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