I would like to start by apologizing about the last week... I spent my entire P-Day crossing the entire country of France, so as a result I had no time to leave you any words. But yes, I have safely arrived in the city of Dijon! I was very surprised when I got this call from president... he said something like "Elder Kunzler, I'm sending you on a little secret mission over to Dijon. It is is an excellent city with a great ward, but there has just never been much that has gone on there, so I want you to go and baptize." oh and... "and yes, at the same time you will training a new missionary". New things! I am really excited about the new sector and the new responsibilities, but as you can imagine it was pretty tough to say goodbye to Bordeaux. Since I didn't get to write last week, I'll fill you in a little on the miracles that we saw my last week there and then I will introduce you to my new companion and how the work is going here in Dijon.
So last week was epic. We taught more lessons and found more investigators than we ever had in that sector. Colette, the amazing woman who came all the way from Libourne is progressing really well and reading. Ludmila started getting into the habit of praying and reading. The night after I left, the missionaries did a family home evening with her at the home of some members who originally come from Portugal, so I'm sure that this helped her to feel at home and to be able to create some more relationships with members, which is really important. The sunday was amazing, it was really hard to say goodbye, but the testimony meeting was very powerful and we all felt the love of the Lord together. I am really going to miss the members there, they are one huge family of super happy, enthousiastic disciples of Christ. Those are the kind of people that I like to be around. I love them much.
And now in Dijon! So I actually spent most of the week in Lyon, to go and pick up my bleu (greenie in French) on wednesday and then we stayed there until friday afternoon so that my companion could do his legality. I will be training Elder Powell, who is a huge quaterback from Santa Cruz, California. Seriously, his pectoralus majors are larger than my head. He didn't study any French before coming here and then only 6 weeks in the MTC, so he doesn't speak a ton of French, but he's ready to be a great missionary. He is someone with a great testimony, a great smile and great enthousiasm. We're going to have a lot of fun together this transfer. He has the the blessing of living with a Frenchman and a Dutchman at the beginning of his mission, so he's going to learn French quick.
Miracles happen in Dijon! We put in some good work together on Friday evening and the rest of the weekend and found two new investigators. We kind of had to go to the drawing board (like Elder Petek and I did with our whitewashes together in Toulouse) because the missionaries before us didn't leave a whole ton to work with. We found a 32 year old Frenchman named Bruno, who is looking for a remission of his sins, and we taught him about the joy of the Atonement. He said that he wants to be baptized without hesitation at the beginning of next month. We'll be working with him this transfer, he has already dug into the Book of Mormon and is really enjoying it. Then we are also teaching Marie-Cecile, who is an older French woman who had already met missionaries a long time ago, but had lost her Book of Mormon and was looking to refind her faith in Jesus Christ. The message of the Restoration really helps in that area! Elder Powell and I have been really blessed to be lead to these children of Heavenly Father who were spiritually thirsty and we expect to find many more this week!
Dijon is the Frenchest place that I've been on my mission. It is the furthest north that you can go in the mission, we're not super far from Switzerland, and it feels incredibly European and preserved. Bordeaux and Toulouse have been pretty modernized, but Dijon feels like your walking the streets of Enchanted Forest on your way to the little old lady who lived in a shoe. My companion is still pretty stunned, but we found a cool little American shop that sells Reeses Puffs cereal, so we're going there today to soothe him.
I love the mission! Thank you for your prayers and for your support! I know that this work is lead by divine revelation and inspiration and I know that I am supposed to be in Dijon, France with a macho man for a companion to protect me. I know that the Lord is blessing our efforts and I know that He lives. I KNOW that He lives. I love you much.
Avec amour,
Elder Kunzler
PS. My new camera is broken, so that's why you haven't been getting any pictures recently. I'll send it back to you soon. Désolé. If you want to know what my companion looks like, imagine Superman (the one who has bullets bouncing off of his eyeballs) in missionary clothing. Except twice as ripped.
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