Change of Heart

Happy Late Easter, I'm not sure if I wished everyone a happy Easter last week!

Wow Easter sounds like it was a huge hit! 35 people AND an Easter hunt!! And Rachel, yup she is definitely my niece, nice move stealing the Easter eggs!!!! Brian sent me pics of the blessing and everyone looks so great, and wow Amber, you like freaking awesome, there is no way you had a baby just a month and a half ago!! Oh and I'm so proud of Bethany, tell her congrats for me, and Billie and Robbie too!! What a big baby, and I love the name, James! Oh and Congratulations to Paul for being a genius!!

SO yes I'm still in Liniers, and I'm trying to love it, it is a bit hard!! The question mom asked is what is Liniers like, well it isn't like Nuñez with buildings all over the place, it looks more like Tigre, but more poor and less green! The apartment is actually really nice and big, we have an upstairs and is like the roof of our house, I'll have to take pictures sometime, the only problem is we have a ton of cockroaches, but I pray for strength to deal with them every night!! Liniers hasn't had a baptism since November, and all the recent baptisms (like within the past 2 years) have all gone inactive! The ward doesn't have a ward mission leader, or ward missionaries, or even someone to teach the principles of the gospel class, it seems like the missionary part of this ward is completely nonexistent, we talked to the bishop about getting a ward mission leader and he doesn't feel like there is anyone that could do it! So we are all on our own! And let me tell you, missionary work is almost impossible to do without the help and support of members! All of our investigators are people that have been investigators for years and have never been to church, and the people aren't very receptive here! Needless to say its a challenge!!

But I came to a realization yesterday, things aren't going to get better by complaining!!! SO I need to change the way I feel and think!! In other words and I need a change of heart! SO I started studying that yesterday and I'm feeling a little bit better about being here, and today I started telling myself hey its a great blessing to be here in Liniers, it means the Lord trusts me enough to work hard and change the way things are, I think if I keep telling myself that I will start to believe it!! If anyone has good ideas of how to have an effective change of heart, I would love to hear it!

Some experiences of the week, we taught someone that is so closed to hearing the truth than I've ever met!! It was the most frustrating lesson I have ever taught, we tried to get her to read the Book of Mormon and she kept saying where is that written in the Bible, and wouldn't even touch the book!! We read from it but she would even try to listen! I invited her to pray about whether it is true or not, because I said our message is either true or it isn't, and we can't convince, the only person who can is God, so pray to him, and then Hna Perez invited her to pray right then and there, so we knelt down to pray, I've never prayed so hard in my life that the spirit would touch her heart, well she started to pray... it was a disaster! She is very active in her church (evangelista) and they have the gift of tongues and all that other great stuff, well she started to pray and cry and shout and she was sobbing and shouting her whole prayer and it was so long, the Spirit left the second she started praying and I felt hopeless!! And then she didn't even pray to know if the church is true! So yeah that was fun!

Sunday we were in church and someone came and told us that a man was looking for us, we went out to see him and he said I feel a need to find God, so I came here, can you help me!!!!!!!!! He was traveling so only had like 5 min to talk to us, so we gave him a folleto (pamphlet) and made an appointment with him, I really hope things turn out well with him!!

My comp is great, I think if I were to compare her to anyone I would say she is like Hermione from Harry Potter, only more high strung! She has a few quirks (like eating with her mouth open), but nobody is perfect!! Also I think I will say chau to attending all of church, because she says if we get there and we don't have investigators we don't come back until we have someone... which is good diligence, but I really enjoy going to church as well!! But I really enjoy being with her, she is really a great companion and we get along great, and she has such a strong testimony of the church, we have hopes to see mucho exito (much success) here in Liniers!!

Well I think I better run, if I have time I will send a pic with me and my comp, I made a DVD of all my pics of my mission a few weeks ago, I hope to send it soon!! Oh and my comp says hi to everyone!

Love you all,

Hermana Gosnell