Week 56 - Big News!!!

Hello Friends and Family,

So... This week we had interviews with President Obeso and he decided to do them differently.  They came to each and every one of our houses to see if they are clean and organized and if we have everything that we need and when President Obeso got to our house, you could see by his face that something was wrong.  He asked us about our living conditions, who lived next door and everything and after a while of talking, he told us that he wants us our of our house as soon as possible.  He told us that he is very protective of his sister missionaries because he sees them as if they were his own daughters and he does not want us living or working in Collico.  Soooo... They called us last night at 10:00 PM and told us that we are leaving TODAY! At 6:00 we have to be in the church building so that we can switch sectors with some elders in another ward.  Soooo we were up until 4:00am packing up all of our stuff and we don't even have time to say goodbye to all of the people that we have grown to love here in this area.  It all happened so fast because President Obeso told us that maybe he would wait until the next transfers come along but then they called us and said that we have to get out today... Sooo that's the big news of this week! Pretty crazy, right?  I'll let you know how the new area is next week.

In other news... we have seen lots of miracles this week!!! So my companion has some trouble walking because of some problems that she has had with her knee and the mission nurse told her that she can only walk 3-4 hours a day... which is not much when you're a missionary... so we're a little more restricted with the way that we can work.  So this made is a little complicated to know when we should head back to the house so that she can rest her knee.  So what we decided is that every time that she isn't feeling well and wants to go back to the house, we say a prayer to ask if there is anyone else that the Lord wants us to go see before we go back or if it was time to let her rest.  I'm just going to tell you right now that when missionaries have to put in an extra effort to do the work, the Lord blesses them even more than usual!! We have seen so many miracles from the prayers that we have said before heading back home!! I don't have nearly enough time to share all of them with you but I need to share one that was AMAZING!!

 So we had gotten to that point that Hermana Marinho didn't feel like she could walk any further so we sat down and watched the sun as it set over the river and just relaxed for a little while before saying our prayer to see what God wanted us to do.  When we said our prayer, we both just sat there for a long while after... thinking and trying to interpret what the spirit was telling us.  We both, in this moment, felt as though there was Someone... but we couldn't put a name on who that Someone was... So, knowing this, I tried to think of all of the people that I could and one name came to my mind but I wasn't sure if it was really the right person or not but I just felt that we should walk in that direction and see if she was home and if she wasn't home, we decided that we would just go home.  As we were walking, we saw a man there who was just looking at something on his phone and we just said hello and continued walking.  After we had barely passed him, I felt REALLY strongly that I had to turn around and talk to this man.  It was almost as if the spirit literally turned me around and opened my mouth to speak with him.  We asked him why he was out there and he told us that he didn't really know why, but he felt as though he needed to leave his house to get some fresh air and just think because he had been passing through some pretty hard times.  After talking for a while, we began to share with him a little bit about our message and the great blessing that it is to each and every person as they come to know that it is true.  We shared with him our testimonies that we have a prophet on the earth today who receives revelation from God to guide us in the way to be truly happy on this earth and for eternity.  The spirit was soo strong as we spoke with him and he told us that he knows that God had sent us to him in this exact moment to send him the message that he needs. After setting up an appointment to come back and teach him more about our message, we were walking away when I felt the same spirit again push me and tell me that we hadn't finished yet. We turned around and I told him that we had one more question for him.  We asked him what it would mean to him if he came to know that this message that we are sharing is true.  He responded with "If it is true... it means that I have waisted a lot of my life not following the Gospel."  This response brought such power that there is no doubt that he felt the spirit touch his heart and tell him that if it's true, he has to follow this path.  I honestly feel the spirit right now super strong even thinking about this moment.  It was probably one of the most spiritual experiences of my life!  I am so thankful that I have the knowledge that this church is true and that I have felt the joy that it brings into our lives and that I can share this knowledge with the people here in Chile!!

 Obviously, we are sad that we aren't going to be able to continue visiting with Fernando (this miracle man.... haha) but we know that God has a purpose for everything that happens on this earth and that Fernando and all of our other loved ones here in this sector are going to be able to continue learning and will have their chance to receive the same joy that we have! I am just so glad that we were listening to the spirit and that we stopped and talked to him in the moment that God sent him our to talk to us!!  I LOVE THIS GOSPEL!! I LOVE CHILE!!!  I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!

Have a great week and I'll let you know how it goes in our new sector next week!

Hermana Harvey

Look! I found California in Chile!!

I never introduced you to Botch!! He's our dog... he follows us everywhere and fights with the other dogs along the way.  Super fun :) haha He even learned how to open our gate so that he can get into our yard at night.