Email received February 23, 2015

What a week this has been!! Monday we had our zone fun day which consisted of painting a "We Believe" sign, playing some chair soccer, and then going to take a tour at Jungle Jims!! Ate a larvae, some dragon fruit, super good pineapple, and some other foreign fruits.. good stuff!! Tuesday we were out working and we found a 93 year old woman that we're teaching now!! She's so awesome :) Super funny and quite hard of hearing.. hooray for a well projected voice! We also found a micronesian family that we'll be working with now as well which will be a little harder because there's a bit of a language barrier.. But it'll work out :) Wednesday was district meeting which went well and a scattered day of work.. Thursday lots of running around and an awesome evening with some investigators in the Bishop's home for a game night :D so many laughs and good times :) Friday was exchanges with Elder Bayly. Saturday was a very crazy day because we woke up to about 5 or 6 inches of snow that wasn't completely expected and we had service all the way across town so driving was fun with people driving super slow.. But painting at the Ruiz's was a blast :) Then we went to give a blessing to a recent convert who is having problems with his shoulder then an awesome pancake dinner with some awesome members and then we went and watched Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration with an investigator which was a powerful experience! Then Sunday.. -_- the plow crews plowed the church parking lot halfway through Saturday while it was still snowing and they didn't go back so there was still snow in the parking lot so bishop had to cancel church which was kind of sad but we got to watch a session of general conference with an investigator to make it still church on Sunday :) So that was awesome :) Then we had another awesome member dinner Sunday night and some awesome short lessons with our investigators including one who gave us a bag she prepared for us before we came over that had snacks in it! :D this was the first time we officially met her and she already did that :) Her aunt is a member and she's met with missionaries before but not for a while :) So great :) Lots of family history work getting done lately! If you haven't worked on it... work on it! it's so wonderful! :D i love you so much :)
#snowflakesarethebest #myloveforsnowflakesisnutty #God'sgraceiswonderful #lifeisgood :)

Email received February 9, 2015

Oh my gosh what a week that was!! So we started the Final Four weeks leading up to March Madness and we started it off with a Finding Challenge.. We as a zone broke our record and we as a mission shattered our record for finding new investigators in a week with just over 1000!! So amazing. Zone Meeting earlier this week was great as we had a Zone Council on how we can improve and become united as we all work towards having a "Zion Mission." Tuesday we also had exchanges which was a lot of fun with the West Chester Elders. We were able to help a new couple move into the ward from Missouri which was a good workout ;) Wednesday we gave an awesome Chapel tour to one of our newer investigators and also gave a blessing to an elderly woman in hospice. Her granddaughter who lives in Las Vegas got a hold of us asking to go give her a blessing and also an uncle that lives here in Hamilton. In the blessing I told her she had fulfilled her purpose in this life and she could peacefully pass which she did the next morning. Very spiritual experience! Thursday we had an amazing Zone Conference in which we talked a lot about the Legacy we want to leave behind as 60% of the mission goes home in the next 6 months... That Legacy is as follows.

Be a Zion Mission-One Heart, One Mind
Be a Mission Family-No one left behind, no empty chairs
Be as the Army of Helaman-Each missionary obeys every word of command with exactness
Have Missionaries that love God and serve Him with all heart, might, mind, and strength
Every missionary is a leader who changes patterns
Have a spirit of positivity and enthusiasm for the work
We receive grace to reach ALL goals by living the power triangle.

and this is how we will fulfill that legacy...

Every missionary believes, doubting nothing
We pray for every missionary's success
We pray for the pure love of Christ
We see our areas as a land of promise
We do all the little things every time
We will see ourselves, our companions, our investigators, the members and the ward as God does
Each missionary reaches individual goals
Each companionship reaches companionship goals
Language is always focused on the cause
We live "Remember This" (in the back cover of PMG)

So that's what this mission is up to :) Elder Judd had a great insight as we talked about what we teach others and what they need to know and he said that every time we feel the Spirit, it is a manifestation of God's love for us. How true is that!! The Spirit comes from our Heavenly Father and it conveys truth and comforts us and does all of these wonderful things so anytime we feel the Spirit we can know of a surety that God loves us :)  What a great thought and truth!
It was a crazy weekend running around the area seeing everyone and also of course finding. It's going to be another awesome week and more miracles will rain down!! :) I love you so much! :)

Elder Gunnoe :)

Email received February 2, 2015

This is just bits and pieces of our email with him today:

mornin!! not a lot of time today.. got stuff to do around the zone.. :/
I'm great and tired and good :) i don't know what's up with the mail... i got a card from nana thankfully on saturday which was a relief because hers have money in them. but i was worried about not getting yours that's why i had sis unklesbay ask when you sent em.. we might check with the post office today (he hasn't got any letters from us since he moved to his new area) i asked her to call and check cuz i was worried :) I might be slightly relying on her for pictures for now because of how much running around we've been doing and all that fun stuff... tired just because of how much we run... stake president reports were wednesday night, leadership council all day friday, stake conference saturday and sunday, zone meeting tomorrow, zone conference thursday, exchanges tomorrow and friday... life is fun :) no pics today because i didn't think we'd be emailing this early :/ we are going to another district's fun day because it's just a set of elders and a set of sisters so we're going to offset it so it's not like a double date... then Jungle Jim's later on here in hamilton and more preparing for zone meeting :) gators are doing well! it'll be a busy week with them as we have a finding challenge in the mission preparing for march madness... we're going to do something no mission around here at least has done and baptize 100 in the month of march and to prepare for it we're having challenges each with one with finding one with baptism extensions one with member presents and the last with gators at church. i probably won't be able to knock out a blog email today... It will be a crazy February and a crazy march!! we've had super mild weather... i'm loving it!! ya the weather out farther east has been crazy!! we've had a couple of semi spring like days as well just more clouds.  area is great!! It's fun being in a huge ward with lots of awesome families :)
we'll run by the post office because the same thing is happening to elder sunderland :/
today we're bowling with the liberty district.. we haven't planned our big fun day yet but it'll be awesome :)  i do love bowling :)