missionary and his idea was you talk to everyone wherever you are. riner though has a different idea he likes to walk fast and go house to house very very seldomly do we oym people on the street. so for me i can see the point of both sides cvause if you are at someones house you know where they live and know theyre in your ares but if you dont talk to people on the street you could pass opportunities. ah the joys of a companionship ha man who wants to get married this is hard ha ha just kidding.

just finished the book of mormon that i started a couple weeks into the mtc and its once again amazed me how amazing it all is. riner just turned 21 and thats how old joseph was when he got the plates right? so anyone who says joseph wrote it thats 21 years old needs to think to themself how in the world could you do that or even come up with half the stuff in the ammount of time or even any ammount of time for that matter, not to mention all the persecution and all the lost manuscript pages and everything. if u read it then elder hollands words are perfect. no wicked man could write it, and no good man would unles it was true and god told him too. what other book projects the gospel in so clear of terms? i love the bible too shempre and we do basically all of our teaching out of the bible cause well thats wat riner finds best but the book of mormon just boosts your testimony of the bible when you read it. busta ang layunin ko is the book of mormon is astig and anyone who wants to prove it false,,, good luck but make sure you read it first so you know what your talking about.

i feel a little like elder holland lately i almost wanna start yellin at people like he does and tell them they needa read it! man so simple everythings so simple.

well thats it now that ive done my preaching for the week i needa try to write a few other letters so mahal kita and ill tty next week. elder landeen

kamusta kayo? shempre ayos dito, as always i donot know where to start but lets see how this goes,,,,

at ito ay nangyari na.. malakas na ulan. umuulan para sa buon lingo, at araw araw kapag babalik kami sa bahay namin basa. nababasa talaga!

and it came to pass.. the strong rain. its been raining for the whole week. every day when we come back to hour house were wet, were really wet ha its weird translating but anyways its basically been raining for a whole week. it stops occasionally but i finally know what forest gump was talking about when he said "it started to rain"

as for the purok that we taught, every time we came back because it was raining we werent able to teach everyone because we have to teach them outside their houses are tiny. but... when i was on splits in the zone leaders area elder riner and elder thomas went back to bagong buhay (this is where they are) they found another huge congregation to teach ha and its almost just as big.

these people are almost pure ilocano, luckily they speak basic tagalag so i can still talk to them but since they are way out away from the city in the middle of the bukids( rice fields ) they are ilocano talaga ( they speak ilocano and are native to this area) but anyways they are aactually legit investigators they want to come to church next week and they well some of them kept their reading assignment ( which means they werent just bein nice by listening to us which can happen quite a lot ) that was pretty cool im excited to see what happens with that.

we had 7 investigators come to church this week 2 for their first time! edwin paz was one of their names and his family would have come too but his wife, just had a baby and she / they have weird traditions here where they cant leave the house for a few weeks after, and his kids had to stay home because their house was being flooded because of all the rain ( this is still shocking to me, it sounds like the worst thing in the world to have your house flooded, which shempre it would suck but its just a part of life here.. ) its pretty normal for some of our investigators to have up to 3 feet of water in their house when theres a baugio (typhoon) and its just the way it is ha. but anyways he comitted and he came lookin guapo in his nicest clothes ( some sweet shoes that were like orange blue and white, a pair of jeans and a old polo ) and he loved it. man fast and testimony meeting is very different here.. because the stake got split there were a lot of new callings and that was basically everyones testimony.. that they are thankful for their callings ha the bishop even said congratulations to all of you who have new callings.. its like its prestigious or something ha but whatever their country who am i to judge.

my companion leaves on december 14 for home and as much as he doesnt want to admit it hes kinda getting trunky. but he shows it in a different way than most elders do. he shows it by when we are in lessons he needs to talk 3/4 or more of the time like he wants to teach as much as he can before he leaves. i really am staring to understand how this is preparing us for marriage because sometimes no matter what the reality is your just gonna loose the battle so you just deal with it and try to love them. hes a really good elder but well hes just been here too long and likes being in control and isnt very willing to give in to other ideas . like an old catholic thats set in his ways if you ask me ha ha i love the guy though dont get me wrong but well it will just be good if i can get a companion that doesnt feel like he has to run everything all the time.

other things that happened... splits with elder valdez was a lot of fun man people here always try to pawn their kids off on you, we had a lesson from a referral, and right off the bat the step dad told us that hes been to prison ( they later found out it was cause he uused to kill people but anyways ) the mom after the lesson was makin fun of me big time ( just tryin to get us to laugh) she was asking if i cry at nights because i miss my mom ha and then she went off on how her daughters 9 that were sitting right by us ) are looking for american boys and we should take them with us when we go back to america. they dont waiste time beating around the bush at all straite to it ha ha.

all in all another great week love it here having a blast and learning lots bein obedient tryin to hold the rod and teach people the same. love you all talaga and talk to you next week, and ill send some pictures here in a sec, mahal kita, ingat!

this is me in native warrior armor at banaui, me with a really drunk guy at a birthday party, this is me and elder valdez ( hes from utah too hes one of the zone leaders, and elder riner with elder thomas the other zone leader oh yeah i forgot i finally ate dog! this is my fiorst bite of dog, and i ate blood soup stuff too it was kinda gross but the dog was way good. thats our chirch, that last one was a family home evening game we were playing that was way fun. and just a few others ha i made a new goal to take more pictures so i will make sur to do this so you can see more of whats going on here and what its like. and sometime im gonna buy some flash drives and copy all my pictures onto them and send them in the mail.

another week

man its deja voo back in the computer shop again a lot to say but kulang (lacking) the words to explain!

first off im pretty sure the caugh is allergy related the medicine i was taking helped it a lot but now that i ran out its gotten bad again. so i think i will have to go back and get some more.

things here in santiago are greaaaat we had some reaaally crazy experiences happen this week . first off we went to a place that we hadnt been to before called bagong buhay ( which translated means new life ) but anyways we went finding or tracting there and man these people are poor. but in this little area they have little puroks or like villages of houses in groups, and then a ways down the road there will be another group of houses and so on. we went into one of these villages and oym (offered our message) to these two guys and ansked if we could teach them and they said sure one second and they got THE WHOLE VILLAGE ! ha ha we taugh a lesson to serously about fifty people. and they were receptive. it was nuts i felt like it was straite out of the book of mormon or something preaching to a congregation of people like alma does in chaoter 32. they want accepted a return appotinment and everything man that would be so cool if they all accepted the gospel a total miracle.

so mom you asked me to tell you about my area and where i live... my zone is the santiago zone, and this is because of the city santiago in the middle. its a pretty big city and they have basically everything we need here. this is the city that has the best taylors to get clothes made and well yeah just abut everything. weve got a mcdonalds and chow king and jolly b, and this place called k max that we go to a lot that is soooo good. in my area the places we go to are baptista village ( this is where our house is) , mabini, sa pangpali, saranai, st james (this place is pretty big) devasoria, bagong buhay, and some others i havent been to yet. we hae to take a tricee ( if you dont know what these are look them up online they are motorcycles with side cars on them and they are EVERYWHERE. im basically wet at least part of everyday its so normail to wake up to sunshine and then by4:00 its just pouring. its kinda crappy ha but its whatever by now.

about some of the people im teaching...

start off with leneta family. starting here because they have a baptismal date ! december 10th and the mom and dad, daughter and her husband, the eight year old son will all be baptised. they come to church and all have testimonies. man its soo cool. so ok this is a mircale talaga (really) but if all goes well, december 10th will be a day to remember.

robles family, which is a mom dad and daughter ( theres a soin but hes not 8) if tatay (the dad ) can stop drinking they will all be baptised on that day too. theres ali ali the couple that is trying to get maried they have two young kids ,1 year and 2 and a half, if they can get married they will be baptised on that day ( they have solid testimonies also ) theres the pas family, which is a family of 8 kids, 5 that are old enough to be baptised, the oldest hasnt been in our lessons yet but everyone olse is progressing really great and im pretty sure they will be ready by then too. theres the gawans, which is 3 girls, the moms a member and the dad is also a meber but he lives in america theyre just waiting for him to come back so he can baptise them, and theres the deguseman family. a husband and wife their kids arent old enough to be baptised but they are starting to progress really well and they are definately coming to church next week so wow we could have a lot of baptisms next month! wouldnt that just be amazing. not to mention the people in bagong buhay if they start progressiong..... wow!

i dono how im spoiled but i got to go to the mission home today again ha we all went "trick or treating" ha we all dressed up ion goofy costumes and went and got to eat hamburgers and watch forever strong ( if you havent seen this show you should watch it its sooo good) ill send you the pictures as soon as i get them i didnt get any on my camera, i dress up as a jew ha i had a yamaka and a preyer shawl ha kinda bastos but it was super fun. well anyways im gopnna try and upload some picters so this is all for the news i love you all and ill talk to you next week, elder landeen

so these pictures, the guy in the green, he is beyond drunk ha i was on exchanges with elder kelson when we ran into him, that is our fridge after a week without power, that big group of people was about 3/4 the people we taught in bagong buhay the rest of the adults didnt want in the picture, thats a spider we killed in our house, they get a lot bigger than that, thats me and elder riner my follow up trainer, step dad ha i dono what he is actually. and thats just a really cool picture of the sky.