Hey everyone,
I'm here in California again! I'm back down in Porterville. Last week I made a trip up to Boise with A Layover in San Fransisco. I got my visa and was about to go to the Temple twice there in Boise then I flew back here to Fresno with lay overs in San Fransisco and LA I've got to say that It was really weird that day to put Elder Pinnock On the plane to Mexico and then Fly back by myself. I'm here With Elder Fowles and Elder Price. I might get a new Companion on Wednesday I'm not really sure but that is what the assistants were talking about when I spent the night with them Friday. As far as the teeth I go into Brother Richey again today to start the process of making the crown and the plan is to have it done by next week so that I can ship out to Mexico next week. any ways we will see what happens. I hope everyone has a great week and sorry that it was just a short one not a lot really happened other than going to Boise.
Love always
Elder Langley
January 18, 2011 - Voy a Mexico
Buenos Dias!
Hey everyone this week is and exciting one I had a root canal yesterday and I'm waiting for a call From sister Gonzalez to hear what is going to happen because we weren't able to finish it yesterday. Anyways I feel much much better and am WAY excited to be heading to Mexico this week or next. We leave Porterville Tomorrow Morning and meet with President Gonzalez before getting on a plane to Boise ID where we will meet with the Mexican Consulate. Sometime after that we will be headed out. It kind of sounds like every that was in my MTC district got their visas. The work is going great and the Lord's hand is definitely in all of it. To be honest when President called us Sunday night to tell us we were both kind of sad to leave there is lots of work that is going on here people are progressing but the important thing is that they are being taught and coming closer to Christ not really who is teaching them. This last week not much happened I ended up being on the exchange for 5 days instead of 4 so I didn't spend much time here in Porterville. Any way I'm not really sure what else to write other the next email you get from me I'll probably be in MEXICO! Have a great week I love you all!
Love always
Elder Langley
Hey everyone this week is and exciting one I had a root canal yesterday and I'm waiting for a call From sister Gonzalez to hear what is going to happen because we weren't able to finish it yesterday. Anyways I feel much much better and am WAY excited to be heading to Mexico this week or next. We leave Porterville Tomorrow Morning and meet with President Gonzalez before getting on a plane to Boise ID where we will meet with the Mexican Consulate. Sometime after that we will be headed out. It kind of sounds like every that was in my MTC district got their visas. The work is going great and the Lord's hand is definitely in all of it. To be honest when President called us Sunday night to tell us we were both kind of sad to leave there is lots of work that is going on here people are progressing but the important thing is that they are being taught and coming closer to Christ not really who is teaching them. This last week not much happened I ended up being on the exchange for 5 days instead of 4 so I didn't spend much time here in Porterville. Any way I'm not really sure what else to write other the next email you get from me I'll probably be in MEXICO! Have a great week I love you all!
Love always
Elder Langley
January 11, 2011 - Dia De Reyes y la vina de Senor
Hola!
I hope that everyone is having a great new year thus far! I want to wish Tanner a Happy Birthday!!
This week we celebrated Dia De Reyes with the Tristan Family. they are from Spain so its not exactly how they do it in Mexico but they said that it is pretty close. Dia De Reyes is a celebration of the Three Wise men coming to pay tribute to Jesus with their gifts. We ate the Tradition Pan(bread) that they eat. basically what it looks like is a huge doughnut with dried fruit on top and the one that we ate had a diameter of like a foot and a half so they are pretty big. You eat it by cutting it into slices and they dunking it in hot chocolate. its a sweet pan and it taste pretty good. I guess that eating the pan is kind of a game to because when they make it they hide little trinkets and then as well a baby Jesus, who ever get the baby Jesus get good luck or something like that.
This week we had a very unique opportunity. The scriptures talk about working in the vineyard of the Lord and this week we actually got to literally go and labor in the Lord's vineyard. Our ward had an assignment to go Prune the grape vines. It was pretty cool to be out there with all the members of our ward that do this for a living they were able to tell us alot about how they do it and teach us individually how to prune grape vines it was really unique. I saw how the cultures really are different between the english wards and the Spanish branch. There were lots of English wards up there and they got there and just went straight to work they didn't really talk or interact much but then we had our branch there in the middle talking back and forth yelling up and down the line. Then we got to the middle of the line and stop and took breakfast just like they would do if they were working working. President Fernandez and his wife had made tortas(its like a huge roll you cut it open then put re fried beans and scrambled eggs in it. you can also do the same thing with meat cut it up and season then just eat it like a sandwich its really good) for us. We had a fire there and hot chocolate and even with the break it took the same amount of time as the other ward it was really nice to be part of that type of group.
This week is going to be a little bit different then other weeks. Elder Pinnock and I are I guess like fill in elders where ever they need us so we are going on a 4 day exchange with the district leaders companions while they go to specialized training. I'll be here in Tulare until Friday then I'll go back to Porterville. The international offices should be opening back up now that Dia De Reyes is over so Salt Lake is saying that the visas should come sometime soon. Well that's about it for this week. I hope that everyone has a great week this week! May God lead and guide you through this next week.
Love Always!
Elder Langley
I hope that everyone is having a great new year thus far! I want to wish Tanner a Happy Birthday!!
This week we celebrated Dia De Reyes with the Tristan Family. they are from Spain so its not exactly how they do it in Mexico but they said that it is pretty close. Dia De Reyes is a celebration of the Three Wise men coming to pay tribute to Jesus with their gifts. We ate the Tradition Pan(bread) that they eat. basically what it looks like is a huge doughnut with dried fruit on top and the one that we ate had a diameter of like a foot and a half so they are pretty big. You eat it by cutting it into slices and they dunking it in hot chocolate. its a sweet pan and it taste pretty good. I guess that eating the pan is kind of a game to because when they make it they hide little trinkets and then as well a baby Jesus, who ever get the baby Jesus get good luck or something like that.
This week we had a very unique opportunity. The scriptures talk about working in the vineyard of the Lord and this week we actually got to literally go and labor in the Lord's vineyard. Our ward had an assignment to go Prune the grape vines. It was pretty cool to be out there with all the members of our ward that do this for a living they were able to tell us alot about how they do it and teach us individually how to prune grape vines it was really unique. I saw how the cultures really are different between the english wards and the Spanish branch. There were lots of English wards up there and they got there and just went straight to work they didn't really talk or interact much but then we had our branch there in the middle talking back and forth yelling up and down the line. Then we got to the middle of the line and stop and took breakfast just like they would do if they were working working. President Fernandez and his wife had made tortas(its like a huge roll you cut it open then put re fried beans and scrambled eggs in it. you can also do the same thing with meat cut it up and season then just eat it like a sandwich its really good) for us. We had a fire there and hot chocolate and even with the break it took the same amount of time as the other ward it was really nice to be part of that type of group.
This week is going to be a little bit different then other weeks. Elder Pinnock and I are I guess like fill in elders where ever they need us so we are going on a 4 day exchange with the district leaders companions while they go to specialized training. I'll be here in Tulare until Friday then I'll go back to Porterville. The international offices should be opening back up now that Dia De Reyes is over so Salt Lake is saying that the visas should come sometime soon. Well that's about it for this week. I hope that everyone has a great week this week! May God lead and guide you through this next week.
Love Always!
Elder Langley
January 3, 2011 - Here in Porterville
Hey everyone,
Porterville is a nice town of about 50,000 people. There is about 42%
hispanic so the odds are pretty good for the 4 spanish speaking
missionaries that we have here. Porterville sits right up next to the
mountains there are a lot of orange orchards around and they are huge!
The branch is the Porterville 6th Branch and they have about 50
active members. President Fernandez is really nice.
We have seen a lot of miracles this week one especially with a man
named Jose. Elder Pinnock and I were just kind of walking around town
semi lost and we decided to go talk to this guy. It was about 8:00 PM
and it was raining he had a fire that looked so inviting so we asked
him if we could share his fire with him for a couple minutes. he
warmly invited us over and we started to share our message and he got
really excited when we talked about him being able to know where the
authority is today. From him we have been able to find 4 other people
that are interested in the gospel. The Lord is definitly guiding this
work. I hope that you all have a great week.
Love always,
Elder Langley
Porterville is a nice town of about 50,000 people. There is about 42%
hispanic so the odds are pretty good for the 4 spanish speaking
missionaries that we have here. Porterville sits right up next to the
mountains there are a lot of orange orchards around and they are huge!
The branch is the Porterville 6th Branch and they have about 50
active members. President Fernandez is really nice.
We have seen a lot of miracles this week one especially with a man
named Jose. Elder Pinnock and I were just kind of walking around town
semi lost and we decided to go talk to this guy. It was about 8:00 PM
and it was raining he had a fire that looked so inviting so we asked
him if we could share his fire with him for a couple minutes. he
warmly invited us over and we started to share our message and he got
really excited when we talked about him being able to know where the
authority is today. From him we have been able to find 4 other people
that are interested in the gospel. The Lord is definitly guiding this
work. I hope that you all have a great week.
Love always,
Elder Langley
December 27, 2010 - Changes But not the ones we thought
Hey everyone,
I hope that everyone had a great Christmas full of lots of love and cheer. Our week this week was a long but very productive one. we had 4 Baptisms and three Confirmations. On Thursday night Micheal Monjaraz was baptized. We had a really good turn out from the ward. We had a hard time getting micheal to actually get baptized. It was really cool to watch our ward mission leader talk to him and just take care of every concern that came up. after about an hour and a half of people waiting we finally found out what the problem was and it was that he didn't want people there to see it. We ended up asking everyone to leave in a nice way then five minutes later he was baptized. Interesting things happen when people do important things. Christmas night we had a Boda(wedding) and baptism of Elizabeth and Javier Gonzalez. Everything went fine with that they are excited and now work to be able to enter the temple in a year. Yesterday we had the Baptism on Lidia Olea I had the opportunity to baptize her which was a unique experience as it was my first one preforming in Spanish. I gained a stronger testimony of the gift of tongues as I said the baptismal prayer. The words just flowed out opened my mouth and it was filled literally I knew what to say put the words just flowed out with out me thinking about it. It even sounded like it had a Mexican accent as I heard the echo and I know that I don't have a Mexican accent yet. The Lord is definitely in control of the missionary work!
So as far as transfers go Elder Pinnock and I will be moving to Porterville(?) to be companions there. When President Gonzalez Called us he said this area hasn't been having any success and he wants us to go down there and bring the area back to life. We aren't exactly sure what our assignment is yet he is going to sit down with us this week sometime and explain it all. So yeah we are going down there on a special assignment from the president. Next week I'll be able to tell you more about what our assignment actually is. President still has no idea when our visas will be coming so we'll see what happens. I'm really excited to be working with Elder Pinnock he is an amazing Elder!! I hope that y'all have a great week.
Love always,
Elder Langley
I hope that everyone had a great Christmas full of lots of love and cheer. Our week this week was a long but very productive one. we had 4 Baptisms and three Confirmations. On Thursday night Micheal Monjaraz was baptized. We had a really good turn out from the ward. We had a hard time getting micheal to actually get baptized. It was really cool to watch our ward mission leader talk to him and just take care of every concern that came up. after about an hour and a half of people waiting we finally found out what the problem was and it was that he didn't want people there to see it. We ended up asking everyone to leave in a nice way then five minutes later he was baptized. Interesting things happen when people do important things. Christmas night we had a Boda(wedding) and baptism of Elizabeth and Javier Gonzalez. Everything went fine with that they are excited and now work to be able to enter the temple in a year. Yesterday we had the Baptism on Lidia Olea I had the opportunity to baptize her which was a unique experience as it was my first one preforming in Spanish. I gained a stronger testimony of the gift of tongues as I said the baptismal prayer. The words just flowed out opened my mouth and it was filled literally I knew what to say put the words just flowed out with out me thinking about it. It even sounded like it had a Mexican accent as I heard the echo and I know that I don't have a Mexican accent yet. The Lord is definitely in control of the missionary work!
So as far as transfers go Elder Pinnock and I will be moving to Porterville(?) to be companions there. When President Gonzalez Called us he said this area hasn't been having any success and he wants us to go down there and bring the area back to life. We aren't exactly sure what our assignment is yet he is going to sit down with us this week sometime and explain it all. So yeah we are going down there on a special assignment from the president. Next week I'll be able to tell you more about what our assignment actually is. President still has no idea when our visas will be coming so we'll see what happens. I'm really excited to be working with Elder Pinnock he is an amazing Elder!! I hope that y'all have a great week.
Love always,
Elder Langley
December 20, 2010 - Felic Navidad
Hola Todos,
The lords work here in Sanger is progressing amazingly not quite as we thought it would but it is progressing well. We are projecting 5 baptisms this week. Thursday we have Micheal monjaraz. Then one Christmas day we are going to have a wedding and baptism of a couple named Elizabeth and Javier. then Sunday we are going to have the baptisms of Lidia Olea and Rosendo Castillo. So the work is deffinitly progressing. We have seen tons of miracles this week with people that we haven't talked to in a long time. WE started teaching a youth Paster named Elijah and he already knows the book of Mormon is true. Peter was doing service for Bishop Taylor and we taught him and he is way excited and feels that the church is true. The work is really amazing. We had a Christmas party that was focused on introducing those of other faiths to are church and what we do. It was really successful we had about 189 people there probably 40 people that were from other faiths or inactive. We get transfer calls on Christmas so that will be good. There are a lot of rumors going around about our visas. The rumor is that we have them and they're just waiting for the transfer to sent us to Mexico so Cross your fingers and we'll see what happens next monday.
I love you all thank you for the packages and letters! Have a very merry Christmas!!
Love always
Elder Langley
The lords work here in Sanger is progressing amazingly not quite as we thought it would but it is progressing well. We are projecting 5 baptisms this week. Thursday we have Micheal monjaraz. Then one Christmas day we are going to have a wedding and baptism of a couple named Elizabeth and Javier. then Sunday we are going to have the baptisms of Lidia Olea and Rosendo Castillo. So the work is deffinitly progressing. We have seen tons of miracles this week with people that we haven't talked to in a long time. WE started teaching a youth Paster named Elijah and he already knows the book of Mormon is true. Peter was doing service for Bishop Taylor and we taught him and he is way excited and feels that the church is true. The work is really amazing. We had a Christmas party that was focused on introducing those of other faiths to are church and what we do. It was really successful we had about 189 people there probably 40 people that were from other faiths or inactive. We get transfer calls on Christmas so that will be good. There are a lot of rumors going around about our visas. The rumor is that we have them and they're just waiting for the transfer to sent us to Mexico so Cross your fingers and we'll see what happens next monday.
I love you all thank you for the packages and letters! Have a very merry Christmas!!
Love always
Elder Langley
December 16, 2010- Short and Sweet
Hey y'all,
Its just short and sweet this week. everything is good have a great weekend. The Church is true and God Loves you! I Promise to write more on monday.
Love Elder Langley
Its just short and sweet this week. everything is good have a great weekend. The Church is true and God Loves you! I Promise to write more on monday.
Love Elder Langley
December 6, 2010 - Baptisms
Good Morning,
We had a very interesting week. It feels like it has been an eternity long because of how much happened. at the beginning of the week President was thinking about changing around the companion ships and putting me and Elder Pinnock with another missionary here then put Elder Gaskins and Elder Solares back together. That ended up not happening. We are having and big push for baptisms this month. As a mission we have a goal this year for 1200 individuals baptized and so far we have 810. That means that we need 390, 4 per companionship in order to be able to reach our goal. We as a mission have changed the way that we approach people one the street. most of the time we just start out with baptism and show them the picture of christ being baptized. It works great and we usually extend a baptismal invitation right there one the first visit. As an area here in sanger we have 14 baptismal dates for this month. I think we are going to end up having a marriage and baptism on christmas.(even here in Cali we can have a white christmas). but most of the dates that we have planned are for the 23rd of December (9 out of the 14) We have another one scheduled for this sunday a boy named Michael he is the son of Alejandro. Our Ward mission leader and officially Mayor of Sanger is helping us out with him he doesn't really progress that well with just us but with Brother Mitchell he is progressing well. Oh before I forget Next week my preparation day is going to be on thursday and not monday we are going to going to the temple so yeah it'll be good. I think that that is everything that I have for this week. I love you all hope everything is going well.
Love always
Elder Langley
We had a very interesting week. It feels like it has been an eternity long because of how much happened. at the beginning of the week President was thinking about changing around the companion ships and putting me and Elder Pinnock with another missionary here then put Elder Gaskins and Elder Solares back together. That ended up not happening. We are having and big push for baptisms this month. As a mission we have a goal this year for 1200 individuals baptized and so far we have 810. That means that we need 390, 4 per companionship in order to be able to reach our goal. We as a mission have changed the way that we approach people one the street. most of the time we just start out with baptism and show them the picture of christ being baptized. It works great and we usually extend a baptismal invitation right there one the first visit. As an area here in sanger we have 14 baptismal dates for this month. I think we are going to end up having a marriage and baptism on christmas.(even here in Cali we can have a white christmas). but most of the dates that we have planned are for the 23rd of December (9 out of the 14) We have another one scheduled for this sunday a boy named Michael he is the son of Alejandro. Our Ward mission leader and officially Mayor of Sanger is helping us out with him he doesn't really progress that well with just us but with Brother Mitchell he is progressing well. Oh before I forget Next week my preparation day is going to be on thursday and not monday we are going to going to the temple so yeah it'll be good. I think that that is everything that I have for this week. I love you all hope everything is going well.
Love always
Elder Langley
November 29, 2010 - A Couple Changes and Some Pictures
Hey y'all!!
I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I know that I did. we found two new investigators that morning then we spent the rest of the day eating with members... need less to say I gained some weight this week. I don't think that this season is going to be a good one for my weight. It gets dark here at about 5:00 and all the Hispanic people seem to always be cooking or eating something now that it is cold and dark. The food is amazing though!!! we had tamales last night that were incredible and I seem to eat something new every week. I bet that mom made some amazing food there for thanksgiving!! Ok so that's probably enough about the food.
This week we didn't have the baptisms that we thought we were going to have. WE weren't able to get the permission form Blanca's mom to have her baptized. we are going to try talking to her mom's boyfriend cause we think that she won't give it because he isn't very open to us. Fredy is ready to be baptized but he was really busy last weekend. WE rescheduled his baptism for this Friday. Some other things that changed this week to. We got a new mission leader his name is Brother Mitchell he is suppose to be the next mayor of Sanger I believe. He should be really good he has helped us out a lot in the past especially with the spanish investigators. We spoke in church on sunday Elder Pinnock and I were asked to speak in english. then Elder Gaskins and Elder Solares spoke in spanish then the other translated. It was pretty cool I can slowly see the ward starting to unify and include the spanish members more. this week was kindof slow as far as the work goes it rained alot and that kindof slowed it down.
Here are some pictures I know I've been promising them for a while so I finally got a thing that I could connect to the computer and send them this way. I'll tell you who every one is so that you know. I'll go left to right across the pictures. 166- Brother Collett, Me , President Studdert(MTC Branch 17 Presidency) 119 me at the provo temple during a temple walk on sunday 151 Hermano Hernandez(one of my mtc teachers) 155 Me and Hno Hernandez in our class room 157 Hermano Serverensen and me(my other MTC teacher) 161 my mtc district. [first row-Hno serverensen, Elder Cruz, Elder Soleburg(? i forgot how to spell it:( ), row 2- Elder Pinnock, Elder Challman, Elder Gardner, Row 3-Elder WRight, Elder Burton, Me, Row 4- Elder Whitmer, Elder Williams, Elder Bertola] I hope you enjoy those pictures I'll send some more next week. I hope that Everyone has a great week
Love always
Elder Langley
November 22, 2010 - A Rough Week Lessons Learned
Hey everyone
I hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful time of the year. This week was one of the roughest I think that I've had in the mission so far. As I look back it had a lot of ups and downs. most weeks we have our ups and downs but for some reason this week the ups and downs were much more drastic. Tuesday this week our mission got 14 new missionaries. our companionship was chosen to help them with what we call operation 'open your mouth'. What happens is we go in and meet them at the mission office help them do all the emailing home, pictures, and interviews. After all that is done we get to take one missionary and go tracting with them for like and hour. I went out with Elder Ingels. He's a great elder from NY. We started walking around the area we were assigned and I felt prompted to knock on a door. We met a nice lady Jaimy she has an 11 month old and a baby on the way and we talked with her about eternal families. we went on to talk to a lot of other people that were interested. the thing that i love is we don't knock on a door unless the spirit prompts us to do so. that's the way I was taught here in sanger to find people. It made that experience so uplifting and inspiring for elder Ingels. The Spirit is the only way that this work can be done and this week has really help me see that even more then before. Wednesday Elder Gaskins and Elder Pinnock found a huge family of 11. 9 of which are old enough to be baptized. It was exactly what we have been praying for and they wouldn't have found the family if they were listening to the spirit. Thursday and friday were slow days 3 out of the 4 of us are sick and we had to do a lot of paperwork which always takes a long time. They were productive days just slow and tiring. Saturday we had amazing success as one of our part member families invited us over to eat so they could tell us a miracle that happened that week for them. It was an answer to their prayers and they ended the night wanting to come to church which they did. I think we are going to try and set their baptismal date for Christmas or there abouts. We had a lot of other investigators at church as well. Alejandro and Alex received the priesthood. The work is progressing and the lord is directing it. I hope y'all have a great week. Stay warm there in Utah! Remember hot chocolate is your best friend I know its mine as it has been raining here the last couple days.
Love always
Elder Langley
I hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful time of the year. This week was one of the roughest I think that I've had in the mission so far. As I look back it had a lot of ups and downs. most weeks we have our ups and downs but for some reason this week the ups and downs were much more drastic. Tuesday this week our mission got 14 new missionaries. our companionship was chosen to help them with what we call operation 'open your mouth'. What happens is we go in and meet them at the mission office help them do all the emailing home, pictures, and interviews. After all that is done we get to take one missionary and go tracting with them for like and hour. I went out with Elder Ingels. He's a great elder from NY. We started walking around the area we were assigned and I felt prompted to knock on a door. We met a nice lady Jaimy she has an 11 month old and a baby on the way and we talked with her about eternal families. we went on to talk to a lot of other people that were interested. the thing that i love is we don't knock on a door unless the spirit prompts us to do so. that's the way I was taught here in sanger to find people. It made that experience so uplifting and inspiring for elder Ingels. The Spirit is the only way that this work can be done and this week has really help me see that even more then before. Wednesday Elder Gaskins and Elder Pinnock found a huge family of 11. 9 of which are old enough to be baptized. It was exactly what we have been praying for and they wouldn't have found the family if they were listening to the spirit. Thursday and friday were slow days 3 out of the 4 of us are sick and we had to do a lot of paperwork which always takes a long time. They were productive days just slow and tiring. Saturday we had amazing success as one of our part member families invited us over to eat so they could tell us a miracle that happened that week for them. It was an answer to their prayers and they ended the night wanting to come to church which they did. I think we are going to try and set their baptismal date for Christmas or there abouts. We had a lot of other investigators at church as well. Alejandro and Alex received the priesthood. The work is progressing and the lord is directing it. I hope y'all have a great week. Stay warm there in Utah! Remember hot chocolate is your best friend I know its mine as it has been raining here the last couple days.
Love always
Elder Langley
November16, 2010 - Sorry its a Short one
Hey
So we got transfers this week our area is staying the same Elders Gaskins and Solares are still Zoneleaders and elder Pinnock and I are still here. We are going to be seeing lots of miracles these next couple weeks. Elder Sybrowsky from the 70 visited us and gave us lots of information and things to work on. Iwish I had more time to say what I have but this is about all the time that I have this week. thank you for the letters and prayers! I hope you have a good week! I'll write more next week.
Love always
Elder Langley
So we got transfers this week our area is staying the same Elders Gaskins and Solares are still Zoneleaders and elder Pinnock and I are still here. We are going to be seeing lots of miracles these next couple weeks. Elder Sybrowsky from the 70 visited us and gave us lots of information and things to work on. Iwish I had more time to say what I have but this is about all the time that I have this week. thank you for the letters and prayers! I hope you have a good week! I'll write more next week.
Love always
Elder Langley
November 8, 2010 - A White Weekend
Hey Everyone!
Things are going great here in Fresno! This weekend was amazing we had a Father (Alejandro) and his two children(Alexandria and Alejandro jr) get baptized on saturday it was a pretty cool baptism Alejandro doesn't speak very much english but his kids don't speak spanish so we had a span-glish baptism one talk in spanish one talk in english singing in both languages and then the welcoming english-spanish it was really cool. Elder Solares Baptized Alejandro in spanish, then Elder Pinnock baptized Alejandro jr in english then I had the opportunity to baptize Alexandria. Right before I baptized her I had a really special experience that gave me a testimony that God watches over his missionaries and protects us. As I went to go down the stairs I slipped on the First one I'm not sure how because I knew it was wet and I was trying to be careful but I slipped and by all accounts I should have fallen hit my head on that top stair and cracked it open.(the top step had a very square edge) I remeber as I was falling seeing my foot in the air about where my head was If not higher. My hand was on the Handrail but it didn't have a lot of time to grab it to help myself. By all accounts I should have landed on those stair but I didn't. I don't know how but I landed standing on my feet on the bottom of the font. I didn't touch any of the other stairs or at least i don't remember touching any of the other ones. I know that God was protecting me and that he watches over his missionaries. I was able to go and baptize Alejandria and do all the rest of the things that I needed to that night with out a problem. I know that I am where God wants me to be doing what God wants me to do. Falling down the fant stairs might not have killed me but I know that the Lord protected me from what ever could have happened. Yesterday at church we confirmed Silvia and the Monjaraz family it was a great experience for the ward and I think that they are starting to see that we as missionaries are serious about baptizing 20 people before the end of this year.
This week we have a General Authority coming to visit the mission he is one of the 70 I forgot his name though. It should be exciting and we should be able to learn a lot to help us here. We also have transfer calls this saturday. I don't think that we will be transfered but its all up to the Lord. We haven't heard anything about visas so we're thinking that we will probably be here in CA till after christmas. Thank you for all your support and prayers. Thank you for the letters and mom Thank you for the package(especially the cookies we enjoyed them alot and brightened a couple of our less encouraging days!) A couple of you asked about how packages work and for those you just send them to the mission office(1814 N Echo Fresno CA 93704) and they'll get it to me, Its the same with the letters everything goes through the mission office. I pray that God will be with all of you and help you with the things that you need! I love you all Thanks for everything!
Love always!
Elder Langley
Things are going great here in Fresno! This weekend was amazing we had a Father (Alejandro) and his two children(Alexandria and Alejandro jr) get baptized on saturday it was a pretty cool baptism Alejandro doesn't speak very much english but his kids don't speak spanish so we had a span-glish baptism one talk in spanish one talk in english singing in both languages and then the welcoming english-spanish it was really cool. Elder Solares Baptized Alejandro in spanish, then Elder Pinnock baptized Alejandro jr in english then I had the opportunity to baptize Alexandria. Right before I baptized her I had a really special experience that gave me a testimony that God watches over his missionaries and protects us. As I went to go down the stairs I slipped on the First one I'm not sure how because I knew it was wet and I was trying to be careful but I slipped and by all accounts I should have fallen hit my head on that top stair and cracked it open.(the top step had a very square edge) I remeber as I was falling seeing my foot in the air about where my head was If not higher. My hand was on the Handrail but it didn't have a lot of time to grab it to help myself. By all accounts I should have landed on those stair but I didn't. I don't know how but I landed standing on my feet on the bottom of the font. I didn't touch any of the other stairs or at least i don't remember touching any of the other ones. I know that God was protecting me and that he watches over his missionaries. I was able to go and baptize Alejandria and do all the rest of the things that I needed to that night with out a problem. I know that I am where God wants me to be doing what God wants me to do. Falling down the fant stairs might not have killed me but I know that the Lord protected me from what ever could have happened. Yesterday at church we confirmed Silvia and the Monjaraz family it was a great experience for the ward and I think that they are starting to see that we as missionaries are serious about baptizing 20 people before the end of this year.
This week we have a General Authority coming to visit the mission he is one of the 70 I forgot his name though. It should be exciting and we should be able to learn a lot to help us here. We also have transfer calls this saturday. I don't think that we will be transfered but its all up to the Lord. We haven't heard anything about visas so we're thinking that we will probably be here in CA till after christmas. Thank you for all your support and prayers. Thank you for the letters and mom Thank you for the package(especially the cookies we enjoyed them alot and brightened a couple of our less encouraging days!) A couple of you asked about how packages work and for those you just send them to the mission office(1814 N Echo Fresno CA 93704) and they'll get it to me, Its the same with the letters everything goes through the mission office. I pray that God will be with all of you and help you with the things that you need! I love you all Thanks for everything!
Love always!
Elder Langley
November 1, 2010 -Baptism
Hola!
This week was a great week we had a lot of cool things happen. The main exciting one is that Silvia got Baptized yesterday I don't know if I've ever described her for you but she is very short and has this amazing spirit she kind of reminds of a child. She has all that great attributes of a child and all the wisdom of a grandma. She's so fun to be around. It was amazing to see her enter the waters of baptism and then see the ward come in to support her especially the bishop. He doesn't speak any spanish but he wanted to welcome her into the ward in spanish so with the Help of Elder Solares he learned a couple sentences and welcomed her to the ward in spanish. WE are working on getting a spanish group in the ward and the bishop is really supporting the Idea and wanting to unify the ward as well and yesterday was an amazing step for the ward.
We also had a unique experience last week Elder Pinnock and I went out for one day as companions while our companions went to Zone Leader Council in Fresno. This normal isn't allowed to happen but we got permission to go and we went to work trying to find spanish investigators and the lord definitely helped us as we went. We taught in our limited spanish 6 lessons and found 1 new spanish investigator and a family for the English elders. It was a very productive day and we learned a ton. I think one of the most important things that I learned was with Juan. Juan was just a referral that we had and we had an appointment at 5 with him but our lesson before him ran over and we needed to meet the member that was suppose to go with us. She had totally forgot about it and she gave us his number and address and by the time we got there it was 5:30 and she gave us the wrong address. We called him up and got the right address and asked if we could still come he said yes so we biked over there and we couldn't find his apartment so we called him again and explained where it was we found it and ended up knocking on his back door and it was just a mess but we ended up teaching him about prayer and inviting him to church. We have another meeting with him tomorrow. What I learned is that as long as the heart is willing and we put our selves where the lord wants us he will make up the rest with all the things that went wrong and the language barrier some how he still felt the spirit and understood our message and invited us back us the lord really does watch out for us and make up what we can't.
This saturday we'll be baptizing 3 more the Monjaras family and it'll be really special. I hope everything is well with y'all. Thank you for your letters and Prayers they are much appreciated!!! I love you all have an amazing week!
Love always
ElderLangley
This week was a great week we had a lot of cool things happen. The main exciting one is that Silvia got Baptized yesterday I don't know if I've ever described her for you but she is very short and has this amazing spirit she kind of reminds of a child. She has all that great attributes of a child and all the wisdom of a grandma. She's so fun to be around. It was amazing to see her enter the waters of baptism and then see the ward come in to support her especially the bishop. He doesn't speak any spanish but he wanted to welcome her into the ward in spanish so with the Help of Elder Solares he learned a couple sentences and welcomed her to the ward in spanish. WE are working on getting a spanish group in the ward and the bishop is really supporting the Idea and wanting to unify the ward as well and yesterday was an amazing step for the ward.
We also had a unique experience last week Elder Pinnock and I went out for one day as companions while our companions went to Zone Leader Council in Fresno. This normal isn't allowed to happen but we got permission to go and we went to work trying to find spanish investigators and the lord definitely helped us as we went. We taught in our limited spanish 6 lessons and found 1 new spanish investigator and a family for the English elders. It was a very productive day and we learned a ton. I think one of the most important things that I learned was with Juan. Juan was just a referral that we had and we had an appointment at 5 with him but our lesson before him ran over and we needed to meet the member that was suppose to go with us. She had totally forgot about it and she gave us his number and address and by the time we got there it was 5:30 and she gave us the wrong address. We called him up and got the right address and asked if we could still come he said yes so we biked over there and we couldn't find his apartment so we called him again and explained where it was we found it and ended up knocking on his back door and it was just a mess but we ended up teaching him about prayer and inviting him to church. We have another meeting with him tomorrow. What I learned is that as long as the heart is willing and we put our selves where the lord wants us he will make up the rest with all the things that went wrong and the language barrier some how he still felt the spirit and understood our message and invited us back us the lord really does watch out for us and make up what we can't.
This saturday we'll be baptizing 3 more the Monjaras family and it'll be really special. I hope everything is well with y'all. Thank you for your letters and Prayers they are much appreciated!!! I love you all have an amazing week!
Love always
ElderLangley
October 25, 2010 -Spanish and Food
Hola!
This week was a good one alot of things happened. so last week I told you a little bit about our crazy companionship. I love it last night I was talking to elder Pinnock before we fell Asleep and We talked about once we get down to Mexico the other elders in our district aren't going to believe that we were companions here in fresno. Spanish is coming a long good I still understand a lot but I'm kindof confined to the gospel language which is like the most important right now but when the conversation leaves the gospel I'm lost so I'm working on that slowly.
Silvia is going to be baptized this sunday. She is the First one I invited to be baptized last week Its really exciting to see her make this big step in her life. It'll help her so much! WE have another investigator that needed to move out of the house she was living in to be baptized and she called us yesterday and said she was ready and wanted to move out. We were able to find a place for her and hopefully she'll be baptized really soon. we're going to check with her and she how everything is going. Alejandro and his family are so strong its amazing. He gave us a reference then went with us to contact him. His name is Fredi and we are now teaching him and his Girlfriend Blanca. They came to church yesterday and they are just as strong and ready as Alejandro I think. By the end of the week They should both have baptismal dates. It is amazing how fast the work is going here. Not everything is fast but its going amazing! We cover the Sanger Ward and its crazy because there are 6 missionaries assigned to this ward 2 english and the 4 spanish. the ward right not is about 50/50 english spanish. in Elders Qourum we had 5 english speakers and like 20 Spanish it was amazing. We are trying to get a spanish group so that the spanish members can have a spanish sacrament meeting and then our spanish investigators would feel more comfortable coming to church.
The ward is really nice the spanish Sisters always make sure we are eating and have enough food. They Cook us real Mexician food because they are all from Mexico So far I haven't eaten anything that I didn't like(and I've eaten some weird things like grasshoppers) Grasshoppers are bad at all I mean I wouldn't eat them like candy but they're good. We actually have a little bag of them on our table in the apartment. The english elders freaked out when we offered them some and even more when I ate one to show them that they weren't bad. It was pretty funny They haven't come back over since that. Oh well they'll come back over eventually they live in an appartment across the street.
Congrats to Bobby and Saylla. Jaine(?) looks so cute. I hope that Everything is going well with that. I love you all Have a great week! Thank you for the letters and prayers they are very much appreciated and needed! My god be with you!
Love always,
Elder Langley
This week was a good one alot of things happened. so last week I told you a little bit about our crazy companionship. I love it last night I was talking to elder Pinnock before we fell Asleep and We talked about once we get down to Mexico the other elders in our district aren't going to believe that we were companions here in fresno. Spanish is coming a long good I still understand a lot but I'm kindof confined to the gospel language which is like the most important right now but when the conversation leaves the gospel I'm lost so I'm working on that slowly.
Silvia is going to be baptized this sunday. She is the First one I invited to be baptized last week Its really exciting to see her make this big step in her life. It'll help her so much! WE have another investigator that needed to move out of the house she was living in to be baptized and she called us yesterday and said she was ready and wanted to move out. We were able to find a place for her and hopefully she'll be baptized really soon. we're going to check with her and she how everything is going. Alejandro and his family are so strong its amazing. He gave us a reference then went with us to contact him. His name is Fredi and we are now teaching him and his Girlfriend Blanca. They came to church yesterday and they are just as strong and ready as Alejandro I think. By the end of the week They should both have baptismal dates. It is amazing how fast the work is going here. Not everything is fast but its going amazing! We cover the Sanger Ward and its crazy because there are 6 missionaries assigned to this ward 2 english and the 4 spanish. the ward right not is about 50/50 english spanish. in Elders Qourum we had 5 english speakers and like 20 Spanish it was amazing. We are trying to get a spanish group so that the spanish members can have a spanish sacrament meeting and then our spanish investigators would feel more comfortable coming to church.
The ward is really nice the spanish Sisters always make sure we are eating and have enough food. They Cook us real Mexician food because they are all from Mexico So far I haven't eaten anything that I didn't like(and I've eaten some weird things like grasshoppers) Grasshoppers are bad at all I mean I wouldn't eat them like candy but they're good. We actually have a little bag of them on our table in the apartment. The english elders freaked out when we offered them some and even more when I ate one to show them that they weren't bad. It was pretty funny They haven't come back over since that. Oh well they'll come back over eventually they live in an appartment across the street.
Congrats to Bobby and Saylla. Jaine(?) looks so cute. I hope that Everything is going well with that. I love you all Have a great week! Thank you for the letters and prayers they are very much appreciated and needed! My god be with you!
Love always,
Elder Langley
October 19, 2010 -Fresno is Amazing
Hey everyone,
Things are very abnormal here in fresno but i love it. So Elder Pinnock and I are in the same town same apartment and pretty much the same companionship. Our companions are Elder Solares(mine) and Elder Gaskins(his) They are the zone leaders so they are companions at night and it just gets complicated to try and explain further so I'll just leave it at that. I love it being this way its so much fun. Elder Solares is from mexico so even though I'm state side i still got a native as a companion which is great cause he helps me so much with my spanish. We are assigned to a little town called Sanger. we have 6 missionaries here 2 english 4 spanish and the english elders also cover the YSA ward. This week has been full of lots of surprises and things I never thought that I would be able to do on my mission like drive a car. So the work is really growing here we have a goal for 20 baptisms before the end of the year. I had the amazing opportunity to invite 3 people to make that step in their lives. the first was Silvia she is in here late 50's a really nice lady. I totally butchered the invitation in Spanish but its a good thing that the spirit is the one that teaches not me. We aren't sure when she'll be baptised we set the date for OCT 31 but today we are going to see if we can move it to saturday. the other two that I invited to be baptized are Alex 12 and Alejandra 14 their Dad(Alejandro) is so firm in the things we teach him he has a date for NOV 6 and we invited him on a church tour its really cool and spiritual and the only do it in 3 missions in the world. We bring them into the church and talk about christ and the sacrament and baptism and then end with the restoration and an invitation to be baptized. So Alejandro speaks spanish but his kids speak english so Elder Solares took Alejandro on a spanish tour and I did an english on with the kids and at the end we invited the kids to be baptized on the 6th with their dad its so exciting!! any ways they are all strong and things are way exciting. I love you all have fun take care talk to you next week. I'll have more time to write next week.
Love always
Elder Langley
Things are very abnormal here in fresno but i love it. So Elder Pinnock and I are in the same town same apartment and pretty much the same companionship. Our companions are Elder Solares(mine) and Elder Gaskins(his) They are the zone leaders so they are companions at night and it just gets complicated to try and explain further so I'll just leave it at that. I love it being this way its so much fun. Elder Solares is from mexico so even though I'm state side i still got a native as a companion which is great cause he helps me so much with my spanish. We are assigned to a little town called Sanger. we have 6 missionaries here 2 english 4 spanish and the english elders also cover the YSA ward. This week has been full of lots of surprises and things I never thought that I would be able to do on my mission like drive a car. So the work is really growing here we have a goal for 20 baptisms before the end of the year. I had the amazing opportunity to invite 3 people to make that step in their lives. the first was Silvia she is in here late 50's a really nice lady. I totally butchered the invitation in Spanish but its a good thing that the spirit is the one that teaches not me. We aren't sure when she'll be baptised we set the date for OCT 31 but today we are going to see if we can move it to saturday. the other two that I invited to be baptized are Alex 12 and Alejandra 14 their Dad(Alejandro) is so firm in the things we teach him he has a date for NOV 6 and we invited him on a church tour its really cool and spiritual and the only do it in 3 missions in the world. We bring them into the church and talk about christ and the sacrament and baptism and then end with the restoration and an invitation to be baptized. So Alejandro speaks spanish but his kids speak english so Elder Solares took Alejandro on a spanish tour and I did an english on with the kids and at the end we invited the kids to be baptized on the 6th with their dad its so exciting!! any ways they are all strong and things are way exciting. I love you all have fun take care talk to you next week. I'll have more time to write next week.
Love always
Elder Langley
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