Week 3: Arrives in Utah SLC East Mission (WITH PICTURES)

Note from Tami:

Hello everyone.  I was finally able to learn how to post pictures to the blog. So, above you will see Gunner's mission picture and a picture of him at the airport when he was leaving for the MTC.  

During week 2 at the MTC, Gunner was able to see his cousin Koby Alva. Koby is serving in the Mexico Merida Mission and it was nice that they had a couple weeks of overlap in the MTC. My sister and I especially enjoyed getting a picture of the two of them together.

Last Tuesday Gunner left the MTC and arrived in the Utah Salt Lake City East Mission. His Mission President's wife sent these pictures as proof that he arrived safely. We have been anxiously awaiting P-Day so we could get his new address and see how he was settling in. Here is his letter:

First week down!

When I got to the mission home, we were crowded in a room, and we sat there for like 5 hours listening to people talk, telling us to do obvious things, like 'don't get in car accidents' and 'don't leave your companion'. My least favorite part is how everyone talks about how disappointed they are to end up in Salt Lake, which really bugged me. Kinda ruins the experience for someone who's excited to serve I guess. The food was really good though. I think I introduced myself 3 times within a few hours, so I had my little story down by the end. I ended up being sent to the Wyoming Zone which was, guess where, in Wyoming! Yay! I got assigned to be trained by Elder Jenson. He's a pretty cool guy, and like my exact opposite. The only thing we have in common really is ping-pong (which I'm better at, but don't tell him that). 

In the car ride up, the driver was also from Arizona. He was sent to the Ukraine, and was stationed on the border next to Russia. Yeah. And then Russia happened as we know, and he had to be Emergency Transferred out, and is now in Wyoming. Scary stuff. 

Our apartment has a ping-pong table, and a huge TV, (that we don't use of course), but other than that it's pretty ordinary. So far, missionary work has really just been talking to people, and most of them have been pretty friendly. The only thing this area really needs is for the people that are already LDS to stay active, so much of our lessons are to less active members. 

New address: (send anything here and not to the mission home!)

3220 Dewar Dr. #208 

Rock Springs, Wyoming

82901

They feed us dinner here. Every day. Like, they sign up for it and whatnot. Weird. Also, some guy payed for my groceries the first day I got there, and apparently there's places where missionaries can eat for free. Crazy stuff. 

Like my 3rd day out, we went out to visit a new investigator, and I was able to commit her to baptism on the 30th. Which was a pretty neat experience. Things are still slow, but not nearly as bad as before I came.

Living with three other guys can be kind of annoying. For instance, no one does the dishes or takes out the trash. Also, everyone eats frozen meal packs. I got everyone to say they'll wash a dish after they use it, which is a start I guess. People. Send me recipes for stuff. I'm going to have a lot of practice cooking, and there's no way I'm gonna eat this frozen stuff anymore.. haha. 

While in the MTC, I did a lot of studying in Revelations and D&C, because I was really interested with the signs of the 2nd Coming. I'm moved away from that recently, it's important not to get caught up in it, and am now going to be focusing on reading the Bible all the way through. However, some of my favorite scriptures were:

Revelations 8-9 ~ A lot of the signs of the times in here but my favorite is where it talks about 'there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp... and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter...but that they should be tormented 5 months'. If you were an ancient prophet, and this is only my theory of course, how would you describe a bomb? and how would you describe radiation? It's said the world will end in fire, but how much will Christ have to do?

Revelations 11: 2-13 ~ Two prophets (missionaries?) preach in Jerusalem for 3.5 years/42 months/1260 days, are killed, and then resurrected 3.5 days later. 

D&C 131:7-8 ~ Back in Psychics, I learned about Dark Matter. Basically, scientists observe faraway galaxies rotating. Depending on how much matter(mass) was in them, they should rotate at a certain velocity. But, these galaxies were rotating MUCH faster than they should have been. In order for this to be, a galaxy needed much more matter then was visible to these astronomers. This 'missing matter' is called Dark Matter, or matter to pure for the mortal eye to see? I hope I'm right about my description about this, otherwise I bet I'll be made fun of. haha.

Well, I guess that's all, I always look forward to receiving letters, even small ones. I love hearing from all of you!

- Elder Martineau

When writing Gunner on DearElder.com you will need to select his mission Utah Salt Lake City East Mission and then you can put in his address to send it to him directly. It will cost .49 per letter.  When using this service they print the letters and mail them from Provo which means probably a 1-2 day arrival instead of 4. Transfers are every 6 weeks so, keep that in mind.  As always he can be reached on his email at gunner.martineau@myldsmail.net.  :)

Thanks for supporting our missionary.  We are excited to hear about his experiences in Wyoming. xoxo