are You really there

Good, good morning. I'm up before the sun can break. Ha that's a song and its taking me back a few years thinking about it. Sure do love remembering! Life is good. Life's simple pleasures are great. I love it!

So you guys sound like you're pretty well into winter already! Has it really been in the 20s at night?!? Geeze man. Its been way way way cooler here, which is basically a gift from heaven for me. I love it. Just the feeling of Fall puts a little spring in my step. I don't know why but there is something about Fall that just makes me feel so good. Brisk temperatures, changing leaves, it seems a have a LOT of fond memories from the Fall time of year. So good. The only drawback as a missionary is that now we have to start wearing suitcoats again, once the weather gets colder. Darn.

The week has been good. Well actually its been extreme. Extremely good and extremely bad. But it ended toward the good side of the spectrum. That's always nice. I feel good today. That is a blessing. Its seems that back around Tuesday or Wednesday I fell in some kind of hole. It was almost like I voluntarily walked into it. Not quite, but I was definitely in more than a rut. I felt teeerrrrrible. I decided I needed to study about Faith and Hope. So I read about them in PMG and said to myself, Wow, I have none of either of those. That's a great feeling to have as a missionary (NOT!). I don't know how I got into this state of mind, but I sure was there, and it sure was awful. I don't remember exactly how I got out of it, but over the next couple of days, I did. I kept studying faith and hope, and that definitely helped. Read Ether 12 and Alma 32 WITH A PURPOSE and that really made a difference. I also finally came up with some other things to do to fill our free time throughout the day. We still are struggling to find investigators, so we're just not doing a lot of teaching and thats been really getting to me. Like WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING!? So it helped to kinda balance out our activities a bit. At any rate, I did eventually find myself delivered from stupid hole I was sitting in. Its so strange that we find ourselves in places like that from time to time, but it seems that in time (patience) we get out of it, and it helps us to remember to do a few important things we may have been forgetting about. Isn't that nice.

So Saturday night...we taught. Like we really taught! TEACHING! Not just a message we shared with someone or even teaching a lesson to a person. We taught somebody. We had a lesson that really brought someone closer to Christ. We were prepared. They had questions and concerns. We addressed them. We helped them to understand. We asked them questions. Meaningful ones. They thought about them. We committed them to DO some things. It was absolutely great. I felt like I hadn't done it in SO long. You can feel it when you do something like that. My brain is challenged. I have to search. Its more than just recitations of knowledge and explanations. There's something more when the person you are teaching is really listening to you and you find yourself really caring about them and wanting to help them to grasp and understand what you are saying because you can so plainly see that they need to so extremely badly. For some reason this doesn't happen with everyone we work with. Some people's hearts are not open. Some people don't seem to care. Some folks get it easily and you don't have to put so much or your heart and soul into it. Whatever the case may be, IT FELT SO GOOD to teach someone like this. Challenging. And from our preparations and the thoughts I had while doing so, I knew we taught them what they needed. And oh how wonderful it is to perhaps have been an instrument in the Lord's hands. I'm sure we do little things day by day for the Lord (at least I sure do hope we are!), but man, it feels like we haven't seen many direct fruits of our labors for a while. So yes, it felt good.

It was a part-member/less active family, the wife of whom is the non-member, who has been gone all summer. She was always friendly toward the church, but I don't know how much intention she's had of ever joining. Honestly I'm not sure if what we taught will change that in particular (for now), but I know it will make her think. Consider her ways. It was a good lesson. About the gospel of Jesus Christ. She comes from the former Soviet Union, so her knowledge of Jesus Christ is definitely shaky at best. Anyway, this was such a fantastic blessing to just teach one really great lesson again. Again, felt like it had been so long! We usually end of teaching a little every day, but most of it is to members because were doing this thing with all the members right now, and we just share the same message with everyone we visit. So its not the same.

Okay, that's that. Last night we had dinner with this couple who lives down in Milford pretty much right on the beach. Its a cozy little place. It was really really nice. Simple humble circumstances. It felt good. It was warm, nothing fancy, they're really good people, and we enjoyed a wonderful meal. Nothing special I guess, but I just loved the feeling of it all. There was a happy spirit. There are so many of these little things in life that can be enjoyed. That add to the experience of it all and can bring us joy. We helped the husband give the wife a blessing before we left, and that was very nice as well. Its a hard thing to explain, just the simple goodness and happy feeling of something as simple as this evening, but I know it comes from the Spirit of the Lord. The Holy Ghost. Unity is what comes to my mind right now. When we are all united in the same common goals, desires, hopes, etc, I suppose we just get along better. It makes things easier. It makes them nice. Happy.

After dinner Elder Miller and I walked over to the sand and looked out at the Long Island Sound. Small waves moving up the beach, with a coat of white on the tips. I marveled at how amazing the earth is. Just to look out into to sea, feel the wind on our faces, and really just admire it all. How perfect everything works together. The rhythm of things, the patterns, the order. The laws that all things are governed by. As the scriptures say, all these things really do show us that there is a God. A creator. A creation of things. I love it! As I stood on the beach for a few moments there, it just felt good to be alive. I felt so grateful. For so many things. Again, its a hard thing to explain, but I think we've all had similar feelings at some point in time. The beauty of the earth and the wisdom of our God.

Church yesterday was great. I love church. It seems church is always good. I was reading back on the journal I started keeping since the day I decided to go on a mission, and I commented on how much I loved church. How it was what I looked forward to all week. The best 3 hours of my week! I had an excellent student ward, so that helps, but still, gathering with the saints is great. And it is what we make it, so we ought to make it good.

The gospel is true my friends. Its hard to grasp, but it sure is the truth. God's got a plan, He's got it all figured out. Just takes a little trust on our part. Seek not to council the Lord! He gives us what we need. What he gives us what will make us happy. He know us and wants to bless us. Obedience is what brings blessings. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. Its so amazing and beautiful. Its perfect. There is so much goodness to be found in it. In its principles. In the scriptures. I've found so many times the scriptures to deliver me from sorrows. Its all here for us if we will just accept the gift. I love you and hope we will all accept the gift. Have a lovely day.

Love Elder Kunz