Week 78 - My Last Group Email! So many mixed feelings!

Hello Friends and Family!

So, it has been a pretty crazy week full of adventures!! We found a new investigator named Enrique who is atheist (sp? ateo).  It was really funny because we had a member come with us to one of our lessons with him this week and when we were about to walk in, I realized that I had forgotten to tell her that he is atheist so I told her real quick as we walked in the door and she looked at me like "Are you kidding me?" then we sat down and were talking for a while when she looked at him like he was an animal in the zoo and said "Can I ask you something?"  He responded that she could and the sister who was with us said "Are you REALLY atheist? I have never met one before and didn't know that they really existed." Then he said that yes, he really is and that they are normal people just like everyone else, just with different ideas.  Haha it was so funny. She looked so shocked! 

We had exchanges this week with the sister leaders and I was with Hermana Smoot :) It was fun getting to talk to her about what we're going to do when we get back home and about our families and everything. We spoke a LOT of English... Okay... so it may have been Spanglish but still... I got some practice in :) I am so excited to see you guys and tell you about all the crazy things that have happened in my mission that I haven't been able to share in the short time that we have to write every week.  

We had a branch activity that was AWESOME! We separated ourselves out into 3 different teams... Chile, Argentina and Colombia and we played a bunch of games and did lots of sports and singing games and everything and the craziest thing that happened in this activity was at the end, my companion and I went to participate in a bindfolded trust competition so they blindfolded me and I had to follow her voice and everything went super quiet.  When we got to the "finish line" where I had to sit down in a chair, I took off the blindfold and all of the branch had gathered together and they started singing a song that I don't even know haha but it was something to say goodbye to me... They threw me a going-away-party!  A couple of members sang a song they had prepared for me and they did some typical Chilean dances and one typical Chilean tribal dance that is especially for saying goodbye (they pulled me in to dance in that one too) and they had prepared a video for me using pictures from my blog and also videos of my converts talking and thanking me and also videos of my family!! I could not believe it!! I WAS SO SHOCKED!!!  I have soooo many feelings.  Now I understand the true meaning of the phrase "mixed feelings." haha Thank you for your videos. I love you guys so much.

I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!  See you sooonn!!!!!! :)

Hermana Harvey

 this picture turned out pretty terrible because it was in vivid and I didn't know. :P But this is our branch right after they had sung to me.

Hermana Rosa!! She was the closest Hermana we had to a mamita here in Llanquihue! I love her so much!

Our Branch President (the one holding his baby) and his family.  We had lunch with them out in the "Country" :)
Pictures from Hermana Medeiros... 

Week 77- (11 more days and 1 more email to go!)

Hello Friends and Family, 

It's been a pretty crazy week. We've met some pretty awesome people while we talk to everyone that we can possibly talk to in the street.  One of these people is named Elías.  He's 23 and is REALLY interested in our message!! He has a bunch of great questions and is really willing to follow the answers that he receives from God! I am so excited to teach him more!! We're going back to visit him tomorrow and he said that he would read and pray about the Book of Mormon before we come! :D

So we went with a member named Hermana Jovita to try to find the house of an appointment that was set up by other missionaries for us to go to and we figured out that the address that they gave us didn't exist. The street they gave us was a cool camping site that didn't have any houses on it... just people with their tents :) haha  So Hermana Jovita decided to kidnap us and take us on a quick road trip haha it was pretty hilarious.  She stopped and made us get out to take pictures and to try these wild berries that she loves that are called maquis.  Apparently they paint your mouth a deep purple color haha we went to our next appointments with our mouths practically black! :)  I put a few little branches of berries in my backpack to save for later.

When we got home, I reached into my backpack to pull out my scriptures and realized that I ALMOST touched a spider that was just chillin' there inside.  Then it started running away and I realized that it was probably one of those Rincón spiders that everyone talks about being super poisonous so I freaked out and threw my backpack and Hermana Medeiros told me afterwards that I had yelled something in English that she didn't understand, (I think it was Oh my gosh!) haha I was too worried about my life that was at stake to think about what language I was speaking.  I just went and grabbed two tins of poison and sprayed that little thing until it stopped moving. Freaky!

We went to Frutillar Bajo today and I think we will be going to Saltos de Petrohue next week :) so that will be fun! I love you guys so much! I hope you have a great week!

Hermana Harvey

 Maqui tongues!! :) My companion and Hermana Jovita.

My name tag in Frutillar Bajo :)

Hermana Medeiros and I in Frutillar Bajo

Email from Hermana Harvey's mission

I just got this email from the mission:

Elderes y hermanas,

Aquí hay algo de información que necesita acerca de su regreso a casa.  Usted tendrá que estar en la capilla Mata a las 1:00 la tarde del día 27 de enero.  Si no hay nadie en Mata, por favor nos espere. Es posible que todavía estemos ocupados con los nuevos misioneros. Tendrá una entrevista con el presidente, una cena y devocional esa noche.  Usted recibirá su información de vuelo ese día.  Todos los vuelos se han arreglado y confirmado.  Todos los misioneros están saliendo de Puerto Montt el día 28 de enero a las 9:20 de la mañana.  Usted volará a Santiago y hacer vuelos de conexión allí.  Usted tendrá la oportunidad de ir al templo en Santiago.  Por favor, recuerde que debe estar pendiente del horario de su vuelo.  Tienes que estar en el aeropuerto 3 horas antes de la salida de su vuelo. Si su vuelo de conexión no es hasta el día siguiente, se duerme en el hostal del templo.  Le enviaremos su itinerario de vuelo a sus padres, presidente de estaca y obispo para que sepan a qué hora va a llegar a casa.  Por favor, asegúrese de que han recibido esta información.  

Presidente Obeso le gustaría tener su correo electrónico personal.  Por favor envíeme su correo electrónico personal (correo no lds) y lo añadiré a la lista para que el presidente pueda mantener contacto con usted después de la misión.

Muchas gracias,

Saludos,

Elder Haddad

Week 76 - "No time... sorry." (Her shortest email ever!)

Hello friends and family,

I litterally have no time at all but I just wanted to say that everything is going great!! we have a goal in our mission to triple all of the work that we have been doing so we have been REALLY SERIOUSLY busy now!! I am having the time of my life and I love you guys so much!
Just so you guys know... Remember Hugo? the investigator with the perfect questions? well, he's doing great and now has a baptismal date for Febuary 13th!! Whooo!!! I'm so happy for him!! :)

I love you guys so much!

Hermana Harvey

Week 75! (3 more to go!)

Hello Friends and family!!

We had a crazy week! In the end, we have had looots of problems with our new apartment that we are moving into today because.... just our luck... we found out that the man who is renting us the apartment is a crooked government worker who has robbed LOTS of money from everyone in Llanquihue.  He's still under interrogation but EVERYONE apparently knows that he is guilty and let's just say he has a reputation of not being all that kind. Buuuut the apartment is beautiful so we're just going to enjoy it and make sure that the contract that he signs is REALLY detailed so that nothing bad happens :) So that's fun. Who knew I would be able to learn so many crazy things on my mission?

With the goal of our zone to invite EVERYONE to be baptized this week, we have had some AMAZING lessons in which 2 new investigators accepted baptismal dates! :) Mirian and Yoconda are both going to be baptized on Febuary 6th!! Whoo!! :) I'm so excited for them! We have had a very successful week, teaching everyone that we could gett into contact with in the streets or in their houses or wherever in the world we found them! :)

After we got to the apartment at 9:30 PM, everything was normal and we planned for our day today and then went to call our leader at 10:00 and realized that we didn't have our cell phone... oops... my bad :/  I think I dropped it in a colectivo when I went to pay the driver... soooo we were freaking out a little bit because we had no way to contact ANYONE and above all, we would be moving in the morning and HAVE to talk to people about that to coordinate everything... so we weren't all that happy.  So... we just went to bed, not having anything else to do when I started hearing voices and heard a woman outside say "no, I don't have keys.  There are no lights, I think they're sleeping." I was freaking out at this point because my companion sleeps like a ROCK (literally... like a rock) so I was alone thinking that there was someone trying to break into our apartment so I locked the door to our room and prayed then went to bed... in the morning, I was in the shower when I heard someone run up our stairs and start baning on our door yelling, "HERMANAS! HERMANAs!" so my companion yelled and asked who it was and she responded that she was Jovita, a recent convert in our branch, so she opened the door and i hurried and dried off and put my clothes on and when I got out, hermana Medeiros was talking on the phone and saying that we had lost the phone and telling exactly why.  Apparently, our zone leaders and the members of our branch had been trying to get ahold of us all night long and we weren't answering our door because I was too scared to think reasonably soooo I had to answer to our zone leaders and the President's assistants this morning who all thought that we had died and were having a heart-attack.  Soooo the moral of the story is don't lose your cell phone... the mission is going to think that you died a terrible death!

I love you guys!!

Hermana Harvey

photos: Our new apartment!