February 20, 2012

How is it going?

Sorry for the short e-mail last week but we just didn´t have much time but the ruins were pretty cool and a lot bigger than what I thought so I’ll send you all of the those pictures.  This week was a pretty good one.  The Lopez family is really doing great but we’re still having a hard time teaching all of the men in that family.  All of the women want to be baptized though.  This last week Hermana Lopez, (she is the mom of everyone in the family) told us that she wants to be baptized.  I guess that was kind of our fault for not setting a date with her to get baptized earlier.  We were focusing too much on her daughter and trying to get her married.  But her daughter Norma really wants to get married but she is pretty scared to do it and then there is another daughter that wants to get baptized and she is working things out with her husband right now so that they can get married.  It´s been a cool process with them and seeing the desire that they have to follow Christ.  This is what happens when people really do their part to know the truth and really are willing to do the will of God and do their part.  As missionaries all we do really is provide them the knowledge and just teach them the doctrine and help them feel the spirit and the rest depends on them.  This is a gospel of action and there are a lot of people here that are used to having everything done for them by their pastor.  So it´s a little hard for them to understand that they have to do things but when they do them is when they can really have that change of heart.  The other investigators that we have are doing alright but they still need to stop smoking, get married and some other things so we’re still working with them.  We do have some other investigators but right now the members of this family are the ones that are progressing.  The branch seems to be doing well too and people are starting to change.  I think some big things will be happening here in Copán in the future.  It´s just a district here now but I think in the next year or so it may be changed to a stake.  We have a district conference in 2 weeks that they planned just 2 weeks ago.  The 2nd counselor from the area presidency is coming here and he´s a member of the Seventy, so I think that they might be doing some big changes here now.  The meeting will be a good experience. The mission is great and I love it. 

Well, I hope that you are all doing just great.  Thanks for everything that you all do.  I Love and Miss You All!!!

Elder Kapple

 PS  Sorry, I totally forgot to tell you guys that Reina got baptized this last week.  It was a good baptism and she was pretty excited.  Then this weekend we have another baptism.  It´s hermana Lopez.

February 5th 2012

Hello Familia,
How is everything going?  It sounds like everyone is just doing great. It´s all good here in Florida and this week was a good one. I think this was the first time that I actually stayed in my area the entire week - haha.  But it was good and we worked really hard and it really paid off.  We were pretty stressed about how we weren´t having people come to church so we fasted this last week and on Sunday to really have more people come to church.  The most I think that we had here in this branch was 3.  So this week we really worked hard to get these people to church and fasted for them and it was really worth it.  We had 16 investigators at church yesterday which was awesome.  The attendance in total was only 66 so we still have work to do with the members.  But we were really blessed with all of the people that came to church.  We had Familia Lopez, Familia Castillo, Jose and his wife, Reina and a few others.  We have a baptism for Reina on the 18th.  With the majority of our investigators we have to help get them married or they have to quit something like smoking so we still have a lot of work to do with them so that they can keep on progressing.  Keep them all in your prayers.  My new comp is doing well.  He gets nervous a lot he says but he is getting better.  He teaches great when we’re just answering questions or just talknig about a gospel topic but when it comes to teaching the doctrine in a lesson he gets pretty nervous.  He is a great missionary and really wants to learn.  He is 20 years old and is the oldest in his family.  His dad is a bishop.  Elder Guaran wants to be a engineer.  I’ll fill you all in about him more. This week we really have to work hard and set baptism dates with all of them.  The mission is great and I love it.
I Love and Miss You All!!!
Elder Kapple

January 30, 2012

Elder Guaran

Elder Kaahuie, Elder Haernandez, and Elder Kapple

Hello family,
How is everyone dong?  Things are good here in Florida.  We had changes last week and I didn´t tell you that last week because we didn´t know until Monday evening that my comp had a change.  I figured he would because he had already been here for 3 changes with 3 differnt comps. So this week was a little slow because Elder Gardner had to say goodbye to members etc. and all of that good stuff.  My new comp is a good guy.  He is from Guatemala and I am training him.  So this is his first area.  He is a cool guy and really humble.  His name is Elder Guaran.  I’ll tell more about him next week.  I´m still getting to know him.

So we really only had like 3 full days to work in our area because we had changes on Wednesday; then on Thursday we had to go to la Entrada to do an interview.  Then the same day we went up to Copan Ruinas to do some more interviews and we had to spend the night up there.  It will be a little harder now because as leaders they want us doing divisions a lot and I can´t really do that now because my comp doesnt know our area yet and when we have interviews he just has to come with me so I’ll have to teach him the area really fast.
This Sunday we only had 2 investigators at church and we were hoping to have 6.  It was a pretty big bummer for us.  Reina and a guy that lives super far away that is going to the states next week came.  Reina is doing well and progressing.  We just need to help her find new work and keep her coming to church.  We really need to work hard this week so we can get some more investigators to progress.  We have some good possibilities but if they don´t start progressing more we will have to move forward looking for new people to teach.  We did have 58 at church this week and the branch seems to be changing a little bit so we are happy about that.  We just need to keep working with the members too.
Doing baptismal interviews is a cool experience and can be really spiritual too.  It´s kind of strange to me that the people trust us as teenagers with all of their problems and feel free to tell us anything.  I really do enjoy doing the interviews though.
Well, sorry it´s a short one this week.  Nothing too much new really happened because of time spent with the changes. Thanks for everything.
I Miss and Love You All!!! Keep our investigators in your prayers.
Elder Kapple

PS The pictures are of me, Elder Kaahuie (He´ll probably be calling you this next week because I sent some stuff home with him) and Elder Hernandez.  Then the other picture is of my new comp., Elder Guaran.