I sent my son to Outer Mongolia

Email From the Mission President- Oct 28th

2009-11-01T19:24:00.000-08:00

28 October 2009

Dear Sister Cappucio,

Elder Cappucio became a zone leader in our mission recently. He is a wonderful young man and a very faithful missionary. He did a superb job as a District Leader. I know that in his new role as a zone leader, he will meet and surpass all expectations. Thank you so much for the support you give to him. We are very blessed to have him in the Mongolia Mission. I rely greatly on his good judgment and hard work in administering our mission.

Sincerely,

President D. Allen Andersen

Finding Investigators Is No Coincidence- Oct 25th, 2009

2009-11-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

Dear Family!

Alright, I've found a internet cafe that will let me sit in it without a mask!  
Sweet!  So you got the e-mail from Sister Hellewell?  Nice!  Yea it was neat to 
find out that Elder Horan and I had some sort of connection!  He is an AWESOME 
Elder who truly has been able to develop the gift of Charity.  He is one of the 
most caring people I have ever met.  It was a great opportunity for me to go on 
an exchange with him.  So, the swine flu is here.  But, it's not like epidemic 
status yet.  There's some 300 cases of it and they say that 2 people have died 
from it.  So far the missionaries are doing pretty good, maybe 2 or 3 
missionaries have contracted it.  They don't necessarily make everyone wear 
masks its just that some internet cafes were being really weird about the whole 
situation.  Oh, my new companion likes jelly beans so make sure to send some of 
those ok?  I would LOVE a phote album from you guys!  Everybody's changed since 
the last photos, I bet.  See if you can get some of dad's pictures in there as 
well....:)

Alright, so, I plan on writing a lot because these last two weeks have been some 
of the best in my mission, bar none.  It just seems that so many things are 
turning in our favor as missionaries and miracles are being seen everywhere we 
go.  I hope that I can manage to write it in a way that you guys can feel the 
same Spirit that I felt as I experienced these events:

Ok, so the first one is about Battulga.  As I was going on the exchange with 
Elder Horan, we were walking around some apartment buildings trying to contact 
people and meet with them.  Then, out of nowhere, this slightly drunk man comes 
up and starts talking English with us.  We talk with him for a bit and find out 
that's he's been in America for 7 years so he's got pretty good English.  
Finally, he lets us into his house and we start meeting.  At first, I was 
reluctant because he was drunk and I wasn't sure how well he'd understand.  
Anyways, we went in and started meeting with him and his wife.  It was a WEIRD 
first meeting, that’s for sure.  But, he really wanted to meet with us so we 
kept teaching.  He expressed the struggles he’s been having in his life with his 
marriage and work, smoking and drinking.  We were able to teach him about God 
and then about prayer and the Holy Ghost, how he could have these good feelings 
all the time.  One thing that stood out as pretty funny was that he had this 
ashtray on the window seel.  As we were talking with him, he got up, and said: 
You see this?  This is my ashtray.  When you guys come next time, this won’t be 
here.  In fact”, and he opens the window, looking down, “I’m going to get rid of 
it right now!” and proceeds to toss the cup out of his 4th story window!  Every 
since then, him and his wife Yanjmaa have been amazing.  They came to Stake 
Conference, and they were there at church yesterday.  They look like they’ll be 
getting baptized in a couple weeks.  Isn’t that amazing?  Out of a contact with 
a drunk man, we’ve found a husband and wife that are putting their lives In line 
with God’s perscribed plan and reaping the rewards.  Everytime I see him, he 
looks happier!
The next story is also from being with Elder Horan.  We went to go visit an old 
investigator, only to find that they weren’t there.  However, the son was and so 
we sat down and he gave us some of the food he made.  We kind of just talked for 
awhile at first, getting to know him and complimenting him on how good the food 
was (it was good!).  Then Elder Horan asked him a question about church and 
about Jesus Christ, to see what his level of interest was.  The answer pretty 
much ended the conversation, “I’m not interested at all”.  However, he seemed 
like to good of a kid to not really be interested.  So, we kept talking.  He’s 
about our age so we leveled with him.  We explained why we do what we do and 
what motivates us to make this sacrifice.  Then we asked if he believed in God.  
He did.  Then we asked, “If God told you something, would you believe it?”  He 
said yes.  So, with those kinds of questions, we hooked him into a brief 
discussion about the first vision.  The Spirit was so strong in that ger I know 
that he felt it and that he recognized what Source it was coming from.  At the 
end of the lesson, we asked how all of it was.  “It was great!”  So we set a 
baptismal date with him and gave him a Book of Mormon.  He didn’t come to Stake 
Conference so I was a little worried about him, but, sure enough, yesterday at 
church, there he was!  Now he’s on the path towards baptism and his mom and 
sister will be joining him.

About four days ago, we were walking around one of our areas looking for new 
investigators.  Elder Stephenson and I are basically white-washing 
(white-washing is where they put two new missionaries in an area) this area so 
we don’t know it that well and the work from before is pretty much non-existent.  
Anyways, we’ve been done something called Nephi Hour that an Elder from my 
group, Elder Whittle, made up.  We set aside one hour and just try and find new 
investigators.  If we can’t get into one house, we talk with whoever we see on 
the street, teach a short principle and ask if we can meet with them right away.  
So we went to check one house and the kid we had met with before came out to 
greet us.  We asked if we could meet, and to our dismay, he said he was busy 
doing homework.  However, we pressed.  We gave him a promise that if he let us 
meet with him for just 15-20 minutes his homework would go better.  We also 
promised that we would only stay 20 minutes.  Well, somehow that worked!  He let 
us in and we started to meet the rest of the family.  It was a WONDERFUL family!  
They were all so happy and united.  The dad came in later and we met with him.  
At first, he was a little taken aback, but after meeting us any of his worries 
were quickly set aside.  So, we started talking.  We started with a song and 
prayer.  Then we jumped right into the Restoration.  It was powerful.  As we 
finished up teaching these sections, our time was about up.  So we said, “we’d 
like to talk more but, our time is up.  We promised Ganbat that we’d stay for 
only 20 minutes.  When could we come back again and meet with you.”  Then the 
oldest son, who was by far the most interested, said this, “Well, we don’t 
really know when we’ll next be gathered together like this, would be ok if we 
just kept meeting for like 10 minutes?”  That was music to our ears!  So we 
turned to Ganbat and asked him, “Can we do that?”  He also agreed and we kept 
teaching!  As we left that house, Elder Stephenson and I was overcome with joy.  
We gave each other a quick hug and then offered a prayer of thanks.
Then, just two days ago, my companion caught a bad virus and was not really able 
to go out on work.  So, we paired him up with another sick missionary, and I got 
to go out on work with Elder Cardinal, my son!  He’s actually in one of the 
districts in our zone so I see him quite a lot now!  Anyways, we head out to our 
area and we’re looking for people to meet with.   As we’re walking down the main 
street, I tell Elder Cardinal, “hey, that guy probably wants to hear about the 
Gospel” and get him to start talking with him.  We follow this guy down another 
road and finish the contact.  We got his information and all, but he wasn’t very 
interested so Elder Cardinal crossed him out.   Then, to find out where we were, 
Elder Cardinal asked this guy passing by what street we were on.  The guy 
responded and we started moving on.  However, as soon as I looked at the guy, I 
felt impressed to talk with him.  I started to talk with him and share a little 
about our church.  At the end, I asked, can we meet with you…(I almost said 
later) now, and talk more about our church?”  He replied affirmatively and I 
quickly grabbed Elder Cardinal (he was doing an ITL with a drunk), and we 
followed the man to his house!  The man and his wife are high school teachers so 
they’re educated.  We started to teach the first lesson and the husband ate up 
everything we said.  At the end we went to set a baptismal date and they gladly 
accepted.  Then, we asked him if he would pray for his family and…he accepted!  
It was another miracle!  His brother was also in the ger at the time and he 
seemed very touched by the lesson so at the end we asked him if we could meet 
with him as well.  He said yes.  Then the brother also gave us the information 
for his other younger brother, saying that we should meet with him!
Just like last week we were moving into a new apartment building.  A day after 
we moved into the new apartment, we went into the elevator.  An older man also 
entered and we just started talking a little bit.  Before we got off, I quickly 
gave him a pass-along card and told him to come to church this Sunday.  I didn’t 
think muhc of it but like 2 days later, Saturday, he ran into us again in the 
entrance of our apartment.  He asked when church was again and we told him 
again.  Then, this Sunday, as we were standing outside, he came! 
Another quick story:  This last Sunday, our ward entered a new building inside 
the ward boundaries.  It’s kind of out of the way so my companion and I were 
standing on the street corner sort of as a landmark to any members or 
investigators coming to church.  As we were standing there I looked over to the 
sidewalk and saw two people walking.  I felt impressed to talk with the 2nd 
person and promptly went over and contact him.  I explained about our church and 
told him that our service was about to start.  Then I invited him to come in and 
experience it.  To my surprise, he wanted to!  So I grabbed Edler Stephenson and 
we brought him into the chapel where the rest of the missionaries and members 
quickly  friendshipped them.  Later, another missionary got his contact 
information and, to our joy, he was in our area!  So we’ll be meeting with this 
youth pretty soon and we expect great things.

Well, that’s pretty much it!  I just want to testify to you of how true this 
church and this work is!  These past two weeks the Lord has truly blessed our 
work and the work of the missionaries in our zone.  I know that God guides us.  
Not just us, but the people we need to meet with.  Each of these events have 
been so perfectly coincidental, I know that it was not just chance, but that God 
was been leading us to find “those that with receive [us]”.  I love this work.  
I love my companion.  I love the mission and the missionaries!  My hope is that 
all of you will pray for the opportunities to be a good influence, or a 
blessing, or a comfort, in the lives of others.  As you do so, I know that 
you’ll feel, as I have, the guiding influence of God in your everyday tasks.  
I love you all!  Have a great week!
~Elder Cappuccio, still not infected


-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:47:11 -0400
Subject: Re: Missionary held captive until June 6th


 Dear James,

Of course I always look forward to your emails and stories, so I was a little 
disappointed that you couldn't
 write much, but glad that you didn't actually have the swine flu!  Then I was 
excited to get an email from Beverly Hellewell who's nephew went on an exchange 
with you one day.  He wrote about the experience in his letter to his parents 
and she forwarded it to me. It was great to hear the stories coming from a 
different perspective, of someone who actually was with you and wrote about the 
experience.  He wrote how you turned two seemingly dead-end situations into 
teaching lessons to 5 new investigators with one committing to baptism.

On the home front we successfully dug up the dead palm tree and now have some 
landscaping chores ahead of us.  It looks like a mine field right now. Joseph 
went to Homecoming and looked really nice.  When he gets some pictures back 
we'll send you some.  In fact my goal is to get some pictures together into a 
little album to send you for Christmas.

Is the swine flu hitting Mongolia hard this year? Do they make people wear masks 
even when they are not sick?  I didn't get the vaccine, so I just plan to stay 
healthy.  I will send some more vitamin C packages with the next package too. I 
went running twice this week( well a real slow jog actually) so I hope to get 
that number up to 5 times this week.  Starting with just 3 miles, so I have a 
long way to go if I want to get in shape, but i am determined to get there.

Speaking of swine flew again, Jack and I are going to dress up for a Halloween 
dance as pigs with wings....the swine flew =)  Pretty scary?

Well, I hope you had a will have an amazing week.  We love you.

Keep the fire burning!
love always,

mom

Email from a friend about Nephew doing an Exchange with James-Oct 19th

2009-11-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

Hi Athena,
I told my nephew when he first started his mission that a member of our ward was 
serving in Mongolia, but I guess he forgot.  In his letter today, he told me 
that he met your son.  I'll copy a few of the things he said in his letter about 
your son.
On Saturday I went on an exchange with an elder named Elder Cappucio.  We were 
asking each other where we were from and he said he was from Chandler Arizona.  
I said, hey I have an aunt who lives there.  I said the last name was Hellewell 
and he said, Beverly?!  
Anyway, I found out that he is from Beverly's ward :)  

Anyway the next 5 investigators will be from the exchange we did 
together.

We were going outside to a house to try and contact a referral with a bad phone 
number. When we went there they didn't answer the door, but they yelled through 
the door asking who were and said that the person wasn't home.  Anyway, as we 
left we were kind of pointing around which area to go next to try and do ITLs 
and maybe get a lesson from an immediate ITL.  As we did this a man came up to 
us from a distance and asked in English 
if he could help us.  My companion ended up asking him what he wanted in life.  
He said he wanted to go to church.  My companion then told him the way he could 
help us was to meet with us and come to church.  He ended up asking us to follow 
him ( he was a little bit drunk )  We didn't have anything else better to do, so 
we followed him.  He then told us a little bit about his life and how he lived 
illegally in America for 7 years. That is how he learned English.  He then asked 
us to go to his house with him.  We were 
kind of hesitant, but we went anyway.  He had met with our missionaries about a 
year earlier and had a 1st lesson pamphlet in is room.  His wife was there.  She 
didn't speak any English, but this man insisted he wanted to speak only in 
English with us.  He told us how he is an alcoholic and when he is drunk he 
loses stuff or does stupid things, so they lost like everything they owned and 
really they had nothing in their house except a pad in the corner to sleep on.  
He then showed us a cup he used as an ash tray.  He threw it out his window from 
like the 4th story and told us he would never smoke again.  
He then had a thing of alcohol.  He said he would drink it right there and never 
drink again.  My companion asked if we could share a message first, but he 
insisted he drink his last bottle of alcohol first.  We finally started to get 
to talk about spiritual things and we asked if we could start with a prayer.  He 
wanted to pray immediately, but we thought it may be better if we prayed and let 
him say the closing prayer.  We started singing Love at Home in Mongolian.  Half 
way through the 2nd verse he stopped us and told us he wanted to sing in 
English.  Anyway, we finished the two of us singing in Mongolian while they 
listened.  After we prayed he went back to the window and yelled out to 2 of his 
friends.  He said, hey!  American missionaries are at my home right now, hurry 
and come in to hear their message.  This man and woman then come into the house 
and we taught them about the holy ghost and praying to know about truth.  We 
then talked a little about the book of Mormon.  The spirit was powerful there.  
The drunk man ended up giving a 
really nice heartfelt closing prayer.  The other couple couldn't come to church, 
but the drunk man and his wife went with us to Stake Conference yesterday.  It 
was awesome.

We went to check on an old investigator that I had the first time I was here.  
She was really open to the church and had come to the last stake conference when 
they made the first stake ever in Mongolia.  Apparently she had gotten married 
while I was gone, so it would be okay to teach her again.  We saw smoke coming 
out of their ger, so we knew someone was home.  We went there and just her son 
was there.  He told us to come in and offered us some really good food he had 
just made.  We just kind of asked when his mom would get home, but it turned 
slowly into asking him if he was interested in church 
things.  He said no, so I was sort of going to just leave it with that.  Elder 
Cappucio turned it around somehow with asking if he believed in God and he did.  
He turned it around into just asking him about who he thought God was and what 
kind of person he was.  He ended up sitting close to us as we taught him a 
powerful first lesson.  He told us he would come to stake conference the next 
day by himself and meet us there.  He accepted a 
baptismal date also.  He didn't come to stake conference, but right after it 
started he called me 4 times and I couldn't answer the phone because the meeting 
had started.  He called this morning again and told us he wants to meet with us.  
He is really good and somehow my companion turned him from not being interested 
into a really interested investigator.  

On Saturday I realized how important it is to be more bold when I teach.  I 
always like to share a heartfelt testimony throughout all of my lessons, and 
when I do ITLs.  Elder Cappucio taught me about being more bold.  Like when the 
person asked him how he could help him, he replied with a question.  He asked 
him what he wanted in life, and then after he answered he told them how we could 
help them achieve that.  Then in another lesson after we were done he asked them 
how they felt during our lesson.  When they said good, he immediately just said 
it was the Holy Ghost.  Things like that are important to be blunt and just tell 
your investigators what they are feeling and how we really can help them.  We 
ended the day with only 2 lessons, but they were two spiritually uplifting 
lessons that boosted me up.

Hope things are going great for you.
Beverly

No Mask, No Email, Silly Mongolians-Oct 18th

2009-11-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

Dear Family, 

Due to the swine flu, they say they will not let me write my e-mails because I 
am not wearing a mask.  Silly Mongolians.  Anyways, work is good.  I might not 
be able to finish this e-mail...I'm very sorry!  But we'll be writing very soon 
ok?  I love you all!

~The non-infected Elder James Cappuccio

-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:40:47 -0400
Subject: Missionary held captive until June 6th

Dear James,



Well at least it's a good captive....captivated by the spirit of missionary 
work!  I don't mind if  you stay a few extra weeks, it's normal to want to keep 
working as long as you can, you're only a young missionary once!  Next time you 
go you will be old, well at least older. And you could still take a summer class 
if you wanted to, I think.  Or just find a summer job and have some fun before 
starting school in the fall.  I hope my parents keep their house, but I don't 
know if you could work enough to earn it from them.  It's worth a lot of money.  
You could buy it form them when you are a doctor, but don't you have to travel 
where ever they send you for 12 years after school?  Do you want to live in 
Provo after you get out of the Army?  I have even thought about moving up there 
to take care of them, but haven't really discussed it with them or anyone yet. 
So, are you still going to marry the first girl you see when you get off the 
plane?  If so, I am going to sell tickets to your arrival and do thorough 
interviews of those wanting to hopefully catch your eye!  JK  




So what town or city are you on now.  You said you were transferred again and I 
didn't even know the place you were at for a short time.  I don't think there 
was ever a sequel to the Series of Unfortunate Events movie, but you did make me 
curious about what unfortunate events might have occurred in Mongolia.  In our 
neighborhood we had a unfortunate event on Thursday, where a 4 year fell out of 
a 2 story window 2 house away from your dad's house.  I think he was okay 
because he was screaming, but they took him out by helicopter, so we had a 
helicopter land at Provinces Park. 




Another good thing about being in Mongolia for an extra few weeks, is that you 
will be safe from the dangerous roads in Chandler for a little longer- Joseph 
got his Drivers license yesterday.  He is pretty proud of the accomplishment, 
but he does not have any wheels he can drive to school on a regular basis yet.  
I am not letting him take the truck. Maybe he can get a job and save up some 
money to buy his own car and insurance.




Today's meetings were good.  It was ward conference and we had the stake 
president, his councilor and the bishop speak in sacrament.  The choir sang and 
i was told we sounded really good. Joseph, Cali and I all sang in it. I think I 
have a musical number for you and your friends to sing when you get home.  Maybe 
not for your homecoming, but it is a male voices group of Called to Serve.  Have 
you done much singing in Mongolia?  I know you said your last companion( 2 
companions ago?) was a good singer.  Cali is taking voice lessons now and is 
counting on being famous.  She's already written a few songs.  




Hope you have a great week! Love and prayers are on their way daily.




Keep the fire burning!




Love always,

Mom

Athena

Lost in the Translation- Oct 12,2009

2009-11-01T19:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Well, I guess I probably have told you I became a Zone Leader, but thanks for 
the headline! I thought it was pretty funny.  well, I'll pass on your greetings 
to Elder Nasanbold, but sadly, due to a serious of unfortunate events (did a 
sequel movie ever come out for that?) I'll be going to a different zone to be 
with Elder Stephenson!  So...I'll lose one great companion but gain a great 
companion.  Both of them are really good.

Life's been going pretty good.  We saw conference over the last two days and I 
got to watch it Mongolian!  It was a good test of my language skills and I 
defintely didn't catch all of it.  The translators sometimes spoke pretty slowly 
and evenly.  but sometimes if they got behind the speaker, they would start 
speaking really fast.  It was funny.  In one of the talks, the translator got 
waaaay behind the speaker, like two paragraphs, so he just skipped it and went 
right to where he was speaking at the time.  That was funny.

I learned a lot of things from conference, one of the most important is that we 
need to continually work to make ourselves more like Christ.  It is a life-long 
pursuit.  So, if you haven't made it yet, it's ok.  Just keep pushing.  One of 
the most important parts is having Christlike love.  Every other single 
commandment flows from the first two greatest commandments: Love the Lord thy 
God will all your heart might mind and strength & Love your neighbor as thyself.  
So, in seeking to follow the Lord's other commandments, we should always seek to 
make sure we are doing it with love it our hearts for God and man.  If there is 
no love in our hearts, it is like the gift spoken of in Moroni.  If we give a 
gift grudgingly, or serve the Lord grudgingly, it's just as good to not have 
served! So serve with a smile and love in your hearts and then we can reap the 
greatest blessings of all!  As it says in Alma, everything that we put out, 
comes back at us.  Good for good, bad for bad.  So we decided for ourselves what 
we receive.  But, it doesn't always come right away so don't get discouraged!

Alright, well I love you all!  Uhm...about Grandpa's house...I kind of wanted to 
live there....I definitely want to help Grandma and Grandpa out.  BUt instead of 
selling that house, can I just get it?  Like, I'll work for it.  And I'll 
definitely maintain it.  But like...that' would be AWESOME.  I was actually 
thinkinga bout that before and then you reminded me.  What are your thoughts?  
Of course, if I get married it'd be nice to live there.

K, well my companion's rushing me so I gotta go!  Love ya all!

~Elder Cappuccio

P.S.  It looks like I'll have two options for when I can go home: April 24 or 
June 6.  Each is 3 weeks from my 2 year mark.  When do you think I should come 
home?  I want your opinion mom!  My thought is to stay till June 6 but let me 
know what you think!


-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:02:19 -0400
Subject: In the Zone


 


 Dear James,

It was good to hear from you and your new companion, say hi to him for us. 
Sounds like you will be keeping busy as a zone leader now. I hope you have more 
good stories for us this week. We had a good trip to Utah, my parents are 
thinking of selling their home and getting a condo, because the house is too 
much for them to take care of. I was hoping that you and Amy could stay there 
when you get back and help them out while you go to BYU. It would take quite a 
bit of cleaning and getting rid of stuff to get the house ready to sell, so ti 
won't be anytime soon. I counted and you have less than 8 months to go, don't 
know if you thought about that yet. Ben and Devin are getting home in 3 
months or less.? It will be cool to have you all back and compare notes and 
scars. =) I was thinking you probably
need all new clothes, because you have grown taller and are skinnier
now. Does your suit still fit? They have tailor's there that make
suits inexpensively if you need a new one. Or I could send you some 
suspenders.....also, I should be getting your Christmas stuff ready pretty 
soon. Do you have anything you might want to request? 

Hope you are ready for the winter weather. We are having nice weather finally 
and my air conditioning bill should be under $300 a month now. The watering 
system in the front yard has been leaking and I didn't get it fixed for a few 
months now and so it killed the palm tree ( the whole top fell off, it looks 
really sad) by rotting out the roots. I was always good at killing house plants, 
now I moving on to the bigger plants....so anyway, now I have to fix the 
watering system and dig up the palm tree. 

Hope you have a wonderful week and thanks for all the great experiences and 
testimony you send up each week. We love you and pray for you.

Keep the fire burning!

Love always,

mom

In the Zone as in Zone Leader-Oct 4,2009

2009-11-01T19:05:00.000-08:00

Dear Familly,

Welll......just by way of clerical announcements, yea I'm a Zone Leader.  But I 
don't feel like it and I definitely don't feel prepared!  But, my companion is 
awesome.  He's one of the most diligent Mongolian missionaries I know.

ANyways, work is good!  We had a lot of "office" work this week: ZOne Council, 
Baptismal Interviews, etc.  ZOne Council is AWESOME!  It just increases my 
testimony of the great missionaries and leaders we have in this mission.  As I 
listen to everyone else discuss the issues of the mission, I was very happy to 
know I have the opportunity to learn from them.  President Andersen is such a 
good mission president.

And I had to do a baptismal interview!  It was one of the most scariest events 
in my life.  But it was AWESOME!  It was with this 15 year boy, in a little city 
called Baganuur.  He was so prepared so the Spirit was just powerful.  So we 
just talked through the questions, and the SPirit definitely confirmed that he 
was ready.

Everything else is doing good.  Sorry I don't have a lot of time to write this 
week and I don't have a lot of time...next week I'll write good ok?  Plus, next 
week is Zone Conference so there will be a lot of good things to write.  Bye!

~Elder Cappuccio

-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:06:25 -0400
Subject: trip to Utah


 Dear James,

I am writing you from my parents house in Provo tonight.? We watched conference 
here because we couldn't get tickets, but it is nice to see family and hang out 
at the home again. It was Jack's first time meeting most of the family other 
than briefly on the wedding day. Manny came over the first day with two sons and 
then Alex and her new husband came over and we took their kids to Lagoon with 
us(plus DJ). Then Sophia and the her husband, the other James, came over for 
dinner tonight. Conference was good of course.? You'll probably watch it next 
Sunday right? In President Monson's talk he talked about all the primary kids 
who wrote him about the service they performed in honor of Pres Monson's 
birthday. One example was a little boy from Mongolia so I thought that was 
cool, because I thought you might have met that little boy. 

We are here for a few days, then heading back home. It's nice to take a few days 
off from the hustle and bustle of work and daily tasks, but I don't mind 
working, I am grateful to be blessed with a good job that helps me provide for 
the things I need and sometimes a little extra. By the way, you said you were 
transferred and that you are now companions with the zone leader that came down 
to do splits with you....so does that make you a zone leader now? That's how it 
usually works from what I have heard. Anything different about what you are 
doing or where you are now? Was the town you left a smaller town than where you 
are now?

I hope you had a great week and looking forward to more stories I can share with 
friends and family. We love you and are very inspired by your hard work and 
testimony you live every day.

Keep the fire burning!

Love always,

Quiet Impressions of the Spirit- Sept 27, 2009

2009-11-01T19:03:00.000-08:00

Dear Family!

Hello!  I'm glad to hear everyone is alive and kicking!  I did get Cali's 
letter, but I got it today, not last week.  It was a little sad coming in to an 
empty mailbox, it's kind of like coming home to an empty house, but I survived 
and I'm here to write you today!

Thanks for sending that one quote from Allan Packer.  That's such an important 
principle.  Everyone is looking for the sensational.  I remember a quote I heard 
twice when I was in the MTC.  It was from one of the Prophets of the Church.  
And what he said is that more impressive than walking and talking with God is 
the quiet impressions of the Spirit on the heart of man.  Isn't that remarkable?  
Because Satan knows that, he is frequently trying to pull the world away from 
those quiet moments, those still moments, moments where we can feel the 
impressions of the Spirit clearly.  President Packer once said that the first 
thing a military leader does before mounting a major military invasion is jammed 
the communication channels of the enemy.  That is exactly what Satan is tying to 
do!  By putting more noise, more flair, more unnecessary things in our lives, he 
makes it hard for us to receive the help God wishes to send to us through the 
Spirit!  Then we're cut off from that sustenance and Satan overruns us with 
temptation.

That's one thing that gets kind of frustrating as a missionary.  Everyone in 
Mongolia has a cell phone.  Even if you don't have enough money for food, 
somehow you've got a cell phone.  And a TV.  And so as we teach lessons, the 
cell phone will go off, or other people will turn on the TV and it acts as a 
major distraction to the Spirit.  But then there are those wonderful lessons 
when everyone is listening, no distractions, and the Spirit just flows over you 
constantly.  I love those lessons.  We had one just a couple days ago when our 
Zone Leaders, Elder Hasanbold and Elder Stephenson came to Zuun Kharaa to do an 
exchange with us.  I went with Elder Hasanbold and we found ourselves teaching 
the 1st lesson to a friend of an inactive church member.  That lesson was so 
powerful as we taught the message of the Restoration.  We asked questions, they 
answered, and we were able to testify simply of the truth of this church.  We 
closed of the lesson by giving them a Book of Mormon and setting a baptismal 
date.  It was great!

Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to meet with them again.  This last week 
there was a transfer and although I didn't expect anything to happen, President 
Andersen called me and let me know I'd be going to Nalaikh.  Now I'm companions 
with Elder Nasanbold, the elder that came to do exchanges with me!  Which is 
awesome by the way.  He's honestly one of the best missionaries in the mission!  
In one word, he's "classy"  I'll have to get a picture with him and send it back 
home, I think you'll all agree.  Just to let you know what I mean, he sings 
really good and he loves Josh Groban.  He's just got good taste and he's a very 
hard worker.  So we're going to have a lot of good experiences this transfer!

I'm really sad to leave Zuun Khara.  This last week I wrote a letter to 
President Andersen how I was going to place some really high goals and really 
work to help the branch in Zuun Kharaa.  Guess that won't happen.  But the elder 
that's taking my place is way good.  And, interestingly enough, his companion is 
my son, Elder Cardinal!  So that's way good.  Elder Cardinal has grown a lot, 
his language is really good and he's just doing good work.

The work here in Nalaikh is good.  The night I came in we had a baptism!  His 
name is Naranbaatar and he's this 16 year old kid.  He's so sweet and sincere.  
Now we're working with Mom and his little brother.  I don't know what happened 
to the dad.  the branch in Nalaikh is also really strong.  It's got a chapel and 
we have upwards from 100 people coming each week.

Alright, well, I love you all!  Work is going good and I love it!  Make sure you 
do all you can to invite the Spirit into your life!  I always thought it was a 
kind of nerdy thing that Elder Bednar would always start his talks by saying "I 
invite the SPirit to help..." and then discuss his subject.  Now I realize the 
wisdom and importance of those words and the spirit behind it.  Say the words in 
your prayers and etch then in your heart and I promise you'll notice a 
significant difference in your life.

I'll write more next week!

~Elder Cappuccio



-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:07:15 -0400
Subject: SNOW IN MONGOLIA BUT POTATOES WARM AND DRY


 Dear James,

I forwarded your last email also because I liked your story about the potato 
harvest and the spiritual harvest afterward. I sent it out to your email list 
with the title in the subject line. Susan Sutherland emailed me back that she 
really liked the story and that i should be proud to have such a righteous young 
man as my son. And she is right, I am honored to have you serve a mission and 
bring blessings to all of us at home by your righteous example and commitment. 
Thanks for your service and desire to follow the Lord. 

Marcie Burgoyne gave her missionary farewell talk today. She is going to 
Belgium. Last week was Stake Conference and Cali was supposed to write you, so I 
hope you got a letter from her for all of us. Stake conference was god, we had a 
general authority from the seventy there and he was very good. He said he has 
never had to apologize to his wife for anything because he has never treated her 
badly or said anything unkind. he said all husbands should treat their wife 
like that and if they haven't to start today. I think that is so important and 
I hope you can remember that to help you in your life. Also, I need to forward a 
letter to you that Tony's dad sent to us for you, but I keep 
forgetting....sorry. 

This week we are going up to Utah. I didn't have any luck getting conference 
tickets yet , but maybe we might be able to find some, if not it will be good to 
visit anyway. Didn't get a chance this summer and I like to go at least once a 
year. Amy hasn't really worked yet so she is learning how to get by on no 
money, but she has generous grandparents who let her stock up on food for her 
apartment. 

Crystal moved into her house this week. She was happy to finally get the loan 
closed. Now they live much closer to school so they don't have to drive so far. 
She is just taking some classes to get ready for graduate school. Joseph is 
hoping to get his drivers license this week, but I am a little hesitant because 
he hasn't practiced very much. He is singing in the Stake Youth Fireside 
tonight. Won't that be cool if you and he sing a duet when you get back? He has 
a really low voice now! Cali is going to start taking voice lessons this week. 
She quit her club soccer team a few weeks ago. Jack's daughter Katie, who is 
married is expecting a baby boy in January and has picked out the name Trevor 
James, so i thought you might like to know you will have a step-nephew soon, she 
already has a baby girl named Emma. Killian, jack's 12 yr old is playing Diablo 
a lot, but still doing his homework, I think. I am sure you remember how I feel 
about wasting time playing violent video games, anyway I don't ge
t it.

Well, I hope you are staying warm with all the snow and weather changes, We 
certainly are....it was 105 yesterday!. I still drove with the top down =)

Love from all of us
Keep the fire burning,

Love always,

mom

Snow in Mongolia, but Potatos Warm and Dry- Sept 20,2009

2009-11-01T18:59:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

Well, you guys wanted stories, this last week was pretty full of stories. There 
were a lot of different things that made it so good but I guess the best part 
was just how well the Lord provided for us as we did what He wanted.  This week 
I called President Andersen to get special permission to do extra service.  It 
really was worth it I feel.  They were saying at the beginning of the week that 
it was going to snow on Saturday and so we needed to harvest all the potatoes.  
Some members were having trouble getting everything harvested in time so we went 
over to help them.  On Friday, there were still two members that weren't able to 
get all the potatoes harvested and Elder Dawkharbayar called me to ask if we 
could go serve them.  We had already done a lot and I was really looking forward 
to a full day to go teach lessons and find new investigators.  It was looking to 
be a great day!  On top of that, it was like...75, 80 degrees! Nevertheless, the 
forecast said it would snow tomorrow.  So, I went into my room, knelt in prayer, 
and asked if we should serve.  The answer was yes.  So, we put on our service 
clothes and went to work.  There were a LOT of potatoes to harvest for these 
families, and when everything was said and done, the sun was set, the day was 
over.  I was really hoping to go and teach some lessons but the day was done.  
Anyways, we had done what was right so I felt good about that and went to bed.  
The next morning as I woke up at 6:30, to my surprise, everything was white!  It 
had snowed during the night and continued to snow the entire day!  Had we not 
spent time and harvested those potatoes, the next day many of them would have 
been lost to the cold and frost.  I'm very grateful that we followed the 
promptings of the Spirit and served on Friday.

As a result, Saturday was a crucial day.  We hadn't had much time the rest of 
the week due to English, Choir, and Service, to do as much work as we would have 
liked.  On top of that, my bike has gone completely to pot and so we spent a 
considerable amount of time trying to fix it and get new parts for it.  In 
District Meeting we had talked about Faith and having faith to meet all the 
standards of excellence.  I told them all that if they would have faith, they 
could reach the standards of excellence this week.  In saying this, I myself had 
to have enough faith to do so.  So, we prepared, and we went out, and the Lord 
worked miracles for us! It was a really cold day, maybe like 25 degrees or so, 
so a lot of people just stayed in their houses.  We went all the way out to the 
very farthest street in our area and met with one Part-Member Family.  They live 
in a really small house right now so it was really crowded, but in this place we 
read out of 3 Nephi 11 and talked about what the Spirit says to us.  As we did 
this I asked, "What is the Spirit saying to you?"  He replied, "It's telling me 
to follow what's right".  "Well, one of those right things is to get baptized.  
May we set a baptismal date with you?"  And just like that, we set a date for 
him to get baptized.  His job requires him to go out to the countryside for long 
periods of time, but in the winter, his works stops so we'll be able to meet 
with him, and get him to church a lot more frequently now.  His name is Purev, 
or Thursday.  After that, we went to their next door neighbor's house and met 
with an investigating family of ours.  To our surprise, as we came in, the dad 
was there!  Using this dad also works in the countryside with heavy machinery 
but he had come in just recently.  We met with them all and shared 3 Nephi 18:21 
about praying together as a family.  To close, we asked him to offer a prayer 
for his family and his work.  He was very shy and nervous, but with the help of 
his wife, he was able to pray!  RIght after that we went to another neighbor 
house and showed the Restoration video to a couple.  The wife is named 
Amarsaikhan and she's been going to church and what not.  However, the husband, 
really didn't like us at all to begin with.  Every time we were there, he 
wouldn't let us in the house!  But then one time, he let us in and we got to 
introduce ourselves.  It turns out he had a completely wrong understanding of 
our church and by talking to us, he realized we weren't that bad of people!  He 
even confessed some of his weaknesses, he smokes and drinks and now, at age 45, 
he's got 15 years to wait until he can retire and get money from the government, 
but he can't find any work.  The movie really helped him to understand why we do 
what we do.  Then he was really hesitant about coming to church because he 
smokes and drinks.  We talked to him about it and then suddenly, he turns to his 
wife and says, "Should we go tomorrow and check it out?"  "yea, lets do that"  
"Ok, we'll go tomorrow"  Now whenever he talks about us, he calls me his little 
brother.  Hopefully as we continue to meet with them, we'll be able to help him 
overcome his doubts and weaknesses.  From those 3 wonderful lessons, we went 
alllll the way to the other side of our area and met with one of our 
ALAs(Inactive members).  He's been having trouble with his marriage and we 
talked about Charity and expressing our love to family members.  We committed 
them to just say "I love you" to their family members (something Mongolians 
don't usually do).  The dad (who is exactly like Dad) was really hesitant.  
Finally, they committed and he came to church the next day.  All in all, 
Saturday was a great day!

~Elder Cappuccio

Going Like a Lamb to the Slaughter- Sept 14, 2009

2009-11-01T18:55:00.001-08:00

Dear Family,

Hello!  How are you all doing?  I'm doing just fine here in Zuun Kharaa.  Today 
we went with our District to this cave in a mountain a few miles from the city.  
Apparently is was used in a movie made like 40 years ago as a hideout for 
theives.  The cave was like 20 feet big and it had a little table with benches 
in it.  I was expecting a big cave so I was a little dissapointed, but all it 
all, it was a good time going with the District on bikes out there and back.  we 
took some good pictures and if I can, I'll send them to you sooner or later.

This week has been good for us.  We've had some good experiences with the 
brethren-teaching them and getting them to fulfill their priesthood callings.  
That's one of the things lacking here in Zuun Kharaa, they don't even have 
someone to be the branch president--we have a missionary fulfilling that calling 
right now. But we were successful in meeting with some of them and getting them 
to church and strengthening them.

My new mini-missionary is awesome!  He's been a member for like 6 months but 
he's got so much faith and desire.  It's awesome to be able to work with him and 
teach him some of the things we do as missionaries.  He's like 4 years older 
than me, so that's kind of different, but when he goes out on his own mission, 
he's going to be a great missionary!  The sister in our District, Sister Howald, 
got pretty sick and got taken to the city to get her appendix taken out.  So now 
she's getting better but hasn't made it out here yet.

I got your package this last week.  Thank you SOOO much!!  And the journal is 
just the one I wanted.  I've made a commitment now to write in it every day so 
that I can remember all the great spiritual experience we have each day.  I have 
to apologize because when I sit down to write you e-mails, I forget what 
happened in the week.  But, I really just want to say that each week, each day, 
and each hour, as we meet on the streets and in the homes of these humble 
Mongolians, the Spirit of the Lord is with us and it flows through us to the 
blessing of this people.  I know that this work is true and I am trying each day 
to be a better instrument in the Lord's hands.  That's the only way to be 
successful here.

 Anyways, we've had a good time doing a lot of Mongolian things this week.  For 
example, I made Khushuur, a Mongolian classic.  I'll make it for you when I get 
back.  Also, we killed a sheep!  THat was a crazy experience.  Oh course, it was 
really manly and bloody, but, I gained a bit more understanding about Jesus 
Christ and His sacrifice for us.  It says in the scriptures that Chirst is the 
lamb of God and that he would go like a lamb to the slaughter.  Well, the other 
day, as we were serving one of the families in our branch, I had the opportunity 
to understand what that really means.  So, we got the sheep and dragged it over 
to the spot where we would kill it.  There we put it on it's back and held it's 
legs down.  Then my companion took a knife and slit a whole in his chest right 
below the ribs.  He then reached his hand in and disconnected the main artery 
that sends blood to the head.  After doing that, we just hold it until all the 
blood drains into the stomach.  The eery thing about it all is that despite the 
fact that we're slitting a hole in the animal, discconnected it's artery and 
killing it, it doesn't make that much noise at all!  It sits there, calm, 
complacent.  I don't know if it knows that it's going to die or not, but it is 
very stoic.  Of course, when you cut, it hurts a little, so it flails it legs, 
and then as the blood is flowing out, it lets out some small groans of pain, but 
to be completely honest, the majority of the time, it is silent.  And then it's 
dead.  As I held down the front legs, I got to witness all this and I couldn't 
help but see the Savior's Atonement in it all.  He really died for us, and He 
could have at any moment called it quits, and broken free from His pains and 
agony.  But he didn't.  He calmly took it upon Himself because, just like the 
Mongolians needed the lamb's meat to live, we needed Christ's life to live.  I 
don't know if I'm getting the sacredness of this event over through this e-mail, 
but it truly was something that taught me a lot and made me grateful for the 
Savior and His love for me.

I love you all and I'll make sure to write you some good success stories next 
week ok?  Keep up the good work and choose the right!

~Elder Cappuccio

-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:56:25 -0400
Subject: Hi from home


 Dear James,

Another week has quickly gone by. We went to the ward campout, but stayed in 
Jack's cabin which was just down the road from the big cabin everyone else 
stayed at. It was nice to get away from the heat. Before we went home, Jack 
took us shooting and taught Cali how to shoot a 22 rifle and a 45 caliber 
automatic pistol. She was pretty excited about hitting the targets and had to 
text her friends! She is way ahead of me, my first time shooting was at the 
police academy! I am very rusty and not a very good shot. Not sure how I made 
it through then....

Anyway, we are having the missionaries for dinner on Thursday, so I imagine you 
being feed by some nice family in Mongolia on Thursday night too. When I think 
of the scriptures about spreading the gospel to all the corners of the world, I 
think Mongolia has to be one of those corners, but then I also think about how 
you are gathering the good branches that have been scattered to the nethermost 
parts of the vineyard to help strengthen the church in the latter-days. 

We are going to Utah for Fall break and I hope we can get tickets to conference. 
I asked the bishop today and he said he would check. Joseph is going up with us 
along with Cali and Killian and of course Jack. Crystal will finally be moving 
into her new home. We went by and saw it yesterday and it was very nice. She 
has some work to do , but she has a big backyard and some nice trees. She just 
has to clean it and put in some new tile in the kitchen.

Hope you are doing well and that you get our package soon. WE love you and pray 
for you and all the missionaries.

Keep the fire burning!
love always,

mom

Adversity is Part of the Evidence of God's Infinite Love-Sept 6,2009

2009-11-01T18:17:00.000-08:00

Dear Mom,

Yea, it definitely was an Internet glitch.  I sent an e-mail that said, I am 
alive but I have no time to write, I'll write next week.  :)

Anyways, the drunks are pretty much under-control.  Although, the other day we 
went to try and meet with our new member and there were three drunks outside his 
house just sitting and getting more drunk.  One really liked us, one was 
indifferent, one really didn't like us.  The one that didn't like us threw a 
rock and hit me, but it was a little rock and he was a little guy.  Still, it is 
always a little scary when someone picks up a rock and aims it at you...

Ok, so these last two weeks have been a rollercoaster!  I've got a new companion 
who's not actually a missionary, (we call them mini-missionaries).  His name is 
Erdenebold and he's from Darkhan.  About 4 months ago he was inactive, but one 
of my former companions, Elder Steinberg, reactivated his family and so he 
started to coming back to church.  These last two weeks have really been good 
for him to see the other side of missionary work.  It wasn't easy, but he 
learned alot and when he goes on his mission next March, I think he'll be a lot 
more prepared.

We had our Zone Conference last week and the topic was Adversity.  It was a 
great conference and it just seemed like everything, every little possible thing 
that would cause adversity, peaked before Zone Conference so that we would be 
able to understand it better.  I know I appreciated it.  There's this quote in 
the latest conference by President Eyring about Adversity:...our Heavenly Father 
and the Savior live and...love all humanity.  The very opportunity for us to 
face adversity and affliction is part of the evidence of their infinite love"  I 
know this is true.  In all of our hard adversity we usually grow the most is 
what I've learned.  We usually look back with gratitude on what we've 
experienced because of the things we've gained and learned.

In terms of stories, we have this one New Member that wasn't going to be able to 
go to church because he got stuck with work, but then we prayed about it, and he 
called me up in the morning saying how it had gotten cancelled! We were all 
really estatic about that. Another neat one focuses on the way the Lord has us 
meet with the people he wants us to meet with. Last night we were looking for a 
house of a new contact to meet with. All of a sudden, one our new members, this 
youth named Enkhsaikhan, came up on his bike. The first time I had met him, he 
didn't seem very down to meet with the missionaries, but this time he was really 
friendly and when we asked to meet with him, he said yea! So we met and I shared 
my favorite scripture D&C 128:22, and talked about the wonderful Gospel and the 
importance of sharing it. It led to two ends: We were able to open the door to 
him preparing for a full-time mission, and he asked us to try meeting with his 
mother and brother!

Similar to that, we met with another new member that same night and tried to 
share a scripture with him. His little brother is like a demon. He is just 
unruly. Anyway, through all this chaos we were able to see how to share the 
Gospel with his mom, she's really into the New Testament and goes to another 
church. So she shared with us some of her favorite scriptures from the New 
Testament and we were able to talk about how those are mentioned in the Book of 
Mormon. Now we're going back on Tuesday to teach more and it could be really 
good!

Well, I love you all.  You're awesome!  I haven't got the package yet...that's a 
bummer, but I'll keep on enduring with hope!  

~Elder Cappuccio



-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:27:46 -0400
Subject: Re: from a Galaxy far far away


Dear James,



I didn't get an email from you last week, so I don't know if there was an 
internet glitch or if the drunks came back to get even, so I hope to hear from 
you this week. Brother Haught bore his testimony today and said his wife is 
doing worse and that she is preparing to die. He has been so strong during 
their hard times and is such a good example. He and his wife were Joseph's 
sunday school teachers this year and I know he has been a good influence to 
everyone in that class. Also mention brother Lantz in your prayers and maybe 
Jack too. 


I hope you had a good week and that you have 2 weeks worth of good stories for 
us.? No good stories that I can remember?to tell about out week. Just work, 
grocery shopping,more work, laundry and more grocery shopping. Luckily Jack 
likes to cook and he made an awesome Beef Stew this week, which we shared with 
the Lantz'. Leslie Hodgson got remarried this weekend. She married someone she 
met on-line., he's from Idaho/Utah...i never dated anyone I met on-line. I 
never got into it that much, maybe because Ilike to meet them in person 
instead.?



We love you and pray for you.

Keep the fire burning!

love always,



mom?

Keeping the Streets Safe One Drunk at a Time- Aug 25th

2009-11-01T18:12:00.000-08:00

Dear Mother,

Well, lets answer your questions!  First, with Mongolian, it was never meant to 
be written in English or Russian letters.  The Mongolian script seems to be 
taken from Arabic and adapted.  I've started studying the Mongolian script 
lately and there are tons of differences between the way we speak and write now 
in Cyrillic and how they used to speak and write.  The words in Mongolian Script 
are usually spelled differently and so there aren't double vowels.  But then 
when you speak it, you cut out a lot of middle consonants.  It's just a really 
different language!  Russian has a lot of ties to Greek.  Mongolian has a lot of 
ties to...well, nothing really.  The grammar structure is tied to Turkish, 
Korean, and Japanese, but the words, roots and accent, aren't really tied to 
anything else.  Anyways, I'm talking like I'm a linguist.  But I'm not, so I'll 
stop now :)

Yes we teach English.  So far we're just teaching 2 hours at the church so it's 
quite a difference.  We were teaching 10 hours each week in the city.  Pretty 
soon school will start up (next week) and then we'll teach more.

The bike riding is alright!  My thighs are getting a real good workout!  My butt 
is feeling better.  It's been raining a lot and so there a lot of puddles and we 
get muddy quite a lot.  The other day I got stuck in this huge mud puddle and 
Itried to get out but the mud sucked my shoe off!  It was pretty funny and then 
I was muddy from the ankle down for the rest of the day.  Also ,the bikes have 
gone pretty bad and so almost everyday we've made our way to the shop to get it 
fixed up. 

Anyways, want a cool story?  Here you go.  It happened last Monday :)

So, we're walking home from a Family Home Evening with some of the ward youth 
and the sun's already set. As we're walking down one street, two drunks approach 
my companion and I and say, "STOP! Then, "Give us those bikes, what are you guys 
doing, etc." So there's a tall drunk and a smaller drunk. It was like perfectly 
paired with our companionship. Anways, in the background the youth are freaking 
out and screaming (the girls). I told them to grab our bikes and run off the 
other way. At first they just stood there in shock, and I was like, "Go!" and so 
they starting going. Meanwhile the two drunks were grabbing us by the collar 
trying to get stuff out of us. We told them to let go but they persisted and so 
I just grabbed the one on me and threw him to the ground. Then the other one was 
messing with my companion, (apparently he headbutted him and bruised my 
companion's nose) so I grabbed him and threw him to the ground as well. As soon 
as we were free of them, we took off back down the road we came and out of the 
corner of my eye, I saw the bigger drunk pick up a big rock and throw it at us. 
Luckily, he missed (I mean, he was drunk). The smaller one got up and starting 
chasing us again so I stopped, threw him to the ground again, and we ran off. 
Finally they stopped chasing us and we returned to the main road to try and find 
the youth. The youth were safe and the police were called. In about 10 minutes, 
the police showed up and took care of the two drunks. It was funny because as 
soon as we were in the light and the police were there and stuff, the drunks 
were trying to say we did stuff to them and were messing with them. So yea, I 
didn't really expect an encounter like that, but, this is Zuun Kharaa and it's a 
whole new world. Anyways, my companion and the youth were pretty shaken up, but 
no one was seriously hurt so the Lord was really looking out for us.

P.S. one part that was really funny was that the tall one grabbed me and was 
getting in my face. He was threating us and all that. I stopped him and said, 
"wait, what's your name?" He paused, thought a little bit and said, "my name's 
Sukhbaatar" For like 10 seconds he was out of his angry, drunk mode. He was a 
little sober there. I said, "My names Elder Cappuccio" After that little shock, 
he turned back into the angry drunk and started messing with us so I threw him 
down.

Other than that, the work is going good.  I love the people here because they 
are humble and plain.  They're great! I'm sure we'll have more stories to share 
and more spiritual experiences to tell.  Have a great week!  I love you all!

~Elder Cappuccio

-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:19:52 -0400
Subject: from a Galaxy far far away

Dear James,



Your new town, Zuun Kharaa, sounds like something out of Star Wars, but then 
again so does Ulaanbaatar and Darkhan! Maybe you are on a galaxy far, far 
away.....You might have mentioned this before, but why do they have repeating 
vowels in every word? Russian seems to have minimal vowels and Mongolia has 
mostly vowels. If they had to play wheel of fortune in Mongolian, there 
wouldn't be enough consonants to make enough money, especially if you had to buy 
the vowels. Anyway, I hope you like your new area. Do you teach English there 
too? How's the bike riding going? I didn't get to ride too much this week, so 
I'll probably get saddle sore all over again.




Jack's brother, John, came to visit this week from Illinois, so we went on an 
evening Harley ride out to Canyon Lake this week. Did I tell you Jack had a 
Harley before? Anyway, he's not a real Harley guy, meaning no tattoo's or stuff 
like that. He just likes the sound of the engine and the fun he has when he 
rides it. I like riding on the back too. 




Crystal might be closing on her house in Mesa. ?Her mortgage payment is only 
going to be $450/month. Pretty good.....she's pretty excited about it. Amy is 
still trying to get a job at BYU, so maybe pray that she'll get a good part time 
job. My brother still needs a decent job, my parents are still supporting him, 
so I hope he can find one too. It's a hard time to find a job, so I am really 
grateful for the good job that I have and hope i can continue to do well at it. So far I have been greatly blessed.




We love you and wish you the best aways and pray for yoiu.




Keep the fire burning!




Love always,




mom

Transferred to Zuun Kharaa(...in a galaxy far, far, away)-Aug 17th,2009

2009-11-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

Alright!  It's Elder Cappuccio!  I'm alive, but I'm not where you think I am!  
This last Thursday there was a transfer call, and, well I wasn't expecting 
anything to happen, I thought I was staying where I was for the the next 6 
weeks, but President Andersen called us while we were in English Class and said 
this: "There's going to be some changes".

He was sure right!  Now I'm in lovely Zuun Kharaa!  It's this small town on the 
railroad tracks between Darkhan and Ulaanbaatar.  If you want to Google Earth it 
i'm sure you could.  Anyways,  I'm the new District Leader out here and our 
District is pretty small, but they're awesome.  The branch has like a total of 
170 members and one of the missionaries here is the Branch President.  So, we 
have 2 sister missionaries, a branch president, his companion, and then my 
companion and I.  We also have bikes!  Sweet eh?  The other day we went out to 
some lessons and I've got to be honest--my butt hurts and my legs are a little 
sore.  It's definitely going to be something to adjust to.  Also I kind of 
crashed and cut my hand up.  Nothing big, but it's a sort of welcome gift from 
Zuun Kharaa.  The work is going really good here!  I haven't gotten really 
acquainted with the place yet but the sisters here work really hard and are just 
amazing.  The last few District Leaders have all been really good so I've got 
some big shoes to fill (especially because they were all pretty much taller than 
me!)  Lets see...what else is different...I've got a Mongolian companion!  His 
name is Elder Otgonbaatar and he's way cool.  He's from Erdenet.  If we get a 
cool picture taken, I'll send it to you ok?

I've got a neat experience to share with you all from my first night in ZUun 
Kharaa.  It goes like this: 

We got to Zuun Kharaa at like 1 in the morning on the train. We got off the 
train and no one was there to meet us. No one! SO we had no phone, no phone 
number to call, no idea where our apartment was. Anyways, we put our luggage in 
a luggage place safely and then headed out to look for the house. Before we went 
out, we prayed together (I went with this Elder Bayarjargal who also came to 
Zuun Kharaa). After praying we just wandered around some buildings for about 7 
minutes. As we were rounding one, I said to Elder Bayarjargal, "we should ask 
someone, maybe they'd know". So like a minute later as we're walking these two 
youth come walking by and my companion calls out to them, "Hey, we need to ask 
you a question: do you know where two missionaries live?" "The american ones?" 
"Yea" "Yea they live right over here" He proceeded to tell us the exact 
building, entrance, floor, and door they lived in. Not only that, just in case 
we got lost, he showed us it! Isn't that amazing? God answered our prayer. So 
the next day in church as I shared my testimony with the new branch I was able 
to share that experience and it really went over well with them. God answers 
prayers, no matter what time!


So yea, I like my new place.  It was sad to leave the other one though.  The 
last few days before I left I spent my time saying goodbye to our investigators 
and members and tying up loose ends.  We set a new baptismal date with 
Lutsaikhan our older investigator.  He's definitely going to make it this time 
and I'm so happy for him.  I just see him being a huge strength to the ward 
after all the experiences he's been having to test his faith.  Also, we met with 
Byambajargal and helped him get ready for his baptism.  It'll be in two weeks.  
The day I left Enkhbat when into his interview.  He quit smoking the week before 
and was still going strong.  I'm hoping to get the pictures from their baptisms 
and then I'll send them to you if I can.  It'll be a little different because I 
won't be in the picture but I'm not the important part.

Uhm...so yea, that's about it.  It's good to hear things are going good for you 
all!  Congratulate Joseph on successfully blessing the water!  He's my hero!  If 
there were a lot of youth like him in our branch here, we'd be an even better 
branch!  Oh and about the package...it didn't get here before I got out to Zuun 
Kharaa so I'll have to wait till I get to the city or till the Zone Leaders come 
up and do an exchange with me.  Either or...I'll get it eventually!  Thank you!

As for the loss of weight...I'm really not sure how it's going.  I'm definitely 
thinner, because I've lost a lot of muscle.  In the MTC, I pretty much just 
replaced with fat but since I've been in Mongolia it's been taken off pretty 
well.  The last few weeks we were eating pretty well and in good cool conditions 
so I don't know that I lost, but maybe gained back a little weight.  Now that 
we're riding bikes everywhere here, I'll definitely lose weight and get slimmer.  
Sweet eh?  I gave up on the hand-clap push-ups and lunges a looooong time ago.  
I'll pick it up when I get back home :)  For now just sit ups and and pushups.

Well, I love you all!  Thank you for being so supportive and always writing me!  
It helps a lot.  I'll do my best to follow the Spirit and help these people and 
then let you know about all the Spiritual experiences we have.  Pray for me!

~Elder Cappuccio

-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:49:37 -0400
Subject: Re: Sunshine from the valley of the sun

Dear James,



I look forward to the Khorkhog party. We can have it at a family reunion or a 
welcome home party. Sounds like a big dutch oven meal- minus the rocks, but if 
the rocks relieve stress then got to add those in. So, sounds like you are 
eating good. Have you still lost alot of weight from when you left? Still 
doing your clapping push-ups and leaping lunges everyday? I got to get back in 
the workout mode but I'll leave the high impact stuff to you. 


Joseph blessed the water today and he didn't mess-up at all even though he said 
he was nervous. He said he felt your guiding presence to help him. He kind of 
sounds like you too now. Cali sang in church with bro Goff and it was very 
nice. She got a splinter in her eyelid befoe church and I might have to take 
her to the hospital to get it out after dinner. I don't make cinnamon rolls and 
pizza like I used to, but I should give it a try now that I'm not working any 
overtime.




How are the baptisms coming along? ?You sound like you have a few coming up. I 
need to work on finding someone I know to share the gospel with. It was neat to 
see Jacque join the church and it's been a whole year now. I think we are going 
to go to her house and celebrate next weekend. She doesn't have to work Sundays 
anymore so she can go to church now. 



Hope you have a great week and get my package this week. You'll probably have 
to wait until Christmas to get the next one, so be thinking of what you might 
want so we can start collecting stuff. Gusher were on sale for $1 this week, so 
I bought some of those for you. Sorry so get you salivating 4 months early, but 
there are fruit snack in your box, just not gushers....




Well, as always, we are praying for you and love you!

Keep the fire burning!

Love always,




BMW MOM

Let's have a Khorkhog When I get Home-Aug 10th

2009-11-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

Haha, Mom, I'm sorry, I still can't see you driving a BMW!  It's just, I've seen 
you in Suburbans and Trucks and Mini-vans and compact cars my whole life.  Now, 
a convertible?  I guess I'll have to wait till May to see it in the flesh!  And 
I hop you let me drive it!

Are the foreclosures prtty bad?  I might be abl to find a prtty cool house in 
Arizona if that's the case...:)  THe other day I was telling my companion how we 
used to have Pizza and Cinammon Roll nights on Friday and how good it was!  I 
miss those!  However, we have found this returned sister missionry in Mongolia 
tht makes pretty good cinammon rolls and so we gt some from hr every now nd 
then.  Today we went on a little picnic with our Zone.  We went out to th big 
Chinggis Khan statue outside of the city and had a khorkhog.  What that is, 
well, it's kind of hard to explain.  First, you take a sheep, lamb, goat, or 
whatever animal you plan on killing.  Then you take a fire, get it going really 
hot and throw stones in it.  Whil the stones are getting hot, you cut up the 
animal and th vegetables.  Then, you put hot stons, water, meat vegetables, and 
salt or whatvr other seasoning you want into a big metal water container, seal 
the top, and put it in the fire.  You let it sit for at leat 30 minutes, pull it 
out of the fire, let it cool off a little bit, and EAT!  IT's reaaaaalllly good.  
The meat is very tasty and so are the vegatables.  The water also becomes a 
prtty good broth.  The funny thing is that you can take the rocks and toss them 
in your hands to calm stress.  And it works!  I'll have to do one for you when I 
get back home.  Ok?

The work is going good.  We've got some baptizms coming up real soon with some 
great guys which is always good.  We need more priesthood holders here in our 
branch.  Well anyways, keep chosing what's right!  I love you all!

~Elder Cappuccio

-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:17:33 -0400
Subject: Sunshine from the valley of the sun

Dear James,
 

Hope the week's been good for you.  We had a nice week. Cali made the 8th grade 
volleyball team, she should write you about it, right Cali? She sitting next to 
me. Joseph got ordained a priest today, so now he gets to sit up in the front 
and bless the sacrament.  I wish you were here to congratulate him, but you can 
write him an email and I will forward it, or just write him the old fashioned 
way.  Three more years and he will be leaving for a mission too and maybe Amy 
too. Thanks for being such a good example for them and everyone in Mongolia.




I took the Z4 up some mountain roads to test my new German driving machine.  it 
was cool turning those tight corners going faster than normal but not crazy 
fast. I might let you test drive it for a few seconds.....




Crystal and David are buying a house in Mesa.  It's a foreclosure(lots of those) 
for only $59,000. She is taking a few classes and working at the museum until 
she takes the GRE to get in to graduate school.  I think she wants to get a 
Master's degree instead of being a doctor now. 




Amy drove the Taurus all the way to Provo by herself with no car or driving 
problems.  We had to get some stuff fixed on it first. She went early so she can 
make money before school starts.




I'm making some whole wheat bread today.  I haven't made it for awhile so I hope 
it turns out okay.  I decided I (and everyone else in the hou
se) need to start eating healthier and work out more so you can recognize me 
when you get back.....




We are still baking and waiting for it to get under 100 but we have 2 months to 
go......

Keep the fire burning!




We love you!


mom

"President: I Actually Had Fun on my Mission...."-Aug 3rd

2009-11-01T17:58:00.000-08:00

Wow...my little brother is all grown up!  His voice is deeper, he's taller, he 
can drive...goodness!  Oh, sorry, I forgot to tell you congrats about the 
Beamer.  I was a little shocked to be honest with you but I definitely want a 
test drive when I get home ok?  Lately I've been talking with my companion and 
we've come to a great realization about the importance of education!  It is so 
important!  In the Gospel as well as out of the Gospel.  Be educated.  Study the 
scriptures in and out, over and over because the person that studies them wont 
forget them and then will be safe in keeping the commandments of the Lord.  In 
Mosiah chapter 1 it talks about that exact principle...without having the 
scriptures open before us every day we are led to dwindle in unbelief.  It 
doesn't happen right away but little by little as we let the small unimportant 
things get in the way of the small important things, we forget the commandments, 
the principles and the spirit of the Gospel and fall into unbelief.

Work is good. Work is fun. The other day I was kind of playing with Elder 
Steinberg and he started laughing. I told him: "Uh oh, you're going to have to 
let President Andersen know about that. 'President: I accidentally had fun on my 
mission, I'm sorry!'" He got a kick out of that. But in all honesty, my lame 
jokes aside, he is doing TONS better. This last saturday and sunday is throat 
was hurting and he was kind of sick. I told him to still yell and he did. It 
really is helping. Thank you President! And his character is starting to shine 
through more! I don't have to prompt him for conversation all the time now. He 
has his own comments, his own remarks, his own ideas. Yesterday, we were 
planning and I asked him what we would teach our one investigator, Lutsaikhan. 
He said he didn't know. I told him to find out. He didn't like that. But, he 
stuck with it. He thought and thought and thought. he felt like he didn't have 
any ideas and wanted me to help. He kept with it. LAter in the day when I asked 
him what we would teach, he told me about a way good story in the Old Testament 
that applied PERFECTLY to this investigators situation. It was wonderful! 
Undortunately, we didn't get to present it, but it definately was only something 
he could have come up with and was inspired of God. We'll use it in the next 
lesson we teach him! He is becoming such a good missionary!

OK, now our investigators are doing good as well. We've got Byamba, he's going 
to get baptized in two weeks. This last Sunday he invited his older brother to 
church and he is almost the exact same! They just ask amazing questions. I hope 
that the results will be the same with him as well. They could definitely be two 
missionaries in a year or so...

Then there's Enkhbat. He's quiting smoking and he's succeeding! He just got such 
a strong desire to become a member.

We've also got this father named Munkhbat. We gave him the Book of Mormon and 
he's all the way in Alma! We ended up teach him and his neighbors the Word of 
Wisdom while teaching the 2nd lesson last week and he's started to quit smoking. 
Also, as we met with him the other day he's mentioned how reading the Book of 
Mormon has helped him to be calmer and fix bad situations in his family. We 
still have to work with his wife to get her on board but I am just so impressed 
with him! Oh, and his little son Orgil is the cutest little guy ever.

In general, things are just going good. The Lord is blessing us so much with 
people to teach and opportunities to serve. I definitely need to get better at 
writing daily in my journal to catalogue all the ways in which the Lord answers 
our prayers. It truly is amazing!

Well I love you all and am grateful for your support and your love and your 
prayers.  Don't forget to be happy and help others to be happy.  Choose the 
Right!

~Elder Cappuccio

P.S.  Thank you SOOO much for sending the package I LOVE youu!  But I loved you 
before you sent any package, remember that!

-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:20:39 -0400
Subject: Re: goodies on there way, here and there!


 Dear James,

I hope you had great week and that this gets to you before you send one to me, 
but I'm kind of late because we just got back from eating dinner for Joseph's 
birthday. Can you believe your baby brother is 16 now! He needs much more 
driving practice before I let him get his license too. But he is getting 
better. I let him drive us to the restaurant in the truck. 

Amy leaves this week for BYU. She's going to take the Taurus up there if we get 
it fixed in time. The radiator fluid is leaking from somewhere and it keeps over 
heating. I guess i bought my new car just in time. Or maybe buying the new car 
made my Taurus so sad it stopped working.....

I mailed your package on Saturday, so you should get it in about 3 weeks. Lots 
of sweets in there, along with the stuff you wanted, white journal, pens and 
sticky notes. 

Thanks for the inspiring words, I'm going to forward your letter to your email 
list. I have a lot of people ask how you are doing, so it's always good to hear 
it form you. I got your letter back from the primary today and read it again. 
It was very cool, so if you want to write on e to them again, I know they would 
appreciate it.

Take area and keep the fire burning!

WE love you,

mom and familiy

Testifying with the Spirit-July 26,2009

2009-11-01T17:53:00.000-08:00

There was this one 5star guy we met awhile back and were meeting with him 
although he lived outside our boundaries. Well, very fortunate for us, it turns 
out he moved into our area to be closer to his work and so we're still meeting 
with him and he's set to get baptized in two weeks. He's a way awesome guy, like 
21 almost 22. He's very studious, and pretty spiritual. The other day we were 
teaching the Law of Chastity and he told us how despite the temptation from his 
girlfriend and his friends he had never gotten involved in it. Impressive huh! 
He really has a great moral integrity and it just seems like this world hasn't 
gotten to him. I love it! His name is Byamba.

Alright, then there's Lutsaikhan, I'm kind of worried about his faith, he's been 
tested very fiercely. He's been waiting a month now to get baptized and still 
has a month to go, but it's hard because he kind find work (he's about 48) and 
he has the opportunity to go to Korea and work there. We've met with him and 
taught about how the Gospel provides the way for us to be sustained in our own 
land and that seems to have comforted him a bit, but these last three weeks he's 
been absent from church for various reasons (Naadam ((he went to the 
countryside)), A relative was really sick, and he got some work in the 
countryside). We need to teach him a little better about the Sabbath Day and I 
think he'll be fine. Another hard thing is that his family isn't as receptive to 
the Gospel. We've tried to involve them and it hasn't happened yet. I can tell 
it's hard on him. But, he reads the Book of Mormon and the Investigator class 
book every morning and prays twice a day!

Zaya, that one girl that we started meeting with awhile back is doing good. We 
had that one intense meeting last week were we told the dad why he couldn't go 
to the countryside. Then we found out that he did, which really got us feeling 
down. However, I guess we heard wrong because he really didn't go! He stayed 
here in the city working at his other job. Now my companion and I are way 
stoked. We've got to work a way for him to have Sundays off and then we'll be 
able to prepare them for Baptism! A family!

This last week we've been meeting with these two families together. It's been 
really neat. The daugther is a little angel and has great faith. One time as we 
were closing off a lesson, the dad of the other family asked, "how can I get one 
of these books[book of mormon]?" We had given the one family one and kind of 
forgotten to get another. "We'll give you one!" We said. "Ok good. Because after 
you guys left that first time, I felt really good inside. I want to read that 
book". Amazing huh! He wanted us to sign the book so we're going to get one and 
write our testimonies in it and sign it then give it to him. In the meantime we 
gave him another one and when we dropped by his work the other day he had it 
open and he's like, "I've only been able to read here and there. I'm in 1 Nephi 
13". This guy his awesome. His name is Batmunkh. His little son is named Orgil 
or "Peak" and he's hilarious.

Another miracle is this guy named Enkhbat.  We can't take any credit for this 
one at all.  He was meeting with missionaries before and then went on work to 
work at a mine in the countryside.  Now's he's back and in our area.  He really 
wants to become a member, but he smokes.  He's determined though so we've set 
goals and we're working with him to overcome his addiction.  The other day at 
church as we were heading to Priesthood he starts to head for the door and we're 
like, "wait! what are you doing!" and he's like, "I'm just going to get a 
drink".  Well, 5 minutes later he comes back with an ice cream cone and sits 
down in Priesthood with us.  At first I was kind of confused, but later I 
understood.  That day he had only smoked once in the morning and in order to 
calm his craving he had to get something else so he got an ice cream cone and 
heading back in.  We haven't taught the Sabbath Day yet either so it's not a big 
deal.  It's actually just way neat to see how he's trying to keep his goal and 
quit smoking.  It was way helpful for him to come to the baptism this week with 
us because this 50 year old man got baptized and shared with the congregation 
that he had smoked for about 30 years and tried to quite numerous times but 
never could do it.  Then he met with the missionaries, and through the goal of 
getting baptised and joining God's true church was he finally able to 
successfully quit smoking.

Elder Steinberg and I are having some experiments with food as well.  We made 
tacos with spanish rice the other day and are surviving well on french toast and 
hashbrowns every morning.

Umm...other interesting things...I think one thing I really started enjoying a 
little more this week is testifying with the Spirit.  In each lesson or in each 
contact on the street, there's usually a time when you can look them right in 
the eyes, smile, and testify powerfully of a principle that they need in their 
life.  It's not always the same, but the Spirit comes in and it feels great.  
That's why it's great to be a missionary!  Your job is to be a transport for the 
Spirit and help people find what they're really looking for in life.  So yea, 
we're working hard, things are going good, and the Lord is blessing us 
abundantly.

Thank you sending a package!  I love you all!
~Elder Cappuccio

P.S. a little funny thing about Mongolia is that sometimes people will just 
randomly buy fireworks and let them off.  Last night there was like a miniature 
firework show 200 yards from our apartment with some pretty large fireworks.  It 
was neat.
-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:22:48 -0400
Subject: goodies on there way, here and there!

Dear James,



We did some school shopping yesterday, so I bought some of the stuff you need, 
but  I still need to get the journal and some pop-tarts and gushers.. Joe said 
you liked Cheez-its so we bought a box of those for you.  I hope to end it out 
by Wednesday and it takes about 3 weeks, so hopefully you have something to keep 
your journal in until this gets there and then you can transfer it over.  We 
bought stuff to send to Jack's daughter's husband who is Iraq right now.  He 
likes getting care packages too. Jack's sister who lives in Minnesota, has 2 
children on missions right now and she forwards their letters to me.  I don't 
know them, but it's always cool to read about missionary experiences.




We've been cleaning out the garage to make room for Jack's woodworking equipment 
and tools and my new car!  Well, it's not exactly new, it's as old as my 2003 
Taurus, but it only has 33,000 miles on it(Taurus has 110,000) and it's a BMW! 
 I am buying a Z4 convertible, dark blue and it's costing me about the same as 
the Taurus per month.  I paid that off a few months ago and only have a couple 
payments left on the truck, so it's very affordable and very cool.  I'm going to 
let Amy take the Taurus up to BYU, but when you get back you will have to share 
it.  I was thinking you could both stay at my parents house to save money and 
carpool together to school. We'll have the summer you get back to figure things 
out,=2
0but I am just letting her use it, not giving her the car.  You all have to buy 
your own cars just like I did. Unless Cali gets really rich and famous from her 
singing career and then she might buy you all a new car.....=)  Which reminds 
me, I need to sign her up for some voice lessons. 




Peaking of singing, I volunteered to have the choir practice at our house in the 
morning so that will be cool.  Our living room has Jack's band equipment in it, 
so it looks like a music room.  I need to practice my violin more, which any 
practice would be more right now and also practice electric bass and keyboard. 
 We have a really nice keyboard, which is Killian's from Christmas, but he 
shares.  I always thought it would be cool to have all my kids sing and play in 
a band, so next summer we can play around with that idea too. 




Well, I hope you have a prosperous week and I appreciate all your great letters 
home.  The gruesome blood and pus parts aren't that exciting to me, but I'm sure 
some people stayed tuned for your letters especially for the juicy parts like 
that.  As long as it doesn't deter them from wanting to serve a mission....Thank 
goodness you don't have your camera!  Any advice on how to avoid getting boils 
to start with? 

Take care and know we are praying for you.

Keep the fire burning!




love always,




mom

Fajitas,Watermelon, Icecream Cake and, yes, more Boils-Jul 19th

2009-11-01T17:48:00.001-08:00

Why hello dear family!

So this week I finally took care of the boils.  It was tough the first few days 
cause you can only bathe them in hot water and then wash them really good.  
Then, after rubbing a lot on your pants as you walk all day (that hurts a bunch 
by the way), they eventually break.   Then it's fun.  Each morning and night 
there is a good amount of blood and pus to clean/squeeze out.  Sometimes it just 
goes ahead and bleeds all over you anyways.  Anyways, it was enjoyable to take 
care of those three boials for the last couple days.  Now they're just inactive 
volcanos and should  be completely gone soon!  Hope you enjoyed reading about it 
as much as I enjoyed dealing with them! :)

This week we got to eat at a Senior Couples house!  It was heavenly.  We had 
chicken fajitas, potato salad, watermelon, and ice cream cake.  After that, we 
walked a little slower.  But it was beautiful.

The work, like that food, is also beautiful.  This sunday, Zaya brought her mom 
to church.  She was way shy at first and came with her sunglasses on, but she 
loved it.  She said it was great.  We also had another member bring these 
sisters to church and we'll be meeting with them and their family this week.  
Lutsaikhan fasted this week so that his family would be more receptive to the 
Gospel.  This week we had a lot of spiritual experiences in lesson as we taught 
by the Spirit and were bold with our promises.  I think that is the best part of 
missionary work outside of seeing someone getting baptized.  Teaching a lesson 
by the power of the Spirit and seeing the effect in the responses and 
expressions of the investigators.

Well, I love you all!  Keep on keepin on.  And we will too!
~Elder Cappuccio

P.S. Package?? :) You know I love you a lot!

-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:42:07 -0400
Subject: Re: Good Morning!

Dear James,

Spiritual Experiences Abound, Zaya, Miga and Sugar-Juy 12, 2009

2009-11-01T17:39:00.000-08:00

Aha, you wrote in a hurry.  Clearly I'm not important to you!  And thus I will 
use this sentiment to blackmail you for a package. Muahaha.  Haha, jk.  If you 
were on a mission I don't know if I'd still be writing you!  So how is 
everything?  The work is going great here.  I was reading in the missionary 
handbook today and how it says that we should share spiritual experiences with 
you guys when we write you each week.  I realize that even if my days are filled 
with those things, they usually don't make it onto the e-mail page!  So i'm 
sorry!  I'll try better to make sure you get the very best of our missionary 
experiences here in Mongolia.  This week is a good one to start with because it 
was awesome!

Anyways...lets see where should I start...Zaya and her family!  So Zaya is that 
one girl that we started meeting with way back when and couldn't get baptized by 
herself.  We've been meeting with her family lately and one day we decided to 
commit her mom to pray.  SO we teach a great lesson and at the end ask her to 
pray for us, and she declined.  We were all egging her on and encouraging her 
but in the end she's like...nah, I can't.  So, without pushing it too much we 
closed the lesson with Zaya giving a prayer and set up a time to come again.  Up 
until the next time Zaya and her mom practiced together on how to pray and so 
the next time we came by and taught about Joseph Smith.  To close the lesson, 
Zaya's mom, Chuluntsetseg (Rockflower) gave the closing prayer.  Afterwards, she 
told us how wonderful it felt and how like as she closed her eyes to start to 
pray, the words just came to her and it wasn't a big deal.  Then she told us how 
Zaya's faith had helped them steer away from a divorce and how meeting with us 
has really changed their family in so many ways.  I'm so excited for this 
family!  We're going to meet with them again today.  Hopefully we can work with 
the father's work schedule and get him to church more often.  Then the next step 
is baptism!  Then the temple!

Then on Tuesday, we were striking out pretty bad on lessons.  No one was home, 
and we were getting kind of disappointed.  As we were walking down the road we 
saw a lady pushing her water cart and we were just like, "let's help her!".  SO 
we go offer to help and start talking as we push her cart.  It turns out she had 
gone to church earlier with her dad and they were somewhat religious.  As we 
push the cart, we catch up to the father who is like a 60 year old man.  Turns 
out this man had like...7 kids!  Ridiculous eh?  So most of them are grown up 
and moved out but two still live at home and so we were invited in and were able 
to teach a way powerful lesson.  For the most part they were all paying rapt 
attention.  Unfortunately, over Naadam they were selling khushuur at the Horse 
Races so we couldn't meet with them, but we're excited to meet with them this 
week and keep them moving along.

THen there's Khatanbold and Miga. We met them on Wednesday and it was awesome.  
Khatanbold apparently went to our church and met with the missionaries at 
another small town and so when we went to meet with him, he already knew the 
Joseph Smith story and how to pray.  He's way awesome, about 19 years old, 
defintately missionary material!

Then, I think my favorite new investigator is Sugar and his family.  Ok, ok, so 
if you just translate the letters it spells Sugar, but it's more like Sogar.  
Anyways, this man's story is quite sad.  He used to live in the countryside 
where he was a herder and a taxi driver.  Then a couple years ago he came with 
him family to the city and got work here.  Just over half a year ago, he got 
into a serious accident and as a result he had internal bleeding in the head.  
Now he's speech is retarded and he has trouble remembering and doing stuff.  Now 
he's got no opportunity to find work and his wife is now shouldering the 
responsibilities.  The first time we met with them, we were trying to contact 
another referral we had.  They turned out having gone to the countryside so we 
just met with this father and his three kids.  It was really powerful as we 
taught about the PLan of Salvation. The kids are pretty smart and got involved 
in the lesson very well.  Then last night we stopped by again and the mom was 
there.  She is just as wonderful as the rest of the family!  They are excited to 
keep meeting with us but her work is really rough.  She works from 6 in the 
morning to like 10 at night as a bus fare collector.

Anyways, so the work is going good.  We got a lot of new investigators this week 
to pump up our work.  It's usually not heard to get Mongolians in on the first 
lesson, but it is harder to keep that excitement going as they encounter 
obstacles and temptation.  But, as I studied today in Jacob 5, if we take out 
all the bad in someone's like immediately, the tree cannot grow!  So it's 
important that we grow with opposition.

Well, I love you all.  I hope everything is going good for you.  Haadam was 
really cool.  We got to go watch the opening ceremony and some horse racing on 
Saturday.  Everywhere except the stadium were like a ghosttown!  Oh, yea, and 
about the boil...well I was only joking last week but this week I'm not.  I kind 
of was scratching an itch there and I...well, I spread it.  Now i've got like 3 
new boils growing...SORRY!  It's all good though.  It'll be fine in no time I'm 
sure.

~Elder Cappuccio
P.S.  Hey, I need a few things from America...My journal is finished, and while 
it's not like a dire need, I kind of would like to use the same journal!  So, 
the journal is the kind you get from Deseret Books they're like the side of a 
normal page, with different colored covers and the word "Journal" written on the 
front.  They're pretty plain and the inside doesn't have anything special 
either.  Just A title page and pages for entries.  It's the same journal I've 
been using since like 9th grade so...that's why I want to keep using it.  
Please, if it's available, get the white cover journal!  Also, if you could just 
send some regular Bic pens, the ones with the black caps and white bodies, that 
would be greatly appreciated  The clear body ones are also good, especially in 
the winter, so you could send those ones but they're more expensive.  Then I 
also need just some regular post-it-notes to use each day.  And then well, since 
that wouldn't fill a box by itself, feel free to add butterfingers, poptarts, 
skittles, beek jerky, gushers, and Nutty bars!  If you could send that out 
within a week (doesn't have to be rush delivery, that's expensive!) that would 
be greatly appreciated.

Also, I've found out that you can get DVDs and Music for very cheap here.  The 
movies are all from China but they're good quality.  They're usually about 2.50 
a movie and then the music CDs are usually pretty cheap.  So along that line, I 
figured if there were some movies you wanted me to buy and bring home for the 
family, just let me know and I could probably get them for ya!  

~Elder Cappuccio

-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:42:07 -0400
Subject: Re: Good Morning!

Dear James,



that was a nice letter last week, except for the part about the fake leg and the 
pus splatter on your suit.  Hope you don't have to have too big of scar, but 
then it would match our football scar anyway. I am writing this at the last 
minute so I want to send it before you write, so this is really short.  Hope you 
had a good week with your new companion and I look forward to hearing \some 
great new stories.

Keep the fire burning!

love always,

mom

4th of July in Mongolia and the Boil Saga Continues-July 5th,2009

2009-11-01T17:36:00.000-08:00

Dear Family, 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

I regret to imform you that when you see me next, I will have one real leg, and 
one fake one.  The boil quickly turned into a flesh-eating virus which then 
mutated into an alien species and ate my leg.  It was gross.
Ok, but to be honest, the leg is fine.  It hurt for like a day or so, and then I 
got some antibiotics, and treated it with hot water.  I do have some puss 
splatter stains on the pockets of my suit though :-/  Haha, I bet you're 
enjoying all this!  So yea, it's almost all the way gone now.  I think the 
inspiration to cut a hole at first was a good idea.  It allowed for the puss to 
come out easierly without having to lance it.  Thanks for praying about it!

So, the 4th of July just happened.  That was a hoot.  We went to this apartment 
complex where all the American expatriates live.  All the missionaries in the 
city went and participated in the festivities.  Notable events were, almost all 
you could eat American hot dogs, brautwursts, and hamburgers; a tug of war 
contest; and fried pig.  It was cloudy, windy, and rainy so it wasn't the best 
party, but it was a good time.  It was really wierd because all the other 
Americans there are usually just there for two reasons: Military, or Missionary.  
Rarely will you find someone here just for business.  So I could kind of talk 
with the military ones but it was always wierd talking with the 
missionaries...what do you talk about?!?!  But, we did manage to find 4 really 
cool people.  They're here doing some internship for their MBAs this summer.  
They go to the University of Boston and they're from all over the world!  The 
two guys were from Kazakhstan and Turkey, and the two girls were from Korea and 
Italy.  I told the Italian my last name was Cappuccio and she said, oh, so 
you're from the southern part, like Sicily.  YEAAAA!  We're connected to the 
Sicilian mafia!  I always had a hunch...haha.  Oh yea, and American people, just 
like Mongolians, like to get drunk so by the end of the party there were some 
pretty wasted people.  Then they started dancing a little inappropriately...and 
all the missionaries left!

The work here is going good!  We had three of our investigators at church.  One, 
Lutsaikhan is going to have to wait two months to get baptized but its ok!  
We're using the time now to get the rest of his family interested and so instead 
of 1 person getting baptized, we'll have 4!  He's down for the idea especially 
because he's kind of worried about his son making the right choices.  He said 
he's started to smoke...

The other two were a father and his daughter.  The daughter, Zaya, has been 
going pretty steady and she's found a lot of friends in the Young Women's 
program.  I'm very grateful for that program.  The dad is part Chinese and 
because of that doesn't really associated with a lot of people.  He's kind of 
afraid of that because in Mongolia it still is a bit of a stigma to be part 
Chinese.  Anyways, he came and he said he really liked it!  Unfortunately, he's 
got work all this week and so we'll be working with his wife this week and then 
all three of them again next week.  The finding is going good as well.  We're 
finding new families and other men that are pretty interested.  One thing that 
kind of is hard for our branch is getting to church.  The boundaries of the 
branch don't even reach the church building and the farthest member is maybe 45 
minutes by bus from the church.  So the people that come are very dedicated, but 
it is a little hard to first build that dedication.

As for the exchange, my companion, Elder Cardinal is going to Murun!  He's way 
excited for it too.  He leaves today at noon and he'll be flying out there.  
Murun is by the big Khuvsgalt lake in the the North Western part.  And me?  I'm 
staying here with Elder Steinberg!  Elder Steinberg was in the group just after 
me.  A funny thing about us is that while we were at BYU, we were in the same 
hall in Heritage.  He opened his call before mine, but because of his 
availability date, he entered after me.  He comes from the DC area and actually 
knows Billy Nixon (now Elder NIxon) who played with me on the BYU Lacrosse team.  
So we've already got some good connections and we're looking forward to spicing 
up the work here!  I'll tell you one sweet thing about him: So, usually the 
standard of excellence in the mission is 20 lessons a week.  While Elder 
Steinberg was in Darkhan with Elder Amardelger, they did on average, 35 lessons 
a week!!!  That's amazing eh?  Not to mention they were teaching 10 hours of 
English as well.  So I'm excited to work with him and get our work poppin' like 
it was in Darkhan for them.  The following e-mails should be really 
action-packed.  So don't go anywhere!

Well, I love you all.  I love the work more, but you guys are number two for 
sure!  Keep on keepin on.  And don't remind me when i come home, it's all way 
too soon.  Two years isn't nearly enough time!!!  Tell Elder Stock hello for me, 
I meant to ask about him last week but forgot to.  I'll definitely have to hang 
out with him at BYU.  So next up to go is Elder Oakey right?  Goodness, then 
Elder Clawson, then Elder Miller.  AHHHH...  Oh, and I got the pictures, you 
guys all look good!  Especially Joseph.  My old companion said he could be in 
the Mafia with that looks.  Well, it's in his blood.  Alright bye!

~Elder Cappuccio
-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:01:12 -0400
Subject: Re: Good Morning!

Dear James,

Greetings from hot dry Arizona and Happy 4th of July a little late. I know you 
are only in the ROTC program, but when they mention the armed services personnel 
I think of you and you being in the Army and I am proud that you are willing to 
serve your country and be a good influence wherever you may serve.

 We went up to PIne/Payson for the 4th of July.  We went 4-Wheelin and hung out 
at Jack's parents cabin.  Joseph didn't go, but Amy, Cali, Killian, Jackson and 
Hannah went, so it was a big family outing.  Next year you will be here! yeah! 

Did you get the pictures I sent from the wedding?  I haven't had time to 
organize them or print any out.  I will send you some actual printed copies when 
I do. I might attach a picture of Joseph, if I remember.  

Anyway church was good.  I couldn't find my scriptures, so I grabbed your old 
set.  I found your Pooch pod notebook, where you keep spiritual quotes and 
thoughts.  It was cool to read those. Travis Stock came back from his  mission 
last week and spoke in church last Sunday.  He is still the same somewhat but 
much more grown-up and able to express himself and his testimony.  He still 
mutters funny things under his breath in between sentences though.  It was cool 
to hear him bear his testimony in Korean.  If I closed my eyes and listened I 
wouldn't know it was a American, he sounded really good, not hesitation it just 
flowed and I imagined you doing the same thing with Mongolian.  That's truly 
amazing! Just as the stake president blessed you to become so proficient at the 
Mongolian language that you earn their respect, I see that happening in your 
letters and your desire to serve and teach them.  Oh, yea and Travis is going to 
BYU, so you can see him when you get back up there next year.He is living with 
his mom in the Provo area now applying to get in

Hope your boil is better and I hope your grandma doesn't read that letter.  She 
might send you a case of iodine or even deliver it personally =).

Keep the fire burning! WE love you and pray for you and all the missionaries.

Love always

your mom

Yearning to be Mongolian and Boils will be Boils-Jun 29,2009

2009-11-01T17:28:00.000-08:00

Hello, 
Well, I don’t have much time today to write so I’m just going to write this one 
very quick.  I’ll hope you forgive me.  This last week was in all actuality very 
good!  We had a good Zone Conference with led to us doing really good work!  
Also, we had our stud of an investigator, Lutsaikhan, go into a baptismal 
interview!  He should be getting baptized this week.  He’s so good and every 
time we meet with him, he asks about his baptism.  He impresses me with his 
reception of the spiritual witnesses and it makes us feel good to know that even 
if our words are not understandable, our spirit is.
Off of that, this week while my companion was with the District Leader, I went 
with companion, Elder Odbayar, on an exchange.  He taught me a lot in that he 
showed me the importance of Mongolian missionaries here.  They are 
irreplaceable.  They know the people.  More importantly, they know their hearts 
and their minds.  From that, they can speak directly too them.  No language 
issues, no race issues, just one on one, serving your neighbor, missionary work.  
It made me quite jealous.  I want to be Mongolian.  I feel as I were Mongolian I 
could help these people so much more.  But it did inspire me to learn this 
language to perfection.  There’s definitely a distinct advantage of gaining 
their trust in your ability to speak the language.  I love Mongolian 
missionaries.  
In following one of his spiritual promptings, we found ourselves in the house of 
a family of 9!  It was way neat.  They weren’t completely sold on the first 
time, but I think as we work with them more they, turn around to it.  They are a 
good family.  We also have this other guy named Byamba.  We ran into him last 
Sunday before church.  As we were talking to him, my companion puked.  Remember?  
Anyways, he came to church again and was just as excited as ever.  He feels that 
pretty much all churches are good but he has a testimony that we didn’t run into 
him on accident and from that he feels that our church is the right one, the 
best of them all.  From that we were able to set a baptismal date with him and 
as we keep meeting with him, he’ll be baptized in like 3 weeks!
As an interesting side note, I’ve got a boil/staff infection on my thigh.  We 
tried to pop it last night but it didn’t budge.  Then we tried to slice it open, 
but we got the knife too hot and cauterized my leg.  Anyways, everything’s good.  
The worst thing that would happen is that we have to amputate and I get a wooden 
leg.  JUST KIDDING.  Everything is just fine.  Maybe I’ll send you a picture of 
the end result   We have to use warm compresses to suck the puss out.  Wish me 
luck!
Well, I love ya’ll.  The transfers are happening this week so my beloved son, 
Elder Cardinal, will be going away from me.  He’s a great missionary and I’ll 
miss him a lot but he’s already learned everything he can from me and now he 
needs a better missionary.  Well, I hope you guys are finding just as much 
happiness in your work as I am in mine.  Ha, that was a joke because it’s not 
possible.  My work is the best.  But you can all get involved in it too!  You 
don’t need to wear a nametag like me, just keep being good examples and start to 
talk with people.  They need this Gospel.  Thanks for writing me and not 
forgetting me.  
~Elder Cappuccio

Lesson Continues as New Companion Loses Lunch with Bravo! -Jun 21,2009

2009-11-01T17:25:00.000-08:00

Hello!

How is everyone?  This last week was pretty good.  Luvsmaa, my old companion's 
sister got baptized this last Friday. We arranged for her brother Elder 
Byamadorj to come in and baptize her.  It was such a wonderful experience and I 
think I'll always remember the expression of joy on their faces, especially on 
my old companion's face.  One of the biggest desires of his heart is to have his 
whole family become members.  Right now his mom works outrageous hours so we 
can't really meet with her but his dad will be coming back from Korea in 3 
months and if I'm here at that time, we'll definitely be meeting with him!  I 
was going to put a picture on here but I lost my camera and I guess my 
companion's camera is out of batteries.  I'll have to show you it next week i 
guess!

Anyways, outside of Luvsmaa, we've got that one guy named Lutsaikhan.  He's 
awesome.  We gave him the commitment to read out of 3 Nephi every day and even 
if he's gone the whole day looking for work (he's trying to find work right now)  
his wife tells me that he was reading before he left or that he read when he got 
home.  Just yesterday we were able to meet with him and teach him about Tithing 
in order to help his financial problems.  I'm so excited for him because he's 
such a strong guy and if we can get him to keep centering that strength on his 
faith, he'll be such a great member in our branch.  It kind of funny though cuz 
he's got a hat that looks like a hat Grandpa Kepas would wear!  When we came to 
the baptism to watch it with him, he had it on.

We've also got this one girl named Zaya (that means destiny in Mongolian in case 
you wanted to know).  In all reality, she's ready to be baptized, but we're 
working with her parents to try and get them to be as faithful as she is.  Her 
parents work really weird hours so we only get to meet with them during one week 
and then we have to wait another week.

Oh and yea, my companion has his first encounter with throwing up!  It comes to 
every American missionary that comes to Mongolia and my companion handled it 
with bravo!  As we left our house to go to church, he remarked about it hurting 
but insisted we go.  So we went.  As we were outside we started to talk with 
people on the street.  As we starting talking with this guy named Byamba, my 
companion silently made his way away from us, about faced, and spit out about a 
gallon of assorted ingredients (mainly the food I had so tenderly made for him 
hours earlier!).  Undaunted, I continued to talk with this guy, because he was 
way interested!  We finally settled on going to church together but we had to 
wait for Elder Cardinal to finish unloading his contents.  That was only round 
one...he continued to find his head in toilets and trash cans around the church 
until he finally could rest while me and some other Elder practiced a musical 
number for Zone Conference with the Mission President's wife.  On awaking from 
his slumber, he remarked that sleeping in their guest bed for 30 minutes, "felt 
like sleeping in the Celestial Room".  Which he intends to try after his 
mission.  Anyways, he was a true trooper.

And while all that was happening, we had brought a new guy to church that was 
way interested!  He asked a bunch of questions in the investigators class and I 
think he kind of agrivated the sister missionary teaching it.  Anyways, he's got 
a Book of Mormon now and as he reads it he's going to feel the power of it. Im 
excited for him!

Well, that's it!  I love you all!

~Elder Cappuccio 

-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:32:48 -0400
Subject: Re: Forward to Haylee: hayleet@hotmail.com

Dear James,



Phew, I am back to stay for awhile.  Just got back from DC with Cali.  It was 
neat to see all the sights and go to the Smithsonian.  I've always wanted to do 
that.  Good thing I checked my email Wednesday at the place we were staying and 
forwarded your email on Wednesday to Haylee on her Birthday....almost like you 
had planned it that way.  It's Father's day today, so cali and Amy are out with 
their dad, but Jack has all his kids and his dad over for dinner(I invited him, 
since his wife was out of town).  So we'll have 7 for dinner without any of my 
kids!  When we all get together it will be like a family reunion. 




I'm going to attach two pictures from the wedding.  I afraid if I sent more it 
would be too big of a file.  I can send more later.  I bought Joe a suit so he 
looks like a missionary now, or a Secret Service agent....especially with his 
mirror shades he was wearing.




I didn't read your letter from last week because I think you sent it from work 
and I was gone all week.  So I'll catch-up tomorrow along with my other 200 
emails.  I hope you are doing well and that the treats we sent you have helped 
put some meat back on your bones.  Jack and I both experienced the traveler's 
diarrhea from Belize, but Jack got it worse.  He had to go to the ER a week 
after we got back for to IV bags because he was dehydrated from throwing up. 
 Other than that and t
he sunburn we had a great time.




Though it's not cold anymore- keep the gospel fire burning!




Love you always




mom

Beware of Hot Grandma's! First Stake in Mongolia Established!

2009-11-01T17:20:00.000-08:00

Well, things are going good.  we played some more soccer today and went out to a 
place called Turtle Rock.  I hope the following statement doesn't make you too 
mad, but I misplaced my camera.  In other words, it's lost.  Or Stolen.  
anyways, it's not with me and so it's with someone else.  You don't have to send 
me a new one, in fact it's probably better you don't.  I'm really bad at taking 
pictures and even worse at sending them so you can just ask me what the country 
was like and I'll try really hard to describe every detail!  Haha.

Anyways, we're baptizing Luvsmaa on Friday.  That's my old companion's older 
sister. So he'll be doing the actually baptizing but i'll try and see if I can 
send a picture.  After that there are two sweet investigators that are showing a 
lot of promise.  On top of that, we just started going to a new area that has 
over 10,000 people in it.  How are we going to teach all of them?  I don't know, 
but we'll try.

Oh, and I got a pretty funny story, hope you like it!

We were teaching a lesson to two of our really good investigators, Lutsaikhan 
and Narantsetseg.  Well, their grandma is really old.  And she just talks 
nonsense (literally, speaks incoherently) the whole day long.  She laugh about 
absolutely nothing!  Anyways, one time, we were teaching and I guess it started 
to get hot.  So, she started to unbutton her shirt.  Next think you know, she 
takes the whole thing off!  So we're teaching about faith in Jesus Christ and 
we've got this naked grandma in the corner talkin jibber-jabber.  Anyways, I 
didn't actually look but my companion, Elder Cardinal did and he said that he 
"experienced Outer Darkness".  That sounds pretty bad.  Anyways, the mom got up 
and helped the old grandma put her shirt back on and that was that. (If this is 
a little graphic, you can not share it)


In closing, just know I love you all and I love this mission.  It's awesome.  
It's the most rewarding work on the planet.  I hope everything is going good for 
you all and that as you pray for opportunities to serve God's children He will 
bless you with the chance to bring them into the light of the Gospel.  Oh yea, 
the first stake in Mongolia was set up this last Sunday!  sweet eh??

~Elder Cappuccio

Gold Mining in Mongolia

2009-11-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

Good morning!

Another great week has passed in the beautiful city of Ulaanbaatar (Red Hero).  
As I told you over the phone, it had snowed so it was cold for a few days here 
but now it is nice and beautiful again!  Mongolia is such a wierd country when 
it comes to that.  It has the biggest temperature swing of any country I know 
of.  In the winter it's -40 and in the summer it is over 100!  I used to love 
going to Utah and being in the snow and in the cold climates; now, I'm sick of 
it!  I want it to be hot! 

Anyways, the work is going good here.  We're really picking up a big 
investigator pool and trying to keep working them down and refining them into 
gold!  There's a lot of Gold to be found here in Mongolia but it is so very very 
crucial to use the right methods in mining!  If you just go in and blast 
everything to bits with dynamite, you're going to get a very small yield.  But, 
if you make sure to pan the stream, very gently and friendly, you find quite a 
bit of specks.  Don't EVER underestimate the power of friendship in missionary 
work.  You want to know why they ask members to help so much in missionary work?  
Because they already have established friends that they love and trust and the 
friend loves and trusts that member.  When that sort of relationship exists, the 
ability to share the message of the restored Gospel is enhanced greatly.  As 
missionaries, we have the responsibility of becoming very good friends and very 
comfortable with each other in a very short time.  Sometimes it's easy, 
sometimes it's hard.  Sometimes it's not possible.  But one thing I learned this 
week very well is that you must be friends with the members and the 
investigators!  If they always see you as just "the missionary" or "the church 
member" then it makes religious discussion forced, or unspiritual.  All in all, 
less productive.

I say this because this week we went to visit and teach an investigator and 
ended up meeting her husband.  As we got to know him and talked with him, we 
became pretty good friends.  They offered us food and we politely accepted.  The 
food would take awhile so we asked if we could meet with someone else and then 
return.  They allowed us to do so and after teaching the other lesson we 
returned back to visit more with them.  After sharing a message on the Book of 
Mormon with our friend, it was rather late.  At that point, we had a decision.  
We could be just 'missionaries' and decline their food, leave and be home by 9; 
on the other hand, we could accept their generousity, eat, and be at home after 
9 but before 930.  We chose the latter and had a great time with the man and his 
wife talking and eating.  The result?  This man brought himself to church at sat 
all three hours enjoying and asking questions about our services and the things 
taught there!  That is how I gained a testimony of the importance of friendship 
in missionary work!  After all, Christ himself referred to us as friends, if we 
do as He has commanded.

K, well I love all of you!  You guys are great and it was awesome to talk with 
you all on the phone!  Keep up the good work and enjoy your summer vacation ok?  
The church is true so do what you can to move it along.  Find at least one 
friend that you can introduce to the church!  Just one! and your joy will be 
great in the kingdom of God.  Bye!

~Elder Cappuccio

-----Original Message-----
From: marathomom@aol.com
To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net
Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 21:21:26 -0400
Subject: wedding week


 Dear James,


 
Time is flying by, you have less than a year to go on your mission and I am 
getting married in 6 days!? I hope you know that I wish you could be here.? I 
will send pictures from the wedding. I know you will like Jack, because I know 
you would like someone that makes me so happy =)? He said he was going to wrote 
you a letter, so not sure if that would be a real letter or just an email.
Anyway in church today we sang the song Hark, All Ye Nations and I thought about 
you.? Hear are the words:
Hark all ye nations! Hear heaven voice. Through every land that all may rejoice! 
Angels of glory shout the refrain: Truth is restored again!
Chorus:
Oh how glorious from the the throne above shines the gospel light of truth and 
love! Bright as the sun, this Heavenly ray lights every land today'

Searching in darkness, natins have wept. Watching for dawn, their vigil they've 
kept. All now rejoice, the long night is o'er. Truth is on earth once more.
chorus again.
Chosen by God to serve him below, to every land and people we'll go, standing 
for truth with fervent accord, teaching his Holy word.
chorus again.

I think about you serving the people in a distant land so they can hear about 
the gospel message they have been waiting for. Hope you have a great week.? I 
might not be able to write you the next few weeks because I will be in Belize or 
on my way back.
We love you,

Keep the fire burning!

love always,

mom

Happy Birthday James- Wedding Plans for Mom -"Read the Book of Mormon"-May 3rd, 2009

2009-11-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

Why thank you! I can't believe I'm twenty. I don't feel like it. Mongolians tell me I don't look like it (more like 30 in their opinion) but they all look like little children anyway :).

So yea, we will be calling home next week at 9:50 Monday morning. You can do the math and figure out what time that is in Arizona time. I think it's a 14 hour time difference but it could be different. I'll only be talking with you for about 30 to 45 minutes so be prepared to talk so that nobody is left out. I talked with President Andersen and he told me that if there is no other possible way, I can call Dad on a seperate call after talking with all of you. WHatever happens, I'll be happy because I get to talk to all of you!

So you're getting married! I'm sure you and Jack are very excited about that. And then to Belize? I think I have a friend serving a mission there named Elder Clark. Tall, glasses, from Texas. If you run into him tell him Hi for me.

On the sunny side of missionary work, we had a family come to church the other day! It was awesome! The old grandpa is almost blind and deaf so he didn't get much out of the audio/visual presentation of Sacrament but I'm sure his spirit was just as capable of feeling the Holy Ghost as the rest were! We've been having a great time here in our area teaching with power and authority, especially about the Book of Mormon. In case you guys have maybe forgotten the importance of the Book of Mormon, I encourage you to all read it again and again! It is, as Joseph Smith said, the MOST correct book on the face of the earth. If you want to get closer to God, if you want to learn about him, be more like him, read the Book of Mormon. Alright, we'll time is up. I'll talk to you all next week!

I love you all! ~Elder Cappuccio
-----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net

Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 20:21:02 -0400
Subject: Happy Birthday

Happy Happy Birthday Jamsie dear, Happy days will come to you all year. If I had
a wish then it would be a Happy happy birthday to you from me(and everyone
else).
Just thought I'd get a little nostalgic with a Primary song for you. Now you are 
20! That's almost half as old as me..... I'm glad you got our package and that
you are rationing the supplies to last awhile. We hope they help to give you
the energy and strength you need everyday.

On other news.....I am officially engaged!as of Tuesday afternoon Jack asked
me to marry him and I said yes. We are getting married on May 23rd and then
leaving on a vacation to Belize. So when you call next Sunday we can talk about
it.So what time are you going to be calling?  I will arrange for your dad to
talk to you, just let me know what time.

Amy is back home and trying to get a job for the summer.  She is going to apply
at Chase as a temporary processor assistant.  They are paying $15 an hour!

It's good to hear you have success finding investigators, even if they don't
always respond as well as you like, but as you noticed if you ponder on what you
can do to improve your presentation then you come up with things that will work
better.  A very good experience for life learned.

We love you so much and pray for you and pray the dogs leave you alone.

Keep the fire burning!

Love always,

mom

Avoiding Clever Canines and the Importance of Church Attendance- April 26, 2009

2009-11-01T10:11:00.000-08:00

Yea, so far dogs haven't been too much of a problem for me. In fact none of the things here in Mongolia have been too bad yet. I will account that to the fact that all of you pray so earnestly for me every night and your faith carries me through. Thank you! On my end, I will try not to pet as many dogs so as to reduce the risk of me getting bit by any particularly clever canines.

So, the work. Believe it or not, we found a lot of investigators this week. It seemed like everyday, we went out and wound up in the home of some new excited person that was willing to hear about our church. It was pretty neat. However, come Sunday, we sadly reported that none of them had made their way to Sacrament Meeting! I have to admit I was very disappointed at that and I thought about it for awhile. I came to the conclusion that if we don't properly explain something, no matter how amazing, how spectacular or how important, the other person will not understand and will most likely not participate. In our meetings we had really talked to them about the significance of our message, but we failed to tie it into the need for us to come to church on Sunday. They missed the correlation and so there wasn't any pressure to come. Maybe that could be of some use to you guys! Maybe you're having a hard time getting your point across about something. Speak of the reasons it is important. Talk of the results it brings, if it's a gospel principle, fortify this claim with scripture or testimony.

Hopefully this next week as we change our style of teaching to emphasize church attendance more, I'll have some more cool success stories for you! The idea of attending church in Mongolia is defintely a foreign concept. Until the introduction of Christian religion, worship was usually done inside the person's home will special occassions requiring the attending of a temple or shrine. Now we are here and we must teach with clarity the difference and importance of Weekly Sabbath day worship. What this all comes down to is understanding the circumstances of the people you're talking with. Don't just tell them something, but understand who they are, they're background and what the feel, then tie your teachings into that.

In other news, my companion is the man. He's way awesome. Only two weeks in and he's walking and talking like he's been here for months! Send my congratulations to Ryan Taylor on his mission call! And tell Taylor hello for me as well! Oh, the other day I ran into an old church member named Baatar who was baptized around 1999. I asked him if he knew an Elder Lantz and he said that Elder Lantz had actually taught him the lessons! The man said, when he was pretty new to the country, this was one of the first people he baptized. He's from the city so that might help. Maybe Brother Lantz will remember him.

Alright, well I did get the package and I've been floating on cloud nine ever since. There was so much goodness in it! I will definitely have to ration it all out and take my time enjoying it. Life is good here in Mongolia because we're keeping ourselves busy teaching the wonderful Mongolians. I love my mission and my calling! I hope you find just as much enjoyment in the fulfillment of your own local callings and responsibilities. I love you all so much and hope this e-mail finds you well. ~Elder Cappuccio
-----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net

Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:04:16 -0400
Subject: Re: A New Transfer

Dear James,

I just read the newsletter and email form the Mission President. They gave a new 

address for packages, so I hope you get the one I sent a few weeks ago. Then 
again after reading the newsletter, maybe you shouldn't get it because it has 
lots of sugary treats which are "unhealthy"- poptarts, fruit snacks, candy bars, 

but after your last email when you said you are skinny because you have been 
sick a few times you probably can afford to eat a little junk food to put a 
pound or two back on.  Also, watch out for the dogs, 6 missionaries bitten in 
the past few months, I hope you were not one of them or will be one of 
them....that's scary. But I
 know you are being watched over so I won't 
worry.....too much.

Not too much exciting this week, just working and working. I planted a garden 
again last weekend and it's looking pretty good. Got some tomatoes for you.  You 

will probably come home from your mission and love tomatoes because you finally 
realize how good they are. 

When I talk to you on the phone it will be one year since you left and one year 
until you get back.  Time flies by.  Someone from our ward, but I don't really 
know him,  a Ryan Taylor, I think, got his mission call this week to the Salt 
Lake South spanish speaking mission.  He is your age because he said he is 
almost turning 20.  I don't think Taylor Eyestone is going back to Australia.  
He is still here trying to recover from his back injury and I think it's harder 

to leave a second time.  Also Erin Wheatly and MIke Powell got married last 
week.  I'm not engaged yet, but I might get married before you get back, so just 

wanted to let you know it might be happening.  Amy said you asked her if I was 
engaged, so I wanted to give you an update and I'll keep you posted.

I hope you are healthy and happy and following the spirit.

Keep the fire burning!

Love always,

mom

Don't Pass Up the Savior- April 19th ( i lost a few emails between here and the last post)

2009-11-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

Hello!, Alright, what's the deal...Joseph is 6'1"? Goodness! So much for me being the big brother! I demand photo evidence to prove this claim! Haha, wow, that is so exciting for Joseph! He's a powerhouse! And when is Cali going to release her first CD? When is the competition for National History Day again?

As for me, sadly I don't think I've really grown too much. For awhile I was feeling pretty tall wearing my winter boots that gave me an inch or too but now in my regular shoes I think I'm just my regular 6' 1/2". If I pray really hard and eat right maybe I can get to 6'1"! Haha, just kidding.

Anyways, my son! He is amazing! Elder Cardinal is, in my opinion much better than the Arizona Cardinals. He's got the ability to make it to the Super Bowl...and win it! But honestly, he is doing so well. People frequently comment on how well he's speaking Mongolian, especially when they hear he's only been in the country for a week! From my perspective it's a little different because I'm with him all of the day but when you look at it, he's doing great! His willingness and determination to grow are also among his outstanding abilities. He's very diligent in getting things done right.

Our work is moving along. However, we've experienced what some would call 'obstacles'. The sisters that we have been really working with lately, preparing them for baptism and all that stuff have had a death in the family. Not in their immediate family, so that's good. But it's close enough to them that it will keep them busy and not really able to meet with us! We were very upset when we first heard this, but we've got a will and we're confident the Lord has a way! Especially this last week, in light of the talks given at General Conference, I'm more prone to not get disturbed by these unfortunate circumstances. Hearing the prophet's words really instilled in my again that quiet confidence that God leads this work and will more it along the path that He wills. In fact, we were able to witness that fact just the other night. This last week I had been getting frustrated because it seemed as we followed the Spirit in making decisions, they didn't really pan out into something we were hoping for. So just yesterday, we weren't able to teach a lesson we had planned and we were wondering where to go next. At first one lady's house came into mind because she had come to church today to see Conference. We listened, it seemed right, but I was still hesitant because these same ideas hadn't really worked out. Fortunately, i yielded and we went in to visit a lady named Uranchimeg. She's the non-member mother of one of our missionaries in Mongolia. She had come to Conference the other day in hopes of seeing her son at the building. She was able to and at the same time sat at both sessions, hearing the powerful word s of the Lord's servants. As we talked about it, she confessed that she was starting to wonder if God exists! We were excited beyong belief and quickly shared our convictions, as well as the scripture's words on this subject. Then we invited her to pray for herself and the result was that she was able to feel the Spirit as she prayed. Now we're got a lot of hope that she will continue to progress and finally embrace the Gospel her son holds so dear. This work truly is exciting!

So, just in closing, I've lost a lot of weight, I've been sick a few times, some people have threathened and tried to hurt us, but don't worry about me! Go out where you are and find someone that needs your care! There is at least one person that you will come in contact with today that you can help! Don't pass them up because in doing that, we pass up the Savior! It was His words that taught us this principle, that when we have done it "unto the least of these thy brethren, ye have done it unto me". I hope that all of you can go out and do something like that today. Then as you feel the satisfaction of it, I hope that you will make it a daily habit! I love you all, I hope my letters don't sound like written up talks, that would be bad. I just write what it seems good to write. I hope everything is going good for all of you, even in these hard times.
~Elder Cappuccio
P.S. Hey mom,

I'm really looking forward to talking to you on the phone over Mother's Day! It'll be very neat to hear all of your voices and the updates you have for me! If I could ask one thing of you, please coordinate with Dad to have him be together with you guys for that time so that I can speak with him. Now in order to do that, we'll have to structure things a little differently and make sure we don't bring up anything that may offend Dad. While Jack and you may want to spend the day together to celebrate it, please plan seperate times so that there will not be any negative interference, or even the slightest sign of interference. It will mean a lot to Dad if he can talk to me, so please do your best (I emphasize the words YOUR and BEST as a whole and individually) to facilitate this. Thank you, I love you! -----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net

Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:33:36 -0400
Subject: Re: A New Transfer

Dear James

So how is your baby James doing?(His new companion's nickname)

That what I called you, sweet baby James!  
Sounds like you have a lot in common, so you should get along real well and 
light up the area with the gospel message. I forwarded Devin's latest email. 
Funny story about him and a chihuahua, anyway any problems with dogs in 
Mongolia?  That seems to be a common theme for missionaries and mail carriers.

I am looking forward to talking to you again in a few weeks for Mother's day.  
I'm going on a scuba diving vacation at the end of May to Belize, so I'll be 
able to tell you a little about before, but email you more about it after. I've 
worked a ton of overtime so i this will be my chance to relax and have some fun. 

Just wanted to tell you before you heard it from someone else.  

Amy is flying back here April 30th for the summer.  hopefully she will be able 
to find a job or she'll be back at Grandma's house next fall. Joseph has got a 
few turns at driving this past week and he's doing ok, can't make my hair any 
worse it's already all gray underneath this color treatment. He is about 6'1'' 
now and not tiny so when you get back he might be bigger than you.  How tall are 

you now?

Cali is busy recording her own songs on youtube and has her own page
 where 
people can comment and subscribe to her account so they can get updates on her 
latest recordings. 

Crystal moved out of Dad's house last week and I haven'
t talked to her since then, but she is going to be graduating in May with 
straight A's!  Does she ever write you?

I hope you had a great day listening to General Conference.  

Keep the fire burning!

Love Always,

Mom

Teaching Former Companion's Sister- Spectaculer Week- Mar 29, 2009

2009-11-01T09:52:00.000-08:00

Hello! So this week was spectacular! I've gained witness upon witness of the sacred nature of this work and the divine power of this message!

I think awhile ago I told you of how my old companion's family was in my area and how we started meeting with his older sister. Well, we've continued to meet with her but just like before there wasn't much sign of progress. She would read with her church member relatives and she would pray if asked, but she had never come to church yet, she just always had something else to do. However, this week, the Lord inspired us through the Holy Spirit to know exactly what to teach. I mean exactly, down to the very words we would say. On Thursday, we went to her house, accompanied by a sister returned missionary who served in Ukraine and taught her about baptism. As we shared the sacred doctrine of the age of accountibility and the status of children who died before reaching that age, a most aweinspiring feeling surged into the room. As we shared the beautiful vision on Joseph Smith from the Doctrine and Covenants we were able to give her a special promise that her daughter was waiting for her in the Celestial Kingdom and that in order to be with her again, she had to get baptised. Tears of joy were shed on both sides, I haven't cried a lot in my life, but I have found myself crying more often on my mission, and this was one of those experiences.Then, this Sunday, another part of that miracle unfolded before our eyes: she came to church! Man, it was incredible!

Anyways, there were a bunch of other neat things that happened this week. I can't write them all because time is short but you can ask me about them in like a year when I get home. Man it's been going fast huh. Welllll, I love you all. Write me back, send me packages, do all the things that you great parents do! ALright, I'll write again next week!

~Elder Cappuccio

-----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.netm

 
 Dear James,

 

 I typed a letter already but it wouldn't send it, bad connections here at 
jack's house.? I hope this goes through.? I love getting your letters and hope 
this gets there before you write me.? I finally got to go to the Renaissance 
festival on Saturday. It was fun and we had a good time.? Joseph also got his 
driving permit, but I haven't let him practice yet.? It may have something to do 
with his saying he wanted an old solid steel car so when he crashed into someone 
he wouldn't get hurt....I told him this is not like bumper cars....I'll take it 
slow.

 

 Ashley Richardson got married Friday and they had a nice wedding reception in 
the Richardson's back yard. Cali said she couldn't wait until you got home so 
you could have a wedding reception.? Jack mentioned that you would need to get 
married first.....Cali's already making some plans for you!

 We love you and pray for you always,

 

 keep the fire burning!

 

 Love always,

 

 mom

Soccer and Souls to Save(Mar. 22nd, 2009)

2009-11-01T09:33:00.000-08:00

Hellooooo. I want cinnamon rolls! Those sound delicious. Anyways, one of the senior couples is getting ready to head back home and so this last Saturday they are making sloppy joe's for us. That is something I'm looking forward to! Alright, so it sounds like things are going good for all ya'll. Going to pine, playing in the forest...for the last 4 weeks we've been playing soccer with some other elders and it's been a lot of fun. I'm definitely not my old self, I'm rusty, and out of shape, but I still make good runs and get them spun up. I really thought I was quite skinnier from before but it's more of just that I lost most of my muscle and replaced it with...well, the only other thing you can replace it with, fat...:( BUt i'm not like OBESE, i'm just...not what I used to be.

Anyways, enough lamentations! The best part is that I'm a missionary! I was thinking over this week and trying to think of some really neat experiences and I couldn't really point out any. I guess it just over all was good because we were able to meet with a lot of people and bring a measure of the Spirit into their lives. We had a little disappointment in that the lady we've been working with a lot and moving towards baptism decided to stop meeting with us. It was really a sad day for the two of us, we were so sure that she was going to go all the way. But on the other hand, we've got another great lady that's going to get baptised in two or three weeks. Is General Conference really happening in a week? If so, that's going to be great.

Well, I love you all. Is Amy still alive? I haven't heard from her in ages! Alright, well bye! ~Elder Cappuccio P.S. A mongolian Elder in my district wants to know if you guys could send me another camera from America so that he could buy my camera off of me. He had one before and then he lost it. Is that a possiblilty? It's your call because you'd have to buy it and mail it and all that stuff and that might be a hassle. Plus, if he leaves soon it might not work out. Let me know next week! Also, this one guy wants me to buy a Mongolian themed nativity scene that he carved himself. It's actually really neat and he's selling it for like $75 so I might get it. The problem is that I'm not anywhere close to leaving and so I've got to hold on to it for all the rest of my mission if I get it.

-----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:23:22 -0400 Subject: Re: Helloooo again Hello

Dear James, I am writing you really quick so I don't miss you again this Sunday. We just got done rolling out cinnamon rolls and they are cooking. I wish I could send you some, but after weeks in the mail they would not taste so good. But maybe you could make some of your own one day, they are pretty easy. Do you need a recipe?

We went to Pine this weekend and stayed at Jack's family cabin and did some antique shopping and raked pine needles. The go-cart didn't work after the first run so we didn't get to ride it this time around. This week is the trek for Joseph, so pray that he will have a good experience there. I am still real busy at work, working about 50 hours a week. That's why it was nice to take a day off finally and go up to Pine on Friday. Bro Gro spoke in church today and he related how when he was pulling weeds out of his yard this weekend he related it to apostasy. If you let the seeds germinate they take off and grow on their own with no watering or fertilizing, but regular plants that you buy and plant needed to be tended or they die. So it is like apostasy, things that might lead you away from the church are easy to grow without much effort they creep in, but keeping a strong testimony requires diligence in nourishing it and strengthening it constantly for it to survive and flourish.

I hope you are doing well. We love you and hope you are healthy and happy in Mongolia. Keep the fire burning!
love always,
mom

Following the Promptings of the Spirit(March 8th)

2009-06-18T23:20:00.000-07:00

Alright, well, this is Elder Cappuccio, signing in from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The weather is warming up and so are the sentiments of the people. Last week's letter wasn't anything special and so i'll apologize for that again. But, I did promise that this letter would be fraught with great spiritual experience and in answer to that promise, the Lord really blessed us with abundant spiritual experiences! At first, a sort of funny, ironic experience: For the past 2 weeks I studied Hope in hopes to become a more hopeful missionary. Anyways, as I studied the scriptures and gained more understanding about it, our work was just rough! We couldn't find a new investigator for the life of us! We were getting burned left and right! It looked like there was no sign of success anywhere. As these events happened I couldn't help but feel really upset and wonder what when wrong and all those kinds of things you think about at those times. Then maybe the 2nd night it finally occurred to me, the Lord was trying to test and improve my Hope! As soon as i realized this, our work just took on a whole new brightness. Even though some people were still just rude and would burn us or wouldn't even give us an ear, I was able to find solace in the fact that the SPirit was next me and guiding me. President Andersen told a way neat story that relates to hope for all of us as members of the church. In Hawaii there is a very big football fan that loves to watch Monday Night Football. Unfortunately, when it starts, so the local tv station replays it at night. But because this guy really likes football, he listens to it on the radio and then watches the game again on tv at night. He says that knowing the outcome of the game as he watches it really changes the way he views the game. If he knows the team he's rooting for is going to win, when they fumble the ball or throw an interception, it's disappointing but he knows that in the end it will be ok. Just like that, we as members of the church, know the final outcome of this game/battle between good and evil. We know that in the end Christ will triumph over all and so when things just don't go our way, we can still be happy knowing that if we do the things we need to do we will be on the winning side. Then it becomes easier to be patient, to have charity, to not get depressed over the temporal state of things. So then on Wednesday we had a way neat experience. After we finished teaching English and did our studies, we were waiting at the bus stop for a bus to take us to our area. It didn't come for ever! We waited and waited and waited. Then, just as one was coming for our area, we got a text message from one of our members, she said she was at the church and wondered if we could go teach her. We had to make a split decision as the bus was there and we either had to get on or not. At first my mind was made to go to our area and work. However, after second thought, it seemed right to go to the church and teach her. We followed that prompting and in response we were able to help a beloved daugther of God understand what she could do to receive the fulness of blessings that she had the ability to receive. The Spirit was almost overpowering in that room. That lesson was brought about by the Spirit and it was amazing. Then, the second miracle happened. We have a new member that has become inactive lately. We set a time to meet with us on Tuesday and she burned us. We were very upset. However, as we were singing the opening song in our lesson with our other member on Wednesday, she poked her head in the door! My jaw dropped in amazement and I received a second powerful confirmation by the Spirit. After finishing our 1st lesson, we went down and were able to teach our other new member a powerful, spiritual lesson. It turns out that she had misunderstood and we couldn't get through to her phone on Tuesday so we had been pretty sad about that. Anyways, I just have to honestly say that we followed the Spirit that day and were blessed abundantly for doing so! The other day we got this video about the life of President Thomas S. Monson called "On the Lord's Errand". On the back there is a quote that says, The sweetest experience in life is to receive a prompting and act on it and later find out that that prompting was in response to a prayer or a need. And I want the Lord to know that if He ever has a errand he needs to run, Tom Monson will run that errand for Him." That quote inspired me and that Wednesday Morning I prayed for the opportunity to repsond to needs and prayers and then that happened. THe Lord answers prayers. So yea, I love this work, things are going good here and one of the really neat opportunities we have in this new area is working with the members here. Pretty much all the members in my area have one need or another, most of them are inactive and so we've got a great blessing to work with them to redevelop their faith and their testimonies. It truly is a great experience to meet with this people that have once before felt that stirring in their breat and just work to get them feeling it once more. I hope you all are having a great great week. I love you all so much and it's good to hear about you all. I'm sorry to hear that Cali was sick! About 3 of our investigators/members were sick this week as well. It's not cool! How's Joseph and Amy doing? They don't write me anymore, I hope their still alive. How about Crystal? She's almost graduated College! Unbelievable...Well, I hope your work is ok mom, I suppose that this time is not the most happy time in America but I know that despite the external circumstances, it's what goes on inside us that will really determine our happiness and the happiness of others. WIth that insight, I encourage all of you to look for ways you can lift where you stand and make the days of others a little brighter. Doing this will make all the difference in your life. I know that this is a principle of the Gospel because I have felt it as I have gone about this work and the Holy Spirit has born witness of it to me. Once again, I love you all! ~Elder Cappuccio -----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:56:54 -0400 Subject: Re: Helloooo Dear James, Yep you caught me off guard this week. With church late and then choir practice and then dinner, I just got a chance to write you. We had a pretty good week. Cali got sick but only missed one day because she actually likes school and would rather go sick than stay home. Her birthday party was this Saturday and she tried hard to get better by then. She wasn't all the way better but well enough to not cancel. We did a luau theme and I made cake that looked liked a volcano with red and yellow lava frosting coming out if it. Speaking of food, sounds like you are not starving with all the buuz you ate last week! I thought you would come back skinnier, but I may be wrong! Well, I'll be excited to read about you latest experiences next week. Hope your soccer skillz shined last week=) Take care and keep the fire burning! Love always. mom

Tsagaan Sar, aka Buuz Eating Fest- sent Mar 1( yeah i caught up!)

2009-03-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

Hello!

Well, let me first extend my congratulations to Cali! That's awesome! She's gonna go all the way!!! Haha, that's way cool. Yeah, the Japanese internment camps! That's a good subject. The other day we were meeting with the Relief Society President and her son (who is inactive). We somehow got started talking about racism in America and they asked me how long racism was a problem in America and I couldn't remember when it all happened! Man, I'm getting rusty.

Anyways, this week was Tsagaan Sar! The long awaited Tsagaan Sar. It was well, to say the least, interesting. Let me describe kind of what happens on Tsagaan Sar. First, everyone makes tons and tons and tons of buuz. Usually like 300 or more. They're like dumplings but not the same, because the ingredients are meat, fat, onions, and seasoning. Then they freeze the buuz and wait till Tsagaan Sar. When Tsagaan Sar starts, they start to steam their buuz as people come over to their house to spend time with them! So then for the next three days people just go visit relatives and eat buuz and sing and talk. When you go and visit, you have to do this greeting where you put your hands under theirs if you're younger than them (on top if you're older) and ask them, "Is there peace?" or "Are you peaceful?" and then the older person kind of gives you a kiss on your cheeks. LAtely, they've just started to just sniff you but yea. that's what you do. Then, they give you their boiled water-down milk with salt and you slice off pieces of boiled meat that's lying in a tray and wait for the buuzs to be ready! Then the buuz come and you eat potato salad and buuz and anything else that is white. Now, if you're a missionary, that means you're going to like all the members houses and eating all the buuzs they put in front of you! Over the three days of Tsagaan Sar we probably went to 16 houses and I ate...I didn't really count, but it was like over 110. My companion ate like 185. He's a good eater. :) He really loves the people and so he sacrificed his body to show his love. I guess I just don't love them as much as he does?

Anyways, we'd get home every night and just be stuffed to the brim and not want to eat anything anymore. However, we did eat more, day after day. I'm kind of interested to find out how much I weigh now...haha.

So yea, with Tsagaan Sar going on this week, there wasn't really anything else that happened and we weren't really able to meet with our investigators or find new people. We did have two neat experiences with our investigators. We went in to teach them and they were just so prepared. They had read, thought about it, wrote down questions, and it was awesome! One investigator asked really good questions, like "Without being baptised can I feel the Holy Ghost?" "Why did Jesus Christ have to leave, why doesn't he just stay here and keep working among the people?" Yea, so it was really neat, and we had the opportunity to really get her hooked on asking to know the truth through prayer. As we taught about Adam and Eve, she had a hard time understanding because when she was in Germany earlier, she had learned some basic stuff from the Jehovah's Witnesses. So we had her in a situation where she really wanted to know which accout was correct, which doctrine was true. So we told her to pray and promised her that she would get an answer! Sweet eh?

SO yea, I still love my mission and I still love being here among the Mongolian people. They're such a great people that have been dealt a hard lot. But this GOspel is changing their lives and it's a awesome thing to be able to witness!

Well, I hope everything goes well for you! It looks like each one of you has one adventure or another planned out! I love you all so much!

~Elder Cappuccio

-----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Date: Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:34:31 -0500 Dear James,

It's starting to warm up here, so I hope it is warming up there in Mongolia too. This week has been very busy, Cali had o get her board done for the City competition of National History day. She did it on the Japanese internment camps during WWII. So she had us make a large board out of plywood and we put a rusty fence and some barbed wire across the front of the board after she glued everything down. Jack helped get the supplies and helped us get it all put together late into the night. It all payed of because she got a superior rating and 68/70 points and gets to move on to state competition in April. If she does well there she can go to Nationals in DC this summer. She also competed in the Chandler Gold Cup talent competition on Friday, where she sang very well, but didn't win. She was already trying to think of a song to sing next year so she can win. So since it's here Birthday today(sort of) I guess it's okay to talk about her so much this email.

The rest of us are good. Joseph is getting ready to go on the Trek. I am writing his letter this week, should I put in a good word from you?

The primary children loved your letter, and the adults too! Today's meeting was very good, Brother Haught started it off with his humble but strong and caring testimony. His wife is not doing well. Brother Marlin ended it by bearing his test imony for the first time. He and his family were sealed in the temple this week. It was pretty neat. Joe bore is testimony also and related a lesson from seminary about not ignoring the spirit calling you like you might ignore someone calling you on your cell phone because you are too busy.

Amy said she might be working on a fishing boat in Alaska this summer to earn money. She has some friends that are going and she applied but hasn't heard yet.

I bought a big stash of pop-tarts for my next package to you. Do you need anything like shaving supplies or stuff like that? Also Wells fargo keeps taking $6.95 out of our account each month so it would be good if you could call them.

We love you, keep the fire burning!

Love always,

mom

Apostle Nelson Visits and 15 months left!-sent Feb 23

2009-03-05T20:30:00.000-08:00

Alriiiiight. Well this is me, Elder Cappuccio again. Just a little trivia fact. Did you know that i've been on my mission for over 9 months? That's a LONG time. However, Elder Clawson and Elder Miller are way ahead of me! They'll be done before this year closes out!

Anyways, this week has been a good week. We had an Apostle of the Lord, Elder Nelsen, come and speak to the missionaries and the Mongolian church members. It was an amazing experience. Also, on a smaller scale, my companion and I have had some rather neat spiritual experiences lately.

Last wednesday, for preparation day, we went on an outing as a Zone. I didn't really want to go because I didn't trust the planning and coordination of it, but my companion wanted to and so i agreed and off we went. Well, it turned out to take a lot longer than anyone had intended, the weather was pretty rough and it was just not like people intended it to be. I was not to happy about it and the rest of the day really closed off what I felt was my first day as a missionary where I didn't really do anything a missionary should do. That's what it felt like to me. Anyways, the next day I was rather broken up about it and, rather undeservingly, upset towards my companion about it. I felt it was his fault and that if he would just trust me more, we would have had a better day yesterday. So with that attitude, I worked through the first few hours of the day wondering and praying to know how to feel better and get on track. Oddly enough, our cell phone for some reason would not make any calls and would not receive any calls. That was frustrating. If we couldn't call anyone, we wouldn't be able to make to the important assignments we needed to make or confirm any appointments. Finally, companionship study rolled around. As we started up, I decided to bring out my issue with yesterday in front of my companion. I stated my frustrations and why I wasn't happy. Amazingly, we were able to clear things up well and I was able to release the anger I had towards my companion. At a certain point in the discussion, the Spirit whispered to me something amazing: the phone will work now. I waited until we had settled everything and then calmly said, "I think our phone works now" and called our District Leader. It worked! It was amazing! I honestly know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lord caused that to happen as it did. I learned a valuable lesson that day: We must love our companions and when we have things against them, we can't expect to be successful in the work, the Lord won't help us with the work. I also gained a more powerful understanding of the ability of the Lord to command all things, even our cell phones, to the obeying of his will.

Well, things are going great for us and I just want to let you know that I love this work and I'm going to do everything that I can to fulfill my calling to the best of my ability. I love you all so very very much and want to thank you for helping me to be successful in a lot of the things I do. I know this church is true and that it leads us where no other organization or idea or philosophy or path of life can lead us; It leads us to eternal life.

~Elder Cappuccio

I am adding an email he wrote to someone in Mongolian just for fun:

Sain bain uu! Yooe! Mongoloor bichixed aimaar xetsvv bna! Bi chinii mailiig unshaxad barag l oilgoogvi! Gexdee oilgoson! Yamar ch gecen, sonin caikhan? Bi yhenxeer ta nariig sanijinaa! Manai Erdenet barag Mongold xamgiin caikhan gazar yum aa. Bi sain mongoloor bichijinuu? Oh, tegeed, be tursan. Xeveree bambroska mun uu? Xaxa, togloson, yamar ch gecen, daragiin udaa chi nad ruu neg jixene zaxia bichij chadxuu? Ern bid nomlogch nar e-mailaar uur xvmvvc rvv bichij boloxgvi. Tiim uchraas manai eej cham ruu eniig yavuulna! Za, tegvel, chi shvv! Yrgelj sudraas sain unshaarai! mun mash sain zalbiraarai! Xairtai shvv!

~Axlagch Cappuccio

In Harmony with the Lord- sent Feb 18th

2009-03-05T20:22:00.000-08:00

Wow, it sounds like you just go from one adventure to the next! That sounds like a lot of fun to go out and just ride around. Today we kind of did that for our Preparation Day. We went on a little trip to this place called Turtle Rock. We didn't spend much time at the rock itself but instead hiked to this monastary tucked up in the mountains. It was pretty neat but I felt really wierd sitting there looking at some of their paintings describing hell. I took pictures of it because they were really interesting. I'll probably send some home to you. Anyway, it looked really neat and all with all the colors and stuff. Pretty mysterious. Unfortunately, it was locked today and so we couldn't go in.

As for work, things are doing good! We've continued to increase in the lessons we teach. I'd say the best part of last week was just seeing the way that the SPirit was able to work through us. I wish I had more time today to write all about it, there really were several instances this last week where I just really felt the Spirit lead our work. And it was awesome. I think I'll write them next week so that you can read them. I really love that feeling. Knowing that your life is in harmony with the Lord and that the work you're doing is what He would have you do. Unfortunately, we're not perfect and that's not always how it is. But, we're trying and so eventually we'll get it all down just right. Well, to close I just want to let you know that it's getting colder here, not warmer. However, after hearing the inspired words of Elder Nelsen and the people that came with him, I feel a lot warmer inside and excited to carry that fire to the rest of the people of Mongolia. I don't know if I've really explained this well yet, but I really love this people. It's getting hard for me to see the hard situations they go through and not be able to just take them out of it. But yet, some people let us help them, and I love it. Well, I hope everything will go well for you. I keep hearing the economy isn't too good so I hope and pray that God will keep protecting you guys. I love you all!

~Elder Cappuccio,P> -----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:41:00 -0500 Subject: Fun in the snow

Dear James,

Aloha, No I didn't go to Hawaii, but it would be nice. We went to Pine though, which is just north of Payson for the weekend. Joseph and I went to stay at Jack's cabin/house there. We went riding around in the mud and snow on the go-cart, ATV and Jeep Jack has. The go-cart works much better now too, jack fixed the steering. We got stuck in the snow a few times, luckily we made it out or I wouldn't be writing today! jk

Chelisa Lantz wanted to tell you that she said Hi and is thinking about you. Her son really loved the people there also. So, as I was singing in church today, I was wondering what hymns you sing in Mongolian? Do you have the full hymn book or just a condensed version? Do you need your own Mongolian hymn book? The Relief Society sang in church today and since I am the RS chorister I directed the choir, which is my first time doing that. It turned out pretty good. Do you have any musical numbers in your meetings there besides hymns?

I gave your letter to the Primary today and they were excited to get it. It was hard to tell the difference from the Mongolian sentences from your english ones, but then again your going to be a doctor, so don't worry about the handwriting. Elder Burgoyne wrote some of his letter in Cambodian, which looked really different, not even like letters. Sister Fisher said to say thank you and said you can email them next time if you want, instead of mailing it.

Leslie Hodgson says Hi too, I forwarded your last letter to everyone and she and Brother Toolson responded back, in fact let me put in what he wrote:

"James sounds so good. Very excited for James and the experiences he continues to have. I can tell he is hard working and very obedient in his missionary travels. Thanks for sharing." Mike

Also, I haven't been very good at keeping the blog current in December- january. I was wondering if you have the emails on your account that you sent in December. I have January forward but my AOL account erased the older ones. sorry.

Well, I hope you had a great week and wish you more of the same this week. We love and pray for you.

Keep the fire burning!

Love always,

mom

Drunks Becoming Best Friends and Dead Dog Face-Eaters sent Feb 8th

2009-03-05T20:14:00.000-08:00

ALright, it's me again, the Son you banished to Outer Mongolia. Well, this week was good, to be honest, it was good. Statistically, we had an 800% increase in lessons taught. BUt well, that's cuz we may or may not have only taught 1 lesson our first week together... ANyways, the point is, we're building this area up and it's exciting. At first I wanted to cry because our area was like, a mess! It seemed like nothing made sense. Now, I'm not saying that it makes sense now, but we've spent enough time in it that we understand where weneed to go to meet with most people. It's sweet, I love it.

One really neat experience that happened this week is that we started teaching my companion's older sister. She was taking the lessons before but forsome reason stopped taking them. We met with her and it was away awesome lesson, now she's taking the lessons again and we've got a baptismal date set with her. I'm so excited for this because I know itwill mean so much to my old companion. I know he loves his family a lot and wants them to know of thejoy in the gospel.

Outside of that,we had some interesting experiences. One day we were harassed bya drunk and his friend. Turns out hemessed up his leg and needed like 5 dollarstotake an x-ray. He wanted to hit me with his cane because we wouldn't give him money. HOwever, like 2 dayslater after escaping, we ran into him in a very small alley. This time he was sober and hewaslike our best friend! Then last night we saw him again and he was drunk so he was asking for money again. I think by the time this transfers done, we'll be really good friends,maybe he'll even be a church member!

Another kind of scary incident is that apparently thereis a dead dog face eater in our area. Everyday day you see about 5 or 6 dead dogs on the side of theroad. Some are prettier than others. Well, just the other day, we started noticing that the dogs that were just plain old dead the other day were now missing faces! There are not like 3 dead FACELESS dogs in our area! Scary. Now we're starting to wear facemasks when we gothrough that area just incase it decides to go afterliving humans. Haha.

ALright, well I don't know of anything else to write...Elder Nelsen is coming to Mongolia next week so we'll getto hear from him twice. I'm pretty excited aboutthat! As for AMerican food...there are American stores in Ulaanbaatar and theysometimes haveapretty good varietyof things. Unfortunately, I have yet to see Poptarts. They do have all the major candies though and I even got capri-sun and fruit by the foot one time. You definitely should put TONS of pop-tartsin there. I love them. They do sellpeanut butter here but it's hard to find and expensiveso maybe if you sent me a big one that would beawesome.

Sorry to hear about the ankle! THat's no fun atall! SOrry about writing the wrong dateon that letter, I keepdoing that in my journal too! It takeslike a few months to adjust I guess...Alright, well Ithink that's it. I love youall! Thanks forwriting me. I love these people they are so awesome. Keep looking out for people thatyou meet everyday that may be ready to hear your testimony about the restored Gospel!

~Elder Cappuccio -----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:05:10 -0500 Subject: Re: Hello!

Dear James,

Sain bainuu, is that Mongolian for Hello? Learning German out there too I see! I got your letter for the primary this week too! it looks like it only took a week, except for the fact you put the year as 2008! in that case it was really slow.... Anyway I forgot to take it to church this week, so I will put ot in my bag so I won't forget next week.

Pop tarts are on sale this week, so I'll be grabbing you a few boxes for your next package. Anything esle you need besides the pictures? Do they sell American food like poptarts at the grocery stores there? Just wondering what kind of food they sell.

I took Cali to see The Lion King Musical at ASU Gammage on Thursday, It was amazing, we both had a good time and then walking out I missed the last step on the staircase and sprained my ankle. I tried to walk it off, but it didn't work too well, limped about 1/2 a mile to the car. By Saturday night it was feeling pretty good though, so I healed pretty quick. So that was the exciting news of the week.

We love you and hope you are keeping warm.

Keep the fire burning!

Love Always

mom

Awesome Revelation Experience- Sent Jan 18th

2009-03-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! This is Elder Cappuccio, live from Erdenet, Mongolia! This week was pretty neat! We were supposed to have a baptismal interview this week but he not exactly ready yet. If everything goes according to plan, we'll have 3 baptisms in 2 weeks! Yea! I love meeting with these people and seeing them catch fire as they experience the SPirit in their lives. Today I had the opportunity to go into an interview with President Andersen. That was awesome! He so wise and so helpful. We talked about how to improve the quality of our investigators, how to really speak to them. He taught me it's all about the questions. We need to learn what their desire is, and then make promises to them according to the Spirit about that desire and how the scriptures have the answers. I'm excited to study this more and apply it to my lessons

This week I went on a companion exchange. My companion went with our District Leader so I was with Elder McClellan, an Elder from my group. It was a fun experience, we both have trouble with the language and it was my area so I was pretty much in charge. Although we got burned quite a few times, we were able to get some good lessons and contacts in. At one place it was way neat because it wasn't a planned appointment but after we were burned by one person I was impressed to visit another investigator that really haden't been progressing. As we entered, I didn't know what exactly to teach to her but it was awesome when that revelation came and I was able to share a scripture that really applied to her. It was awesome! The spirit was there and we were able to leave that place knowing we had done what we were meant to do. Sadly, she didn't really act according to the spirit's confirmation. That always hurts, but I'm still able to think back on that occasion and know that we did exactly what needed to be done and that when she's ready, we'll be there to help her.

Anyways, the work is moving along. We had 210 people in church! They reorganized the Branch Presidency and the District! This year in Erdenet they will have 2 branches and 1 new one in an adjacent town called Bolgan. That's exciting ain't it? Well transfers will happen this week. The American missionaries are having trouble with visas agian, poor saps. We had no issues and then the next group started all the trouble! It's because the governemt is getting serious about our English teaching and getting suspicious of us... ANyways, pray that the work continues to progress! I love you all. I got Grandma and Grandpa's package! It was awesome thank you! Keep up the good work that you do and improve the other stuff!

~ELder Cappuccio

Epic New Apartment- sent Feb 1,2009

2009-03-05T20:01:00.000-08:00

Gunten Tag! Hola! Sain bainuu! Hello!

I don't know why I gave you the multi-lingual greeting, but I did. Anyways, I'm here in the PC cafe by my house writing you this e-mail. A lot fo things have happened since the last e-mail. We now have a house. It's not just house, it's like a penthouse when you consider most mongolian apartments! It's like brand new and it's got an automatic washer! Sweet eh? It's all wood tile which is good and bad and we got all new appliances for it all. I love it. If I have time I'll send pictures of it so you can get an idea. In the middle of our Apartment square there is like 4 statues of women and one of a horse. It’s pretty epic. Anyway, the word is that the power is going to cut out in this PC café really soon so everyone is typing frantically. It’s like a tornado is coming or something. That’s what it seems like. Haha, but it’s just the power. Anyways, we have a cell phone. That’s news. Usually it’s only the Zone Leaders and Assistants to the President, and the Sign Language Elders that have cell phones but we got a cell phone because we got no phone line in our new house. It’s pretty cool and handy especially because in our new area if we get lost or can’t find somebody’s house we can like call them and have them come out and find us. We haven’t tried that yet too much though because we got the phone on Thursday night. At first it was way annoying because I would call people and like they couldn’t hear me talk but I could hear them talk. It was frustrating for sure. Then we got a fixed phone so everything was better. As for our new area, is going alright I guess. Our Area makes NO, absolutely no sense. Some sections are neat and orderly because they are apartment complexes but the majority of it is all ger communities and they just through numbers and fences and all that stuff. So yea We did a lot of talking on the street and just finding people to teach. On Friday we had our first success getting into a home and it was way exciting. We were leacing an apartment complex and this man was outside his door smoking. We were about to pass him by and exit but then I felt like I needed to go back and talk to him So we did and we talked to him for a bit and then asked if we could talk more inside. He agreed and we had our first lesson! He was kind of weird because he asked a ton of random questions about America and churches there. He wanted to know how much percentage of Americans are LDS and I didn’t really know so that was weird. Anyways, the power won’t go out anymore so we’re safe. Phew! So we taught him and his son. His son seemed quite a bit more interested. Unfortunately, they didn’t come to church this week so we’ll have to see what’s the matter. At church we did have some other glimmers of hope though! When I was contacting, I called this guy named khatanbaatar and his wife answered. She was kind of confused on how I had his number but anyways, I invited her to come to church and she came with her relative! It was cool so we’re going to meet with them latter this week and hope everything goes well!

Another experience we had was quite a sad one. We were on a bus to head back to the city from our area and we got on and sat down next to some poor children in the back of the bus. We talked to them and became pretty good friends with them there. Then we decided to kind of show them our church so they could get an idea of what it was like, they looked like they needed that. As we got closer to the bus stop, some argument started up between the kids and the younger brother and sister started to get off. Well the big brother wouldn’t let the littlest one go for some reason and so he started to cry and get angry and try to punch his brother. At first the brother was really patient and just held him back from the door. Then, for some reason, he lost his patience and punched his brother in the face twice. It got really quiet and the boy started to cry a lot more, he was really hurt. Then the older brother realized what he had done. You could see it really hurt him seeing what he had done to his brother and he was on the verge of tears. I knew what it was like to because I’d been in similar experiences with Joseph. It was so sad, the way they had been raised had led to such a stark violation of real brotherhood and it stung the older brother a lot inside. To be honest, I almost started to cry as I saw this happen because I understood what was going on. So we got off together at the bus stop and walked to our church. The older brother tried to get back on his brother’s good side but it was practically useless. Then we entered the church building and I gave them a short explanation of our sacrament meeting and the room and then invited them to come back tomorrow for church. Anyways, I just thought I’d share that account of what family relations sometime come to in Mongolia. It’s a very rough, cold country sometimes.

Well, I love you all. I love doing this work and we’re going to work really hard with our members and investigators to find those wheat and rescue those lost sheep. I hope everything goes well for you back at home and sorry that the Cardinals didn’t win. It’s ok.

~Elder Cappuccio

-----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:46:50 -0500 Subject: !

Dear James,

It's half time of the Super Bowl and the Cardinals are down by 10 points. They were down 10-7 with 18 seconds left and had the ball 1st and goal on the 4 yard line and a defensive lineman for Pittsburgh intercepted the ball at the goal line and ran it 100 yards back for a touchdown! He was a big guy and just mowed down the small guys that tried to knock him down. He had to lay down for a few minutes to catch his breath. Anyway, if you haven't written me by the time the game is over, I will update you with the final score later tonight. How is it going back in the big city? I know you liked Erdenet a lot. The keyboards work better there too! Do you have your own house or apartment yet? Yousaid you were in a new area, is it just a new area to you or is it a new area they are just opening up for missionaries to teach? I don't think I can get you a prescription without seeing a doctor, unless I buy some in Mexico. Having a huge zit may come in handy for opening up a converation about the gospel.

I am keeping busy at work and I hope it pays off next month with funding more loans. Cali is working on a big project board for National History day competition. She won her school competition and is going on to regionals. We're making her board out of plywood. She's pretty creative and likes to make things so I think it will be awesome. Joseph did the 4 mile run for the Trek this saturday. The trek is during spring break this spring intercession. I know it will be a good experience for him.

Take care andI hope to mail you some pictures in my next package, not sure when that will be but sometime before your Birthday!

Keep the fire burning!

love always, mom

Sorry for the missing posts

2009-03-05T19:58:00.000-08:00

I have say that I lost a few emails due to not posting them until they were already deleted after 30 days. I have some excuses like working too much overtime and having a good-looking boyfriend. I will try to catch up and then keep up(sounds like all my journal entries) Athena

Happy New Year

2009-01-25T16:58:00.000-08:00

Helllooooo Familly!

Well, well, well, an e-mail! Haha, thank you so much for writing me. I want you to know that even though i may give you a hard time over the e-mail lines, I never question whether or not you care about me! I know you do a lot and I'm grateful for it. Haha the internet here is workable in pretty much anyplace the missionaries will be going from now on. Mongolia is in interesting place like that. It's by no means cutting-edge in anything but they seem to always fit certain high-tech things into even the most remote places. One cool thing President Andersen said lately at our Mission Conference is that sometime within the next year they'll be looking to open up a new area or two in Mongolia. We'll soon be at around 200 missionaries and so we'll need to branc h out after all the ones we have now are strengthened. The key is that we have to find places with faithful church members that don't have a branch set up there. That might be hard but I'm sure there's a way if that's what needs to happen.

Anyways, wow so a lot is going on back home it seems! KW got married! Did he marry...what's her name...kelsey's sister...chelsea? or whatever her name was? anyways, tell him c ongratulations! Oh and it's probably better to send the pictures by mail. Although if you send them over e-mail i might be able to put them on a flash drive and print them somewhere. Lets try that first eh? Joseph's almost 6 foot? yea right! I don't believe it. Send me a picture and maybe i'll believe. haha. Anyways, i've been doing some secret growing of my own, or so the missionaries in my group said. Maybe i'll be 6'2'' when I get home! BOO Ya. but wow, that's awesome that Joeseph's getting big! Now he needs to put that body to use and play some football or lacrosse!

As for cold...well...It's been really nice here lately in Erdenet but it's been getting colder. I'm sure it reaches the -F every now and then and then soon it'll be like that all the time. but I think I'm pretty used to subfreezing temperatures now.

Ok, so last week I talked about how my companion and I were looking to step up our work and really put some feeling into it, really get our investigators understanding what's going on. I'm happy to say that this past week was one of the most fulfilling I've had on my mission so far. Of course they still have to do their part but I really feel that this week we have been successful in doing all we can to help them come unto Christ. And it's an amazing feeling. The presence of the SPirit and the rush of energy that comes with it's promptings; the flood of sweet peace that accompanies it's comfirmations; I love it so much! And of course, as we come to love these people more and more, it gets very hard to not get discouraged when they don't follow through on their commitments. It literally breaks our hearts and brings us to tears. But, as we're beginning to realize, not everyone is ready right now, to receive the gospel. Maybe later they will be, but right now we need to move on anhd find those people that really are ready to take those steps of faith and covenant with God. I think once we get this down our work is going to be amazing. This is a singular work. I love it so much because i learn so much from it everyday and I feel like i become converted little by little in things I didn't even notice before. there is so much room for all of us to improve and it's exciting to me.

Well, that's it I suppose for this week. The work is progressing. We've got a lot of baptismal dates set, but depending on whether or not these people follow through, will determine the final numbers on that. i love you all! Thanks for writing me and thanks even more for praying for me! ~Elder Cappuccio

P.S. for new years we had to be in 6pm to protect us from the drunks. At 1030 we were asleep but at 1200 we were rudely awaken by what sounded like the start of WWIII. It was so loud! They all had huge roman candles and other various huge fireworks and they were going off all over the city. I didn't really want to open my eyes to see it but I'm sure it was really neat haha.

-----Original Message----- From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:05:04 -0500 Subject: Happy New Year Dear James,

Happy New Year. Ok so this should be the 3rd email from me this week, which should make up for not getting one last week. Thank goodness the internet is working now. It's nice that you can get the internet working for you so well in Mongolia, because I look forward to your weekly emails. When you first got called there, I thought we might not hear from you for months at a time. If you go out to remote areas will you still be able to email?

Amy went back up to Provo, It was fun having her here, I will miss her. We had fun getting together and playing music and singing with Jack's kids while she was here. In fact I still have Jack's drum set and and sound system in the living room. We might get together for some more "jam" sessions here. Betsy plays the drums, Jim plays guitar, I am attempting to play the bass and Jack is the sound guy. So Betsy and Jim can jam and I just fake it for now. Cali can be the lead singer, but she'd have to sing with us old fogeys.

It's been raining a lot here(for Arizona) and my roof is leaking again. Brother Willis is our home teacher now and says he would help us fix it for good. that would be nice. I paid someone to fix it, but it still leaks.

Joseph will be giving a talk next week in church about the Eager trip. He bore his testimony today and he might be taller than you when you get back! He's almost 6 ft tall now.

0AKW Hodgson got married last week and the reception was very nice and ran in to some old friends from past ward boundaries.,p> I hope you are doing well. We pray for you everyday. You are a great example of serving the Lord.

Keep the fire burning!

Love Always mom

Merry Christmas from Mongolia(Dec 28th email)

2009-01-25T16:51:00.001-08:00

Alright well, I guess you just all talked to me on the phone so there was no reason to write an e-mail this week right? Anyways, it's me again and I want to say that it was really nice talking to you on the phone! I forgot to mention this but Joseph's voice was actually a little deeper. My little brother is growing up! It was neat to hear you all and realize that you're all just the same as when I left ya'll! haha.

Since we talked on the phone not much else has really happened. It's still not REALLY cold yet. It's pretty nice in my opinion. All those things about cold weather in Mongolia were a bunch of lies! But actually like, my companion was telling me that when he was little winters were a lot worse and a lot colder and with a lot more snow. So he's a big fan of the Global Warming theory because now winters in Mongolia aren't that bad! Oh well.

New Years is coming up pretty soon and we're lining up our appointments well. Making sure to meet with all the families that will give us good food! haha. Just kidding. Anyways, this week my companion and I are really going to work on helping our investigators really understand what it is we share with them. Then they'll really be living up to the title of "Investigator". In Mongolian the word is just Interested Person. It seems that some of the time it's this way. They are just interested in the church a bit. Investigator in my opinion has a more serious tone to it. They're getting into the facts and really searching. On the other hand, Interested is just like, hmm I haven't been to your church before, lets try it out! Now, of course, that's not all Mongolians because many of the Church members in Mongolia are very strong and understand and have a strong testimony of the truth of this work. Anyways, I hope that makes sense. This week should be really good as we look to develop the power of our calling more and exercise it in the ways we meet with people.

In the good news, the other day we met with one of our part-member families. Her name is Tonga and she's been a member for 5 years. Her father is a soldier and in Mongolia none of the soldiers or police are allowed to worship any religion. That's hard huh! Luckily, he is retiring in January so we're so ready to baptize that family! We met with them and showed the Restoration video. The next day they were at church! It was way sweet. Hopefully they'll keep taking those steps of faith and go all the way!

Alright, well have a good week! THe new year is coming! Lets all make really good commitments to be better people and to follow the Lord more clearly and definitively. I love you all very much. :)

~Elder Cappuccio

Love of Learning the Language

2008-11-17T18:37:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-11-17T18:25:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-11-17T18:16:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-11-17T18:01:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-11-17T17:51:00.000-08:00

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

2008-10-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

**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

2008-10-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-02T20:30:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-02T20:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-17T21:47:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

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

Alive and Well in Mongolia

2008-08-19T19:29:00.000-07:00

Here is James' email from August 17th. I also added mine email I sent him at the bottom instead of in a different post. I don't think he got it yet, because he didn't mention anything about it in his email...oh well, maybe he'll get it next week.

Ok, so Mongolia isn'tperfect. Letme just say that rightoff the bat. Therefore, I amhere in an internet cafe typingon a keyboard that has a slightlybroken spacebar. Therefore, someof my wordsare going tobestuck together. This e-mailis goingto require your cognitive thinking skills to decipher if I meant something or the other. Atleast it's better than the keybopard I just had thatwas missing the A key. I neededthat, I don'tnecessarily need a space bar :). Goodluck!

SO, ifthere is anyone that would like to communicate with me, there are a few ways. THe regular mail willwork and I'mprettysure you have the address to send it to. It's the Mission Home. Then, you can use DearElder.com and write an e-mail to me and they'll print it and i'll usually get it in like a few days. Then you can just regularly e-mail meat my e-mailaddress: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Anyofthose three ways willwork. Now, if there is any confusion on the waytosend packagaes, send it throughthe USPS, FedEX, UPS, orwhoever elseyou want. Fromwhat I've heard, the USPS isthemost reliable. Send those boxes to:

ElderJames Ammon Cappuccio,

Mongolia Ulaanbaatar Mission

UB49 POB 242

Ulaanbaatar, 210649

Mongolia

Ok,next item of business: I'm alive! Last week i was on the brinkof death as the different Mongolian cuisines teamedup on my stomach to reek havoc. I amhappily able to say thatI am fullyfunctional and in verygood condition! Last Monday night i received a priesthood blessing frommy districtleader and it really helpedin quite a few wells. Since then I have been ableto adapt to the food. In fact, just a few days back I was eating the heart, intestines, ribs,liver, and side ofa goat. What madeit a littlemore personalwas the fact that when we firstgot to the house, the goat was still in the process of being cleaned out.He was on his back, his skin acting asthe table to do thebutchering on. After they had taken all thevital organs out, theyscooped out all the blood and saved itfor later. Then they cutup the restof the bodyinto sections. I didn't trythe blood just yet, but everything else I had was alright. The intestines were very hardto chew...They just wouldn't break up! Haha anyways, another thingthat i am getting usedto is the milk,water, salt combo drink they give you in a lotof the gers. The secretis to drink it when it's hot. Nevertheless, it still is pretty tough toget down.

ANyways, after receiving a blessing of myown,I was ableto take partin two blessings thisweek and experience both endsof the priesthood at work. Iwould just like to testify ofhow powerful the priesthood is when used righteously. It truly is the power ofGod that is to be used as a tool to bless the lives of others. Iamvery grateful for the opportunity I had this week to exercise and magnify my priesthood callingin that aspect.

Just the other day I witnessed a veryinteresting experience. Wewere heading back to our apartmentsfrom anotherareaand there was a traffic jam up aheadon a bridge. Our van driver expertlymanuveured pasteveryone else and we were soon at the epicenter of thejam. Just then, this herd ofCows and Sheep and Goats came across the bridge right through allthe cars! It was awesome! Probably one of the neatest things I've seen out here in Mongolia. On a sadder note, the reason the traffic jam even startedwas because a semi truck had hit and killed someone. Itotally missedthe fact thatthere was a dead body on the ground with blood all around it. Iwas too focused on the herd! Nevertheless, he had died and they were trying to figureout what to do with the body.

Oh, we've had some reallly greatwork days lately. It is interesting and tellingof how the Lordworks asI've analyzed our days. The days when we are focused,we striveto center our day around the people and do all we can for them,in unity of companionship,we are blessedwithgreat work. When we have issues, when we're not entirelyobedient however, plans fall through, people aren't home, and lessons just aren't recieved as we hope they will be. I am thoroughly convinced and have gained a strong testimony of the truth of the statement in D&C 1thirty:20-21. Every blessing we receive is predicated upon obedience to a law that God has made. It would be veryinteresting to readthat ledger that holds all the laws and the specific blessings tied to each one. At the same time,I amconvinced that we can make our own ledgers that will mirror God's as we live our lives in obedience to the laws He has given and notice the blessings that result. And of course we havethe words and promises of the Scriptures and the Prophets. Thoseare great sources forunderstanding what blessing is applicable to which commandment. THe greatest blessing of all, eternal life, is predicated on our following all of the commandments. One of course being repentance which allows us to make upfor the other commandments we overlook sometimes. It allows us to retry at that law until we get it right, as long as we have the right attitude about it.

This Gospel is wonderful, as I see what itdoes for the people here I am convincedof the universality ofit! I know thatit will work for anyone anywhere. The law and plan of God supersedes any culture, language, or climate. This is because underneath all those confusing boundaries thatdivide thehuman race, every single one of us is of common heritage: we are Children of God. Every day, I labor to let the people ofMongolia know thatthey are of divine heritage and birthright. It is a wonderful workindeed

Ok, So I've got a very good Idea that I think you need to puttogether for me and mail out tome. Mydistrict leader has this homemade calendar of all the months from the start ofhismission till the end and each month is accompanied with a picture of family or friends and a quote or favorite scripture. If you could putone ofthose together with our family and some of my churchleaders and like the familiesof my friends out on missions and what not. That would be awesome! And then also please send candy and good non-perishable food items. and maybe some receipes soI can learn howto cook. Oh and most importantly, send me your love andyour prayers!

Any mailore-mails you are willing to send mewould be greatly appreciated. I can only e-mailfamily butI can send letters,theywilltake about weeks though. Hey mom,tellthe kids to write me e-mails! I wantto hear how things are going. Especially Amy as she starts school at BYU. I love you all! ~ElderJames Cappuccio

Dear James,

It was good to hear from you, but I hope you are feeling much better than when you last wrote. My mom is worried and wanted me to check to see if you let the mission president know when you are sick I said you probably did, but she thinks you might try to be tough. I should have told her the story of you cutting your foot and just sitting there screaming and bleeding on the carpet until I came to your rescue, and then she might believe me..... Anyway just want you to take care of yourself, so if you have a Doctor's name ready, you can give me ,so I can tell your Grandma you are taken care of if the need should arise....or she might have to fly out there to check on you! I am sending some medicine and some vitamin supplements for you along with some good stuff, so you should get them in a few weeks =). I am also sending your Carnegie Hall CD, a CD player and portable speakers as you requested. I hope they make it. The speakers stick to together in a ball, you just have to pull them off the middle part to use them.

Well, we are still in the same ward, in case you were wondering, but Ben is in Ray 1st ward. Our ward boundary is a lot different. Everything south or Orchid and then the whole block from Mcqueen to AZ ave and Ray to Chandler.

I like the way they have there names, it sounds much like how the American Indians create names. FirmAxe Cappuccio does h ave a strong sound to it. I might have to move to Mongolia for the driving freedom. I haven't had much luck lately with photo radar and red light cameras. And I guess you might like us to send you some Tabasco to put on your food, so you can spice it up a bit. Maybe you can buy some there in a foreign food market. My mom says her friend who went to Mongolia recommends the German Markets for good and healthy food source.

Sounds like you have a great companion and already have been able to teach some lessons. So can you actively contact people on the street? How are the English classes that you are required to teach? Do the native Mongolian missionaries also teach with you? We wold love to hear more about what your average day is like. It would also be nice to hear how the people you baptize were converted.

Enough from me right now, hope to hear from you tomorrow.

Love always,

and....Keep the fire burning!

Mom

Thankful for the "Word" Document

2008-08-17T14:37:00.000-07:00

James sent this email on Aug. 11th just posting today and I posted his previous week's email just below this entry

Alriiiiiight, so I’m typing this up on a Word Document so there ain’t no way I’m losing it! Hello everyone! I’m back in the PC café.

Ok, so I’ll start with the bad news so that the letter can get progressively better and there’s no sad feelings at the end. Alright so right now I am sick like a dog! All last night I found myself at the toilet numerous times getting rid of every ounce of liquid in me from whichever direction it came from. (If you don’t put this in the blog that’s totally fine). So last night was pretty restless. I’m not exactly sure what you call the sickness I have but it felt a lot like the flu. I was sweating and shivering and aching. So yea!

Alright, away from that boring subject. Mongolia is crazy! There’s no way you could understand it unless you lived here for quite a while. It is just so different from anything I’ve ever experienced in America. As I already mentioned, the roads are wild. Like, they do have traffic lines and some stop lights, but for the most part it is just a free for all. Yet, of all the crazy driving I’ve seen, I haven’t seen 1 accident yet. Not 1! They’re just really good drivers. (Then again, if we could use the sidewalks and parking lots as part of the road I think a lot of things could be avoided too). So let’s see…

The food! Alright so a lot of the food here taste the same. All the meat tastes the same, all the rice tastes the same, all the potatoes taste the same, and all the dairy products taste the same. Yea, so that means your cheese your milk and your yogurt pretty much all tast the exact same. Oh, and they’ve got this stuff called ааруул which is dried milk. I’ll definitely bring some of that home for you all to try. But yea, it’s very strong and very bitter. I think I’m getting used to it though! Then there’s the айраг. That’s the fermented mare’s milk. Most of it is alcoholic but if you get it new then we’re allowed to drink it. So I did! And WOW. It’s like got the tangy taste that yogurt does with the cultures and what not. But it’s multiplied by probably…1000x. And then you’ve got the half-milk half-cheese taste that all dairy products have here in Mongolia. The restaurants here don’t really have any health codes or anything so that’s why it’s so easy to get sick. If you could send a lot of stomach medication in your care package that would be much appreciated. So yea, as of now I haven’t eaten anything extreme. I’m on the outskirts of the city in the сонгино (congin, Mongolian for Onion) branch so it’s still pretty urbanized. I’m sure that I’ll be eating a head or two in the near future. Our teacher in the MTC told us that by the end of his mission he had eaten every part of a sheep at least once. So that’s most likely in my future as well.

My companion! He is Mongolian. His name is эрдэнэбат (air-den-bat). In Mongolia all their names are word combos. Like for instance, сүхбаатар. If you translated that to English it would be ‘axe hero’. Then there are ones like ‘firm iron’, ‘sun beam’ couple joy’ ‘eternal joy’ ‘new joy’ ‘eternal light’. So yea, I’m sure for the Mongolians it is just like having names like John is for us in America. I don’t think they really dissect it like we do. But I still think it’s funny. Who knows, I might just name one of my kids like a Mongolian! “Firm axe” has a nice ring to it.

Anyways, I diverged. So he is awesome, when we get into lessons he can just speak so well and he has tons of great ways of explaining the doctrine. I’ve definitely taken some of his ideas and tried to use them. I hope he doesn’t mind because I’m sure I butcher then when I use it. Compared to him, my Mongolian is like…a 2-year olds. However it is a goal of mine to leave this transfer (11 more weeks) speaking like he does and understanding him. It’s a very lofty goal but I think, with the help of the Lord, and diligence, I can make it there.,P> Our investigators! Alright this week we had a baptism and we set appointments for two others which means we’ll be having at least 4 baptisms after a month. As of now I still can’t exactly follow everything that happens in the lesson but afterwards my companion tries to explain it. I’ve had experiences with new contacts where they’ve wanted the 2nd lesson and I’ve had others where they don’t want the next lesson. That’s always disheartening. You want so much for everyone to accept the message and when they say no, or that they already are Buddist, I want so bad to just tell them what they’re missing out on but I can’t. Those that do accept the message are so uplifting though. It’s awesome to have them say they would like the next discussion.

We had this neat experience this week where we were about to take a bus out to one of our areas to do work out there. We were waiting for some time but the bus didn’t come. Then this girl approached us and identified herself as someone we were supposed to teach earlier that didn’t show. We decided to teach her back at the church so we headed back that way and just as we were leaving the bus stop, the bus to take us out to the area we ere headed to showed up. I truly believe that God provided for us to be there still so that she could catch us. She received the first lesson very well and went to church the following day so it’s really exciting.

Alright well I guess I’ll end this weeks e-mail, I can’t really think of much else to write. Plus, I’m not feeling very good and I need to rest. So I hope everything is going well! I’m going to send another e-mail with just a couple pictures. One is of a hat I got Joseph for his birthday. I think over the next few weeks I’ll try and get something for the whole family and then send it all out in one package. I’ll have to see the feasibility of doing something like that. Well, I love all of you!

~Elder James Cappuccio

To Sister Infanger/Brother Cannon: Hey, Mongolia is great! At the Congin church I met this man called намсрай that says he knows you Sister Infanger! He’s pretty short, about your height and he’s working as a security guard for the church building. Oh, and maybe it’s just the area I’m in but like the whole whistling in buildings doesn’t apply and the ‘don’t touch anyone on the head or shoulders’ doesn’t apply. Oh and one thing you can teach the new batch of missionaries that will really help is to do ITL’s (invitations to Learn). We do them all the time here. Have them practice talking to people a lot. Like they don’t even have to be round about it. Just say that they’re missionaries for the church and then have them practice talking about the church. Then have them practice taking down addresses and numbers. That would be such a help.

To Elder Hatch: Hey! How’s the Czech Republic? If you can have your family forward your e-mails to me so I can hear of all the great work you’re doing over there.,P.

Left in Suspense

2008-08-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't updated the blog lately, but I'm doing way better on this than my journal writing: On Aug 3rd, James sent this email:

Hey, not to be a downer or anything, but I just spent upwards to an hour typing out an email for ya'll and then it lost it. So...yea...basically, I'm still alive, and my companion is mongolian and awesome. and the food isn't killing me. I'll write a real one next week. Oh, our P-day is mondays. See ya, bye!

I sent him this in response:

Dear James,

I was a bit disappointed about not getting your email you spent an hour writing. Hope to hear from you tomorrow(Monday). It's probably early Monday already in Mongolia. I'm writing at about 3pm Sunday afternoon. They are showing the Olympics on TV now and I figure your time zone is probably close to Bejing's. Tonight they are announcing a ward boundary change. I wish I knew what the new ward boundaries were for sure, but tonight we are having a meeting at the church to let all the Ray wards know their new ward boundaries. I have heard 2 rumors that people say they heard from someone who knew. One has the boundary at Orchid north going to Ray 1st and the other has the people north of Ray rd going to Ray 1st ward. So there is a possibility we will be in a different ward after tonight. If I get home and you haven't written me back already, I'll write you a quick email to let you know.

Sister Finuf forwarded me an email with a picture of all the new missionaries she got from your mission president. I guess he doesn't have my email address so I didn't get one. Maybe I should email them also. Anyway, it was nice to see your smiling face along with all the other missionaries. I hope you are doing well and having a great experience every day.

On the homefront we are still sweating it out through the hot August days and the almost as hot nights. After church I can barely touch the steering when I first get into the car, for fear I might sear a permanent steering wheel tattoo onto my palms! Just thought you would enjoy a warm remembrance of home.....

So what interesting food have you tried so far? I know you enjoy eating, but wasn't sure how adventurous you would be. I can see you eating just about anything( within the Word of Wisdom) to impress an investigator though. "i'll eat this eyeball and monkey brain, if you'll read the Book of Mormon." Let me know if you ever use that line =) Help will be coming soon by way of a care package in case the food gets too crazy.

Hope to hear about your first 2 weeks and what your day is like over there. Keep the fire burning!

love always,

Mom

James IN Mongolia

2008-08-03T17:24:00.000-07:00

Hellooooooo from Mongolia! I made it here safely and i'm sitting in a PC cafe with a group of missionaries writing you. This is amazing. Like nothing I could have expected. The moment we could see the country from our plane i felt this overwhelming surge of love. As much as i tried to imagine it and prepare myself, there was no way to prepare myself for the sheer beauty of it all! The country is beautiful. Mountains, hills, lakes, clear skies. And I havent even seen the whole of it. So far I've done a terrible job of taking pictures here, but I'm going to repent of that and start takin more and then send them back home to you! I might be able to get on my blog from here, I'll have to check with the leaders in my area and the mission rules and all that.

President Andersen is awesome as well. Him and his wife are great and already I can tell how much they care about this work and this people.

So let me try and describe the atmosphere of this place. Right now its a cool...i don't know, maybe 65-75 degrees. Here in the city (Ulaanbaatar) there are people and cars everywhere. THe driving is crazy, anyone can do anything on the road pretty much. If someone decides to pull a U-turn in the middle of a road, everyone just pulls over and waits for him to finish. If someone needs to get into the lane next to them, they just honk and nose their way in. Its a very interesting thing to witness. Also, they definitely use the car horn like it was meant. I've started to realize that in America we hardly use it! Here, while it might appear to be rude to honk, its actually just like letting the other car know that you're there and you're going to be really close to them. I like it. Maybe you should start implementing that in your driving. Dont be afraid to honk. It's ok! Anyways, the people are all over the place as well, they cross the streets whenever they can but the cars have the right away. Uhm, they're all sorts of ages and sizes and it is so great to see them all out and about. Tomorrow we will be doing something called the Dan Jones box where we go out and just street contact. Im excited. Even though I can't speak Mongolian like they do yet, I am excited to try.

Oh, we had our first taste of Mongolian pizza! Its different thats for sure. Whether it's a good or bad difference is yet to be decided. Hmmm....what else...I love this place! I know this is where Im meant to be. I dont actually go to actually area until Saturday so from now till then we'll be doing various orientation activities.

Wow, so i don't really know what else to write. We were in Korea for 7 hours and it was interesting. I've got some Korean money now which I dont know what to do with. haha. We've met quite a few of the Elders here and they all seem great. i can echo the President in saying that this mission is the best mission and that it gets the best missionaries! Im pretty lucky to be able to learn from them all.

Well, I don't know what else to say, so I guess I'll start puttin a close to this E-mail. You should be getting an e-mail from me every week if conditions permit. DearElder.com letters and packages and e-mails and all sorts of stuff will get to me. I can only email family members and I dont know how i'll get a hold of other people but i'll do my best. No guarantees.

This church is so true! I absolutely know it. No long distances change it, nodifferent languages change it, nothing changes it. It is the Gospel, the same as it was with Christ and with Adam. And how grateful I am to share that precious and consistent Gospel with the people of Mongolia. Well ill be in touch, I love you all. Bye!

Travel Plans and goodbye MTC

2008-07-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

Wow...ok so the travel plans came on Friday and I've been excited ever since. As of now, i only have 5 days till I leave! We leave on the 29th, instead of the 28th like the originally said. Not too bad at all I'd say. So lemme give you the travel itinerary in case you care to know:

-Leave: SLC 8:55PM 29JUL2008 -Arrive: LAX 9:57PM 29JUL2008 -Leave: LAX 12:30AM 30JUL2008 -Arrive: Seoul,Korea 4:50AM 31JUL2008 -Leave: Seoul,Korea 12:05PM 31JUL2008 -Arrive UlaanBaator,Mongolia 2:35PM 31JUL2008 Ta daaaa! Isn't that just the coolest thing ever? I think so. As you can see, we'll be in Korea for quite a while so I asked some of the Korean missionaries to write down some missionary phrases. I'm gonna practice them then put them to use in Korea. It'll be pretty cool. The airlines have changed their baggage policies lately which is really going to hurt when it comes time to fly. I'm probably gonna have to pay over 100 dollars due to their baggage policies so I'm not excited about that.

Oh, and here's the new address if people want to send me stuff. I believe Amy has it too but just in case:

(letters through the pouch) must be postcard, or single sheet letters folded in 3 panels and taped at the top only (no envelopes)

Elder James Ammon Cappuccio Mongolian Ulaanbaatar Mission

POB 30150, Salt Lake City UT 84130-0150 USA

(packages) Elder James Ammon Cappuccio

Mongolian Ulaanbaatar Mission

5th Fl, LDs Church Bldg, Tokyo Street 6

Bayanzurkh District, 1st Khoroo

Ulaanbaatar Mongolian 210349

Oh, and so yesterday, I probably got the best package ever. Dad sent me this box of New Braunfel's Smokehouse Jerky. It is amazing! I'm sharing it, but I'm not letting it out of my hands too quickly. That stuff is AMAZING! Anyways, that definitely made my day yesterday.

Let's see...what else. On Tuesday, our Devotional speaker was Elder Gene R. Cook. I'm sure you've heard of him. Anyways, apparently he lived quite awhile in Arizona which is probably why he is such a great man. So he shared a story about this Elder that served in his mission while he was Mission President there. He said how everywhere he put the Elder things would change for the better. The attitude the missionary had and the way he did things just worked everywhere. Even when they sent him to Paraguay (which had been struggling in growth at the time), he still was able to work hard and get results. Elder Cook said it involved a lot of things, all of which were founded on Faith. As we discussed it in our District after it ended, there were many great testimonies shared that were prompted by this talk. One thing I thought of was that if I, as a missionary, am on the Lord's time, and this is the Lord's work, then I'd also think that I could use the Lord's talents should I be sufficiently humble and willing. That being said, if you have the Lord's talents, what isn't there to have faith in! If it is all the Lord's how can it fail? The answer is, it cannot. I've chosen to be the vehicle in which the Lord can deliver his message to some of the Mongolian people and he's promised to steer the entire operation. That being said, it's going to be hard. Without a doubt. But honestly, that excites me.

I just can't wait to get to Mongolia! I know my language needs help but I'm not going to let that stop me. The Lord called me here and I'm going to give it everything I've got. When I think about it, it's hard to believe that I'm about to head out into the mission, that I'm actually at this point, both in the mission and in my life.

Well, I'll probably call in between landing in LA and leaving for Korea. I'll buy a phone card and all that. Depending on what time it is in Arizona when I get to Korea, I might call ya again, who knows?

Anyways, my time's almost up. I just want to let you all know that I love you! Mom, Dad, Crystal, Amy, Joseph, Cali; I love you! And I love this Gospel. This is absolutely a gospel of peace, of happiness and of love. I know that it is true, and with the help of the Lord, the rest of Mongolia will know that in not too long!

~Elder Cappuccio

P.S. Tell Brother Young he can expect that letter very soon! haha

BON VOYAGE

2008-07-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

Dear James, I guess this is the last email you will get from me before you leave for Mongolia. It sounds so far away, but by email it's just as close =). It will be exciting to hear about your experience when you get to Mongolia. I got a few replies back from people on my email list for you when I sent my last email out. Here are the ones I received:

If you would, tell James: Go dude go! Enjoy, and dive in to the work - you'll love Mongolia. Just don't eat any eyes... Leslie Hodgson

Please tell James how much the Oakey family thinks of him. He's a wonderful person. He'll be a great missionary. My parents "adopted" a young woman from Mongolia when they served together on a mission in St. George Utah. She's 30 now and was married this month. The church seems to be strong and growing there. James will be a part of all that.

Daniel is having a great time serving his mission just a few miles from you! I'm amazed at the success. I think the church is growing very fast in Arizona. He loves it!!!

We love you and think of you often. Have a great day.

--Joan Oakey

I have to say it's exciting reading about how excited James is about his mission and all the various stories he tells. It's like having the missionaries at my home except through James. It's cool and exciting. Hopefully without naming names, he can tell us about some of the people that he will be witnessing too and those experiences.

-Jacque

Plus I got Brother Young's address: Duwayne Young, 615 E Del Rio, Chandler, AZ 85225, He asked me why you wanted to write to him and I said I didn't know....'cause he likes you? He smiled and said, "maybe because it is because I told him if he writes me at least every 3 months, I will send him a box of food!" =) makes sense, but I still see you chewing on an eyeball in a few weeks.... I don't know when my package will arrive, because I haven't sent it yet, so hopefully the other elders will share their good fortunes with you, sounds like you did a lot of the sharing with the treats in the MTC.

So here's my cell number 602-793-5880. What time do you think you will be calling? I think this is your dad's cell # 661-225-7601.

I am so proud of you and know that you will be a blessing to many people in Mongolia. I love you.

Keep the fire burning,

Mom

Raising your Ebeneezer

2008-07-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

Alright! Another week has gone by and I'm getting closer and closer to leaving. I cannot explain how excited I am. I still can't speak the language like a Mongolian but man I can't wait to get off the plane and try and talk to someone in Mongolian. If you think about it...We're supposed to leave on the 28th, and that's like 11 days away. Man, how sweet is that! Ok, so really quick i'll address your questions: About the mission presidents address. I don't have it necessarily saved on my computer but it will be on my gmail account. Amy should be able to go on and get it for me. She could just search 'mission' in the search box and it'd pull it up i'm sure. -I already have a copy of the Church News, we get one every week actually. So i'm set on that! Oh, and all the stuff in the room...haha honestly I don't really know what to do with it. I would say take the clothes home and whatever else you can. Textbooks probably can stay because I have no need for them until I start school again. Just use good judgment I guess. If i end up needing something some place, we'll take care of that when I get back. Something that would be really helpful is if you made an inventory of the things I had there. Just so i know what I have when I get back. It doesn't have to be very detailed, or detailed at all. Just so it's easiler for me to know when I get back. It sounds like your New York trip was pretty sweet! I think you and Amy did more than I did with the choir in 3 days! New York is an awesome place though. I loved walking on the streets with all the people, it's a great experience. Oh, and thanks for telling all about the food you ate there, that didn't help one bit. The MTC is remarkable for its spiritual learning atmosphere but it definitely lacks in the type of food it serves. None of it will kill you, but it will kill your tastebuds. They serve some sort of burger EVERY DAY. kinda frustrating. haha. I'm excited to get out to Mongolia and try some Lamb-some head, some hoof, some eyeball; the works. :) Oh and I'm glad you had a good birthday! I made sure my class knew when it was haha. Feel honored because it's very easy to forget dates in the MTC, like Father's Day, the 4th of July, Haylee's Birthday...you know, things like that. Very easy...but I supposed that's a good thing right? Oh, and please tell the Clawsons "Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!" That package was very warmly welcomed. I love that stuff, heavenly hash is what they called it, i believe. Anyways, she left a card saying that it probably wouldn't make it out to Mongolia and I'd have to agree with her but if she's willing I'd say it's worth a try! :) Ok, so since I'm leaving so soon, I think it would be good to give me some numbers to reach you all at when I get to the airport. In the airport I can call people and I'd like to be able to call the family. That means I need your number and Dads number (the one he'll answer). I still know yours but it's better if you just send it. So yea.

Alright, so now my side of the week: Starting on last Saturday, we have been speaking nothing but Mongolian except for in certain situations when we need to talk to someone that doesn't speak Mongolian (Front Desk, Branch Presidency, Interviews). It has been so fun. It is very difficult though. You're constantly trying to pull together the grammar and words you've learned to make a coherent sentence so the others can understand you. It really is amazing to consider how much we are able to say. We can teach the 4 lessons, and hold a decent conversation and we've been here almost 3 months. It's so awesome. I can only imagine where I'll be after two years.

Oh, I got that picture of you and Sister Finuf! How'd you arrange that little thing? haha, that's pretty cool though.

This past Tuesday, we had a really great Devotional/Testimony meeting. The speaker was Elder Porter, an Emeritus Quorum of the Seventy. For the last 3 weeks we've had Emeritus Quorum of the Seventy speak to us. At first glance, you might think that we get the short end of the stick (as I did) with that because they are...well, old. However, it has become my understanding that these men know SO much. They have been serving the Lord all their lives and have doctrinal knowledge and testimony to prove it. Each of these last three devotionals has been excellent. To start the devotional off, the choir sang "Blessings" which is more popularly known as "Come, Thou Fount". It is a beautiful song. As we sang it, and gave feeling and emotion to those lyrics it was powerful. The choir director, while we were practicing, told us not to sing it for how much we liked the song, but for what it was saying. And it really says a lot. I encourage you to look over the words and ponder them. Especially the part about raising your Ebenezer. That was something he talked to us about in the choir-raising your Ebenezer. Something, some monument to yourself that demarks your change of course to be completely focused on the Lord, to be "fixed upon the mount" as the song says. That's what I am trying to do. In this mission there is no room for my concerns or needs. Every concern of mine that I address means there's one less concern from an investigator that I can deal with. The more time I spend on things for myself, the less time I have for the Mongolian people. That's a lot of what Elder Porter said on Tuesday. He said how the mission is not for you to a language, not for you to go to a new place, not for anything dealing with yourself. It is for the Spirit of the Lord to touch the hearts of the Mongolian people, using you as the instrument. It always brings me back to Isaiah 10 and Alma 26. We are just the instruments the Lord uses, by ourselves we have no sufficient strength. But, if we have the Lord's strength, we can do any and all things pertaining to the Lord's work. Well that's about all the time I've got. I love you all. I'm very happy for Jacque that is so great for her. Keep up the missionary work on the home front and we'll take it to the rest of the world ok? Bye!

~Elder James Cappuccio P.S. I'd really like Brother Youngs address....pleeeeeeeeease.

NY Trip and sorry about the late email

2008-07-20T16:12:00.000-07:00

Sent July 110th at night after realizing he didn't get my 1st email...

Dear James,

It appears I was writing you an email while you were writing me an email. So you might not have got it until after you sent yours. I didn't get a chance to write you until Thursday morning(Joseph was on the computer). So you'll probably get 3 emails next Thursday morning because I will try to write you when I get back from NY from my parents house. I haven't heard about Ben, but sister Clawson is going to stop by and drop off something for me to bring up to you at the MTC, so I'll ask her. My birthday was pretty good, we went out to eat lunch at My Big Fat Greek Wedding, then in the evening I went to the temple with Dan Cuny to do initiatories and then he took me out for dessert and to the dance. Crystal bought me some gourmet chocolate covered pretzels which everyone helped me eat and a cute potted Gerbera daisy plant.

Jacque is getting baptized on August 23rd, she just called me today! I need to get a copy of the Church News. My parents get it so I'll see if I can locate it when I get there. I can always order a copy from the church distribution center. Kathy Finuf says your teacher told you the Ewoks on Star Wars speak Mongolian....is that true, not that I could tell the difference, but if it's true when you get back we'll let you translate for us....

I know you will make lots of friends in Mongolia- it was part of your blessing from Pres Jones. Your group of missionaries going to Mongolia look like a great bunch of Elders. It will be cool to hear your experiences when you get to Mongolia. I haven't posted any pictures to the blog yet, but will do it soon. I heard some Elders in Mongolia post to there own blog, so you might be able to post from there. Let me know and I will give you the sign in information.

Got to get packing.

Keep the fire burning!

Love Always,

mom

Sent July 16th: Dear Elder James, ( I know it should be Elder Cappuccio, but just for me it's Elder James)

So we had our big little trip to New York, just got back late last night. The Phantom of the Opera was definitely the highlight of the trip. We saw a few sights like Times Square, Ground Zero, the Manhattan Temple, the Rockefeller Center, Grand Central Station, Empire State Building( but didn't go up to the top), walked around Central Park, visited China Town and Little Italy, took the Staten Island Ferry out and back to see the city lights and the Statue of Liberty, took a tour of the UN, visited the NY library and Metropolitan Museum of Art, went Swing Dancing in a club on Saturday night, crossed over the Brooklyn bridge in a Taxi because our legs were to tired to want to walk that late at night, rode the Subway(Metro) and a few buses with the crowds, but still walked a lot( with the crowds!), ate some NY Cheesecake at the famous Juniors, real NY Pizza, Deli sandwiches and pastries, and stood in a long line to get Ice cream at supposedly famous Brooklyn Ice cream place( Amy says Cold Stone is better, but this place had to turn people away, because they closed at 10pm and the line was still out the door!). I hope we did enough walking to make up for the indulgences, my feet and legs feel like I did. I got shin splints and blisters and Amy's hamstrings were really sore. If we had more time there were a few more things we could have done, but then I would have spent more money...I hope Amy wasn't too annoyed that I didn't spend more money....I backed out of the Empire State Building view from the top, I got a little uneasy about it being a big tourist trap and waste of money and time as we were standing in line with a zillion other people to see what NY looks like from really high up. It would have cost $40 and I just imagined seeing a bunch of tall buildings and smog and thought it was a waste of time. When I went with Crystal to Switzerland, we rode a Tram to the top of one of the mountains and didn't see much because of the clouds, but at least we got a Tram ride up the mountain with beautiful views before we hit the cloud layer. Being packed like sardines in an elevator going up 100 floors just didn't sound like fun. So anyway the trip to New York was amazing, we learned a lot, saw so much in a short 3 days, took some cool pictures and basically had a great time.

So, I have noticed you have a ton of stuff you have left at my parents home. Can you tell what stuff you want me to take back to Chandler and what stuff I can just leave here until you come back to school. I figured you probably don't need the coats, so I hung them up in the closet. You have some dress pants and shirts, should I bring those down? What clothes do you want to leave here? The bedding can probably stay. How about your lacrosse bag? What about the Amp? you mi ght want to practice some guitar when you get back before school starts.... anyway if you can give me a few ideas on the matter, that would be helpful.

I found the Church News with your picture and showed everyone. =) My parents get the Church News and had saved their back issues and had a copy. Do you want me to mail you a copy? There were some good articles in there. I read a few issues on the plane ride. I read the articles about setting the Mission Presidents apart and teaching them how to be good leaders for the missionaries that are in their charge. It was a good article for me, because it showed how much the Prophet, General Authorities and Church leaders care about you, the individual missionary, and want to help you in anyway they can.

Do you have the email from your mission president saved on your computer? I didn't save it and need their address and phone numbers. I know you are in best place and am excited for you to preach the Gospel to the people in Mongolia in a few weeks. We miss you but are so inspired by your letters and example.

Keep the fire burning always,

love always,

mom

Missing Home but ready to see his New Home in Mongolia

2008-07-20T15:53:00.000-07:00

Alllllrighty, well I'll just pretend you sent me an e-mail for me to respond to. :) haha i'm just teasing. Сайн байн уу? It is really hard to type in Mongolian cuz the keyboard is not on here and you just have to guess till you get it right! Anyways, I did get your package. Thank you! That candy was seriously gone by the end of the day despite the fact that it all had melted egregiously. We took it out of the bag and placed it on the heat register to cool. The beef jerky is almost gone but I hid the rest so I could enjoy it in the solitude of my residence hall.

It's been another great week at the MTC. I hope you had a happy birthday! I sent pictures home along with my old name tags. We got our new, all Mongolian nametags and they are SWEET. Now no one but the Mongolians and people that already know me know what my name tag says. I like it. Oh, and I forgot to tell you but for that singing thing I did, I ended up in the Church news from a week or so back. page 6. haha, you know it's big when it's in the church news right? anyways...

Elder Fisher is already gone! It was awesome to have him here but now he is out doing what he's supposed to be doing and I'm really excited for him. He told me something about Ben being on crutches? Do you know anything about that? I'm going to write him anyways so we'll see. Oh, and Elder Spencer Quinn is here now! I've run into him a couple times and it seems like he's doing great here. He's only here for three weeks and then he's off to Spain to the MTC there.

Whenever I get on the computer to write an e-mail it's like everything I remember about the week slips out. It's probably because I keep seeing the ticking clock at the top of my screen and it unnerves me.

starting at the end of this week, our class is going to be speaking nothing but Mongolian and I am excited/worried. I can speak Mongolian alright, and I know a good amount of grammar rules and vocab, but do I have enough to speak nothing but Mongolian? I'll find out soon i guess! Anyways, over the past week I've started to love the Mongolian language so much more. As I understand more bits and pieces, I just look toward the day when I can speak it fluently and I can't wait. The teachers said that if you can speak the language well you'll make so many friends with the Mongolians and that being their friend is one of the biggest contributions to bringing them to the Gospel. That's kind of the position you're in Mom. You're friends with Jackie then you just nudge them along on the right path. Maybe sometimes they need more than a nudge, but maybe sometimes that's exactly what they need. The good thing is, we don't have to make that decision by ourselves. The Spirit is there if we invite it and he will guide us in the best course of action.

So, next week we could very well get our Travel Plans which is very exciting. We finish out this week, then we have two more full weeks and then the week we leave. Can you believe it? I sure can't. I've started to feel as if this MTC experience is my mission and i'm about to finish it and go home. Maybe in a lot of ways I will be going home though. Mongolia will be my home for the rest of these next two years and I hope and pray it feels just like home.

One thing that I've been thinking about while I'm up here is just ho important family is. In fact, I've had a lot of regrets about not spending as much time with you all when I had the opportunity. I think back to the times when I had the choice of spending time with the family and spending time with my friends and wish I hadn't chosen friends. I really miss you all. I miss your smiles and your sad crying faces when I beat you in fooseball. :) Most of all, I just miss being in the house with you. Sometimes it's on the computer with one of you at my side or its eating dinner or its out in the street trying to catch Hopper or Phantom. Whatever it is, I miss it. So I actually want to apologize for that. For not spending as much time with the family. Being on a mission definitely chages priorities and makes you realize the truly important things. and YOU, my family, are the most important to me! So, I'm sorry. If I could rewind, I definitely would make different choices and spend more time with you.

However, I'm here on a mission and this is where I need to be, so there no coming home to spend time with ya. But, I know one thing that we both could do to feel of each other's presences more. If we will both strive our best to cherish the scriptures, to read from them each and every day and to read lovingly, not grudgingly, I know that we'll be able to feel together as a family. That's what this Gospel does, it brings families together for time and eternity. And reading the Book of Mormon will accopmish that in more ways than we can imagine. It's kind of hard to imagine that huh? That a book could do so much for a family both here and in the eternities. However, I testify, as one that has been blessed to experience it's wonderful truths day after day, the Book of Mormon is powerful. It is God's true, pure, restored Word. It points to Christ at all times, that constantly flowing fountain of everlasting life. I urge you Mom, Dad, Crystal, Amy, Joseph, Cali, and anyone else who reads this; go to the Book of Mormon, read it's teachings. And once you've read them, live them! That is the way it was intended to be! If we could just live all that the Book of Mormon taught us, what a wonderful place this would be.

Family, I love you so very much. I've come to a deeper realization of that. I also love my Savior immensly. He is the way and the means wherein we can acheive exaltation and eternal life. I know it, and I know that there is no other way. I know that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God and I know that is was translated by a chosen prophet of God, Jospeh Smith. I know that the priesthood was restored through him and that I now hold that priesthood. I know that all the keys of the priesthood are in the hands of President Monson who presides over this Church on the earth. It is true, I feel it and i know it. I hope everything is going well with all of you and I hope to hear from you soon. I will probably write some letters to the family as well. Have a fun summer vacation!

~Elder James Cappuccio

Blessed and Busy

2008-07-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

This was sent July 10th( probably about the same time he was sending his email to me...)

Dear Elder James,

I love getting your letters and emails. Serving a mission to Mongolia doesn't just bless the people you are teaching or associating with, it also helps and inspires us at home to hear from you and know you are doing a great work. Cali bore her testimony on Sunday and mentioned that she didn't cry when you left on your mission, because she knew you were doing the right thing and she would be sad if you didn't go on a mission. I know I am getting extra help with work, because I have been doing much better on my commissions since you started your mission.

I met elder Finuf's mother yesterday after work. She is very cool and we shared pictures and a few stories. I'll have to admit she is more on the ball than me. She already sent a package to mongolia with normal food, so when Elder Finuf gets there he will have something to eat. She was worried the traditional food would be too weird and he would starve to death. I am glad I sent you some goodies while at the MTC to fatten you up before you leave, because you won't probably have a package waiting for you when you get there. I am leaving tomorrow on vacation and don't have time to put anything together. You won't mind eating a little Sheep's head will you? =) I hear the Yak milk is nasty too, but I'm sure you will survive....let me know if there is anything in particular you want sent.

Keep the fire burning!

Love always,

mom

Month 3 in MTC-still loving it!

2008-07-10T06:17:00.000-07:00

Hello again! Well, it's the 3rd of July and hot air balloons are filling the sky here in Provo. It's really cool to see. Our expected departure date is the 28th of july so technically we have 25 days left here! But who's counting, right? It was really nice to get that e-mail from Tyler and to hear about his experiences. I've been able to talk to him a couple of times up here and it is so good to hear and see how well he's doing. I'm sure he's going to be an amazing missionary. He leaves this upcoming week which is sad, but I'm happy for him. This wednesday a few new Elders came in that I knew. Elder (Robbie) Low from my BYU ward and then Elder (Spencer) Quinn. It was really good to see Elder Quinn in the MTC, he looked really excited to be here and I can't wait to hear how he changes Spain as he goes there. He is great. So, my time as Zone Leader is just about up. This past Sunday, our branch presidency told us that we would be released this upcoming Sunday in order to give opportunities to other missionaries to serve. It has been a great experience. One thing that has stood out in my experience as a zone leader is that everyone has something to learn from. Each one of the missionaries in our zone has some sort of quality that helps me and by getting to know each one of them, I grow tremendously. Now i have the opportunity to learn from our other elders as they take leadership roles. Elder Finuf (my companion) and I have also decided that with our extra time we're really going to pick up our studying and learning. Elder Finuf is amazing. he is such a great companion. We definitely have different personalities but we are both very driven and motivated. This past week we have been waking up at 6AM instead of 630 in order to have more time. As soon as we are dressed and ready, we head down to our classroom and we usually pick up an extra 30 minutes of studying which comes in handy. His mom asked for your cell phone number so I gave it to him to give to her. You should probably expect a call sometime soon! Uhm, so about those girls camp letters, I still haven't gotten them! so yea, I don't know what's up with that, but maybe they just didn't make it. I'm writing this in the morning so they could still be getting here but its kinda funny to know that somewhere out there there are a bunch of letters meant for you and they just aren't here. Anyways, in case I haven't mentioned this to you before, I LOVE the Missionary Training Center. It's one of the best places ever. Everyday we learn more new things. The language is continuing to progress and I am excited with anticipation for the day when I get to speak with the people of Mongolia. As for the political situation in Mongolia, our teacher from there told us a little bit last night. Apparently the old communist party won the elections and so there were riots in the streets; 4 people were killed, 20 policemen were hospitalized, and a government building was burned down. It was really shocking to hear because we had just heard all these things about how wonderful Mongolian people are. It is sad to hear that they are having this trouble. She said that we shouldn't be worried about our visa situation but that we should pray for the people. So that is what we are doing. The other day I was able to talk to Aca Mcdonald again. After about a month or so it was hard to remember where to start from and I was hoping that he had taken my invitation to read the Book of Mormon more seriously but when I called he was in 2 Nephi. He is a man that is very interesting in the historical/geographical aspects of religious material and uses it as a sort of verification for himself. So i worked with him to identify some of the things I knew to validate its authenticity. Next we got into how those facts eventually fade and you must have faith to carry you the rest of the way. This eventually led into our ideas on salvation. He is of the belief that salvation comes after having faith in Christ and then through your salvation you just naturally do good works. I tried to explain to him the need for works before you can expect salvation and I used some scriptures in James. We ran out of time but I gave him two chapters in Alma to read that talk a bit about how our faith works within us and how our role fits in with Christ's Atonement because that was one of the things that we disagreed on the most. It was really good to talk to him again, and i care a great deal about him. I just hope and pray that I might be able to communicate our gospel in a way that he can truly feel the Spirit of the message. I'm calling him in two weeks so we'll see how that goes! We had Elder J. Richard Clark speak at our Devotional on Tuesday and it was so good. He gave us his "SKWASH" formula for being a good missionary. It was: Spirituality, Knowledge, Work, Attitude, Skills, Habits. The part that impressed me the most was Attitude. He told a story about a Russian train worker that accidentally locked himself inside a refrigerator car. No one could hear him and so he figured he would just be left in there to die. As he slowly passed away, he wrote out words on the inside of the car. He would say things like, "getting colder" "still colder" "these may be my last words". Things like that. When someone finally opened the freezer car, they fould him dead. The sad thing was, the refrigerator car was malfunctioning so the temperature in there was only 57 degrees. He could have easily survived if it wasn't for his preconceiived notion of what would happen in that car. That has so much import fir all of us wherever we are. Our attitude largely determines how we will do in any arena. Mental Attitude accounts more for success than Mental Ability. Well, I don't have much time left. But in closing I just want to say how very grateful I am for you and the family. I love each one of you so much. I absolutely know that this Gospel is the true Gospel. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a called prophet of God and that Jesus Christ stands at the head of this church. I know that by following Christ's footsteps in Faith, Works, and Covenants we can live with our families and with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again. It is a possiblity for all of us. God did not send any of us down here to fail. Each one of us has something great to do if we will just go to the Father and find out from Him what that is. At the time, my job is to teach the Mongolian people His Word, and I am grateful for the chance. Once again I love you all and I hope everything is going good for you. Love, Elder Cappuccio

Love from home

2008-07-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

James, I just sent you a package today with some contacts, goodies and a letter. you probably won't get until Tuesday. I hope you have a good Fourth of July even though you are in the MTC. We won't be up in Utah until the 11th and then me and Amy are flying to NY right away.? Cali wanted to know if we could go by and see you in the MTC and I told her we couldn't, We miss you but are so proud of your great example.I got a lot of responses back from people I forwarded your email to, but haven't had a chance to read them yet. I heard from someone that there was some problems in Mongolia about the election, have you heard anything about that? I haven't had time to check the news. I don't have much time right now, but I wil email you later. I hope you got some email and mail from others because I didn't get my stuff mailed until today. Keep the fire burning! Love always, mom

Singing for the Prophet

2008-06-29T18:41:00.000-07:00

Hello! It's another great day here in the Missionary Training Center. Ok, so it's kind of funny: When we first got here, the Missionary Training Center President, President Boone spoke to all the new missionaries and gave us a poem about how there are so many differet acronyms in the church and then explained how there are tons more in the MTC. Well...like two weeks after that, they decide they want to do away with all the acronyms! Haha, so it's been really funny hearing people trying to correect themselves and say the full name.

Anyways, it's really good to hear from you and Amy. To let you know, I got the cinnamon rolls and I got the package! I love the CD and everyone loves the brownies you sent, especially my teachers! We have this one teacher that is like really small and has sooo much energy. She is really blunt too and she'll just tell it like it is. It's pretty funny. Anyways, she loves sugar and so she really liked them. About the cinammon rolls: I got them and the lady at the front desk said that if Grandpa hadn't been so cute, she wouldn't have accepted them. Hahaha, never really looked at Grandpa that way!

Ok, so here the big news I wanted to tell you last week but couldn't. I don't even know if i mentioned in my last e-mail or not. If not, pretend you had all this excitment over something I wouldn't tell you last week. This week was the New Mission Presidents Seminar. It was Saturday to Wednesday and to show you how important it is, they have TONS of General Authorities there to teach the new mission presidents. Anyways, they like to spoil them and so they selected about 30 or so missionaries from the Missionary Training Center Choir to prepare five songs for the Seminar. You couldn't believe how shocked I was to find out that they had picked me! They took us out and explained what would happen, how we would be singing in front of the Prophet, the First Presidency, and the Quorum of the Twelve. I was so happy. So since Tuesday of last week we spent an hour each day practicing our songs. By Sunday we had to have all of them memorized. That first Sunday morning, for their sacrament service, we sang "We Ever Pray For Thee" a song for t he Prophet. The whole First Presidency, and ten of the Twelve were seated on the stand along with members of the Presiding Bishopric and there were many Quorum of the Seventy there. I can't say how amazing it was to look up on that stand and see so many of the Lord's called and anointed! We were performing right in front of the stand. After one performance I was able to look right into the eyes of Elder Hales who was about four feet from me. It is so amazing how much they act like regular people. They are men that have grown closer to God and have been called by Him, but they are not celebrities and they certainly don't act like it. It was such an amazing experience to witness their personalities and feel of their spirit. Our final song on Wednesday afternoon was "This is the Christ" and it was absolutely beautiful. There was so much emotion and testimony in that song that it bore witness to my heart of the Divinity of our Savior, Jesus Christ. As we left the room after our song, Elder Bednar, who was seated towards the end of the stand, said "Thank You" to us with tears in his eyes. I am so very grateful for the opportunity I had to participate in such a great experience. It really shocked me that I was selected because all of you that have heard me sing know I'm not a good singer! Yet, they had us write down our experience in choirs and I wrote my modest resume down and somehow found my way there. Nevertheless, I am so glad they did pick me. :) That is so cool to hear about Ryan's mission call! I have a friend that just got here the other day going to Cambodia actually! Who woulda thought that there would be a big Cambodian community in Long Beach! that is so great. When does he report? From what I know of the Cambodian language, it's not Super hard, but it is tough. They have a whole different alphabet set that looks really interesting and when we heard it it sounded kind of like french. I'd say it's maybe top ten in difficulty. All the teachers in the Missionary Training Center have served missions and usually served in the mission they teach. However, we have one Sister teacher that is from Mongolia and served a mission here. It is such a blessing to have her there because she can help us out in ways the other teachers can't. All three of our teachers are wonderful though. There are also two Mongolian elders at the MTC right now. It's really fun to see them in the halls and talk to them briefly. It gets me excited to meet the rest of Mongolia because they are so friendly. That's awesome that you're going to New York! I don't really know what to recommend, We only saw Phantom and The Chorus Line and I would not recommend the latter. Wicked might be good? Les Mis? I dunno, I just pretend like I know anything about that stuff. That is great to hear about Jacque progressing in the Church. At the same time I wish her a quick recovery from her surgery, it sounds painful.

Oh, so just in case you wanted to know, we passed the halfway point! How sad is that! I've been here like 20 years already and I've got 20 more to go. It's a bit depressing but so exciting at the same time. I can't wait to get our flight plans and go to Mongolia!

The language is progressing alright. We're preparing to teach the 3rd lesson in Mongolian. My teacher has been telling me that I should start speaking more to better learn the language. She was saying how I already know so much of the grammar and vocab but if I can just try to speak it throughout the day, I'll really take off. So i'm going to do that and it will be awesome to see what happens.

In our District meeting this week, our district leader, Elder Whittle read a poem by President Eyring that i really liked. It's called "The Fellowhip of the Unashamed" I think I want to write it in this e-mail so I will:

I am part of the fellowship of the unashamed The dye has been cast. I have stepped over the line. the decision has been made. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won't look back, let up, slow down or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure.

I'm finished and done with low living, small planning, smooth knees, color-less dreams, tamed visions, worldly talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals. I no longer need pre-eminence, positions, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, first recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded.

I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk with patience, am uplifted by prayer, and labor with power. My pace is set, my gait is fast, my goal is Heaven. My road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my guide is reliable, my mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromized detoured, divided, or delayed

I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the pr3esence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I won't give up, shut up, or let up until I have stayed up, stored up and pain up for the cause of Christ.

I mpust go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know, and work till he stops me; and when he returns for his own, he will have no problem recongnizining me.

Letters from Home

2008-06-29T18:36:00.000-07:00

Dear Elder Jamo,

I liked your explanation about why you didn't get as much mail when you were a district leader. Here's another view on that... you have to give us time recover from the news that you were made a district leader, jk. We're just not used to writing letters in this computer age, email is so much faster and easier. Did you get the package i sent? And the cinnamon rolls from your grandparents? Grandpa says they almost didn't accept them at the front desk, because they said they are supposed to be mailed. I will send another package with some contacts and razors and other goodies soon. I posted your email address on the blog, so maybe some people will email you.

Ryan Burgoyne got his mission call this week. He got called to Long Beach, CA, but as a Cambodian language missionary!? That's got to be a tough language too.? Where does that rate? Who teaches you Mongolian? Do you have members from Mongolia here teaching you or former missionaries? It's great to hear how well you are doing learning the language. It's amazing how much the Lord is able and willing to help us if we just seek it. My friend Jacque had to have surgery on her thyroid this week, so she is out of work for 10 days, which fortunately gives her time to get one more Sunday meeting in so she can get baptized. She works on Sundays right now, so she has only attended twice and she needs 3 meetings for baptism requirements. She knows it's true, she has already had a pretty good experience with hearing the spirit tell here it's the true church.

I didn't know it got so hot in Mongolia! I hope you can email pictures home, I'm interested in seeing what it's like for you over there.? Amy and I will be going to New York in July. What would you recommend that we make sure and see or do while we are there? We already bought tickets to Phantom of the Opera, front row on the upper Mezzanine! We're staying with a friend of mine in NY and my mom got us the plane tickets, so we are all set. It will be cool, but a short trip, only 3 days, which is good so I won't spend too much money!

My sister Alex is having a baby on July 7th, so you will have another girl cousin in a few weeks! We might go up and visit them while we are in Utah, if they want company so soon after the baby.....not sure yet.

We love you and hope you get lots of mail and everything that you need. I always let people know I have a son on a mission whenever I can. it gives me a chance for my own missionary experience!

Keep the fire burning!

love always, mom

Letters, Love, and Life

2008-06-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

san ban-o! How is everyone doing? You are right about being excited to hear from you and to get letters from the family, it's something i look forward to every week! There's one thing that i probably should let you know that will make a lot of sense: Apparently, there is a curse of some sort that makes it so Elders called as District Leaders just don't get a lot of mail. Since they are the ones that pick up the mail for the district, they just can't get any for themselves! Therefore, I sincerely apologize for asking for more letters, there was no way to control it! Now that I'm not District Leader anymore, i find myself getting letters all the time so I am very happy :)

Being a Zone Leader is a lot of fun. As I'm sure you know my character already, you know I like to talk to people and get to know new people. That's one of the things I get to do as zone leader! Just last night, two new districts came in and Elder Finuf and I got to go meet them and take them on a tour. It was sweet! They all seem real cool. One group is going to Indonesia to replace our one Indonesian elder (Sadly his visa got delayed so he's still here. haha). The other district is a mix of elders going to San Diego, Arkansas, and Alabama. I seriously love introducing them and taking them on the tour because we're like the first elders to get to know them and spend time with them. It's way cool. On the flip side, you have to spend a lot of time away from your studies doing things for the zone so it is kind of hard. However, I would have to say that it is a great experience to see how the Lord blesses you for doing His work. Even though Elder Finuf and I are constantly away from Mongolia doing Zone things, it seems like the Lord is helping us to learn Mongolian that much faster so that we can stay with the rest of the group. In fact, I KNOW that He does that, because I have felt it so much already.

About the whole warming Mongolia up with our missionary spirit, that might be a good idea in the winter, but I recently became aware that 100+ degree weather is not altogether uncommon in the two months of summer they have. Guess when those two months are? Yup. Right when we get to Mongolia. haha. We have an Elder in our District named Elder Plowman. He's from Idaho and he thrives on the cold weather. I'm pretty sure he about cried when he heard the news. Meanwhile, my companion and I just looked at each other and laughed because it would be just like home!

I got to see Tyler yesterday, it was awesome! I knew he was coming in so I was looking for him all day and he found me during Dinner. We talked for a good amount of time and then I saw him again as I was giving the tour. Turns out he is in my residence hall so I will definitely be going to his floor alot.

About Aca, when I first talked to him, he said to call back at the beginning of the July. So i'm going to wait about two more weeks and call him up again. It's a really exciting idea because if he has read the Book of Mormon and if he has prayed about like he said he would, I can just imagine the blessings that will have come into his life. I've been praying for him all the time and I know that if the Lord wills it and if Aca is willing to open up and follow the Spirit's promptings, he will be blessed.

Serving this mission has opened my eyes to so many different blessings and I've started to understand just a little bit about the intricacies and many wonders of it. As we were in class the other day sharing scriptural insights, I shared a scripture from Isaiah 10. It's verse 13-15 i believe. It just talks about how we, as instruments in the Lord's hands cannot boast over the things we are doing. It would be like an axe boasting about the tree it chopped down even though it was really the hands using the axe to chop it down. I really love that analogy. It also brought me to remember the words of King Benjamin in Mosiah when he talks about being an unprofitable servant to the Lord. He says that even if we spent every second of every day serving the Lord, we would still be unprofitable servants! When you first read that, it's quite sad. Even if you want to pay the Lord back for all he's given you, you could never be equal with him. King Benjamin elaborates that the Lord is constantly giving us the breath to live with. More than that, he gives us commandments to follow and as soon as we follow them we are blessed and so we again are in debt to him. What a merciful concept! To thing that we, even the most worthy of us, is an unprofitable servant, and still God is willing to do all that He can to bring us back to Him. It makes me want to do the very, very best that I can so that I can be the least unprofitable servant out there, but it so hard. That's why I love this Gospel. It's a Gospel of love. What else beyond love could drive our Heavenly Father to do this much for us?

In a choir I'm in (I'llL tell you more about this later) we are singing This is the Christ. Those lines in the song that say "how many drops of blood were shed for me?" just sends shivers down my spine. How much anguish have we caused the Savior, and how much more will we cause Him? My hope is that I would never pain the Savior again and that is what I strive for. Still, he is our Saviour, our Redeemer, and our Lord and he atoned for our sins willingly, not being forced. He has taken on our sins and he will willingly forgive us of them if we will just follow the way He has prescribed. Moreover, he knows EXACTLY the pains that we suffer in our everyday lives. Who better to turn to in our struggles and trials than God and Jesus Christ? They have said time and time again that They will carry our burden if we will give it up to them and follow them. It's amazing to think about isn't it? That so many wrong choices can be overridden if we work to change our lives, repent, and strive to become like Jesus and Heavenly Father.

I know this church is true, more than I've ever known it before. Keep trying to read from the Book of Mormon every day because it is from there that we can find the strength of the Lord. I love you all so very much and I will be writing you letters if I haven't already. I will also be writing Dad and Crystal today. I love them too! They are definitely included in the "I love you all category". Thank you so much for everything and I hope things go good for you.

Your Elder,

Elder James Cappuccio

P.S. could I get more contacts sometime soon and like more razor edges? Love you!

On Fire

2008-06-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:12:51 -0400 Subject: on fire

Dear Elder James,

It's always so exciting to get your emails and letters, so I know you probably get just as excited to hear from us.? I heard from Cali that the girls at camp could write missionaries from our stake at the service project tent. According to Cali, you had the most letters, so mail is on the way! I hope to get a few things together this week and send you a package. We won't be coming up to Utah until July 12th, so I wanted to get you some treats and stuff before then. I checked into the DearElder service and I decided to go with the dear grandmother service instead....my mom says she will bring you by some fresh cinnamon rolls this week.

Today was Tyler Fisher's farewell.? He'll be up there in the MTC on Wednesday, so you may have already run into him by the time you read this. He gave a nice talk and since it was Father's day, spoke about his father a bit, saying his father helped him get to where his is today, and his mother did too, but it's not Mother's day so he's only going to talk about his Father... that got a few laughs. Anyway, here is your dad's and Crystal's address, 1409 E Park Ave, Chandler, AZ 85225. I don't know the other addresses you wanted, so I'll get Amy to send them to you.

Thanks for the zone explanation, it was very enlightening to those of us who haven't been on missions yet. Sounds like you are getting a good opportunity to learn to serve and I can see you enthusiasm is probably very contagious, because it bursts through to us with every letter that you write. You remind me of the hymn, "The Spirit of God like a Fire is Burning" cause you are 'on fire.' When you hit Mongolia you might raise their average temperature a few degrees and maybe thaw out some of the frozen Tundra....hmmm that gets me thinking, maybe missionaries are the cause of global warming.....

As far as news from the world, nothing too exciting, and since your pal Ron Paul isn't going to win the election you might as well be in Mongolia. At least Hilary Clinton is not in the running anymore, that would have been a nightmare, Bill Clinton back in the Whitehouse....

Thanks for all the letters you have written to your brother and sisters, they really enjoy the personal message you send them. I love you and know that we are all blessed by your serving the Lord for the next 2 years. I was also wondering about the man named Aca in Texas, did you ever get to talk to him again?

Love and prayers, always mom

MTC Week 4 and "I'm a baller" pronunciation revealed

2008-06-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Haha...yea, i was hoping Joseph would like what I put. Well you tell him it's pronounced "bum-bug-chin" haha. About the e-mails. I can get e-mails from anyone and everyone if they so choose. I can only answer one e-mail a week so that'll be yours but I can always write them a letter in response. About the Mormon Tabernacle Choir CD, yea you could send me that and I could use it. One of our roommates has a CD player with speakers so that would be awesome. Is it the new one? I wanted that! Oh, and I got your letters too! It was really great to get those and I hope to get one from Joseph sometime soon. I really want Dad's address so I can send him and Crystal a letter! I'm sorry to hear about work. Being in the MTC is like being in a complete different world! We hear about nothing! Then again, that's probably a good thing haha. About Elder Eyestone, he already left about a week and a half ago. He was only there for 3 weeks and so he's gone. I saw him all the time we were here though and it was awesome to just see how he was doing. He seemed to be getting really comfortable with being a missionary and I'm excited to hear anything about how his mission goes over there. Ok, so i'll give you a little layout of how the districts and zones are set up. Each Wednesday new missionaries come in. They'll group the missionaries into small groups of anywhere from 2-14 or so missionaries for the same area/language. (For English it's a little more liberal about location) These are called Districts. For the Mongolians, we only have one district of Mongolians the entire time we're here. However, bigger missions/languages will have multiple districts learning the same language in different classrooms. So each district has a district leader. Now, they then bring together a bunch of districts, and put them into a zone. From what I know the zones aren't organized by any certain pattern because we have a district of Indonesians, Malagasy (Madagascar), Mongolians, and English-speaking. Anyways, they all are a zone and they live in the same residence halls and have pretty much the same schedule. We all meet for church and are presided over by a branch presidency which consists of Brethren from outside of the MTC coming in for our meeting and such. Each Zone has a companionship as Zone Leaders. It's kind of interesting because a District only has 1 district leader whereas a Zone has 2 Zone leaders in a companionship. Just because there are more Elders to look after. In our Zone there are....somewhere around 30+ elders in 5 districts. We have one district that only has 1 Elder! It's kind of funny. This week has been really great. My companion and i were sustained as Zone Leaders on Sunday and we've been pretty busy ever since. One thing we get to do that I'm excited about is to meet the new missionaries that come into our district on Wednesdays and give them a brief tour. I like doing that kind of stuff. We also are there to help the District Leaders out and lift our zone as best as we can. I honestly have to say I love doing this because I get to feel the Spirit so much more in looking to inspire these Elders. I'm so grateful for it! I mean as it is, the Spirit is so prevalent in this MTC but this callings give an added measure that I am so thankful for. The devotionals and firesides here have been really great. This last tuesday we had a Quorum of the Seventy (Elder Mervyn B. Arnold) speak on how to preach the Gospel with all diligence. He had a bunch of good points and I know our whole district was really inspired by the talk. The thing that stood out to me the most was his testimony though. When he bore his testimony, he bore it with such power and Spirit, it was amazing. I told myself that I wanted to be able to bear my testimony like that, and in order to do so, understand the doctrine and principles so thoroughly as to command that knowledge. Also, on Sunday, our district held an awesome District meeting were we talked about goals we want to set for now and for the mission. As soon as we got on that track, the Spirit sparked this burning desire in our hearts and it was amazing! I just felt it so thoroughly as we worked together to identify ways to make the biggest affect on our mission. I have got to say I have a really good feeling about the Elders in our district. They are a very special group and I just can't wait to get out into the field with them and see what we can accomplish. We've been told a lot recently that President Hinckley wanted to double baptisms internationally but that we have not accomplished that yet. We are going to be the missionaries to start that going at least in Mongolia. I just know it. Well I don't have much time left but I'll try and share some more things I've learned while I was here. Don't waste time: Here at the MTC we are given a lot of time to work on the language and the doctrine and it's really made me realize how precious time is. We don't really have a lot of it to spend doing things outside of what will bring us closer to God and our family. Certain responsibilites, of course, require us to provide support for familes and so on, but outside that, time is so precious that it just can't be wasted. In the devotional on Tuesday, Elder Arnold expressed thoroughly how much our Heavenly Father loves us. I believe that and I know that. He loves each and every one of us SO much! That's one of my favorite parts to teach in the discussions because it's amazing! He knows us individually and loves us. We are his children and we lived with him for 'thousands of ages' before we came here. You better believe that he absolutely loves us and that he wants only the best for us. Moses 1:39 tells us that. His whole purpose is to get us to become like Him, to inherit his kingdoms and glories and to receive eternal life and exaltation. What amazing love that He and the Savior have for us! They have devoted every second of their time since the beginning of the world for that purpose! I love all of you so very very much! Write back soon! ~Elder James Cappuccio I need Dad's address, Jayson Marshall's address, Elder Clawson and Elder Millers. Love ya! -----Original Message-----

a question or two for you....

2008-06-12T21:31:00.000-07:00

From: marathomom@aol.com To: james.cappuccio@myldsmail.net Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:58:06 -0400 Subject: in the zone Dear Elder James, It was great to hear about your experiences in the MTC so far. Joseph and Amy liked the letters you wrote....Joseph was telling everyone that you wrote "I'm a baller." in Mongolian on his letter, he thought that was cool, however since you wrote it in Mongolian, he wasn't quite sure how to pronounce it.... Well, I guess a few questions I have for you would be, can your friends send you emails or only your family? I gave everyone your correct address, so I know they can mail you. I hope you got our letters.? Amy and Cali will be at camp all this week, and Joseph will be home by himself. He's taking summer school PE and has an A in it so far! Another question is, if I gave you a CD of Mormon Tab music would you have something to play it on? I bought you one, but didn't know if I needed to get you something to play it on too. Work is good. They closed down a Chase loan center in Pennsylvania which was lucky for us, cause they could've picked our site and so now we should be busier....but the economy is not good, so it won't be easy either.? I'm just glad I have a good job and I know I am getting extra blessings for having a missionary serving the Lord. Keep up the good work on learning the language, I know it is hard,, but you are going to get extra help along the way and be able to convert people because they can see how much you care about them. How long is Elder Taylor Eyestone going to be there? Do you see him much? How's he doing? How many Elders are in your Zone? Are zones divided by places you are going? Like are all the Mongolian missionaries in the same zone? Because it just seems odd that you and your companion are both zone leaders if you were in the same district to start with.....as you can see I've never been on a mission, so I don't understand the whole set-up. I love you and pray for you always and all the other missionaries too.? Keep that spirit burning bright! Love Always, Mom

in the "zone"

2008-06-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

Haha, why am i not surprised...Joseph somehow just knows how to get around things.I wrote him and Amy letters so you should get them already or be getting them soon. I wanted to write everyone in the family one but the letter writing time is so short i can't get everyone right away.Hopefully i can get to everyone else today. So yea, my third week here is completed and I am so glad I am here. Each day we learn something new for Mongolian and progress in the language. The other day we learned how to write in cursive and man, was that confusing. If there weren't already enough mixed up letters, this cursive system really mixed up letters! It's kinda fun though so i think i'll get used to it fairly soon. Uhm, so last week we had to teach our first discussion in Mongolian and it was CRAZY! We went in and we had about 5 minutes of just regular talking and my companion and I were soooooo lost. Haha, it was a lot of 'uhms' and silent moments. Once we got to the lesson though it was a lot better. We had 35 minutes to do it and my companion and I actually went over! He memorized the 1st Vision in Mongolian and so that took up a good chunk of time haha, but he was the first Elder to ever do it the first weewk so the teachers were impressed. Tomorrow we're doing the same thing so it should be a lot better, I'm really excited to do it because I'm feeling I'mn starting to be able to just bring subjects and verbs together without memorizing scripts. So let's see...as of this Sunday I won't be District Leader anymore. It's kind of sad really because I really enjoyed the opportunity it gave me to get to know each Elder in my district on a personal level. Each Elder is so great and it's awesome to see each one conquer his own challenges and grow in the Gospel and the language. So yea, on Sunday i'l get released from that. But then that same day, they'll call Elder Finuf (my companion) and I to be the new Zone Leaders. haha. No one is supposed to know so don't tell anyone! But yea, I'm just glad I'll still have the oppportunity to serve instead of be served. I'm just so grateful because being in this position has really opened my mind to following the promptings I feel to say certain things. As I've done that, I've had amazing experiences with the Elders in our district and I just hope that continues with the Zone. Uhm...the RC. So we went to the RC the other day and I had two other great phone calls. This one man I talked to lost his son when he was 19 years old while his wife and him were on vacation. It was a really rough part of life for him but he was able to come out of it with a better love for God. I was able to tell him that family can be together and that he will be able to see his son again. He said he believe that and all but he didn't want to switch religions. So then I was kinda at a tough point to be in because i really wanted him to receive the fullness of the Gospel. So i asked him to pray to God about the conversation we had. That was the only thing I could think of to do to get the point across. And I know that if he does go to the Lord in pray he will get that answer, so I'm very excited for him. It's really interesting when it gets to a point like that in the conversation. I had another experience like that in the same day and it basically just comes down to telling the person you're talking to that they have to find out for themselves. I was talking with one lady that had recently lost a nephew to cancer and her faith was shaken to the point that she felt religion and prayer were just things programmed to make us feel good. I bore as fervent a testimony as I could over the phone about my belief in God and his plan for us. Still, as powerful and spiritual as I felt that testimony was, it really wasn't going to sway her to the point where she would become a strong believer. See, we cannot expect to just win people over by telling them our testimony. God has made it so that each person can know the truth and feel it inside them. So while we can set the stage, and plant the seed, even the most powerful testimony might not bring someone into the Gospel. They ultimately have to listen to the Spirit, they have to get on their knees and ask God, because that is the only way anyone can ever know for certainty what is right and what is wrong. In a way, it's kind of sad because I wish I could just go around bearing my testimony and changing people's belief systems just like that, but as i'm beginning to understand Heavenly Father's plan for us, I'm so glad it isn't that easy. Becuase when someone finallys gets it, when they really really understand what God wants for us, and they've found out for themselves, that is a wonderful thing. Something that far exceeds any other spiritual experience I or any other missionary could give them. Oh! another cool thing that happened yesterday is that our Zone got a bunch of new missionaries. And, as luck would have it, my good friend from BYU Jordan Harbor (now Elder Harbor) is in their district! I'm really excited because he is a great Elder and it'll be awesome to work with him for the next three weeks before he ships out to Minnesota. I also got to see Jordan Hatch the other day which was cool. I had been looking for him all week because I knew he had come in but I couldn't find him. Uhm, besides that, I'm not really sure what else to write about. If you want, you should start asking questions and stuff about my being here so I know what you want to here. Haha, maybe peopel could post questions on the website and you could forward them here. maybe that wouldn't be a good idea i don't know. Whatever you do, just know that I love all of you! Especially Joseph because he's my brother. I mean, with sisters, I've got three of them, but with Joseph I've only got one brother! So i love him that much more. The church is true, I can say that without any doubt in my mind or heart. Joseph Smith was the prophet of the Restoration! Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer and it is ONLY through faith and obedience to his commandments that we have to hopes of happiness that he has promised us with. This is a wonderful work to be a part of and I am so glad I'm here. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else except for maybe teaching in Mongolia! ~Elder Cappuccio! -----Orig

Dearest Elder James

2008-06-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

I asked a friend today, someone more up to date on the world of blogging if I should post my email replies to James as well and they said I should. That way it would be both sides of the story, not just a one-way conversation. So then I went back today and inserted his first paragraph from his last email admonishing us to write him a letter. He only had received one piece of mail from us in two weeks, but that's more letters than I have sent out in the last year! And it was a music card, that played, "Fun, Fun,Fun" from the beach boys...we were hoping he was having fun at the MTC...so I was thinking that should count for at least 2 regular letters.... so this is what I wrote back to him: Dearest Elder James, I wrote another letter with a card and I seem to have lost it...So I guess I had better make up for it and write another letter today. I might have left it at church, because I was writing the address on it then. Now the kids are out of school they have plenty of time to write you a letter so I'll tell them to do it today, so I can mail it out. But we are even, one letter and one email before now....and if I hadn't lost my other one, I would be in the lead.... I had brother Hagstrom come change our router settings so Joseph couldn't use WORLD OF WARCRAFT from our computers. However, Joseph figured a way around it already! I don't know what it will take to get him unaddicted. Maybe you can write him something and keep praying for him. I love reading your emails. You are really getting into the spirit of missionary work and growing so much, I'm always amazed by your testimony! Keep up the good work. I don't have time to write much because this is Friday morning before work and I have to get ready, but I will send you some letters and I'll email you again. I'm glad you got the card, hope it wasn't to rowdy for the MTC. And we promise to write you and keep you and your investigators in our prayers. I have your picture at my desk to inspire me every day! love always, mom

MTC week 2: Full speed ahead

2008-05-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, first item of business, are you guys there! I have to keep reassuring the other Elders in my district that I actually do have a family by showing them pictures. I can understand where they're coming from, what with me only getting one piece of mail from them in two weeks! Haha, i fully expect a piece of mail from all of you! Especially considering the fact i'll be writing a bunch today to send home to you. :) Holy cow, so can you believe I've been here for two weeks already? That's amazing! Over the past week it's been really cool to meet a bunch of the Elders that were in my ward at BYU. It really is a blessing to see them all enter in to go out to the different places they will be serving. The other day one of the elders in our district shared a scripture in Alma 17:2. It talks about how Alma meets up with the sons of Mosiah after their long mission to the Lamanites. The greatest part is where it says, "therefore Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren; and what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord". I was thinking about how that relates to Elder Clawson and Tyler and Elder Miller and Elder Stock and Ryan. I'm really excited to come back off the mission and share all of our experiences and to come back as 'brethren in the Lord'. Hmm, lets see what else i did. Well on Friday we did this thing called the TRC where we go and teach lessons to volunteers so we can simulate the missionary experience. My companion and I taught the 1st discussion and it was AWESOME! Honestly I felt so good doing it, I was really really nervous but I was seriously so happy after finishing it because it felt so good to teach those basic, amazing truths. As you spend your time studying these principles and learning how to teach them effectively, you really end up learning the most about them and how absolutely necessary, and wonderful, the Atonement of Jesus Christ it is. I mean, I always knew how it was necessary to make it back to Heavenly Father, but as you teach it, and as you imagine teaching it to people that have never heard it, the beauty and power of it really begin to sink in. And although i'm not sure i'll ever fully understand the power of the Atonement, i'm really starting to and I am continually humbled in that matter. I just can't wait to actually get out to Mongolia and tell those people this wonderful message. Well, on second thought, I can wait because the language is hard! We're supposed to teach the 1st discussion tomorrow in Mongolian and it is definitely going to be tough. I've got a lot more stuff to go over to be prepared and hopefully i'll be able to! It really exciting to learn this language because it's so different. In a fireside on Sunday the speaker was talking about how Finnish is the hardest language to learn and so i wanted to find out where Mongolian ranks. Although i didn't get any official word or anything, most people said it's either 2nd or 3rd with Mandarin being the other factor. That's pretty cool. So I asked my teacher to find out what happened to the BYU Lacrosse team in the tournament. I thought maybe my loving family would tell me but it's ok :-P It was sad to hear how we lost to Michigan and all. Oh well. Another disappointing sports update I heard was that the Spurs beat the Hornets! But then I also heard that the Lakers are up 3-1 in the series so that makes me feel better. K, so just the other day I had some great experiences in the RC, that's the place where you call and take calls from people requesting church materials. I had a 40 minute conversation with this man named Aca from Texas. He had been looking for a long time to find the right church and he understood quite a lot about certain doctrine to the extent that he believed it. I couldn't just simply tell him principles about our church because he had ideas to counter it. The great thing was that he wasn't there to just bible-bash with me, he was sincerely looking for the truth and wanted to talk to me to see what I knew. So we talked, and at times I wasn't the clearest and at times we coulnd't come to the same conclusion, but I was finally able to bring it all around to Moroni 10:3-5. I told him that if he would finish reading the Book of Mormon and pray about it to know if it was true, the answer he would receive, whether or not it said the book was true, which I know it is, that would be the right answer. I committed him to finish reading it and he said he'd like to follow up on this conversation after he had read it. So now i'm really excited because I get to call him back in about a month and talk to him about it. Please keep him in your prayers so that he can feel the power of the Book of Mormon. I know it seems weird that I'd ask you to pray for a man that I only talked to on the phone with for 40 mins, but the truth is, he's just as important in God's eyes as each one of us and that if we were to not care about him, we could not say that we were Christlike or taht we treated everyone the way Christ would. Along with the experience with Aca, I had some other neat conversations. One was with this man that had been cheated out of a lot of money through real estate managers and such. I was able to tell him about the eternal riches Christ has for us and how worldly riches don't amount to much. I think that as I tell these people these things, I learn it much much more than I could have any other way and that's amazing to me. On Tuesday, we had Sister Ann Dibbs come to speak to us and she had a unique persepctive to share. She was the daughter of President Thomas S Monson. It was awesome to hear her intimate association with this man of God and the qualities that he demonstrated. I felt a deep desire to follow in his footsteps. I hope that I can find myself in the service of the Lord in some way or another my whole life because that is the labor that truly brings forth riches and blessings. Uhm, as a last thing that I was thinking of writing in a letter to the kids in Seminary, you can tell them this: It is absolutely VITAL that each and every one of them find out for themselves if the Book of Mormon is true. Read that book, treasure that book, pray to know if it is true. That is so very, very important and if they haven't already done it, they should! They'll be so glad they did. The prophets have urged it and for good reason, it makes so many things clear. K, so my time is ticking down and i've got to end this e-mail. I'll be writing again in a week but I'm gonna write some letters today to you all! I love you! ~Elder Cappuccio