This picture is to show the little girl's mullet hair cut. Jordan told her that it was cool because a lot of people in America have mullets. This is the Tshidi family.
Monday, 30 June 2008
Tshidi Family
This picture is to show the little girl's mullet hair cut. Jordan told her that it was cool because a lot of people in America have mullets. This is the Tshidi family.
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Letter 6-23-08
Hello Family Langston,
How is everyone? I love those pictures of everyone at the temple! I'm so excited for Jill and Vili! I can't wait for when Jacob goes on a mission and we can all sit in the Celestial Room together as one eternal family! That would be great! Speaking about families and temples, I forgot to mention that last Friday we went to the temple and it was my first time for about 5 months so it was great! I didn't even fall asleep this time, except during the prayer. I said a little prayer and asked for help to find some good families that would be receptive to the gospel. Lately as we tract, we find people who are married and have atleast one kid. We usually only find single moms or just young girls, but we are finding families!
I've been pretty sick the past few days. I've had a terrible headache and a fever of over 100. I still went out to work becuase I believe it's just a test to see how much I'm willing to sacrifice for the people the Lord has prepared for us to teach. As we tracted on Saturday, we found so many older males that would like to learn more. I really hope that they are the ones that we are suppose to teach.
We are teaching a lady named Mpho and she has many kids and they love the gospel. They still don't know if its true but we will help them gain that testimony the best we can as we continue to teach them more and bring the Spirit to their home. We even have an inside joke with them that whenever I say the word "mba" they start to laugh hysterically. I'll have to tell you the story later.
On Wednesday we go to a members house to get some food and teach them something. I bought some jenga blocks to help me teach about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I wanted to try it out there so after we ate I began to prepare the lesson. No sooner had I begun to prepare that a non-member family member walked in and sat with us. It was just so cool how I planned and prepared to teach the first lesson and there was a purpose behind it. I love how the Lord works!
There is a lady in the ward who came up to us last Sunday and told us something awesome! She said that her mother in law is not a member but the other day she saw her m-i-l reading the Book of Mormon. She said she's seen her reading it a few times so she wants us to come over and just non-chalantly teach the first lesson. We are heading over there on Tuesday. Yesterday the same lady gave a talk about the Book of Mormon and it was great! She's got a strong testimony of it and it was quite powerful!
On Thursday we were tracting and we found another great family who lived in one of the shacks. The wife use to live by the church and she's always wondered what happens there. She enjoyed what we were teaching but she didn't come to church like she said she would. We are going back there sometime soon to check up on them. I dont want to lose a good family opportunity.
Friday night we taught a pastor and it was awesome!! He believed God was a spirit so I told him the truth. He was kinda not understanding until I started to talk about our hands. I said even though his is black and huge and mine is white and skinny, they are in the same image. He started asking about the color of God, which drives me nuts!!! I told him that the color doesn't matter and how I hate that people try to worry about the color of God's skin but they can't even keep his commandments. We made another appointment for Friday and I can't even wait! We gave him a BOM and he said he'll read it. I hope he does!
Yesterday was a great day! I woke up at 1 in the morning with a burning fever of 103 and a terrible head ache and my back is killing and has been for about a month now. Around 2 in the morning I decided to take a bath and try to just relax for a bit so I can go back to sleep. I got to sleep around 5 and woke up about an hour later for church. I went to church still and after church I was feeeling ok, so we went out doing our thing. My fever started to come back and my head felt like it was spinning like a top and I had a hard time driving. So we parked and I took a short nap hoping that I would be ok after a while. Nope, still felt like junk. We ended up just going to the other guys last appointment with them and we watched a movie which I now love. It was on the Book of Mormon dvd and it was titled "...and my soul hungered." It was about how a member came to know for himself if the church was true. I loved it and I even got a little teary eyed. After that I decided that I should have the other Elders give me a blessing for my sickness. We got home and I brought it up, Elder Butler, whos head that is in the photo, said he'll do it. I told him he can annoint. They gave me a blessing and I slept so nicely! I took my temp when I woke up and it was at 97. I still have a cough and sore back but my head and my fever have left me. I'm so thankful for the priesthood and the blessings it brings to my life. I kinda took it for granted when I was at home because everyone has it there. Almost no one had the real authority for Jesus Christ here and it is great to bring the knowledge and blessings to them here in South Africa!
I've got a package to send home soon so I will once I gots the money. It really is about a third of my alotment to send something. Its lame. Well, I love you all so much! Take care and CTR! Thanks for everything!
Love,
Elder Langston
How is everyone? I love those pictures of everyone at the temple! I'm so excited for Jill and Vili! I can't wait for when Jacob goes on a mission and we can all sit in the Celestial Room together as one eternal family! That would be great! Speaking about families and temples, I forgot to mention that last Friday we went to the temple and it was my first time for about 5 months so it was great! I didn't even fall asleep this time, except during the prayer. I said a little prayer and asked for help to find some good families that would be receptive to the gospel. Lately as we tract, we find people who are married and have atleast one kid. We usually only find single moms or just young girls, but we are finding families!
I've been pretty sick the past few days. I've had a terrible headache and a fever of over 100. I still went out to work becuase I believe it's just a test to see how much I'm willing to sacrifice for the people the Lord has prepared for us to teach. As we tracted on Saturday, we found so many older males that would like to learn more. I really hope that they are the ones that we are suppose to teach.
We are teaching a lady named Mpho and she has many kids and they love the gospel. They still don't know if its true but we will help them gain that testimony the best we can as we continue to teach them more and bring the Spirit to their home. We even have an inside joke with them that whenever I say the word "mba" they start to laugh hysterically. I'll have to tell you the story later.
On Wednesday we go to a members house to get some food and teach them something. I bought some jenga blocks to help me teach about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I wanted to try it out there so after we ate I began to prepare the lesson. No sooner had I begun to prepare that a non-member family member walked in and sat with us. It was just so cool how I planned and prepared to teach the first lesson and there was a purpose behind it. I love how the Lord works!
There is a lady in the ward who came up to us last Sunday and told us something awesome! She said that her mother in law is not a member but the other day she saw her m-i-l reading the Book of Mormon. She said she's seen her reading it a few times so she wants us to come over and just non-chalantly teach the first lesson. We are heading over there on Tuesday. Yesterday the same lady gave a talk about the Book of Mormon and it was great! She's got a strong testimony of it and it was quite powerful!
On Thursday we were tracting and we found another great family who lived in one of the shacks. The wife use to live by the church and she's always wondered what happens there. She enjoyed what we were teaching but she didn't come to church like she said she would. We are going back there sometime soon to check up on them. I dont want to lose a good family opportunity.
Friday night we taught a pastor and it was awesome!! He believed God was a spirit so I told him the truth. He was kinda not understanding until I started to talk about our hands. I said even though his is black and huge and mine is white and skinny, they are in the same image. He started asking about the color of God, which drives me nuts!!! I told him that the color doesn't matter and how I hate that people try to worry about the color of God's skin but they can't even keep his commandments. We made another appointment for Friday and I can't even wait! We gave him a BOM and he said he'll read it. I hope he does!
Yesterday was a great day! I woke up at 1 in the morning with a burning fever of 103 and a terrible head ache and my back is killing and has been for about a month now. Around 2 in the morning I decided to take a bath and try to just relax for a bit so I can go back to sleep. I got to sleep around 5 and woke up about an hour later for church. I went to church still and after church I was feeeling ok, so we went out doing our thing. My fever started to come back and my head felt like it was spinning like a top and I had a hard time driving. So we parked and I took a short nap hoping that I would be ok after a while. Nope, still felt like junk. We ended up just going to the other guys last appointment with them and we watched a movie which I now love. It was on the Book of Mormon dvd and it was titled "...and my soul hungered." It was about how a member came to know for himself if the church was true. I loved it and I even got a little teary eyed. After that I decided that I should have the other Elders give me a blessing for my sickness. We got home and I brought it up, Elder Butler, whos head that is in the photo, said he'll do it. I told him he can annoint. They gave me a blessing and I slept so nicely! I took my temp when I woke up and it was at 97. I still have a cough and sore back but my head and my fever have left me. I'm so thankful for the priesthood and the blessings it brings to my life. I kinda took it for granted when I was at home because everyone has it there. Almost no one had the real authority for Jesus Christ here and it is great to bring the knowledge and blessings to them here in South Africa!
I've got a package to send home soon so I will once I gots the money. It really is about a third of my alotment to send something. Its lame. Well, I love you all so much! Take care and CTR! Thanks for everything!
Love,
Elder Langston
Monday, 23 June 2008
Amusement Park
Another fun P-Day Activity. Here's part of Jordan's email about it: "The good part about yesterday was that we went to an amusement park and rode roller coasters and other such wonderful rides! It gets better, I got some pictures with people because I was dressed up as SpiderMan! People were loving it! We went to a culture dancing thing and as we walked in they started calling me! "hey spiderman!" It was great! "Tuesday, 10 June 2008
letter from June 9, 2008
Thank you so much for the letter! I got a letter from Dad the other day when we got post. I love Dad's letters so much! I need to write him back so I will! I live kinda far away from the office so I dont get post very often. Even if I did live close I still wouldn't get post! :) So Nosisa, the blind lady, came to church yesterday and she even spoke to the bishop about some stuff so hopefully she'll be on baptism date soon. We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she said, "I love it becuase it just makes sense." I love it so much when people realize that! This week went kinda slow. We just checked on a lot of people that we tracted into in the previous weeks and we've given out a lot of BOMs and got a lot of promises but no one showed up at church, just Nosisa. We are teaching a couple interesting people. One girl is 19, pregnant, has a nose ring and tongue ring, and she checks out Elder Smith! haha, not really though. I just wanted to throw that in. Another lady owns a tavern and goes to a church called ZCC(Zion Christian Church). It's the biggest religion in South Africa, I'm sure of it. They dont' really like any other religion either because they "feel the spirit" there. I like to tell them that they are wrong. For example, when they are "overcome by the spirit" they fall backwards, in the Bible when people are overcome by the spirit, they fall on their face(forward). I like to show them that and tell them the difference between a rock concert and church. I love being a part of the only true church because when anyone has questions or anything, I can usually give them an answer because we have a true living prophet on the earth today. We found a guy that we are going to visit again that didn't believe in the Bible or God. He thinks religion was made up by a white man to control people. I asked him a few questions, as directed by the Spirit, and got him thinking. I told him to read the pamphlet and think about the questions I asked him. He seems excited to see us again.
On the 29th of this month, we are doing something special in church. We are getting everyone to invite a friend or a less active member and us missionaries are going to give the first lesson about the Restoration in Sacrament meeting. I'm really excited for this! I also got an idea to have our ward mission leader hand out a BOM every other or every Sunday to someone who knows someone interested about gospel. I remember we did it in Spanish Fork and I think it might work here. We'll see how it goes. Lately, I've been just trying to think of ways to get people more involved in missionary work and also ideas to help Elder Smith and I teach better. I haven't thought about work when I get home, or who I'm going to marry or anything like that. I love it! Work, work, work! There is no satisfactory substitute, especially in missionary work!
Answer time! We have a ward with about 500 members but only about 150 active. The chapel is full every sunday though, so its cool! I live in a place called Dinwiddie. It has a lot of stuff around to do, like shop and eat. We get donuts sometimes in the mornings as we head out to our area. The area we work, though, has some paved roads and some not paved. A lot of the paved roads have pot holes the size of a dead cow. The Poulsons are coming on the 28th and the Bowdens are leaving the 29th. I talked to Sister Bowden and she said she's going to miss it but she's excited to see her family. Her maid was the Bishops wife in my first area so I know her. The only food places are Kotas or members houses where we get rice and chicken. There are some places like KFC and Chicken Licken in the township, but I gots no money for that. My knee is still there but it kinda hurts every now and then. Thursdays we get to ride bikes because I'm nice and I'm giving the car to the other guys that day. I hope I can make it. Being a "father" makes me want to be a better person. I've got someone looking up to me for answers and as an example so I'm more careful what I do and what I say so I think its good for me. Is that what its' like being a real dad? We clean people's yards for service. They just have dirt yards and the weeds start to grow if they dont walk on it so we go chop down the weeds. I tried digging them up so they wont grow back but i got yelled at for messing up their dirt. Ooops!
Well, I love you all and I hope you have enjoyed my letter. My wrists are hurting becuase I have no support on them and I'm sitting at a wierd angle on the comp. Thanks again for all you do for me and for Jeanette! I wish you all love and peace there in the land of the free!
Oh yeah, I got a quote for you: "Teach the Gospel always, and when necessary, use words." May we all strive to live more righteous lives and be examples to all who see us each and every day! I love you all with all of my heart! I know the Gospel is true and love its teachings! I'm learning to grow and love my Savior even more and love the people! Take care and, as always, CTR!
Love,
Elder J. Langston
On the 29th of this month, we are doing something special in church. We are getting everyone to invite a friend or a less active member and us missionaries are going to give the first lesson about the Restoration in Sacrament meeting. I'm really excited for this! I also got an idea to have our ward mission leader hand out a BOM every other or every Sunday to someone who knows someone interested about gospel. I remember we did it in Spanish Fork and I think it might work here. We'll see how it goes. Lately, I've been just trying to think of ways to get people more involved in missionary work and also ideas to help Elder Smith and I teach better. I haven't thought about work when I get home, or who I'm going to marry or anything like that. I love it! Work, work, work! There is no satisfactory substitute, especially in missionary work!
Answer time! We have a ward with about 500 members but only about 150 active. The chapel is full every sunday though, so its cool! I live in a place called Dinwiddie. It has a lot of stuff around to do, like shop and eat. We get donuts sometimes in the mornings as we head out to our area. The area we work, though, has some paved roads and some not paved. A lot of the paved roads have pot holes the size of a dead cow. The Poulsons are coming on the 28th and the Bowdens are leaving the 29th. I talked to Sister Bowden and she said she's going to miss it but she's excited to see her family. Her maid was the Bishops wife in my first area so I know her. The only food places are Kotas or members houses where we get rice and chicken. There are some places like KFC and Chicken Licken in the township, but I gots no money for that. My knee is still there but it kinda hurts every now and then. Thursdays we get to ride bikes because I'm nice and I'm giving the car to the other guys that day. I hope I can make it. Being a "father" makes me want to be a better person. I've got someone looking up to me for answers and as an example so I'm more careful what I do and what I say so I think its good for me. Is that what its' like being a real dad? We clean people's yards for service. They just have dirt yards and the weeds start to grow if they dont walk on it so we go chop down the weeds. I tried digging them up so they wont grow back but i got yelled at for messing up their dirt. Ooops!
Well, I love you all and I hope you have enjoyed my letter. My wrists are hurting becuase I have no support on them and I'm sitting at a wierd angle on the comp. Thanks again for all you do for me and for Jeanette! I wish you all love and peace there in the land of the free!
Oh yeah, I got a quote for you: "Teach the Gospel always, and when necessary, use words." May we all strive to live more righteous lives and be examples to all who see us each and every day! I love you all with all of my heart! I know the Gospel is true and love its teachings! I'm learning to grow and love my Savior even more and love the people! Take care and, as always, CTR!
Love,
Elder J. Langston
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