October 14th Typhoon

Well I'll start off with the craziest stuff that happened. there was a category 3 typhoon that pretty much destroyed my city. My house is completely fine and there were no deaths but man there were so many roofs just chillin' on the roads. We haven't had power for 3 nights now. The first night was the storm and we all woke up at 1:30am from something hitting our house SUPER hard. We were literally just talking story and watching the crazy winds from like 1:30 till 4:30. It was sooooo hot. We're used to Air Con so it was extra hard to coup with. It is so hot here. The past two nights we were able to kinda sleep alright, we all slept in the living rooms. Try praying for our electricity because here if there's no electricity there is no running water and we have to walk to fetch water from a well that smells like rust. Don't worry about drinking water though we have more than enough. I got that box the day before the storm, talk about PERFECT timing. While it was pitch black we were still happy because of all the food!

Other than that our zone is about to set a record for baptisms! We are about to have 40 as a zone! It's literally about to happen. There are only 7 pairs of companions too so this is huge! Our area has 9 baptisms this next Saturday! The work is progressing like crazy, I know the general authorities are praying hard for the missionary work, I noticed that in general conference. Good thing our district center has a generator. We were able to watch general conference after the storm!

This has been a very good and busy week with lots of interviews for the baptisms. Pray that they will continue and we can help make a huge change in this mission. One of these days I'll tell you all our ideas and tactics that have been giving us success, We're changing the way of teaching here.

I really got impressed from the talk of Randy d. Funk. He stated, “When we obey the commandments of the Lord and serve His children unselfishly, the natural consequence is power from God. Power to be able to do more than we would be able to do by ourselves.”
We are literally able to receive power from God. Each one of us. From your decisions earlier to go to church you received power from God. Just imagine the potential we all have on this earth, and realize how powerful we really are. Your all amazing and I love you all! Remember the words of the prophets and remember that you don't need a man living in your home to receive priesthood blessings but only obedience, which I pray we may all have.

Good night!

Pictures from Typhoon Oct 14th

Some of the mess from the Typhoon.

Oct 7th Beach activity....

Oct 7th At the beach activity!

Eye on the food! :)


Looks like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar! LOL


Hey, watch that arm of yours!!! :)

Oct 7th Beach Activity

I just got back from the beach!!! We played volleyball and ate the best BBQ stake, pig and fish mmm! I promise there will be pictures of this! We got to go there as a zone for achieving the Standard of Excellence. This is the third time in four months that we achieved the Standard the Excellence as a zone!

We have had some very spiritual days this week that I would like to share with you.

Firstly, we went to a mountain in one of our areas and decided that we wanted to tract it because there were 100's of house on this mountain and I've been in this area for over 5 months and I had not been up it yet. Well we decided to walk up it and try to teach there. As we were walking we saw a house with a tricycle on it (a dirt bike with a side car) so we decided to tract it since they could at least drive to church. He invited us in and we taught his whole family! There were about 6 of them and they all committed to baptism, and going to church. I then realized that he was a brother of a person I baptized in my last area Cabangan! It was totally meant to be that I met him! After that we decided to keep going up this huge mountain. While walking we saw a biker, he was going up a VERY VERY steep hill so he was GOOD (he was the champion of the huge Baguio city race). We kept up with him and eventually came to the end of the street. We found out that there was absolutely not one person in any of the 100's of houses that we always saw on this huge mountain. The man had told us that he cursed God the night before for "ruining his life" (He divorced his wife, he lost his job as a secretary to the Governor, and has no kids at his new home). While teaching him he knew that we were sent from God and he committed to Baptism, and receiving the Priesthood one day and most importantly he accepted that God is loving. We changed a family's life and a bikers life on that one mountain and I will always remember how the Lord sent me to these wonderful people.

Don't forget that God is loving. We were all like rocks, when we got on this earth and God chips us (gives us trials) that we might grow and become a beautiful statue and like our Lord Jesus Christ.

I love you all!

Elder Beau Kapeliela

Sept 29th The work is still on fire!

Hey family!

Thanks for all the awesome emails! You are always in my prayers. It's so exciting knowing whose going on missions, when and where! I feel like when I get home no ones going to be there!

 I had an awesome week! 

I don't know if you remember me telling you but when I got to this area we had 48 come to church. Last week the branch had 87 members attend and we also had 15 investigators that attended!!! 

Last Saturday we had 4 successful baptisms so we are literally ON FIRE in this area! We are planning on baptizing 11 this month. I am so ready to do this!!!!!

I can't wait to go into the temple and watch the new video!

Our zone accomplished the standard of excellence AGAIN for the 2nd time in a row! So we are all going to the mission again next Monday! We have 12 baptisms and 12 Less actives return! 

I love you all! Always wear your seat belts!

Elder Kapeliela

Sept 15th One year mark!!!

Hey family! Tomorrow I hit my one year mark in the mission!! Isn't that crazy? Lots of exciting things have been happening recently!

My companion Elder Wilde just got sent to the mission home because he's an AP now. My new companion is Elder Cobb from Charlotte, North Carolina where NASCAR, Michael Jordan, and bank of America started apparently haha.

I don't know if I told you or not but I dreamed that I became companions with the companion I have right now in the MTC and I hadn't even seen him until I got here. And Now we're companions. I know now why, we're doing great.

Me and my companion have 252 names of friends and family (non-members) that we are and they are praying for and we are going to go to. This has the potential of bringing hundreds to baptisms and I'm excited to share with you the miracles that are about to happened.

Read Alma 26:22 and there you will find out as we did how to bring thousands to repentance. I'm excited for this work. The Lord is hastening it and therefore we must think and work harder as missionaries.

I love  you guys so much! Take care.

Sept 8th

Hey! I had a good adventurous week I could say. There used to be 6 of us in one small house but now the 4 moved to another apartment. We spent most of last week looking and helping them move into their new apartment. We had to make high bars so no one could possibly get into the house. Missionaries need a safe place where they can relax and have no worries because sometimes the outside is a very very telestial place. On Wednesday my area splits into two and there will be 4 in the house again. It has been very quite in our house with just 2.

While on the way to my appointment I was riding my bike on the road and their was a dog just chillen and licking himself not worrying about a thing, even though it was a busy road. I ignored him thinking he would move but he didn't until the last minute, then we both moved, me turning and him running until we ran into each other and I flew off my bike after running over him with my front wheel ( I was wearing a helmet thankfully). My first reaction after getting up to recover was to protect myself from the dog cause he was PISSED, I shielded myself with my bike and their were about 20 Filipinos chasing the dog off. They then laughed with me and my companion about it, because it must of looked pretty crazy and the dog made a really weird noise haha, anyways I was fine and kept working. Nothing's gonna stop me from working every single day on my mission.

I'm loving my area and I won't get transferred (said President Querido) so I'm happy with that. We have 6 baptisms on the 21st hopefully. This area was really ready for me, haha. The area that I opened that hasn't seen missionaries is my most progressing area. I love being able to do what I want with my area for it's good. Missions are awesome!

I want you to remember to fear God always and seek his kingdom first.
Love you all!

Sept 1st Happy Birthday Auntie Roberta and Greg

It was a wonderful week of baptisms! We had 5 baptisms on Saturday! It was supposed to be 6 but one of them had an injury problem so she cant get baptized till later this month. Out of all the reasons someone can't get baptized, that reason's lame. She follows all the commandments and everything! But it's okay. We're going to the mission home in a couple of hours cause my zone achieved the standard of excellence!!!

When I said I had a sketchy day All that happened was these Filipinos miss understood what I said and sat outside our apartment trying to get me to come out screaming and opening our windows but It ended up fine because right away the president sent almost every priesthood holder to our house to protect us. It ended up being a good experience since there were like 30 mel priesthood holders there to protect me. Nothing bad could ever happen to me. And don't worry, I was in a different city on exchanges and I'm not going back there. It was a good experience, I felt like Joseph smith in liberty jail for a while.

I cant type too long cause I have to go to the mission home soon and its an hour and a half drive. 

We had 12 investigators at church again! We're doing well here! 

Dad didn't email me! 

Thanks for getting my box sent to me and the letters sent to everyone!

I love you all! I read a book called "The Peace Giver", its really good! I suggest it!

August 25th Good evening!

Hi family!

I've written more letters, I just still need to send them! I hope you got my last letters I sent a couple of weeks ago and got them out to the right people!

It has been flooding pretty bad but Not yet inside the house or enough to call it a full on flood. It's just been pretty annoying and hard to work because of it. My shoes were always wet! But the sun finally came out and now things can dry! Things really start to smell bad in this season. 

I had the sketchiest week in my life so please pray extra hard for me...

Our zone goal was to fast every week so that our zone would achieve its goal, and especially because it was a brand new zone. Anyways, our zone fulfilled the standard of excellence which is 2 baptisms and 2 less actives return to the church. Our zone got 16 baptisms and 13 Less active returns (it means a less active went to church 4 times in a row without missing). We get to go to the mission home and have an FHE and eat and play games and watch a movie! Isn't that awesome! It feels good as a zone leader to accomplish the goals!! Especially as a new zone! That's the power of fasting for you!

Yesterday at church we had 90 members come!!!!!!!! When I got here the average was 50 like I said! Our plan is to double the attendance to 100 next week! We had 13 investigators come to church and 12 less actives come too! Isn't that insane? Man, I know this work is being hastened and that he is hastening it! 

I love ya all! I wrote you, so write me back! Take care of yourselves!

8-18 Typoon!!!!!

Hey family!

 

The Filipinos are now starting to put up Christmas decorations up haha. They start so early here. Could you tell me what your thoughts are about giving money to homeless and poor people. Sometimes I give a little but most of the time none. Especially when there wearing ear rings. The typhoons have been weak where I live. An hour north they were super strong though. It flooded like 15-20 ft in Masinloc. But yeah, those storms are nothing we haven't seen. They say that 3 more are coming and they'll be stronger.

 

Did you get my letters to the appropriate people? I'm sending more letters tomorrow.

 

We had our cooking demo and mission president interviews, it was awesome! I learned how to cook chicken cordon bleu. MMMMMM...

 

The Taghoy family who I have been focusing on the past few months have gone to church 4 times now and are getting baptized on the 31st! I looove this family so so much! Their names are Nelly Taghoy, Carrisa Taghoy and there's more but those are the only ones that might have a facebook. Our branch is also getting way excited because we had 12 inactives return to the church! I'm feeling good about the branch! I'm thinking WARD soon!!! We had a half day mission! We got 9 lessons with them. We had a blast going to the less actives raiding there houses with like 20 people. They really felt our love.

 

I gave a blessing to a very, very sick man last week and I was informed yesterday that he died a couple days ago. He was skinny to the bones and couldn't sit up or even talk and he had oxygen in his nose. He said with all his strength, "salamat" after the blessing which means thank you. I'm glad he was put out of his misery.

 

I love you all! Expect more letters! 2 sets on the way