January 9th, 2012

What up fam?
How is everyone doing? Well first off, I want to thank Grandma and Grandpa (both sets of them) for the Christmas presents; it really means a lot.  So this week was a pretty good one.  We had 3 baptisms, Pedro, and the mom and daughter from familia Vasquez (Orbelina and Katherine).  The baptism went really well except for the cold water part and we had a lot of support and these people will be great converts.  The problem was that there wasn´t enough water at first.  Well there was a little bit.  We filled it up like a foot and then we had to do the rest by hand, carrying water from the water tank that the church has to the pila (font).  So we had to do that for about 2 hours.  Also, just like last week, a lot of this week was spent traveling.  On Tuesday I went to Las Ruinas to do an ivterview up there.  The lady was awesome and was ready to get baptized but now her husband doesn´t want to get married (and he´s a member) so we’re going to have to go up there and discuss things with them.  Then I came back Wednesday and was able to work in my area for a little bit but then that night I had to go to La Entrada because we had to leave at 5 in the morning to go to San Pedro the next day for the leadership meeting.  It was really good and I learned a lot.  The mission has really been having a hard time lately so President Veirs changed a few things, like the time that we leave the house and some other things to focus on.  President Veirs is one smart guy and knows a lot of doctrine.  He talked a lot about death (yes - kind of a different subject) but it was really good and I learned a lot.  Then I wasn´t back in Florida until Friday and Elder Hernandez had to come with me to my area to do interviews.  So I really didn´t even get to work with my comp all that much this last week but it was still a good one and we got a lot done.  The district is doing great right now too.  We had amazing contacts this last week, but now we just need to get some more people committed to be baptized and become members.  We have a lot of work to do in our area to get some more people progressing.  We have 2 good people progressing but that’s about it for now. The problem here is the branch (I know I really shouldn´t complain) but this branch really needs to change a little. There is so much contention at times between some of the members here. The Branch will never progress much unless it changes so we’re going to do all that we can to help be a positive force to change it.  Today was fun - we went to some Mayan ruins.  Not the main ones in Copan Ruinas - just some here between Florida and La Entrada.  We got in for free because one of the members in La Entrada works there and we were the only ones there today.  It was pretty fun and it´s fun to think about all of the people that used to live there and if anything from the Book of Mormon took place there.  Well this mission is awesome and im learning a lot and have some great experiences.  It´s crazy how fast the time flies and I get a little scared thinking about it.  But thanks for all of the love and support that you all give me.  It really means so much.

I Love and Miss You All!!!
Elder Kapple

January 2, 2012

Hola
Feliz año nuevo!!!
I hope that all of you had a great New Year’s and have all made some new year’s resolutions - haha.  I still need to do that too. New Year’s really is just another day for missionaries but being the New Year’s holiday doesn’t make missionary work very easy.  Here, all they do is light fireworks all night long and they have big fireworks.  I saw some of them the other day and it was bigger than a stick of dynamite and it looks like it is just a bunch of gun powder. I was so tired that night and I fell asleep at around10:20 - haha.   And having Sunday on New Year’s day doesn´t help at all either.  Everyone was just super tired and not very many people came to church on Sunday.  We still ended up having 4 investigators come to church though.  We had Pedro who is going to get baptized this week.  He is older - 65, it really isn´t all that old I know but for here the people seem to age and die a lot quicker.  He understands a lot.  He did have a problem with coffee but we gave him a good discussion about the Word of Wisdom and he hasn´t drank it since.  He´s awesome.  We also have the familia Vasquez.  They’re super cool too.  The dad is kind of questioning about getting baptized this week but we’re continuing to teach him.  So keep him in your prayers.  Right now we are teaching 10 familias but only 2 are progressing so we really need to start leaving some of them and start searching for some new ones too.  Well, this week was kind of a long one.  I really wasn´t in my area all that much.  On Tuesday my comp woke up really sick so I was studying and at about 10:00 in the morning we got a message saying that we had to go to Paraiso ( an hour and a half from Florida) and pull out a partida and right when I got that message my comp woke up and felt a lot better.  So we had to go to Paraiso (paradise).  Then on Wednesday I had to travel a ton.  Elder Barrett ( he came with me to the mision and is the other DL here ) and I had to travel to Piraera in the department of Limpira.  This city is by the border of El Salvador.  I left Florida at like 6:30 in the morning and got to Piraera at 5:30 at night.  We were really blessed and received a lot of help to pull out this partida.  We had to stay in a hotel there on Wednesday night but if we wouldn´t have received that help that we did we would have had to stay 2 nights there.  It was kind of fun though to go and hang out with Elder Berrett.  We left there at 3:00 in the morning so I was able to get back and work a little bit in my area but then on Friday I had to go to La Entrada and do some interviews.  So this week was a super long one with all of that traveling but we were still able to get a lot of work done.  This week will kind of be the same for traveling with divisions and I have to go to San Pedro on Thursday for a meeting.

Well, sorry I’m running out of time but I really hope that all of you are doing great and that you are all enjoying the new year!
Things are just great here.
I Miss And Love You All!!!
Con Amor Elder Kapple

December 26th, 2011

Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año,

Well, first off it was really good to talk to you all yesterday and you all sound like you’re doing just great.  I hope you all had a great Christmas.  My Christmas was good but it really isn´t a big difference from our work on any other day in the mission field.  The only difference is that I get to talk to you all. They celebrate Christmas here more on the 24th and more in the night.  They light off a bunch of fireworks and last night was the same too - haha.  This week was a pretty good one for us and we are getting the area to progress a little bit here.  Right now we are teaching 9 familias and 3 of them are progressing.  The goal is to have 10 teaching and 5 progressing so we need to get a few more.  Right now we are teaching a guy named Pedro.  He is super cool.  He is about 65ish, his son (inactive) and daughter are members which helps us a lot.  In our appointments when we’re teaching him he seldom ever looks at us when we’re talking so we never think he´s paying much attention but he always answers all of the questions and understands everything; it´s pretty funny.  He does drink coffee but understands that he needs to leave it and he´s getting better.  He has a fetcha for the 7th.  Then we have familia Peña Vasquez.  It´s a familia of 4; 3 of them being of baptismal age.  Yesterday was the first time that the dad went to church but he really liked it.  His wife has already been a few times and wants to get baptized so we just have to work with the husband right now.  We went there last night and they’re having a few problems right now.  We just told them that Satan is trying to destroy their familia but we have the fetcha for them this next week too but we still need to work with the husband a little bit more.  Keep them in your prayers.  We have some more possibilities but we need to work with them a little bit more.  Right now we’re trying to work with the members a lot too because this branch has a lot of potentual and could be a really strong ward one day but we need to activate some people and do a few more things.  Pres. Orillana (the branch president) really wants us to work with the inactive members, and working with them is actually a great way to get investigators through their families.

Well, it was really great to talk to you all yesterday and thanks for all that you do and all of the love and support that you all give.
I Love and Miss You All!!!
Con Amor
Elder Kapple

December 19, 2011

Hello,
How is everyone doing? Well, this week we had changes.  I am now in Copan in the area of Florida.  It is a pretty cold area right now being this time of year and it has been rainy everyday - haha.  I never thought that I would be cold in Honduras but I guess I have just gotten way to used to the heat.  The area is super muddy too, and there are a lot of mountains.  My comp is a really cool guy named Elder Gardner.  He is from Columbus, Ohio and this is his 1st area, and his 3rd change, and I’m his 3rd companion.  He is 19 years old and went to BYU for a year before he came on the mission.  He has 2 sisters and a younger brother, and his older sister goes to BYU too.  It´s kind of been a slower area in the past but were going to try to change all of that.  There are a lot of Catholics hear and everyone and there dog likes to drink coffee.  It´s kind of funny, when we pass by a lot of the houses everyone will start talking about coffee.  And all of the members here always drink hot chocolate.  I´m also the district leader now and the district in the past has been kind of a slow one so we’re going to change that too.  I have the Mayan ruins in my district too. My ZL is Elder Hernandez again.  He lives like 5 minutes away from our house.  The house here is alright.  There isn´t running water right now but in the morning the water comes for a little bit in a house that the owner of the apartment has.  But I have to heat water to shower because of the coldness.  Well, I hope that answered all of the usual questions - haha.  We did have a baptism this last week.  Her name is Nancy.  She is 24 years old and will be a great convert.  We were going to have 4 baptisms this weekend but none of them came to church on Sunday which was a bummer but we still have the possibility of 2 others but we´ll see this week.  The mission has some new goals for us now as well.  We need to be teaching 10 familias with 5 progressing and 2 baptized every month.  Right now we have 10 familias that we’re teaching but we need to get some more progressing.  Only 2 of them are progressing and we have one more that is prettty much progressing but they didn´t go to church on Sunday.  The members here are really good too and seem to be really helpful.  The attendance here is usually about 50 or so people so not bad.  Well, I´m super excited to talk to you all on Christmas.  I still don’t know when I’ll call.  I think church is only an hour here for Christmas but I have to check the time still.  My companion said that he is going to call in the mornig because his family has church in the afternoon so I’ll probably call in afternoon.  I am an hour ahead of you all but I think I’ll call around 11:30 your time which is 12:30 my time here.  But I’ll probably call a night or two before like I did last year to set things up.  Well I hope you’re all having a fun time now that Todd and KK are in town.  Tell everyone hi for me this Christmas.
Thanks or everything. I Miss and Love You All!!!
Elder Kapple

December 12th, 2011

Hello,
How is everyone doing. This week was long and really short at the same time. We had to do a lot of traveling this week.  Tuesday we went to La Ceiba for our Multi-zone conference.  It was really good but just more of a laid back/fun conference. We had some activities, talent show, and played some games.  But it was good and we had a lot of fun.  Then on Wednesday we had a district meeting in Tocoa, then Thursday we did divisions.  I stayed in Tocoa with one of the ZL´s and then on Friday my companion ended up having to go to San Pedro to a meeting because he´s going to train or is going to be the 2nd comp of his new comp.  So yes, I do have a change.  I went back to Trujillo on Friday because we had an activity.  We did an activity and played soccer (everyone loves soccer here) with the Elders Quorum and the YM because in the other activity that we did, we recieved a lot of references but they were mostly girls. There were a lot of people that weren’t members but most of them were a bunch of kids that always come to the church to play soccer.  But we did recieve a few good references. Then on Saturday we had to go back to Tocoa to pick up my comp. from there and we did have 2 baptisms on Saturday.  Marlon got baptized and Hermana Perez.  It was a good baptism.  Hermana Perez will be a great convert; she just needs a lot of support from the members.  She stopped going to her old church because the members never visited her so we have told a lot of the members to always go and visit her.  The really good thing about her is that she does her part.  She always reads; from the first day that we invited her to church she has always come.  Now the missionaries will have to baptize the husband. This area will continue have success.  There are a lot of great possibilities here, especially for these next few months.  I really enjoyed my time here in Trujillo and it was a great area. I really learned a lot. Today was really fun. We went to a zip-line course.  We got permission I guess for being zona celestial in October. It was really fun. Some of the parts were kind of scary and I don’t think president Veirs would have approved it if he would have seen it but it was fun.  There was one zip-line where I did get pretty wet.  It goes really close to the water and there were waves that went up to my waist (as missionaries we probably shouldn’t do things like that).
Well, I hope you all have a good week.  I’ll let you know about Christmas next week.
I Love and Miss You All!!!
Elder Kapple

December 5, 2011

Wow, it sounds like you guys all had a super big storm this week that did a lot of damage. That’s sad about Lenna’s trampoline. That´s one thing that I do miss is the snow, but it will be hard to get used to the cold again. Well this week was alright for us.  We ended up not having any baptisms but we have some great investigators right now.  Marlon didn´t get baptized this week because his sister didn´t come from Roatan but I guess she´s going to come this week so he´ll get baptized this weekend.  We also have the familia Perez.  They’re the parents of Audelina, a convert that we have here.  I remember one day their names came to my mind so we decided to go and visit them.  They have gone to church ever since.  The wife is going to get baptized this Saturday and the husband hopefully soon. They both drink coffee but she said that she´ll leave it but he was a little skeptical about it. The hardest part is helping them understand the restoration of the gospel but little by little they’ll get it.  We also have a really cool familia right now. The familia Mendez. They’re a really poor familia but they really want the change the gospel can bring. The kids are members (my old companion, Elder Harris baptized them) but now the parents are going to get baptized at the end of this month.  I don´t know if I’ll be here though.  It´s likely that I will have a change this next week but I won’t know until next Wednesday.  But I´d be fine either way.  We have a lot of possibilities with investigators right now so I wouldn´t be sad about staying a little longer either.  So this week a crazy or weird thing happened.  We went to one of the references that we recieved from the activity we had to teach a lesson.  But when we were about to start this one guy (her son) walked in that is super evangelic so we teach lesson 1.  Right when we say the name Joseph Smith (José Smith) it just went bad from there.  He was asking where the name of Joseph Smith is in the bible and all sorts of stuff.  So when we finished the lesson and asked one of the ladies to say the prayer but she told her son to do it. So he stood up and made us stand up and he started praying in a normal evangelic way and then he started shouting.  So I opened my eyes looking around and at my comp trying not to laugh when the guy opens his eyes and starts talking to us as if Christ was talking through him and telling us to believe.  Then he started speaking in tongues.  It was so crazy and weird, and his mom is over crying and praying and me and my comp are just looking around confused.  A lot of the time the evangelic people will fall to the ground and stuff so I think he was trying to make us fall to the ground or something.  He finished his prayer and then we just left.  We probably should have made him stop but it was crazy and very different.  So that´s the crazy story of the week.  We’re going to La Cieba tomorrow for the multi-zone conference so that should be fun but I’ll fill you all in on it next week.
Thanks for everything that you all do. It really means a lot.
I Miss and Love You All!!!
Cuidense
Con Amor
Elder Kapple