June 24, 2013 - San Fernando, Espana

Hola todos!

Wow, this week was quite the ride! Where to start... Well first off, Hermana Cerna and I made brownies. Holy smokes yes that´s right brownies! American brownies. They were soooooo good. We made them for a member...even though we ended up eating a lot of them haha. It was great.

Alright if you want to know the saddest, cutest love story on the planet, stay tuned. There is a couple in our ward named Raquel and Abraham. Abraham was on a mission in London when Raquel found out she had cancer and didn´t have much longer to live. Abraham came home from his mission early to marry her in the temple so they could be sure to be with each other for eternity. The doctors are telling her she has around 3 months left to live. On Friday she had an operation done and she isn´t doing to well. They had to cut a lot of muscles because of the size of the tumor. It is so sad. We went over to her house this past week and their house was super awesome. It had Harry Potter stuff everywhere just like a brand new couple. She is my age and she is amazing. They are by far the cutest couple I have ever seen. It is so sad to watch them have to go through it though. Keep her in your prayers. She needs it.

Hermana Stark´s companion in Cadiz had to go to Malaga to do some residency stuff so Hermana Cerna and I went to Cadiz for two days to work with Hermana Stark. It was super awesome to work with Hermana Stark again. I miss that girl. It was quite the day. We first went to this lady who is almost deaf. They would talk to her and she always say, ¨What?!?!¨ Over and over and over. Haha, as most of you can imagine, once I would speak, that wasn´t a problem. By the end, Hermana Stark just told me to say everything because I was the only one she could hear. It was awesome.

Then the scariest experience happened to me!! We went to a woman´s house named Dolores. She seemed very normal when we first got there. Then she gave us a little tour of her house and that´s when things got a little weird. We looked in one room and it had candles and the Book of Mormon in the middle. Then once we started talking to her about the gospel, she would stop us right in the middle of our sentence and start talking to the air. She was saying things like, ¨Please don´t punish these girls, they are good and bring a nice message.¨Then at one point she got up and was speaking super fast to the air about something. Then she sat back down and was still speaking to who knows what. She opened her eyes really fast like in the scary movies, looked straight at me and says, ¨You have two brothers.¨ At that point I was already scared. I tried to continue to talk to her about prophets and then she cuts me off again and says,¨You are waiting for a letter from someone you truly love.¨ At that point, I just wanted to die. I tried one last time to continue with the lesson and she said, ¨You don´t want to know your future?¨I said NO and closed the lesson and we practically ran out of there. Pretty scary I have to say. I´m trying to forget it all. But now I can offically say that I taught a witch the gospel of Jesus Christ, haha. (She is in the yellow dress in pics below.)

Let´s see what else...we have had no cold water for the past two weeks because our butano is broken and we keep trying to fix it but don´t know how, and we never have any time to figure it out. I´m thinking about just not showering anymore. It is so cold.

We ate at a member´s house in Cadiz for lunch and I´m pretty sure I have NEVER in my whole life eaten that much. She just kept bring more food and more food. It was ridiculous. Every time she would bring something else, I would just look at Hermana Stark with huge eyes and she would laugh. I couldn´t eat anything for the rest of the day. I have never felt that way in my whole life and I hope to never feel that way again. Whew!

We also had a Stake barbecue. Nothing like the states, but it was still really good. Met some great people. Met some people from Switzerland and they were very excited to hear I was from there. We had lots to talk about.

Alright well hope I didn´t bore you! How could I have with the witch story. Yikes!!! Thanks to all of you and love you all! Hope all is well!

Hermana Kunz

June 17, 2013 - San Fernando, Spain

Hola todos!

Well first week of training down! Going to Malaga was awesome. We got to stay in the mission home which is the nicest place I´ve pretty much ever seen in my whole life. We had a great training with the President and his wife. They are the most amazing people. Our mission is so lucky to have them. Then we got our kids! And holy smokes, I got a native. I´m not quite sure what President was thinking haha. There were many hermanas who speak much better Spanish than I do! But inspiration is inspiration I guess. Her name is Hermana Cerna. She is from Peru, but has lived in Madrid for the past 7 years. She is great. She knows a lot about the gospel and I can learn a lot from her. The Lord has definitely been helping me with the language. I´m surprised I have gotten this far with her being able to understand me haha. She has a lot of patience that´s for sure. She actually sprained her ankle so we had to stay inside all of Saturday, but it was actually a blessing because we really got to know each other and it was wonderful. I loved every minute of it. I also sort of made chocolate chip cookies for us. She couldn´t put any pressure on her foot so I got to do everything. I actually loved it! I cooked for us, got her whatever she needed, it was awesome. It made me excited to have kids and take care of them when they´re sick haha.

Everything else is great here! Just living the missionary life! It´s a great learning experience. Training is quite the ride. But I really like it. It helps when I have a great person to train too.

Sorry this email isn´t super long! But thanks to everyone for everything and hope all you fathers had a great father´s day. Hasta luego!

Hermana Kunz

Hermana Kunz and her new companion Hermana Cerna in San Fernando, Spain

Best district ever!

Sloppy freaking joes...yummmmmmm!!!!!

I made a sorta cookie!

June 10, 2013 - San Fernando, Espana

Hola todos!

Well it has been quite a week. It is transfer time so I guess I will just start with that new news. To start off, I don´t know if you all remember me at the beginning saying that I told President Deere about how my mom always use to tell me the saying I CAN DO HARD THINGS and then I got put into two areas at once. Well I think he might have taken that saying a little too literally. I got a call from President and he goes, ¨Hermana Kunz, I have quite a challenge for you. You will be training this transfer.¨ I´m sorry what?!?! So yes, I will be training a new hermana. I don´t know who she is yet. Tomorrow I leave for Malaga and will stay the night at the mission home where we will have a training. Then on Wednesday, I will pick her up and we will come back to San Fernando. I am definitely nervous. The training program takes 12 weeks and I haven´t even been here 12 weeks! Whew, but I am putting my trust in the Lord on this one. I am reminded of two quotes in the Joseph Smith movie. ¨The Lord calls us in our weakness, but qulaifies us for our work.¨ And, ¨The Lord takes raw material and shapes and refines them.¨Something like that. I always talk about how I need to have more trust in the Lord...well now is a great time for that haha. I will definitely need His help on this one. I can do it though. We are going to rock it!!!

Haha that was kind of the main news event of the week. We had a really good ward council meeting. It was actually with 2 wards. They want to build a stake center here but don´t have the numbers for it. So there was a big meeting and about two seconds before it started, the coordinator guy comes up to me and asked me to give a spiritual thought. I had to think quick! But it was good practice.

We have a new investigator who is the mother of a recent convert here in the ward. We went over to her house for the first time, she opens up the door, gasps, grabs my cheeks just like in the movies and kept saying oh how beautiful oh how beautiful! She hadn´t said anything else...she said that and right after asks if I had a boyfriend. Haha she will be fun to teach.

One thing that is super hard here is not being able to hold kids!!! One of the families here has 4 cute kids and the little boy Albero kept trying to jump up in my arms the other day, but I couldn´t pick him up! Then he started screaming and crying and it was just awful. I couldn´t hold him! I wanted to so bad. Gah that will be a challenge the whole mission haha.

Today is the last P day with the district here so we are all hanging out at the church. We made a lot of pizza, played games, and just chilled. It has been great. I will definitely miss this district. They have been so awesome! Well I think that´s it folks. Next time I write, I will have a new companion! Pretty crazy! I hope I can take this whole city under my belt. With the Lord´s help, of course I can. Here we go!

Thanks to all!

Hermana Kunz

June 3, 2013 - San Fernando, Espana

Yet another week on the mission! This week was a bit of a challange...in a good way of course. We had a lot of great lessons set up, but most of them fired on us and we ended up doing a lot of tracting. One thing I am grateful for however is that I am in a hard area to start with. This way, if I go to another area like Malaga or Sevilla where they are running from lesson to lesson and have baptisms every weekend, it will be awesome. But we met a lot of great people and taught a lot of great truths. One thing that is a little sketchy tracting and being a girl is that it is hard to decide who to talk to. Many of the guys we talk to will just invite us to come home with them. One guy practically proposed to me saying we could get married. Oh boy. Definitely have some good stories from experiences like that, haha.

Yesterday, we were coming home from a lesson of an inactive member and we soon found out that it was a very big holiday here for the Catholic church. We were literally stuck in a mob of Catholics. It was crazy. There were so many people, we could barely move. And there was a parade going on where they were carrying big statues of Mary so we couldn´t get through. We were trying all sorts of different streets but there were too many people. Haha you should have seen the looks we were getting as missionaries. Whew! Quite an experience.

Also last night, we were walking down the street and found a box of 3 baby kittens just laying in the middle of the street. They were the size of little rats. I picked them up and they couldn´t even open their eyes yet they were so little. What was I suppose to do, leave them?!?! My comp said we had to go and had to leave them, but I couldn´t! I agreed to leave them until we were done with our lesson with the next person, but that we had to come back to see if they were still there. After, they were gone. Not sure if I´m happy or sad about it. They were super cute though.

My birthday was great. My comp got sick, so she slept the whole morning which left me, my music, and some good studying. I couldn´t have asked for a better morning. I got some studying done that I had been wanting to do for a long time. It was perfect. Then we went to a lesson and taught the mother of a new member, and guess what she had??? Hampsters...which are very close to rats. That was one of the best birthday presents of all. To be able to hold them. It was so awesome. I also had a lot of phone calls from everyone throughout the day which was great. My zone leader, who doesn´t speak any English, sang to me in English. Haha best thing ever. The bishop invited us over for lunch and then he told us to come back later for churros and chocolate. It is something very typical of Spain and oh boy was it delicious. Then at the end of the night, we went home, and opened up presents. Just so everyone knows, my parents are the absolute best. They got me a Lord of the Rings keychain. I wanted to cry. I got some other awesome stuff and thank everyone for the gifts and cards I recieved. I am so lucky to have all of you. Also the day after, my district decided to take me out to lunch and my district leader made me a cake and they all sang to me. It was so awesome. Good birthday!

We have the best Bishop ever. My comp said that he only had them over every couple weeks before, but I don´t know what she is talking about because we have gone over at least once a week for lunch...sometimes two. And like I said before, he had us come over twice on my birthday. He and his family are just over the top. They own a bakery and every Sunday, he brings fresh bread for the whole ward! Crazy right! Oh man he is just the best. We are so lucky.

Well, I think that is it for this week. It was a great week. This is the last week before transfers. I will be staying here for sure. President said he is going to have people stay in their areas for at least 6 months so that members can get to know us and trust us. But I´m ok with that because I love the ward here and from what I hear, there aren´t wards quite like this in Spain.

Thanks again for all the birthday love this past week! Love you all and appreciate everything! Hope all is well and talk to you next week! Hermana Kunz