Christmas phone call

This is a picture of Elder Langston and his new companion, Elder Pugsley from Park Valley, Utah.

We had a great visit with Jordan on Christmas morning. We talked almost 3 hours! He was able to talk to several different people even though they weren't at the house. We called them on the cell phone then held it up to the home phone and they could talk to each other.

The following is a portion of a letter we received December 29th.

"Teaching is coming along quite nicely. we are starting to teach margarets daughter that usually doesn't like to talk to us. but now we are teaching her too so they can all be sealed in a year! shes the last one to get baptized! We are trying to do more service. we did some for almost 4 hours cleaning the church yesterday and then bishops wife, sister tshabalala, made us dinner and it was amazing! We are also doing some next week. we are cutting trees on the church grounds and we are going to drive the APs bakkie. (truck) We go to the temple once every six weeks but not this six weeks cuz we are doing mission tour instead. thats when the area seventy comes and speaks to us. I dont know who it is though.so i think i answered all the questions. i dont know. but about saving up to come here, i say yes. do it! i want you to be able to see soweto and other cool places that i haven't gone to yet. but i love it here and want to share it with you. try to go to germany if you can so that way we can all have been to the same places so we can chat about it! i'm glad you enjoyed that movie i sent. i want to see it to see if it really does look like soweto. and tell jeanette that the kids really do sing and dance together but they have knives and guns, like west side story. oh how i wish that were true. well, nothing really awesome has happend since i last talked to you except that we are now teaching margarets daughter and i gave some more presents to dorothy, another investigator, and she said she'll write you a thank you letter so i can send it to you. i gave her popcorn that you sent and she couldn't believe that was popcorn and i was wondering if you could send more of it. that'd be great! also, there are some members that have seen bits of the RM and home teachers and would like to own the movies so i was suppose to ask you if you could send them and they'll pay you back, in rands. i can convert them to dollars here.

I love you all so much! love,Elder Langston"

Guess what Jordan learned to do while recuperating? That's right, he learned to crochet beanies. Thanks to Sister Womack, he got the hooks, yarn and instruction! I'm impressed.

Knee Surgery

Here is Elder Langston before and after knee surgery. He had to stay in and down for a while. But he's up and working now. His surgery was December 7th. The doctor said the knee was worse than he had anticipated but it was taken care of. Who would have thought his first surgery would be in South Africa? No wonder he looks scared!

Elder Langston with Elders Yarrington, Rand, and Mwakamui. It looks like Jordan just got off work at KFC. That's how he earns his money! Here's a picture of Jordan's last wheelie for a while. After having knee surgery on Friday, December 7th, he'll be taking it easy for a month or so. Look at that form! I'll give him a 9.5!

Jordan's letter November 26, 2007

well, this week was pretty good. a lot better than last week! i was feelin it this week! and i steered clear of the females. on monday we played soccer and i jacked up my knee but never got it checked out because i was on a roll this week and never got a chance to call anyone about the knee. i'll send a picture of it so you can see. it hurts when i ride the bike too hard though. we taught one new lady named denil and she is awesome! she was taking the lesson so nicely and when i told her about the first vision i felt the spirit testify the truth to me and i know she felt it too because later when i asked her if she'd pray to know if joseph smith was a true prophet she said she already knows. it was so cool! but she didn't go to church like she said she would. on thursday we had the car and it rained so hard that the other guys quit early cuz they were on bikes. we went to margrets place to check up on her and her neighbor, felisha, that she introduced to us a while ago and when we went to her neighbors place, the member that we were with said, "i've got a word stuck in my head, i dont know why. its baptism." we looked at him like he was crazy because we haven't seen felisha at church. when felisha came back in the room and was talking to us, she said she's been readin the bible lately and every scripture she'd read it mentioned baptism and now she knows she needs to get baptized. it was cool! and yesterday she came to church for the first time and loved it! we showed her the font and she was terrified. she hates water! another one of our investigators, dorothy, is talking about baptism and we showed her the font too. i love this work! saturday we played soccer against the protea glen ward and i think i messed up my knee even more. i'm going to get it checked out today for sure. oh yeah, we are playing soccer again today against the other zones. i'll try not to do any hand stands on fences anymroe today! so that was my week in a nut shell!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Stuffing, potatoes and gravy. Where's the turkey and pumpkin pie? The people in Johannesburg don't celebrate Thanksgiving so Jordan had the next best thing...at 9:00 at night!

Johannesburg Temple

Elder Mwakamui and Elder Langston with Margret, a recent convert.

Jordan with a couple of local children. I love this picture!

Here is Elder Langston popping a wheelie with his fan club watching. It's a good thing Jordan is riding a bike. He needs to burn those "loaf of bread" calories. He can eat the whole loaf of bread filled with all that "good for you" stuff in 32 minutes! He's in 3rd place so far. You go Elder!

Halloween Festivities

It wouldn't be Halloween without jack-o-lanterns. Here's Jordan carving one of his masterpieces then joining them in a face off. The locals thought they were a little weird when they put the candles in them and put them outside. Imagine what they thought when Jordan ran out of candles so he filled the pumpkin with paper and lit that on fire! What a show!

Chow Time!

Jordan and elders enjoying a nice dinner of Katos. It's a loaf of bread filled with vienna, bologna, cheese and...I'm not sure what else is in it. It's anybody's guess!

Letter from Jordan

Things are good here in my new home, south africa! wooo! i think i love this place. jacob should hang that flag with pride because the springboks won the world cup! go bokkes! I'll try to send some pictures of the houses here and some of the kids. they speak two languages, minimum. some know 4 languages. there is a mcdonalds here but i'm sure none of the kids have seen it. the ones that go to school are very smart. now on with the week. so this week was great! we found some people that are really interested in the gospel. my favorite thing that i love to hear now days is when i leave when people say that they feel "good" or some even say they feel the spirit when we are around. it makes me feel so good and it assures me that i am teaching by the spirit. the lady i baptized last week got confirmed yesterday and we talked to her about the temple on thursday. she is so excited to go! we are going with recent converts to do baptisms on the tenth. she is an awesome lady! Saturday we had our mormon helping hands thing and i found out that its going to be shown in general conference in the spring. it was pretty cool doing some service and i even got interviewed by the camera man. i dont know who he worked for or anything but he asked me some questions and got after me for not re-phrasing the question and just answering with a yes or no. I love you all and hope all is well!

More fun pictures

Jordan with 3 missionaries from the MTC. Not sure of their names but I believe the one in the front is Elder Schwarting.

Soccer anyone?

You can tell by the shirts these guys are professionals!

A win should be celebrated by doing a handstand on a fence. Too bad Jordan isn't as coordinated as he thought he was. Ow!

First Baptism

Elder Langston baptized a woman named Margret on October 21st and a boy named Katlego. We assume the woman in the middle is Margret and Katlego is not in this picture. It was a great experience. Even though the water was freezing both of them had big smiles on their faces.

This looks like a fun game of dirt soccer. That is a big sky.

Johannesburg

MTC Missionaries

September 12, 2007, Jordan left the MTC and walked across the parking lot to the mission office! Elder Langston is the good-looking one in the front row on the right.

Jordan

Elder Langston with his "new parents"-President and Sister Bowden-September 12, 2007

Jordan is serving in the Dobsonville Area of the Soweto Zone.

His companion is Daniel Mwakamui.

Jordan and Grandparents

This is Jordan the day of his "farewell" with his Grandparents, G-pa and G-ma Travis, G-pa and G-ma Langston and of course, his sister Jill

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu

All Packed and Ready to Go!

Couldn't resist this sweet picture of Mr Cy giving Uncle Jo-Jo a kiss.

Jordan's Family

From Left to Right:

Top Row- Corban, David, Daniel, Jordan, Andy, Kelsey, Candice, Austin, Camille, Jeanette, Rachael, Jacob.

Bottom Row- Villi, Keiti, Jill, Connie(Mom), Cyrus, Andy(Dad), Isabelle, Adalyn, Emily.