Love of Learning the Language

Hellooooo!

It’s me again, Elder Cappuccio. I’m sitting here in a PC café and the power went out about 15 minutes ago. Hopefully it won’t do it again. :) Anyways, everything is going good over here. My health is good, my hope is bright, and my stomach is full haha. You’re right, it is nice getting a letter from you each week! So much stuff happens in a week so it’s good to hear from you all. I just wish Amy and Crystal would write me too! And what about Cali?!? She can write can’t she? Haha, anyways, each week seems to go so quickly here. I’ve already finished 3 weeks here in Erdenet and they’ve been awesome. Next Monday we’ll be going to Darkhan for our Zone Conference and so we’ll have to write e-mails on Tuesday probably. Then on Thursday is Thanksgiving! We’ll be eating at the senior missionaries’ house and we all have to bring an item to eat. I’m way excited for that.

Yea, I think about being in Mongolia sometimes and I laughed. I never dreamed I’d find myself here but here I am and I’m making a life out of preaching the gospel in Mongolia. Outside of the testimony I gave you from the airport phone, have you heard any real Mongolian? (Mine isn’t real Mongolian). It is such a crazy language! I love it. As I learn more of the intricasies of the language I’m just so glad I was blessed with the opportunity to learn it. I really like learning languages now. It’s because through learning the language, I can talk with people. Through talking with people, I can learn about them. Through learning about them, I can help them! That’s how it works and so I love being able to understand what people have to say, in whatever tongue they say it.

Ahhh, a you found a new boyfriend? What happened to the one that fixed up all the house? Well that’s cool that’s he’s got a good taste in music. I really started to like blues when I was up at Byu. I got a lot of BB king and those guys. Anyways, let me know if you want my opinion on who you should date and I’ll tell you for sure :)

Hmm…I don’t know when I’ll call you, I’m sure they let us know at Zone Conference or some time closer to Christmas. It’ll be an interesting situation though! Man, I’ll be talking to you all on the phone! Crazy. The weather here is finally getting to what it’s supposed to be. It’s almost breaking the negative faranheit during the day but I mean they don’t really go by faranheit anyways. I bought a sweat sweater earlier that was made out of camel fur and it’s way warm. I love it. Also, I bought some sweet Nike boots for the winter but of course they don’ty really have sizes for my feet here in Mongolia so I landed with a size 11. It was hurting my feet a bit and bruised my ankles after a few days but luckily my companions boots were a little bigger and we were able to do a comfortable switch of winter boots. He fits just fine in mine because he’s just a little smaller than me. Amy went on 3 dates with 3 different guys?!? WOW. That’s awesome. Good for her. But, sadly, she hasn’t written me…

Speaking of other missionaries, how are the rest of the ward missionaries? Elder Stock, Elder Clawson, E lder Eyestone, Elder Burgoyne, Elder Fisher, Elder Miller? I’ve asked about Elder Clawson like 200 times and you never tell me anything about him! Fill me in! Is elder Eyestone’s back better now? So this week we had some pretty sweet success finding some families. That’s really what I want to do if I have any control over what kind of people I teach. I want to teach families! In the 1st discussion, the 2nd principle we teach is about the family. How it’s ordained of God and how it helps us to live the Gospel better. Well, Mongolian church members are usually part member families! What that leads to is inactive members because the non-member faily members constantly nag away at the member’s faith. It’s very hard. That’s why I want to bring families into the church. Anyways, we found a family of 3 and a family of 6. They’re awesome. We found the family of 3 one day as we were contacting referrals and I heard someone chopping wood and so I was just like, lets go see if we can help them. It was a wife and so we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to teach be cause we have to have a guy there in order to teach. But her husband was in the ger and so we taught them the 1st lesson right then and there. It was way cool. The other family we found as we were contacting on another day and I just walked up to a guy smoking and leaning up against his fence post and we started talking to him. He said we could meet with him and so we planned for another day that week and it was just BEAUTIFUL! I love this work. At the same time, last night we dropped a family. That was one of the hardest things I’ve done so far on my mission. Sure, puking your guts out hurts a ton, and trying to speak a weird language is frustrating, being outside in freezing weather is tough too; but, none of that hit me as hard as dropping that family we had been working with. We had prayed over them and spend so much time with them and it just never came to fruition. I don’t ever want to have to do that again but sadly it’s almost inevitable…One thing I read just thins morning was something Elder Holland told some new Mission Presidents before they left for the mission field, he said: “I hope our missionaries are so prepared that they astonish their investigators with their teaching”. I really liked that and so maybe if I can get to that level we won’t have to drop any more investigators. They’ll just feel the Spirit of the message and move forward to membership and salvation. Anyways, that’s about it from here. I’ll get my bag and camera and all that next Monday. That’ll be nice. I love you and I love the family! Keep working hard and hold to the iron rod! It’s so important that every single member read from the Book of Mormon at least 10 minutes a day. So important. Once again, I love you and hope everything is going well for you all!

~Elder Cappuccio

Dear James,

It is always good to hear about your week and the work you are doing. I look forward to getting your email every week, so I know you probably are equally excited to hear from home every week, so I hope to make sure you get at least an email from me every week. I was looking at the map of the world by the bishop's office today and seeing your name on the country of Mongolia, made me think of you and all the people's lives you will change on the other side of the world. It's so amazing! You are so far away, but reading your letters brings you close. Thanks for all the neat stuff you write about.

I have to tell you that I met someone just recently who is really wonderful and really nice. His name is Jack and we have a lot in common as far as what we believe and what matters in life. He loves to listen to music so we've been to a really cool Blues Band club a few times already, so I think you would like to go when you come back. Hopefully more on that subject later =).

Thanksgiving and then Christmas! It's close to hearing from you on the phone! What time are you going to call? Because your Christmas is about over when ours is just starting. How is the weather now. I'm sure it's not 70-80 like it is here. This is my favorite time of year here in Arizona. Amy will be coming down for Thanksgiving, so it will be good to see her again. She had 3 dates in one week this past week- with 3 different guys!

I hope you are well. I pray for you and all the missionaries and for those you will find. Thanks for your example and love of the gospel.

Keep the fire burning!

Love always,

Mom

A Thyme and Pine Needle Soda, please(Nov. 9th)

Alllllllright, It’s your favorite Elder Cappuccio serving in Mongolia, writing you again! Well, to those that won the election, congratulations; to those who lost, accept my condolences. Anyways, while Election stuff is interesting, Mongolia, and more specifically, Missionary Work in Mongolia is more exciting! This week has been pretty good. We put our shoulder to the wheel and received blessings for it. Of course, everything is not where we’d like it to be, but things are improving. In particular, one family that we’re working with is doing really well. It’s a husband, wife and their daughter. He’s the one that we extended the commitment to obey the word of wisdom. So far, to our knowledge, he’s been keeping it! No doubt it’s been hard, but he really wants to be baptized. In fact, just this past Saturday, he was at the baptismal service and one of the speakers talked about how through baptism and receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, we become new people. After the service finished, he said to both of us, “I need to get baptized, I want to become a new person, Got it?!” My mouth almost dropped I was like, wow, he just said that. Haha, it was awesome. Now everytime we meet with him he talks about that all the time. Then his wife reminds him that if he wants to get baptized he’s got to start reading the homework we give them and all that other stuff. Haha they’re funny. Anyways, we also extended to his wife the commitment to not work on Sunday and honor the Sabbath. At first, on Sunday, we thought she wouldn’t come even though she promised because her husband came with the kids but she wasn’t there. Then, like 5 minutes into the meeting, she slips in quietly and found a seat. I wanted to shout for joy but of course, it was sacrament meeting and so I didn’t. I just smiled. It was awesome. We have one person going in for baptism this week. We were supposed to have two but we need to work with the other a little bit. Nevertheless, I had never seen the former so happy before! After she exited the Baptismal Interview, she was just beaming. I can only imagine how she’ll be after the baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Oh, and to answer your question, we have baptismal fonts in the churches here in Mongolia ;). Once upon a time it was rivers though…

So yea, that’s kind of been how our work is going. Our biggest struggle is finding new investigators but I have a good feeling about this week! As long as we keep following the rules and giving our all, the Lord will bless us. Alright, so now that I’ve talked about our work, I’ll mention other miscellaneous items from this past week.

#1 I had this soda the other day called Selenge. That’s the name of a region out here, but anyways, the contents of the soda made me kind of laugh. It was: wild oats, wild thyme, medicinal perennial grass, and pine needles! Haha, it was a different taste, but I warmed up to it.

#2 There is a senior couple in our district out here. They don’t speak Mongolian. What that means is that they need a translator whenever they need to talk with Mongolians! So sometimes, when my District Leader is busy with other business, I have to translate for them. I can only describe that experience as humbling and humiliating. If you just have to understand yourself and speak for yourself, it’s not too bad. Still hard, but manageable. When you’ve got to translate for an outside body, it’s so much harder! Everytime I get done translating for them, I just feel terrible. Now one of my goals is to be a good translator. Haha so yea.

So…tell Brother Young I’m going to send him a letter today. I wrote him one but I wasn’t able to send it yet. Anyways, it’ll take like 2 months old or so so yea.

Well, I love all of you! I hope that everything goes well for you and you keep thriving in the Gospel. That’s the only source we can turn for for peace in this day and age. Any other source will leave us wanting. I know this church is true and I’m loving the opportunity I have to serve a mission here in Mongolia!

~Elder Cappuccio

Dear James,

Obama won the election, oh well, at least Cali is happy. What do you use for baptismal fonts in Mongolia? No icy rivers, right? Read the story below......

love always,

mom,

Church History Gems

Church History in Canada

"One of the great families to join the Church in Canada was that of Archibald Gardner. From his journal, we learn of the family's experience in Canada during the year 1843."Robert Gardner describes the day of their baptism: 'We went about a mile and a half into the woods to find a suitable stream. We cut a hole through ice eighteen inches thick. My brother William baptized me. . . . I was confirmed while sitting on a log beside the stream. . . . " 'I cannot describe my feelings at the time and for a long time afterwards. I felt like a little child and was very careful of what I thought or said or did lest I might offend my Father in Heaven. Reading the Scriptures and secret prayer occupied my leisure time. I kept a pocket Testament constantly with me. When something on a page impressed me supporting Mormonism, I turned down a corner. Soon I could hardly find a desired passage. I had nearly all the pages turned down. I had no trouble believing the Book of Mormon. Every time I took the book to read I had a burning testimony in my bosom of its truthfulness.' " Thomas S. Monson, "Days Never to Be Forgotten," Ensign, Nov. 1990, 68 Topics: Book of Mormon

Hole in the Lip, Teaching by the Spirit and real PIZZA in Mongolia!(Nov 2nd)

Dear Mother, Well, my health is recovered and I am the more thankful for it. I believe that which each passing sickness I gain a greater appreciation for the health the Lord blesses us with and the aide he gives us in times of distress. My health was in full swing by Tuesday morning and so I was very happy that day. I am loving my new area and my new companion more and more everyday. Just because I want to, I thought I’d let you know about one of the Elders in my group that wasn’t as lucky as I was to just get a bit of bad food in his stomach. Somehow, this Elder got a staph infection in his lip. It started small, just like a zit or pimple would. Then it just kept growing and growing and growing. As it swelled, his lip grew to gigantic proportions. Eventually part of his lip gained a black strip of color and he was able to squeeze juices out of a whole he had produced every now and again. The last I saw of him, he was sticking a heated pin from a pin cushion about halfway into that whole before reaching the back. It was sweet. Anyways, they took him into the city where he received a surgery and removed most of the infection. Now I’m told that each morning they suck out any new juices from the area and then scrape around on the inside of it all. So, compared to that, throwing up and stuff for two days really isn’t that bad is it? :)

Anyways, on to the work! As I said, I love this place. The branch is pretty strong here and we have 6 Elders and 4 Sisters in the Missionary District. My companion, Elder Byambadorj, is amazing. Everyday I feel compelled to thank Heavenly Father for him being my companion. We get along very well and our purpose is one. From the last transfer we had two investigators with a baptismal date set but they apparently didn’t understand the Word of Wisdom well and so we had to delay it a bit. We’ve been meeting some very tough resistance in the work lately. It’s been hard to find investigators or even catch people to meet with. Our two progressing investigators both had problems of their own that we were worried about. With another family of investigators, we just taught the Word of Wisdom and extended the commitment for the father to quit smoking. It’s going to be really hard for him, he’s been at it for 20 years. Needless to say, our prayers have been full of petitions to help these people we are working with. This work is such a rollercoaster. The joys and elation we get from seeing people receive the Word and act upon it is unspeakable. And yet, just as soon as it comes, disappointment and sorrow come when we see an investigator suffer in misunderstanding and disobedience. It’s tough. The thing that holds me firm through it all though is my testimony of Jesus Christ. If they’ll just come unto Him, he’ll help them, I know that. So, at the present time, we are laboring to bring them to that realization and bring them the joy that comes from living the Gospel.

We had a neat experience the other day as we were teaching an investigating husband and wife. One of their biggest concerns is that when they read the scriptures, they don’t understand them. As we talked about the importance of reading the scriptures daily, I was able to level with them and relate my own experience of growing to love the scriptures. I told them about how earlier I didn’t like reading the scriptures too much, that sometimes it didn’t make sense. But as I understood what they did for me, I begin to read more and truly began to love them. I don’t think what I actually said did anything for them, but somehow, the Spirit was there as I talked to them about that. From the Spirit I think they felt the truth of that message: even if it may be hard to understand, you can learn from them. It really was a great moment for all of us there. That’s one thing that I’ve really been becoming more aware of. We as missionaries must rely so heavily on the Spirit being there to back up the truth we teach. Our words won’t convert. Only the Spirit can do that. We have to work day in and day out to be pure enough, to be in tune enough, to be prepared enough, to deliver the message that the Holy Ghost can testify of to them. And of course, their hearts have to be open. But on our end of the deal, we really are nothing without the companionship of the Holy Ghost. Oh, in Erdenet, there is a pizza place called Eden’s Pizza House. It’s quite possibly the best pizza in Mongolia. It’s pretty legit! We ate there last Monday and I was like, “wow, this is good”. Haha, anyways, I like Erdenet. Also, my bag was found, so I’ll be getting that with the next Elders that come up this way! Alright, well that’s about it for now. I love all of you and hopen that everything is good for you in America. I hope your work gets better and I’ll be praying for you. And yea, I’ll finally get a call into Wells Fargo, sorry I keep postponing it…

~Your Son, Elder Cappuccio -----Original Message----- From: Marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 15:22:31 EST Subject: Lost backpack, lost fluids Dear James, I hope you have found your health and your backpack. I have been praying for both for you. Thanks for the vivid description of your suffering, it's almost like being there! Maybe you should do your own cooking for awhile and now I understand why when listing the contents in your missing backpack, you listed the tuna fish first!

We just had stake conference, but it was a regional one from Salt Lake City for all of Arizona. You would have liked it....when it first came on the feed was in Spanish and President Jones had to get up and announce that they were going to have to fix the problem, but that we should try to get the spirit of the message....unless you actually could understand Spanish, which you probably could have, so you would have liked it. They got some audio in English before the first speaker finished but it wasn't from the video source, so the audio lagged behind the speakers lips. They finally figured it out by the end of the 2nd speaker and it came blasting through.

There were some good messages. Brigham Young sent a group down to settle Arizona. They got to a pass in the mountains and were out of water, so they camped and prayed for water. The next morning they awoke to snow and enough water to fill their barrels. The expedition then turned around and returned to SLC and told Pres Young that Arizona was uninhabitable. Pres Young then asked another member of the group, Bro Jones, what he thought. Brother Jones said that he would have filled up the barrels and continued on and then prayed again and continued on until he reached the area in Arizona. So, Pres. Young put him in charge of the next expedition and in settling AZ. So, we need to pray, fill up our barrels and then press forward and then pray again, etc.

So, I hope you like your new area and looking forward to hearing some good stories of the people you teach there and hope you feel much better. I don't like the stories of your lurching your lungs out as much as the missionary experiences.

Love always,

and keep the fire burning

Love,

mom

Lost Backpack, Lost Lunch, Found Faith(Oct 26th)

Ah yes, the weekly e-mail! Well, quite a bit has happened since last week. As I said, our transfer was finishing up last week and so I would either be staying or going. The call came on Thursday morning. President asked to speak to me and then told me that I would be going to Erdenet. My new companion would be Elder Byambadorj. So, that’s where I am right now; Erdenet. If you go to a map of Mongolia, you’ll probably find erdenet in the northern middle west part section, ya know? It’s north of Ulaanbaatar and west of Darkhan. Most importantly, it’s the place that every Mongolian missionary wants to serve in. Why? Well, it’s pretty much a small town, with pretty much all the comforts of a big city! It was built completely by the Russians, or so I’ve heard, and in Mongolian, Erdenet, means treasure. So far I like the place a lot! So…my last week with my old companion, Elder Alexander was alright. President challenged us to do better on our weekly numbers, especially contacting people on the street. As we did this, things really started to improve for us! So I gained a testimony of the importance of daily talking with people on the street. So then on Saturday, it was transfer time. The days before I had packed up all my stuff and prepared myself for departure. Saturday was spent mostly at the mission home because our train didn’t leave till later that night, around 8. So, I ran around with other missionaries doing whatever. I ran into a new member from my old branch at her work (The Golden Pen shop). She’s such a sweet girl! We talked for a bit and I told her I was going to Erdenet. She then gave me a pen from her store for free and said it was her gift to me! I was like, thanks! She’s awesome. Anywayssssss, the rainy cloud on that Saturday’s, Sunday’s, and a little bit of today’s parade is that my health streak has ended. After eating some of my companions cooking, I contracted something not very nice. Therefore, I spend a large portion of my time on Saturday, Sunday, and the connecting nights, expelling everything not secure stowed inside my body. Luckily, my kidney, lungs, heart, intestines, and other vital organs were fastened well enough to withstand the constant lurching. Other things, such as every item of food I had eaten for the last 2 days, was not. And, as it was before, it came out wherever was easiest. Anyways, It’s quite amazing when you realize exactly how much fluids are in your body. It’s also amazing to experience how weak you feel with all those fluids are gone! Haha, anyways, that’s all really gross to you readers I bet. The most important thing about all of this is that I am ALIVE! And that if I can laugh about it, so can you! I’m here in Mongolia serving a mission and I’m not going to let some pesky stomach virus stop me! In fact, we still taught two lessons yesterday (and the 2nd investigator didn’t mind at all that I threw up in her house!). That’s how wonderful these Mongolian people are.

On another sad, less playful note, one of my bags was taken. The odd thing was that it was taken from the mission home. I brought 3 bags to the mission home and only left with two. We looked for my backpack all over but either it was intentionally stolen or someone mistook it for theirs and headed off without checking. If it’s the latter option, I’ll be greatly relieved because there was some good stuff in that bag: a tuna fish pack from home!, my cds, Mongolian scriptures, flashlight, photo album, and camera! Other stuff as well, but that’s what I remember most. If it was stolen, well, I’ll probably never get it back and someone at the Zax will get a nice camera for pretty cheap. If it was just accidentally taken though, I could have it all back to me as soon as a few weeks which would be way sweet. Anyways, if you would all pray that the bag turns up with everything intact, that would be greatly appreciated and I’m sure things will turn out ok.

As for missionary work, I’m getting settled into the area and my companion is Mongolian. He’s a lot like me so I think we’ll have a great time. I expect my Mongolian language to greatly improve with his help! Anyways…I’ll let you know more about our investigators and new members as I get to know them more! Most importantly, I know this church is true and no matter what happens here or abroad, I’m going to keep doing my job as best as I can! I hope that everything is going well for all of you back home. I love you all very very much and I miss you a bunch. In about 2 months, I’ll be able to call you! Sweet eh? Alright, well keep working hard and I’ll do the same. Just remember that we’ve been called to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all places, to mourn with those who mourn, and to comfort those who stand in need of comfort. ~Elder Cappuccio

Dear James,

It's that time of year when you get 10-20 calls a day from people or groups wanting to get your support for their candidate or proposition. We have a few propositions to vote for, but the one getting the most publicity seems to be the Marriage amendment. We are voting to change the Arizona constitution to define marriage as only between one man and one woman. This would make it impossible for a judge to be able to rule in favor of a same sex marriage. The church is taking a stand on this and asking us to not only vote for it but try to influence others to vote for it. Speaking of marriage, Ashley Richardson got engaged last night. I don't know his name but he seems like a really nice guy.

Anyway back to missionary work. I am curious to find out where you are beening transferred to or if you are staying in the same area.?Do you see the missionaries you were in the MTC with on P-days? We do need some more picures, if you get a chance.

I ran a 12 miler last Saturday, but only 5 this Saturday, so to stay on track for my marathon goal I have to run 14 miles this next weekend. I run (if you can call it that these days) very slow, but it isn't hard to keep running at a slow and steady pace. I always wondered about the scripture in D&C 89 about running and not being weary and walk and not faint. Seems like you would be more apt to faint while running, but then I ran a marathon and it made sense. If you run within your pace you have trained, you can run and not be weary and then if you do have to stop and walk the stiffness and aches catch up to you, so you have to keep going even though it feels like torture, so it's actually harder when you start walking.(after running 20 miles)at least it has been for been for me. So if I train well enough I won't have to walk. You could probably relate that to life in many ways.

I have also been reading the " The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Covey. I found it in your room, so I decided I could use some extra help in many areas of life and try to read some each day. Well I got to go to choir practice now. I hope you are well. We pray for you always and are grateful for your dedication and desire to serve the Lord.

We love you,

Keep the fire burning,

Love always,

mom and family

Pray for Missionary Work(Oct 19th email)

Hello! I hope that you all are having a great time in America. I'm doing my best to enjoy my time here in Mongolia. This week we had our interview with the mission president. It was wonderful! You should be so grateful that I have President Andersen as my mission president. Everything he does pertaining to this work is guided by years of experience, care, and most importantly, the Spirit. He helped me to see this last transfer in a good light and to turn bad situations into great ones. This week is the end of one transfer and the beginning of another. In the Mongolian mission, the transfer are every 12 weeks, not 6 like with every other mission. If things need to get changed, he'll change them at the 6 week mark or, if it's an emergency, he'll do it right away, but usually, everything changes ever 12 weeks. So, next week I'll have a new companion! He'll most likely be a Mongolian, but either way, he's going to be awesome and we're going to do some really good work. I might stay in the area I'm in, and I might go, I don't know yet but it doesn't really matter. As long as they still speak Mongolian where I go, I'll be ok!

So don't you think it was neat how President Monson asked us to pray for the opening of nations to missionary work? THat's awesome. I can see it in my mind how through the faith of the church members, China and much of the Middle East and the rest of Africa will be opened to the glorious message of the restored Gospel. It's something that is so important so don't forget to petition the Lord for it! It will come because the prophet said it would through our prayers!

This week has been an interesting one. We've had some success and we've had some failures. I'm definitely learned to love my companion more which is such an important thing to have. Like the talk in General Conference, unity is essential to work progressing in the church and ultimately, salvation. There was a talk 2 or 3 conferences ago by Elder Hales, I believe, that talks about how Salvation is a personal matter, but Exaltaion is a family matter. To an extend, that branches to missionary work. If my companion and I don't pray for each other and work together, we could both be the best talkers and scriptorians and not get a single baptism because of our disunity. The Lord says that if we aren't one, we are not His. Thus, how can we pretend to be His representitives if we are not one? That wouldn't make sense at all.

Anyways, why I won't share specific accounts, suffice it to say that the Lord's hand has touched our work. When one appointment fell through, another was found that yielded great potential. Never underestimate the power of sincere prayer and faithful acting on that prayer. This week I really wanted to meet with an inactive youth that is incredible hard to get a hold of. No cell phone and he usually doesn't get home till after 10 each night. I decided on a time on Saturday when we would stop by his place and prayed to the Lord about it, asking for him to bring it to pass so that we could help get him back to church. Saturday came, and when the time came to visit him, there he was, in his family's store! We came in and talked with him for a bit, introduced ourselves, and set up a time to meet with him! All I did was listen and then do it. Hopefully this will continue and we'll be able to bring him back into activity and bless his life.

Mom, as well as the rest of you all, I love you! You are all awesome and if you weren't a member of my family, I just wouldn't be the same. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now probably. The Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior. He came once before to save us from our sins and he will come again. God is our loving Heavenly Father and he wants to hear from each and every one of us everyday. Seek him out in prayer, because He always listens. I love you all!

~Elder Cappuccio

Dear James,

Sorry about not getting my last email. I guess you have it by now. I really liked your email. Thanks for writing down stuff to share with us.

I didn't dig any toilets, but I tiled the upstairs bathroom this week and when I get done grouting, I'll be buying a new toilet to put in there.... I have been digging in the garden this week and planting some new flowers. Also, Glenn( a man I'm dating) fixed the ceiling in the study and then painted the ceiling, the walls and the baseboards for me. It helps that he's a professional painter, but he is very nice to help me. With moving peoples homes and digging toilets you'll keep in good shape, at least when it's warm, not sure you can do that stuff in the winter. ...and take it easy on the pickaxes.....and hopefully you'll have better success with Meekers....

At work I was having a slow week, hadn't sold a loan all week, then on Friday, I sold a large loan to a Greek family in New York. Having Greek heritage and a name like Athena has helped me sell a few loans =). and also prayer came in handy for me too. We'll keep praying for you and you for us.....thanks for your dedication and example you are to all of us.

We love you. keep the fire burning,

love always, mom

Power of Prayer and digging toilets...Deep stuff

**special note here- I(mom) wrote him Sunday evening, but it's already Monday morning so he might have just missed my email.....so here's his letter and my email he didn't get is posted below his as I usually do:

Allllright, well although you didn't write me for this week, that's ok, i'll still write you! I made sure to write down a bunch of stuff to write about for this last week so hopefully this e-mail will be interesting.

So this last Saturday and Sunday we watched conference. It was fantastic! I loved every moment of it. Every talk just had something to gain from it and the SPirit was ever present. The Prophet's counsel to us in his closing remarks was so true. We need to make the most of our time, right now! "Find joy in the journey, NOW!" The neat thing is, he talked about that same thing last time in conference. I suppose we aren't doiing a good enough job living to the fullest and enjoying the life God has given us. After all, the doctrine of having fun is in the scriptures. 2Ne 2:25 says "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy". So there ya go! Whether the economy is collapsing or you're cramped in a Meeker in Mongolia, enjoy yourself! After all, joy isn't found in the amount of income you bring in or any of those wordly things, it's found in caring for people, teaching the Gospel, spending time with family. Those things can all be done without a sweet paycheck. Of course we all need money but I've learned that I should never have to worry about that. Jacob gave the Lord's promise about that in the Book of Mormon. If we seek first the Kingdom of God, everything else will fall inline. Isn't it wonderful? One verse specifically states that after we receive a hope in Christ we will obtain riches, if it is our desire. The Lord's plan is wonderful, the specifics may not be the same for us all, but the final outcome is all one glorious goal: eternal life and immortality. That's the richest you can get!

So, this last Tuesday, it SNOWED! It was crazy! It like rained a bit before so the snow didn't stick but for most of the time, the snow was going sideways. It was way sweet. I hadn't bought all my winter stuff so i ended up having to get 3 fingers amputated because of frostbite. Haha, just kidding. But it was pretty cold waiting for a meeker that never came for 45 minutes with the wind blowing every bit of heat out of ya. I enjoyed it. Needless to say, today I am going to go to the black market (zakh) and get everything I need for the winter.

Oh, so I had a pretty funny experience with prayer recently. At our last zone conference, they reiterated the importance of having another male in the household when you visit with people. That is very hard in Mongolia in the summer and fall because all the men usually work and they don't like to listen anyways. So, our other option is to take church members with us. in our branch, that is also very limited. So recently we really had very little chances of meeting with investigators unless we could get a branch missionary to come with us. So, we had a lesson set up for thge following day and we were looking desperately for a male to come with us. We had asked the lady we would meet with if her husband would be home and she said no, he usually got home around 830 or 9. So, we had a hope in one branch missionary that said maybe, we would ahve to call him again later the day of. So, we prayed so earnestly for a male to go with us. later the day of, we went out and taught english. When we finished, we called the branch missionary and to our dismay, he said he was busy. It was rather disheartening. Still, we headed down to the church to see if there was anyone that could just go with us from the church. After a fruitless attempt, we figured we needed to go to her house and at least tell her we couldn't find a male to come with us. We headed to the meeker stop and waited. And waited. And waited. 45 minutes we waited, in the snow and cold and no meeker came. We tried to call her from a phone and somehow lost the connection. Well, after awhile, we headed back and did someother work. Just contacting and setting up appointments becauee we couldn't find a meeker to get out to her place. Well, the funny part about all of this is that between the time we talked with her the night before this all happened and when it happened, her husband became sick! therefore, he didn't go to work that day and was at home! When we found that out, I was shocked! The Lord has answered our prayer! We had prayed for a male to go with us so we could teach, and there was one there! So, I said to my companion, "next time we need to pray for a male AND a meeker". haha. anyways. That day I did gain a stronger testimony that this is the Lord's work and that he will help the prayerful missionary fulfill his duty.

Oh, another neat thing I did this last week was dig a toilet. In Mongolia, a lot of places don't have running water. Hence, no toilets. So, they dig one the old fashion way! These last two weeks we have helped dig two. They usually go 3 meters (about 9 feet) and so you can't do it all in one setting. We usually just help what we can. Anyways, so we go to this one house on the top of a mountain and start to dig one out. This place was PURE rock! We started out with 2 shovels, 2 pickaxes, and a metal rod used to break up rock. When we had to stop working, we had 2 shovels, and the metal rod. What happened to the 2 pickaxes? I broke them! The stress from pounding through all the rock just split the wood in half. It was way funny. We all took turns using the pickaxes (there was 4 of us) but they always broke in my hands. Haha. So that was fun.

Also, the other day, we hopped on a Meeker and headed to our area. The problem was, my companion took the last seat and so i had to just kind of stand up in this van. So if you can imagine, there are 4 rows of seats with 4 people in each. Most of the people almost hit the roof of the car when sitting down. Now I'm standing up in this meeker, pressed up against the sliding door and leaning over. So here I was folding up hanging halfway into the aisle. to make things worse the lady I happened to be exactly over was breast-feeding her baby! It made for quite an awkard meeker ride. I rode that way for about 10 minutes. and my legs were way sore after it. haha

So, lastly, I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate you Mom! I love you alot! It seems like things back home are getting harder and harder and yet you're still doing your best. It's because I had a mom like you to raise me and instil in me those traits you have that I'm here now. You and Dad did such a great job raising me and I am forever grateful for both of you. NOw, indirectly, you two are blessing the lives of these Mongolian people as the Lord leads me to their lives. This work is true and whether we're on the ground doing it, or supporting it, we are working. And everyone can do this work, everyone MUST do this work! I love you all,

~Elder Cappuccio

This is what I sent james but he didn't get it before he wrote his email.....

Dear James,

I hope you enjoyed listening to conference. It was good, but I always enjoy reading it a time or two to really understand everything. We had a good week. I took 3 days off work and took the kids on a camp out with other single parents up on the Mongollon rim near Bear lake. It was really cold there, about 40 degrees at night, so i am glad to have a warm bed and hot shower again( I don't know how you handled cold showers for so long, but I guess it's better than nothing!) My hair still smells like campfire smoke after 2 washes. Joseph and Cali got to ride ATV's around the trails and Hopper had a great time too. She swam in the lake we went fishing in and ate everyone's leftovers. There were a lot of little kids there who gave her attention too, so she was in heaven. Cali caught a fish and Joseph got one on the line but it got away. Everyone had a fun time, so i am glad I made Joseph come, even though he protested about going.

I am working on what to do for a Chrsitmas program and I thought it might be cool to get all the missionaries in our ward to write or record a message from the mission field to be read or played on Christmas morning. I know your camera has a video mode, but I didn't know if you could use it to record a message and email it to me. Even if we just had a written message that someone in the family read would be cool.

I hope you are doing well and I am grateful that you are serving the Lord and the people in Mongolia. We love to hear from you and look forward to being inspired by your testimony each week.

I know the Church is true and it gives me hope and comfort and makes sense in a world where things tend to be confusing.

We love you

Keep the fire burning!

Love always,

Mom

Football, donuts and Chess: P-day activites

Alright, lets first address your concerns! So i did receive the CD player and the Speakers, they came just fine. As far as I know, all the food that you sent came fine as well! It is so good. The poptarts are already gone though because I shared them. Next time we might need more of them! And more gusher too, of course. I think if you could send some spices and stuff like that. Cinnammon. That is way good and helps make lots of yummy food. I drink the vitamin c drink mostly everday, but I don't know if there will be enough to last until you send the next batch. I think it's really helped because I've been having a stuffy nose for the past two weeks but other than that nothing serious has developed and so I'm very thankful for that. I also got the email about the checking account. I forgot to ask President about it last week so I'll write him an e-mail and ask him this week and see what he says.

That's to bad about Joseph but that's way cool to hear about Cali and Amy doing well! And I can't believe that happened to Elder Eyestone! That's unreal! Man, tell him I hope he gets better and he'll be in my prayers. So do you really want me to sent back all those letters? That's gonna be kinda expensivo!

So when I get back to America, I will definitely be making some Mongolian food. Of course, I'll have to change some of the ingredients and make it better and add stuff to it, but you're gonna like a lot of it. Or at least I hope you do! :) YOu're going to run another marathon?! Sweet! That'll be awesome! The way conference works here in Mongolia is they record it and translate it and then they send it here. Then we'll watch it on Saturday and Sunday at the same time as you all saw it, just a week later. I'm way excited for it. We'll be watching the English version with all the American Elders. That will be way good because we're going to have a potluck! :)

The weather here is still pretty nice. You can see your breath most days but it hasn't gotten really really cold just yet. Hopefully it won't do it anything soon because I still ahven't bought all the stuff I need for the winter! I'll be doing that this upcoming Preparation Day. This Preparation day we all got together at the church and played some football and made donuts and just played some games. I'm kind of getting good at chess so maybe I can take on Grandpa when I get home. He's way good though so I don't know.

Anyways, this week was alright. It was really slow in terms of missionary work. Sometimes my companion has trouble being motivated but we're working on it and so work should be picking up hopefully. Please pray for us that we can be successful! One of our new members was supposed to get the priesthood this week but he didn't show up at church which really upset me. He was doing really well lately and making all his meetings and then he didn't come. Besides that, not much else happened. We teach two more hours of English now on Thursdays. We teach english teachers. Thay have a guitar and an electronic keyboard in their class so I'm way excited to maybe incorportate that somehow...or just practice while my companion teaches. haha. Alright. Well, I tried to make it as interesting as I can this week but just not much happened! I'll try to make next week way exciting so that you have a lot of stuff to read about. ok? Alright, sounds good.

Most importantly, as I do this work day to day, I realize the magnitude of what the Savior did for us. My understanding grows each day. In turn, my gratitude grows each day. I am so grateful for this wonderful Plan of Salvation and the center of it, our Savior Jesus Christ. I'm so glad that it stretches to every people and every country. That even the people of Mongolia can hear of the peace and love that flows from God through his Son, Jesus Christ. I love this work and I love Him who's work it is.

I hope this letter finds you all well. I love you all so much!

~Elder Cappuccio

Dear old man James,

Helloooooo, we are still here in Arizona and still lovin life. If you think you're getting old, then I am really in trouble....Just got done listening to General Conference. It always gives me a lift, kind of like your letters =). KW Hodgson said after you have been out a year your letters/emaiils will get shorter and shorter, because there isn't any new stuff to write, but I think you'll be able to keep thinking of things to share, like getting kicked in the thigh! You played lacrosse and football, so a kick in the thigh is like a mosquito bite. There was a whole talk in conference about how we should respond to attacks on our faith by others and the answer was with "Christian kindness." I read comments on the online news and the stuff people blog about after it and there are a lot of people out there who like to say bad things about our church or people in our church. But, I don't ever see anyone from our church getting mean back to the people on the blog, just sometimes a explanantion of what we do or believe in. Watching the choir at conference also reminded me of you. It would be cool if you and Amy sang in the Tabernacle Choir someday and Cali could guest star! The last song the choir sang was, "We Ever Pray for Thee, Our Prophet Dear." I remember you sang that for the prophet at the MTC.The missionary choir sang at the Priesthood session. Did you get to listen to any s essions? Your Sunday is already over by the time Conference starts, so you probably have regular meetings. They annouced 5 more temples, one of them is going to be in Rome, Italy! That will be very cool.

Ok, So I just wanted to check a few things....did you get the CD player and CD in the box of goodies? I know the food was the most exciting part, but I just want to make sure the other stuff got there too. And if you take those vitamin C drink mixes everyday, you will probably avoid getting a bad cold. Also did you get my email about you checking account and calling to stop the bill pay service?

Ok on to news from home. Weather here is finally nice. Today if was sunny and 80 so I took Hopper on a walk! So it must be getting cold where you are. We need a picture of you with all your winter clothes on for the blog. Anyway so on to family news.....Joseph is grounded from the computer when school starts after fall break, until he gets his grade in Honors Chemistry up to a C and his math grade up to a B. Cali got straight A's her 1st quarter of Jr High. and Amy is doing well in all her classes(she's not taking chemistry!). Crystal is still Ace-ing school and working, but she works at the Childrens Museum in Phoenix now and likes it much better than being a teller at the bank. As for me, I'm training to run a marathon again and have got up to 11 miles so far. I went trail running with Betsy yesterday and I w asn't ready for the hills, so I am going to be sore for a few days. I had to walk on the uphills, so I'm not in great shape yet( actually a long way from great shape). I'll try it again in a month snd see if i do better. Oh yea BYU is good this year in football. They are ranked #8 so far and ar 5-0. Utah is also 5-0 and ranked #15, so the after Thanksgiving game in SLC will be a crazy one for sure! Maybe it will be on National TV.

Also, I just found out that Elder Eyestone is back home recovering from a back injury he sustained on his mission. He fell off of a ladder while painting a house for a service project for a member or investigator. He might be able to go back in 2 months. He hurt his lower back because when he fell he landed on a wall right in the lower back area. I hope he recovers soon. I'll tell him you have some of his letters! So if you get a chance you should mail those back and we'll send them to the rightful owners. That was pretty crazy. You get all excited to get a pile of mail to find out most of it wasn't even written to you.

Good to hear your new member is doing well and hope you have success with all your efforts. I forwarded you Devin's last email and he sounds like he is doing well and enjoying the food too! When you get back I don't think you will able to get any horse steak here....maybe Mexico?

Thanks for being such a gr eat example for me and everyone. I pray that you will also be watched over and protected. Have a great week. I look forward to hearing from you again. We love you!

Love always,

keep the fire burning!

Mom

Still Lovin it, as much fun as a kick in the thigh! really!

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeelo!

It’s me again, and I’m still in Mongolia, still on my mission, still loving life. As of last Thursday, I’ve been in the country for 8 weeks! Crazy huh! Man I’m old, I’ve almost been on my mission for a 1/2 year. Don’t worry, I’m not getting trunky (that’s a missionary term for when you start anticipating your departure a little too much). So…what happened this week for me? I’ll tell you shortly, I’ll quickly address what you wrote about earlier and then I’ll continue.

I got your package last week on Monday, it may have arrived earlier but I don’t know, I only check on Mondays and I wrote last weeks email before I checked for the package. Anyways, I really appreciated it! The candy is spot on. I love those type of poptarts, I LOVE gushers. The mashed potatoes are a way sweet thing to use. And every thing else I got in there is awesome. Thank you so much! Now, the letters were a little weird…I was way excited to get all the letters but, to my dismay, half of them were addressed to the other ward missionaries!!! I’ve got like 5 to Elder Fisher, then others to Elder Eyestone, Elder Clawson, and Elder Miller….how’d that happen? Anyways, I hope their not mad I took their mail haha. Also, Brother Young talked about a plaque being in the bottom of the box. I looked and it wasn’t there so he either forgot to put it in or someone took it out before it got to me. However, the box wasn’t opened when I got it so I don’t know! Anyways, most importantly, it was wonderful to get a package from home and I really appreciate all the care and effort and money that went into it. Tell the ward and especially Brother Young THANK YOU!

That’s too bad about America, sounds like rough times! Guess it would be kind of boring though if it wasn’t happening. Just be comforted in the fact that no matter what happens, the righteous members of God’s true church will be blessed whether in this life or the next. That’s something you can bank on always.

So, you asked if we’re teaching English. The answer is YES! We teach 8 hours a week: 4 at two separate places. The first place is called Dream Way LTC. It’s like a free English teaching place and so whoever wants to come, comes. We usually just have like 2 or 3 people to teach so it’s kind of boring but I do the best I can at making it an enjoyable experience. The other place is called Undarga Secondary School. We teach like 4 grade levels there and they all are way smart in English. They can all write and read a bunch but they don’t talk it well. That’s why I’m there! So it’s a little harder to teach there cuz their little kids and they’re rambunctious! We showed them Over the Hedge for one class so they could practice listening and another day I taught them the first verse to Lupe Fiasco’s “Superstar”. That was fun. Don’t worry though, it’s allowable! We’re doing for the cause of English! So yea, that’s my English situation and I don’t mind it too much. I actually like teaching a lot it’s just a little hard trying to figure out how to connect with them and get them excited about it like you are. Ok, so really, Horse meat is really good. It’s better than any other type that I can think of here in Mongolia. A horse steak would destroy a cow steak anyday of the week in my opinion.

Anyways…this week! It was pretty eventful in some ways. The other day I built my first Ger! We helped this one investigator family move and so we took down their ger, packed it in the back of a truck and then set it up at another location. It was way sweet! The floor was a little hard to sort out because it was like a puzzle and we had to figure out which one went where. Don’t worry though, I won and solved the puzzle. After that we put together the whole thing. It’s a pretty simple design but it’s remarkably warm during the winter. It can be like -40 outside and then 80 or 90 inside their ger! Sweet huh! And it’s all done with just fur and a stove in the center! So that was a good experience. It took awhile though…like 6 hours :( Also, I gave my first talk in Mongolian sacrament! I had borne my testimony before but this was like a real talk! SO that was way scary but I prepared and I followed the Spirit’s guidance and so it went well. They felt the Spirit and that’s the most important part. I gave it on likening the Scriptures. Also, another first. I received my first act of violence in Mongolia! The other day we were sitting at a bus stop just waiting for a meeker and then all of a sudden some guy comes up and just kicks me in the thigh and keeps walking. Me and like everyone around just like look at the guy are we’re like…”…ok?” Haha it was pretty funny actually. It didn’t really hurt and everyone around me was like, that guy’s a jerk. Anyways, I thought that was pretty neat, it could be worse ya know, another missionary got it pretty bad but I won’t go into detail just because I don’t want to worry ya’ll. Most importantly, we’re missionaries on the Lord’s errand and what happens is seen by the Lord. So, in terms of missionary work, we’re getting a little bit of success in my area. It’s really been like trying to revive an almost dead corpse but it’s coming along. We got 7 new investigators this week. Two families and then these two girls that are friends. The two families came to church today and I’m really excited for them because they seem very interested.

One of my new members, Otgone, recently got back from Japan. He’s got a problem with his eye and so he went to a hospital to get it check out. Everything is going to be good from what he said and he’ll be able to read books in not too long of a time. He shared with me a great story about how he was in the hospital and he was really hurting and scared. Then he prayed. After that, he said he didn’t hurt anymore, he was calm. He knew and I know that it was the Lord comforting him. I’m so excited for him and the way he’s progressing in his spiritual journey. He’s going to get the Aaronic priesthood next week which is going to be another great step for him. I can’t fully express the joy I get each Sunday as I talk to new members and investigators that have come to the Lord’s true church on the earth. It’s just a great feeling because I know that they’re on the right path and that they can find rest and true happiness here. Alright, so that’s about it for this week. As I continue on in this work, I just continue to see the Lord’s hand and know that he is there. That not one sparrow falls from the sky without the Lord seeing it, as Jesus taught. And more importantly, we are greater than that in God’s eyes and therefore he will provide for us if we will seek him. Isn’t in wonderful to know that our Heavenly Father never sleeps or is off duty, but that we can always find him in pray, in searching the scriptures, in attending the church and the temple. I marvel at that fact everyday.

K, well I love you all and hope and pray for the Lord’s protection over you. ~Elder Cappuccio

-----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:26:13 -0400 Subject: Horse meat and Shith Lords

Dear James, So, I guess if your apartments aren't too bad I think I can handle a picture or two.... I could forward those Realtor pictures to your grandmother so she will not worry so much. She pictured you sitting on dirt floors in your new missionary suit while teaching members- have any pictures of that? Maybe when you get out in the country...

Sounds like your food is getting better except for the horse meat! The lamb I like, but nt sure I could like horse meat unless I didn't know what t was.? At our ward picnic brother Young was telling me about his Korean dining experiences and it was disgusting.? I think he enjoys telling us about that stuff. I also noticed you have been blessed by a better keyboard last week, so we didn't have quite a reading challenge this time.? Most of the people who get your emails think it makes the email better- adds some humor, so maybe it's not such a bad thing after all.

That's nice the Joan Oakey wrote you a letter.? She is very nice, just wished she would move back close by. I forward you emails to her so she might forward them to Dan, but I haven't got any forwards form Dan. I will forward any mail I do get. So did you get the package brother Young mailed? If you got it when did it get there? Just want to see how long it took to get there.... We might need to send Christmas stuff in October. Thanks for the information about Mongolian people. I agree the names can be pretty weird. I think a name should be something you are proud of that means something, but obviously some people don't look at it that way. The politics and financial news is heating up. Government is bailing out the financial mess to void a depression, presidential debates are starting up and I am glad to still have a job. I don't think it is crazy that McCain picked a woman, it actually helped him in the polls. Voting Republican doesn't mean we are voting for the same thing we have had for the last 8 years though.? I think whoever is President will have a rough time. Anyway, I hope you are teaching many investigators and having a good time with your new companion. Are you teaching English now? WE love you and hope you are well. Love always, Keep the fire burning! Mom

Mongolian Apartments, horse meat and Shith Lords

Ha, that's interesting! How'd you get on a Mongolian Realtor's e-mail list?!?!

Anyways, let me first assure you that our apartments are not even CLOSE to those ones. I'll have to put some pictures on of ours. From what i've gathered, the apartments in my area are probably some of the nicest in the mission for the regular missionaries. Senior missionaries are nicer of course...anyways, this past week has been great for showers! Up untill yesterday we had no hot water in the apartments! That meant we were showering in REALLY COLD water! The kind that feels like ice when you run your hand under it. So that's how I cleaned up for the past 6 days or so. It was great. Anyways, a little secret is to sing while your in there. That or scream. Either way it just doesn't seem as cold for some reason. :) So yea...the hot water is back on and it fluctuates a lot! I almost got burned today!

Alright, so the food has been much better for me! I got to eat some homemade hooshoor from a new members house last monday and it was SOOOOO GOOD! They killed the lamb that evening and then cooked it up. Man, it was good. Then with my new companion, we've been to some nice restaurants and eaten. Those were way good. By the way, a nice restaurant in Mongolia is usually around 5 to 7 dollars a plate for food and it's usually a lot of food. Other places are just like 2 or 3 dollars if you're really hungry. Just to give you an idea of things, we live off of 50 dollars a missionary (give or take) each week. Most of the time we don't even spend that much. So, my new companion! His name is Elder Alexander. His real name is Elder Shaw though. Shaw in Mongolian is a REALLY bad word and so they changed it. He's from Provo Utah but he grew up in New Jersey so he's got an accent that's pretty rich. One cool thing is that his family actually fed Elder Clawson and his companion not too long ago and he mentioned that he had a friend serving in Mongolia! Now we're companions! He's a pretty neat guy and I think you'll be hearing about a lot of good work coming through us pretty soon!

Ok, so today I wanted to share some neat things that make Mongolia unique. The first thing is: names! So i talked about it a little bit, but the names are wierd here! the can all be translated to mean various things. Sadly, some of them aren't the best names. For example, nergui. That means 'without a name' and it's fairly common among Mongolians! Another is guluk which means 'puppy'. The worst I can think of that is actually a name is khuunbesh which means 'not a person'. Crazy huh! We went to a cementary today to explore and we found other names like 'yellow son' 'brown child' 'not this'. SO there you go! If you thought movie stars name their kids wierd...think about Mongolian names!

The next thing...Shith pirates. These guys are people that go around all day picking up empty glass and plastic bottles to redeem for cash. They carry big bags around on the sidewalks and streets and say thinks like "We'll take glass!" and then just take it to these centers that give them cash for it. There's a lot of them around here and there's actually one that goes to church and brings her bag with her. So yea, shith or shil is glass and so we call them (originated from Elder Morrison) shith pirates. The people taht collect all the glass from them are called shith lords. Haha funny eh?

Alright, and then there's Horse meat. It's WAY GOOD! I don't know if you've ever tried it, but they eat it here a lot, especially in the winter because it's a hot meat. I'm excited for the winter if that means more horse meat :).

So that's some stuff about Mongolia that's just a little different from America. As more things come out i'll make sure to mention them! But what is this about McCain choosing a woman? And how is he winning? Have the people forgotten who was just in the White House for the last 8 years? Goodness. I might not want to come back if things keep heading this way. So, I do miss politics, dearly. If you could maybe send a little information, bite size stuff, that could be appreciated. Not too much though, i've got to keep my head in Mongolia and on the Lord's work.

We didn't have too much happen in terms of missionary work this week because I've been showing my new senior companion around and basically rebuilding the area's work up after my last companion left. It's hard but we've had some really neat lessons where the Spirit has been strong and it's then I know that the Lord does prosper this work and those that seek to build His kingdom through His methods will be blessed for it. And knowing that makes me so glad to be here in Mongolia doing what I'm doing!

I got a short letter from Sister Oakey which was really nice to receive. If she could forward me Dan's letters or somethging and you do the same for Elder Oakey that would be cool so i could stay posted on him and hear his stories.

ALright, so that's just about it for this week's e-mail. I decided that if you wanted to send another package soon it should most defintely include: Kool Aid packets, beef jerky, American candy, soup cans (maybe?) and then more Gillette Fusion razor blades, and then if Joseph or Amy could put together EFY cds that would be wonderful!

Alright, I love you! I hope this letter finds you well and that work keeps going good for you! Your Son and Missionary,

Elder Cappuccio

-----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:29:57 -0400 Subject: Fwd: Apartments For Rent in Ulaanbaatar

Dear James, This is the 2nd email I received about apartments for rent in Ulaanbaatar, so I was wondering if you were trying to give me an idea of what your living conditions were like.? I don't know how I got on this Realtor's email list, but at least these apartments look nice.? Are your apartments similar? I am sure you don't have the one with the big red round bed....? Anyway they all seem like the could be just down the road.? I hope you food has been more boring this week. I was eating breakfast when I read about the fingernail and unlike you i made my stomach turn. it reminded me about the time in Jr High when I found one of the lunch lady's band aids in my lasagna. I hope you received your care package by now.? Besides the food we sent there is the small cd player, speakers and your choir cd.

Well got to run to choir practice- we miss you at choir practice. When you get back you have to sing in church with Ben. I always like to hear you sing. I especially liked when you sang "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" in the play about Joseph Smith. Take care and keep the fire burning! Love Always,

Mom

Periods missing and fun Finger(nail) food

Why hellooooo there! So this week no letters from Elder MIller, Fisher, or Clawson! Ah! haha, i miss those Elders; When we get back from the missions there are going to be some good times to be had! Anyways, first and foremost, the problem with this week's keyboard: the 'period' key--it works only if slammed upon and I won't be doing that so ;=. Got it? Sweet, here I go! So this week has been another eventful week, I've learned a lot; You asked if it is getting cold, and well it kinda is and it kinda isn't; It hasn't got to that time of the year where it starts heading towards winter temperatures so right now it just depends on clouds, rain, and the likes; Today its pretty cool outside because yesterday it was real windy and cloudy and rained; The wind is one of the biggest elements--It can be nice out, like 70 F* but then the wind will be real cold and just cut ya! I guess that's cuz it's coming from SIberia or somethin like that; Anyways, I've got my sweater and it sounds like it's a good buy too! I'll be getting the other things probably next Preparation day; Alright, so onto other news: This week we had another baptism! It was terrific; Her name is Enkhtoya and her husband baptised her; It was really great because now their family is united in the Gospel and maybe they'll be able to save up to go to Hong Kong to be sealed-that would be awesome; They have two really cute kids, one boy and one girl, they're always smiling! Oh, so today I had a neat little experience in one of the little restaurants we frequent--I found a fingernail in my food! Haha, it was very unexpected, I guess I forgot where I was eating but I was like, what the heck! Anyways, the good side of the story is that I had eaten pretty much most of the meal before I found the fingernail so my image of the food wasn't tainted till it really didn't matter anymore; We also got the item for free so I saved two dollars! And, I didn't get sick, which I was very grateful for! You remember how I said my District Leader gave me a Priesthood Blessing when I was relaly sick 5 weeks back? Haven't gotten sick since! That is a testimony of the power of Priesthood; About the package, haven't got it yet! But I'm very anxiously waiting for it, hopefully it'll come before next week; In the next package I'll probably need more of the razors heads that I use; It's the one's that are Orange and Blue, I totally forgot the name right now; and the brand; yea, blank; but anyways, the features are 3 razors in the front, 1 in the back; there are two types of the replacement heads to my knowledge, the regular ones and the "power" ones; I usually just get the regular ones and I don't know if the other ones will fit with mine anyways; That's awesome that Elder Burgoyne is headed out to the MTC! He's gonna go so well, he's just so principled that he's just going to continuing to grow in power and knowledge; That's also sad to hear about the passing of Brother Fenn; I can't recall him specifically though unfortunately, i wish I could; As for letters from friends,,,not getting any, but then again it does take forever for things to get to Mongolia, if they get here; It's ok, as long as my family continues to write me, I should be alright! Wow, BYU STOMPED UCLA! That's crazy; Is BYU really good or is UCLA just finished? That's unreal! Ok, so about our work; This week has been very interesting week; Starting on wednesday I'll have a new companion; His name is Elder Alexander and he's American; Things with this companion have kinda gone south; Our work started out very well and as a result we blessed a few people's life by bringing them into the Gospel but gradually things just started dying out and problems arose; It wasn't solely either of our faults, I was overzealous and he had his own problems; He ended up going in to talk to the Mission President and he helped him stay in the mission; I'm so thankful for that! My companion is an amazing teacher and an amazing missionary so I was glad that he didn't leave; Still, things are strained some times, he gets angry very easy and it can be at pretty much anything; From all this I've learned a lot though; One of the things that I was not very learned about beforehand was the role of a Junior companion as opposed to a Senior companion and how some take that to be; My misunderstanding of that led to a problems; Anyways, after my companion met with the mission president, I asked if I could meet with him and just get a blessing from him (It was something the District Leader has suggested to help me becuase it was really not a happy time after being continually chewed out); I'm so glad I followed my District Leader's advise in that matter; It helped so much; I don't want to go into what he said because it's very dear to me but I know this much, that it was the President's voice I heard, but it was the Lord's words and the Holy Spirit was there confirming every bit of it; I left that office with a renewed sense of confidence and a better understanding of what my role was in this mission; I'm excited, it's a great mission to be apart of and there are many things to be done here; So, I don't really have much more time to write, but keep writing me! I love you all and this work is true! Nothing else could make me happier right now! ~Elder Cappuccio Dear James, It's good to hear from you again and especially like to hear about the people who you teach and their stories. So, I guess it must be getting cold there soon if you bought a jacket. I think a jacket like that would cost about $150 here. What else are you going to buy for the winter? Would you like some Hot Cocoa mix for Christmas. I sent some with the last package. Did you get that package yet? I love the pictures you sent of the cute kids(and the cute Elder too). I will post them on the blog too! Yes, it does get a bit quiet around here with just Cali and Joseph....and Hopper. We all talked to Amy yesterday, she is liking BYU and her classes. She is in the activities committee in her BYU ward and she also taught Sunday school today, because she was talking to the Sunday School President at a ward party on Friday and offered to sub if they ever needed someone and he said by the way we need someone this Sunday, so she was like ok, sure. She tried out for the Swing Team, but made it as a back-up right now. On the lines of BYU, the football team creamed UCLA 59-0 at BYU! Today was Ryan Burgoyne's' farewell talk. He gave a great talk and will be a great missionary. Brother Fenn in our ward passed away this week. I don't know if you knew him, but I went to the funeral, it was nice. Brother Haught gave a great talk on the Plan of Salvation. Everyone says "hi" and=2 0always asks how you are doing. Are you getting any letters from your friends? Do you need any addresses to write to anyone? I know you don't have much time to write, but we love to hear from you, because your letters are very inspiring. I look forward to hearing from you and get up early on Monday so I can read your email before work. We love you. Keep the fire burning! Love Always, Mom

Baptisms and a new jacket

James' emailfrom Sept 9,

, it's me again. The problem with the computer this time? slightly malfunctioning p and s keys. It's a retty good one though! ANyways, I'm here in Mongolian and it's been a beautiful rainy day so far. Man, i love the rain. It usually makes everyone else grumpy and not in a good mood but I love it. That story you shared with me in the e-mail is one I actually read either thi week or last week. It's a good one isn't it! It's just so wonderful to think how blessed all the missionaries are that humbly seek the Lord's help. He readily gives it! So you went snorkeling and all that jazz huh? That's pretty sweet! It must be getting pretty empty at home with only cali and joseph there! You're not too far off from being an empty nester! haha, just kidding you've got a good six years or so right? :) So yea, lets recap this week real quick, it's been an exciting one:

So, after the interview with President, I thought things were going to get a lot better. I was insired and motivated and my companion looked excited and motivated. That all but died out in me by the end of Tuesday. It was like we just went back to the same frustrating situation. We didn't do any of the stuff we planned on doing and I just tried my best to support his decisions and follow along. Somehow we still managed to get messed up. So, without going through everything that I did, Thursday and Friday saw me with our District Leader, Elder Hardman, on a split. His companion, Elder Morrison, stayed with my companion and we went to work. The first day working with Elder Hardman was Amazing! I can honestly say it was one of the best days I've ever had out in Mongolia. The Spirit was there in every lesson, I had language comprehension like I'd never experienced before and things just went so well! Elder Hardman even remarked at how well the day had gone for his work. We actually went to an in-active members house trying to reactivate him and walked out with basically a reactivated member and a baptismal date. We went in and it was late so we had to be quick but all of a sudden, the man says, my wife needs to become a member. And she's like, yea, I need to be baptized. I didn't completely understand the import of what they said, I was just happy that we were going to get another investigator to teach and bring into the Gospel. Then after the lesson Elder Hardman told me the background and I was like...WHOA. haha anyways, so it was way sweet.

On Friday we had our baptismal service. There were 4 baptisms that day, one was our investigator, Otgone, and another was Elder Hardman's investigator, Daska. Otgone is this shy guy. He's pretty quiet, but when he gets excited, he just talks! After the baptism, all the new converts are invited to bear their testimony. He went up and he was so nervous, he sputtered out an 'I know God lives' and an 'Amen' and quickly fled the pulpit. As he walked down the ramp, he slapped his hand to his head in a display of embarrassment and I just had to laugh because it was so great. He sat down in his chair and just kinda slumped there, wishing he had said more. I am honestly so excited to see him gain more confidence in this Gospel. I've sensed a lot of desire in him and he's got a good heart, if he can jut grow stronger, he'll be such a great member, I just know it!

So on Saturday, we didn't really do much. I rejoined my companion and we were supposed to do a companionship inventory but he just kept doing other stuff and we had to get to a baptismal interview so it didn't really happen. Anyway, baptismal interview. That was great! We've got another baptism scheduled for this Friday, making 4. The best thing about this one is that she's the wife of a member. Now they'll have a united family in the Gospel and that is what it's all about! Around 6 that day ourBranch President took our district out to dinner in the city. The city has some pretty good places to eat and so it was sweet. It was a decently expensive place for Mongolia (my food cot about $11). I'm still trying to figure out what my branch president does. He's well off by their standards but he works out in the countryide...maybe he's a slave trader, I don't know. haha anyways, he's a great man and really helps the branch here.

Sunday. Sunday was a crazy day. Otgone almot didn't make it to church! That really scared me. I thought he was going to ditch us and never come back because he's so shy. Luckily, only his Meeker had broken down and he was just as eager to get to church as we were for him. I was blesed again to confer upon him the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It was so neat to see how him receiving that changed him! When he first got to church, he said he had to leave after sacrament because he had stuff to do. After receiving the Holy Ghost, I asked him if he had to go and he's like, 'No I want to stay, where's the next class?" I was shocked! I really couldn't believe it. But I happily pointed him the right direction and he headed to class.

At the same time, my companion had developed some serious chest pain, specifically his heart. When it started to spread to his left side of his body I got really worried and I let our District Leader know. We ket monitoring him and it got better for a bit than just escalated. It wa painful to see him suffer like that. Finally the mision doctor felt we should take him to a hospital to have him checked. We headed out there and they took care of him. In the end, nothing really serious resulted. My companion is alive and well, and I'm very grateful for that. However, during it all, I was honestly scared for his life. I ket thinking back to how during our last companionship prayer I hadn't said 'I love you' like we normally do because I wa upset over some discrepancy. and so I was thinking to myself, if he were to die, he would think I didn't care about him. And the thing that I realized is this; I care about him so much! Even if he does do thinks that irk me or just go against what we both know we're suposed to do, I still love him and care about him as my companion. If the Lord provided that experience for no other reason than that, I would be very grateful. It taught me a great lesson. So as I said before, he's all good now, and I'm glad. He's still not perfect, and it's still hard at times, but I'm trying my best to show that I love him in word and deed.

Other than that, everything's good in Mongolia! A week or so ago, I bought a sweet North Face jacket for the winter. It's huge and it's got like double layer gore-tex. It wa only 35 dollars :) Find out how much that sells for in AMerica, I'm curious. Anyways, I love the work and the language is still coming along fantastic. I love you all!

~Elder James Cappuccio

Mt orevius letter to James:

Dear James,

We had a great time in California, the weather was nice, well under 100 ! I went scuba diving at la Jolla Cove. It was fun but the visibility was not so good. Then later we took the kids snorkeling at the same place and saw lots of cool fish. Anyway, I just read an article in the Ensign that reminded me of your experience with speaking the language with the help of the Holy Ghost. I just copied and pasted the the first story in the article:

Speaking Words I Didn’t Understand

Unmistakable spiritual promptings attended me as a new missionary in Fitiuta, Manua, American Samoa, when I had to conduct a sacrament meeting in a room filled with curious villagers not of our faith.

Aviu, the only Samoan priesthood holder in the village, was bedridden with an illness and couldn’t conduct the meeting. I fasted and prayed fervently, deeply concerned because I could not understand the Samoan language well enough to converse with the people.

When Sunday came, my companion and I blessed the sacrament in English and passed it. I then stood and looked at the congregation. I knew what I wanted to communicate. I tried to open with traditional, polite greetings in Samoan, but the words didn’t come out right. I stopped and closed my eyes, feeling I’d have to speak in English. As I began speaking again, I had a sensation that my mouth was several inches in front of me, speaking in Samoan. The animated expressions on the faces in the congregation showed they understood my words. After the meeting my companion told me that our Church members said they were happy to hear my talk and that I was speaking perfect Samoan. I acknowledged the gift in my prayers that night. As the following Sunday approached, Aviu was still unable to leave his sickbed. I again fasted and prayed and had the same experience as the previous Sunday. I was humbled, recognizing again the feeling of being a tool in the Lord’s hands. The third Sunday approached with Aviu still sick. This time I felt confident the Spirit would prompt me. I wasn’t anxious. I didn’t fast or pray with the same urgency as before. I felt proud to have received the gift of tongues. But this time I failed. The congregation was puzzled when I couldn’t speak Samoan clearly. Pride stopped me from being receptive to the Spirit that time. This experience helped me learn that promptings will come to me only if I pray humbly and rely on the Spirit.

I don't think you need to worry about anyone thinking you are a wimp for being emotional about feeling the spirit, you'll find it happens quite a bit, it's a sign of humility not wimpiness. I think it is very cool about your baptisms and the chance you got to give the Holy Ghost.

Sometimes you have to have hard times to be humble and appreciate the good times better. Life definitely is a roller coaster, ups and downs and unexpected curves that seem to try to throw you off the track.

It would be great to see some pictures. I need to add a slide show to the blog of all your pictures, haven't had much time to do that yet. I'll maybe write you again before Monday. Got to go running....

Keep the fire burning!

Love Always,

Mom

California burgers in Mongolia

My email to James Aug 31st:

Dear James, Well, I am emailing you from California. I took the kids to the beach and Sea World for Labor Day Weekend. My new boyfriend Glenn is with us too. We are actually staying at a friend of his house in the the foothills near Laguna Beach. They have a nice house, but the craziest thing is they have a toilet that washes and dries you, so you don't need to wipe!

I like the meeker story, sounds like riding the subway in Europe as fas as being packed in tight, but at least it's not a bumpy ride. How's the language going? Everyone always asks me how you're doing with that and I tell them you are doing great.

I will forward you Devin and Tyler's letters too. I hope you are doing well. I love you and pray for you.

Keep the fire burning!

Love always,

mom

Email from James on Sept 1,2008

Awwww, California? Not fair. Haha, well i'm halfway around the worl in Mongolia so beat that. In fact, I was just eating at a place called California's! neat, huh. The cheeseburger was SOOOO good. No amusement parks here. You just have to ride the Meeker's for your rollercoaster. It's a pretty good one though, and way cheap. Anyways! I'm still alive and I'm still doing the Lord's work here in Mongolia.

This week was kinda hard; my companion and I didn't get a long at all. There were a lot of things that happened that contributed to it. However, suffice it to say that it was not a high point of my experience here in Mongolia. But let me say this. My c ompanion is one of the highest potential local missionaries in the mission and our work is really going to take off soon. I can't wait. Although we had issues, there's nothing prayer and humility can't fix. I think this week and the following weeks are going to be amazing with him. Of course we're going to have more disagreements and rough patches, but overall it's going to be sweeeeeet. Just wait, i'll write about it in no time. I just got out of my bi-transfer interview with the Mission President. He is an amazing man. Under the direction of the Spirit, he knows exactly what every missionary needs and what the mission needs. It was remarkable to see him work out problems the way he did.

Ok, so other news...This week we didn't have a lot of work. It was pretty dry actually. But we did have our baptism! That was so good! Our little grandma was wonderful! The water was pretty cold. The sisters has spent like 3 or 4 hours boiling water and putting it in the font but it didn't really help. However, she went in and was baptized. I hate saying this, because I don't want you to think I'm a whimp or anything but I was almost in tears as she was baptized. For so many years she had been without the Gospel. She has lost her entire family in a flood in Ulaanbaatar many years ago. Now she's finally on track to be reunited with them. It was beautiful. Then just the other day, she received the Gift of the Holy Ghost. As I mentioned in my letter last week, I would be giving it. I was really nervous about it seeing as it was in another language and I've only been here about a month. But , I memorized the part that needed to be memorized and then when it came time to give a blessing-I just listened. And what felt right, I said. It wasn't anything remarkable, I didn't speak amazing Mongolian that baffled everyone, but as my District Leader told me afterwards, he said, "I've never felt the Spirit like that before when someone was giving the Gift of the Holy Ghost". And that's what matters the most. From my perspective I was just so very grateful to have the opportunity to perform that ordinance for her. I'm glad that I was able to help bring her unto Christ. I was grateful to have the Spirit with me to make that valid and acceptable in the sight of the Lord.

But yea, I bought a photo album so I can carry around all the pictures of you guys and the missionaries I was with in the MTC. The Mongolians really like seeing my family and I love hearing what they have to say about all of you :). One thing, they always think that Amy is either my older sister or my girlfriend. Either way, I think it's pretty funny.

ahh....the language! I LOVE the Mongolian language! It is so much fun. It's hard of course. Very hard. There's so much to learn about it. It's deep and it's wide. But, I'm learning. Having a Mongolian companion has really helped. Sometimes I can't understand at all, sometimes I understand perfectly. Most often, it's connected with how prideful I get about my ability to speak it and how prayerful I am. The former hurts and the latter really helps. So yea, the language is coming along well. You can keep telling people that :) My hope and my goal is to be able to understand the majority within this transfer or maybe halfway through the next. I'm pushing to learn it as fast as possible because it's the gateway to understanding the people better and really being able to give then the Gospel the way that they'll understand it and accept it best.

Thank you for e-mailing me Tyler's and Devin's letters! That is so cool. I love hearing how they're doing and it really helps me in my work to see how they handle things and to read their spiritual experiences. So keep that up. And does Ben send e-mails? Get me his too! Anyways, I think that's about it for this week. Next week I'll make the letter more excited I guess. But I'm going to send some pictures this time. some of the kids here are so cute! Alright, I love you all and hope everything is going well.

Love, ~Elder Cappuccio

Meeker fun

Hellooooooo!

This week's e-mail will be much much easier to write because my keyboard is awesome! It works so well. So yea, i'm going to get to writing you about the events of this week. First, i'll answer some of the questions you had. I did get your e-mail last week but it was kinda funny how I got it. I e-mail'd you first and then got yours like 20 minutes later so i had time to read it but not to reply. Sorry! Anyways, I kinda...spilt grapefruit juice on the keyboard so it was fried. I was in the middle of writing Dad an e-maila nd had to just sent what I had because it wouldn't write any more :-\ Anyways...We do teach with the native Mongolians. All the time. My companion is a native Mongolian. he's from a city called Sethlenge. It's in the Sukhbaatar district. Then there are the branch missionaries. There are like 20 of them and we take them to teach with us sometimes. I don't really like it as much though because most of them are girls, and, even though they're tough, they whine a lot. They know their stuff though and they help in the lessons quite a bit. Oh, about the actively contacting. Absolutely! We call them ITL's (Invitations to Learn). Each missionary does them differently but essentially you just walk down the street and start talking to someone. You usually ask them how they're doing, how's their work or family, and then ask them if they've seen you before, or know what your work is, or know what your church is. Pretty straightforward like that. They usually say no and so you teach them a little about how our church is a restored church from Christ's original church and how it blesses families and answers all the questions we have. Then you ask them if they're interested in having us teach them more later. If they are, we take down their address and phone number and get back to them later. A lot of times people will give you their address and what not and then not be interested so you'll call them and they'll be like. No! I'm not interesting, I don't like church. haha, but on the street they're like, 'yea, that'd be great'. Kinda funny.

About the English...For the past month I haven't had to teach because it's the summer. Some missionaries teach at the church like once a week but starting on the 1st of September, we'll be teaching around 10 hours a week. So far, I have two assignments and I have to call them up to see when we'll go teach them. I think they're both companies...I'm not too sure though because I still haven't called them yet. I'll let you know more about them after I've had a week or so of them. It should be interesting!,

And then my schedule! Alright here it goes.

6:30-Wake up 630-730 do a lame workout and get cleaned up for the day. 730 make breakfast! That usually consists of two eggs and two slices of bread with butter and jam. (NOthing like the breakfast burritos i'm used to!) 800-Personal Study, I read from the Book of Mormon and and recent conference talks and then prepare for certain lessons that we'll have during the day. 900-Companion study, we go over the lessons for the day and read from Preach my Gospel and the Missionary Handbook. 1000-Language study. It supposed to be like 30 to 60 minutes. Most of the time it doesn't happen. haha, I try to do some stuff and practice but we usually have other things to do. Plus, being with a companion that only speaks Mongolian and a very limited amount of English, I get practice all day, every day! 1100-900 We're out working! Usually we have lunch before that.

On Mondays it's Preparation Day so we go play basketball and ping pong (i'm pretty good at that now ;) ), go to the tsak (buy really cool stuff for cheap), do laundry, and just prepare for the next week. On Tuesdays we have our District meeting so that takes an hour or so and then we get lunch together after that. On Thursdays we do our weekly planning session and so that takes a good 2 or 3 hours planning all the needs of our investigators and new members.

Every other day we just head out and do work! Our areas are pretty big and I've walked a lot of miles this last month. Walked over a mountain probably 5 times, and walked up tons of hills. To get out to our places its either a 15 or 25 minute drive in a Meeker or Bus. Those are a lot of fun. You're like squeezed in with 19 other Mongolians over 5 rows of seating. And the Meekers aren't very wide. It's kinda nice though because the roads aren't very smooth and so if you're packed in with a bunch of people you don't bounce around as much. If you've got space, you just bounce around and it's not comfortable. If you're on the Bus, you're still packed in there but you're standing up and every time you hit a bump you got to grip the bar real hard or you go all over the place. That's fun too. Our work is all in the ger districts which means that most of the people, if not all, live in the Mongolian gers. The entry way is real small and so you always have to duck to get in. Then you sit on one of their beds, or you sit outside on little stools. Wherever you sit, you teach them the Gospel. It's amazing to see how well they receive the message despite the fact that they've grown up without a very religious background, especially not a Christian background. Anyways, depending on the day and the amount of Referrals we have, we can teach anywhere from 7 lessons a day to 1. A lot of the times we'll set up the appointments and they'll be gone. That's always kinda disheartening but they are plenty of people that are ready and willing to hear. When we get back, we're usually dead tired!

900/930-1030 We wind down from the day, report to our District Leader, write in our journals and take care of whatever else we have to do to get ready for bed. And that's a day in the life of Elder Cappuccio, a Mongolian Missionary!

Alright, so what else can I write about? Oh, so this upcoming Friday, we're having our first baptism that i've been around the whole time for. It's our grandma called Demidkhand. She's awesome. My companion will be baptizing her and I'll be giving her the Gift of the Holy Ghost on the following Sunday. That's kinda crazy huh! All the other missionaries keep saying how rare it is that I have this opportunity and I'm very grateful for it! After her baptism, we've got i think, 12 other baptisms planned. It's all tenative and the investigators really have to attend church but I tihnk it's possible. That means in the next 4 weeks we could have 12 baptisms! That would be awesome. I think we'll really be relying on the Lord to bring these things to pass and doing our very best to bring them into His fold.

This past week has had pretty sweet weather. It's rained probably 6 times or so and a lot of the streets have pretty big patches of water in them. One of the mornings was clear and beautiful but it was like maybe 40 degrees! You could see your breath and everything. I can only imagine what it's going to be like come the 10th month when it actually starts to become winter. What i've been told is there's these series of days where it gets progressively colder each day. It's a series of 9 days and there are 9 series (I'm not entirely sure). Anyways, by the end of the 9th day in the 9th series, its REALLY COLD! haha. It should be fun :)

Oh, the Mongolians LOVE the Olympics. Especially when they win medals! Yesterday they won a Gold and a Silver and like tons of cars had Mongolian flags waving and pictures of the athletes on the car windshields. Everyone was honking their horns and tons of people got drunk. That's Mongolian National Pride. :) I think they ended with 2 Gold and 2 Silver so that's pretty good eh?

This week we had Zone Conference and the big focus was Tithing. Our Mission President gave a powerful lesson on the importance of Tithing and the blessings that extend from it. I'm convinced that paying Tithing is one of the most important commandments because it is one of the hardest for most people to follow. However, we can be assured that if we pay our tithing in faith, no matter what our circumstances, the Lord would bless us so much. There are countless accounts of people who paid their tithing when they had nothing to live off of and how the Lord provided for them. Each one of us has the great opportunity to pay tithing and receive from the Lord the bounteous blessings he is willing to give if we'll just pay our tithing in faith and with a glad heart.

On the subjects of drunks, I hate alcohol. The other day as we were leaving our area, a drunk entered our Meeker and started saying he wanted to pray. He started praying in the Meeker and I kind of wrote him off. When he started praying it was one of the most desperate things I had ever seen. It was terrible. He was bawling and I knew that even though he was drunk, this prayer was sincere. He was pleading for help, his life had been ruined by alcohol and he was in the depths of sorrow. He kept asking us for money and help. He wouldn't leave the Meeker and people tried to get him out but he wouldn't budge. FInally we got out and he followed us constantly begging for our help, but of course, we couldn't help him in the way he wanted and what we had to give him was of no use to him because he couldn't comprehend because he was drunk. WE finally were able to escape from him and as we got back on our Meeker and headed home, I cried a little bit. I pitied that man so much. When he looked up and me and pleaded for money, pleaded for my help, it was so sad. He had been taken hostage by the bonds of alcohol and him from whence all that comes from and it had wrecked his life. I wish I had been able to do something for him, but with the rules we had, I couldn't. I guess I just wanted to tell that story so you could get a feel for what we're up against here. Some of the drunks are angry and aggressive but this one was just broken and desperate. I really hate alcohol and all the other terrible things that have gripped so many of this people in bonds. And at the same time, I'm grateful for what I know and the opportunity I have to offer healing through Jesus Christ and his restored Gospel to those that are ready and willing to listen.

Alright, so that's about it for today's e-mail. I love you all and I'm so grateful to have a family like you! I can't wait to get the package from you and Brother Young but tell him I think that's cheating to correspond packages like that! haha. just kidding.

~Elder Cappuccio P.S. Forward this letter to dam98@myldsmail.net That's Elder Miller's address. Send it to Ben's and Tylers if you can too. And send theirs to me. That's be great. Thanks! My previous email to james:

Dear James, I hope you got my last email from last week, I enjoyed your email, especially the cognitive skills practice I got, I must not be getting too old because I could read the whole email with no problem. However, the eating the goat story really got your Grandmother concerned. She wanted me to tell you she doesn't want you drinking goat blood...I told her that was not the case, but maybe you should just pass on any cooked blood sausage or whatever they make from it, so I don't get worried calls and requests for from her for your mission's handbook to see what you are allowed to eat. Do you have rules about what to eat and where to eat? I don't worry too much, because I know the Lord is watching over you.

So on to more palatable news, Jacque's baptism was Saturday. It was so great to be a part of it. I gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. The missionaries gave the first lesson while she was getting dressed. it brought a few tears to my eyes because I pictured you teaching the same lesson only in Mongolian on the other side of the world. That is so amazing. I hope you? know how much it inspires me to know that you are serving the Lord with such a strong desire to help people, even people on the other side of the world.

I saw Joan Oakey on Friday and she said to say"hi." She enjoys reading your emails and forwards them to Dan, who is on a mission here in Mesa. She also said she is glad her son is somewhere where they have normal food!

We sent you a package with the treats this week. Brother Young is sending it to you. He said the Reese's and Butterfingers would not make it, so we took those out and had to eat them ourselves(sorry), but we did send some other good stuff, like pop tarts, gushers, mashed potato mix, pancake mix, instant oatmeal, hot cocoa mix, Gatorade powder, some Vitamin drink powder to keep you healthy and? other snacks. I did also get a CD player and speakers for you and put in you Carnegie hall CD. I hope it makes it to you soon, now that I got you hungry....Let me know what stuff you liked the best and I will get you another package out for Christmas with your little calendar request. I know I used to make those for my parents, so I will have to get some pictures together and make one for you.

As far as cooking skills and recipes, I guess I should of had you cook for me a few times....I'll see if there are any easy cookbooks for missionaries, something along the lines of " Just add water and stir."

I look forward to hearing from you again, broken keyboards an all, makes it more fun. Take care and know how much I love you. Sending love and prayers your way. Keep the fire burning, Love always, Mom