Lyon, France

Monday, March 3, 2014

Dearest family and friends,

Every six weeks there comes something in missionary life that we call transfers.  Transfers, depending on what happens, can be a very bittersweet experience.  I was called to serve in Lyon, in the Ecully ward with Elder Taylor.  The bitter part is having to say goodbye to all of the investigators, members and missionaries that I have grown to know and love.  The sweet part is that I get to discover a new city, meet awesome new french members and learn from a new mission companion.  I just arrived in Lyon, and I'm loving it so far.  My companion is a stud from Bountiful, Utah.  He's a lacrosse player, and we've beening hit it off so far.  He also served with Elder Uluave, one of my favorite comps.

Saying goodbye to Nice was tough.  The French Riviera was paradise.  The ward was epic.  The work was stellar.  Elder Behling and I spent the majority of this last weekend with some of the members that I got especially close to.  We also had some great teaching experiences.

One of the coolest miracles happened exactly a week ago.  It being the final P-Day of the transfer, and my companion and I not having gone to visit Monaco together, we decided to take an afternoon tour of Monaco.  In the principality of Monaco, no proselyting is allowed and we actually have to take off our plaques when we get into the country.  After walking along the port with the yacht clubs, we were heading up the hill towards the Casino Royale, we ran into a familiar face!  It was Stella!  Remember the German woman to whom we gave the German Book of Mormon for Christmas?!  We had lost contact with her and hadn't seen her in forever!  It was really a miracle.  We come to find out that she is living in Monaco and that she is filthy rich.  We ended up spending the next couple hours with her, as she gave us a tour of the Casino, the Opera House, the Hotel de Paris, the park and mall.  She had known that she was going to run into us again and to her, it was a sign from the heavens.  We took the opportunity to teach her a little bit more about the church and the Book of Mormon, which she had been reading a bit from.  It was an amazing experience.  I don't know when the circumstances of her life will be right for her to accept the fulness of the gospel, but I know that it will happen one day.

Saying goodbye to Kisky was difficult.  He was honestly one of the most amazing people that I have been able to teach on my mission.  I will always remember some of the experiences that we have had together.  Our last few lessons were powerful ones.  In the final lesson with him, we did a bit of review on the Great Apostasy and the Restoration of the Priesthood Authority.  Towards the end of the lesson, I had the impression that we needed to show him a clip from the Doctrine and Covenants films of the church which talks about the conversion story of Wilford Woodruff.  There wasn't a whole lot of time left in the lesson and Kisky said that we would have time to watch it next time.  I told him that I felt impressed to show it then.  We watched it and it was PERFECT.  It included some of the scriptures that we had been discussing in the lesson and the story of Wilford was very similar to Kisky's in many ways.  I know that Kisky will be baptized one day.  He fears making the covenant of baptism and then finding out about something in the church that he doesn't agree with and having to go back to the drawing board.  But I know that God will show him that the Book of Mormon and church are true.  He already has an excellent testimony.

Many other amazing experiences took place this last week and it feels a bit weird talking about what took place in Nice from Lyon, I feel like it was forever ago.  But NO, it wasn't.

The mission is the best.  The Lord sends us where he knows he needs us.  He watches over all of his sheep (including his missionaries) with diligence.  I look forward to serving in Lyon and to the experiences that await here.

God speed!

Avec amour,

ELDER KUNZLER

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