Don't cry for me Tigre!
OK so I got transferred, my comp is Hermana Riquelme's first daughter... in other words Riquelme trained us both, so we are basically sisters, the only thing is Hermana Guerra is from Chile and doesn't speak any English... I mean like none! I have adapted pretty well, it hasn't been as hard as I would think to speak only in Spanish, but this is only the first day!! I'm in Nuñez, which is capital, so goodbye campo (country), all building and such, I'm missing 2 baptisms this Sat in Tigre, but we had 3 this last Saturday, it is how I celebrated my 6 months in the mission with everyone yesterday, but especially Antuane, we both cried a lot! But she works in my new area, so I may stop by every so often! My comp seems really good, But I have only known her for a few hours, but I've heard only good things about her, from Hermana Riquelme! SO what can we learn from this experience... we can't call for justice when what we beg for is mercy!! I keep telling myself there are people here in Nuñez that need me more than the people in Tigre, but it is hard, because Tigre is like the best area in the whole mission, except Ushuia, that is what everyone says!! I am praying for Noelle, and for Gaby, Please keep me super updated, if there was some way I could put her name in the temple here I would, but I can't so oh well.
Anyways I'm doing well, trying to adjust to speaking only Spanish and a new area, this is a pretty crazy transfer, because we are three right now because Hna Guerra's old comp is going home, she finished her mission but she doesn't leave until tomorrow, and then we have another missionary coming in from somewhere to stay with us tonight because she has to do something so tonight there are going to be 4 of us in the little bitty apartment, but after tomorrow morning it will be just me and Hna Guerra!
Sorry this letter is so lame but I'm so stressed out right now with everything about
moving, so hopefully next week will be a lot better!! And maybe one day I will get
pictures to you all!!
Love you all a lot, and tell Noelle to stop trying to be the center of attention!!
Hermana Gosnell
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Oh so I have some bad news, I discovered this last week I have lost my sense of humor!! Sorta, I mean I knew I would change on the mission, but I was hoping I would still be funny, but whenever I do or say funny things my comp just acts like I don't exist, so maybe I might be funny, but I dont know, I feel like Im drowning, and she doesn't say or do anything funny so I don't hear anything funny, and when I see funny things that happen and I try to tell her or share it with her she just goes huh-uh, so if anyone out there has funny stories let me know because I don't know what is funny anymore!! Oh one more complaint about my comp and then I'm done for this letter remember how she wont set baptism dates for this Sunday because who cares... well she was telling a member the other day that in her last area she was afraid of being transferred before the baptism and so they set it for Sunday before she left, and she was transferred that week, so its OK if she thinks she is being transferred, but not if I'm being transferred... whatever we will find out this Monday, pray hard I don't get transferred!!!
Lets see, one of the million new investigators we have are a family de oro!!! Of gold, They are married have 3 kids ages 10, 9, 1 they are all awesome, they came to a dance activity thing we had last Friday and when they got there no one was there except us, they helped us set everything up and decorate everything and the members told us they stayed until the very end of the activity and had a lot of fun!! They didn't make it to church on Sunday because they don't like to be late to things, they were all dressed and ready to go 10 min before 9 and tried to call a taxi but then they decided they would still be late so didn't come, they would have only been like 5 min late, but they promised to be there this next week!! The parents have a baptism date, and hopefully the kids will too soon!! Also in the folletos (pamphlets) we hand out at the end they have questions and additional study tips and he showed us his and he had taken notes and really studied everything!! They are awesome!!
We will be having a baptism sometime this week, it is supposed to be Saturday, but the girls' dad might be working that day so who knows when it will be, it could be tomorrow or Friday or Sat!! But sometime this week for sure, it is 3 girls, 2 sisters (twins) and their cousin! The 10 year old sister didn't want to be baptized after all, every time we go over there to teach them she goes and hides and won't come out!! The parents are already members, so we are almost completing the family!! I'm pretty excited!! So one of my recent converts, Silvia, well apparently nobody was able to really convince her how important law of chastity is, she never started keeping the law and now everyone thinks she is pregnant, baby number 5!!! I'm really disheartened by it, and that whole situation, I started crying at her house the other day because of all the bad things I saw there, not things she does, things the kids do and her mom does, the only thing Silvia does is ignore everything! I have a hard time being at that house, my heart can't handle those bad things to perfect little children! Mom how did you handle being a social worker??? I don't want to go into details, just take it that it is bad!
It seems that all of our recent converts are going through trials, Silvia might be
pregnant, Jose is doing fine but he left for Misiones in northern Argentina and doesn't know when he will be back! Maxi hasn't come to church since his confirmation because of all the trials he and his family are going through, pray for him! And now Antuane is getter ready to lose her house that she rents because of a q tip!!!! The people they rent from live above them and one of the kids dropped a q tip threw the cracks and Antuane's mom went and complained and told the people they need to watch the kids better, so the guy said fine you have till Feb 28th to find a new place to live!! Antuane says she has half a mind to buy a bus ticket for her mom to go back to Peru!! So now they are frantically looking for a place to live!! She found a place but the guy says he doesn't rent to people from Peru! Long story but we are all going o meet him tonight, she wants us with him for the support!! Pray that everything goes well!!
Welp I gotta run, I was going to add pics but I have no time today, but next week I will be sending home a cd of pics!! So anyways I hope everyone is well, love you all and keep me updated!!
Remember next week is transfers so p-day will be on Tuesday, spread the word
around... I will be writing and receiving emails on TUESDAY NOT WEDNESDAY!!!! I would write it in Spanish too if that would help but I figure that would make it too confusing!!
Love ya,
Hermana Gosnell
Lets see, one of the million new investigators we have are a family de oro!!! Of gold, They are married have 3 kids ages 10, 9, 1 they are all awesome, they came to a dance activity thing we had last Friday and when they got there no one was there except us, they helped us set everything up and decorate everything and the members told us they stayed until the very end of the activity and had a lot of fun!! They didn't make it to church on Sunday because they don't like to be late to things, they were all dressed and ready to go 10 min before 9 and tried to call a taxi but then they decided they would still be late so didn't come, they would have only been like 5 min late, but they promised to be there this next week!! The parents have a baptism date, and hopefully the kids will too soon!! Also in the folletos (pamphlets) we hand out at the end they have questions and additional study tips and he showed us his and he had taken notes and really studied everything!! They are awesome!!
We will be having a baptism sometime this week, it is supposed to be Saturday, but the girls' dad might be working that day so who knows when it will be, it could be tomorrow or Friday or Sat!! But sometime this week for sure, it is 3 girls, 2 sisters (twins) and their cousin! The 10 year old sister didn't want to be baptized after all, every time we go over there to teach them she goes and hides and won't come out!! The parents are already members, so we are almost completing the family!! I'm pretty excited!! So one of my recent converts, Silvia, well apparently nobody was able to really convince her how important law of chastity is, she never started keeping the law and now everyone thinks she is pregnant, baby number 5!!! I'm really disheartened by it, and that whole situation, I started crying at her house the other day because of all the bad things I saw there, not things she does, things the kids do and her mom does, the only thing Silvia does is ignore everything! I have a hard time being at that house, my heart can't handle those bad things to perfect little children! Mom how did you handle being a social worker??? I don't want to go into details, just take it that it is bad!
It seems that all of our recent converts are going through trials, Silvia might be
pregnant, Jose is doing fine but he left for Misiones in northern Argentina and doesn't know when he will be back! Maxi hasn't come to church since his confirmation because of all the trials he and his family are going through, pray for him! And now Antuane is getter ready to lose her house that she rents because of a q tip!!!! The people they rent from live above them and one of the kids dropped a q tip threw the cracks and Antuane's mom went and complained and told the people they need to watch the kids better, so the guy said fine you have till Feb 28th to find a new place to live!! Antuane says she has half a mind to buy a bus ticket for her mom to go back to Peru!! So now they are frantically looking for a place to live!! She found a place but the guy says he doesn't rent to people from Peru! Long story but we are all going o meet him tonight, she wants us with him for the support!! Pray that everything goes well!!
Welp I gotta run, I was going to add pics but I have no time today, but next week I will be sending home a cd of pics!! So anyways I hope everyone is well, love you all and keep me updated!!
Remember next week is transfers so p-day will be on Tuesday, spread the word
around... I will be writing and receiving emails on TUESDAY NOT WEDNESDAY!!!! I would write it in Spanish too if that would help but I figure that would make it too confusing!!
Love ya,
Hermana Gosnell
Thursday, February 12, 2009
I cant believe the weather there!! It is so crazy, although the weather here is pretty crazy too, last Friday and sat the weather was PERFECT!! Then Sunday and Monday it was so hot I couldn't breathe! Well then yesterday it started to rain as we were walking home from our lunch appointment so we walked fast, about a half a block away it started to rain really hard so we started to run for the apartment, about 50 ft away from the apt it started to rain harder than I've ever seen it rain before so we started sprinting for the door, everyone in the garage was laughing at us, we were laughing too, so we got inside and ran around closing all the doors and bringing our clothes inside, and when we looked out side we couldn't see more than 1 foot!! the rain was coming in so hard it was horizontal!! I took a picture, but of course you can't see anything! We waited for that to slow down and once it did we headed back out again!! We didn't have much success yesterday though, because of the rain but oh well at least we were diligent!!
So this week was even better in finding investigators, we found SIXTEEN new people to teach, its hard to keep up with everyone, but already 2 of those people their addresses don't exist, but whatever! We have a lot of baptisms planned, we have 5 planned for sat the 21st, I'm certain about 4 of them, the other one I'm not so sure about, keep praying for Gaby!!
Oh the other day I woke up in the middle of the night praying out loud in Spanish, it was really funny, my comp didn't hear anything though! Oh and speaking of my comp, well she has been setting baptism dates for the Saturday after transfers even though they could be the week before and when I try to ask her why she says it doesn't matter just have faith you wont be transferred, but then the other night she told me that she thinks I'm going to be transferred, not her, so when she said that I realized she is setting those dates on purpose, when I asked again why we were setting the dates for then she was like who cares, so I guess I don't care about the people Ive been teaching for the past 4 months!! At this point I don't care I get transferred, just as long as one of us gets transferred!! But I really don't want to leave Tigre... 2 more weeks is all I have to wait though!!
On a lighter note, I got a lot of my skirts fixed last week and today we are going to buy material for the lady to make me a khaki colored skirt, I'm pretty excited about that! Oh and Antuan and her friend Sandy were looking at pics of our family from North Carolina and they were like wow you have lost a ton of weight your family won't recognize you at all when you get off the plane!! Oh and Sandy says I look like a model in pictures, and I said no I'm not the model she is and pointed to Trish and they were like yeah her too, but they kept telling me I looked like a movie star and stuff!! I like them :) Oh yesterday we were in the bank trying to get monedas and I saw an American couple, trying to exchange dollars into pesos, so I went up and talked to them for a little bit, they are from San Fransisco, but she went to UofL, how crazy!! But what I noticed talking to them, it was harder to speak in English, I had to concentrate to make sure I didn't say anything in Spanish, which I thought was weird because I speak in English a lot to my comp, but I guess to random people its harder!
And now for the craziest story of the week: Our new member Maxi, well we told him that he would go through trials before or after his baptism, boy were we right, just 2 weeks after his baptism he started to have an argument with his sister, they all share the same land, but have different houses they live in, well his sister decided to go over and start fighting with him but before she went over there she called the police, well when they got there they started beating the living day lights out of Maxi, my comp tells me that here you are guilty until proven otherwise, so they took him to jail, for nothing but his ear was all cut open so he had to go to the hospital to get it stitched up, and the police told him he had to lie about how it happened, so anyways when we saw him he was at his wife's parents building a little bitty house in their backyard for he and his family to live there until they can find another place to live! When we saw him he seemed to be OK, in good spirits joking that it was all our fault so we gave him some words of encouragement and went on our way, that was Friday, so then Sunday we went out to an area we hardly work in because everyone accepts appointments but is never home, so we had an appointment, she was supposed to meet us at the bus stop, we waited almost an hour, then decided to go catch the bus to the other area we wanted to work in, so we went to the bus stop we needed to be at and there was this really really drunk guy sitting there, I was a little nervous and more so when he started talking to my comp saying he is losing everything to drinking and he asked what he should do, and she said well, stop drinking!! It was actually really funny, and he was like how, so he kept talking to her and I kept praying the bus would come soon! Well right then I looked over at the cars stopped at the stop light and I saw Maxi's car and his wife Silvina looked over and waved at me and said hey where are you headed want a ride, so we ran over and got in the car and thanked them for saving us, but apparently our need wasn't the most important, Silvina told us that Maxi was having a hard time with everything now because he has had time to think about things, so then he said, I just don't understand why do all the bad people have all the fun, I would rather just live my life and be happy, I feel like I'm being punished! So we asked him if he had been reading the Book of Mormon and he said no so we told him he needed to start reading it again, and he said yeah I know, so he is having a hard time, but we really feel like he is someone really special that Satan doesn't want to progress and is working really hard on him, so pray for him that he can make it through this hard time!!
That is how my week has been, It has been pretty good, oh and don't worry about me being safe, the Lord truly does protect his servants!! I love it here, and I love getting news from everyone!!
Love ya,
Hermana Gosnell
So this week was even better in finding investigators, we found SIXTEEN new people to teach, its hard to keep up with everyone, but already 2 of those people their addresses don't exist, but whatever! We have a lot of baptisms planned, we have 5 planned for sat the 21st, I'm certain about 4 of them, the other one I'm not so sure about, keep praying for Gaby!!
Oh the other day I woke up in the middle of the night praying out loud in Spanish, it was really funny, my comp didn't hear anything though! Oh and speaking of my comp, well she has been setting baptism dates for the Saturday after transfers even though they could be the week before and when I try to ask her why she says it doesn't matter just have faith you wont be transferred, but then the other night she told me that she thinks I'm going to be transferred, not her, so when she said that I realized she is setting those dates on purpose, when I asked again why we were setting the dates for then she was like who cares, so I guess I don't care about the people Ive been teaching for the past 4 months!! At this point I don't care I get transferred, just as long as one of us gets transferred!! But I really don't want to leave Tigre... 2 more weeks is all I have to wait though!!
On a lighter note, I got a lot of my skirts fixed last week and today we are going to buy material for the lady to make me a khaki colored skirt, I'm pretty excited about that! Oh and Antuan and her friend Sandy were looking at pics of our family from North Carolina and they were like wow you have lost a ton of weight your family won't recognize you at all when you get off the plane!! Oh and Sandy says I look like a model in pictures, and I said no I'm not the model she is and pointed to Trish and they were like yeah her too, but they kept telling me I looked like a movie star and stuff!! I like them :) Oh yesterday we were in the bank trying to get monedas and I saw an American couple, trying to exchange dollars into pesos, so I went up and talked to them for a little bit, they are from San Fransisco, but she went to UofL, how crazy!! But what I noticed talking to them, it was harder to speak in English, I had to concentrate to make sure I didn't say anything in Spanish, which I thought was weird because I speak in English a lot to my comp, but I guess to random people its harder!
And now for the craziest story of the week: Our new member Maxi, well we told him that he would go through trials before or after his baptism, boy were we right, just 2 weeks after his baptism he started to have an argument with his sister, they all share the same land, but have different houses they live in, well his sister decided to go over and start fighting with him but before she went over there she called the police, well when they got there they started beating the living day lights out of Maxi, my comp tells me that here you are guilty until proven otherwise, so they took him to jail, for nothing but his ear was all cut open so he had to go to the hospital to get it stitched up, and the police told him he had to lie about how it happened, so anyways when we saw him he was at his wife's parents building a little bitty house in their backyard for he and his family to live there until they can find another place to live! When we saw him he seemed to be OK, in good spirits joking that it was all our fault so we gave him some words of encouragement and went on our way, that was Friday, so then Sunday we went out to an area we hardly work in because everyone accepts appointments but is never home, so we had an appointment, she was supposed to meet us at the bus stop, we waited almost an hour, then decided to go catch the bus to the other area we wanted to work in, so we went to the bus stop we needed to be at and there was this really really drunk guy sitting there, I was a little nervous and more so when he started talking to my comp saying he is losing everything to drinking and he asked what he should do, and she said well, stop drinking!! It was actually really funny, and he was like how, so he kept talking to her and I kept praying the bus would come soon! Well right then I looked over at the cars stopped at the stop light and I saw Maxi's car and his wife Silvina looked over and waved at me and said hey where are you headed want a ride, so we ran over and got in the car and thanked them for saving us, but apparently our need wasn't the most important, Silvina told us that Maxi was having a hard time with everything now because he has had time to think about things, so then he said, I just don't understand why do all the bad people have all the fun, I would rather just live my life and be happy, I feel like I'm being punished! So we asked him if he had been reading the Book of Mormon and he said no so we told him he needed to start reading it again, and he said yeah I know, so he is having a hard time, but we really feel like he is someone really special that Satan doesn't want to progress and is working really hard on him, so pray for him that he can make it through this hard time!!
That is how my week has been, It has been pretty good, oh and don't worry about me being safe, the Lord truly does protect his servants!! I love it here, and I love getting news from everyone!!
Love ya,
Hermana Gosnell
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Wow thanks for that info about Katie, planning on going on a mission. Ill have to email her if I have time, which I won't because I have 10 min for everything... holy snow storm, that's all I can say about that! Um sorry I'm so scatter brained right now because I don't have much time, because everyone in the world wrote me this week!! I love it!! I love hearing from everyone!! Oh can you get Tasha Neal's address for me, one of her husband's converts is serving a mission here in my mission and he doesn't know because she doesn't know how to get a hold of him, her name is Hermana Moran, she is way cute I would love to have her as a comp but she goes home next transfer!! Oh who is Richard Fox and family? They put an ornament on my tree thing and I dont know them, I know Brent Fox and family, but not Richard Fox and family!
Lets see this week in a nut shell, I'm doing more contacts in the street, and not worrying about my Spanish. Don't get me wrong I still speak really bad, but at least I'm able to get my message across more or less... we had a fantastic week this week with investigators, we have a ton of work now, we have been trying to find more investigators but haven't been very successful, but last week we found 13 new people to teach!! It is so awesome!! Also we were able to put a baptism date with a part member family and the whole ward is so happy with us because they have been trying to do that for the past 3 years!! I love it here!! Well that is my week in a nut shell, I gotta run though, but good luck with all that snow, just think of me sweating to death here and you should be more warm!!
Love ya,
Hermana Gosnell
Lets see this week in a nut shell, I'm doing more contacts in the street, and not worrying about my Spanish. Don't get me wrong I still speak really bad, but at least I'm able to get my message across more or less... we had a fantastic week this week with investigators, we have a ton of work now, we have been trying to find more investigators but haven't been very successful, but last week we found 13 new people to teach!! It is so awesome!! Also we were able to put a baptism date with a part member family and the whole ward is so happy with us because they have been trying to do that for the past 3 years!! I love it here!! Well that is my week in a nut shell, I gotta run though, but good luck with all that snow, just think of me sweating to death here and you should be more warm!!
Love ya,
Hermana Gosnell
Monday, February 2, 2009
Yeah I'm glad you got my box! I hope you enjoyed it! I had zone conference this last week and got a box from Trish and one from the Mia Maids. I loved the Christmas tree they sent me, I have it hanging above my bed. My comp thinks I'm crazy but I don't really care!! I got a letter from my friend Mandy and I was so excited about it because I have been thinking about her and I was so sad because I didn't think there would be any way to get in touch with her, and then next thing I know zone conference is here and I got a letter from her!! I was so happy!! That is so crazy about the weather, here it is still really hot, but Jan is almost over which I'm told is the hottest month, so hopefully it won't be so terribly hot soon, but then I have to worry about buying clothes, because I don't have clothes for cold weather, but I will worry about that when it comes!! Tell Dad thanks for the money. I will def be able to use it, one of our new converts, his wife sews and stuff, and she said she would fix my skirts for me, so I just have to take them over to her, that is way cheaper than buying more clothes! Oh and I don't want to jinx myself, but I have been feeling better lately, I haven't had any problems for the past few days. We buy 40 litros of water every week now, so hopefully I will stay healthy for a little while!! 2 weeks ago everyone here was taking about the war in gaza strip, we didn't really know what was going on but everyone was talking about it, the world is a scary place, it means I need to work harder because this is the only message that can save people!!
Well this past week has been pretty chill, we had a baptism on Sat, Maxi. He is married to a girl who grew up a member, and he has been attending church off and on for the past 10 years!! Well he finally got baptized. At the baptism I heard someone saying, it's truly a miracle, but everyone has their missionaries, and these Hermanas are his angels! Wow that really hit me, I don't know why, Jose calls us his angels all the time, but maybe because he is a little crazy, but it really brought home that I'm helping this family achieve eternal life! Their next goal is the temple, which means this time next year I will be going to their sealing! I cant wait! Her family was so happy they kept telling us thank you, we were like we didn't do anything, we just put a baptism date! Um what else, oh yeah this happened last week but I didn't write about it. We were coming back to the apartment to make lunch and we stopped somewhere to buy food. Well all the electricity was out, so we bought the stuff and came back to the apt, and all the electricity was out there too... which meant we had to climb up to our 10th floor apt!! But it is more like 12 or 13 flights of stairs because we enter on negative 1 and then there is a couple of other floors before it starts on one... we were all dead when it was over, and then since we had no power we couldn't turn on our fan to cool off!! but don't worry, we survived!! Last night the house next to our apt had no power, Hna Riquelme and I were really glad we weren't walking home through there because it would be really dangerous with no lights!! But we had taken a remis home because we were running late and didn't have time to walk! Thank goodness for that!!
Well I think this is all I have for this week!! I love you all, and hope you are surviving the cold, I think I'm starting to just get used to being drenched in sweat because it doesn't bother me as much anymore!!
Welp, love you all so much!!
Hermana Gosnell
Well this past week has been pretty chill, we had a baptism on Sat, Maxi. He is married to a girl who grew up a member, and he has been attending church off and on for the past 10 years!! Well he finally got baptized. At the baptism I heard someone saying, it's truly a miracle, but everyone has their missionaries, and these Hermanas are his angels! Wow that really hit me, I don't know why, Jose calls us his angels all the time, but maybe because he is a little crazy, but it really brought home that I'm helping this family achieve eternal life! Their next goal is the temple, which means this time next year I will be going to their sealing! I cant wait! Her family was so happy they kept telling us thank you, we were like we didn't do anything, we just put a baptism date! Um what else, oh yeah this happened last week but I didn't write about it. We were coming back to the apartment to make lunch and we stopped somewhere to buy food. Well all the electricity was out, so we bought the stuff and came back to the apt, and all the electricity was out there too... which meant we had to climb up to our 10th floor apt!! But it is more like 12 or 13 flights of stairs because we enter on negative 1 and then there is a couple of other floors before it starts on one... we were all dead when it was over, and then since we had no power we couldn't turn on our fan to cool off!! but don't worry, we survived!! Last night the house next to our apt had no power, Hna Riquelme and I were really glad we weren't walking home through there because it would be really dangerous with no lights!! But we had taken a remis home because we were running late and didn't have time to walk! Thank goodness for that!!
Well I think this is all I have for this week!! I love you all, and hope you are surviving the cold, I think I'm starting to just get used to being drenched in sweat because it doesn't bother me as much anymore!!
Welp, love you all so much!!
Hermana Gosnell
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