I have decided elders are not my friend in the mission field. So I'll start with this
story so we can just move on from it. So work here in Tonelero is pretty hard, We don't
have many investigators, and we have one that went to church a few weeks ago and gave
Hermana Ladd a few scriptures to read, it was a little weird, and then we couldn't find
him. Well last Thursday we went to see where he lived. It's kinda hard to explain but
he lives in the house of a member, we went to see her and she wasn't feeling very well,
so we offered to have the elders pass by for her the next day and give her a blessing,
she said she would like that so we set an appointment to come back and see José (our
investigator) and left... we called the elders to tell them they had an appt and that in
this place lives a few of our investigators, we told them their names and then said
there were a few other people there they could teach... but not to touch José and the
other 2 who are our investigators! Well later the next night they call us all excited,
they found a new investigator at the house of this member, he just so happens to have
all the church attendance he needs to get baptized... guess what his name is... JOSÉ I
was like um guys he is our investigator, and they were like well we taught him and put
a baptism date with him, but we will talk to president. So they called president and
all he did was laugh and said just work it our between you all and your district leader.
Well background on my district leader, he hates hermanas, in fact I've had a few elders
tell me how much this district leader hates me and hated Hermana Ladd, only because we
are hermanas, seriously we haven't done any of that annoying sister missionary stuff,
it is just because we are girls! So when they told me that they had to work it out with
him, I knew all my chances of keeping one of my few precious investigators was gone!
Well the next morning I get a call from my district leader demanding me to give up José,
the next half an hour we were on the phone, not talking in hushed tones... I haven't
lost my patience that bad in a long time!! Well it didn't matter how much I explained
according to president's rules José is our investigator. Elder Empey kept saying it
doesn't matter... I made the decision... Well so this last weekend I lost one of our
precious investigators, I made a comment to the elders that this wouldn't have happened
to us if we were elders too, and they all said you're right, this only happened to you
guys because you're sisters! I was so mad!! So yeah, I don't have very friendly
feelings toward my district leader!! OK now that I've gotten that story out of the way, we'll get to the fun stuff... Really
nothing much else happened this week, we had zone conference, it was alright, all
president talked about was numbers... because we are currently trying to double the
baptisms from last year, and we only have 5 weeks left to do it, and he talked about all
the baptisms we all need to get to reach the goal, and it kind of stressed me out!
Well after that this losing my investigator happened. But then Monday was a good day,
we spent the day walking... A LOT But we were ending it with our 2 investigators who
are awesome, their only problem is they need to get married! Well we were knocking on
this one door and this dog came up to us and dropped a rock in between my comps feet,
it was really weird, she got scared and kicked it away, but not very far, the dog was
not impressed... so he came over to me and put it right on top of my shoe... haha I got
the hint, he wanted to play!! I kicked it far away and the dog went running after it,
we stood there playing kick the rock for like 5 min... it was really fun but we had to
get back to work! We ended that night going to see Romina and Richard, with one of our
members... it was an amazing powerful lesson... we watched the restoration, and it was
so good and at the end I asked Richard what he thought about all this and he said it's
true... I put a baptism date with him and he accepted and was super happy, his wife
didn't accept yet, she is a little afraid for the big decision and feels like she needs
more time... but they both still have to get married and she loves reading the Book of
Mormon and going to church, so she will get baptized with him... things will work out
great... as long as the elders don't steal them too!! Alright well that's about all I have time for, sorry about the lame letter, oh yeah
Brian was asking me for details about my comp... she is way cool we laugh a lot!! She
is from Colorado and has about 6 months in the mission! We have fun together! Maybe I
will send pics some day!! Well I hope all is well, Love ya Hermana Gosnell

OK not to seem like I'm counting time... because I'm NOT! But tomorrow I officially have one whole year in the mission, where has the time gone?? My companion was talking last night about how she will have a year in Feb and it isn't that far away, I got a sick feeling in my stomach thinking, if feb isnt that far away, Im almost done with my mission... I didnt like that thought process, so therefor I have started to come up with ways I can either slow down, or reverse time... any ideas would be helpful!!
Well I dont really have anything spectacular to write about, and well I dont have much time to write either! I have a new companion, she s awesome! Her name is Hermana Reese, and this is her second area... she loves to do contacts, and we are finding new investigators a full!! I must say my conversation skills are improving, because well I do all the talking, spanish is still a little hard for her! But hey I love to talk!!
The whole having the elders thing here is pretty cool but kind of stressful because they dont pass us all their references, if they find a good one they keep it for themselves, which they arent supposed to do, but whatever, we have zone conference this friday so I will get more guidance from presdent on this subject!!
We have started teaching a beautiful family, the only problem is they arent married... but want to, only when they have more money!! Yeah but they are awesome, they came to church this last sunday even though it was pouring and storming a ton! Yeah they are amazing!!
Well I think Im gonna run for now, sorry this letter is so lame, I hope all is well back home! Love ya

hermana Gosnell

Tuesday Aug. 11, 2009

Ok so this week, went by so fast that I don't even remember what happened!! Tomorrow I will be saying goodbye to Hermana Ladd, it will be really hard... but luckily her mom came to pick her up and so she will still be at church this next Sunday! So tomorrow isn't like forever goodbye! I bet you all are just wanting to hear all about my new comp... well all I know is her name is Hermana Reese... I think! She gets here tonight at like 4, so we are just cleaning and getting ready for her all day! She is coming from Ushuaia, she started her mission there, she has 3 transfers in the mission, which means I think she started in Feb or March... she is from the states, but I'm not sure which one! I seriously don't know anything else... her last comp was Hermana Guerra, who is awesome! So I'm hoping she is really cool!

Also another weird thing about this transfer is I am sharing the branch of Tonelero with elders... now get this, the elders only job is to find investigators for me to teach!! Yeah I'm serious!! Every person they find they have to hand over to me and my comp to teach!! Apparently there are a lot of missionaries from the MTC here waiting for visas to go to other missions so they have to hang out in our mission for a bit and president didn't know what to do with them so he is putting one of them with an elder from our mission here and having them find people for us sisters to teach!! I'm still a little bit confused, but hey I'm pretty dang excited... We are gonna have a lot of baptisms this transfer!! The one elder I know who will be here is kinda stressed, because he won't be doing any teaching, but he is really cool and sorta excited... at least trying to be! I'm gonna try to involve them in the teaching process as much as I can because it isn't fair to them to only find and not teach... but I'm not gonna lie, I'm so excited!!!

So lets see some random stories, this past week I was up to my old tricks and sprained my ankle... it was bad for a couple of days, but I slapped my handy dandy brace on it and I'm doing better!! I won't even go into details on how it happened... its just too embarrassing, and not funny!! Also the ward threw a surprise party for Hermana Ladd and told me about it... I knew she didn't want anything like that... because she wanted to work until the last day, not say goodbye to anyone! So I told her so she would have a heads up... because if she walked into that blind she would have probably gotten mad... this way she was prepared and was able to pretend to be happy!! It started at 6 and we said we would be there at 630, and they got mad and were like no you need to be here on time... well we got there late because we know the members here are late people, we got there and they blindfolded Hermana Ladd and she walked in and there was like one person there... haha SURPRISE!! She acted confused, and it was confusing because one person was there, but then everyone started coming!! It was sweet, but a little stressful! Also we sang in church on Sunday and it turned out so beautiful... just the 2 of us sang I Know That My Redeemer Lives, we sang one verse in English and then 4 in Spanish everyone in the chapel was crying... it was powerful!!

Welp I think that is about all I can think of, plus I'm hungry so I'm going to finish this up and go eat!! I hope to hear from you all next week (since I didn't hear from ANYONE, except Mom, this week)

Love y'all

Hermana Gosnell

Wed. Aug 5, 2009

Hello everyone! I have gotten all kinds of good reports of this last weekend how Gabi's baby blessing was really sweet! I hope you all didn't spend the whole time sitting around moping about how much you missed me... its OK though, I know it must be hard!!

Welp this last week we have been working HARD!! And the unfortunate thing about that is, there are no instant results in this kind of work! Its going slowly, but when you drop like more than 20 investigators, you just know its gonna be hard work!! Yesterday we decided to head over to an area we had never worked in (even Hna Ladd who has been here for like 9 months) Well we can see why, nothing happened! But we did walk like A MILLION MILES!! OK maybe not that much, but almost I'm sure!! But its a good thing we get a long so well, the time passes faster. But maybe that is a bad thing because the time is passing WAY TOO FAST!! Next week is transfers and I will be saying goodbye to Hermana Ladd and hello to a new companion, whoever that may be... I hope she is fun and a hard worker!!
So a cool thing that happened this last week is we went the the house of a member knowing that 2 new families had just moved to her house (she rents out rooms of her house) and we got there and she was like hey can you wait for a few min. so we sat down and waited and a few minutes later she came out with 3 people and they all sat down and were waiting for us to teach them!!! 2 of them are a couple (I hope they are married) and they have 3 kids, ages 10,7,5 we are so excited to keep teaching them, we have an appointment with them tonight!!
Also one more thing, this last week as we all know it was Fast Sunday. This Sunday we have decided to put our faith to the test, we promised the Lord that we will obey with 100% exactness and work as hard as we can. We are looking to have a baptism this weekend... we still don't know who it will be! Pray for us to not loose faith! I know that the Lord will follow through, we just need to do our part!! Its kind of scary being its Wed. and still not knowing, but I'm not losing faith!!

So I don't have a lot of funny stories to tell, we have a lot I'm sure, because we are laughing a little too much sometimes I think! Our zone leader called us gigglers... we weren't to happy about that... we are def not gigglers... but whatever what does he know??

My one funny story for the week... So we decided we wanted to make zuchinni bread, Hermana Ladd's mom sent her a recipe... our only problem is neither of us knew how to say it in spanish, or even how to describe it (its a vegetable, and green?) I actually to be honest didn't even know what a zuchinni looked like!! So we consulted our trusty dictionary, and it said calabacita, so we went on over to the vege and fruit stand and asked for one of those... the lady looked at us like we were crazy, and held up a pumpkin, we were like no its a vegetable and its green... really specific right? well she ended up giving us something green, I didn't know what a zuchinni looked like so it seemed good to me, and Hermana Ladd was like I don't think this is it. So we go home and look up what we had just bought... apparently we bought acorn squash... whatever THAT is!! Well we had that instead of zuchinni, we decided to make the bread anyways just to see how it would turn out... and to our surprise, it was really good!! So we took it to our branch presidents wife the next day because she just had a baby and we were telling her about what happened, and she thought it was funny and she was like what kind of vegetable were you looking for, and we were like well we don't know what it is called in spanish still, but in english it is zuchinni... she just started to laugh... apparently its the same word in spanish too!!! We feel like such idiots... oh well I guess that's what you get when you put to yankees together!!

Welp that's about all I think... I hope all is well for everyone back home! Love you all and cant wait to hear from you all next week!!

Hermana Gosnell

PS a shout out to bro Ramirez, that's for the note... I'll just leave you in charge of negotiating with the gypsie... I like your prices!!