Guide, Part 1:
By default you will attack the stones and trees with your sword, which results in spending hours grinding and being unable to mine iron. Press the skill button, choose the skill you want to use, and the bottom option (the top is to cancel). Everytime you want to chop a tree or mine, press the C button near the tree or the ore. When you use this method, you deal about 50 times more damage to trees and stones.
First Quest:
You must chop down 10 trees
Second Quest:
Mine 15 stones and 5 iron. By this point your sword attacks will be too weak to deal a single pont to iron ores, so you must use the C option to progress
Third Quest:
You must obtain 25 trees, 10 wheat, 10 leather, and 10 iron. To find wheat you will have to go to the northeast and press Z on the yellow flowers. To find leather, just kill cows in the cave at the north