5 Days Away from the Field

How is everybody doing?! I hope great. I am doing fantastic! Last week at the park my companion was from Austria and he is learning Italian so it was pretty much up to me to communicate with everybody. It was a little challenging but worth it because it helped me be more outgoing. I think I´m kind of annoying now because I say hi to everyone I see. Oh well I guess. We didn´t find many people interested in what we had to say but there were quite a few that at least listened to us. It was rainy too so there wasn´t much to work with but I loved it still! I don´t know which is harder to work with though. Atheists or "set in their ways" Catholics. There are a lot of both out here so that makes it a little more challenging. I like challenges though. I don´t want to come off my mission saying "that was easy". My real mission starts in about 5 days. Holy canoley. I´m excited though. I want everyone to know what I know. I don´t know how people survive without it. The time is flying by out here! I´ve lived in Spain for six weeks and still not very good with the language at all. I found that out today when I went to get my haircut. Yikes. I love this MTC though and I´m going to miss it. There are so many neat elders here and its going to be weird not seeing them everyday. We have a joke around here that Barcelona missionaries are better than the rest of Spain missionaries and we proved it in a basketball game the other day. I believe Elder Langston may have been the leading scorer haha. Well I don´t have much to say this week but I do want you all to know I know this is the one and only true church. I have such a strong testimony of Joseph Smith and I hope it continues to grow. I love this mission so much and I can´t wait to start sharing experiences I have with all of you. I love you all and thank you again for the support. Con Amor, Elder Langston

Week 4 in Spain MTC

Hola everyone! I think I start every email off like that. How is everyone doing? Thank you all for your emails again. Well like always, I´ll tell you all how the park went this week. My companion for the park this week was from Ecuador and only spoke Spanish! It helped me a lot because if I needed to tell him something, it had to be in Spanish! It was challenging but worth it. We went crazy in the Park and talked to everyone we saw. Mostly him though since he knew the language. We handed out every pass along card we had and 4 Books of Mormon! We even found some people that spoke english. One was a Buddhist though and didn´t speak spanish so I didn´t have much help on that one from my companion haha. Oh my companions name was Elder Pastillo and he is such a great guy. He motivated me a ton when we were out there. He is always so happy and encouraged me when I was trying to speak Spanish. He got so excited when I gave a Book of Mormon to a man on the metro. He kept hugging me and laughing and I felt so good. He has made a lot of sacrifices to get here and it has inspired me. In his culture, everyone has hair down to their waist. He showed me a picture of him before his mission and I couldn´t even recognize him. He told me it was very hard for him to cut his hair. He actually got emotional about it when he was talking about it. But it touched me when he said he didn´t care if his friends made fun of him for it because he was doing it for the Lord and he would do anything for Him. I learned this week that everyone has their untold story. There are so many elders here that have sacrificed so much to be here. I feel guilty because everybody back home is supporting me and I just pretty much had to say I´m going on a mission. I am very very blessed. Also this week was the 40th anniversary of the church being in Spain and the 10th anniversary of the temple. Some Spanish government officials came to tour the temple grounds and the MTC and we had to opportunity to sing a hymn to them. The spirit was very strong and I hope they were touched. One of the government officials was actually a member and he was crying by the time we were done. I love this mission. What a blessing it is to be able to come out here and feel the spirit everyday serving the Lord. I am growing so much all the time and I love it. I can´t believe I´ll be hitting the field in about a week and a half! That is crazy to me and I hope I´m ready. I´m ready to work thats for sure. The language is something I´ll have to overcome but as long as I have my testimony I think I should be fine. The spirit is the one doing the converting not me. My quote for the week is (I´m going to try and do this every week now) "Life is a grindstone and whether it grinds a man down or polishes him up depends on what he is made of." I love you all and wish you the best. Have a great week.Con Amor, Elder Langston

Week 3 in Spain!

Well hello everybody! I have some awesome experiences I´d like to share this week. First, I´ll talk about my park experience I had. It was great! Me and my companion from Provo, Elder Hunsaker, were paired up for the park. At first it was a little discouraging. We got a lot of hands in our face and when we´d say hola to someone, they´d say adios. So it was kind of hard for me. But we kept trying and it ended up being so worth it! Once again we found a man on a bench reading a newspaper this time. My companion noticed it was talking about soccer so he decided to open the conversation up by talking about soccer. His name was Iván and he was from Peru. He was very nice to us and understood we weren´t the best at Spanish. We asked him about his religion and he couldn´t have given us a better response! He said he was catholic but he didn´t believe you should have to go through the catholic to communicate with God. He believed that we should each have an indivual relationship with God and pray to Him whenever we want. It was perfect! I was so happy because I knew we had the message he needed! I handed him a pamphlet about the restored gospel and he willingly accepted it. He also gave us his address and number so the missionaries could come to his house. We explained they would be much more fluent. So he was grateful haha. I´m so excited for him still! I have a really good feeling he will accept what those missionaries teach him. I loved how he wanted to pray to God himself. It is something I may have taken for granted in the past. I never knew that other people didn´t believe you could communicate with God when I was younger. It is such a beautiful gift. Speaking of prayer, I had an experience this week that strengthened my testimony so much this week. It is a very sacred experience, but I think it would be appropriate to share most of it. This last week, I had a question about something spiritual. I wanted to know why something was the way it was. So I prayed and I prayed hard. I have learned that God will always answer my prayers, but I wasn´t expecting it to happen as fast as it did this time. When I finished praying I opened my scriptures to a random page, just wanting to study a little more. I happed to open up to Doctrine and Covenants 45. What I saw still gives me the chills. All over the page were the words Hearken, listen, Hear my voice, Give ear to Him, all underlined in my scriptures. I knew I need to prepare for my answer. For some reason, I started to flip backwards through D+C and again I saw a scripture highlighted. It was my answer. It was so amazing. I have never felt so comforted and happy. I kept going backwards and I saw another scripture highlighted in D+C 35:3 where it said I have looked upon thee and heard thy prayers, and prepared thee for a greater work. Something like that anyway. It felt SO cool. I wish I could explain it exactly how it happed but it is something I will never forget. I know prayer works. I know God listens to each one of our prayers and if we are sincere and really want to receive an answer and have faith that we will, we will get one. I know the scriptures are the word of God. They contain answers to every question we have. Whether they be spiritual or temporal, it doesn´t matter. Search the scriptures. There is so much in there! I hope you all read as much as possible. I have found a love for the Book of Mormon on my mission and I´m in Alma again. I can´t stop! Haha but thank you all so much for caring. Thanks for taking the time to read these emails because I get so excited to share my experiences with you. I love you all so much. Good luck to you Branson. I know you are heading out soon. You will love it. Oh and Tim, there are missionaries here from Moscow right now to renew their visa. They have a lot of good stories. Sorry if my emails are a little confusing. I have heard that family members of other missionaries are a little confused because the emails are organized like spanish sentences. Oh well. I wish I had more time to write. Have a great week! Con Amor, Elder Langston

Week 2 In Madrid

Hola friends and family! Wow, I found that last sentence very hard to write in English! Just kidding, but Spanish is coming along pretty well. I´m going to start this e-mail by answering a very important question I received from my beautiful little cousin Kelsey. Unfortunately I forgot to answer this questions weeks ago when I was in Provo. She asked me if the Easter Bunny still comes when you are missionary. Of course he does! He gave me lots of candy but he didn´t hide the eggs very well this time. So if someone could please pass the news to her I´d be very grateful. :) This last weeks experience in the park went a lot better. I didn´t talk to as many people, but me and my companion had a conversation with a man named Orlando from Venezuela for about 45 minutes. We actually weren´t sure if we should bother him at first, because he was reading a book. But of course, this is salvation we are talking about here! So we bugged him haha. When we said "hello", I wasn´t expecting anything back really. The people in the park are good at ignoring us haha. But to my suprise he looked up from his book and with a warm smile said hello back! I was thinking whoa! So we started off our conversation about his book. Somehow our conversation got into ways we can be happy. Orlando found happiness in himself. He said he didn´t need other people to make him happy or get him down. It was very interesting. His opinion was everybody has their own way to live their life. He was very polite and said he respected us for coming halfway across the world to share our message and was very impressed that we were so young and doing all of this! Towards the end of our conversation, I felt prompted to give him a Book of Mormon. It seemed obvious he liked reading and learning new things. He gladly accepted it and had many questions about it and our church. It felt so good to share something so precious with someone else who is seeking truth! I fasted for Orlando this last Sunday and I hope and pray he takes the time to read The Book of Mormon. Speaking of this fast Sunday, it was one of the most spiritual experiences I´ve ever had. I feel so lucky to hear the testimonies of missionaries from all over the world that come from different ways of life. It helps strengthen me so much! God answers our prayers. I know that to be true. It seems like everything I pray for comes in a way I don´t expect, but I always know its my answer and I just smile. I love it. Now I´d like to answer some frequently asked questions I´ve been getting. There are about 45 Elders and Sisters here in the Madrid MTC so its a lot different than Provo. But there aren´t any locals in here. I think I told you we all play soccer with the natives during gym and this week we had a pretty sweet game. We played with a bunch of guys that were probably 25-30 years old. Believe it or not, we beat them 3-2! And I scored! Haha but it was a ton of fun and they were nice guys. It was kind of funny to watch a bunch of missionaries with parted hair and two shirts on, play a bunch of guys with tattoos and no shirts. They were awesome guys. Each one of them shook our hand afterwards. I love the people in Spain. I´m still gaining weight haha. About 15 pounds since I started my mission. Oh, it was great to hear from Jenny that I´m going to have another boy cousin! It will be a little bit of a gap but thats ok! Congratulations! And Kiana, I can´t believe you got a car. Thats insane. Don´t drive it into a lake or hit a tree or something. Just playing. I love hearing from all of you. It makes me so happy to hear about each of your lives. I don´t think anybody could be as lucky as me when it comes to loving family and friends. I love each of you. I want all of you to know, I know this church is true. I know it was restored through Joseph Smith. I feel the spirit so strong everytime i hear his own words of the first vision in Joseph Smith History. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God and is the contains the most truth of any other book on earth. I know God is our loving Heavenly Father and is always mindful of us. I know He sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to come to earth to make it possible to overcome spiritual and physical death. I owe Him so much. I know Jesus Christ is my Savior and Redeemer. I know I can communicate with my Father through prayer. I am so thankful for this gift. It has helped me so much. We are never alone. I love you all and I hope the best for each of you. Con amor, Elder Langston

Hola from Spain!

This is looking out of his bedroom window!

Well hello everyone! I don´t even know where to start to tell you the truth. I guess I´ll explain why I didn´t email on Thursday this week (my usual P Day). Today, Friday, is labor day in spain so we didn´t have teachers and they switched our P day to Friday this week. Sorry for the confusion. Now I´ll talk about my travels over here. Talk about some jet lag! I woke up in Provo at 4 in the morning and travled for a good 18 hours, then I had to stay up for about another 7 hours at the MTC when I got here! I was so tired. They let us go to bed early though. The MTC is beautiful here! Its right on Temple grounds. The MTC is the top 3 floors in a 7 story building. The other floors are for people to stay in that come to the temple from all over spain and portugal and places like that. I´m going to try and send some pictures so you can all see it. I have a picture I took from my window that will show how close the temple is. The Madrid Temple is so beautiful! I loved going through it for the first time. I actually got to the day after I arrived. The Celestial room is so awesome. It is lit by natural light which makes it even more beautiful. Its definitely my second favorite temple (St. George is first of course :) ) On Saturdays here, everybody from the MTC goes to the huge park in Madrid. Its like central park would be in New York. We go around talking to people about our message and just try to work on our spanish skills. I thought it would be scary but I had fun with it. Half the time I didn´t know what they were saying or how to respond, but I would just smile and keep going! Its like real missionary work already! I also actually experienced for the first time, feeling bad for someone I was teaching. Me and Elder Nielson were set up as companions for the park and we decided to talk to a policeman in the park. At first he went along with us just listening to what we had to say, but when we started talking about The Book of Mormon and how it testified of Christ, he simply said "No creo en Dios" which means, I don´t believe in God. We asked him why he felt that way and he told us because he is a cop, he sees horrible things happen all the time so he doensn´t believe there is a God. We both tried to bear our testimony to him but he just put his hand on my companions shoulder and said, "No creo en Dios." I felt horrible after. I wanted him to realize all the happiness he was missing out on and the feeling of love we can always have. It was very frustrating being limited by the language and that I couldn´t express all of my feelings and testimony to him. I guess its going to happen though. The weather is pretty nice. It feels like St. George in March I´d say. Maybe late March. The teachers here are really nice. Most of them don´t speak a lot of English so that helps a lot. Its a lot more laid back here too compared to Provo. For P Days, they let us go explore the city, pretty much wherever we want to go. During our physical activity each day, we either go to a small little stadium and play soccer with the natives or play basketball in the stake center. Its a ton of fun! Thank you so much everyone for sending me emails! I had 20 in my inbox when I got on here! I´m sorry but my letters to you are probably going to come a lot less frequently. It is pretty expensive to send letters from here and it takes about 7 days. But I love all of your letters and emails! They make me so happy! Oh I just remembered something else! I eat like a Pig here! Im gaining quite the reputation. Today at lunch I heard someone say they didn´t want something on their plate. Someone else said, "Give it to Elder Langston". Hahahahaha. I love it. I´m gaining weight too. I´ll let you know in two weeks how much I weigh. That way it will seem like more. :) Well I hope all is going well back home. Continue to write because I love it. My testimony is growing miles each day and I´m so thankful for this opportunity I have to share the gospel. I KNOW IT IS TRUE. I love you all. Talk to you next week.

Breaking News April 20th 2009

Breaking news everyone! There has been a change of plans. I got my VISA late last week and I will be heading to Spain as scheduled. Tomorrow! I know this is kind of late notice mom but sorry, I couldn't tell you until today. I leave the MTC tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. I will leave from the Salt Lake airport at 8:35 am to the New York Kennedy airport. I will arrive there at 3:25 est time. I will leave the New York airport at 5:45 pm est. From there I will be flying to Paris! Crazy huh?! I will arrive in Paris at 7:30 (Paris time). I will then leave Paris at 9:35 am (Paris time) to Madrid Spain. After all that traveling I will arrive in Madrid Spain at 11:40 am (Madrid time) on the 22 of April. Its insane! I'm so excited though! On Tuesday of last week I had another moment change my life. We have firesides every sunday and tuesday. We were all singing hymns to prepare for the fireside when Jeffrey R Holland walked in the room. The strongest spirit I have ever felt entered the room. I had to stop singing for a second. It was so amazing to see everybody stand up in his honor. I get the chills thinking about it!He spoke to us very plainly about our purpose as missionaries. He doesn't sugar coat anything and I am very thankful for that! He built my testimony up so much as to why I am serving this mission. This mission isn't for me. Its to serve the Lord and to bring His children back to Him. I was so thankful for his words. He doesn't speak the same to missionaries as he would in General Conference. You can tell he has a sense of urgency and that he knows how important this work is. I also forgot to tell everyone that I was able to give my first blessing about two weeks ago! A sister in my district was feeling sick for quite awhile and couldn't focus on her work. So she came to me and asked me to give her a blessing. It felt so awesome to be able to help someone and I'm glad I was ready. I was a little nervous but it went well and I know the spirit was felt and in control. I see so many of my friends all of the time. I talked for about an hour with Gimmie yesterday at the temple. It was nice to talk to a friend again. Also last Sunday he sat by my for a second at dinner and he bore his testimony in chinese and I bore mine in Spanish. Never thought I'd see the day! I'm so excited to bring this gospel to Spain! My testimony has grown so much and last night I couldn't stop smiling because I kept thinking about how I knew perfectly that this is the true church and I get to bring it in to other peoples lives. I have also realized this gospel is based on love. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ's love for us and our love for each other. It seems so simple. I wish and hope all of you could feel exactly as I do now. I'm so happy! I know with all my heart that this is the true church. I have changed so much and I love it. I love all of you and thank you for your support. You all mean so much to me. Spain MTC address 4a. PlantaCalle del Templo No. 2Madrid 28030Spain I might not get all of your mail for awhile if you just recently sent it. I'm sorry! And I also know I said to send me handwritten letters but I have changed my mind and would also like emails since I won't get mail very often. If you'd like you can respond to this email today and I will check it later. Thank you :)

Week 2

Hello everybody!Wow what a week its been! First of all I'm going to thank everyone for sending me letters and packages! I've never had so much candy in my life! This week had so many things happening in it I don't know where to start! Well first of all I don't know quite when I'll be leaving the MTC yet. Me and my companion (And a lot of other elders going to spain) got a notice that the arrival of our VISA's will be a bit delayed. It said to not expect to leave on my original departure date. Oh well right? Everything happens for a reason. I'll get there when I need to get there. Man I miss all of you and I'm so lucky to have all this support. I think everybody in my district hates me because I get mail everyday and I even got three packages in one day! Its alright though I love it. I want to share an experience I had this week with everyone. On Saturday, one of my teachers told our class to make a goal to strengthen one area of our testimony. I thought about it and decided to strengthen my testimony of Joseph Smith. Here at the MTC we practice teaching lessons a lot! I had been having trouble with lessons because...well, I'm not a very good teacher. I would dread giving lessons to teachers and other missionaries because I never felt like I was doing it right. Well, Saturday night we had a teaching appointment and I decided to go about it with a different attitude. I was going to listen to the "investigator" and his concerns and try to listen to the spirit to tell me what I should say. I said a prayer to help me and I finally had confidence. As we were towards the end of the lesson (that was going very well!) I bore my testimony of Joseph Smith and the first vision. I started to get emotional and I knew Joseph Smith was a true prophet. This wasn't even a real investigator and I felt like I was changing his life for the better. I have never felt so good! I am growing so much spiritually here, and physically actually! Haha I gained 6 pounds from Tuesday to Saturday of this last week! I hope it continues. I would really love it if you all continued to write me letters. I love them so much. I can be having the hardest day and then I'll get a letter from anyone and it raises my spirit so high. I'm going to use these emails just to give everybody a quick overview of my week. I will still write you personal letters though so I can address each of your questions. I would really appreciate it, if it is possible, for you all to just write me letters because I will have to go to a different building and print off your emails and I just don't have much time here! Thank you so much! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter Sunday. I feel so grateful for the Savior and the sacrifices He made for each of us. Its a love I can't even come close to comprehending. I am so excited for the day I get to behold His face and to kneel at his feet thanking Him for His love and sacrifices He made for me. I love the Savior. I love all of you and I hope you all the best. Love Elder Langston P.S. I can only write letters on Monday on my P Day so I'm sorry if it takes awhile to get my letters. And sometimes I get mail that was sent last week after I have already written my letters to you. Sorry for the confusion and I'll try to keep up. Love you all!

First Week

Hola everyone! I'm sending this to kiana because I don't remember my moms email address! Kiana if you could please send this to mom, jboyce83@hotmail.com, paige_me12@hotmail.com, and whoever else you want it to go to. Everything is going great here! Happy Birthday Paige! I'm only allowed to email family members or I would send you all one. Sorry I have to obey the rules :) Thank you for all your support. I really appreciate the letters and would really like if you could all write me as much as possible. You can get it from my mom or kiana or paige. I love letters and it helps ease the homesickness. The first week is kind of overwhelming and is bit of a shock at first. But its all settling in just nicely. Today is P day and we all went to the temple. It was great! Mom thank you so much for writing me twice already...Only one problem, you didn't send my social security card with it. Oops. Oh well haha. I guesss do what you need to do now. I don't think I need anything else with the package you are sending me. Once again please write me as much as possible. I love it. It doesn't have to be long. Just little notes on DearElder or whatever. My companion is Elder Hunsaker from Wyoming. He is awesome. He is the greatest example to me. Conference helped me so much this week! It was awesome! I hope you all got to see it. Paige I heard tryouts went really good. I was worried you weren't going to make it (wink wink). I miss you all so much. The best way to keep my mind off home is to humble myself and and keep focused on the work thats ahead of me. I haven't gotten to frustrated yet. Paige I hope you are having a wonderful birthday. Sorry I can't be there. I hope this email even gets to you on time. Kiana you better check it! Family, friends, I miss you so much. You guys are great examples and have strengthened me so much. I can't believe I am leaving here in two weeks! Its going to fly by! They say the first week goes by the slowest and it hasn't been so bad so I can only imagine how fast the rest will go. I'm sorry. I changed my mind. I'm going to send this email to Paige too because I know she'll check her email today haha. I hope all goes well. Keep writing. Until next week.> > Elder Langston>

Entering the MTC April 1 2009

Me and Mom

Mom putting on my Missionary name badge

Entering the MTC
Kyle meeting me in front of the MTC

Last night home and getting set apart as a MISSIONARY! 03/31/09

I My mom invited all of my friends over for a last dinner. She made my favorite beef enchiladas that I love. We all hung out until 9:00 and then I was set apart by President Graff and it was an amazing feeling to now be a missionary. The blessing was so powerful and the spirit was so strong. It was awesome.
We then had a few games of basketball at the church with all the guys and my Dad until 12:00. We went back to my house after for dessert and good-byes. This is very hard for me to say goodbye to everyone, but I know it's what I'm meant to do. I report to the MTC tomorrow at 12:30.

Open House and Farewell on March 22nd 2009

Langston clan

Jensen crew

Both sides

Tay & Paige

Enjoying the yummy prime rib made for me

My cousins: Nealani-Tyson-Tausha

My crazy sister and Paige

Me & aunt Teek

My buddies @ my open house

My mom had an open house for me on March 21st so I could visit and say good-bye to everyone. My Farewell was on March 22nd. Kiana was the youth speaker and Paige Allred sang Because I Believe. It was a perfect day! My parents invited all the family over after for a prime rib dinner that was awesome. We took pictures and watched a video that my Aunt T.K. made for me out of all the pictures my mom has taken of me through the years. Thanks Fam

Preparing for the Mission!

Shopping, shots, and lots of studying!

Going to the Temple!

Andelyn is my little buddy

I took out my endowments on Jan. 24th, 2009 in the St. George Temple. My Uncle Chad was my escort. Chad was like a brother to me and also one of my young mens leaders. It was a beautiful day with all my family around me and many members of our ward. I am so lucky.

Mission Call!

I received my Misson Call on Friday November 14th at 9:00 a.m. in the morning. I went to pick it up at the post office and kept it with me all day until that evening when my family could all be there. I'm going to Spain, Barcelona and I enter the MTC in Provo on April 1, 2009!!! I will stay there for 3 weeks and then fly to the Madrid MTC for 6 weeks. I have a long wait of 4 1/2 months. I'm so excited!

Preparing for my Mission

I was ordained an Elder on Nov. 2, 2008 by my Dad, Richard Lynn Langston. My whole family, Bishop Johnson, Bishop Rigby, Brother Guerisoli, Kyle Hafen, and Brother Gubler were there for the ordination. Thanks for all of your support.