Elder Jason Kap, February 1990 - February 1992

As a 4th grader, Jason Kap had a memorable impression about the future of East Germany. Although raised a member of the Church, through various conflicts he became agnostic toward God as a teenager. Through the influence of college friends and his own personal desire to know if God were real, he grew to gain a testimony of God and the need to serve a mission.  As one of the first to receive an original mission call to the German Democratic Republic Dresden Mission, the youthful spiritual impressions he had of the future of East Germany came to life.

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Transcript

Dean Clement (00:06.524)

So today I have the privilege of speaking with Jason Kapp. Jason entered the Missionary Training Center in February of 1990, and he went home in February of 1992. Welcome, Jason.

Jason Kap (00:20.814)

Thank you.

Dean Clement (00:22.684)

So Jason, today the first thing I'd like to ask you is tell us a little bit about your family background and growing up.

Jason Kap (00:30.79)

So I was born in Pleasant View, Utah. I have one sister, she's younger than I am. We moved around a little bit as my parents got their graduate degrees in Utah, but we moved to North Ogden, I think when I was four, and then to Pleasant View when I was eight. And that's where my parents resided until my father passed several years ago.

Dean Clement (00:57.84)

And did you, prior to your mission, have experience with German language or German culture?

Jason Kap (01:07.23)

Yeah, I did actually. First of all my grandfather was a missionary in Germany in 1928 to 1931 or maybe 29 to 32--the rise of fascism and Nazism--served largely in the West, in Hamburg and Bremen, but some in the South as well. And he had a lot to say about Germany and Germans. And like most missionaries, I think he was very attached to it for the rest of his life.

And I took German in junior high and in for a year in high school. I was never super successful at it. I was not as Elder Packer, the boy who could speak German. I was the kid who went to class and kind of muddled along, but probably one of my more significant touches with my future in Germany was: I was in the third grade and I was in Elder Pobanz’s mom's class. And she had a map on the wall. (I'm sorry, it would have been in fourth grade.) She had a map on the wall, and it was Germany. And it had, and she pointed out that Germany was actually one country, but there were two pieces of it. There was the part in the west and there was the part in the east. And she tried to explain what that all meant. And one of the students asked about the little dot that was West Berlin. And she explained that actually belonged to the Western part, but that it had been divided by a wall and that those people were not allowed to be together. And I remember having, just, the deepest impression that someday I was going to play a part in putting that all back together again. And I had no reason to think that, but I thought it and it stayed with me. 

So when I was at home, when the wall came down, and one of my friends called me and said, “Hey, turn on the TV. You got to see what's happening in Germany.” And I saw the wall came down. I thought, well, I guess that was a miss. I guess I'm going to have no, no role in that whatsoever. It turned out to not be, that wasn't accurate--the second part wasn't accurate. 

Dean Clement (03:24.105)

And as you were nearing the age of going on a mission, what factors led to you deciding to go on a mission?

Jason Kap (03:35.842)

So I was older as a missionary. I turned 21 a few months into my mission. And so when I was in the last, I became inactive as a teacher, less active as a teacher. By the time I was a priest, I was an agnostic. I was an avowed agnostic. I didn't believe that--I couldn't prove that there wasn't a God--but I had, my parents had been defrauded when I was eight by some members of the church, caused a big schism in the family. My father was--he had this tragic childhood and he'd put himself together and was an active member of the church up until then. And he couldn't reconcile what had happened. My mom, on the other hand, could separate out people doing things that they shouldn't do versus the church and the gospel of Jesus Christ. But it became this huge bone of contention in my household.

So my mom, every Sunday, got up and went to church and she tried to take my sister and I. And sometimes we would. At first we went religiously, and then we stopped going and eventually fell away. And I had lots and lots of questions about the church. I had read all kinds of anti-Mormon literature. And in those days, you actually had to look for it. It wasn't shoved in your face. And I didn't believe the anti-Mormons either. They didn't seem to make any more sense to me. 

But I could look around me and I could see my grandparents who were the grandchildren of actual pioneers, my great-great-grandfather (whatever that would be) was a member of the rescue companies. His name was Amos Maycock. And a pioneer brand of faith lived in my grandparents' house, and we lived on the ranch next to them. And so that was one end of the spectrum: just this constant drumbeat of the church is true and a lot of people have sacrificed a lot of things. My dad's people had come from the Netherlands at great cost to themselves in the 1880s, also for the church. 

And so there was that versus me looking around and seeing some behaviors in adults and teenagers that just didn't foot with what they were doing on Sundays. So, I had all these questions running around. And a couple of things happened that--this is probably a longer story than we want--but a couple things happened that came together for me.

I’m humbled by how many people tried for so long to help me find my way to the church. While I was an agnostic, I was not doing anything that you would not do as a member of the church. I was leading a very church-like life with an absence of faith. And I went to college. I wasn't sure I was going to go to college. And then I wandered into college on the first day, and I sat down in class and a young lady that I had known in high school for my class sat in front of me in my first class. And so, you know, we were both freshmen. And so we talked to each other. It was at Weber State. And we talked to each other. And it turns out we had the second class together, too. And over the course of that year, we ended up spending all kinds of time together, inside and outside of class. We arranged to take classes together. And she was an incredibly faithful member of the church. So that happened.

And then a couple of friends from high school, also sisters, had gone to BYU, and they came back for a break. And we went and had pizza, the three of us. We had spent a lot of time in a class at high school. And one of them asked me, they said, “Hey, you know, are you going to go on a mission?” And I said, “No.” And they said, “Why not?” And rather than bring up the whole, “because I don't believe in the church thing”, I just said, “Well, no one has ever asked me.” 

And about two weeks later, I got a letter in the mail. And it was addressed from “The Man Upstairs” who had a residence, I guess, in Helaman Halls at BYU. And, and it was to “Elder Jason Kap”. And I opened it up, and it was this incredibly irreverent, very faith-filled, “I hear you don't know that I've asked you, so here is your individual personalized invitation to go on a mission.” And it was incredibly, their names were Marnie and Karen. And that was really the first thought I had. 

Fast forward a little bit, and this lady from college--her name is Monica--she invites me to church, she invites me to Institute. And I tell her all the things I think's wrong with faith, and one day she stops me and says, "'Hey, look, I'll make you a deal. If you sincerely pray to know if God exists, after that I will accept whatever answer you get, even though I know that God exists and the church is true,” she said. “I will accept whatever answer you get, and you can say whatever you want about the church. But until then, I don't wanna hear anything else.” And I liked being around her, and so I was willing to take that step, and I did, and I had just an incredibly simple and powerful experience about the fact that God existed. And I remember getting up from that prayer and thinking, well, that means that if that's true, then that means a bunch of other things are true. And that means that there are obligations on me. And I got a patriarchal blessing. And anyway, so she moves to California. I--over the getting ready for this, I actually found a bunch of letters between us--and you can just see the progression of my faith as she's really super supportive from there. 

And I also joined a fraternity that was largely LDS, but a bunch of people weren't. And that created an environment where it was fine to be Mormon and fine to not be Mormon. But whatever you were, you needed to respect the fact that other people were other things. And the combination of all that together, I got a patriarchal blessing, which had this stark warning that I needed said that I needed to go on a mission from a German patriarch as it happens.

So all that combined together for me to actually decide to put in my papers. And I did. I put them in secret because my father was going to disown me if I went on a mission. And so I put them in with my bishop, and they were going to come back to his house. And the day I put them in, my dad had a massive heart attack, didn't know about the mission papers, and went and spent a couple weeks at the University of Utah Heart Cardiac Center, nearly died. And anyway, so the bishop called me after my dad had been in the hospital for two, three days and said, “Hey, I'm putting your papers on hold.” And I said, “You can't do that.” And he said, “Well, we're not going to send you when your dad is, we're going to wait to see what happens with your dad.” And I said, “My dad, you know, maybe this is God clearing the way for me to go.” And he's like, “Yeah, that's kind of cold.” And I said, “Okay, that is kind of cold.” But anyway, so we put them on hold. And then my dad miraculously survives. The doctors are all completely amazed that he's survived. And then I have to tell him I'm going on a mission, and he's not happy about that. So I told him and I called the bishop, and the bishop put my papers through. 

And as it turned out, that delay allowed me to be in the very first group that was called directly to the DDR. There were those who were a month or two or three ahead of me in the MTC who got their calls changed. And there were those, of course, who came from the West, but mine was the very first group to be called there. And that was the first moment where I connected back with that moment in the fourth grade where I thought, wow, I'm actually going to this place at this time.

Dean Clement (11:33.653)

That's really neat. Is there anything else that you want to share about your preparation before going into the MTC?

Jason Kap (11:44.294)

I was wildly underprepared as a missionary. I had not been in seminary since halfway through my sophomore year. I had not been active in church. I mean, I was active, of course, when I put in my papers, but there's a big gap there. I didn't have any missionaries in my immediate family. My grandfather's missionary experience in 1928, it turns out that was not super informative to figure out how to do a mission in 1989, which is when it was when I was called. I got my papers, got my call just before Christmas. And so, you know, my preparation was, it was pretty thin. I tried hard, but I remember sitting in that, and I had all these fraternity brothers who I was very close with, who all had been raised in the tradition that they were going on a mission and their fathers and their brothers had all gone. And so I got some information from them. But a lot of things in the MTC was, it was like MTC by Braille. I don't know what a Zone Leader is. Why do I need to have a Zone Leader? And what does a Zone Leader do? And, okay, that makes sense. And so it was, it is exactly what you don't want to do to send a missionary.

Dean Clement (13:07.64)

Is there any other information about your MTC experience that you'd like to share?

Jason Kap (13:16.402)

Um, MTC was amazing for me. Um I had a friend that--I had a fraternity brother that was in there just before me. So we actually met up a couple of times and then I had one come behind me. And, um, over the course of my mission, there was this tape that went between all of us and you would just… you would record over your piece and then you'd send it onto the next guy and you'd listen to all five or six guys before you would do the same. and that started in the MTC. That was actually pretty great. That was Dave Bailey who started that. And then I had another friend that I had met just a couple times before the mission, who she went in the same day that I went in and left the same day I did. She was a language missionary for a different part of the world. And we spent a lot of time writing back and forth during that time. And I learned a lot about how missions work and normalized my own experience that way. So I had a fabulous, in my memory, the MTC was one of the greatest experiences of my life. My journal says that it was horrific, but my memories are all amazing.

Dean Clement (14:22.744)

It's always interesting what we write in our journal versus what is actually going on in our mind. 

Jason Kap (14:29.697)

I agree.

Dean Clement

So tell us, you arrived in the German Democratic Republic in April of 1990. What was your first impression when you arrived?

Jason Kap (14:45.238)

So we left April 9th and we actually arrived at April 10th, I guess. My first impression was actually, we were in the airport, there was a problem in the Munich airport and they held us in this area--I'd never seen airport people with machine guns before--and they held us in this little area. And the regional representative for East Germany actually came through the room and saw us, the church's regional rep. And we were all amazed by that. And we'd had a visit in the MTC by the minister for religious questions, and President Schutze had both visited us in the MTC. 

But, so anyway, so we get on the airplane and we fly all the way along, we fly from Munich all the way along the border, all the way over the North Sea, and then we come back around and come back down the inside of the border. I assume that was some air corridor that existed from, you know, the communism times, since the government still, you know, we're in the Wende at this point, right? So the wall has come down, but we haven't given up being East Germany yet. And I remember how beautiful and green Germany was, and I was just in love with it out the window. And then we got over the North Sea and that was beautiful. And then we came back down along the corridor on the East side and everything was brown. It was the same color of brown. The air, the ground, the streets, the buildings was all brown.

And we landed at the Leipzig airport. And the first planes I see is a whole line of Russian Soviet MiGs. There's a flight line of MiGs. Utah, of course, has Hill Air Force Base. And my bishop was a colonel over one of the air wings there. So I'd been out many times--I'd seen a flight line--they've got the canopies open, they're all ready to go. And I thought, oh, wow, this is a little more real than I thought it was going to be. And then we got there.

And we got off the airplane, and they had all these men in green uniforms with brown gloves that came rushing out. And they surrounded the airplane, little human cordon, and then they started checking the, up underneath to see if, I guess, if anybody was in the landing gear. It was a little frightening. And there was a Hungarian, one of those, the accordion buses where there's--you know--two-thirds in the front and then one-third in the back, and there's the accordion in between. It was an incredibly beat-up accordion bus that came and picked us up. And we all got on the bus. And we're, we're driving along, and the door to the bus won't quite shut. It's trying to shut. And I remember it finally shut. And I thought, it felt like I was never going home. Like that was it. I was now in some sort of jail bus. And we get over to the, to the part where they let us out. And there were a couple business people with us. And they jump out and they walk up the steps and they go inside. All the missionaries (I'm the travel leader) and all the missionaries were all standing around trying to figure out what to do. And I look up and the welcome to Germany is in Cyrillic. Like there's a bunch of different scripts at the top. And I don't recall German being one of them. And I thought, Oh, wow, we have really gone to a different place. And Elder Brian Crittenden was with me. He was my travel companion. And I turned to him and I said, “Well, Dorothy, we're not in Kansas anymore.” He turned back to me and he had this little tear in his eye. And he said, “No, we are not.” We were so tired. And so we go inside and it's, uh, I don't know, everyone else probably went through the same airport, but it's, it's there other than the doors you go into. There's no doors or there's no windows. It's just a big white room.

And suddenly one of the walls open and they've got a little tunnel with a one-way glass, and that's apparently where you're supposed to go through. So we line up, and then they open another one and we line up. And a lot of agitation happens. Things start getting very bad. So there's something about the way we're communicating. We're supposed to have some money that we don't seem to have. And some of the missionaries are trying to talk through the glass, and the guards are getting agitated, just frustrated thinking there's no way we can get through this barrier. And suddenly the door opened on one of them from the other side, and this enormous human being, he, he appears on the other side, and he just barks in this incredibly crisp German at the glass. And those guards, they just went silent as the grave. And, and so, but in the other row, where there's still some agitation going on, and he speaks loudly, and those people calm down, too.

And then he turns to us and he says, in this incredibly sweet voice, he says, "Elders and sisters, my name is President Paul. Welcome to the German Democratic Republic. I would like you to walk straightforward, hand your pass.” And then one of the guards said something when he's talking to us in English, and he says something back, just snaps right at the glass, the guy's just quiet. And he says, "Okay." So, and he tells us what to do, and then he says, “Walk past, walk out, gather your bags, and then walk directly out. Do not offer your bags to customs, just walk through.” And so we do, and we walk through, and I remember Elder Bauman, and I think Elder Smith, the two APs were standing there, as we got out into the place where you collect your luggage. And we collect our luggage, and we go out, and nobody says a word to us. And then we get out, and we get out in the, reception hall, and President Paul comes out. He's the last person to come out. He's dealt with whatever had to be dealt with. And he reaches into his pocket and he pulls out this enormous pile of coins. And he says, “Okay, who needs to go to the bathroom?” I had—whatever--missed the lesson on that you needed to pay to go to the bathroom! So I was like, why has he got money to send us to the bathroom? 

And Bishop Schulze from the Dresden Ward was there. And we got in the bus and, you know, we drove and it was brown. It was all brown. Buildings were knocked down and windows were missing and, and all the colors were muted and people, there wasn't much variety in the clothing. And we finally pull into Dresden and we stop at a light. And I look over and there's this big pile of stones. And in front of it is a white sign. And in about three languages, it says, “On the night of February, 1945, the Americans murdered 3,000 people in the Church of Our Lady, the Fraunkirche, and their remains are still in the ruins.” And I thought, Oh, man, we Americans must not be very welcome here. So that was my, that was my first impression of the GDR.

Dean Clement (22:00.396)

So where were you assigned to serve first?

Jason Kap (22:05.074)

I went to Zwickau with John Pobanz, who is a fantastic missionary. He was just an amazing missionary. And there were actually three of us from the same high school class in, in the GDR mission. Matt Jensen, one of the eight, and then John Pobanz, I don't know, was he eight or 10 or whatever, that were very early group. And then me, you know, quite a ways later, because I was, I was older when I went.

I nearly finished college, I was actually, my choice was go one more semester, two more quarters and get my degree or go on a mission. And because of my dad's delay, I almost did that. I would have had a whole year left, but that's an aside. And so when they told me that, that John Pobanz was my companion, I thought, Oh, this isn't great. In the fourth grade, John had actually stabbed me with a fork in the lunchroom. And I think that represented this closeness of our relationship between the fourth grade and being mission companions. So I remember I walked downstairs, I saw him, he was making a copy, and I walked up to him, and I just, I didn't even bother with Elder. I just said, “Hello, John.” And he says, “Hey, Jason.” I said, “Turns out I'm your guy.” And he goes, “Yeah, I heard that.” And I said, “This will be great.” And he sincerely said, “This is going to be amazing.” And I could feel that he meant it. And it was. He was an absolutely fantastic companion. And we had a ton of success. We went to Zwickau. We lived out with the Liebsch family. I'm 6'10", 2, 2'6". And the Liebsch family had heard--someone had told them about my size. And so they had gone and gotten some Kisten and some boxes. and they'd put them at the end of the bed, and then they'd knocked out the foot of the bed. And then they had made a little sort of pillow top to the boxes so that I had a bed that was long enough. And we, we taught and worked, and we had miracles that were worthy of Bible stories. And I just, I think that was all Elder Pobanz. He was fantastic. 

A couple of really funny things happened, having had a, you know, a relationship, if you call it that prior to being on the mission. We had a car accident. we were rear-ended. I got whiplash, real actual whiplash. My eyes actually turned red from the pollution, I got severe…conjunctivitis, I guess? My eyes were bright red. They were blood red. They scared people to death. I remember he took me to the eye doctor. We didn't do anything about the neck. The Moskowitz that hit us was totaled and our Polo was totaled. He took me to the eye doctor. The doctor says, “I speak some English, but I would like you to tell me in English what's wrong and then I'm going to have your mitarbeiter who's going to tell me in German.” I said, “Okay.”

So I gave her a really long explanation of what was wrong with my eyes, very, very detailed. And Elder Pobanz turned to her and he said, “His eyes hurt.” That's what he said in German to fill in all the gaps! And she gave me Salbe. I know other people have talked about Salbe, I think, but that was my first experience with Salbe, which, you know, can cure anything in the GDR. And so I put Salbe on my eyes--just this thick, so thick, almost wasn't liquid, for a couple of weeks. But yeah, so, and I was only there with him for 28 days and before I was transferred.

Dean Clement (26:01.648)

That's not very long. No fork duels in 28 days?

Jason Kap (26:08.994)

No more duels. No, no, as I said, he was completely lovely. So, he was the zone leader, though. So there were splits. I went, went to Plauen. And I don't remember who the missionary was in Plauen. But we lived with a family in, in Zwickau. And then in Plauen, they had an apartment. I remember, we got to the apartment, and I was staying in the apartment for the night. And the missionary took me down the hallway to show me where the bathroom was. And then he showed me where the coal oven was, that in the morning, I would have to, I would have to put coal in there, and then we'd have to get a fire going and give it, you know, 20 or 30 minutes so that there would be enough hot water to rinse the soap off. Because it was an unheated bathroom out in the hallway there. And I remember thinking, wow, this country just gets more and more interesting all the time.

Dean Clement (27:02.172)

So, Zwickau for a month and then Plauen was the next stop? 

Jason Kap (27:07.242)

No, Plauen was, I'm sorry, that was just a split. Annaberg. So I went down to Annaberg. I lived in the little teeny tiny room that Elder Moss had lived in. The first one, the Schaarschmidt family had given that up. And when I say tiny, I mean TINY. I posted some pictures on the Facebook group. Three, three photos that you can see the entire room. Two little tiny beds. They were maybe 5'10'' long. I was with Paul Sorenson, who's 6'2", 6'3". And we were both sleeping in sort of this S-shape on these incredibly hard mattresses. Really steep staircase with rock, with, the steps jutted out from below the, the floor above as you went down, I hit my head many times on those. But it was, yeah, that's, so that was the first, I was with him for just 30 days, 28 days, I think. And then he moved on.

And, and that was, so that first 28 days was Elder Jason Russell, Elder Stephen Van Orden, they were in another apartment. And then they were in an actual apartment, a really pretty nice apartment. And, and then Elder Sorenson and I were with the Schaarschmidts, who were just great people. 

And we would go out together, and there's a pedestrian zone off the market in Annaberg that slopes down. And we would go four-wide, like it was some sort of Old West thing, and we'd walk from the top to the bottom, you know--women would be pulling their babies off the street, and shopkeepers would be closing the windows--we'd be like, you know, we'd walk, top to bottom and get as many people as we could. And we'd go back up. And we, on the marketplace, we had all these Ausstellungen, you know, and we were pretty busy.

And it, we, you know, but that's actually also the time when we were getting closer to when there was not going to be, when for whatever reason, there was not a lot to buy. So we could buy as much bread as we wanted to buy. We could buy all the various milk and dairy products, including the only cheese that was available was something that smelled like a sock. We called it stink cheese. And we actually managed to get some Soviet powdered potato soup and some powdered cauliflower soup. And so every day, Elder Sorenson and I, we ate stink cheese bread and one of the powdered soups. And that was what we had, and milk. And we had that three times a day. Or we might've had muesli in the morning, but we had it twice a day or whatever. And so we began to feel a little Wild West.

Elder Van Orden decided one day that we needed to celebrate. And what they told me later was Elder Russell and Elder Van Orden never left their street for the first week because they were afraid they couldn't find their way back and they couldn't understand the accent to ask anybody how to get back. So they only proselyted on their street for the first week, which I believe entirely, because Erzgebirgisch is a really strong accent. And, but anyway, Elder Van Orden decided that we were going to celebrate being missionaries in one of the few wards, you know, East Germany had what-- nine wards and maybe 16 branches when we got there. And Annaberg was one of the wards. So we were super lucky to be in a ward. And the members there were just amazing. And so anyway, we got a feast. We all went out and we bought the best of everything that we could find. And we ended up with a bottle--we managed to get two jars of bottled noodles in red sauce and like some fancy bread. And some--and I think Jason Russell came up with the Nestle--he brought it from somewhere. And so we had some Nestle to mix into the milk. And that was our feast. And we met in the apartment and we had this feast. And I don't remember food tasting so good in my whole life.

Dean Clement (31:29.9)

How long were you in Annaberg?

Jason Kap (31:32.586)

I was there three months. So the last two months were with Elder Ramsey. We moved over to the, they had a Neubaugebiet apartment for us, a one roomer. And that's when Elder Cowley came and Elder Packer came with Elder Russell. And so that's when we founded the Annaberg Elders Club, which is a club that includes anybody who's ever served anywhere in the world, just to be clear. But we were trying to make ourselves feel better about our lives.

And Annaberg was, was great in a lot of ways. We had this lady who was very faithful Catholic that we were teaching. And we were on the marketplace one day, the five of us, and we had a, we had an Ausstellung going. And this car pulls up on the other corner and out get four Roman Catholic priests in the full regalia: black, the black sort of dress-like things that go all the way to the, I wish I knew what their name was, because I want to be respectful--but it's like a skirt that goes all the way to their shoes.

And so I remember turning to the elders, I'm like, “I've got this.” Like, I knew what I was doing--I had no idea--so I walk across the marketplace, and they come with me. And there's 5 of us and 4 of them. And we started chatting with them, and we're like, “Hey, what are you guys doing in town?” And they're like, “Well, we're here from the Vatican. And we were in Chemnitz, I guess. And we heard that, you know, we wanted to come and visit the parish here. And we've been to visit,” and then he named our investigator, “We have been to visit so-and-so. And we wanted her to know that the Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church from the Vatican cares about her.” So, of course, she never saw us again. She didn't want anything to do with us after that. But yeah, so I was, I was there three months total.

Dean Clement (33:17.74)

Anything else you want to share with us about Annaberg?

Jason Kap (33:24.962)

Uh, Annaberg, um, is where I learned that mission rules are really important. We had a rule that we weren't supposed to drink Cola drinks. Um, and it wasn't because it was against the Word of Wisdom. It's because the Germans believed it was against the word of wisdom. And, uh, Elder Ramsey and I were in some far distant village outside of Annaberg really late one night.

And we were in a Rathaus Keller. We'd missed our bus and we hadn't eaten since breakfast. So we decided that we were gonna buy dinner, which we never did. And so we went in and it was still pretty cheap. So we got something to eat and the waitress went by and she had Coca-Cola from West Germany in bottles. And, I said, or Elder Ramsey said, I don't know which one of us said, “We should do that!” And we're in the middle of nowhere and no one will ever know. And so we bought two of those and we drank them. And it was amazing, just so, so good. And at about seven o'clock the next morning, there's a pounding on our apartment door. And I opened it up to find the ward mission leader who is beyond furious because he'd been working with a friend of his at work, telling him about the gospel of Jesus Christ for 15 years. And he was almost ready to meet with us. And then he saw the missionaries out drinking Coca-Cola that night. And so now he knew that everything that the ward mission leader had said was a lie. And I decided to go down the route of, “Well, it's not against the Word of Wisdom,” which is just not how you respond to something like that. I did not help the situation.

And also, that's the apartment where we started a fire, flooded the apartment below us, and broke a key in the lock all on the same day, and were late to zone conference. So it was a pretty eventful place.

Dean Clement (35:37.01)

I'm sorry, you're going to have to give more detail on the fire and the consequences of that. 

Jason Kap (35:45.59)

So, it's a one-room apartment. It has a little tiny galley kitchen. And so you come in, and you have the Garderobe on one side, or you have, you know, your, where you hang up your coat on one side, and there's a door that goes into the bathroom on the other side, and then you proceed into the main room. And if you were to loop around that, there's a little tiny kitchen. So that's our apartment. We have two red beds, the famous red beds that were long enough for me. And, and so I'm in the kitchen, and I cut my finger. We're trying to make like some incredibly early bus, 6 a.m. bus, I think, to Chemnitz—Karl-Marx-Stadt at the time--and so I take a towel and I put it on my hand and to try to staunch the bleeding. And so then I go to the bathroom.

And at some point, Elder Ramsey is cooking in the kitchen. And I don't know how it happens, but that rag that I had ends up on the burner and lights on fire. And so we're getting ready to go in the main room, and we see the fire. So we go in, we throw that in the sink, and we hose it off. And I'm now agitated because I want to leave because we're going to be late. And we go through to go out, and Elder Ramsey takes the keys, and the keys at the time had the metal tip and they were long and plastic. I don't know--did you ever have one of those?

Dean Clement (37:15.352)

Yes, I remember that.

Jason Kap (37:17.27)

So he puts it in the lock from the inside, right? Because we're Germans and we use keys in the locks. And I hear it snap. And he says, “Uh-oh.” And I said, “What do you mean, uh-oh?” And he says, “The key broke.” And I said, “Well, can you get it out?? And he said, “No, that's what broke means.” So, and I said, “Well, what are we gonna do?” And he said,” I don't know, Elder Cap, I'm still figuring that out. And so we both try, and it's snapped off in a way that you can't get it out, and we're locked in. I--the only apartment I ever had that had a phone in was my last one and it was only for the last week--so we're on the 5th floor, no phone. It's really early in the morning. So I go out on the balcony, and I begin yelling at the people who are going by for early shifts that we need a locksmith. “There's an emergency that we need a locksmith. We're locked in! Can you help us please?”

 And, probably for, I don't know, it was probably an hour and a half I'm out there. And finally somebody stops at the bottom and says, “What are you yelling about?” And I said, “Oh, we've, we've broken our key off in the lock.” And he says, “You need a locksmith!” I said, “Yes, we need a locksmith.” He says, “Okay, I'll get you a locksmith.” And again, you know, it's seven AM at this time.

And he does. He goes, and about 10 minutes later, a locksmith comes from the other side and unlocks the door. And he says, “We'll leave some keys inside for you when you get back.” And I said, “Well, how are we gonna get in?” He says, “So I'm just gonna leave the door unlocked.” And I was like, “Oh, OK.” And so we thanked him. 

And I decide that I need to brush my teeth or go to the bathroom or whatever. And I open the door to the bathroom. And there's a threshold, right? There's a raised threshold between rooms in Germany, particularly in these Neubaus. And I step over that and it goes squish when I put my foot on the other side. And at some point, Elder Ramsey had started the washing machine and the hose had come out of the bathtub and was ejecting water all over the floor. So then we got that all dried up. 

We were going to take a train, but now there's no trains available. So we go to the Bus Bahnhof, and we get a bus. We arrive--I don't know, two-thirds of the way through the Zone Conference. We walk in the back. And President Powell looks at me. He looks at, at Elder Ramsey. And neither of us are brimming with the spirit at this point. And he just gives this sidelong glance at the assistants, whoever they were at the time. And they both get up one goes to the right and down off the stand, and the other goes to the left down and off the stand, and they come to the back of the room. And one talks to Elder Ramsey, one talks to me, and they say, “So, Elders, what's going on?” And, and I said, “Well, it wasn't the fire or even the lock. I think it was the flood that made us late.” 

And I was not scheduled for an interview with the president, but I got one, that particular zone conference.

Dean Clement (40:51.272)

Great. Oh, thank you for sharing that one.

Dean Clement (40:58.444)

So what came after Annaberg?

Jason Kap (41:02.958)

I was transferred to Leest, which is the branch outside of Potsdam on the west side of West Berlin. And that's where I was for reunification, October 3. In fact, we went to the Glienicke Bridge (the Bridge of Spies.) We went just at dusk. We went to that bridge before we took the last bus back to Leest. And I was with Elder Hightower. 

Elder Hightower was so hardworking. We worked day in and day out. We could schedule 20 first discussions in a day. We would just knock and knock, meet people on the street, and we'd schedule 10, 12, 15, 20 first discussions in a day. And then the next day we'd go to those discussions that were scheduled and they would fall out one after another. We'd...basically teach none of them. And so we'd just do more finding in between, and we'd schedule another 12 or 15. There were a couple of people who came to the church while we were there. So there were a couple of families in, that came in Zwickau and then in Annaberg. I don't recall baptisms in Annaberg. And then we had a couple of people. 

But the challenge in Leest was that the building is outside the city, outside of Potsdam. It's in this little village that's not that easy to get to, particularly with a Sunday bus schedule. And the Saints were coming from like, Falkensee, which was to the north of Berlin. They were coming long, long distances to be there. 

We lived next door with Brother and Sister Richter, who were elderly. And sister Richter liked to go into our room and go through our things and--that wasn't the best living arrangement--but the Richters were actually great. And Brother Richter was a survivor of Stalingrad actually, so as a soldier. And he was twice wounded, twice evacuated. And he had joined the church. My recollection is that he had surrendered somewhere near Berlin to the Americans. He wanted to surrender to the Americans, but ended up surrendering to the Russians, which is, you know, was a hard, that was a hard prisoner of war thing. But he had joined the church after that. And so that was laced. And Elder Hightower and I, we learned a lot about being really hardworking missionaries while we were there.

Dean Clement (43:54.43)

How long did you end up in Leest?

Jason Kap (43:58.642)

I was there three months, but I was going to be there longer. We came home one night. There was a member that had a telephone that was right across the street from the church. We came home one night and there was a subtle, a little note on the door to our attic room that said, “Call President Paul now.” And so we got the bus. You either had to take the 7 o'clock bus or you had to take the 9:30 bus at night. And so, and going home at 7 never felt good. So we always took the late bus. So we got out there like 10: 15 or something like that. And so we go across the street, and the member is waiting, the sister is waiting. And she directs me to the chair, and I call. And there's a little notebook, and you actually kept track of exactly how long you called because it was so expensive, and the church reimbursed her for it.

And I called and President Paul said, “Elder Kap, you're gonna be on a train tomorrow morning. You are going to come to Dresden and you are going to be assigned to the office.” I said, “Oh, this is irregular.” And he said, “Yes, it's a Sonderversetzung.” And I said, “Well, what about Elder Hightower? Is he gonna come with me?” And he said, “I'll send somebody to be with Elder Hightower.” And I said, “Well, what is my job going to be?” And he said, “You're going to be the financial secretary.” I said, “Okay.” And he said, “Elder Kap, do you know anything about being a financial secretary? Do you know anything about accounting?” And I said, “No.” And there was a really long pause and he sighed and he switched to English and he said, “Well, the Lord wants you, Elder. I'll see you tomorrow.” 

So, I was not encouraged by that. So I got on a train on the way to Dresden the next day. It's what, a two hour train trip maybe, right? Two hours and 15 minutes, something like that. And it took like five hours or four hours because we got stopped on the tracks. And I was in a compartment with a young lady who was roughly my age. I was really uncomfortable because she was really friendly and she was a member of the opposite sex and we just didn't do that. I was traveling by myself. 

So I taught her a first discussion and a second discussion. And she was really interested. And I was like, Oh, man, she's completely golden. And we finally got to Dresden. And just when we're leaving, she gives me a telephone number. She gives me her address, gives me her name. And, and she says, “I will never see you again.” And I said, “How? can that be? Is this a false address?” And she said, “No.” I said, “Is this your name?” And she said, “Yeah.” And I said, “I will see you in a few days. I need to figure out what's going on with my new job, but I will see you in a couple days.” And she said, “No, we will never see each other again.” She's very sad. And I was not sure why she would be that way. 

And I got to the office and the zone leaders were there, Elder Matthews and Elder Koch. And the district leader was there, and the APs were there, and the office elders were there. And it was a big thing. Like it was, it was a huge reception when I got there. They were coming in from something. And Elder Matthews said, “Hey, you got to get to work. Elder Thompson, your companion, is right over here, but you got to get to work on your new calling.” And I said, “Well, I've got this lady, I want to tell you about the sister I just met on the, on the train. She's completely golden." He goes, “Great, give me the referral.”  And I said, “No, I can't do that because she's got this weird premonition that I'll never see her or whatever. And she's golden and I really want to teach her.” And he said, “That is not what you are supposed to be doing right now. Just give it to me.” And so I gave it and I said, “You guys promise.”  And he said, “Elder Kap, we're very good at this, you know, I'll write it down.”

And then I disappeared into the maelstrom that was the office and the reason that I had been called. About two weeks later, I saw Elder Matthews and Elder Koch walking through the office. And I said, “Hey, can you guys tell me about what happened with her?” And they said, “Who is that?” And I said, “I gave you the little paper with the telephone number and everything. And I taught her the first and second discussions on the train.” And they said, “Yeah, we lost that. We don't, we don't know. Yeah, we never found her. I was devastated.”

Dean Clement (48:50.553)

Oh man, yeah that is tough.

Jason Kap (48:53.662)

I spent the rest of my time in Dresden, every street corner, every time I was on the marketplace looking around, seeing if I couldn't maybe spot her.

Dean Clement (49:06.364)

So you come into the office and without the financial experience, so how was that baptism by fire?

Jason Kap (49:18.49)

Just before my mission I had run a nature center, so I was the coordinator, which meant that I did really basic bookkeeping using a computer. When I say basic, that word is not small enough. But really basic bookkeeping and some light management, scheduling and whatever. And so I thought, oh, I've got this. And I pulled down the manual. (The church has a manual for everything.) And I had learned, because I wasn't a well-trained missionary--read everything they give you, and you can kind of fake it till you make it. So they had this “bookkeeping in the church” manual. And I sat down and I read it, and it only took about 15 minutes, which was not comforting, because that didn't feel like nearly enough information. And then I met with the president and I said, “What's wrong?” And he said, “We have rent that hasn't been paid in a few areas. We have missionaries who haven't been receiving their monthly money, or they haven't received their reimbursements for travel in a couple of months and they're out of money, they've used all their safety money.” he said, “we have other missionaries who've received too much money and we don't know which is which.” The Davises had been the first secretary and financial secretary and executive secretary. And they had left the office pristine, like everything was completely in order. And then the next group that came in, I guess just got overwhelmed by it all. And I immediately saw some of the problems because the church's manual talked about using checks, and they didn't really use checks in Germany. The church did, but most people didn't. So you're immediately at odds with the way the church wants it done and the way that, the way that society works. Plus, you're in the middle of all these Western banks that have moved in, and the Eastern banks are still figuring out what they're doing. 

So I sat down and I pulled a check voucher (because I knew what a check voucher was) I pulled the check voucher and I looked in the ledger and the check voucher, which had been written, and you could see that it had been sent, the check had been sent, was not recorded in the ledger. And then I looked at a reimbursement for travel from another missionary, and I couldn't tell if it was paid or not paid. And so I went to President Paul and I said, “I'm gonna write everybody a check for like 300 marks, and I'm just gonna send it to them. And then over the course of the next couple of months, we'll just reconcile and figure out who owes us and who we owe.” And he said, “Okay, do it.” And I said, “Okay, how much money do I have in the bank?” And he said, “I don't know.” But he took me to the Telex machine. And he said, “This is a Telex machine. Do you know how to use a Telex machine?” And I said, “I don't even know what a Telex machine is.” And he said, “Well, it's a private telegram machine. And we had used telegrams from the post office, so I knew what a telegram was. I said, “OK.” And he said, “This is how you reach the area office in West Germany, and you can order money.” So I sat down and I typed out a thing. And I said, “Well, how are they going to know who I am?” And he looked at me and he kind of laughed. He said, “Elder Kap, everybody knows who you are.” I said, “Oh, OK.” 

And so I sat down and I wrote a thing. And I said, “I need approximately $40,000” or something like that. I said. “I need this much money deposited in my account. I'm going to write checks to all the missionaries.” And I got a Telex back. You know, you hear it go--it's a dot matrix printer. You know, you hear it going off in the other room. And I went in and I got it. And it said, “Message received, money will be there tomorrow.” And I was like, “Wow, OK.”

So we did that, we got cash flowing. And after we got the cash flowing, I decided one day that I needed my own computer. Elder Thompson had a computer because he was the executive secretary, but I didn't have a computer. And I was doing everything by hand and a typewriter. And they gave me an assistant. They said, While you are you digging out you can have an assistant. So an elder was called to be my assistant. 

And he said, “You can use any of the office elders at any time to do anything you need to do.” And so I started by flowing two sets of books. (This is probably way more detail than you want.) But we created a bunch of innovations in digging ourselves out. I bought a computer for the office. When the church auditor came, he said, he said, “You can only have one computer in the mission. You have a second one. You violated church policy.” And I said, “No, I haven't.” He said, “What do you mean?” And I pulled out the church's handbook to accounting. And I said, “It says right here,” and he had quoted the section on capital equipment that only one computer could be charged to that account. And I said, “Right, that's why I didn't charge it to that account.” And I flipped to the back where it had “other” expenses or something like that, some general category. And I said, “I put it here.” He was like, “OK.” 

But, you know, it was, it was a fabulous, fascinating experience to try two archaeological expeditions to try to figure out who owed who what, and then we flowed these books, the one electronic book and then one, a handbook every day, and then we reconciled them at night, and then we created all the paperwork to fit it together if anything didn't fit. 

And, but President Paul told me early on, he said, “Elder Kapp, I want you to check on all the rents.” And I said, “They're paid. I paid them a couple days ago.” He said, “I'm feeling like you really need to check on the rents.” And I said, “I will do that, but I have this covered President Paul.” And,  I think it was maybe two weeks later, we got a telegram from Wolgast that they were kicking the missionaries out of the apartment because of unpaid rent. I didn't have that apartment on my list and I just blew it. He was inspired and I just blew it. 

And we had some other things happen. At some point I realized that I could electronically transfer money instead of shipping these checks, because we had a couple incidents where the mail stopped, because of railroad strikes, and we would load up the mission bus and the APs, and we would go on this route where we actually would go to like Zwickau, and the missionaries would come into Zwickau. And then either myself and my companion, Elder Thompson, or one of the APs would give them cash. And so we were sending tens of thousands of dollars in cash all around the mission a couple times. That didn't seem very smart. So we actually got it so that we could transfer money electronically using a disk. We put it on a disk, take it to the bank, and they would transfer it into savings accounts, passbook savings accounts. And then missionaries could show up at any Dresdner Bank, give them their passbook, and then it would record their additional deposits and they could withdraw cash. That became standard, I guess, in other missions after we piloted that. But it was just a really interesting time. I was there for nine months.

Dean Clement (57:07.456)

So, when did you leave Dresden? What month was that?

Jason Kap (57:14.018)

I left July 23rd, so...

Dean Clement (57:17.912)

1991? Okay.

Jason Kap (57:19.702)

 So I had trained the Elder Sorensen from Annaberg days, had come back into the office. He was going to be one of the financial secretaries. And then Elder Carter was going to be the other financial secretary because they were splitting the missions. And so I stayed a little longer to train both sets of those guys to send them where they needed to go. Elder Thompson left me about two months before I left.

Dean Clement (57:51.088)

So it's really interesting that you described that accounting system and the way that it ended up going to what it was. I arrived in the mission in July of 1991, and one of the things I remember was them giving us a Sparbuch, and that this is how you're going to get your money. And so that's really fascinating to me to hear that that's how it all went down. Because I remember getting this book and I'm thinking, this is like magic. I go in there, they run it through their little thing. It prints out on the savings book, 300 marks, I get my cash, I walk out easy as pie. I had no idea of all the pain and suffering that went into getting it that way.

Jason Kap (58:32.87)

Oh, yeah, it was, it was pure inspiration. Like there, I take no, no credit whatsoever. I don't think any of us took credit for that. That was just, one day I saw somebody using one of those, those Sparbucher and The bank kept giving me too much cash, like hundreds of extra marks every time I withdrew cash. And I kept taking it back. And the manager one day pulled me in the back of the branch, and he said, “I need you to stop bringing this money back.” And I said, “Why?” And he said, “It really messes with the counter staff. They don't like it when you bring it back.” I said, “I can't keep it. I'm a missionary.” And they said, “Well, give it to somebody.” And I said, “That doesn't work either.” And he said, “Well, why do you need all this cash?” And I said, “Because I've got all these missionaries everywhere, and I can't send them checks. And, we went through it, and he goes, “Well, why don't you transfer it electronically? And I said, “Because they don't actually have”--I don't remember. Anyway, for some reason, that didn't make sense to me. Anyway, we worked that out that day.

Dean Clement (59:38.236)

That's really cool. So you're in Dresden nine months, and you were swamped for a good portion of that time with the financial stuff. Did you ever have opportunities to get out and get some fresh air and teach some people?

Jason Kap (59:53.994)

Yeah, so I was only really completely underwater for maybe four months. And then it became a much more regular office missionary. You work in the office, you go out at night, and you proselyte and teach and find and stuff. Yeah, it worked much better. In fact, Elder Thompson and I, that was one of the other sort of spiritual experiences. I just had all these spiritual experiences on my mission that taught me how much God loves me, and if I would just pay attention, things will go better. And we go visit this family, we're going to teach, they were Russians, which really almost the only non-Germans that I ever taught. And we were leaving, and Elder Thompson and I were fighting. We were fighting about something so important that I can, I cannot tell you what it was. Like, I mean, I have no idea what it was. It was, must have been completely trivial. But we walk out the door into the hallway in the apartment building. And I I hear a voice in my head, or I, whatever, this message appears and says, “You need to drive.” And I thought, well, I'm not going to drive because Elder Thompson has the keys in his pocket. I don't want to talk to him. And so we walk down the stairs, and it comes again very distinctly. And I think, Yep, nope, keys are still in Elder Thompson's pocket. And I loved Elder Thompson then, and I love Elder Thompson now. So I'm not sure what my problem was. But I was like, “Nope, not going to talk to him.” We walk out across the parking lot, we get to the bus, and it comes a third time. “Nope.” I get in my side. We leave, we drive out. We are in an enormous wreck, completely totals the bus. The police are completely amazed that neither of us are injured. 

After the crash, when we're still in the front, you know, and I look over at him to see if he's alive or okay. It was icy. It was icy cobblestones. It wasn't driving badly. It was just icy cobblestones. And we hit a streetcar track and we just lost control. And I said, “Are you okay? And he just looked at me kind of a little bit shocked. And I said, “Are you OK?” And he said, “I'm OK.” He said, “I knew you were supposed to drive, but I didn't want to tell you that.” 

So then the police come. We go over and we call President Paul and the police come. And the police come and they are amazed. And they're also completely harassing us and giving us a really hard time. And we're just standing next to this bus. It's like, 10 at night, it's snowing. And then the Omni, the President Paul car pulls up. And he gets out. And one of the policemen, they both look over when he, pulls up. And one of the policemen actually turns and holds out his hand towards President Paul. And he puts his other hand like he's protecting us. President Paul walks right by him. And the other policeman actually gets in the way between President Paul and us, and President Paul just sidesteps him and just walks straight towards us. And both the policemen are just standing there. And President Paul says, “I have this.” And they get in their car and they leave. And, and Elder Thompson and I are pretty sure that we're not going to survive this experience, right? And President Paul says, “Are you OK?" And we said, “Yes.” And he says, “OK, you'll have to wait for the wrecker to come. And he gets in his car and he drives away. And so the wrecker comes and they pull it up onto the bed of this truck. And we get to the office and all the office elders are there. The zone leaders are there, everybody. APs are there. And Elder Richard Finder is singing this song, and he's dancing around. And Elder Hamilton has a video camcorder kind of thing that he brought from the United States. And so one of the elders is like interviewing like, “And earlier this evening, a tragic accident happened,” and filming it for Elder Hamilton. And Elder Finder is singing and dancing while they drop what's left of the bus in the parking lot. And I walked over to Elder Finder and I said, “What are you singing?” And he said, “Oh, I'm singing for joy because earlier today, I damaged the bus. And I hadn't told anybody yet. And President Paul told us two weeks ago that if the next person who damaged any of the vehicles was going home and now it's you guys and not me!”

So we had a super sleepless night. We go in, super nervous the next morning, into President Paul's office. And he's writing something with his pen. (He has beautiful handwriting.) And he makes us wait. And then when he's done, he sets the pen down, he looks up and he says, “Good morning, Elders.” We say, “Good morning, President Paul.” And he says, Oh, Elder Thompson, I need you to order a new mission bus today.” He says, “OK.” That's it. And then picks up his pen and goes back to writing something. And I said, “Don't you wanna say anything else?” And he says, “Do I need to?” We said, “No.” He says, “Okay.” So that was it.

Dean Clement (01:05:34.224)

Oh, that's great. Oh boy. So, nine months in Dresden. Anything else you want to tell us about Dresden?

Jason Kap (01:05:42.636)

No.

Dean Clement (01:05:45.424)

Where did you go next?

Jason Kap (01:05:48.302)

I love President Powell. He became, for me--my dad, of course, wasn't active in the church--and President Paul actually filled in that role for me when I served with him. And he has since ever since: somebody older in the church who knows a lot about the church, cares a lot about the church. And so I was really, really fortunate to work with him. 

President Meisner got into the office and immediately disliked me. And I’m pretty sure that the feeling was mutual. So he sent me to Schwarzenberg, which was far away from the mission office. I think what he did is he thought, “Where's the furthest place away from me? Okay, it's Schwarzenberg.” He sent me to Schwarzenberg, and then he remembered there was somewhere further, Plauen, and he sent me to Plauen after that. 

So Schwarzenberg. I'm in Schwarzenberg for just under three months. I'm serving with Kelly Hansen, a gifted pianist, really gifted in the gospel, just a great mission companion. But because of the two accidents--so after the first accident, my hands would go numb quite often. And it could become very painful to walk. And I did anyway, because I was 21 years old, and that's just what you do. But the second accident had aggravated all of that again. And so we ended up having to go to Erlebrunn, I think, which was a big orthopedic hospital just south of Schwarzenberg, and they tried to help me out. I got some other treatment from a member of the ward there who was a physical therapist. So physically it was a very uncomfortable time, but being anywhere near the Abish family, which the generations of Abishes really were the backbone of the Schwarzenberg branch, was something to behold.

And Lothar Abish, who was the Baumeister of the temple, He had their house every Sunday. Anybody who came from anywhere, visitors, friends, investigators, people traveling through, were all invited to the Abish house with the missionaries for Abendessen. And those are some of the happiest times of my life, just being in that little overcrowded house. (It wasn't the house was little, it was just so many people fit into such a small space.) And that actually became a pattern for when I met my wife, I told her all about this and, or how we've tried to make our house into the Abish house ever since, you know, the 30 years since then. Just it was such a profound experience. He wouldn't even ask people, he'd just walk up to our investigators or random people who came to church and say, “So we're going to be eating at this time at my house. Here's the address. I will see you there.” And they would come.

Dean Clement (01:08:48.5)

Some people have that gift. So you're in Schwarzenberg for, it sounds like, about three months. Anything else happen there of note?

Jason Kap (01:09:02.678)

I think Kelley Hansen talked about when the apartment next door, the Ausländerheim was attacked. So that happened there. I was in Potsdam, in Leest, I was attacked three times in Leest. In Potsdam, I was actually assaulted by a former member of the church. We didn't find out until the third time that it was a former member of the church. And the first time was really the only true assault. President Paul came to the district meeting, and he said, “Elder Kapp has been beaten for the gospel, and he joys in it. May all of you have such joy.” So I remember, I was like, “I don't feel that joyful. I'm not really, that's not my experience.” But he's like, “And he joys in it.” I'm like, “OK, I guess I, I freud mich, you know, I guess I freue mich.” So I was afraid of something like that happening again, when that happened in Schwarzenberg. 

And then in Aua we were trying to open Aue, and I think Elder Ogden and Elder Brinton were called to go to Aue, and they stayed in our one-room apartment. But we were trying to find an apartment up there, and we were led astray. People sent postcards saying that there was an apartment available. We went up there and it wasn't there. And we encountered quite a lot of hate trying to rent for the church in Aue. So I guess that's the only other thing in Schwarzenberg. By then, the tides had really turned.

Dean Clement (01:10:33.884)

And then after Schwarzenberg you went to Plauen.

Jason Kap (01:10:38.33)

Plauen, yeah. I was with Elder Pearson. And Elder Pearson and I, we had not that much success in Plauen. We did have this investigator who'd worked at Bielefeld, the chemical plant at Bielefeld, and he was quite sickly, and we really enjoyed working with him. He ended up not joining the church. But it was there for him that I ended up stealing a Bible, (I’m telling you all my bad things that I did while I was on my mission.) The mission kept books of Mormon and Bibles in all of the church houses. And they belonged to the mission. They were in the library. And when you had an investigator, you'd get one of those and you'd give it to them. And then you'd order a replacement from the mission office, and it would come on the train and you'd put it back and you'd have however many. So we were meeting with the bishop. And I told the bishop that our, our investigator who was going to be baptized, we were telling him about he was going to be baptized, he really wanted a Bible. And so I was going to take one of the ones from the, from the library and I was going to give it to him. And he said, “You can't.” And I said, “Why?” And he said, well, “Because,” then I said, “Why? You have four.” And he said, “Yes, and if you take one, I'll only have three.” And I said, “Well, but I mean, they have dust on them. They haven't been used in a long time. I mean, this is what they're for. I'm gonna take one and give it to him.” He said, “No, you're not. You'll just have to wait for one to come from Dresden.” And I said, “But it's gonna be on the train tomorrow.” He said, Elder Kap, I have told you, no.” I said, “Okay.” So we got done with the meeting. I went and I took the Bible. Elder Pearson was horrified. And I gave it to our investigator and I was good with it. And then came the next day and I put it back in there, and so we're like 18 hours without a Bible and I put it back in there. 

And maybe three weeks later, Elder Neuenschwander of the area presidency shows up in Plauen and he's there to dedicate the building. And he comes and we've been told to meet him there. And Elder Pearson introduces himself. And I said, “I'm Elder Kap.” He says, “Elder Kap, the one who took the Bible.” I said, “The Bible?” And he says, “Oh, the bishop has told me about it and so has your mission president." I said, “So my giving of a Bible to an investigator has reached the area presidency? I'm delighted.” And he just chuckled and I said, “Can I explain?” And he said, “No. I think I understand what happened.” That was that.

Dean Clement (01:13:44.355)

Thank you.

Jason Kap (01:13:54.948)

Things not to do again.

Dean Clement (01:13:58.704)

So how long did you end up being in Plauen? 

Jason Kap (01:14:51.05)

Yeah, so I was there for 3 months, and then I got transferred to Borna. So Elder Ramsey and I are in the apartment together, and my transfer papers say, “Jason Ramsey,” and there's a cross through it, and it says “Kap” written over “Ramsey”. And his said, “Jason Kap”. I guess he had been previously in Borna or Groitzsch (they're the same ward, different towns).  And there was a reason why it was just best he didn't go back, I guess. So he went to serve in Leipzig, and I went to Borna for a month with Elder Cooper. And that's where I met Walter Boehme. 

I don't know if you ever were privileged enough to know to “Uncle Walt”, but he was a fantastic ward mission leader. I mean, just in general, I'm, especially this last week, having gone back through my mission boxes for the first time since 1992, I'm overwhelmed by how much energy the members put into the missionaries, the letters they would write from previous areas, the mementos they would give you. I remember a lot of the sacrifices they made. And my current calling is for missionaries in the stake. And I've had that calling for almost six years now. And I actually model a lot of what I do on Walter Boehme. He was all about, do you have a plan? Are you spiritually prepared? What, you know, are you culturally prepared? Do you, are you working hard? What can I do? Anytime we needed him to do anything, he would get involved and go with us--like anytime at all. And he was a ways away. The members spent all kinds of money on those cars that they had waited 15 years to get. And they drove the wheels off helping out the missionaries. And Uncle Walt, as I affectionately called him, was chief among them. So that was, that was by far for me the best part of, of going to Groitzsch. 

We lived in a bombed out building. The building actually been damaged in the Second World War, and the church had, presumably on the cheap, gotten the top one of the two, there were two apartments on each floor, fifth floor, top apartment, left-hand side, and built it out beautifully. It was really nice inside. It had one of those showers that stand in the kitchen that you plug in and you, so you know that you're standing on an electrical hot plate while you're taking a shower. But it was really nice. The toilet was down the steps, and you kept a bucket of water to pour in after your using the toilet. But the whole building was damaged. And so you came in and you went up the steps and the apartments had the doors off the hinges and were dark inside. It was super spooky. And it was winter, so it was cold and a lot of fog from the open pit mine and just generally a lot of smog there. So we'd go and we'd hide in that little apartment. And we had one of those coal ovens, the tile ones that take up a whole wall. And we could never get it warm in there. We could occasionally get the cold oven to be sort of warm to the touch, but the apartment was freezing cold. But otherwise it was a great place to serve, great ward, a lot of activity.

Dean Clement (01:19:02.069)

Now did you go anywhere else or was that your last area?

Jason Kap (01:19:05.534)

That was my last area. That was also sort of my last miracle. President Pinegar was the MTC president when I was there and he told us, I think on the first day we arrived, that we should pray during our missions, that we would know at the end if we'd served a good mission and my whole mission long, I felt like I was just so underprepared and never, never wielding the sword of Laban like my companions were. And so I worked really hard. So I had prayed every day, every day for 700 and you know, however many days are in, in two years that I would know. And I had two wishes at the end.

I wished that I would be able to go home with my travel companion, who was Elder Crittenden, because we were friends and had never been stationed together. But I knew enough about how transfers worked. And I knew where Elder Crittenden was and where I was and how the train lines ran. And I just knew that we were never gonna go home together. That's just not how that worked. 

So they installed a telephone in our apartment a week before we're done. The first telephone call I get is from the mission office. It's Elder Williams. And he says, “Elder Kap, I have your transfer plans for going home.” I said, “Okay.” And he says, “You are going to drive the car to Mittweida where you will connect with Elder Crittenden and you will travel together to the Leipzig Bahnhof and you will be travel companions going home. And I thought this is a miracle of miracles.

And I'm going to go home with Elder Crittenden, who was also actually from my high school, not my class, but my high school. And so we lived, you know, we lived not very far apart. And so that was just a miracle. And then on the drive with Elder Crittenden, I had the experience that I had hoped to have, that it was enough. And then that was when I was released. I was released on the way to, I mean, not really, but...on the way to Dresden, I felt the exact moment when my proselyting mission was over.

Dean Clement (01:21:37.348)

Is there anything else you want to tell us about what it felt like to go home? Those last few days.

Jason Kap (01:21:54.554)

When I left for the MTC, I didn't actually think I was going home. That sounds really depressed, but I don't mean it that way. I just didn't see how that was going to end. I had not really planned for what was going to happen after my mission, because I didn't really think that I'd lived that long or whatever. I just was very in the moment. And so it was, those last few days were really difficult because I was now

not worried about missionary work, I was worried about something else, and I hadn't really done anything to prepare for the something else.

Dean Clement (01:22:36.964)

What do you feel was the biggest culture shock that you experienced?

Jason Kap (01:23:07.17)

When we got there, you know, they, people left their babies in baby carriages outside the stores. And they just left them with the babies in them. And they would just go in the store. I was perplexed by that, until I realized that the crimes that were committed were committed by the government, they weren't committed by anybody else. And then, you know, when we saw this country that was really beat up infrastructure-wise and these people who were beaten down, and then we saw all the promise of the West come in and all of the newer cars and you could buy Coca-Cola in the shopping center and there was a lot more colorful clothing. And then all the men sort of over the age of 25 to 50 left and went west to try and find more jobs. And after a while, then people started saying, “Let us go back, it would be better to eat bread in the Pharaoh's house than to die here on the plains of Canaan.” And they started telling this revisionist history about the DDR. And so to see that whole arc and the pornography that came in, it was everywhere: at these these magazine shops outside, you know, they hang all these incredibly graphic covers of these things out so you couldn't look anywhere near them. And people would take those covers and they paste them up on the pillars, you know, where you put the announcement, To see the arc of that people and how they went from one sorrow to another was a lot. It was a very exciting time to be there, but it was tough.

Dean Clement (01:25:00.898)

What other changes do you recall from the time you were there, from beginning to end?

Jason Kap (01:25:12.722)

When I got there, the saints, they were, the members of the church, they were miracle believing people. And even amongst the Germans that we taught who had not been raised in the faith, they were willing to believe, if they were willing to believe there was a God and talk to you, their ability to exercise faith was and see miracles from it.

Elder Pobantz and I saw that just my very first month, this child was healed. I don't know how that happened. Well, I do know how that happened, but for a non-believing person, it doesn't make sense how that happened. I saw that faith really corroded by the end. It was much harder. They'd held on so long and so hard, and then it seems to have been beat up. Not all of them--there are still among them, some of the most faithful people that I know today that some of the most faithful people on earth, but generally there had become a real loss of faith.

Dean Clement (01:26:25.476)

You mentioned an assault that you experienced. Is there any detail you wanna give on that?

Jason Kap (01:26:36.282)

It was the second time I actually learned about mission rules, Elder Hightower and I had brought an entire case of Books of Mormon from Leest and we brought an easel and some other things and we were gonna have a big Ausstellung there. And we didn't have any tape to hold the poster up, and I said to Elder Hightower, “Why don't you go in that stationary store right over there and get some tape?" And he said, “Well, then we'll be separated.” And I said, “No, it's OK, because I can see you right through the door. So it's almost like being together.” And he's like, “OK.” And so he walks in the door. And it's a top to bottom glass door. And as the glass door swings shut, just as it gets shut, is when the fist comes across my face. And the guy starts beating me up just the moment my companion was gone. And I stood up and I surprised him because I'd been sitting with all the things. I stood up and shocked him to death, because I was a lot bigger than he thought I was going to be. And, but he still kind of went at it. And he was howling about his wife and the church and, and God and, and some other people kind of gathered around and, and they were trying to figure out what to do with him. And then Elder Hightower came back, and Mark's not a small guy either. And Mark came over, he said, “What's going on?” And I said, “This guy's been hitting me.” And he said, “Why?” And I said, “I don't know.” And, and the guy ran off. He ripped my tag. I guess he hadn't been trying to punch me. He did punch me, but he wasn't trying to punch me. He'd been trying to reach for my tag. And he ripped it off, and he tore it in half. So I picked up the pieces from it. And then, you know, we went on with our day. And we saw him a few days later, and he tried to tackle me, ran into me. And then the third time we saw him coming down the street. And I yelled at him and I said, “I'm not going to be kind this time!” And he stopped when he got there. He didn't touch me that time

Dean Clement (01:28:55.066)

Again, you mentioned this was a former member of the Church?

Jason Kap (01:28:59.574)

That's what he said. No one knew who he was. He was unknown to us.

Dean Clement (01:29:30.588)

How about was there an experience that you had with food that was difficult to stomach?

Jason Kap (01:29:40.942)

So we went to an apartment. We went to a member's house. Four Annaberg elders fit in. Jason Russell and myself, both very tall men, and Paul Sorensen, all big men, and then Elder Van Orden, who's normal size, fit into a member's Trabant. And they took us through the city to their house. And when we got there, they had both Kloesse and boiled potatoes. And Elder Russell says to me, “I hate potatoes.” And I said, “Okay.” So we eat the potatoes. I noticed he’s not eating his potatoes very much, right? He turns to me and he says, “I hate potatoes.” I said, “You gotta eat them, Elder. There's just, there's no choice. You gotta eat them.” 

You know, the members would bring like things that they had saved up from Christmases, just all these really important things to them. And they just put it on the table for the elders. They just watch you eat it. Sister Liebsch in Zwickau would go every morning and get hot rolls at the baker and bring them back so that Elder Pobantz and I could have hot rolls every morning. And she would get, and then she'd give us this Nutella that she'd bought at the hard currency store. I had no idea what, like the level of gifting that was going on there when it happened. 

But anyway, so Elder Russell manages to clean his plate of his potatoes. He doesn't look like he feels very well. He turns to me to say, in English, “That was very hard.”

And the member says to me, “What, what did he say?” And I said, “He's asking if there's any more potatoes.” And she says, “Oh, yes.” She takes the boiled potatoes, she ladles more potatoes on his plate. And he says something to the effect of “I hate you.” And I said, “I'm sure there's even more when you finish that,” in German. And so anyway, he eats the potatoes. And so at our mission reunion--it's been like 10 years since we've all been home--he walks into the gym in Provo or wherever we are, and I see him and I just stretch out my arms to give him a big hug and he stops before he hugs me and he says, “You made me eat the potatoes.” I instantly knew what story he was talking about. We hadn't talked in 10 years. I'm like, “Yeah, not sorry.”

Dean Clement (01:32:14.07)

Was there a period of time on your mission that was the most difficult for you personally?

Jason Kap (01:32:23.506)

When I reached Annaberg, there were some splits and an elder came from somewhere else. And we were doing doors. And a man, who had been a member of the Communist Party, had broke down at the door, and was very upset about the loss of his country and his people and everything. And this elder said, “Oh, you were a member of the Communist Party? You must have a Communist Party pin?” And he said, “Yes, I'm going to give it to my son.” And he said, “Why don't you just give it to me since the party is gone?” It was just a boneheaded thing that the elder did because he was 21 years old or whatever. But I was really offended. I was deeply offended. And I was, and I, and I'm an empath, more than I would like to be. And I could feel just how much sorrow this guy had. And it upset me. And I still had numb arms from the traffic from the car accident. And so I wrote President Paul a letter, and I said, “President Paul, due to circumstances that have occurred so far in my mission, I'm going home.” And I said, “We can go ahead and just keep it at the next transfer date. I will be arriving in Dresden. If you could arrange kindly for a ticket home, I would appreciate it,” like just very matter-of-fact, completely, completely inflexible. And Elder Cowley ended up needing to go to the office to talk about a medical issue. And so President Paul, I didn't know, had received my letter. He said, “Bring Elder Kap with you when you come to Dresden.” And so we went and Elder Cowley talked to him. And then I talked to him. And he said, “I got your letter.” And I said, “Oh, good, then I'm going to go home.” And he said, “No, you're not.” And we had a long talk about it. And anyway, he said, “I want you to commit right now that no matter what happens, no matter how bad it gets, you're going to complete this mission, because this is where you need to be.” And I did. And I never ever even had the thought of going home again after that, even as I said earlier, right up until suddenly I was going home, because it was over. 

But yeah, I was in a lot of physical and some emotional pain at that point. I also had an undiagnosed anxiety condition, which became worse later in life. And fortunately, I've had a decade now where that hasn't been a problem. But we didn't talk a lot about mental health in the church or anywhere then. And so I had a pretty significant generalized anxiety disorder, which made life hard.

Dean Clement (00:03.136)

What moment would you say or period of time in your mission was the absolute highest?

Jason Kap (00:13.582)

That is a tough question, not for lack of choices, more of an embarrassment of riches sort of thing. I think that for me, I'm not sure I can pick out just one. I enjoyed the work very much. I enjoyed contacting. I thought it was fun to go out and try to help people to, you know, see why they want to talk with us. And succeeding in the office, getting from this swell of things that didn't work to things that did was also really satisfying.

Dean Clement (01:08.656)

Okay, thank you. Are there any conversion stories that stand out in your memory that you'd like to share?

Jason Kap (01:18.238)

In that first area with Elder Pobanz, we met a family: mom, dad, daughter, son, and they were completely ready for the gospel of Jesus Christ. They progressed very quickly. They had a really sophisticated understanding. They came to a moment of doubt and we were there. We came over one night and they had doubts that really seemed to us to come as a surprise. And the little boy, Thomas, was very sick. He had a very high fever. And they kind of explained their concerns and they said, “You probably need to leave because Thomas is very sick.” And we said, “We'd be happy to leave. But Elder Pobanz said, “Could we offer a priesthood blessing before we go?

And they asked what that was and he explained it to them. And so we gave Thomas a blessing. I kid you not in five minutes he was sitting up and playing with some toys and in 10 minutes he was running around the room. It's completely fine. And Elder Pobanz did a great job of explaining.  I was

three weeks in at this point, barely understanding the German and the Saechsisch and explaining how that came to be and why that happened and how it had nothing to do at all with us. And they were baptized and it was great to see them. 

In the same city, there's a guy by the name of Sven. And we met with Sven the first time. He worked at the Trabant factory. And we met him the first time and he got the Book of Mormon. And Elder Pobanz wrote the scriptures he wanted him to read in the front, 3rd Nephi, Moroni 10, and probably one or two others. And we came back the day after the next day, I think, and Sven started talking about Alma and Mosiah and who was this King Benjamin, and we came only after 2-3 days later. He was a wonderful, wonderful conversion story. 

There were two sets of friends in Dresden similarly, Jana and Connie and Marion and I am blanking on Marion's friend. Also they were brought by members to the church, they were friends with some teenage members and they came and they learned and had really hard questions. They were extremely bright, and they had lots and lots of questions about what the gospel was and why they were children of God instead of citizens of the nation. And they joined just a lot of very, very powerful witnesses of watching the Spirit work on people. They would feel the Spirit. We would try to identify that was the spirit. And then they would go off and do all this work and then come back with some hard questions and we'd sort of fumble through their questions and the spirit would then be present. We'd identify the spirit, they'd go off and do a bunch of work and answer their own questions. And that pattern repeated itself throughout the mission.

Dean Clement (05:11.353)

Thank you very much for that.

Dean Clement (05:16.372)

So you've been home now 31 years, 30, almost 32 years. In that time, what has life been like for you?

Jason Kap (05:32.346)

Um, I've led an unexpected life. So I, was going to be a doctor when I went on my mission. I was finishing my pre-med and, um, I had more experiences with East German medicine than I wanted. I discovered I didn't like that. I came back and said to myself, “How can I graduate in a year?” ‘Cause that would put me at the four year mark. So I got a degree in English and German. And I worked for the president of the university. He'd heard me give a talk about East Germany and he invited me to work for him. And I ended up working for a marketing firm and now I own my own consulting firm. Now I went to work for Microsoft after the marketing firm. I worked there for a long time. That was a great ride. 

I got sick. I nearly died. I didn't die. My wife said, “Is this what you want to do with the rest of your life?” And I thought, no, not really. And so I got a fellowship in Boston. So we moved our family across the country and did a fellowship for a year and we stayed for another year. And we met all these incredible people: Clayton Christensen, the guy who wrote the Innovators Dilemma was my home teacher in Boston and my next door neighbor and the substitute grandfather for my kids. And the president of the university that I'd worked for from Weber State, actually was now part of the Temple presidency there and he was in our ward and we got to spend a lot of time with him and his wife and his family. And so somewhere along the way, I met and married this wonderful woman who was not a member when we met. And she joined the church.  You would never know that she was not born into the church. And we have five children. They range in age from 24 to 12. We have a bunch of birthdays in December and January. So we're about to roll four of the five of those over in age, but I've had a great career and I've had a lot of opportunities in the church to serve in lots of different ways.

My favorite is as a Sunday school teacher, gospel doctrine, but I've had other opportunities. Just an unexpected life, lots of incredible things. When President Hinckley became the president of the church, he said that every good thing that had happened in his life had happened because of his mission. And I heard him say that and I thought, that's a nice thing. I'm not sure that's really true, but that's a nice thing.

And while you're going forward, you can't always see the path that you've taken very clearly. But if you take a moment and turn around and look backwards, it's kind of easy to connect the dots. And I've maintained for at least 20 years that every good thing that's happened in my life has happened as a result of making the decision to go on a mission and the various events and education and people I met through that. But most importantly, because of my testimony that was gained that way. So I now no longer doubt President Hinckley, but join him in that thought.

Dean Clement (09:10.877)

Jason, is there anything else that you'd like to say? Any last words for us about your mission and how it's impacted you?

Jason Kap (09:25.838)

The two major ways that my mission have impacted me every day: One, is you have no idea where someone has been or where someone is gonna go. You only know them for a moment in time. And that long view has allowed me to, I think, really get close to people I wouldn't otherwise get close to. And that has allowed me to give folks a pass, including one for myself, because it's not about what right now is, it's about the long game. So I think that's the first way. 

And the other way is I worry an awful lot about authoritarian governments. I know it's kind of an odd thing, but I worry about it all the time. People tell me that we should have a government that does this or that, and I think to myself, well, I've seen what it's like to give that kind of authority to just one body and that doesn't really work out all that well. And I'm very far from a conspiracy theorist or a winger of either end, but I do have a pretty healthy skepticism of government can solve problems. I think government can solve big problems fairly well. They're really good at highways, good at defense, they're good at banking systems. I don't think they're very good at individual problems. I think that really comes down to a few people on the ground working with a few other people on the ground to solve those problems.