"Tis the Season to be Jolly"

Dearest Fam and Friends,

It's Christmas time again! I sure love this season! I sure miss being home for this season too, especially since there is no snow here, no one puts up lights on their houses, and everyone says father Christmas instead of Santa Clause. I don't understand these people sometimes.

So my area, Gold Reef, is just the name of the area which covers a lot of little town names. Whats crazy here is that there really isn't much of a break between cities or whatever they call it here. Everything just kinda is smashed together and they'll be a sign on the road that divides the "cities" saying where you are now entering. So Windsor is a little "city" in our area where its just flats(apartments) and only black people live there, well, mostly blacks. We have made little invitations for the movie and have been handing them out in Windsor. Yeah, I don't know if I told you already but we are showing a movie, free of charge, to everyone in the area. We have rented out a recreation center in the heart of Windsor and are inviting everyone to come and feel the Christmas Spirit. I think we'll show Joy to the World and have a song or two that we'll sing together. Hopefully we'll get some people to teach from it. If it works out then we are going to do it again and start to teach more things and sometimes just not show a movie and instead teach people. The plan is to one day have a branch in Windsor. Bishop Pineaar has been working with us and he's so excited every time we talk about it. He even spoke in Sacrament Meeting and told the ward that this is our new years goal is to do missionary work and focus on Windsor. I get excited when he talks about it too! It's fun just walking around and talking with the black folks again because the whiteys stay in their huge houses behind their big walls and they don't want to hear anything about Jesus Christ. If only they knew.

Yesterday as we were passing out invitations, we saw a group of kids and I stopped just to chat with them, because that's how I like to do it. They said they were playing marbles and I told the kid that I could beat him. (at marbles) So he took the challenge. Now the way they play marbles here is they got two bricks set next to each other with a gap barely big enough for the marble to go through and you stand behind a line and shoot the marble trying to make it in. If you don't succeed the first time then the closest one gets to hit the marble from where it landed and try to shoot it through. So the game went on with me and this little black kid. He shot and missed, I went and hit the corner of the brick on the inside of the gap and it bounced out, making it a straight shot through the gap. I hit it with a technique I learned in the township and I totally smoked the kid. We played again and my beginners luck wore off and I lost. We then invited the kids and their families to the movie. We'll see if they show up.

We got transfer news on Saturday and they are splitting the Jozi Central mission so we are going to have two more missionaries in our flat, a total of 6, until we find a new flat. So that is what we get to do today is find a new flat to stay in and the Jozi Central missionaries are moving closer to their area.

I have not recieved the package yet, but hopefully it'll come soon.

Well, Family and Friends! I love you all so much! I'm so very grateful for all that you do for me. I love you Grandma and Grandpa Travis. I'm sorry for not writing you back but I will soon. I just am pinchin pennies right now and I paid for email in 20 cent coins and barely had enough to buy time. But I love you and pray for you all! Take care and CTR!!

Love,
Elder Jordan Langston