September 15, 2014 - Jaén, Espana

Hello all!

Well I am going to be honest, I have been dreading writing this email. I´m not quite sure what to say in it. This last week has been great. I will start off with the great things. 

I had splits with Hermana Cameron and it was so much fun to be together once again. We went on a really long run in the morning all around Jaén, and it was a perfect way to spend one of my last mornings there. Running through those streets thinking of all the wonderful memories there and what a special home it has been.

We also had a wedding this week with some investigators that have been waiting for about 2 years now for their papers to get married so they can get baptized. Well it finally happened and they got married. It was so fun to be there for them and to see how happy they were. They will be baptized next month which is something they have been looking forward to for a loooooong time. Miracles happening I´ll tell ya!

The rest of the week has been full of goodbyes...and hard ones. Yesterday in Sacrament it was awful! I gave a talk and it was so hard to look out at all those people who have become my family and think that I might not see some of them ever again. It is awful! At the end, they all stood up and we sang God Be With You Till We Meet Again. Whew, that one sent me over the edge! It was all so perfect. Now we have a couple more people to see before I leave on Wednesday. This ward has been such a blessing. I have had so many good experiences with them. I have had good experiences with all the people in Spain in the areas I have served in. I have been so blessed to be with all of them. They have given me the testimony that the Lord really does send you where you need to go on a mission and to the people who will help you most to grow. The people here in Spain have helped me in ways they will never know and I will forever be grateful to them for it. I wish I could put them all in my bag and take them back with me! It´s interesting because for members of a ward, missionaries come and go and it is normal for them. But for us missionaries, our wards in which we serve in become our families and our homes. It is so hard to leave these people who have made such a difference in my life in such a big way.

Well, I just want to thank you all for everything. Really thank you all for your prayers and your support. Coming on a mission has been the biggest blessing in the world. My love for the gospel has grown in ways I never knew were possible. My testimony of Christ and all he has done has increased because of the little tender mercies that the Lord has shown me during this year and a half. He is so mindful of every single one of us and wants us to be happy so bad. I am so grateful for the love that He has for all of us and how often He shows it. I look forward to continually grow in the gospel and use all the the Lord has taught me here to continue on. Gah, I don´t want to end this email, but I will leave it at that. Just know that I love this gospel and all it has to offer for families and I know that it has a power that will bring true happiness. I´m so grateful for the blessing I have had to serve the people in Spain and for the many, many, many blessings the Lord has given me here with people, experiences, miracles, everything. The mission is amazing! Thank you all for everything, and I love you!!!!

Hermana Kunz

Hermana Cameron and I once again in action!

My beautiful Jaén and I!

Luis and Ester who got married :)

My sis Sara and I

Love Jaén!

Hermana Fumero and I :)

Virginia. Greatest girl in the world!

The Cruz family. Definitely will miss them.

September 8, 2014 - Jaén, Espana

Hello todos!

Another great week here in the beautiful city of Jaén. Feeling more and more like a home Ward every week. This week we had to help the Elders a lot with moving. They are moving apartments and well, they are boys and have no idea how to properly clean or organize a new apartment so we had to add some womanly touch.

We had a great Family Home Evening with Antonia in the house of Manolo and Elisa. I´ll tell you what, this woman is going to get baptized soon. I haven´t talked about her in a while but she is the one whose husband got baptized 30 years ago and she has been investigating on and off ever since. Well about a month back, we got her to get into the habit of reading the Book of Mormon with her husband and her daughter, who is also baptized, as a family and then pray afterward all together. You wouldn´t believe the difference. She has been coming to church every week and participating in the lessons. It is incredible progress. In the Family Home Evening, we talked about eternal families and the temple and we invited her to prepare to go to the temple. Of course baptism came up, but we more focused on how her goal should be going to the temple to be with her family and how baptism is just a part of getting to the temple. It was a great lesson. She is close. I haven´t seen her this close yet so we are very excited. The day they go to the temple as a family and get sealed will be a party in the heavens!

Dani is going well too. He comes to almost all the activities including ones with the Stake and is getting to know a lot more young people in the church. He is doing awesome.

This week we have splits with the Sister Training Leaders, and guess who is coming to Jaén to be with me!!! Hermana Cameron!!!! Once again we can be together. I haven´t really seen her and talked to her for a year ever since I was training her in Elche so we are beyond excited to work together again for two days.

I have to give a talk next week in church again. I just gave one I feel like! Time goes too fast. Well that´s about it for this week. Hope everyone is doing well and I love and appreciate you all! Thanks for everything!

Hermana Kunz

September 1, 2014 - Jaén, Espana

Hola todos!!!

Well, smarty pants me forgot my agenda to remind me what to say so we´ll see how this turns out. This week was great though. We´ll start off with something funny...

The Elders had splits this week with the Zone Leaders and so we decided to play a little joke on Elder Easton. Juan Rubio is a guy in our Ward that was baptized a couple of years ago. Before getting baptized, he was a drug lord. He has tattoes everywhere, bald, and is a huge guy. He is quite scary to tell you the truth. So we talked it over the night before, and on Friday we told Elder Easton we had to go up the hill from the church to meet for a lesson, all four of us. We are walking up and Juan comes out from the car and goes to Elder Easton asking for money. Elder Easton says no and Juan Rubio looks at him for a long time with a look that makes you want to shake. Juan asks him if his parents have money and then points to a tattoo on his arm and says, ¨ You know who this is...it´s Satan.¨ At this point Elder Easton wanted to die. Juan plays around with him a little more and asks for his name tag and Elder Easton tries to give him a mormon.org card. His hand was trembling passing it over. Juan looks at it and says,¨ Oh you are Mormon...I am too! I´ve been to the temple and all. And guess what, these three and I are playing a joke on you.¨ It was awesome. Elder Easton took a little bit to believe him and to realize that it really was a joke. It was perfect.

So anyway, Dani is going so great. Haha, he came up to us on Tuesday in our lesson and was asking us all sorts of church history because he has gotten into watching church movies. We didn´t know much so he felt like the king of the world. He just keeps opening up and opening up. Sometimes I think it´s all part of a crazy dream.

Saturday night was awesome. Our last lesson of the night was with a family that we found the week before. The mom´s name is Eva and she has a son and a niece that live with her. The niece and her friends had come to a few activities we had this week and on Saturday, the Elders gave Eva and her two year old son a blessing because they aren´t doing too well with their health. It was really cool to be there. Especially for the little boy. There is a strong spirit when a blessing is being given to a little child for health. She really loved it. After the blessing, a couple of her friends showed up and we asked if they wanted to join in on a lesson we were going to give. Turns out that the husband had been baptized when he was younger and use to go out with the missionaries. It was a perfect tender mercy to end the week.

We also found a woman in a cute town outside of Jaén that was baptized in 1995 that didn´t know where the church was and we are going to start teaching her again.

So like I said, great week this week. The Lord is really blessing us big time. Alright, well shoot I can´t think of anything more. Sorry I forgot my agenda. Hope everyone has a fantastic week and love you all! Thanks for everything.

Hermana Kunz

Couple pics from the cathedral today: