Back to Carlsbad and Spiritual stuff....

So this week I am going to highlight a few key things that happened, then I want to talk about some more spiritual things. If you don't care much for that the pictures are located at the bottom of the page. 

(Most of you have already opened this and scrolled down there already anyways)

- Stephanie Lippman is on date for 16 July 2017! She is in Utah right now visiting her boyfriend for 2 weeks, but will get baptized the following Sunday! I'm super excited because she's letting me do the baptism! That will be so awesome!

- We started teaching a man named Mike Molina. He has been taught for 7 years by missionaries. He loves the gospel. He loves the missionaries. He is just afraid to be baptized for some reason. We are meeting with him tomorrow!

- I got a call from E. Wilde this last week. There was a family, the Wongs, we worked with and got close to in my Twin Oaks Vally. They'd been less active for 10+ years, but were so spiritual and great people. They just didn't come to church! Shortly after I left they stopped letting the missionaries in. Well, Elder Wilde was told by a member of TOV that they are active now! They just showed up. Moral of the story... You can't give up on people. You just need to keep loving them and don't lose hope!

-  We went on exchanges with the AP's on Friday. I got to go to Carlsbad YSA and worked with Elder Hadfield! For those who don't know, we served in Carlsbad YSA together 9 months ago. We visited our convert and it was just a dream come true!

For whatever reason I have felt like I should share my thoughts and feeling on hope and understanding our eternal identity. The world is in a state of unrest and confusion. It has been this way since the Great Apostasy following the death of the apostles. The world is full of millions of opinions about what is true, what is real, and what is right. This makes it hard to be confident in your beliefs because they are constantly questioned.
You need to realize what's most important. The gospel is broken down into basic fundamentals called principles. We know the first principles of the gospel are faith and repentance. Both faith and repentance are rooted in Jesus Christ. We must have faith in Him to repent. Prayer, reading the scriptures, going to church, and being baptized are all simple acts of faith. When we do these small things our faith grows. As it says in Ether 12:4 "...hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men...". If you want to have hope, you need to increase faith. If hope is our anchor, then faith is our chain that connects on us to our hope. If we don't have enough chain, our anchor will not ground us and we will find ourselves hopeless and lost. But if we exercise our faith daily and put links into our chain every day we can be "sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God. (Ether 12:4)" 

I understand that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is not an easy church to be a part of. I know there are many enemies to the gospel. I know many people fall away whether it be from not agreeing with doctrines or policies, being offended, lack of fellowship, or doubting the truth of the Restoration and Book of Mormon through Joseph Smith. All of those things are important and essential. However, I just plead with all of you to remember the one most important thing... 

You are a child of our Heavenly Father and He loves you. There is nothing you can do to change that. It doesn't matter how bad you've sinned, what you've been through, or how long it's been since you uttered His name in prayer. He is there waiting eagerly for you to hear from you again. There could be times you might think you are too far off the path. You might think you've tried enough already. You might think it's too late. You might think that you've reached your breaking point and you can't go on. But you could never be more wrong. You are His child and He wouldn't send you here to battle this dark world alone. Because He loves you so much He sent our older brother, Jesus Christ, to walk to path to where you are, where you have been, and where you will go, and all the way back to Him again so that you could make it home! 

If anything please PLEASE never abandon your relationship with God. Life will be hard. It was meant to be hard so we could learn and grow. You can't lie to yourself and say "it's not for me" because it's part of your identity! YOU ARE HIS CHILD! Whether you know it or not now, it's true. If you have a strong understanding of your identity and your worth to Heavenly Father you will be able to withstand the opposition of the world. This gospel is true. Don't get too caught up in the opinions of the world. This church is all about Jesus Christ. So just focus on that. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet and that Christ's church is on the earth again. I now this is true because the Book of Mormon is true. I know the Book of Mormon is true because I have felt the Holy Spirit testify to me it was true and when I live the truths found in the Book of Mormon I find more peace, clarity, and joy in my life. Jesus Christ is our Savior. You can be healed of your past. He will help you forgive others and yourself. You can withstand all that is put in front of you because Christ knows what it feels like. Trust God. Be humble.

Hopefully somebody needed to hear that! I love you!

Elder Kapp

Delshawn and Elder Hadfield!

Elder Horton lightsaber battling with Elder Barbour

Oh, and it was HOT!

Happy Fathers Day!... and it's hot.

Hey everyone! This last week was super good!

First, Stephanie came to FHE! That was awesome! She really loved it. 

We were able to teach Stephanie a couple times, went to a couple district meetings, had exchanges with the Spanish elders. I got to go with Elder McDonald. I have been wanting to go on exchanges with him for so long! He's such a cool guy and we had a blast! We got a lot done! We stopped by a ton of formers, tracted a bit, and worked hard. 

We got locked out of our apartment on Wednesday. We have these stupid electronic keys and the doors lock automatically. We left the keys in the apartment so we had to break in... 

It was baking hot this last weekend! It was in the low 100's on Saturday! We were at the ranch so we were dying! It's okay. It's good for my tan. 

Saturday we had a "Mission-Wide Miracle Day" where the whole mission prayed, found, and texted each other about miracles they saw. It was cool to see how everyone was able to find miracles and inspire each other about them!

Sunday was SWEET! We had 2 non-members in the Murrieta Ward. Then we had Stephanie and a random guy at the YSA. His name is Diego and he is from Mexico. His English isn't the best, but he's coming to FHE tonight and we are going to try to start teaching him. 

Stephanie is going to Utah this weekend to visit her boyfriend for 2 weeks. We are praying that goes well and that she has a good time!

It's cool how easy it is to receive miracles and blessings when we seek them. I definitely saw that this last week. There were some cool things that happened when we tried to find miracles. 

Love you!

Elder Kapp

Correlation meeting with Henry Lee, YSA Ward missionary

Thermostat in our car... IT'S HOT!

Stephanie at FHE (she's the one in the stripes)

Exchanges with McDonald

Murrieta Ward/YSA - White wash miracles!

Hey everyone! This last week was probably one of the craziest weeks of my mission. We got transferred to the Murrieta ward and it took forever to get moved in! It's super nice though. The ward is awesome but it has been hard getting used to things. We had a bunch of trainings and meetings, but now that's all done we can hit the ground running.

We saw lots of great miracles. At church in the Murrieta ward a guy named Ryan showed up. He's a recent convert in the YSA ward, but disappeared about 3 months ago. We sat by him and said he is trying to clean up his life. We got him to stay for the YSA ward and he stayed all 3 hours! 

Stephanie is doing so great! The lessons are going awesome and we just need to get her in the font already! She is ready. We are just waiting for her boyfriend in Utah to come visit so he can do the baptism. She came to the YSA ward and she is coming to FHE tonight. The ward really took her in and fellowshipped her wonderfully!

There was also an investigator in the Menifee stake at the YSA ward as well. Technically he's our investigator, but their mission president doesn't us in their mission, so they teach them and then baptize them in our ward. His name is Jeremy and he was a cool guy! He should be going to FHE tonight as well.

Another miracle is there is a member from my greenie ward whose wife and kids aren't members. We didn't teach them in TOV because they were living with his wife's family and they were super anti. With the ward boundary changes they are in the Murrieta ward now. I feel like we might be able to start teaching them.

I love you guys! Have a great week!

Elder Kapp

                   

                        The ranch and golfing this morning!

TRANSFERS

Hey everybody. How's it going? This last week was just crazy. I am very glad it is over to be honest! Transfers are this week and I'm getting transferred... Kind of... We are getting moved out of the Alta Murrieta Ward and moving to the Murrieta Ward. We will still continue to cover the YSA ward as well. The next few days are just going to be packed. But there are some cool things happening!

This last week we were able to meet up with Stephanie twice! She got back from Utah and she loved it! Her boyfriend was supposed to come to California at the end of the month and then Stephanie would be getting baptized, but instead she is going back to Utah at the end of the month for 2 weeks! She is ready to get baptized, but we're just waiting so her boyfriend can be there. Our lessons went great. She is so solid! We've been going over the commandments and she is taking them all very well! We are meeting with her as soon as we get moved in. 

All the wards in the stake got their boundaries changed, so we've been super busy with all that stuff. 

We will have more to talk about next week! Hopefully the move and everything goes well! 

Love you all!

Elder Kapp

Stephanie