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!

Week 74! Vicious dogs and drunk men, oh my!

Hello Friends and Family!!

Merry Christmas!! :D I hope you all had a great Chirstmas year! :) I loved talking to you guys on Christmas Eve! :D I love you soo much!! This Christmas was pretty interesting for us... haha after I talked to you guys, we went to Hermana Billicopf's house for dinner. She is American! :D So that was pretty awesome! We had a Christmas dinner with dinner rolls from  the US!  So that was pretty gosh darn awesome! Then we went out "caroling"  with the branch choir (which they are actually really good for a chilean choir!) The thing is that here, you can't really just go out caroling because the people will look at you like you are completely insane so we always had to knock on their doors and go into their house to sing to people so they didn't think we were completely insane. So that was fun :) 

Theen on Chirstmas day we had a pretty normal day, I oppened my gifts, (thank  you sooo much for everything!!) then we went to each lunch at a recent convert's house then we went out to sing for people and "work" normally :) Soo we were walking down the street and there was same tall grass in front of us and out comes this HUGE black dog and my companion yelled "Hermana! The dog!"  and then froze.  So, realizing that this dog was going to bite my companion because she was too scared to do anything, I pulled her by her arm and flung her to the other side so the dog couldn't get to her.  I think we scared the dog with all of our yelling and quick movements so after barking at us for a while, he left.  We walked away and started laughing because we were just so scared and then my companion realized that her arm and rib-cage hurt really bad.  ooops... I'm a little stronger than I though I was.  She didn't get bit by a dog but we had to go back home to put ice on her shoulder and ribcage because she was in pain from when I pulled her away from the dog. But the good news is that she didn't get bit.  

Then, later that day we were trying to contact a reference  that we received from a member in our ward and there was a crazy dog behind the fence. I thought it would be a good idea to see if he was really bad and if he would bite us if we tried to get closer to knock on her door so I put my planner by the fence and the dog didn't just bite my planner but he pulled it out of my hand into his yard! My pass-along-cards and map and papers and everything went flying and he went running with the case that I had over it! Oops... maybe I shouldn't have put my planner there... So... this lady wasn't opening her door so we knocked on her neighbor's door (okay, we yelled ALO at their fence) and he came out and said oh, I can go get your planner because the dog knows me. So he went and got all my things except for my case which I think the dog ate... haha  Aand the miracle of this story is that after the young man hopped the fence, the lady came our to see what was going on so we were able to talk to her and we set up an appointment for tomorrow! :D Whoo!! Miracles do happen!! Oh... and I also still have my planner AND my hand! So that's a good thing too :)

Another fun thing that happened yesterday was that there are a lot of drunk people in the streets during the holidays sooo there was a man carrying some furniture and we offered him some help and he said yes! He stopped and put the stuff down and we were just about ready to help him when he said, "Yes, I need help with my heart... I need a woman." Sooo at this point, we realized that his face was also all red like any other drunk man and my companion said "Well, we can't help you with that!" and we went walking very quickly! OH! and I forgot to mention that at this moment we were carrying a little newly-born puppy that someone had left on the side of the street to die and my companion just couldn't leave him to die sooo we were bringing him to a member's house... soo my companion, this little puppy and I left as quickly as we could and after a little while when we had already forgotten about this drunk man, we heard someone calling behind us "chicillas! chicillas!" or... "girlies! girlies!" (I think that would be the translation) and we barely looked back and saw that he was chasing after us! And fast! So we started pretty much running and took a few quick turns that we knew he couldn't follow and lost him again! Whoo! :) it was an adventure :)

I love you guys so much!! Hope you have a great week! :)

Hermana Harvey

Elder Jose A. Teixeira came to speak to us! I'm right behind him! https://www.lds.org/church/leader/jose-a-teixeira?lang=eng

Week 73

Hello Friends and Family!!

We had an awesome week!! :) First of all... We have been practicing our Spanish, English, and Portuguese! I can now successfully have a very broken conversation with my companion in Portuguese! Whoo! haha It's really close to Spanish so it's not all that hard to learn, but the pronunciation is complicated...  And we speak in English a lot now because Hermana Medeiros is learning soooo my English is coming back little by little but I feel confused in Spanish! Sooo we're going to speak English even more and I have to learn how to separate them in my mind before I get home so that I don't forget it!! I'm getting better every day :) haha

We had lots of activities for Christmas with our branch this week, which was awesome becuase we are finding new people to teach in every activity!! :) The craziest thing that happened in our activity on Saturday was that we were running around quite a bit because we have so much to do and after the activity, we were already leaving when we saw a member standing there and I felt like he wanted to talk to us.  So, even though we were running out the door and really did NOT have time, we stopped and asked him if there was something that we could do for him.  He responded saying that it's fine if we needed to go but that here was a woman inside that wanted to get baptized.  He told us that she would be getting married in January and wanted to get baptized right after she gets married!! We could NOT believe what we were hearing!! We had been working sooo hard every-day trying to find the people that God has prepared to receive this gospel and, in this moment when we least expected it, God blessed us with the chance to meet someone who is REALLY prepared! :) We have an appointment with her on Wednesday so I'll let you know how it goes next week :) Or in SKYPE on Thursday! :)

Our focus this week was on helping out investigators come to church with us on Sunday and yesterday, we were running again with meetings and things that we had to do and didn't even have time to pass by our investigators' houses to help them get to church.  Well, we got into our first meeting after all of the things that we had to do in the morning, almost sure that our investigators weren't going to show up... and we saw that one of our investigators, Mauricio, was already there! Then, after a little while, we saw that there was another sitting in the back and another, Mirium...who wants to get baptized, sitting by her boyfriend! So there were already 3 investigators just sitting there waiting for the meeting to start! You cannot imagine our surprise! :) Then, Hermana Medeiros and I sang after the sacrament a Christmas hymn in Spanish, Portuguese and English and while we were singing, we watched another one of our investigators walk in!! :D We were sooo happy to see all of them there!! :) Soo pretty much, even though we worked REALLY hard this week and walked A LOT.... but really... A LOT... we saw the blessings and we are still seeing them!! :)

I love this gospel and I know that it is true and that it can bless each and every one of our lives!!

I love you guys!! I'll see you on Thursday! :DD

Hermana Harvey

So when we were leaving a group activity, we saw our sister-leaders walking and I was like... whoa... that's what we look like to other people... I have to take a picture!

An adorable family of investigators that came to our branch Relief Society activity!! :) I love this family so much!  This is Elizabeth, our investigator that we are teaching how to read.

Okay... Just look at this bug that I found in our house! I could not believe how weird it was! And it just sad there on this folder and let me take pictures of it! My companion thought I was crazy buuut I love taking pictures of weird little things like that... :P

Week 72! (That's only 6 Monday emails left for those keeping score at home!)

Hello Friends and Family!

So, this week Elder Texeira came to visit our mission and taught us a LOT about how to be efficient and how to have success in the mission field! So we have been changing a LOT of things about the way that we work! Especially with talking to literally EVERYONE in the streets.  There are always soo many people and we have to separate ourselves at time (still being able to see and hear one-another but talking to different people) in order to talk to everyone! Sooo we have been talking to a LOT of people and finding a lot of new people to teach!!

Remember that little old lady that we're teaching named Elba? Remember how I told you guys that she's 95 years old! Weeell we invited her to be baptized and she accepted!! She is going to be baptized on January 16th! God really does prepare his children in every stage of life! She is such a sweet little lady and she says that she knows that she has to be baptized in order to live with God again after this life so she wants to take this step! Man... we really learn to LOVE the people that we serve here :)

I love you guys and I'm already out of time!! :)

Hermana Harvey

The members of our branch came to help us cut our grass!! :)  It took an army to cut that forest that we had :) Now it'll be easier the next time we try to cut it with school scissors! :)

Pictures from Hermana Medeiros' mom...

Hermana Medeiros made some Brazilian food for Madison.  I hope she teaches her to make it, so she can cook it for us when she comes home. :)

Week 71

Hello Friends and Family! 

We received a referral from a member in our branch and she said that it was a little old lady who lived with her son and we were excited to go meet her. When we got to her house, her son was bringing their firewood in and we offered help but, obviously, as always, he told us no so we saw her mom sitting there and we started talking. We told her who we were and that her neighbor had told us that we HAD to come meet her so here we were.  We did not imagine how old she really was until we met her.  She is 95!! But she still hears really well!! That was the most surprising thing to me! haha don't people usually lose their hearing after a while...?  She had a very hard life.... she had 15 children and raised all of them by herself because her husband died just after the smallest was born and she lost many of her children through the years.  She only has 3 children left now.  She also raised a good portion of her grandchildren because a few of her kids were not able to care after them.  She is a very strong woman and now is ready to receive the true gospel in her life!! It is amazing that God can really prepare people to receive the gospel in ANY stage of life!! 

Another thing that was pretty gosh darn funny, just a quick recap, was a lady that we contacted in the street and when we went to give her a pass-along card, she told us that she wouldn't accept it because she believes in Jesus Christ and when we told her that we do too, she told us that she KNOWS we are lying because she knows that we say that we believe in him but then we step all over him and that we put his image on the floor of our chapel so that everyone can step on him as they walk in.  Wow.... I just want everyone to know that WE BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST!! He is the center of our religion and the head of our church! I know that he lives and that he loves us and that we cannot be saved if it were not for his sacrifice for us!

Being in the house a bit extra these weeks has given us the chance to cook a lot in the house! :) We've been inventing lots of new things to cook with the things that we find in the house! :) It's fun!! But what is even better is that we have been able to study for HOURS each day in the scriptures and I have really learned to LOVE the Book of Mormon!! But in a way that I never could before I REALLY started studying it!! And I KNOW that it is true!! And I also love that we have been able to leave the house every day!! :D Whoo!! I just have to go back home now if my ankle starts to feel molested (that's the word that you would use in English?... I don't know...)  And we are seeing so many miracles!!  We are finding new people that need the gospel each and every day!! I LOVE BEING ON A MISSION!!! AHHHH!!!

Hermana Harvey

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