Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Guess what? I'm not in Cordoba


Hi everybody! Yep its true. I got transferred again! I wasn´t really expecting it but thats ok. Now I´m in San Fernando which is down on the southern coast. So far I really like it. I got here last night but so far so good. My apartment is a palace! I seriously feel spoiled. We have a dishwasher and a dryer! I never thought I´d see the day haha. Its really big with tall ceilings too. I don´t feel like I´m in Spain when I´m in there. I´m not complaining though because its pretty sweet. I like my companion a lot too. He came from the Barcelona mission as well. His name is Elder Velasquez and he´s from Ecuador but he has lived in the Canary Islands the past 8 years. I remember the first time I saw him I thought he was black in Barcelona haha. He likes to joke about him looking black. I am so glad that I finally have a native companion though to help my spanish. In San Fernando we have 2 wards that we are in charge of and I have heard that they are amazing. They work like animals and love missionary work. I can´t wait to get started. Its funny too because two elders from the Barcelona mission that have gone home live here in San Fernando. Its going to be weird seeing them as non missionaries. I´m really excited to be here in San Fernando though. Here is my new address

Calle Manuel de Falla 6,4,C
11100 San Fernando (Cádiz)
Spain

Leaving Córdoba wasn´t as hard as leaving my last two areas. I was only there 3 months so I didn´t really have the friendships that I had in the other ones. I loved the members there though and they acted like they were going to miss me so thats good haha. I have some pictures that I´ll send to my mom to put on the blog. Toñi was doing really good when I left. We visited her with the branch mission leader and he asked her some questions. Her answers really shocked me. He asked her how she knew the church was true and she said she could feel it. He asked her when she felt it for the first time and she said the very first time when she came out of her room and sat down to listen. She said everything we said just filled her and she knew her search was over. It was really awesome to hear her say that. I just wish I could be there to see her get baptized. Hopefully my old comp will send me a picture of it.
I just have one little funny story before I go. My last day in Córdoba turned out to be really interesting. There is this huge fat guy (not trying to be rude, just explaining) that always asks people for money. Everytime he saw us he asked us for money but we never gave it to him. We aren´t supposed to give money because then the people will always go to the missionaries begging. Well this guy asks everybody anyway and I just wanted him to leave me alone haha so I gave him a coin. Big mistake. He said ¨Oh amigo, give me a kiss.¨ I was like no way! But he grabbed me and kissed me right on the neck! Man it was nasty. I actually have a picture of him so I´ll send that too. Anyway, thats all I have for the week. I love you all and I hope everything is going good. The church is true. I know it because I can feel it, just like Toñi said. Have a good week and I´ll talk to you soon. Adios

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Toni is getting baptized

Well there goes the surprise element. I guess you all know whats happened. Toñi is going to be baptized the 9th of October! But first things first how are you all doing? I'm doing great! It was kind of a surprise this week with Toñi accepting a baptismal date for the 9th of October. I actually wasn't there when it happened. I was on exchanges in Sevilla and the zone leader called me up to tell me. I guess in all that time between when we first challenged her to baptism and now she has just been reading the Book of Mormon like crazy and she knows its true. She wanted to be baptized in the first place but if you remember she just said she needed to make some changes in her life. We hadn't heard from her in awhile and then all of a sudden WHAM!!! She is so excited. She really loves it all. We took her to church this Sunday and she absolutely loved it. Afterwards I asked her how she felt and she said "I don't know why I was nervous. I feel like I have fireworks going off inside of me!" I am so glad she liked it. I was kind of nervous because she is a really timid person but all the members brought her right in and they were so excited to see her there. Angels have definitely been preparing her. Elder Phillips, the zone leader, asked her why she hadn't been baptized a long time ago and she just said "I have just been waiting for someone to come tell me all of this." Well we found her and we told her and now she is getting baptized! Now looking back on it, the whole process of finding her was inspired without me even knowing. One day I was looking through the Area Book and I found the record for her sister Ana and it stuck out to me. We decided to ask a member that knew her what her story was and where she lived. I remember telling Elder Masterson we were going to teach and baptize Ana. I was wrong, at least up until now. But as we were teaching Ana, Toñi came out of the room and asked if she could listen. And now look where we are with her! I think its pretty exciting haha. I hope I'm still here in Córdoba. Transfers are this coming up Sunday!!
Sorry about now writing yesterday. We had a conference in Sevilla with President Clegg and it was awesome. It was pretty much of a review of the stuff I learned when I went to Málaga for a week. It was really intense this time. He really laid the hammer down on being diligent and working with passion. Somehow elders in the past have kind of ruined the reputation of the Málaga mission years back and its been kind of hard to break free from that. President Clegg said this isn't the mission it was in the past. Its the "New Málaga Mission" and we are hard workers. He said he had a dinner appointment with some members and they told him straight up that the Málaga mission is lazy. He told them right back that they were wrong and that this is a good mission. Its true. This mission is changing a lot and its seeing more baptisms than it ever has. I think its a really big blessing to be a part of this mission at this time. Its awesome to see the cultures and ways of 4 different missions mix together and create a successful mission. I am really glad I am where I am right now.
I just wanted to share one more thing. On Sunday I got to teach the gospel principles class to the investigators, recent converts, and less active members. We don't have a manual and usually the only person in the class is Archie so we just teach him what he needs to know personally. This week was different because about 10 people showed up and I didn't have a manual to teach from. So Elder Masterson and I taught about the Book of Mormon. I wasn't expecting it to be very good because quite frankly I wasn't prepared for it. But I just told Elder Masterson to teach like we would a normal lesson. We got to a point where I shared my testimony of how I knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that he translated the Book of Mormon, and I felt the Spirit stronger than i have in quite awhile. It kind of just hit me all of a sudden. It was one of those moments where I had to step back and say "Yeah i do know this is all true." I am so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost. I have really been praying for it to guide and help me lately and it seems that He knows just when to come in and touch my heart to let me know everything is ok. I testify that the church is true and that is has been restored through a modern day prophet. As we base our lives on the gospel of Jesus Christ we will be reminded of that again and again. God is always there and He loves us more than we can imagine. I love you all too and I hope you have an awesome week. Until next week.

Love, Elder Langston

Monday, September 13, 2010

Learning from General Authorities

Hi everybody! I hope you are all doing great. I am doing awesome after a week full of learning and feeling the Spirit. On Wednesday Bishop Edgley from the Presiding Bishopric, Elder Worthlin's son, and Elder Texeira from the Area 70 presidency came with their wives to have a special conference with my zone. It really was awesome. We learned so much from each one of them. I loved listening to Bishop Edgley because he told mission stories from clear back when he was a missionary and then after he would just say, "what do we learn from that?". They put a ton of emphasis on digging into Preach My Gospel and inviting everybody we see to church. They promised us that if we do that we won't just have 2 or 3 investigators, struggling to get into homes. But that we would have a lot more success and really just be surprised! Elder Masterson and I have tried to apply that in the past week. We wrote down the church's address on every pass along card we handed out and invited everyone to come in every contact. Hopefully we see the fruits of it here soon. I know blessings will come, I just want to see them soon haha. I guess I should be patient. Something I like about the mission is that I've become a lot less timid. I'm still no social butterfly but I feel that I've really improved in that area. The General Authorities gave us a little free time at the end to stand up one at a time and ask questions if we had any and NOBODY was standing up. The assistant to the President asked a couple and then it was just silence so I decided to ask one. I asked them to think back on their missions and to tell us what they wished they would have put more emphasis on, what they wished they had or knew, or focused more of their time on. I knew my question was kind of vague but I kind of wanted to pick their brains haha. They had similar answers. They both said they wish they had Preach My Gospel which really testified to me that I need to make the best use of it as possible. And Bishop Edgley said he wishes he would have worked harder. He said he wasn't a lazy missionary but he just wishes he would have taken every opportunity to share the gospel. I thought it was a really interesting answer. What a blessing it is to have contact with the leaders of the church!
Yesterday was pretty fun. We got on a bus with the branch and headed two hours to stake conference in Sevilla. They just finished a new building there and it is awesome. There aren't very many church buildings here in Spain so its always really exciting for the members to see what a real chapel looks like. Most churches here are rented spaces beneath apartment buildings. It was pretty cool to see all the members get excited for brand new stake center. I learned a lot in stake conference and my favorite part was hearing the testimonies of the returned missionaries in the stake. It was kind of weird because one of the missionaries served with me in the Barcelona mission and changed to the Málaga mission, which means he was serving in his own mission. It was just a little strange to not call him Elder Ponce when I talked with him. It was just "Javi". Weird stuff.
This week Archie gave a powerful testimony in one of our appointments with him. At the end I just started to bear my testimony and he kind of butted in which made me smile because its just kind of how he is. He didn't try to be rude or anything. He just wanted to get his testimony out! He said he has heard a lot of preachers and different beliefs but he has never heard anything like what we teach him but he knows its true because its all in the Bible. He told us one of the things that he really likes is that we as missionaries are out preaching to the world. He said that was what Jesus commanded His disciples to do in Matthew (I believe its the last chapter and one of the last verses???). I thought it was awesome that he could see that this church is the same church Jesus instituted in His earthly ministry. Its always good to hear the testimony of a recent convert.
Well this week should be good. We have plans to teach over 20 lessons which the Apostles have told us to make as our goal. Its going to be hard since we only got 10 last week but I think we can do it. Its just going to take a lot of work and careful planning. And even more importantly, careful listening to the Spirit. We'll see what happens though. This week I also have to interview a lady in Sevilla for her baptism. I've never done that before but it should be a good experience.
I love you all and I hope you have a great week! I know this church is true and that the gospel definitely brings new light to the minds of people. I've seen it so many times on my mission. Its awesome haha. Welp, love you all again and know you are in my prayers. Bye bye

Monday, September 6, 2010

Weather cooling down but Work heating up

Pictures at the Mission Home









Hi everybody! Well this week was awesome. I loved the meetings we had with the Cleggs. I really learned so much! We just learned doctrine, watched videos of missionaries teaching in San Diego, and practiced teaching. I feel like I am already teaching way better than before. Not that I was a terrible teacher but I just feel a lot more confident and I feel like I really know my purpose when I'm teaching. We really focused on listening and trying to discern the feelings and thoughts of investigators to help them the best we can. President stressed the point that we are here to bring people unto Christ and that everything we do as missionaries should have to do with that. We also talked a lot about asking good questions and how important it is to listen to the small little promptings we get while we are teaching. It was a lot of fun because we practiced teaching investigators that had certain doubts and had to come up with a question that really made them think. I still always get kind of nervous before doing practices like that so I prayed asking for help to know what to do even though it was just a practice. When the "investigator" (another missionary) came up with his doubt, a question just popped instantly into my head that made him answer his own doubt. When I gave it to him he just sat there for a second and then gave me a thumbs up haha. I knew I didn't come up with the question by myself. I made sure to thank Heavenly Father after. I am so excited to apply everything I learned there to the work here in Córdoba. I am pretty dang proud of my companion too because while i was gone he set a baptismal date with Fernando. He is the Spaniard that speaks english. He came to church yesterday and really hit it off with our member Martín. I think good things are going to happen with him. Martín will be key though. Also there is some potential with Alisia, our investigator we found last week. We just have a little more to do now and that makes me happy. Its weird to think my mission is winding down to an end. I honestly still feel like a greenie. I have so much to improve on and so much to learn. They say the last six months of the mission or so is the missionaries time to shine. To give it all and apply everything he has learned. I hope I can. I hope these last months I can start to be the missionary I want to be. I still have my weaknesses but I know the Lord has promised to make my weak things strong if i am humble and trust in him, giving it all I can. Being with President and Sister Clegg and learning so much this weekend has just made me wonder where the time has gone and reflect on my mission. I have so much more to do. All I know is that I love being a missionary. It has changed my life and continues to do so. I love you all so much and I couldn't ask for more love and support. I am definitely blessed by all of you. Thanks again. I know the church is true. Well I hope you all have a good week! I can't wait to update on what happens this week! You guys are the best. Bye!

love, Elder Langston