This week Allen just wrote short notes to Mike and I so I cut some parts from each of the notes that I thought you might be interested in.  I will be sending a package this Friday, and he did request any handwritten letters from anyone that is interested, so if you will let me know I will come and get them or you could take them to Mom and Dad's and I will pick them up there Thursday night.

 

Paula

 

Here's the pieces of the letter:

 

here they like eating the small fish more than the nig ones. like three and four inch fishes that they dry and cover in salt and fry in dirty oil and are basically just bones.... they love it. and im just confused at why ha ha. anways i realized something. iknow absolutely nothing about your mission. and you are always telling me you have nothing to write about. so i have a proposition. how about you write about your mission. tell me some stories. tell me about some people ( if you even remember anything i know it was a long time ago and your no journal writer ha ha) i dono why but lately i have been thinking about that a lot about yours and moms and kevins and natalies missions i wanna know all about them. so there is a little project for you to work on your story telling skills. that would be very appreciated if you would do that !

 

as for how im doing im doing good., great. anxiety dropped down again. i was able to have a special interview with elder teh the philippines area president. ( cool right ) and i talked to him about it and he gave me a blessing and some good advice about what to do to deal with it. man these general authorities are amazing people arent they, next month we have an apostle coming to visit the mission. thats about the coolest thing ive heard this will be something to remember. have you ever been taught by an apostle before/? if so who was it?

 

my companion is struggling so bad with the food. hes only eaten curry his whole life and he is very..... bold//// at how he said that he is not "accustomed" to philipino food ha. more than once i have hear something like this... someone asks if he likes the food they cooked.. and his reply is if i dont eat i will die thats why i am eating...... HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA H AH AH AH AHAH H AH AHA

 

hes my favorite companion by far/. hes very new at the gospel. its very interesting having to teach him a lesson or a principle and him hearing it for the first time from my mouth and then us teaching that lesson later to philipinos. things like eternal families and baptisms for the dead and all sorts of the basic beliefs that we take for granted are all new to him. ive really learned who the lord calls he qualifies.

 

letters from family like bailey and cole and savanah and rebekah and jada and well everyone if thats possible ha thats the best part of the package.

well hello again.. its been another week and a lot of adventures. a lot of curry and vegitables ( i never even tasted curry in america but man its so good  and apparently you can cook anything using curry seasonings imagine that ) having a companion from bangladesh is a  very mind opening experience to see what life is like in a different country. i remember making all the comparisons of america to the philippines and now im hearing all the differences of bangladesh and the philippines and im glad to say one thing.... im proud to be an american. ha ha ha. anyways things that have been going on. . . . .

ive been studying a lot about how to work with ward and stake leaders. ive noticed ive been working with less actives here for about 3 months now and its been somewhat fruitful but ive come to realize that if i cant find a way to get members involved in this its gonna all be a whole lot of stress and sweat ( plenty of sweat ) for nothing. the whole every new member needs a friend a calling and nourished by the good word of god... even more so to these less actives. ive learned the most common sin of the human race. BUSY. too busy with work or school or projects or other things to take thie time to do the little things. or sometimes the big things. apparently the word has BUSY has a hidden meaning..... B being U under S satans Y yoke    pretty cool huh? all you home teachers that are too busy like i always was come here and see how many people dont come to church and get to feel the blessings of being active that probably would be right now if it werent for the fact that noone showed any interest to come help them, or bless them when they were sick, or clean up after a baguio, or just come share a spiritual message 1 time in a month. too BUSY. im going to put this in the category of things i hope i remember after ive been home from my mission for ten years. maybe when im a busy 50 percent home teachers ill read my own words and slap myself in the face. 

ive preached a few too many sermons to all of you now im stuck here ha ha if i ever fall out of line theres evidence against me.... remember when you wrot home about this and that? and then                   ill repent ha ha.

ive been thinking about my missionary work and what kind of a missionary i am. sometimes well all the time im stressed and anxious cause things arent going the way they were planned to go or other people your relying on arent willing to sacrifice.... and then i started thinking why does in really matter in the long run what everyone always said was true all god wants is your best. if you give that then the results dont really matter all that much. stressing about things about members and leaders that arent doing their job gets me nowhere and then when i look for the good instead of the negative i get the sweet moments like seeing the cabalsa family. mother relief society president father 2nd councilor in the bishopric. last night i was at there house figuring what we were going to do about sister imie in the hospital she needs help getting her insurance and bills all figured out and she cant do it alone because she has to stay with her daughter. sister cabalsa decided that she would take the time out of her BUSY day and go to tuegegarao to help her. then she second guessed and said wait the kids dont have any food for lunch tomorrow and if i dont sell ( her "job" is she has a bicycle with a little side car attatched to it and she peddels around and sells food that she cooks at her house ) anyways she said if i dont sell then wont have any money to give them. then as easy as for most people to say im sorry i wish i could but.... ( and then give the reason even a very valid reason ) she just said well i just need to be willing to sacrifice god will provide. and she left her job this mornng went to tuegegarao and is helping imie right now. man do i have that kind of trust in the lord? 

the mission ha been a struggle for me the whole time i dont write home about everything mostly anxiety is the source of all the problems but to see people willing to show faith in the lord like that and knowing that a few missionaries that gave up a couple years of their lives to go and teach people about jesus christ were instruments in gods hands to help someone like this become the person she is today.... im greatful for the struggles. at least i know somehow someday my efforts will ammount to something as long as the lords on my side. 

im greatful for all of you. i love you. i believe the church is true. theres a lot of bad in the world but there is also a lot of good. im gonna try to find the good. maybe we could all set a goal together.

mahal na mahal ko kayo...... elder landeen

hello everyone its been an eventful week and ive got no idea how ill explain any of it so ill do my best. first of all i just wanna say im counting my many blessings. 

i got a new companion today. brother chua went home and im going to miss him a lot, he was one of my favorite companions and i really enjoyed my time with him. he will enter the mtc on july 21 for his mission in olongapo philippines. mom sorry your package got here after he went home., he might come and visit the area again this week for a baptism so i will probably see him again this week. \

and now since brother chua went home i go t a new companion. his name is elder hawlader. elder hawlader is 1 of only 43 members in his whole COUNTRY, and the first missionary ever to serve, he is from Bangladesh. this is his first area here in cabagan and it is crazy all the things ive learned about his country! 99 percent of bangladesh is muslim and there are no missionaries there because the government wont allow the church to send missionaries there. but the embassador at the us embasy is a member and it seems like hes done some missionary work there since he was the one who baptised elder hawlader. we are going to be very busy this week because we have a baptism this saturday july 7. one investigator sister imie vinarao. i just wanna talk about her for a little bit now.

we met imie because of her mother in law. when i first came to cabagan we had a list of 15 families that are in active or less active, and one of these families is the vinarao family in a place called baculod, san pablo. the father is a member but he works in manila and he would be active if it wasnt for his work. there is also the mother who is a member and at this time she was in active, and then they have i think 8  kids, none of them are members but none of them are at home they are all either in manila or other parts of the philippines. we started sharing with nanay ( the mother ) and we did that for about two weeks and then one day we went there and she wasnt there but there was a girl there. shes 22 years old and her name is imie. she is the wife of one of their many sons. so the daughter in law of the 2 inactive members. and so we decided to try sharing to her. to make a long story short she turned out to be a pretty golden investigator, she had tried going to a whole bunch of different churches when she was in high school but never found one that she thought was right. an even longer story shorter,,, she got a very strong testimony of joseph smith, i think i shared her experience with you in one of my old emails,,, and she has made the changes in her life and is a new person and is someone really ready for baptism. nanay ( the mother in law ) has come from inactivity to comeing to church every week, and the other day she shared how happy she is that shes come back to church and was able to help her daughter in law to accept the gospel. man the work here is hard now that were focused on less actives its seemed to have platoud ( i dono how to spell that ) because everyone is just being stubborn and has all sorts of reasons of why they dont NEED to come to church. from theyre not worthy to be lds, to god understand them because theyre poor, to offended at the members, and millions more. im just glad that once in a while god gives you some success and peoples lives are touched. we are working with a lot of people. and we teach all day and we stress all day especially lately but now all i know is 2 lives are changed, one brought BACK into the light, and one stepping out of the darkness into the light. and thats why im here. i love you all and the evidence keeps adding up every day. the church is true. it is. lifes a big crap shoot of problems ha but the gospels true and when you live it the problems dont bother you so much. 

one thing ive learned so far from the philippines and now from my new companion from bangladesh is that we are very blessed in america. very very blessed. elder hawlader was very impressed with the things in our house. like the toaster oven, the gas stove, the shower head and sink with running water, the fridge, and other NORMAL things to us, all of which he was not blessed with in his country. he grew up in a land of violence where its normal to watch people be murdered in front of you and noone will say anything because if you do they will also kill you, and where if you are christian you cant do somethings that the muslims can because you are the very small minority. and where if you try to share your testimony with the wrong person you could find youself dead because it happens to be a muslim that hates christians. and where its normal to see hundreds or in his words numberless people sleeping just on the side of the road eating out of the trash can. arent we blessed in america? even here in the philippines man some people have hard lives. anyways a love you all and remember that lifes hard, but gods there. remember him. 

mahal ko kayo... elder landeen

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

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