God knows you're ready

Hiiiiiiiii everyoneeeeeeee

Well I hope I can make this a little more concise today. I just have a couple observations I guess I'd like to share.

One happened over the past few days. This "eternal investigator" called us to help do some service for him. He wants to get baptized really really really bad but he can't because of some law/court issues. He's great though, super nice Italian fella, comes to church every week, reads the scriptures, he's solid. But he does call us for service on a somewhat regular basis. Of course we are happy to do service for people, but at a certain point we gotta be smart about it and not do it all the time for the same people who just want to mooch off our goodwill.

Anyway, we went and were moving this woodchip pile around, and it occurred to me that this wasn't that big of a deal thing to do. Yes, it was helping him out, but I started thinking that this guy really just wanted someone around to talk to. To interact with. He probably didn't really really need the work done. A lot of his family lives right in the same neighborhood, but none of them are especially interested in the gospel. And I"m sure he sometimes feels like an outsider at church, even though he's become good friends with many of the people, and is an extremely outgoing and friendly person.

We ate at this members house Thursday night, and ended up having to leave a few minutes early to go visit someone they wanted us to go see. So we had to skip the message we had prepared. So we went back yesterday to share the message because it was something we needed to tell them about. Well the "mother" of this household (strange situation, not really the mother, but we'll call her the mother), would always be wanting us to sit down and talk with her. She is real nice and friendly, and seemed to really enjoy us just being there. It also occurred to me that she probably just really appreciates people who will sit and talk with her. Who will listen, tell her about things, etc. None of the kids there really respect or appreciate her much, and the "father" is always super busy. Kind of an unfortunate situation for everyone I suppose.

Anyway, between these two people I considered the role that "the Elders" often can play for people. We are of course always trying to be kind and friendly and listen to people and help them out. And that really makes a difference for many folks. We ought to all try to be aware of people out there who might just need someone to talk to. Just a little bit of attention to make them feel good about life. Someone who will listen to them for a time. This is part of the genius of home and visiting teaching. But we shouldn't limit it to that, and especially shouldn't limit it to only people in the church. We each have great power and potential to do good, and to lift people. I just wanted to throw that out there. These two people really impressed me that they just needed a friendly face around. So be the friendly face for someone. And with these two people I also saw that you really cannot judge a book by its cover. One of them would appear that he didn't need it. The other would probably have a tendency to appear that she doesn't care about you, or something. We never know what people have going on.

Okay, not sure why I got into such great detail about that. One of these same families is super loaded. One of the kids that was around, we were talking to him, and he was showing us around, and all of his stuff. He's got it all. 4 wheelers, dirt bikes, mini ramp in the basement. He gets what he wants. Totally spoiled. But this kid does not have a family. He does, but its all broken up in different parts of the country and not even close to what a family ought to be. I felt real bad for this kid (he's like 14 or 15 probably). Its amazing how the joys of family can trump all the material fluff that we can acquire in life. A positive happy family relationship and environment is such a blessing. And it seems the world values it less and less in very subtle ways. Sad huh.

So this week... I went to this stake president meeting with President Pehrson and some stake people. It was pretty cool. I love seeing the interworkings of the church. Its amazing. All about service. The role service plays in the church really is incredible. Its such a selfless thing when it comes down to it. Its beautiful. I look forward to being a part of it more when I get back. But it kinda scares me too! I'm afraid I'm going to make myself too busy. There's so many things I love to be doing, and I'll need to make sure I have time to do church stuff to ya know. Everything is balance it seems. I feel like that is one of the great lessons I've been seeing as a missionary. The importance of balance in life.

We taught this guy John again this week. New investigator guy. He is great. But we can't meet with him for two weeks too bad I'm sad. The appt we had with him, man he drilled us with every question you could come up with. But it was impressive for several reasons. One, they were all legit questions. No stupid garbage about wives or massacres or cults or strange things people say. It was all good stuff. You could tell he really put some thought and research into this all. It was really cool to see. He is very interested in how Mormons live. Less about the doctrine, and more about how we live with respect to the doctrine. We wants to know about the people. I found this impressive and have never met anyone who took this approach. He grew up catholic and he knows all about catholics (which is also very impressive because I find that most catholics don't have a clue what they "believe" in. He knows about catholicism and recognizes that its no bueno and they've kinda moved from what is supposed to be taught. And from his research he's finding that Mormonism is the closest thing he's found to his own beliefs. This guy has a year supply of food. Can you believe that? If his heart really is open, and we can see him more consistently, we could see him make some fast progress. One thing though is that he has no faith or trust in men. In man. He kinda needs something to back up what he hears. He's leary of prophets, and councils of men. He recognizes that that is how the church would be set up, but he worries about it.

Anyway, I look forward to working with this fella in the future. Besides that, we ain't got hardly no one to teach! It stinks and I think its time for a change. Reading some recent letters from someone special made me feel like I am totally lacking faith! In many aspects, and I think its time to change something. I've been trying one thing, and the fruits just aren't cutting it. Its good, it means I'm gonna be humbling myself and really relying on the Lord more for guidance and inspiration. Can't put your trust in the arm of the flesh right?! Ha. Yea, finding people to teach is tough.

Had another great training meeting on the new missionary stuff were doing, that the church is doing. I'm loving it. People are smart. But applying smart things can be hard. Especially when we lack opportunity to apply it.

Okay, well, this feels like a slightly different email than the average for some reason. Hope ya all enjoy it in some measure. Thanks for all the support from everyone. Ha, can you believe it'll be 18 months this week? It'll be cool because I"m serving with Elder Miller, who I came out with, Elder Forbes who I also came out with is in New haven, so were all gonna go out to lunch on Wednesday. Fun fun!

Love love love.

Elder Kunz