Week 55

Hello Friends and Family!

We have experienced lots of changes this week! My companion is awesome! :) Her name is Hermana Marinho and is from Brazil.  I've already been learning a little bit of Portuguese which is super fun! :) I've decided that it is a mix between Spanish and French... sooo I'm going to come home speaking English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French! :) Whoo! Haha

It was funny when Hermana Marinho got here because each and every transfer, there are always a whole bunch of missionaries in the bus stations with millions of suit cases all playing games like signs or ninja. We get super bored waiting in the terminal sooo that's what we do to make the time go by faster.  As we were there waiting for our companions to get to Valdivia, one of the elders told me, jokingly, that the best part of these transfers is that I wouldn`t have to go to the clinic anymore (becuase we were always in the clinic with Hermana Sarceño) and I laughed and told him that my companion would tell me "oh, and by the way, I have to go do physical therapy every day in the clinic" haha And guess what Hermana Marinho told me when she got here!! "Oh... By the way... I'm going to have to go to the clinic every morning for physical therapy." haha So we will continue to share the gospel with the physical therapist :) 

Sooo.. for those of you who know me... You know that I have NEVER been good with directions. I get very turned around very quickly.  Which makes everything more interesting.  You know that you are bad at finding your way around as a missionary when you can't remember how to get to the church building!! So... short story... I got a little turned around after getting off the bus in the Elder's sector while headed to a meeting at church and we walked in the opposite direction and found ourselves walking through what we liked to call quicksand... or quickmud? And I almost lost my shoe!! haha It was hilarious but we showed up to our meeting with VERY dirty shoes :P  But the point is that in the end, I found the church building! So we're all good! :) 

We have already seen lots of miracles!! It's like God just wants to bless us and is trying to find every single excuse to bless his missionaries!! :) One of these miracles was Dorris!! It was very interesting because one night, I was planning for the next day and looking through the list of names and addresses of people who said that we could come back later to visit them and came across the name Dorris.  I didn't even look at the description that I had written because we were in a hurry to plan and I just knew that she lived in the area that we would be going the next day so I wrote down her name and direction to go visit her.  When we got there, she acted like she had never seen missionaries in her life (which I thought was strange because I didn't recognize her either but I knew that she was in the list of people that I had contacted)  She told us that she didn't have time right then but that we could come back in another moment to share our message with her.  But she said that she is Jewish and that she isn't looking to change her religion.  So, after asking her a few more questions about herself and talking a little while, we found out that her father had passed away just a couple weeks ago and that it had been really hard for her.  Hermana Marinho testified to her that families can be together forever and we began to feel the spirit super strong! Dorris then, obviously being touched by the spirit, invited us in her house and we got to share with her a little bit about the Plan of Salvation.  She later said that the missionaries that had passed by before (I guess she remembered us after a while) had asked if she needed help with anything and it surprised her because she said that it was the exact day that her father had passed away and she felt as though we knew.  When we got home, I looked at my list of contacts that I had and looked for her name.  I found that I had written that Dorris hadn't even opened the door.  She yelled from inside that she was busy and we simply asked if we could come back later and if she needed help with anything.  After she said no, we left.  It amazes me how God can work through the smallest of things in life to work miracles in the lives of others!! We can never think that what we are doing here is insignificant because each and every thing that we do is important to God's plan!

Love you guys!!!

Hermana Harvey

My companion and I goofing off

Picture after stepping in quick-mud

Hermana Marinho playing in the mud

I made bread and we decided that it looked like a bunch of eyes

We went as hermanas to take some fun pictures today :)

My companion and I in Sunday Dress :) haa