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
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