Week 22

Hello friends and family!!

So this Christmas was great! We went over the the Lanskrun Family's house for Christmas Eve (which is really their big day that they celebrate here in Chile and they call it "Noche Buena" and Santa comes that night and they all open their gifts at midnight!  We had Christmas Eve dinner with them and it was pretty funny because we couldn`t eat the salad because it had pig intestines in it and we have a rule that we can't eat pig intestines for safety reasons, so we ate all of the leaves and the outside of a half of an egg for our salad and just pushed the intestine puree to the side of our plate.  Then they brought out the main course which was turkey and guess what? It was completely frozen :) hahaha It was pre-cooked and just had to be heated up but it was frozen through still so they began to cut it up into pieces and heat it up in the microwave little by little haha I got a good laugh out of that.  Then they brought out dessert and it was these cupcakes that they made in a cake pan (because they don't really make cupcakes in Chile so they didn't really know how to do it and they didn't have any cupcake molds to make it so they were pretty funny looking and they had cream on top (the type of cream that they put on Everything here and that really dosn't have any flavor at all.  And ya know what?  Although it seemed like just about everything went wrong with that Christmas dinner, I had the time of my life!! We focused on the reason for the season, our Savior Jesus Christ and we had a live Nativity and laughed a whole bunch.  I cannot think of a better way to pass the Christmas season than focusing on the true reason and finding the Joy that is possible through our Savior, Jesus Christ!!!

We also had a Christmas activity in which we watched "The Testament" and you wanna know who showed up?! About 5 members of our ward and 5 OF OUR INVESTIGATORS!! And they all loved the movie and were amazing about the Idea that Christ came to the Americas! He visited with not only the ancient inhabitants of Jerusalem, but he visited his "other sheep" here in the Americas! There is a whole other part of the story of Jesus Christ written here in the Americas by prophets of old and you can read all about it in the Book of Mormon!!  What an Incredible gift!!

I love you guys!! Hope you all had an amazing Christmas and will have a Happy New Year!! 

--Hermana Harvey

 

We had a live Nativity with the Lanskrun Family on Christmas Eve! :) That was fun!

Hermana Smoot doing her crunches on Christmas morning! Even on Christmas we've gotta be obedient!! :)

Opened our gifts!! I loved all of them Thank YOu!! And the pajamas are super duper comfy!

We made pizza on Chirstmas! It's a tradition in the Smoot house so we upheld the tradition with Hermana Smoot :)

 (WARNING!! DO NOT LOOK AT THESE PICTURES IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH!!!)

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My Papito holding up the skin and head of the lamb right after he had skinned it.  He looks WAY too happy, right?!

My mamita is breaking the jaw of the lamb in this moment... It wasn't a pretty sound...

Yes... that's the head of a lamb that I am holding.  Fun, right?

 

Feliz Navidad!

Week 21

Merry Christmas, Friends and Family!!

So one thing that has been different about this week is that for the holidays, there are a LOT of people on cruises which means lots of people passing through that speak English!! I just helped a lady from Australia with her computer because she didn't know how to work it in Spanish.  And the yesterday we ran into a couple who said, "Hey, Sisters!" And started asking us about what they could do for fun around here.  We had no idea... because we're missionaries so we don't really have time for the fun things here haha but it was interesting talking to someone in English... And really really weird. 

One more funny story very quickly... we were walking to an appointment this week and my skirt likes to ride up to show the bottom of my slip every now and then and we were walking through a busy part of town and I looked down and realized that my skirt had ridden up to the point that you couldn't even see my skirt anymore!! It was under my jacket and I basically was only wearing a slip!!!! AHHHH!! I do not understand how it is possible that I was walking with my slip showing for so long for it to get to that point!! And I have TWO companions!! HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?? haha So that was fun. :)

Thank you Sister Gardner for you letters!! I love reading them!! :) And it is always really fun to receive letters from home!! 

Love you guys!!! :) 

--Hermana Harvey

We had an activity where we had lunch and sang christmas songs in the center of town with all the missionaries in our area (which was lots of missionaries).  This is us with Hermana Obeso (wife of our mission president) :)

Holding a chick at a member's house!

Feeding a goose in at the same member's house!

 

Week 20

Hello friends and family!!

This week has been amazing!! We have been working super hard because there is Soo much to do and there is just not enough time to do it all!! I want you to know that change is good!! Even though it may be a little hard at first, when things change, that is when you are able to see the biggest of miracles!! Oh!! And guess what!! I spoke in church yesterday!! Gave my first ever real talk in Spanish!! And I don't think it went bad at all.  I think I'm actually a lot more comfortable talking about spiritual things in Spanish than I am in English!! I spoke on the importance of taking upon us the name of Jesus Christ when we are baptized and our responsibility that we have after we take upon us this covenant.  Everyone told me that my talk was "clarito" or ,pretty much, that they could understand me.  Oh! another thing that is funny about Chile, at least Southern Chile... is that everything is "-ito."  They put -ito on the end of everything in order to make it small... even God... A lot of people call him Diosito. haha! I find it pretty hilarious!! I'm already out of time!! But I love you so much!! OH!! And everything's working out with the divorce of the "C" family so they'll probably be able to be married and baptized next month!!! :DDD I am sooo excited!! A long long process but it is all working out.  And I want you to know I LOVE my companions.  I learn so much from Hermana Smoot and Hermana Bretón EVERYDAY!! Wow... this email was all over the place.  I LOVE YOU GUYS!!

--Hermana Harvey

Here is one of our dog pictures! I find this one to be funny.  First of all because there are three dogs at once and second of all because they were all very loving.

Ivonne and her family! She's an investigator that we have and she found out that Hermana Paxman was leaving and that her birthday was coming up and she threw her a surprise party!!

At Volcán Osorno. My nametag and Volcán Calbuco.

our district right before Hermana Paxman and Hermana Figuredo left

In Osorno... we had to go out there to do some tramites... (I don't know how to say that in English...) me, Hermana smoot, and Hermana Bretón. (Side note from Mom- I said "Did you get a new dress? That's cute!" She said "One of the other missionaries left that dress in the house.  The missionaries leave a lot of clothes behind so we find lots of fun stuff :)" I just found that funny.)

In osorno with a Christmas tree :) haha

Here are a couple pictures of our group of missionaries at Volcán Osorno!!

Week 19

Hello Friends and Family!!

So this week has been pretty crazy.  We have a LOT of investigators now because we combined two sectors that already had a lot of investigators in each!! So it is a lot of pressure and, to be honest, it has been a lot of stress for me!  That is one thing that I am going to have to learn pretty quick here is how to manage everything so that we don't have too much stress.  And we have three heads to try to figure everything out that we need to which means lots of ideas!! :) Haha We have been running from appointment to appointment all week in order to get everything done but along the way we have had some really fun times!  We had a competition on Friday to see who could ask for the most references in one day so we had some pretty funny moments of chasing people down to ask to share a quick message with them and ask them for a reference and in doing this we received four references from people on the street!! It was super fun!!  

My companions are Hermana Smoot, who I have been with since the CCM and Hermana Bretón from the Dominican Republic.  Hermana Bretón is amazing :) She is a very hard worker and is VERY obedient :) She is an amazing example to me and it is so much fun to work with her and Hermana Smoot!!

Hermana Smoot is a singer/actress and she is really good at it!! So we had a little fun having a singing class last night with her and it was super duper fun! haha I tried acting and singing the song "These are a few of my favorite things." Haha I'm not an actress... Or a singer... so it was really fun :)  

We have this new family that we are teaching in our sector and they are incredible!! We taught a lesson on the Book of Mormon and what it is and why it is important and they were really interested and are already reading it!! All three of them (mother, 17 year-old daughter, and 6 year-old daughter) came to church on Sunday and it was so great to see them there!! We had testimony meeting so the spirit was super strong in Sacrament meeting and then we had a great class in Gospel Principles (a class that we have on Sundays to learn the basics of the gospel of Jesus Christ for people recently baptized, who are visiting, or who have not gone to church in a long time) about the signs of the second coming.  She said that she had to leave after that because she had to prepare lunch for her family but then they stayed anyway! And she told her daughter that they would prepare lunch ahead of time for NEXT WEEK!!! Ahhh!! That was so exciting to hear because that means that she is really interested in continuing going to church and learning more!! And her daughter didn't want to leave and even went to seminary graduation with the other youth in the ward!! Ahhh!! So exciting!!

Another amazing thing that happened today was that Ivonne has been having some trouble believing that the Book of Mormon is the word or God and in the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ but we explained again the Restoration and how it is the church of JESUS CHRIST with HIS authority to perform sacred ordinances and that it is only through the authority of Jesus Christ that we can run HIS church.  At the end of the lesson she said "Okay, now I understand the importance of having the authority of Christ." She gets it now!! It is only with and through the authority of Christ given through him to the apostles and prophets which he calls to lead the church today that we can receive all of the blessings that are possible through his teachings!!  Just like Jesus Christ went to someone with the authority to perform sacred ordinances (John the baptist), not just any man, we must go to those who have been called of God to lead his church and perform these ordinances!!

So many miracles are headed our way!!

Pictures aren't working again.... :/ Sorry!!

I love you all so much!!

--Hermana Harvey

Week 18

Hello friends and family!

This week has been pretty gosh darn crazy!!  Don't have time to tell everything but I'll try to give you an idea of what's been going on here :)  So we celebrated Thanksgiving just us four Hermanas when we got back to our house from 10:00 until our bedtime at 11:00! It was very fun :) I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner little by little throughout the week and we surprised Hermana Smoot with having everything prepared to celebrate! Because she wasn't going to celebrate it (so sad...) But it turned out great!! And we even found pie at the store!! Which was delicious! :)  Hermana Paxman and I also decided that it was a great idea to take pictures with every single dog that we walked past in the streets on Thanksgiving day!! Haha we gave up after a while because first of all, there are a LOT of dogs!! And second of all, it started raining so we were afraid for our cameras. But I'll try to send at least one of the pictures :)  

Another think that was insane about this week was that Hermana Paxman had her "final interview" with the mission president (Which they called to inform us about 10 minutes after she was already supposed to be there. That was an adventure all of it's own) and in her interview President told her about what my transfer is!! I am going to be staying here in my sector, but I will also be in the sector of the other missionaries in my house! We're combining the sectors because there aren't enough hermanas!! And not only that but I will be in a trio as of Wednesday! Ahh!! Hermana Smoot, who lived in my house in the CCM and now in my house here in Valle Volcanes and will now be my companion!! :D Our entire missions together so far!! And I don't remember the name of my other companion :/ But she is from the Dominican Republic.  Fun!  Sooo pretty much I'm freaking out a little bit because we are going to have a MOUNTAIN of investigators to teach and a HUGE sector soo lots of walking but I am soooo excited!! I can already feel that this is going to be an amazing cambio and that we are going to be working soo hard!! Ahh!! I can't wait to meet my other companion!! :)

Oh!! And we went to Volcán Osorno today!! :D  Don't have time to send many pictures but it was super fun!! There's hardly any snow this time of year but we missionaries managed to find some and to have a good long war :) Super fun! 

I'm already pretty much out of time but I love you guys soo much!! And I want you to know that I'm working hard over here!  :)

--Hermana Harvey