Letter received May 23, 2014

Parentals!
Well here we go with transfer #8!  My new companion is the awesome Elder Grubbe (pronounced Grub).  He's from the Portland area of the great state of Oregon.  He's been out for a year and a half and is a great missionary!  Going to be an awesome transfer!  Life has been good here in C-Ville.  Lots of crazy thunderstorms lately.  Lots of rain and wind.  We had a tree blow over at the church.  Luckily not on the church.  We've been running around seeing a lot of the members getting Elder Grubbe introduced.  Also, I started reading through the Book of Mormon for this transfer.  It'll be great!  It was a great first week.  Lots of running around as I said before and with our investigators it paid off because we had 5 investigators at church.  So awesome!  Hopefully more next week :)  Elder Grubbe is a great guy.  We're working really well together which is good.  Oh ya, forgot to mention we pitched the old 2010 Corolla that was 10,000 miles overdue for being sold and got a sweet 2014 Chevy Cruse.  Great car.  Nice and clean.  Drives well :)  So one thing I wanted to mention since I'm starting the Book of Mormon is how we should approach reading the word of God.  We can't just read it and we can't just study it.  Reading is just going through the text.  Studying is reading with a question in mind.  What we should really be doing is having what is called a revelatory experience.  A revelatory experience is having a two way communication with God as we read so that we can better understand what He wants us to get out of reading.  There are 2 questions we should ask after each page read in the Book of Mormon.  Does this bring me closer to God and could any man alone have written this book without divine help?  When we come to know that the Book of Mormon is true and that it is the word of God it does three things.  The Book of Mormon confirms to us that Jesus is the Christ, that the Bible is the word of God, and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God.  It's wonderful!  There is a great passage that can help with this in Alma 32:26-33 which says - "26:  Now, as I said concerning faith - that is was not a perfect knowledge - even so it is with my words.  Ye cannot know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a perfect knowledge.  27:  But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.  28:  Now, we will compare the word unto a seed.  Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves - It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.  29:  Now behold, would not this increase your faith?  I say unto you, Yea; nevertheless it hath not grown up to a perfect knowledge.  30:  But behold, as the seed swelleth, and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, then you must needs say that the seed is good; for behold it swelleth, and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow.  And now, behold, will not this strengthen your faith?  Yea, it will strengthen your faith:  for ye will say I know that this is a good seed; for behold it sprouteth and beginneth to grow.  31:  And now, behold, are ye sure that this is a good seed?  I say unto you, Yea; for every seed bringeth forth unto its own likeness.  32:  Therefore, if a seed groweth it is good, but if it groweth not, behold it is not good, therefore it is cast away.  33:  And now, behold, because ye have tried the experiment, and planted the seed, and it swelleth and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, ye must needs know that the seed is good."  This is all we do as missionaries.  We invite people to experiment with what we teach and share with them.  Anyone who reads this should do the same.  In order to receive an answer though we need to be willing to act on it and allow that tree to grow and be willing to make whatever changes are necessary to apply this to our lives.  Well I'm going to get this in the mail.  If anyone has any questions or would like to chat - email me at conner.gunnoe@myldsmail.net.  I love you!  Happy Bird Day mom!
Mucho Love,
Elder Gunnoe

From our email today - May 5, 2014

So we were out working yesterday, workin on hitting our 20 lessons, and we were deciding what potentials to go see since we had about an hour and a half left in the day so we decided what order we would go in and we chose a particular family first.  So we went to their house and talked with the wife on the porch and set an appointment for Wednesday but her husband came and saw us and said let em in!  So we went in and talked with them and they said they had talked with missionaries about 3 years ago and were close to getting baptized but the missionaries got transferred and the new ones didn't go back so they didn't get baptized obviously...so now we're going to teach their whole family and all 6 of them are baptism eligible!! :)  so wonderful!!