Email received June 29, 2015

Well here's my departing testimony to the mission... Elders and Sisters of the greatest Ohio Cincinnati Mission,
What a wonderful opportunity it has been to serve among the most valiant souls the Lord has to offer for these last two years. I am eternally grateful for the influence of all those that I've been privileged to serve with and around as we've all labored in this sacred part of the Lord's vineyard. I have grown immensely and my Savior Jesus Christ has truly been able to change me through the enabling power of the infinite Atonement. Although I have not been anywhere near perfect and have made mistakes along the way I know that we are to learn from the past and continue to press onward in the cause of Christ. I know that my Heavenly Father lives and loves me, that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, so that I would have a way to become the man He sent me to become and to be able to overcome my weaknesses and imperfections. I know that Joseph Smith is Their prophet, that he was given the sacred duty to restore Christ's true church and the priesthood authority back to this earth, never to be taken away again. I know that Thomas S. Monson is the true living prophet today and that if we follow his counsel with exactness we will never go astray. These have been the best two years of my life and I look forward to making these next two years the best years of my life as well, because through the Doctrine of Christ we should always be learning, growing and progressing and having the best years of our lives. I love you all and I pray for your continued success. I share my sacred testimony with you in the name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Time definitely has flown on by! We are doing fantastic here in the Western Hills ward.  We have a wedding/baptism this coming week for Jamie and her family :) It will be a wonderful way to celebrate the 4th of July!! It's been a rainy week and it has cooled down a lot which makes life wonderful. I cannot believe how fast time is flying. This has been an absolutely amazing two years. I can't believe it's almost over. I am excited to serve the Lord for this last little bit and then to continue to serve Him as I return home. I am excited Sister Porter Junior and I are working on arranging our departing transfer musical number :) So we're going to go work on that and then this week is going to fly by! I love you all so much and I will see you soon :)

Elder Gunnoe :)

Email received June 15, 2015

Wow what a week that was! Rain, humidity, heat, mini missionaries, nachos, driving, ghetto basketball, fun times!! We had interviews this past week and apparently since it's my last transfer President Porter is saving it for my departing interview... needless to say I was bummed. But we had a very powerful role-play where we were able to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a great teaching experience. We had a couple instances in this past week where I was able to bear a powerful testimony about not only the gospel but the Book of Mormon specifically. I have been reading and listening to a lot of talks and devotionals and I've been learning a ton.. I have two binders for my last transfer of studies, one dedicated to the Priesthood and one dedicated to temples.. wonderful reading so far. Elder Bullen and I are doing great! I was also able to go on exchanges with Elder Clare in Fairfield this last week which was awesome!! talk about a flash back.... It was a great time :) I am looking forward to these last 3 weeks and how much I still have to learn and do! I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week! #ducks #redphone #readyornothereicome

Elder Gunnoe with their "mini missionary" for the week

nachos

Email received June 8, 2015

HOLY COW!! Time? what's time?? I don't know.. it's kind of this unknown thing that flies at the speed of light.. anywho here I am in the beautiful Western Hills Ohio!! Life is so fantastic here.. some highlights from this past week include having a couple of super solid media referrals.. had an AMAZING dinner and evening at the Porter's house, had ice cream for the conference call Monday night at the Porter's, made a lot of progress with a couple of our investigators and life is just wonderful.. It's weird how fast time is going.. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. It'll be great though.. I've been listening to tons of talks and discourses lately so I've been learning and collecting immense amounts of information. It's awesome :) Everyone should read the Book of Mormon.. member and non member alike.. it's a true book and you can know for yourself when you read it and pray to know that it is true and you will receive an answer that it is true. I love you all so much and I will see you soon!!

Elder Gunnoe

Email received April 27, 2015

My oh my what a week that was and what a week we have ahead of us! Monday was a fairly normal p-day. Tuesday was interesting because we were able to meet a recent convert who moved down here from Marion Indiana and I had actually met her a couple of times in the 6 weeks I was serving up in Marion! That was cool.. Then dinner with the Yates family which was awesome and then we came in for the evening around nine and the Unklesbay's met up with us because I had to give them something and while we were outside our apartment building talking to them Sister Unklesbay was taking some pictures of us (she's awesome) and while she was doing so a couple of guys came out of the building and made a comment on her taking pictures of us so we started to explain to him that our mom's out west like pictures of us and then talked about who we were and why we were dressed up and what we do and then two more guys showed up and then it turned into lots of testimony bearing and turned out to be a fantastic lesson in the last 20 minutes of the day! So awesome :) Then Wednesday went by then a long day of weekly planning and working with the zone on Thursday then service on Friday helping Brother Yates with some yard work for a sweet mother's day present then we took David out with us which was great then the ward chili cook off that night which was lots of fun! Saturday it rained and we ran around seeing people getting ready for church then Sunday was a Stake Broadcast which was amazing! :) Now begins the fun week.. P-day today, exchanges tonight till tomorrow night, Stake Reports Wednesday night, Thursday 9am-5pm is zone conference which we actually have to be there around 730ish for preparations, then Friday from 9am-6pm is leadership council which will be amazing as usual then of course the weekend! :) Hooray for being busy! :) Here goes nothin! I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Elder Gunnoe

Email received April 13, 2015

Oh my Gosh... what a week... this has been yet another crazy week... it'll probably stay that way so don't be surprised if i say that again next week... So Monday was p-day of course, played some awesome basketball and cleaned, then I went on exchanges in Liberty with Elder Bayly which was  a good exchange! had a great dinner with a member of the stake presidency. Then Wednesday was fairly normal despite lots of phone calls and working with some missionaries, then Thursday we had Zone meeting which actually we planned on Wednesday so that was part of Wednesday. but zone meeting went very well, it went kind of long but it was great! So we were planning on initiating some sort of Zone Car Fast now that the weather is nice and so Elder Sunderland and I decided to test it out before zone meeting so we gave up the car and went walking for a solid 3 hours and found 3 new investigators and met lots of people so it was very successful! So we shared our experience during Zone Meeting and the Sister areas in West Chester and Liberty (Sisters always have a full time car) they took our experience to heart and tried it out themselves even before our actual car fast and saw a ton of success from it! It was amazing seeing the Sisters make that sacrifice and receive the grace they deserved! Then I went on another exchange this time to West Chester on Friday with Elder Goss and we did some service at a food bank and I got a free pair of brand new Nike training running shoes which was awesome and then we walked around quite a bit during the day and then an awesome dinner with Bishop! Saturday was pretty hectic with lots of service in the morning and at night and work in between.. Then Sunday which was another great day.. the weather is so beautiful now we've been having meals outside and meetings outside and no more suits... it's so wonderful :) I am staying here for at least another 6 weeks but I am absolutely devastated to see Elder Sunderland go... he has been an amazing companion and he means the world to me.. I know without a doubt that he'll do great wherever he goes.. Most of the Zone is getting mixed up so I'm very excited to see what the Lord has in store for us. I cannot believe I only have 12 weeks left... time is flying so fast.. I'm working on sending my winter clothes home which is weird.. and we just heard about a young man in the Fairfield ward that got his mission call and he reports to the MTC July 8th... the day my ministerial certificate expires... whoa.. anyway I love you all so much. Stay amazing :) Love you!!

Email received March 23, 2015

Whoa what a week! Monday was an absolutely gorgeous P-Day and we were able to get together as a zone and play some ultimate Frisbee at a park here in Hamilton :) A guy from the local paper came by and got some shots of us enjoying the nice weather.. haven't been able to find the article though :/ Then Tuesday we got to go to the temple!!! :D It was inspired.. so our zone trip was originally on Thursday then it got switched to Tuesday at 11 and then it got switched to Tuesday at 1.. and when we showed up I found Brother Jordan and Bishop Maddox were there and Sister Jordan was going through for her own endowment during the 1pm session! So I got to see Bishop Maddox and his wife, Brother Jordan and his mom Sister Jordan, and Sister Knotts!!! Such a fantastic surprise!! :)) So the temple trip was amazing. Then Wednesday we had District Meeting and then we had exchanges with the Liberty Elders that day so I went to Liberty with Elder Spagnolo.. pretty good day! Then weekly planning Thursday and then we had exchanges with West Chester on Friday and this time I stayed in Hamilton with Elder Goss and we had a fairly good day.. then Saturday roles around and we're a bit behind for the week.. so we worked quite a bit Saturday and it was super fun because we had Bishop's son out with us all day :) We also had an amazing dinner out at Sue's! Then Sunday we still needed to teach 8 lessons so we buckled down and worked and we did it! Sunday was a great day :) We sang in ward choir in sacrament meeting which I loved :) Then we went out and worked for the rest of the day and had some awesome lessons and ended the day with teaching the Invite By the Spirit lesson to the Maddy family which was a blast :) Brother Maddy and his son's love baseball and he actually let me bat and pitch when he was helping his son practice at the church.. it felt sooooooooooooooooooooooooo good.... I love baseball <3 The Zone is continually improving which is great to see! Something we've been focusing on in the mission of course, as I mentioned before, is being a Zion mission or being united. We are taught that just because we aren't seeing huge amounts of success in our area as long as we're doing all we can and being diligent and obedient the grace will be poured out where it needs to be in the mission :) Also my studies have been super in depth lately because I got a Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible and it has a Hebrew and Greek dictionary in it. So as I read the scriptures if a word stands out to me I can look up the original meaning of that word and it brings a ton of depth and meaning to the scriptures.. So wonderful :) Well all in all life is fantastic :) Time is flyin! #Halfthetimehasgonequick..thesecondhalfwillgoevenquicker.... Hope everyone is doing well back home!! I love you all so much! Stay amazing! <3

Elder Gunnoe

Email received March 9, 2015

Whoa!! What a week that was! Transfer week went very well.. we got 5 new missionaries in the zone and we had a very solid week here in the land of milk and honey (Cincinnati north zone). So Friday we had an amazing day at the mission home with President and Sister Porter for Leadership council! it was an amazing and very revelatory experience. President Porter towards the end of leadership council gave an amazing lesson on how we should be teaching the doctrine behind coming to church. lots of very real analogies and very obvious reasons from multiple scriptures and i don't share it on here because it is best shared in person :) We have had a lot of amazing dinners lately and I've been eating a lot :P and then doing a lot of sit ups to make up for it. :D Going to be a very busy week ahead of us as we have interviews tomorrow to run (as zone leaders we work with the sister training leaders on doing role plays and planner/area book checks for all the missionaries in the zone...:P) and then Wednesday we have zone meeting which we need to prepare for then in between we have preparations for Sue's baptism! Sue is a very amazing woman who we have been teaching for a while now. She is like a grandma to me she's so sweet and she has some amazing faith and she has studied and prayed so much it is inspiring :) I love her :) We're excited for her baptism this weekend and look forward to being with her on that special day :) Well other than that we are getting some warmer weather now which is amazing :) I'm wonderful, life is wonderful.... peace out!! #snowflake #Romans8:18 Love you so much!<3