On Fire

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

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....

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"

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

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