Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!
Cornelia is such a cute town this time of year. There are Christmas wreaths everywhere and even though it is sunny and not too cold, it definitely feels like Christmas. We have been getting very excited this holiday season. On Wednesday we had our ward Christmas party, and that was pretty fun. Elder Whitehead and I sang "Away In A Manger"-- a song that we have been singing quite a bit lately.

We have gone around to many of the members and investigators and others in the area giving them Christmas treats, packages, scriptures, and songs. It has been fun. We went to one of our neighbors to give her a Christmas present, and she talked about how nice she thought that a few members are from the ward. She just kept going on and on; we were impressed to know how much of an impact the members had made. We were also impressed that they had let her know that they were members of the church. Every experience can be a missionary moment, and it is exciting when you get to see success from that. Our neighbor will be coming to church next week, so we are super excited about that.

On Monday we had a district P-day on the Chattahoochee River. Haha, it was a lil bit cold, but we had a good old time. We got to hang out with a couple of the youth from our wards because Monday was a snow-day! There wasn't any snow at all on the ground; it was sunny without a cloud in the sky! Thursday was a snow day too and the whole town shut down. Everyone is scared of the ice that comes when temperatures drop below freezing, so they hurry and buy some milk and bread and then stay home for the next few days.


On Tuesday I was on an exchange with Elder Koopmans, who is from Dameron Valley, UT. He is my zone leader and a Spanish-speaking missionary, so he came up here and taught a few lessons to some hispanic people we know. I could understand a little bit of what they were saying, and even though I couldn't communicate with Alonzo to help Elder Koopmans out, it was really awesome to see how the Spirit can still prompt you so that you are still working as a companionship. I would suggest things for E.K. to say even though I didn't always know what they were talking about. It was a super good lesson and an awesome experience for me.

Wednesday I went down to Winder because E. Whitehead had a leadership meeting. Haha even though it wasn't my area, I got to be the driver for the day since I was the missionary that had been out the longest. That was fun for me and a little weird. It's hard to imagine that summer has come and gone and that now Christmas is upon us. I've been out almost 6 months!

We had another really awesome lesson with Jeremy this week. We taught some of the beginning parts of the Plan of Salvation. It went well. He told us that the previous week he went to his girlfriend's Holiness Church. He asked us about speaking in tongues. He said he was really scared while he was there. Afterwards he talked to his girlfriend and her mom about our church, and they told him we were polygamists-- haha. He said he bore his testimony of what he feels when he meets with us and reads from the Book of Mormon. It was really awesome. If he would come to church and stop being busy he would be baptized already haha. We're working on it, we're working on it.


Our mormon.org profiles are up now. We are so unified as a companionship that if you look up one of us on mormon.org you can see a link to the others under the Similar Profiles section. We laughed pretty hard when we saw that. Then we fist bumped. It was that chill.


The Wainrights invited us over for their early Christmas family party. We had tons of delicious food of course (I swear they want us to weigh like 300 pounds each), played an ornament exchange game, and then they gave us some presents. They are so good to us. They are just so nice. It was a party.


Saturday we were over at the Bishop's house for lunch and to talk to him about a few things, (since our meeting the week before got interrupted by the Church flooding) and they got a sad phone call. There is a couple in the ward that got baptized 3 years ago, Brother and Sister Woody. Brother Woody had a stroke a little while ago and has been confined to a wheel chair. His hospice nurse called Sister Smith (the bishop's wife) and told her that Brother Woody was probably going to die soon and that Sister Woody wasn't coping very well.

The Smiths went over there to talk to her. Bishop Smith is such a good man. He takes such good care of such a large and difficult ward. Anyway, during Sunday School yesterday Sister Woody called letting us know that Brother Woody had just passed on. Bishop Smith asked us to hurry over there to check on her and give her the Sacrament before the rest of the family got there to make funeral plans. We went over and it was an interesting experience.

Sister Woody was doing surprisingly well. She said she felt at peace and knew that he had passed away to a place better than this one. She wasn't weepy, she was assured and strengthened. Brother Woody's son was there and he was in a very poor state. He lives about 2 hours south of Cornelia and didn't make it in time to say goodbye to his dad. He isn't a member but expressed interest to us in learning about the Church, so we invited him to take the Sacrament and gave him a chapter to read in the Book of Mormon that helps to read during difficult times.

Anyway it was just an interesting experience. We got there minutes after Brother Woody died, so his body was in the bed still. We offered comfort to the son and got to see first hand the power that comes because of Jesus Christ's Atonement. Sister Woody is now all right, even though just two days ago she was not doing well. We have a mission Christmas party on Tuesday, but we are going to that late because we were asked to sing at the funeral and want to be there to support Sister Woody.


That event involving the death of a man I had just visited two weeks ago, plus the Christmas season put the day in a different mood. My thoughts were more turned to the Lord all day. Sacrament meeting was really good and all day we just felt that like helping others out. We visited a mother and daughter in the ward that were sick, we sang carols in Spanish to a hispanic family, we gave Christmas treats away to a family we don't know. It was an interesting day, not sad or anything, just a more spiritual one. For the funeral we will be singing "Nearer My God To Thee".


I am grateful for these opportunities that I have as a full-time servant of the Lord to learn a little better about what being Christlike means. I am so excited for Christmas and pray that all of you will have THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVERRRRR.


Well, time to go! Talk to you soon! Love you so much!


Happy Holiday of your choice!


Love Elder Caplin