Week 70

Hello Friends and Family!!

Sooo this week has been a little different... :P We spent most of our week stuck in the house because I couldn't exactly walk.. soo I don't really have all that much to tell.. other than the fact that I have advanced a lot in my Book of Mormon lecture! Whoo!! :)

One "funny" thing that happened is that President Obeso was going to come to our house to interview us because all of our zone had interviews and he didn't want us to have to travel to Puerto Montt to have ours.  So we were freaking out a little bit and we cleaned our entire house. But we REALLY cleaned our house! We scrubbed the floor and the washing machine and the stove and behind the washing machine and stove and the craziest thing is that we needed to cut the grass but we didn't have grass-cutting scissors (yes, they use these big scissors to cut the grass here) soooo Hermana Medeiros had the great idea of cutting the grass with her normal scissors.... I could NOT believe it... she cut almost ALL the grass with those school scissors!! I put a chair outside and sat there and started pulling up grass with my hands to try to help but she ended up coming in with blisters on her hand from cutting so much grass so little at a time!! LOCA!  So he said that he was going to get there at 3:00 so she cut that grass as fast as her little hand could move and then came in the house to make it look like nothing had happened and started studying her scriptures like a good little missionary. So we waited and waited.. and when it was about 5:00 we thought... that is so weird.. why hasn't he come yet? So we looked at our phone and realized that it didn't have any signal! So we began doing everything possible to make the signal come back and finally, we received a message that said that President Obeso had called 7 TIMES!!! Soooo... when we could finally get ahold of him, he told us that he couldn't find our house even after asking a bunch of people in the street where the mormon missionaries live and they were already almost back in Osorno! Man I felt sooo bad!! And so did Hermana Medeiros! Her poor little hand! She did all that for nothing! haha

Aaand another funny thing was that I was looking at a box of vitamins that we had in our house and reading what it said and I guess the whole being in Spanish thing confused me.  It said that we had to keep the pills in a dry, cool area away from the light (sounds pretty normal, right).  I looked at my companion and said, "wow! these vitamins must be really strong! It says that you can't even go out into the light after taking them!" Ummmm... yeah.... my companion is still making fun of me for that :) 

I love you guys!!!

Hermana Harvey

Pictures from Hermana Medeiros!

Week 69

Hello Friends and Family!!

Well, first of all, we had a week of miracles!! One of our investigators, Alejandro, decided that he wants to be baptized and we set his baptismal date for December 19th! Right before Christmas! :) Whoo!!  We are so happy for him! 

I was teaching my companion how to make bread this week and decided that it would be fin to turn it into a language study session at the same time... so I sat on the couch and just told her step-by-step what she had to do and she followed my instructions.  I saw that she didn't exactly understand how much oil to use and I watched her put a LOT... but I continued with my instructions anyways and saw that she was having difficulty kneading it because it had waay too much oil so I began to give her instructions to make biscuits instead of bread because I knew it wasn't going to turn out too well.  I told her to roll out the dough and put it to cut it out, put them on a cookie sheet and to poke holes in it with a fork.  She asked me if we should put egg or butter on them and I said no, it has plenty of oil.  Then I look over at her and realize that she was pouring oil onto a fork and spreading it over the top of each biscuit... I asked "Hermana Medeiros... What are you doing?" And she said, "I'm doing what you told me to do!" The word in Spanish for holes is "hoyos" and apparently, to Hermana Medeiros it sounded a lot like "oil" sooo she thought that I used a word in English in the middle of my sentence and was telling her to put even more oil on top of her oily mixture and to use a fork to do it.  And the funniest thing as that she did it! She listened to me! Wow... that is a trusting companion right there :) So I showed her how to poke holes in her "bread" and it actually turned out pretty good! :)

Aaaannd now for the biggest news of this week... drum role please.... I sprained my ankle! Okay... here´s what happened... So Hermana Medieros and I were on our way to an appointment and were extra happy so we were skipping through the street when I stepped off the road a little bit into the dirt and herd a loud crack and felt a strong pain in my ankle.  I immediately knew that something serious had happened and began to scream and cry.  At this point, Hermana Medeiros said that she thought I was just joking around and I was just going to say "I'm soo happy" because she says that I always do that but then when she heard me start yelling "I don't want to be sent home! I don't want to be sent home!" She knew that I wasn't laughing.  A couple of the young men of our branch just happened to be walking by so she called them over to help and they carried me to a nearby member's house.  The called a taxi and took me to the hospital where they checked my ankle and told me that it was broken.  The doctor said that he could feel the bone move when he pressured my ankle where I said that it hurt and that they didn't have X-rays there so they would have to send me to Puerto Montt to know how bad the break was.  Soo they gave me an IV for the pain and then a member came and picked us up to go to the clinic in Puerto Montt. Before leaving, I received a priesthood blessing from my mission leader of our branch and then we headed off.  When I finally got my X-rays taken, the doctor looked at them and said that my bones were perfectly fine. There was no fracture and that it was just a sprain!! It was a MIRACLE!! President Obeso called me in the morning and said that the mission nurse had called him and told him what was happening and that if I had a fracture, I would have to be sent home because I wouldn't have enough time to heal on my mission.  I know that God wants me to be here on my mission right now and that's why he spared my ankle so that I will be able to finish strong! I feel sooo blessed!! I know that this gospel is true and I am going to use this time that the Lord has given me to the fullest!! I just have to wear a boot for about a week and then I'll be good to go! :) 

I love you guys!! 

Hermana Harvey

Yup... I sprained my ankle.... It happens, ya know?

I got my package!! THANK YOU!! :)

Another Picture posted online by Hermana Medeiros's mom. :) 

Week 68

Hello Friends and Family!

This week was amazing!!  We have been finding new people to teach each and every day!! EVERY DAY!! It is amazing!! It's like the Lord just wants to literally pour blessings upon us every day.  I have felt the way that the Lord works through us in a very special way this week.  

We were teaching Hugo yesterday (YES, WE FOUND HIM AT HOME AGAIN THIS WEEK!) and he still has LOTS of great questions!  We were able to teach him in a very simple way the truths that he needed to answer every question and doubt that he had.  It was amazing how the spirit worked through us... the spirit was so strong as we were speaking and we had no idea what to say until the words just started coming out of our mouths.  You could see it on his face as he went from not even knowing for sure if God exists to feeling the spirit testify that God is his loving heavenly father.  We felt the power of those words as we testified to him that his father in heaven loves him! I know more than any other moment in my life that God is literally my father and that he loves me! 

Do you guys remember Juán? I don't know if I have already told you about him but he is one of our investigators who's wife passed away about 9 years ago and has had a lot of trouble accepting commitment because the rest of his family has a thing against the Mormons and he is afraid of losing the rest of the family that he has left.  Well, after an amazing lesson about the Restoration and how through this restoration, the authority of Christ is on the earth again so that we can be baptized and make it to heaven to be with our loved ones again, we invited him to be baptized on November 28th and he accepted!! We are soo happy for him!! One thing that I have learned on my mission is that we are not helping people to become better.  We are not helping good people to become better and bad people to become good... we are opening the door for these people to have eternal happiness... to make it to the celestial kingdom or what is more commonly know of as heaven. Where we can live in eternal happiness. And i know that it is only through this message that we share... the restoration of the church of Jesus Christ... that we can be with our families for all eternity.

I love you guys!!

Hermana Harvey

Week 67

Hello friends and family!!!

Hermana Medeiros is such a sweetheart!! I love working with her!! :) But you would NOT believe how crazy our first day together was!! I felt so bad!! haha I had to explain to her liike 15 times that it wouldn't be this way every day! Sooo.... here's what happened... First of all, we had lunch with President Obeso and all of the other missionaries that are either starting their missions or training a new missionary and he spoke to us and everything and then we got on a bus to head back to Puerto Montt.  On the bus, we recieved a call that Hermana Medeiros had left a bag in the church that had her Book of Mormon, along with some other things, inside. So she lived the first few days of her mission without a Book of Mormon (she has it now, thank goodness ;)).  Then, when we got to Puerto Montt, we went to buy her a backpack because she didn't know she could bring one and only had a little purse that didn't hold much of anything.  It was a beautiful day so I took of my jacket off and we headed off to go shopping :)  THEN we got back to the bus terminal, got all of her suitcases and everything together and got on a bus headed to Llanquihue.  When we were just leaving Puerto Montt, I suddenly realized that I didn't have my jacket.  I had forgotten it in the bus terminal! I thought, oh well, it's okay, I'll just call the elders that were there and I would get it back later.  When I went to reach for the cell phone and realized that not only was our cell phone in the jacket, but so were the only keys to our house! As we got on the highway headed to Llanquihue, we had to tell the bus driver that we had to get off NOW because we had forgotten something.  He looked at
us as if we were insane then a man helped us take out all of our suitcases that Hermana Medeiros had brought and they left us stranded on the high way.... We had to walk all the way to the nearest bridge to cross over to the other side where we could take another bus to get back to Puerto Montt... By the time we got back, we were sweating like pigs and looked like we were about to die and obviously the Elders thought it was the funniest thing in the world as they watched us walk the last few steps to retrieve my jacket that I had forgotten.  (I don't even know how we made it back. It was a miracle.)  When I got my jacket, I looked in the pockets and WE FOUND THE HOUSE KEYS!! But the cell phone wasn't there.... :( haha so we wen't about 4 days without cell phone or Book of Mormon until the Elders could bring us a new cell phone and bring us Hermana Medeiros's Book of Mormon. Whoo. What a week.
But the rest of our week went really well!! :) We're doin' Good here in Llanquihue!! And it looks like we found a new apartment that is going to be gorgeous!! I'll send you pictures when it's finished!! :)

I love you guys!! Have a great week!!

Hermana Harvey

Week 66 - A Week of Change!

Hello Friends and Family!!

This week, everything has been changing! But most of all, I think I have changed a LOT this week.  It is amazing how much you can learn when you dedicate your life to the service of God!  I had a couple months in which I was a little depressed because I have just been overly stressed with all that we have to do as missionaries.  I went through a couple of months of little or no desire to get up in the morning and was doing everything that I have to do because it is my responsibility as a missionary rather than because I wanted to do it.  I was not enjoying my mission the way that I had been for the first year or so.  But I didn't even realize how bad it had gotten.  I only realized when we went to a member's house for lunch and she was talking to us about when she served as the mission president's wife a few years ago.  She said that in this time, there was no mission nurse so all of the missionaries called her when they were sick.  She explained to us the signs that you can see when a missionary is overly stressed.  As she spoke, I recognized each and every sign in myself.  I was sooo stressed!! And so, that night, I was talking with my companion about it and everything just came pouring out!  Then, after talking for a long while, we got ready for bed and I began to pray for help.  I have never cried so much in a prayer before.  The next morning, after recognizing what was wrong, talking about everything that I was feeling with my companion and the Lord, and asking God for help, I woke up with desires to serve again!! I had energy and was ready to work!! I feel happy again!! Not that I was miserable these last couple of months, but I wasn`t as happy as I could have been!! But now, I can enjoy the rest of my mission to it's fullest.  

Osme got baptized this week!! :) We are sooo happy for him with this decision that he made!! In his baptism, his daughter Zulydela asked the primary to sing and they sang a primary song about baptism!! It was the sweetest thing in the world!! Before Osme got baptized, we decided to sing another hymn while he was waiting there in the baptismal font so that we could invite the spirit again! Haha so while he was there all soaking wet, we all sang "Soy un Hijo de Dios" or "I am a child of God." It was so great!! He invited a family from his work to come and they did! And his son also invited a friend and a member of our branch also invited a friend! So there were a lot of people who aren't members in his baptism!! That was a huge blessing for us!! :) And for them! :) He has the goal to go to the temple with his family in a year so that they can be an eternal family!! I know that they can be together forever and that this is made possible in the holy temples of the Lord and Osme knows that too and has that goal with his family!! :) We're so happy for them!

Lots of other things happened this week like... we had our Zone Conference on Wednesday in which we talked about what we can do better as a mission and set goals to be better and to see more miracles and we always leave sooo enlightened by the spirit!! And on Thursday we had exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders and I was with a sister who is going to be finishing her mission this next transfer and she was SUPER trunky thinking about her boyfriend who she left at home haha so that was fun! :) And I learned a lot from her about what I can do to be a better missionary! :) Oohhh... AAANNNNDDDD President Obeso called us last night... AANNNDDD.... We received our transfers!... Hermana Alvarez is going to be leaving this week and will still be inside my zone! So I will get to see her! :) And I will be training an hermana named Hermana Medeiro (I think) from Brazil!! So good thing I learned a little bit of Portuguese from Hermana Marinho! :) 

I love you guys so much!! 

Hermana Harvey