Feb 2nd, 2014 Seahawks!!

Me and my companion are lovin' this Seahawk victory! (Hes from Spokane). I hope they win again next year!

I had a great week where we got to teach the Cornel family and commit them for baptism. They are so ready to become members. Sister Cornel, the mom (and the most receptive one) had received an answer to her prayer twice now and entirely quit coffee! She hasn't drank it for over two months now and she was addicted before. As in 5 -7 cups a day! I love it! We also had 8 less actives at church and 6 investigators and they are all progressing! We have investigators set up to be baptized this month and next month! 

It got super hot this week. Its hot season now. You get no break here in the Philippines from always being wet because its either pouring rain or so hot that you sweat a ton. Sometimes I take 3 showers a day just to stay cool. How's the weather in Seattle? Did it even snow?! I miss the clean air, it's super smoggy here in the city. I hope I'm not losing hours of my life because of it haha.

I hope you were all able to read the Liahona from January about Joseph Feilding Smith, it was fantastic. That prophet truly was pre-ordained, wow. 

Keep reading your scriptures everyday and having family and personal prayers and attending all church meetings possible. It's a requirement. Its something so simple but eternity changing. Love you all!

Elder Kapeliela

Jan 26th BOX!

Good morning Family!

We had a leadership training meeting this week and we discussed a lot of rules and basketball, which was previously prohibited, is now allowed so we got to play this morning and it was amazing!! I'm on week 4 on the Air Alert jumping program and its a blessing that I can play basketball now so I can get that jumping muscle memory going! I have a goal to dunk before I go home. The program I'm doing is supposed to give me an extra 8-13 inches haha. OH YA! I got the package finally! All of my roommates and I agreed that it was the best package EVER!!!! And the jump rope really helps with the program I'm doing! But the food is destroying my diet! But that's okay, I'm sharing with everyone haha.

So the transfers got super messed up on me since their is a new mission president coming in. The new transfer is on June 18th instead of July 2nd. There's gonna be an 8 week transfer so that the mission president doesn't get put in the mission at the start of a transfer. Its really messed up because my two options are August 13th of July 18th. President Querido told me to go home on June 18th so that we could interview and have a going home party with him! Crazy right?

The work is going really well now here in Olongapo, we had 10 less actives at church yesterday! We are teaching over 50 people and our family accepted their baptismal goal date for February 15th!

I'm super thankful for this box and these ties are perfect! thanks Bianca for those sick ties and tie clips! I can't thank everyone for every little thing so just thank you all for everything!

Love you all!

Elder Kapeliela

1-19-14 Go SEAHAWKS!!!!

Jan 19
 

Hey family! I had a great week with Elder Orndorff! We have been working harder and harder every week and it has been paying off! The family that we are teaching WENT TO CHURCH AGAIN!!! WHOOOOA!!! I love this family, please pray for them, the Cornel family.

This is in response to a email from mom:

biggest challenge: My biggest challenge is when you go to ALL all your plans and back-up plans with-in like 2 hours and they are ALL busy and you look at the clock and it's 4 o'clock and you have a whole day to work with nowhere else to go so the rest of the day is tracking. 

Biggest concern: 
My biggest concern is I always want to make sure that the Lord is pleased with what I am doing. Sometimes you fell like your not doing enough so I am always making goals and plans to make sure I improve.

biggest success: My biggest success was my 3rd area because I left the area a lot better than I got it.

favorite person this week:My favorite person this week is Sister Aida (Our recent convert that is 79 yrs old) because despite her absolutely evil husband she has been with for over 55 yrs she still hasn't left him. And also, despite the persecution she gets from members of her old church for becoming a latter-day saint, she is still always there on Sunday with a huge 1 tooth smile.

This week we found out that a brand new Dairy Queen just opened up here in Olongapo so were gonna hit that up later today!!! Is anyone excited for me?! 

I love you so much family! Never give-up in ANYTHING. Especially in this gospel, we will have eternal life with we live it right. I have an assignment for you all. IN the Gospel principles book read the last chapter on Exaltation and read the list of things you need to do in order to inherit all the Father has. It is awesome, read it please. Will you do that?

Well, I love you so much family! Your always in my prayers!

Elder Kapeliela

GO SEAHAWKS! 

Jan 12th Happy Birthday Mom!!

Jan 12

 

Maligayang bati! maligayang bati! Maligaya, maligaya, maligayang bati! I hope you had a great 33rd birthday! ;)


I had a great week! It was super windy due to the typhoon forming in the south and low pressure so I actually got cold for one of the first times in my mission, and for the 2nd time on my mission I didn't even use an electric fan (except for the black outs)! I looooove wind!

So last week started off really fun! On Wednesday we went to the mission home to sort out some donated care packages and met President Querido's brother and I got to see Presidents son again who recently graduated for BYU-H. We ate puting, which is a gravy cheese fries thing. It's a Canadian thing apparently (his brother lives in Canada). Then after we finished sorting things out President Querido worked with us at the family we are teaching and we gave a great lesson. President is coming with us again today to conduct this families first family home evening!

I went on exchanges twice last week. My first companion was Elder Mariner from Samoa. He's huge. He went to a gym and we wanted to share with them so we said if he can lift 170 kilos they have to listen so he did it ten times!!! The bar was bending like crazy too! hahaha. He's a BEAST. We had a great time and taught some GREAT lessons.

My second companion from exchanges was Elder Trias. He has actually been in 3 missions now. His first was South Africa (He is suuuper fluent in English) but because of some civil unrest got transferred to the Tacloban mission where he was assigned in the heart of Tacloban and after the storm got transferred here. He told me 2 hours of heart breaking, traumatic and inspiring stories of EVERYTHING that happened during the storm from start to finish. I can't even describe how blessed those missionaries are that they survived. He's a fun missionary to work with and we found some very ready people to teach to.

Wednesday is transfer day so stand-by a couple days and I'll tell you what happens!

Mahal ko kayong lahat!

Elder Kapeliela

More pictures of the Philippines 1-5-14

1-5-14 Pictures

                                  

Here's some pictures for you!


The kids birthday was during the holiday season so they went all out with the food.

This is on top of a house in a cemetery (the one where I took a pic of the candles on Nov 1)


Elder Kapeliela

                                       

Manigong bagong taon! 1-5-2014

Happy new year!

This was by far the best new years I have ever had. Although last years was kind of fun (our neighbor was shooting his revolver in the air). But this year I was in Olongapo where people have enough money to buy fireworks. Literally, everyone bought the sickest, biggest, and most fireworks I have ever seen. Plus, EVERY single house was BLASTING the latest Beyonce, Katy Perry rap/hip hop songs that just came out literally straight into our windows until 2 am so We could not sleep very well and I can't say we didn't dance a little haha. All the members were feeding us like crazy. But on new years day we didn't go to one members house, we straight up tracked like boss's and invited like, 20 people to learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ! We ran into a ton of drunks haha. I'll send some pictures of my feasts. Last Saturday was really hard since we were fasting. We had to deny pineapple, spaghetti, and ice cream. The only hard part about that is that they get mad if you reject their food.


We had a super successful week with the work. The past hasn't been as successful because of the holiday season and a lot of the less actives and investigators went to other cities and stuff. But last Sunday we had a full Elders Quorum and full sacrament room! We also had 6 investigators, 4 of which were a family! They are progressing well!

I have never worked so hard I think in my whole mission than I did last week. We climbed waaay over 2000 stairs and contacted many souls. It feels great and you can feel that joy of being a missionary in your own lives over in the promised land (America). We cannot be exalted unless we share this gospel so share, share, share and get used to it. This is a good habit to obtain.

Elder Kapeliela