February 27th, 2012

What’s up everybody? How is it going?
It sounded like you all had a good week with stake conference and being with a member of the Seventy.  It sounded like all of the talks were amazing and everything went well.  It seems like mom is getting nervous for next week for her big talk in church.  Don’t worry mom, you’re going to do just great and you’re going to be a pro soon because of all the talks you get to give.  This week was a good one for us but was also a long one.  We went out to where the second counselor lives in the branch and man -  does he live far away.  We made it there in an hour and 15 minutes but that was walking super fast and it is just ups and downs the entire way.  It was pretty much a hike in church clothes and we stayed there for a few hours.  We helped him make juice out of suger cane and then bottled it too.  We also drank some of the juice and it is the sweetest and most sugary thing I have ever had – haha, and it just looks like slime.  Our second counselor’s name is Hermano Candido.  He is the most humble guy that I have ever met and has a testimony that is super strong.  He was a faithful member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church but he received a testimony of the Book of Mormon and got baptized.  He makes that trip everyweek and is usually the first to show up to the church building.  It was a fun experience but did make us super, super tired the entire week.  We had the baptism of the Hermana Lopez this week and her granddaughter.  This family really is amazing.  Every time we’re there, someone else tells us that they want to be baptized.  The baptism went alright.  We arrived at the church at about 5 pm and we went to fill up the font but there wasn´t any water so we went outside to check the tank and there was a bunch of water but the power was too low in order for the pump to suck the water so we hurried and thought of a back-up plan.  I called the missionaries in La Entrada and had them fill up their font.  We called a member that has a car and she loaned us her car and a member drove us all there with all of us in the back of the truck (against the rules but I think President Veirs will let that one slide for a great baptism).  So the good news is that they got baptized and confirmed.  And we were fasting that day but I became super sick that night and was throwing up so I had to break my fast but I was better the next day.  Then church was alright but I was hoping for 70 at church and we ended up having 62 with 8 being investigators.  This branch still has some things that need to change so I hope Elder Amado who will be visiting our district next week has something specially prepared for this branch.  They have been progressing but there is still more that needs to change.  This week we’re going to be working hard to get all the people possible to this conference.  Our goal is to have10 investigators and 80 members at the conference.  I know we´ll be able to do it.
Well, thanks for all of the love and support that you give.
I Miss and Love You All!!!
Elder Kapple

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.

January 23rd, 2012

What’s up Family?
How is it going? It sounds like everyone is just doing great. ERIKA - HAPPY BIRTHDAY.  I hope you had a good birthday; 27 is getting up there.  This week was alright.  We had 3 at church.  One of them is a guy that we invited to church on the street and he ended up coming. He lives super far away and leaves to the states next week.  Another investigator came and he says that he knows the church is true church but he has a drug problem to overcome still.  I have never taught him before but we just stopped by and invited him and he came.  We´ll start working with him to see if we can get him to progress and help him out a little bit.  Another investigator came too.  He buys lottery tickets.  He has about 30,000 limps put in to one number and his number hasn´t been played for a very long time so he says he is just waiting to win.  He won’t win all of his money back but he said he´ll win about half.  He´s not really willing to leave it right now.  President Viers said that he can still be baptized but José doesn´t feel too good about that yet. So we´ll see what happens there.  We’re also teaching his daughter Riena who has 2 kids that are members.  One lives with her who is inactive and the other lives in New York and is preparing for a mission.  Riena wants to be baptized.  We also found a pretty cool family this week.  La Familia Lopez, but we just call them the “brick” famly because they make bricks for a living.  It´s a big family business and around 4 families live there.  The problem is that we have only taught the wives so far, so we need to start teaching the hombres of this familia.  They’re great because they keep the commitments they make to us.  They always read what we ask them to.  They didn´t go to church this Sunday because they had to run someone to the hospital.  So right now we don´t really have any baptisms coming up for this next week but we’re working with a lot of people.  We just need to keep on working hard and I know that this branch will change.  Last night we had an appointment with Kady (Nancy’s sister) and it was really good and a great testimony builder.  She really has a desire to learn and was really wondering how to get a testimony.  Her mom is super evangelica and it was cool because Kady was defending our church and the gospel.  It was just a cool experience for us.  The bad part is that Kady goes back to Tegucigalpa this week so I’m praying that she´ll go to the church there.  Right now I´m reading the New Testament and I’m in John.  My goal is to finish it this next change.  But I had never read the New Testament completely before and I have really learned a lot from it so far.  It is really helping and really just supports all of our doctrine so well.
Sorry  - this week’s e-mail is kind of short but I’m doing well here.  We just have a lot of work to do here in Florida.
I Miss and Love You All!!!
Elder Kapple

January 16th, 2012

Hola familia ¿como están?
How is everyone doing? It sounded like Ogden really had a big event this week with the death of the officer; that’s pretty crazy and sad.  This week was alright for us.  We really started focusing on previous investigators and inactive members here.  Every area has a book with all of this kind of information.  So we updated it and got to work but we still have a lot more to do.  We really haven´t had too much success in finding new people lately so we decided to try this method.  This area is a pretty tough one but we just need to keep working hard.  The problem is that the members aren´t the strongest yet but they try to attend church.  I know that´s not an excuss and we really just need to help them strengthen their testimonies of the gospel. This week we really need to find some new investigators though.  Right now we have a few that are progressing.  Familia Vasquez; we’re still working with the dad.  He understands everything but I think he is just a little scared to make a commitment.  We have an appiontment with him tonight so we´ll have to see what´s up.  Then we have an investigator named Jose.  His wife is a member and he comes to church every once in awhile.  He just uses a lot of excuses.  We we’re going to stop visiting him but then he ended up coming to church yesterday so we´ll see what we can do for him.  Then we have Nancy´s sister (Nancy was that first baptism that I had here).  She is really cool and understands everything; her name is Kady.  The problem is that she is a medical student that is studying in Tegucigalpa and leaves next week I think.  So we´ll have to see what we do there with her.  We have another family that we’re teaching right now too.  On Saturday we had a really rough day and no one wanted to listen to us.  So we had one more appointment at 7 pm with this family and we thought this was going to be our last one with them as they really didn´t seem too interested.  But we taught about the restoration and it went really well and they understood the message.  He is a lawyer and she is a teacher.  They didn´t go to church but they said they were going to pray to see if it was the truth.  It was just such a big relief after such a long day to get to teach someone.  Well, that´s pretty much what is going on here in good old Florida de Copán.


Thanks for everything
I miss and Love You All!!!
Elder Kapple

Copan Zone Conference