9/19/11

JAKE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!  Thank you to those who have already written.  He loves hearing from you!
****Please write Jake.  Letters from home are so important to the missionaries.  The easiest way is to respond to this email with a note or letter to Jake.  I will forward it to Missionties and they will print it in Brazil and mail it to him.  

If you want to send a letter through US mail, one piece of paper with an envelope is $.98.


Elder Jake Langlois
Brazil Maceio Mission
Av. Dom Antonio Brandao, 333 Sala 402
Ed. Work Center, Farol
Maceio-AL   57021-190  Brazil



Alrighty! I made it to Maceio! haha it took a while and the flight was nuts. There was a guy that was epileptic and had two seisures on the flight. Craziest thing I have ever seen because he was in the row directly in front of me. I arrived around 3 in Maceio and drove with the presidente to their house. We had some interviews and ate dinner and I found out who my new companion was. Elder Maciel! He is pretty tall and is from rio grande do sul. He is awesome. We both came into this area fresh and we had two baptisms Saturday!!!! I got to do one and a guy in the ward did the other! first one! so sweet. Their names were Rafael and Gabriel both 15 years old. We have two marked for this week too. We don't even need to find anyone to teach because the members are awesome! We have 30 referrals right now. Plus tons of people come up to me and ask about my height so we have way too many people to teach right now.
Our bishop is awesome, and is helping a lot. The president and his wife are also amazing! I got the box and 3 letters. I dont know if I will ever have time to send letters. we are always so busy! but I will try next p day when things get less hectic. Some guy said I was fluent in portuguese the other day and I just laughed. I just pretend I know what  people are saying and smile and nod my head hahaha. but I am getting a lot better! Oh I forgot my camera so I will send them next time:( sorry. And now I am sure you are wondering if I am sick or not. Nothing has affected me yet. I am perfectly fine, except my knee is a little tweaked. I think its from traveling and walking so much but it will be better I think. Everything is fine, I have a bottle that filters everything. I can fill it up from any water and I am able to drink it. Its pretty cool. sounds like everyone is doing well at home. If you want to know where I am, my area is benedito bentes 1 and the city is bairro. It rains like crazy here. It's almost always cloudy but super hot. We bring our umbrellas everywhere with us because it goes off and on all the time! I love it here though. The members are awesome, we get lunches every single day and the people here love Americans. Cant wait for this week because this one already flew by. Elder maciel said that we had record numbers this week, and we only worked for half the week. Pretty crazy. I love you all!!!! LOVE ELDER LANGLOIS

Email #2


Happy Birthday this week to both of you! I wish I were there to celebrate. I am doing really well. I just need to talk to president about my knee. It is fine, no need to worry. So 2 baptisms my first week! can you believe it?! And two more this week. It is so much better being here than in the CTM haha. I love the people and I love working. The food is fantastic. Everyone says its super strong but it is nothing compared to the mexican food at home. OH can you please send a few recipes that are super simple but they cant have certain things. The very basics because the stores here dont have much. No real milk haha and everything that is american is super expensive. Especially chocolate. reeses, no syrup because I can make it here. Your package took like 6 days to get here. I dont know why everyone thinks that it takes so long. I dont know... Your vegas trip sounded fun. And I decided what I want when I get home... Thanksgiving and chocolate eclair dessert. Those are things they dont have here. potatoes, turkey, jam, bread (they do have rolls though which are good) milk is powdered. It's crazy to think I will be doing this for the next 2 years. This week already flew by though.  Hope all is well there still. I have about 50 minutes to write now so I can write a lot more and read some more.  The package was awesome, feel free to spread out sending them because I dont have time to eat all of it hahhaha. You guys are definitely the best missionary parents. Tons of letters and a package on the first week already. I live with two other elders McCann and Ramos who was in the CTM with me. He is super short. We all get along well. Elder McCann never gets any packages so he was really excited when I offered him a reeses. It made his mission I think. I dont have much else to write. The streets are super skinny are dirty here and everything is made for short people. Our apartment has everything you would want except a dryer but we just hang dry. I love you guys so much and hope you continue to be blessed while I am gone! ELDER LANGLOIS

9/6/11

So my p-day is today... obviously haha so I didn't get what you sent this week. It happened to everyone. We all got on hoping that someone sent us an email and we all got goose egged. Oh well. Everything is going really well, we went proselyting yesterday and it was so fun! I talked to everyone I saw and ended up handing out a Book of Mormon. We talked to 15-20 people for a little while and all but one already had a Book or Mormon or already was visited by missionaries. Everyone else in the group did well though. Total we gave out 14. Hopefully my companion can get more courageous before the one on Friday. Which is on avenida polista, one of the busiest streets in the world similar to new york. I am so excited for that!

Today we went to the São Paulo temple and there was a guy that served in Maceió two years ago. We talked a lot and he told me some useful information. He said our apartments come complete with everything you will need like washer, stove, oven. He also said that I would get sick the first week no matter what. He even did but not because of the water, its because of the food! I guess in Maceió they have really crazy strong flavors, not necessarily spicy but really strong. He said it is kind of like how Indian food is strong, just not the same flavors. I realized this would probably happen anyway but its nice to know for sure now haha. And he said that it is kind of ghetto but everyone loves the missionaries there and respects them. I probably shouldn't have told you that mom! haha

Tomorrow is independence day for Brazil and everything is green and yellow in the CTM. It is really cool. I think we are supposed to have a really good dinner tonight and really good meals tomorrow in honor of Brazil! yay Brazil!

The language is coming along really well.  I found when I went out to proselyte I understood every single person except for 1. And he must have been drunk and crazy, but really nice haha. OH! and the best part of my week was during TRC which is a practice teaching program thing in the CTM. Except this time real people came in from outside that are already members and listened to us teach. we ended up teaching a mom and 3 kids and it was the best lesson Ihave had yet! such a good experience.

Oh and some other different things about Brazil... There is a trash can just for cups. It is sooo weird. It is cylindrical just like a regular trash can, but it has four holes that fit a cup perfectly. Not sure why they have those haha. I think I already told you that the keyboards are different too. Oh! and the toilet paper isn't in rolls, its in little sheets like tissue paper. That's all I can think of haha. Sorry that I didn't get your email this time. And next week I may not be able to email because I will be in the field during p-day perhaps. So I will talk to you in 2 weeks. I leave Tuesday so make sure you tell everyone to change the address if they are going to write me. And make sure you tell Cheneys about my change in address or cancel that service. I love you all!  LOVE ELDER JAKE LANGLOIS

Sorry I got on a day early so I didn't get to hear about what is going on. Hopefully I will be able to send one next week otherwise you will have to catch me up for three weeks. I am trying to use up the time that I have so I will just ramble:) We sang on Sunday and it went really well. We have to sing tonight as well but we aren't as prepared as we were for the one on Sunday. haha we will see how that goes. Let me know in the next mission ties or the next letter if you change the address for Cheneys or if just cancel the service. I am fine with either decision because you know me. I love to save money:) Today I am exchanging the rest of my US dollars. And we are going to get Tigela today! It is kinda like ice cream and it has fresh fruit on it. I hear it is the best thing you could ever get. I am SO excited. Hopefully all is going well there. I miss you guys but I know you are being blessed as I am away and I am as well. I hope work is still going well for you two, keep me updated on Futi and Taylor and Otav, all the volleyball guys. I am loving being here and can see myself improving every day. It is crazy how much we can learn with our heavenly father helping. I love you guys! LOVE ELDER JAKE


JAKE SENT ANOTHER LETTER THROUGH MISSIONTIES TODAY AS WELL:

Mom and Dad,

The temple is closed on Wednesday so our Pday is on Tuesday now.  I'm not sure when the next one will be because I go into the field next week.  So if you don't get an email from me then it will be normal but if you do get an email you'll be that much more excited.  Having a companion that is hard to work with makes me realize how awesome you guys were at being parents.  Even though it didn't seem like it, I learned so many manners and just things to make it so people aren't annoyed at me.  If everyone had parents like you two I feel like no one would get mad at anyone's ticks or bad habits because they would learn to control them and realize when they start.  They don't realize what they are doing and it is awesome that you taught me how to control myself so thank you for that.  I definitely appreciate it more than I ever showed you.
It sounds like BYU volleyball will not be good again.  Shawn helped coach us.  I know him and he is a good coach.  That's really dad about Futi.  Hopefully he gets better.  They have to win this year. 
I have a word of advice.  The main focus here in Brazil is to interact with the ward, love the ward, talk to the members and be their friends.  If somehow you can get that relationship the referrals will be flying in because the members trust you with the sensitive situation/friendship that their friend has.  75% of baptisms are from referrals, 15% from gifts (Book of Mormon's, DVD's and other free things) and 10% from tracting.  So 100% of their efforts should be contributing to the ward and building that trust that is so important to every member when their friends are ready to hear the gospel.  Our philosophy is love the ward=love the success(baptisms)
That's one thing I will focus so much of my effort on because I know that's how I'll change the most amount of lives.
I had an awesome experience at the TRS this past Saturday.  Active members/converts come and pretend to be investigators for us.  My comp and I were planning on teaching a little about families.  He's not the best in Portuguese so I usually take the lead.  I ended up talking about the 5 principles of the gospel.  I was teaching the Espirito Santo section and I noticed the lady we were teaching began to tear up.  I quickly bore my testimony that if she got baptized she would feel this every day of her life.  I teared up and got choked up but managed to finish.  Love filled the room as she accepted the first visit we had with her.  Even though this was fake, the spirit overtook the lesson and shared exactly what needed to be said.
Oh, look up a missionary losing his leg in Vitoria Brazil.  It happened two weeks ago and his parents spoke today.  Let me know the details please.
Everything is going great.  I feel good about Portuguese and my teaching so now I just need to go to Maceio!  We proselyte tomorrow and Friday. So excited! and nervous.  Tell Natalie and Thomas to write me a lot. It makes me happy.  I love you guys so much and know you are being blessed while I am gone.
Love Elder Jake Langlois
These things that are really expensive here-ideas to send in a box- peanut butter m&m's, pictures, paper, pencil sharpeners, zots from affordable treasures.

8/31/11

I am trying not to count down but I definitely am! haha it seems so long but the days are going by sooo fast.   I will be looking forward to that package. And I have thought of a few other things that I wanted too. I will add them at the end. I still need to find a razor.   Dan emailed me! that was exciting:)   We aren't supposed to take pictures at the temple for some reason  but our branch president gave me permission to sneak a few pictures in haha. He left.... his two years were up, but he was an awesome guy and I loved having him around. The juice is amazing because there is never any sugar added to anything but it tastes like it is. The fresh fruit is just so good here so it makes all the juices delicious. Tell Abbie that she can send me anything about her day, or what she is doing that week. I will respond if I have the time. Yeah, the drinking fountains are weird. two buttons. too confusing for me. I think the water is fine, or at least in the CTM. I will find out when I get out into the field. I was scorching hot the other day, and I was dying! It was only 30 degrees celcius and I heard my mission is usually between 40 and 50 which if you don't have a converter nearby its roughly 100- 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah, I am going to die. I am sending a couple letters through missionties as soon as I go out today. You would be proud, I am taking a lot of pictures, but I don't know how I am going to explain all of them to you. Maybe I will wait to tell you who all of them are. I don't know. And yes, of course I remember that haircut. it was the worst day of my life. haha.

Now, about my week. Last p-day I spent a lot of time at the grocery store. And if you know me well you know I didn't buy anything and I just browsed. haha anyway I love looking at the stuff in the store because everything is just a ripoff of stuff from the united states. It is interesting. I of course went to the juice place again, and got banana this time! which I didn't think bananas had juice. It was awesome anyway. The rest of the week was the same except we had our branch president leave. Our district sang him a song on Sunday and it was really good. We sing this Sunday for mission conference. We need to practice a lot more before then. I am speaking with Brazilians with a little more ease now, but I still have a long long way to go. AND every single Brazilian wants to take a picture with me. I need to start charging. So I was told I needed to bear my testimony in Portuguese so.... Eu sei que esta igreja é verdadeiro. eu sei que quando nos oramos o pai celestial está escutanding. Eu sei que joseph smith foi um profeta de Deus e ele restorou o eveangelho de Jesus Cristo atraves orando e real intento. Eu sei que O Senhor ama nos e somente quer o melhor por seus filhos. Eu sei que o livro de mormon contem o plenitude do evangelho e se nos lemos este livro, nos vamos sentir o espirito santo em nossas corações e atraves este sentimento nos vamos saber o verdade que esta igreja é verdadeiro. Em nome de jesus cristo amem.  I love you all and hope you are enjoying my letters! LOVE JAKE LANGLOIS

P.S. Superglue would be nice to have too :)

8/24/11

Right now in the CTM there are less than 100 missionaries. We have gotten a total of 10 American missionaries in the past 4 weeks. When our week goes there will only be 17 left and however many Brazilians there are. It is crazy. That took forever to get that letter there! Hopefully the gift card was in it:) haha I didn't need it so I decided to just send it. I love looking at the pictures from the wedding. They are my favorite. I bought new scripts today at the temple. Which was awesome! I just ask for letters because they make me happy.  I don't think I need an mp3 player. I don't know when I would ever use it and listen to music. I am sure I will be really busy when I get to the field. My companion is... rough. He will not get up on time and has no work ethic. I get mad at him sometimes but I realize I cant change him. He won't be the best if he keeps up his attitude... I am sure Thomas isn't very happy for starting school. I never was but hopefully he tries out for the basketball team and he needs to keep me updated on things!  I guess you are about to do the first without Jake family vacation, so lame. But I realize it has to happen sooner or later. That's awesome Heather and David bought the van. Let them know that I cleaned that car with all my heart so they better enjoy it!

Anyway, this week was pretty good. I got the new companion. ha and last p-day we went to a juice place which was delicious. The best drink you will ever have! We have done the same things as always except we went to the Campinas temple. This temple is really really big! It is like a house made for me. So I really enjoyed it, plus the air there isn't as smoggy so it is really nice:) I am still doing well, I just don't have much to say as the days are identical. I get out of here 2 weeks from Tuesday! How awesome is that! I love you all, and don't be afraid to write me if you happen to be bored one afternoon. LOVE ELDER JAKE LANGLOIS

some things good to send me: duct tape, pictures, batteries, m&ms. ha I had more but I forgot and now I am getting kicked off in 30 seconds. Love you!
So my time stopped at 1 second:) hahahaha so I can think about what I need. Nothing actually. Just more pictures. Oh and I never told you some weird things that are in Brazil. The locks on the doors are weird. They are little twisty screws that are turned. And the drinking fountains have 2 flavors-natural and cold. Now  I have to get off. Love you!


JAKE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!  Thank you to those who have already written.  He loved hearing from you!
****Please write Jake.  Letters from home are so important to the missionaries.  The easiest way is to respond to this email with a note or letter to Jake.  I will forward it to Missionties and they will print it in Brazil and mail it to him.  Jake will receive it in 2-3 days. 

If you want to mail a letter, you will need to use his Mission Home address because he will be out of the CTM by the time it gets there.  Once piece of paper with an envelope it $.98.


Elder Jake Langlois
Brazil Maceio Mission
Av. Dom Antonio Brandao, 333 Sala 402
Ed. Work Center, Farol
Maceio-AL   57021-190  Brazil

8/17/11

I didn't get my pants fixed. President Clark and his wife did.  I dont think I can get a receipt. They are really really cool. Sister clark is the nicest lady you will ever meet in your entire life and President Clark is really funny. I gained 8 pounds since I have been here but I can't even tell where it is on my body. I need to gain at least 15 more before I come home. And I have yet to have problems with my stomach but I will keep you posted on what happens. About the water purifier... missionaries that were out for a while said that we should just suffer through the first week and after that our stomachs would be fine. I think thats what I will do unless the water is really really bad. I am so glad Thomas is the Deacons quorum president! That is awesome. He will do a really good job. I am pretty sure I can buy a belt here. Brazil is like the United States of South America. There are Walmarts and Costcos all over the place. I will write Taylor in my next missionties thing and ask how it went in the tournament. it sounds like they did pretty well. I don't know the japanese sisters very well.  How come you decided to go to homecoming when I wasn't in Utah? That's jacked up. haha You should talk to Elder Fultons dad/ family about visiting. His dad did when his brother ended his mission in Maceió. The email is fulton06@comcast .net. Let them know who I am, I think Elder Fulton has told them about me.

We have it easy here.  The laundry is automatic.  It adds soap by itself so we just push a button.  People clean our rooms and do our dirty sheets every single week.
Basically, we don't have to do anything.  And the food is amazing.  I wish you could experience what I am experiencing and what I will experience.  It is going to be awesome!  Also, ask Steve if he knows Thomas Brady.  He coached him in football.

So, not a lot of things happened this past week. Last Thursday we went to policia federal to be put into the brazilian system. When we got there, there were tons of other missionaries that had been out for 1 year and 8 months. It was really cool to see what we are going to be like in a year. They all knew the language really well and they answered a lot of questions we had and made us less nervous about leaving the CTM. I gave a talk on sunday about patience and that went pretty well I guess... And I got a new companion today. I was kicked out of the trio and now have Elder Mastracola. He came from Provo and has been in the MTC for the same amount of time as me. The new program still has some kinks in it and is starting pretty slow but it will eventually be flawless. I have learned a lot this past week about teaching people. We have to become the investigator and teach to their needs if you want to touch their lives. I found out we are singing in mission conference. We have to make it good because everyone is going to be there. Lots of pressure but it will be fine. This wasn't the most exciting week but this next week should be really good.
Oh and by the way, we get to go to a different temple for the next two weeks! Campinas.  The Sao Paulo temple is being cleaned and so we get to change.
It should be really cool.  I love getting your letters so feel free to send more:)

I love you all, Elder JAKE LANGLOIS

8/10/11

First off I want to say sorry because my p-day changed from Tuesday to Wednesday. I will tell you more about the changes later. I got dads letter and sent you one today and I got two of the mission ties letters on Monday. They arrive really fast, within 3 or 4 days. The Doritos were American but the ruffles weren't haha. I don't think I will need probiotics. I will look for that yogurt with acidophiles or whatever is in it. I think my stomach is stronger than most here. Everyone is having problems in the CTM and I haven't had the runs yet.(cross my fingers) Taylor sounds like he is doing awesome! He could totally come see me if it was on a Wednesday between 1 and 5 because I am always outside of the CTM.  There are a few athletic missionaries that I have started to play with but it still isn't the same as when I used to play with the volleyball guys. We started on Wednesday of week 1 at the CTM and we go till Tuesday of week 10 so it is 9 weeks or so. I don't think that there is a chance of leaving early.
 I bought candy today! and I heard razors are 200 reais here. So that is out of the question. I will just use a manual one. OH! you need to talk to missionary mall. the sleeve where they lengthened it came undone so I had to pay 12 reais for it. Maybe you can get money back or something because that shouldn't have happened. I do need to by duck tape though. I think I am going to tape the outside of my scriptures to make sure they last that long. The tucanos was awesome! not as much of a variety as the one in the US but the quality was 15 times better.
Ok. So there were tons of changes this week! The new program was set up last Thursday. Not much changed except instead of studying by ourselves in the morning, we have progressive investigators and we teach them every day. It is really cool and it helps a lot! We also switched our instructor irmão david for irmão martins.  I like the switch. We got two new guys from Provo last week and we are getting two more today. Our district is slowly growing. AND! Two Japanese sisters came last Thursday to learn Portuguese. That is the first time that has ever happened, and now this CTM is the second one to be able to handle  3 languages. And the biggest change of all is that we switched rooms. and got Brazileiro roommates! hahaha they are super funny. We couldn't understand anything one of them said because he spoke so fast and slurred his words, but now we are starting to pick it up. It is going really well. We went to the temple today which was cool. And we went outside and sent letters and ran into missionaries that are three weeks from going home. It is really cool to see where I will be in two years.
Oh, by the way outside there are tons of wild dogs everywhere so there is poop all over the sidewalks and everything. I stepped in it twice today hahaha. Oh well. Everything is going great and I am excited to keep learning more about the language.
I love you all.     ELDER JAKE LANGLOIS


So the funny story of the week is about a girl that came in last Thursday.  She is the cutest missionary that has been in the CTM and every single guy flocks to her!  It is so embarrassing.  Anyway, we just found out that she is engaged to a guy that went out a few months ago so she is serving to "wait" for him.  Now everyone is discouraged and their hearts are broken. hahaha
I love you guys!  Don't stop writing me
Love, Elder Jake Langlois

8/2/11

The first week went by really really slow but since then it has gone by fast.  I can't wait till I actually get to go outside of the CTM because it is like a prison in here. We get pizza every Wednesday so we don't need that pizza party. Missionties is awesome because getting letters is the most exciting thing that could ever happen to the missionary in the CTM. Sad but true. I don't have much time to read Dan or Robins email because I have 30 minutes. I will have to read them once I get more time in the field. Our program was supposed to get harder yesterday but it is going to start tomorrow. It seems like we won't have time to do anything. Our schedule will be jam packed.  My hair on my head is straight now because it is so short. I am used to it now so it doesn't really bother me anymore. Sounds like Taylor is doing well at the Junior National World Volleyball. Hopefully they end up winning the whole tournament. Tell Sara and Steve they can email me. The only guideline is that it has to be immediate family. I got Sara's letter and am sending one out today. I also am sending one to Dan.   Anyway, it was a pretty good week.  Last Tuesday while I was outside of the CTM we went to Cheney's and I got a package! It was weird though because there was a lot of Brazilian things in it. It wasn't American Doritos or Ruffles haha.  One Wednesday while we were in our classroom we were throwing keys around and somehow they flew out the window.... whoops. So we tied all of our shoelaces together and put a safety pin on the end. I ended up fishing it from the second story. That was pretty much the most exciting thing that will ever happen in the CTM. I took a picture so I will send those asap. The Portuguese is coming along really well. On the way to the temple this morning I was forcing myself to think in Portuguese so I think that will help me a ton! Our teachers are still awesome, we are going to Charrascaria which is exactly like Tucanos with our teachers. We are leaving in 10 min! I am so excited! I am buying envelopes so I can actually send letters to people that have written me. The food is still awesome. I wish I could take pictures of it because I don't really know what it is to explain it to you.  Gym class is still pretty lame, but with this new schedule we might get some more people into our gym and maybe even some athletic ones. Todos as coisas estão muito bom. Eu estão animado para sair o CTM e sair no campo. Voces são muito importante para me e eu guardo em minha oracãos todos os noites. Ate Mais.   LOVE ELDER JAKE LANGLOIS


JAKE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!  Thank you to those who have already written.  He loved hearing from you!
****Please write Jake.  Letters from home are so important to the missionaries.  Respond to this email with a note or letter to Jake.  I will forward it to Missionties and they will print it in Brazil and mail it to him.  Jake will receive it in 2-3 days. 

If you want to mail a letter, you will need to use his Mission Home address because he will be out of the CTM by the time it gets there. 


Elder Jake Langlois
Brazil Maceio Mission
Av. Dom Antonio Brandao, 333 Sala 402
Ed. Work Center, Farol
Maceio-AL   57021-190  Brazil