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

12/29/2013 Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas family!

We had a really hard week because no one wants to get taught on Christmas!! We did talk to a lot of people though. I love inviting people to learn, especially hear in the Philippines because they will all say okay, come back. The only problem is, when we come back they either hide, yell at us to leave sending there dog out, say they're too busy, or rarely say come in. But the initial first talk with them is really fun, Filipinos are hilarious.

For Christmas Eve we went to President Magrada's (the 2nd counselor) and ate American meat and chili Hot dogs. Than on Christmas we went to a members house ate and jammed the guitar and piano, I learned a lot of Christmas songs on the guitar!

Thanks for all that money you guys gave me! I needed it super bad! haha. When again is Bianca going and coming back to China?

I hope you all got what you wanted and gave what others wanted! Hopefully it snows again for you guys! I miss snow bad, its hot season over here.

We baptized an elderly woman (79 yrs old) the other day, Aida Abadilla. She is still strong and walking a long ways to go to church.

I got to sing in a choir for the branch yesterday, I had a solo haha, it was perfect for my range. No mom, nobody recorded it haha. But it sounded okay, except for some others haha.

I love you guys a lot! Go to church, don't go by the church, go to the church. Read the scriptures and share the gospel or we won't have the blessings we need, it's simple.

Elder Kapeliela

Dec 22, 2013

Dec 22, 2013 

This day was the day I got to see my son via Skype! He looks great and it was an awesome to talk with him. Here's his letter! :)

 

It was nice to skype all of you! I don't need to write anything too long. I miss you all so much and will talk to you next year in May! Make your Christmas centered on Christ. Merry Christmas!

Dec 15th

The week started off pretty bad for my companion. He had a really, really bad day last Tuesday. While on the way to district meeting he hit his head on a roof (yeah, we're that tall here) and got a gnarly scratch that left a scar from his forehead, over his eye lid to his cheek. We laughed that one off and then went to district meeting. After the meeting we went to McDonalds to eat. When he got all his food on a tray and started walking towards the table he tripped and all the food fell and spilt all over him. We were able to laugh that one off a little too. Well I did the laughing and he did the offing haha. Anyways, the day rolled on (get how I said rolled) and we were headed down a giant cliff/stairway and were hustling to get down in time for our appointment. While hustling I got about 20 steps in front of my companion, looked behind me and saw my companion on his butt holding his ankle. He had stumbled a bit and twisted his ankle. His ankle swelled as big as big as an average size red fire extinguisher I swear, he not a small guy either, he's 6' 3" 270 pounds. He's a beast though and was able to walk to a Jeep. that kind of stopped the momentum we had for the start of the week and we had to stay home all day except at the end of the day when I got a branch missionary to stay home with my companion and the 2nd counselor of the mission to work with me. The rest of the week went that way until Friday when he went out with me again.

We only had 15 lessons, but through them we got 7 investigators to go to church. 4 was a family of a mom and dad and two daughters, the other was a mom and her daughter and the other was our 79 yr old grandma! She's getting baptized this Saturday. Our zone is doing really, really well! Through the trials and rejections the works still Rollin forth.

That Christmas devotional last night was amazing. I hope you all got to watch it. Elder Nelsons talk was really, really inspiring. I want you all to hear it! Don't forget the true meaning of Christmas. I have some cool new ideas for Christmas traditions we can do! I'll write it to ya'll in my letters!

Take it easy, I love you all!

Elder Kapeliela