July 28, 2014 - Jaén, Espana

Hola todos!!

Well, it´s been another fast week as usual. It´s getting super hot here. I think I mentioned it last week or the week before, but it is normally 95 degrees at 10:30 an night here. Whew! Doesn´t seem to ever cool off but we are alive so it´s a miracle, haha.

Dani came to church again this week! Every week he seems to pay more and more attention to the lessons and the talks. We are excited for him. He is still a little hesitant on the whole baptism but he reads what we tell him to and is praying and coming to church, so it will happen. We love seeing his progression.

A member in our ward, Rafa, gave an excellent talk. He talked about afflictions and how everyone passes througfour them and how nobody ever thinks they are prepared for them. He talked about the Spain soccer team. Before the World Cup their heads were a little high and everyone thought they were going to win including themselves. Well as you all know, they didn´t win a single game. There was an interview with one of the head trainers and he said that it is when everything goes wrong that you see the real man for who he truly is. I loved that. It´s true...when we go through trials, our real self comes out. Something to think about.

Yesterday we had breakfast at the church. Us four missionaries got there before church started and made pancakes and ate them before the meetings. Perfect way to start a Sunday.

This week we have splits and I get to go back to Dos Hermanas!!! I´m super excited. Just to be back in that area again...it´s like going home!

Everything else is going great. I´m becoming a lemon bar queen here. I made them one time and now practically every time we go to someone´s house to eat, they ask me to make them. I guess it´s my new calling in life :)

Well, I hope everyone is doing well and you all enjoy the last week of July as we move on into August. Thanks for everything and talk to you next week!

Hermana Kunz

 

This week, it´s just food, haha...

This tortilla de patata is famous in the whole mission made by this lovely woman, Capilla

This chicken is just about the most delicious chicken in the whole world.

July 21, 2014 - Jaén, Espana

Hello all!

This week went way too fast. It was a great and a busy one. To start things off, I ate snails!!!! It was interesting. They weren´t too bad though. The family gave us a cup full of them in their shells and you just had to slurp them out of there!  The secret to eating them was not looking at their little face before slurping. 

Boubou unfortunately can´t get baptized right now. Because of his family and him being Muslim, he can´t do it. But he said he wants to in the future when there aren´t problems. He will definitely be baptized some day. He is progressing a lot and is gaining a testimony of Christ. It´s cool to see him progress through it all.

We had an awesome lesson with Dani this week. We talked about the need for the Atonement in everyone´s life and he asked the perfect question. ¨How can I use the Atonement right now in my life?¨ Ding ding ding!!!! After that question, the Spirit was strong and it took us through the whole lesson. It´s so crazy to think of him when we first started meeting with him and looking at him now. I will be honest, the first couple times we met with him, I gave up hope, but he is doing so stinking well now. Just shows that you never know and we can never give up with these people. It´s a slow process with Dani, but he is moving forward.

We also had a good lesson with the Cruz family. They are inactive in the Ward and the dad never listens to us. This time, we taught the 10 commandments to the kids with fun hand signals and we made the dad read the commandments. Well, afterwards when we were just talking, he kept the Book of Mormon and was reading from it the whole time we were talking. Hermana Volpe and I were just smiling at each other the whole time. It was awesome.

Let´s see what else...two of the new investigators we found this week are named Alejandra and Celia. They have lost just about every member of their family possible. Alejandra is Celia´s grandaughter and their story would have just about anybody in tears. They explained how they have lost all faith they ever had before, but that they would love to have it back again. We are excited to go back to them and teach them to help regain their faith. They are prepared.

One of the families in our ward got sealed on Saturday. The parents and five kids. Plus, another couple just had a baby! Great week in the ward of Jaén. 

Well, that´s all folks. I´m going to try to get some pics this week cause it hasn´t worked the last few weeks. Hope all is well there at home and thanks for all your support and prayers. Love you all!

Hermana Kunz

PHOTOS! For the months of June and July - Jaén, Espana

Sara´s birthday!

What us sister missionaries do ('novios' means 'grooms')

Helping painting a house...impossible to stay clean

4th of July!

A HUGE sandwich

Results of a successful talent show

Dora the Explorer with her parents (Bishop and Bishop´s wife)

Dora with the chillens

Ice cream with Sara...it´s 89 degrees here at 10 at night. Yikes!

That right - there is straight up what we ate

Yesterday we forgot that we had to wear our choir uniforms (white shirt, black skirt, and a blue scarf) so we went into the closet of the baptismal clothes in the church and threw on some man clothes and asked two guys if we could use their blue ties for scarves. The choir director wasn´t too happy, but it worked, haha.

July 14, 2014 - Jáen, Espana

What a crazy week!!! It´s gone way too fast. We went to Málaga for a zone conference and it was awesome. Fun to see a ton of missionaries. Plus I got to see Hermana Folsum! Way too long. President focused a lot on ¨Two times white.¨ Baptism and temple. It was good to hear him talk about how the temple was important too because many times, it seems like we talk only about baptism which is just the beginning.

We also had our ward talent show on Friday. Whew! I have to say, I´m not sure that I have been more stressed in my whole mission than I was for it. I think I mentioned last time that the Bishop asked me to choreograph a dance for the ward choir. I know that all you who know me and my insane skills for dancing are thinking what the heck was he thinking. I was too, but I did my best to teach them something out of this world awesome and they did a pretty dang good job. They also asked me to be Dora the Explorer for this skit. It came from a video on Youtube with Dora eating with her parents. The Bishop and his wife were my parents and I put on a wig and all sorts of songs and dances. It was kind of embarrassing, haha. Then after, all the kids wanted to take pics with ¨Dora.¨ I felt like a Disney princess. Us missionaries did a funny skit as well and ended up with ice cream and shaving cream all over us which is always fun. It was a great night. 

Dani came to the talent show and then he came to church. He seems like he is progressing so much. It´s amazing. It definitely goes up and down with him, but this week was an up week. He told people at church that he was going to continue coming every week so we are praying real hard for that.

Boubou is good too. He told us that he was going to pray about baptism which is a huge step for a Muslim. He is really feeling the Spirit though. He says that he knows that Christ died for us and that he wants to follow him.  He is so humble!

Well, that´s all I got for this week. A cool thought that I read in a talk was that no matter what religion we are, be it Mormon, Catholic, Buddist, whatever, when we see Christ on the other side after this life, we will all be simply children of God and nothing else. I love the sound of that. 

Have an awesome week everyone and thanks for everything.

Hermana Kunz

July 7, 2014 - Jáen, Espana

Hello everyone!

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Here it was awesome. Hermana Volpe and I dressed in all red, white, and blue and celebrated to the max. We made real American cheeseburgers and at night since we couldn´t see fireworks, we burnt a few things on the roof. I had to give her somewhat of an American holiday. It was awesome. We had a great 4th.

The new investigator Boubou from last Sunday is doing awesome. He is already doing missionary work. He brought one of his friends with him to our lesson and told us that he wanted other people to hear us. It complicates things a lot, the fact that he is Muslim, and it is quite dangerous for him to be learning from us, but we are trying to figure it all out. He really has such great desires to learn about Christ. He came to church and met more people so he is feeling comfortable. We are really excited. He just keeps telling us that he wants to learn more about Christ. We´re doing our best! His friend Dani is really awesome too. He didn´t come to church but we had a good lesson on the Plan of Salvation with him. Hopefully we can get him next Sunday.

This week will be busy. We have to go to Málaga on Wednesday and Thursday for a zone conference and then on Friday we have a ward talent show. We are helping a lot with it. Our ward choir wanted help with the dance because they don´t know what the songs are saying in English, so it´s been fun working with them. I´m telling you, we have the greatest ward in the world here. Hermana Volpe and I are always so grateful to be with them.

Well that´s about all this week. Hope everyone is doing great and I´m so grateful for this time I have out here. It truly is life changing. Thanks for everything and we´ll talk to you next week!

Hermana Kunz