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