Mother's Day and Mountain Biking...

Helloooooo Family! I love you so much. It's so much fun talking to you on the phone and realizing that nothing has changed in our relationships. :) Does that make sense? Anyway, I just like how much at home I feel when I talk to you on the phone, family :)

 

Thank you!

 

It was a pretty great week for us in Cumming, GA, here's what happened:

 

On Monday, Elder Scothern and I went Mother's day shopping with a former investigator named Michelle. It was pretty cool just because she hasn't shown much interest since I've been here. Taking us shopping seemed like a big step for her haha. When we were driving there she started talking to us. She said, "I understand most everything, but why no Coffee or Tea??" We told her a few things, but told her that the most important part of many of God's commandments is faith. Have a little faith, and then watch to see if God blesses you, and wait to see if it's a good thing. 

 

While we were out at the mall I ran into quite a few less-active members from our ward that I hadn't met. I started talking to this girl in the store and after a minute she asked, "So what ward are you from?" I was speechless for about a second haha, she totally caught me by surprise. I didn't know she was a member and we hadn't talked about anything churchy. A minute later her friend came over and asked the same thing. They grew up in the Pilgrim Mill ward and just stopped going to church after high school. I got both of their numbers and gave them our card. Then on Sunday one of them showed up to church! So that was good.

 

This week I thought a bit about less-active Young Single Adults. We went to dinner with a guy in the ward whose motto about religion is "I don't bother God and he doesn't bother me." There are quite a few Less-Active YSAs and it's just sad because chances are if they don't re-introduce spirituality back into their lives now, chances are it won't ever happen. So we talked to Bishop Sherman about it on Sunday, and we're gonna try to work out a plan.

 

Tuesday we met with our super awesome new investigator (Louie) again at the church. He's so cool. Haha, each time we see him again he has watched like 5 videos about the church from the church online. He has questions galore. When we were teaching him on Tuesday we were going over the Introduction to the Book of Mormon. He stopped us and said, "Sooo, other churches don't read the Book of Mormon, but do they believe in these prophets?" We told him probably not and he said, "Sad! We need to tell the whole world about this!" hahaaha it was hilarious. Brother Rushton said that's what the missionaries are for, because we members don't usually do a good enough job haha. Louie came to church on Sunday with 2 million more questions. He felt the Spirit, learned lots, and loved it. He decided that there are some things that he needs to work on in his life and we gave him the baptismal date of May 22! He said, "Absolutely!" We've got a lot of work to do to get him ready... But for real, he is the most legit investigator that I have had on my mission. He just wants the Gospel in his life.

 

On Wednesday we were biking through the Walmart parking lot and this guy in a car yelled at us and told us to come over. He bashed with us for like half an hour. We kept telling him that we had to go, but he just kept talking. He is going to Seminary, probably to become a preacher and his class read a few verses from the Book of Mormon.  His whole argument against us was that you don't need the Book of Mormon. But at the end he told us that he knows that we love Jesus, he knows that we are saved, and that we do great work. So I'm kinda confused about what he was complaining about. Haha, I felt so bad for Elder Scothern. And I just hate being in a contentious atmosphere like that. 

 

That night we went with Brother Tayman, our ward mission leader, to go visit this sweet family that Elder Scothern tracted into when I was on exchange. They are members who used to live here, they moved back to Mexico, but then moved back here. They don't have a car so they haven't been to church yet! Jonathan the boy is 11 years old and he is so awesome. He loves the Gospel. When we came over he brought out of his room every single little publication that the church has ever made. Now that we found them he is super excited to go back to church.

 

Thursday I had District Leader Council in Lilburn. There are a lot of changes happening in the Missionary Department, so President King wanted to have some meetings to get us up to speed for when President Wolfert arrives. It was a very good meeting. We discussed many things that will help us be better District Leaders, but it seems like everything comes down to the two greatest laws that Christ gave us: Love God and Love your neighbor. 

 

We discussed the cool new training program for new missionaries that is coming out in August. We talked about having the Spirit with us stronger so that we can inspire ward members, finding those who are searching for the gospel, and being in tune for teaching. President King told us to not be afraid to give an investigator a baptismal date on the first lesson. If they are someone who is searching for the Gospel then all will go well. He said that the church wants to put more missionary effort into the areas that are doing well so that we can have "centers of strength." 

 

We discussed keeping our minds and hearts pure, so that God can bless you, so that the wards will trust you, and so that you can be focused on missionary work. We learned much about how to help our districts and be good missionaries, and one of my favorite parts of those meetings is seeing friends. We carpooled with Elder Whitehead and that was great. I love that kid. Haha we know each other so well and have so much fun together. He is STILL in Cornelia, haha going on 3 months, so he updated me on everyone back there and I got to talk to my good old friend Bruce on the phone. 

 

Elder Scothern had a great day in Cumming, GA, while I was gone. Haha I swear he does best without me there. He shines, you know? He learns a lot being in charge of the day and area. He taught a great first lesson to a kid that he found last week, and said that he got a lot of good experience in. That evening we went with the Relief Society President, Sister Vermuelen, to go meet a lady that moved into the ward. It was good to be able to meet her. She was last in the Ft. Yargo ward, where Elder Whitehead served, so we kinda had that as common ground. You never know who is going through a hard time until you find out. Everyone is important, we just gotta do our part to help them out.

 

Friday night we met with Hannah, she is doing well. She is slowly progressing. She told us that she only has a month left until she turns 18, so she is excited to get baptized. We went with Sister Thomas (our awesome neighbor who is a recent convert) to go see a woman's son that she visit teaches. The kid is 23 years old and just got diagnosed with a brain tumor and lung cancer. He talked about how easy it was for him to stop smoking and switch over to Nicotine-free Electronic Cigarettes, and it's just sad--because he smoked for those 7 years when he was a kid, he is now getting chemo at a super young age. He and his mother were both extremely positive and happy, which was inspiring to see.

 

Saturday morning we went to one of the very far parts of our area and got a great view of Lake Sidney Lanier. It was beautiful. I love Georgia. The Coal Mountain Elder made us lunch-- fried chicken babyyy. Hhahaha it was super funny on Thursday, Sister Armstrong, a member in the ward was driving me and the other district leader (Elder Banner) to meet up with Elder Whitehead to go to the meeting and she got us breakfast at McDonald's. We both got chicken biscuits. She is from NY and when we ordered that she said, "Oh my! You two are so southern. I never in 10 years would have thought of getting a chicken biscuit for breakfast." haha it was funny. At the meeting President King asked us to go visit each of the members to find out if they invited anyone to the Temple Open house, so that we can get more referrals. So we had some really good conversations visiting members Saturday. We've been biking a lot lately. I lost four pounds, that's pretty good because I'm so fat. 

 

Sunday was Mother's day (Happy Mother's Day Mom and Grandmas!), and it was so good talking to y'all and eating at the Carters.

 

Monday (yesterday) we went Mountain Biking up in Dawsonville with a kid from the ward, Jarred, and the Coal Mountain Elders, Disbrow and Hampton. We did that in the morning and it was a blast. Our bikes were completely covered in mud haha. In the afternoon we had appointments so that's why I didn't email yesterday. 

 

One last story. On Saturday when we were on the way to that far neighborhood by the lake, we were biking down a hill and there was a guy walking up the sidewalk towards us. He stepped to the side of the road to let us pass. He was a nice looking guy in his 40s or so, and I wanted to just bike past because we were late, but I felt like I should talk to him. Instead of saying something that I would normally say, I asked him where he was from. He told me that he was from Atlanta and that he has a cabin on the lake. He said that his car had broke down, his cell phone had died, and that he had been walking for miles to get to a mechanic's shop. He was a real nice, guy--he wasn't trying to make us pity him or anything. He wouldn't have told us any of that if I hadn't felt like I needed to keep asking him questions. We let him use our phone, I gave him a bottle of water which he downed in a second, and gave him directions on where to go, and a mormon.org card. It was a great experience, it felt like what Jesus would do, you know? Anyway, point being, it wasn't anything great that we did, it only was able to happen because the Holy Ghost whispered, and we listened.

 

Sooo, listen to the Holy Ghost. I'm learning lots about personal revelation and inspiration. God wants to speak to all of us, don't doubt, just listen.

 

I LOVE YOU!!! Sorry if I forgot anything! Write me and tell me what is happening in your lives, keep up the great work!

 

Mikey

Atlanta Temple Rededication

 Helloooooo Family!!!

Remember, I love you.

We had a pretty good week this week. We did some service which was fun, and got a bunch of sweet new investigators. Our other investigators are doing great as well. Things are good in the Pill Mill!

We did sevice for the Carters this week. They are the older ladies in our ward who aren't active, but they love the missionaries. We helped them build a garden! They had soil and railroad ties delivered and we set everything up to make it nice and usable and pretty. I'm super excited that Spring/Summer is here. It's going to be fun. I have a little miniature garden growing on our apartment balcony. My tomato plant is growing strong, it soon should start producing fruit! The Carters are going to teach me how to make salsa.

We also helped a former investigator, Jeremy, do some service this week. He had an armoir (sp?) in his garage that was taking up space so he asked us to help him destroy it. We took it apart with an ax and then put the pieces in his firepit to burn. He put so much wood in the firepit at once that some fell out and set his grass on fire! It seems like I am just meant to be a firefighter here in Cumming, GA. Hahahahaa.

We stopped by to visit this less-active lady that we didn't know much about who lives in the apartment complex right next to us and had an interesting experience. She is 27, raised in the church, but now hates the church. To be honest she was really just a hateful, bratty person. It made me really sad to see how dark and depressing and hateful she was. I was thinking about how sad that was and everything for that night and the next couple days and the thought came to my mind. There might not be too much that we can do for her (or whomever we come in contact with that rejects Christ's gospel), but we can love her like God loves her. By thinking about loving her how God loves her it made me realize that traditional missionary lessons maybe aren't something she needs or will receive. You have to care, think hard about how you can show that God-like love, and just do it out of love.

Crazy week here in the South. We had EXTREME tornado warnings for a little while. Thankfully there wasn't any death or destruction in my area, but in a few areas of the mission and all over ther rest of the South, tragedy did occur. Crazy stuff is happening, and crazy stuff will continue to happen. Bin Laden is now dead. (Sister Carter calls us to tell us weather alerts and world news.)

We got a fantastic sweet new investigator this week. His name is Lou. He is a really, really good guy. He is 24 years old and sincerely searching for something that he feels is missing religiously in his life. We got a text from the MTC on Friday night. Lou was a mormon.org referral. He grew up Catholic, but feels like he needs more in his life. He remembered that he had some Mormon friends in high school. Even though they never told him anything about our religion, he knew they were good kids. Soooooo, based off of their good examples in high school he decided to check out mormon.org and investigate the church!!!!!!!!!!!! At the end of our meeting with him he 1.) asked what he would need to do to be a member of the church, and 2.) said it's a shame he didn't find this earlier in his life. He said he can remember the missionaries knocking on his door when he was a kid. Basically he is interested in becoming a better Christian, and everything else that the church offers.

Elder Scothern held down the fort for us when I went on an exchange with the Zone Leader this week, and he did a great job. He is a great missionary. He found TONS of new sweet interested people, all ready and wanting to hear the gospel preached to them. We have just been sooooo busy with all of the people that we have to follow up with, because we have so much great work going on here! I am seriously so grateful for it all. It's nice.

Saturday was the Temple Dedication Cultural Celebration and.... President Monson was there!!! We watched the broadcast from the Atlanta Civic Center at our Church Building. It was a great event, really happy and lots of fun. The Georgians did a great job. They kind of did a history of Georgia and the church in Georgia with song and dance. I loved it and so did the Prophet. Haha everyone who was at the event said that when our stake's Young Men did their dance (shown on youtube called "sugar hill stomp", the prophet stood up and gave them a standing ovation. It's such a great time to be serving a mission here. What a blessing to have the temple open again for us.

I am starting to REALLY like Georgia too haha. For real, I love it here in Cumming. It is just the most perfect, fun, beautiful place to live.

Sunday we had the temple dedication. We watched it at the Sugar Hill Stake Center. There were two sessions and we got to watch them both. It was just a great, rare, spiritual experience. During the prayer President Monson prayed that we the missionaries would be able to share the gospel with "power and persuasion" to the people in the temple district. That is now something that I will work on and pray for.

As a mission we read the entire Book of Mormon again before the temple dedication (Yikes! I didn't quite make it....); read DC 109, which was the Dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple; read Alma 31, which is the prayer that Alma offered before he and his companions went to teach the Gospel to many people that didn't have it; and fasted that blessings from heaven will come down that we may have more success as missionaries. We prayed that the Vision of the South will strongly come forth. It was a great experience.

We have seen blessings already. From each of the missionaries that I have talked to there are people ready for the Gospel COMING TO US. God is giving us investigators that are ready for baptism, and want the restored Gospel in their lives. It is simply incredible.

We have been teaching a lot lately. We have been busy with great missionary work. I know that the commandments and teachings from God can truly help our lives, and I am so grateful to be sharing that knowledge with others.

Love you so much, I can't wait to talk to you on Sunday for Mother's Day. Happy day!!!!!

Elder Mikey Caplin

Atlanta Temple Open House

Hellooo Family!!! I love you very much and miss you as well :)

 

Elder Gisseman was very sad to leave the Pilgrim Mill Ward. This was his first area and he wanted to spend a little more time here. We spent Monday and Tuesday packing and saying goodbye to people.  Dang, I can't believe that was only a week ago. It feels like we have done way more than 7 days worth of missionary work.

 

It was a crazy transfer meeting. My friends Elder Zundel and Elder Lealao went home. After weeks of fretting, at transfer meeting Elder Zundel finally seemed excited to go home. Elder Lealao's mom and brother came to the transfer meeting. It was soooo heartwarming to see him and his brother hug after not seeing each other for two years. Haha, it was precious to see, but kinda made me a little homesick. Not for too long though hahaha. 

 

I still can't believe how quickly time flies. During transfers meeting, President King asked me to get up and share the story of how we got an article published in 5 NEWSPAPERS ABOUT THE TEMPLE OPEN HOUSE!!! Woooo! That really was super exciting for us. We have had other missionaries call us to thank us for the article, because they have seen results from it. We just keep praying that we can see some success from it too. I will tell you the story about the article and another story about the temple open house in a bit. 

 

At transfer meeting, Elder Waters (one of my buddies from Payson; we got another missionary from Payson in the group of new missionaries too--Elder Allen. Elk Ridge/ Payson rules!) got switched from an English speaking missionary to a PORTUGUESE speaking missionary. After that was announced President King said, "We've got three books for you up here, get to work." hahahhaha, he is super excited about that.

 

My new companion is Elder Braden Scothern. He is from West Jordan, UT. He is 19 years old and graduated in 2010 from Copper Hills High School. He played hockey and guitar in high school and worked at the Olympic Oval. He loves ice skating and wears glasses. Haha it was funny, he was one of the only two greenies that I talked to before the district meeting. He is a good kid, excited to be a missionary, had a blast at the MTC, but is kinda unconfident in his abilities as a missionary. (haha on his first day here he got bashed on the Marta by 3 baptists, poor kid.) He's not a bad teacher or missionary by any means, he is just super nervous. It's hard to think that I was that nervous once haha. It's also hard to think that I've only been out for 9 months and that I'm already training someone.  

 

Haha, funny story. On Tuesday after district meeting, the Coal Mountain Elders stopped by our apartment. We have a little kid's fake motorcycle pedalbike in our front entry from a family in the ward.  They asked Elder Gisseman and I whose it was and we told them that it was the new missionary's, and that the Assistants had dropped it off last night. They said, "Really?" and we said, "Yeah." Then Elder Hamptons exclaimed, "You're training a midget!" We played along with it. I said "Oh no, I didn't even think of that! Crap!" They kept going on, it was hilarious. 

 

We totally forgot about that, but right after transfer meeting on Wednesday they gave us a call asking about what happened. I told them everything, and then at the end of our phone call Elder Disbrow asked, "Are you next to your companion? (We were in the car driving back to Cumming.) Is he...you know... How tall is he?" I said, "Ummm, well he's not super tall (He's 6'2".) But he's right next to me so I gotta go, bye!" I hung up and told the whole car the story and we all laughed. Until they met him on Friday, they thought he was a midget. Haha.

 

It's kind of annoying (yikes!) and kind of scary to think about, but my greenie companion watches and mimics my every move. Pressure on me! I feel kind of bad because it's been an odd week for me because of the temple open house. We have been calling people, working with people, meeting people like crazy trying to get everyone that we can to the temple open house. On Saturday I had kind of a tough day. I have been working soooo hard trying to get everyone that I can to go to the temple open house, and I just haven't been seeing too many results. We knelt in prayer and told God all of our efforts to get everyone to the temple, including the newspaper article, invitations, talking to everyone, calling everyone, temple tracting, etc. We then asked that He help us. We also fasted for this on Sunday. We then went out and had a much more productive evening than we did day, inviting a Part- Member family to the temple open house.

 

We went temple tracting on Thursday and had two cool experiences. The first door we knocked on in the apartment complex was a 19 year-old kid, and he was super excited to go the temple open house. The last door we knocked on the old lady got mad at us and said, "There's no soliciting in this neighborhood!" We said, "We know, sorry, we just wanted invite you to our temple open house." She got so excited and said, "Ooh ooh ooh I'm going I'm going I'm going! Thanks so much for reminding me, I went last time when it opened in 1983!" She then talked to us about all of her experiences that she has had with our church and how much she enjoyed it and then she ended it by saying, "But, I'm a die in the wool Baptist." Hahah it was funny.

 

On Friday we went to the temple open house for the first time with a former investigator. It was soooo pretty. It was absolutely beautiful. I am so grateful that I have this opportunity while I am on my mission. The second that I walked into the Celestial room I was flooded with the Spirit. I loved it.

 

The first referral that our mission received was quite a blessing. A member in Lilburn invited her neighbor to the temple open house on Saturday, the first day. The neighbor agreed to go, even though she was a strong member of her Methodist church because she knew that Saturday would be the six year anniversary of her husband's death, and she knew that she would be having a hard day. She went on a tour through the temple and when she went into the Celestial room she had a very spiritual experience. She said that she felt the Spirit tell her that everything the tour guides were saying was true, and that she could be with her husband again after death forever. The missionaries came over, she told them this, and then she asked, "How long does it take to become a member of your church and what do I have to do to be sealed to my husband?" This woman wasn't even searching, but she felt the Spirit in the temple and desired to learn more.

 

I know that there are people in our area that are ready and wanting like that. We are praying that God will send them to the temple. We shared that story in Priesthood, Relief Society, and to the Youth on Sunday and encouraged everyone to invite everyone, because we never know what will happen and we never know when they are ready. I know that the temple is God's house. I know that Jesus lives and that this is his church. I am so grateful to be a missionary and pray that I can do better and help all that I can.

 

We taught Nicole on Sunday. She is coming to the temple with us on Wednesday. Haha, she asked us to baptize her daughter for her. Hopefully everything will work out.

 

This story below was written in my President's Letter to President King:

 

Here is the story about the newspaper for you:

After reading your email with the AJC (Atlanta Journal Constitution) article that you had written, Elder Gisseman and I decided that we wanted to try to get an article in the local Forsyth County newspapers. We flipped through the phonebook and found out that there were two local papers that covered our areas. We called both of them and only got a response from the editor of the Forsyth Herald. Aldo (the editor) asked us to send him the article so that he could review it and decide if it was something that they would be interested in. You sent him the article, he read it, and we talked the next day. 

 

He said that it was interesting, and a good article, but not local enough for their paper. He asked me to get some quotes from someone living in Forsyth County, or do something that would make it more interesting for their readers. I told him that I could do that and explained to him that we have multiple congregations within the area, and that this temple will serve all of the members in Georgia. After talking to you, you gave me the phone number for Sister Beverly Howerton, the Stake Public Affairs Specialist. I told her about how we were working with Aldo, and she sent him an email inviting him to the Media Tour of the Atlanta Temple. 

 

His tour of the temple interested him so much that he did all of the work to write a brand new article suitable for the Forsyth Herald. He spoke with members and Elder Walker, and took photos of the event from outside the temple. When he talked with me again he thanked me for all of the work that we had done, but said that he had it covered. Aldo then published an article about the temple online, as well as in the Forsyth Herald, Johns Creek Herald, Milton Herald, and Revue and News. The article was extremely positive, very intriguing, and included many color photos of the Temple. I have a very strong testimony of the power of the Spirit that resides in our temples. I am so very grateful for this opportunity to have the Atlanta Temple opening again, and I know that hearts will be touched as they enter into the House of the Lord.

This is the link for the online version. I hope that Sister Williams already gave you a copy of the Forsyth Herald. : http://tinyurl.com/3dzz3n4

Elder Caplin

 

Closing note: The bathrooms at the temple open house are nuts! Those porta-pottys are air-conditioned, they smell good, AND there are pictures on the walls!

 

LOVE YOU!!!! Sorry I don't have time to write more! Keep praying for me and the temple open house and Elder Scothern!

 

Ya'll be good and safe!

 

Elder Mikey Caplin

 

 

Goodbye, Cornelia!

The Assistants to the Mission President called me this morning...

 

I'm getting transferred and I have been called to be a District Leader in my new area!!!

 

It's so bitter-sweet! I'm super excited, but I'm so scared to leave Elder Whitehead (haha :) and I'm so sad to leave Cornelia! I think that in church yesterday everyone sensed that I was leaving because about 7 people mentioned "the missionaries" in their testimonies. (Yesterday was fast and testimony meeting because next week is Athens' Stake Conference.) Elder Whitehead will be coming back home with not one new companion, but two! People have called this morning wondering about transfers and they have all joked around with me saying that it's gonna take two missionaries to replace me. Elder Whitehead said it's a good thing that I'm a humble guy and won't let that go to my head hahahahaahha jk jk jk.

 

It's crazy that I am finally leaving though. I am sorry to say goodbye to the friends that I have here. Cornelia and Elder Whitehead are all that I know about missionary work! The Sisters in Commerce will both be staying, but Elder Disbrow and Elder Harmon are both getting shipped out. The Hartwell Branch closed down and merged with two larger congregations and so E.W. and I have been joking around all morning saying that those two are both just going to be transferred right next door to Cornelia.

 

I was pretty shocked to hear that there will be a threesome here in Cornelia and also to hear that I am going to be a District Leader! The Assistants told me I need to be at a leadership meeting early on Wednesday before transfers. They also told us that no members are allowed to go to the meetings because we will be told some confidential information that the church isn't going to be publicly releasing until Sunday! Changes are exciting :)

 

Sooooo, here is some information from the past week.

 

A kid that I am friends with from the Hartwell Branch just got his mission call--he is going to the Salt Lake City South Mission! He enters the MTC in April. His name is Derek. We are excited for him-- that will be a good fit. Also, BYU sent out their acceptance letters this week so I found out that a few kids that I know from the wards around here will be going to BYU!

 

On Saturday the Hartwell missionaries had a baptism for this girl and 11 missionaries showed up to support them haha. Eleven missionaries! Elder Whitehead and I were two of them... it was funny. We all took a picture with this girl after the baptism just to capture the moment.

 

A bit happened this week. Like I said last week, we had Zone Conference on Tuesday in Athens. President King told us that the new mission president had been called and that he (President King) served as his (the new MP's) Zone Leader in the same mission!!! We got an email this morning informing us who he is. He works at doTERRA and is from Orem so that's pretty exciting!!!

 

The work has been going well in this area. We found out some bad news about Kathryn and Justin. We were going to go over on Friday and give her a baptismal date, but Justin got contracted to do some work in Texas for 6 weeks so that slows things down. They will be reading the BOM while they are gone and attending church, but we won't be able to teach them until they get back.

 

Thursday we picked up a new investigator and she has a kind of interesting story. About 5 or 6 months ago, Elder Whitehead and I tracted into her. She answered the door told us she wasn't interested, BUT that she had a cousin in Arkansas who is a Mormon. We said, "Oh that's cool," and she said, "Yeah, but I'm not interested." So while we were on the front porch right after we had gotten rejected, I heard from inside some metalcore music playing. I knew who the band was and so I said, "You like ... (whoever the band was, I can't remember now)... huh?" and she laughed and said, "No, that's my son's music." So her son came to the front porch and we all talked and laughed for a few minutes and then said, "Goodbye! Have a nice day!"

 

Anyway, about 3 weeks ago Elder Whitehead and I felt prompted to go back. So we did. She answered the door and pointed at me and said, "You're in trouble!" I said, "Me??? Why?" haha she said that her cousin had sent in a referral form for the missionaries to start teaching her 3 years ago and that no one had shown up. When we tracted into her door none out of the 3 of us knew that her cousin had requested that. So she asked us, "What took you guys so long?" We laughed and apologized and said we didn't know and asked for an appointment. She said she was busy then, but to come back next week. We started heading back to our car and she said, "Wait! Don't I get one of those books?? (referring to the Book of Mormon). So we came back the next week and she wasn't there. Sooo, we went back this week with a member. The member ended up knowing all of her friends and family and stuff so that was funny. But the craziest part is just her change of heart. When we first met her she was friendly, but not at all interested. Now she has asked for a BOM, the missionary lessons, AND if she can come to church some time. Good thing I listened to so much crazy teenager rock-n-roll screamo music in high school, Mom. Hahaha jk jk, good thing that the Lord has blessed us all!

 

Another crazy story for a new investigator that we got this week. We went to go visit a less-active member. They weren't home, but some guys in the trailer park called out to us, "Jehovah's Witnesses!" We didn't respond or anything, but as we were about to get in our car a lady came up to us to talk. She said she overheard those "loud mouthes" and was wondering what church we were from. She said she used to be Southern Baptist, but that now after all of the trials she has been through that she doesn't even know if she believes in God. We had an incredible lesson with her right there in the middle of the trailer park and have an appointment set up to meet again on Saturday.

 

God truly blesses us with things we don't even deserve and He guides this work. I am so thankful for that.

 

Unfortunately we had 9 people tell us that they would be at church this week and only one showed up. She is a less-active member and she got up and bore her testimony after having not been to church in years and years and years. She was so happy to be there also because everyone was realllyyy nice to her too! That made our church experience incredible even though everyone else bailed on us.

 

 I told you last week that on Monday we had a pretty good lesson with our new investigator Kren. We took a girl from the ward with us and on Wednesday at the church the girl came up to us super excited. She told us that Kren had emailed her on Facebook and said that she was really glad to have met her and was excited to be coming to church and taking the lessons. That was pretty exciting for us to hear :)

 

Sister Barnes (from the ward) works as a lunch lady at Level Grove Elementary and on Friday she invited us to come to the school to meet her co-workers. One of the ladies didn't know what a missionary was and didn't know what one looked like, so we came on over for Show-and-Tell. It was a good experience, but a pretty funny one too. Sister Barnes was like, "This is a missionary. They ride bikes and teach the gospel and move away from home. " We joked around with them for a little bit and told them briefly what we teach people.

 

Well, I can tell that summer is quickly approaching and I am scared. We walked outside last week to exercise in the morning and I said, "Uh-oh, it smells like Florida." The humidity is coming in strong and the heat is coming quickly, haha, summer here is soo miserable.

 

I have loved Cornelia and have learned so much. I can't believe that I spent 7 months here and that I am already leaving. I will miss the people and the country and my home in Cornelia, but I am excited to be a District Leader and to have a new home. I know that God is in control and that all we have to do is to listen to him and that he will direct our paths.

 

Time to go now, we are having a Zone P-Day in Commerce and I have a lot of people to say goodbye to. I love you so much! Thanks for the support!

 

Love Elder Mikey Caplin

 

Opposition In All Things

Hey guys :)

I had a fantastic week this past week, but it was also one of my hardest. It seems like for every great and exciting thing that happens there is an equally terrible one.

We were gone for most of the week on exchanges (Tuesday morning through Friday night), but--surprisingly--a lot occurred. Tuesday, while I was in Winder with Elder Jones, Elder Whitehead and Elder Koopmans gave our investigator Star a baptismal date of February 26 and she accepted it. That was kind of surprising, but very exciting news. 

When I was in Winder we went over to an investigator's house for dinner. She is getting baptized next week and is an awesome convert. The missionaries tracted her just as she was thinking about ending her life, and now because of the Gospel she is an incredible, happy person. I had more fun at that dinner than any other time on my mission I'm pretty sure. We were just talking about Tom and Jerry and Rocket Power and for whatever reason we all just started laughing super hard and kept laughing for the next ten minutes! After dinner we taught her a lesson on enduring to the end and fighting temptation. It was very spiritual. I was so glad to be able to hear her testimony, to see the strength she has gained, and to see the person she has become. It was definitely a good time in Winder.

Wednesday morning I went down to work in Monroe because Elder Whitehead had another leadership conference. Even though the missionaries in Monroe didn't get transferred last week, they had some very important changes because the area was split in half and now Sister Missionaries are serving in the same ward as them! It bums them out because they lost their car and the investigators that they were working with mostly lived on the other half of the ward. One of the missionaries hasn't got a bike yet, sooooo we walked everywhere...! I was pretty tired haha, it takes 30 to 60 minutes to get to and from each appointment, and we only worked with the ones who lived close by. The good thing about no longer having a car is that you run into more people. On Wednesday alone I picked up 12 potential investigators for their area! So even though not as much work can be accomplished without a car, we still had a good time. We were able to get a few rides with members to the appointments far away, and we were able to talk to lots and lots of people about Jesus and the Gospel!

Elder Whitehead and I met back up again in Winder on Friday evening. He and the zone leaders had a really good time at the leadership conference. They learned lots of facts and were re-taught many different doctrines and principles for missionary work. One thing that they learned is that the Atlanta temple will be opening up on May 3! Or somewhere around then. We (the missionaries) will be able to participate in the cultural celebration the day before its dedication, and we will also get to help with the open house. It has been closed for forever, but it's super exciting that the temple is opening again.

Anyway, we got a ride back up to Kernelia with Brother Cutchshaw. That was good and bad I guess. We were able to talk to him a lot about his family and the church and whatnot. It was tough, but good, idk. We learned a lot and we have a lot of sympathy for the guy. He goes through a lot; we just want them to be happy and have the gospel. And... Good News, they came to church on Sunday!!! They stayed all three hours, which was super good. Haha, the Primary President came up to me and said, "All those kids you brought to Primary are loving it!" (referring to the Cutchshaw children and another lady who brought her kids to church on Sunday).

Good things that happened this week: Star got a baptismal date, we have been given many many awesome referrals, the ward loves us, E.W. learned a lot at leadership meetings, I was able to do walking missionary work in Monroe and spend some time in that area.

Bad things that happened this week: We haven't seen some of our most awesome investigators in weeks. We weren't able to work in our area all week. Star found some Anti-Mormon information and now is super confused. We are super confused at what we shoud teach her. We've been kinda depressed since getting back to Cornelia. Elder Whitehead said he didn't sleep at all last night because he was so stressed (haha, poor guy, he stresses all the time.)

Missionary work is super hard and trying. After the past few days, which have been super great, but so trying, I have decided I want to read more from the Book of Mormon, the New Testament, and Preach My Gospel. And I've been doing that. I know that we need prophets here on the earth and I love hearing from them. The Ensign is probably my favorite thing ever. I read half of one each day haha. Right now the prophets are telling us to do missionary work (see the Ensigns from Nov. 2010 to current for more information) and I am glad to serve the Lord in that way. God will alway give us miracles if we are doing all that we are supposed to do. He has been sending so many miracles our way; we love it.

Oh, one more thing I just remembered. Our ward mission leader, Brother Sandercock, got released! I was pretty bummed about that. He is such a dedicated and hardworking man. We are excited for the new ward mission leader. He's a good friend, but he's gonna need some help haha :) The assistant ward mission leader just barely got home from his mission a couple months ago so hopefully the 4 of us combined will be able to do some gnarly good work.

Follow the prophet, he won't lead you astray. Yeahhhhhh, love you.

Elder Mikey Caplin

Livin' Large

Hellooooo! and I love you.

 

Yesterday we were visiting a less-active member to wish her a happy birthday, and I saw a bit of home on the news. Fox did a little piece about the popularity of "Skouching" in Utah. Skouching is where you put skis on the bottom of a couch and ride it down a snowy mountain! I thought it was hilarious when I saw it on national TV. It instantly reminded me of that one time when Jordan and his friends and I saw an old couch on the side of Goosenest and chained it to the back of our car and brought it home. We put sleds underneath it to go skouching in our backyard. We rode it down our tiny little hill like maybe 3 times and then just left it in the backyard for a couple weeks until we disposed of it. Hahahha, gooood memories :)

 

Lets see, what happened this week. Well, today we just got back from a member's farm. We had fresh milk from the cows and pancakes for breakfast, helped him build a dam in his creek, and played around with his cows.

 

One of my goals for the Cornelia area this transfer was to get the ward missionaries more involved. Two of them are recent converts and some of the others are still in high school, so we want to help them learn how to make the gospel and missionary work a good part of their lives. We had a meeting with a few of them on Wednesday night. We led a discussion, referring back to their responsibilities found in PMG, and asked them what they thought that we could do to help the work. It was pretty awesome letting them make the decisions. They decided to talk to one person a day about the Gospel, to hand out mormon.org cards, to make mormon.org profiles, and to learn the missionary lessons a little better. We were very impressed and are super excited to be working with these fellas!

 

We had prayers answered this week when we met with the parents of the Cutchshaw family who we have been working with. We've wanted to help them progress and knew that it wasn't possible without the support of the parents, so we decided to have a meeting with just them while the kids were at school. We wanted to kind of figure out how they feel about the church and their kids getting involved with the church. We were really nervous about how it would turn out, so we prayed a lot and planned a lot for our meeting. It was incredible--they brought up every single point that we had planned on covering. They asked us if we could move in (jokingly) because they love feeling the Spirit that comes into the house when we are there. They said that they know that the church is truly restored (they have been going off and on to the Methodist church because of mere comfort), and that they have been praying about getting fully involved with the ward again. Anyway, I know that God helped both us and them. I know that our planning was definitely led by the Spirit. It is just incredible to see things come through and see the Lord help people out for the better. We were soooo pleased with how the meeting went and it just pumped us up a lot haha.

 

We did a bit more Spanish work this week. We had a member in the ward come translate for us haha and tomorrow Elder Koopmans is coming up to teach some lessons.

 

We are pretty sure that our investigator Roy is MIA. Ever since we went to see him a couple weeks ago and he was too drunk to open the door, we haven't been able to get a hold of him and it's a pretty sketchy situation. We used a ton of miles this week driving up to Toccoa hoping to find him home. The blinds next to his front door were open, we could see inside, and the only difference from a few weeks ago when we saw him there is that all of the beer cans are now empty. We called the Sheriff to have him go check on him, but they never called us back. That's kinda scary-- we've been praying that he is all right.

 

Work is going all right here in Cornelia. We are wanting to get better at scheduling appointments and teaching full time all the time. The Lord has blessed us with some great investigators to work with. Now we need to do better at getting in with each of them regularly and helping them to not be lazy! haha. The ward is great, they take good care of us, Elder Whitehead and I make a good team, everything is going all right. We are working, progressing, serving, having a good time, learning. I still can't believe that we are going to be companions for 6 months haha, I think it's hilarious.

 

Happy Birthday Ma, I love you!

 

Ya'll be safe, sorry I didn't have anything more exciting to report on.

 

Yours truly,

 

     Elder Mikey Caplin

Transfers!!!

Hello Hello Hello!!!

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! Haha, it wasn't celebrated too much here in Habersham County, but we went down to Commerce to hang out with the district before departures (transfers).

Which brings me to the surprise we received for Transfers. Both Elder Whitehead and I are staying together one more transfer! At first I was extremely confused and downtrodden. I was confused because this means that I will be spending at least 7 1/2 months in Cornelia, that's over a quarter of my mission! I was also confused because Elder Whitehead isn't leaving either, which means at the end of this transfer we will have been companions for 6 months--that is extremely uncommon! If any two missionaries have to be companions for that long it should be us, because we enjoy each other and work well together. Sheesh, I almost don't even really know what anything is like outside of Cornelia and Elder Whitehead!

Sunday after church I went down with Elder Jones, one of the Zone Leaders, for an exchange because his companion Elder Koopmans needed to do some Spanish work up in our area. So I spent the evening working with him in Winder and was there for the transfer information as well. I'm glad that I was there to hear the information. Haha, like no one in our zone moved. Two other missionaries have been in their areas as long as I have and we were all wanting and expecting to move and none of us did! Anyway, it took me a few minutes, but now I am excited for this next transfer.

I think that God wants me to stay here to learn discipline. I think he wants me to work twice as hard as before. I know that I can make tons of progress with the ward council and missionary work here in Cornelia and I know that there are two youth and two recent converts that I can help work towards serving full-time missions. Elder Whitehead and I have done a lot together; we know each other super well and can get along great. I think that God wants us here longer because we have good relations in the area and there is more work for us to do. When we first found out the information about transfers, for me it was confusing, but then I thought about it, and prayed about it, and then I just got fired up (that's a good thing ) as all get out. :)

We were given two blessings this week. The missionaries in Commerce gave us two referrals that are superrrr awesome. We called one of them on the phone and it turned out that she knows one of our other investigators and was excited to hear that she would be going to the same church as her. The other one showed up at church on Sunday and brought his wife with him. The Relief Society has beed doing awfully good at helping our female investigators and we are loving it.

Last week was pretty boring because we got trapped with the snow and ice, but there are good things happening here in Cornelia. We are excited for the work that we have, and are even more excited to generate more missionary work :)

I know that trials and confusions will always come in life, but I know that God loves us. If we actually BELIEVE what the scriptures say, trust in God, and just freakin go for it that it will all be all right. I love that conference talk by Elder Wirthlin, or whoever it was, "Come What May And Love It". I know that God can and wants to help us love and embrace whatever comes. I know he has provided the way for happiness.

I hit my 6 month mark on Friday, I can hardly believe my mission is a quarter of the way over. Thank you for everything that you do, family. I love you. Make me proud.

Elder Mikey T. Caplin

Oh yeah and P.S. I ordained one of my friends here in the ward, a recent convert who is my age, as a Priest on Sunday. That was a pretty cool experience and I was happy to be able to do that for him. Also the movie "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" rules fyi.