August 26, 2013 - Elche, Spain

Hola todos!!

Well, we had our week of miracles...that´s what the mission called it. Last email I think I mentioned how as a mission, we had a goal of 555 new investigators. Well, they counted it up last night and the final total was...558!!! Holy cow, it was crazy. This is the first time this has ever happened in the history of the Málaga, Spain mission. Maybe for other missions, this number would be child´s play for a week, but for here, this is an enormous number. Truly a miracle. After experiencing this, nobody here can deny that the Lord didn´t have His hand in it. Super awesome!

One guy we found is named Kley. He was a reference of a member named Alexandra. We went over there and talked about how families can be together forever. We then asked if we could come back and he said yes. That night, I was talking to one of the Elders and he was asking about our new investigators and I mentioned Kley. Elder Webb didn´t believe me. He kept telling me that he knew I was joking. Turns out, many missionaries had tried talking to Kley but he wouldn´t let anybody say anything to him. He is a very strong Catholic and didn´t want anything to do with us. So the fact that he listened to us was a true miracle. Really awesome.

And a miracle with Gracia. We taught her about faith, repentance, baptism, and the Holy Ghost and we invited her to baptism. She was a little thrown off and said it was way too early for that. We invited her to a baptism that went on last night and she came and after, we asked her how she felt. We asked her if she could see it sometime in her future. She explained how she had butterflies in her stomach the whole time and she said that she knew it would be in her future. She just doesn´t want to rush it. Words can not describe what emotions came over me. It was so cool! It´s cool to think that we started teaching her a little after we got here and she is progressing! She is bettering her life for Christ. That is what a mission is all about! It´s a great feeling.

Another cool miracle was we went to visit a reference we had and nobody was home. It was an apartment complex so there were many different places in there. Because it was a reference we had no clue what this guy looked like...only that his name was Diego. So nobody was home. We looked in the distance and saw a man with his son walking down the street and we decided to wait and contact him and then leave. Well, he got closer and closer and then he came right to the door we were at. We asked him his name and he said Diego!!! Now you tell me that in all of Elche and in all the times we could have come and it just so happened to be the same time he came home that the Lord didn´t help us out. So we talked to him for a while and then gave him a Book of Mormon. Wow, was he excited to take this book. It was so stinking cool! Gah, got to love the tender mercies of the Lord.

Well, there were many cool stories from this week, but I won´t mention all of them. The important part was that we really did see the hand of the Lord in missionary work. It was a cool week to be a part of.

That´s about it for this week! My companion is just about the coolest person on the planet earth. I wish we could spend our whole mission together as companions. We Idaho girls gotta stick together!

Thanks to everyone and love you all!

Hermana Kunz


Photos:
1. Crazy fruit here
2. One of many...
3. District party with the fireworks.
4. Little bit of Utah in Elche.
5. Big group on top of castle in Alicante
6. Queen of the world
7. Haha mother daughter pic...showing her the way hahaha...
8. Oh boy!
9. Cookies!
10. Pretty Elche at night.

August 19, 2013 - Elche, Spain

Hola todos!

Well, it´s been quite a week! First off, I know now exactly why Spain is in such a crisis with their economy. The answer is fireworks. WHEW!!!! I have never seen a firework show as I did this week. As I said in my last email, it has been festivals all week and on Tuesday was the big firework show. Oh my gosh people, this thing was insane. A member let us go on the roof of his apartment complex so we could see the whole city and I was completely blown away! Not even joking, this firework show was crazy. There were literally fireworks going off in every part of the city. Everywhere you looked were huge fireworks. Then the real show started. They set people up in all parts of the city and for an hour straight, fireworks were going off everywhere you looked all over the city. And they were fireworks that I had never seen before...they were insanely big!! One firework would go everywhere! And it was a constant flow of them. Imagine in America, the grand finale for a whole hour and that is what it was like, but times ten. All of us couldn´t believe our eyes. Then for the big finale, they turn off all the lights in the whole city and they let off what they call the palm tree. It is a GIANT firework that lights up the whole city. So stinking cool. Then everyone gathers and sings the Elche song so you can hear singing throughout the whole city. 4th of July will never be the same, haha. It was by far the coolest thing I have ever seen.

Zone conference was also this week and it was really good. President came which always makes it good. Haha, we had to leave our apartment at 5:30 in the morning to make the bus to Alicante and when we left, I turned to Hermana Cameron and said, ¨We aren´t going to see anybody this early in the morning.¨ Holy smokes, I couldn´t have been more wrong. Because of the festivals, there were a lot of parties. But they were right in the middle of the city outside on the streets! So we were walking through the streets and there were dances going on on all sides of us. 6 am and all ages were out. We even saw a dance going on in one street for people who were 70 and up! Haha, it was crazy. Lots of dances and lots of people. It was pretty cool to see the culture. Love Spain! At Zone Conference, we worked on asking inspired questions and Hermana Cameron and I were the lucky ones to practice. Holy smokes, to have President staring right at you while trying to think of inspired questions is about the most nerve racking thing in the world. But it was good practice for us.

Let´s see, what else...oh we had a cool miracle! We went to go look for a person that we contacted on the street but she wasn´t home and so we got our member list out and found a guy who nobody from the ward knew who lived in the same building. We knocked on the door and an old woman opened up. We asked for the man and she said that he recently got into an accident and had died and that she was his mother. She didn´t look good at all. She started crying and we asked if we could come in and share a quick message with her. At first she didn´t want us, but then she thought for a moment and told us to make it quick. Turns out, she was baptized over 20 years ago but went inactive and nobody knows about her. We shared a message about eternal families and it was so cool to see the knowledge come back to her. We asked her if she remembered the Plan of Salvation and she said no. Then we shared the part about where we go when we die and how we will see loved ones again. She started crying more and said that she remembers now. It was so cool! It was as if she forgot and we were just there to remind her. She told us we could come back and we´re excited about that. Truly the Lord leading us to where we needed to go.

This week is a big week for the mission. We are trying to get 555 new investigators as a mission this week. That means 7 new investigators for every companionship. CRAZY! But we are going to work hard. President prayed about it and came up with a plan for every day. If we stick to the plan, we can do it! It will be a week of miracles. It will be crazy!

Esmeralda got a blessing this week that was amazing. Felt the Spirit so strong during it. The Priesthood is so awesome! I love seeing it used. So that was a cool experience.

Well, that´s it for now. We are going to a castle in Alicante for P day. Should be great! Hope all is well with everyone and love you all!

Hermana Kunz

August 12, 2013 - Elche, Espana

Hola Todos!

Well, let´s see third week down in the transfer and all is going well. Hermana Cameron is the absolute best. I can not say enough good things about her. The Lord really blessed me to have her as a companion.

This week was good. We had some good lessons. We have one investigator that wants to get baptized but she lives with her boyfriend and has a really bad family situation. She doesn´t want to be with her boyfriend but has no place to go and they have two kids together. She loves the church though. It´s a really tough situation. We are working with her and it is cool to see her grow and love the Lord everytime she learns something new.

Gracia is good. She is on vacation now but we had the first lesson with her. It went pretty well. It´s hard to tell what she is thinking but she is great. Hermana Cameron knocked the first vision out of the park. It was awesome.

Haha, we made a conference countdown chain. 54 days right now! It´s pretty sweet...pretty proud of it. We are definitely excited.

So here in Elche it is a big time for festivals. It is pretty crazy. Last time I said there are fireworks going off everywhere all the time. Well it is getting worse everyday and tomorrow is the big day. Everyone is telling us not to go out on the streets because people just throw fireworks at everyone all day long. It´s like a big war and people come out with armor on. Crazy! One guy died last year from it. So we are waiting to hear from President if we are to go out or not. Tomorrow night at 11 is a huge firework show that is suppose to be super famous. Fun time to be here in Elche, that´s for sure.

Well, that´s it for now! Thanks for everything and love you all!

Hermana Kunz

Pics!
1 Our awesome district here in Elche
2 P-day fun in El Palmeral (groves of date palm trees) in Elche.
3 Haha BYU versus U of U...go Utes! (Elder Wiley)
5 On the way to the church...so pretty!
6 Conference countdown!
7 Haha best companion pic ever
8 All the Hermanas in Elche
9 Hermana Israelson and I
10 Super awesome food here...yummmmm
11 Church here...so pretty!

August 5, 2013 - Elche, Spain

Hola todos!

Well, second week down, and whew! That´s about all I have to say, haha. Opening a new area is hard. It´s a good challenge though. Hermana Cameron and I are learning a lot. Especially on relying on the Lord. We couldn´t do any of this without the Lord´s help, that´s for sure. It would be absolutely impossible.

Let´s see....here in Elche, this whole month is festival. So there are constant firecrackers going off everywhere and huge BOOMS everywhere you go. It sounds like the hunger games...uh oh, another one died. It´s pretty fun. But it scares me half to death every single time.

We had a miracle though! Last week a lady named Gracia came to church. It was our first time to church as well so everything was new but a member came up to me and told me that they had never seen her before. We went up to her and talked and she said she was interested so she came on her own. We wrote down her number and called and we had a lesson with her this past week. We invited her to church with us and she came. She is really looking for peace in her life and has studied with just about every church out there. I really hope we can give her the peace she is looking for. She is so great! I just hope that church wasn´t too overwhelming for her this time....some of the members opened their mouths a little too much and she looked a little scared. We´ll hope for the best.

Haha, here´s a Laura story. It was bedtime, and I turned the lights off and was going to head around the corner and turned a little too early and SMACK!!! Went right into the wall. Hermana Cameron came running cause she thought somebody broke in, she turned on the lights and there I was with blood streaming out of my nose totally dizzy. My nose was pretty swollen the next day. Haha, definitely a Laura moment.

Well, let´s see, I think that´s all for now. Everything else is good. We are walking a lot and sweating a lot. It´s SUPER humid here which is great for my hair as you can imagine, haha.

Being here has done crazy things to my testimony. Like I said before, there is no way on earth this work would be getting done without the Lord´s hand in it. It is so cool to see how much the Lord loves missionary work.

Thanks everyone for everything and hope all is well. Love you all!

Hermana Kunz