Week 51 - Valdivia

Here are a few fun facts about my new area...

1. My area is actually a little pueblito called Collico down by the river Calle Calle.  It is gorgeous and fun because we are outside of the city of Valdivia just enough that there are not a lot of people in our area.  There are no colectivos (like a mix between a taxi and a bus because it's a car that follows a certain path and picks up all the people waiting in the street until it is full and people just tell the driver to pull over when they get to where they want to go).  There are only micros (buses) so we always get to take the bus to get to civilization :) haha So my sector is really pretty and green because it rains a lot and there is a lot of country-side in my area! :) 

2. There are some really nice bus drivers that know the missionaries so sometimes we are just walking and they pull over and ask if we are going far and if we are they give us a ride for free!! :) I like those bus drivers :) haha 

3. There is a small village about an hour from here that speak Mapuche, an ancient language that was spoken by the Indians that lived here and now they continue speaking only Mapuche. They don't speak Spanish.  It's interesting because my companion is from Guatemala and she was explaining to me that it is the same in her country... Her uncle lives in a village where they only speak some Mayan language.  She told me that there are 22 different Mayan languages in Guatemala and they don't speak Spanish either.  And they live their lives very different from us... like... they don't wear clothes because they aren't that "modernized" and the children play in the trees like monkeys... Hermana Sarceño said that she went to visit her Uncle and was shocked when she realized that the monkeys playing in the trees weren't monkeys... they were children! Weird, right?

Welp, I'm already just about out of time! :) I love you guys!!

We walk on this old rail-road-track to cut through our area more quickly and I wanted to take pictures with these chickens :)

look... cows. On our way to an appointment, we decided to stop to take some pictures :)

Hermana Sarceño with the cows.

Week 50

Hello Friends and Family!

It has been pretty difficult for me to adjust to a new area, new companion, new ward, new house (which is FREEZING cold because we only have an electric heater in our room and that’s it), new people, new language (my companion is from Guatemala and apparently the Spanish in Guatemala is a lot different from Chilean Spanish) but I know that it is all part of God’s plan for me! I have been called of God to serve in this area in this time and God doesn´t make mistakes :) So that just means that I have to find my purpose here.  

My companion has been having problems with her back and also has a weird rash that is spreading all over her body soooo we have been spending lots of time in the doctor’s office... Which is SUPER fun... I get to sit there and listen while the doctors gets mad at us because we walk all day and they say that she will never get better if she doesn`t stop walking... Now... that is probably very true... But Hermana Sarceño has already taken lots of days to rest and the pain just came back... so there is obviously something else that is wrong there...  I walk the same amount as her and also carry her things in my backpack so she doesn’t put weight on her back and I’m fine... It’s just a little frustrating because every time we go to the doctor, the doctors search the symptoms that she has on google and Then tell us what is wrong with her... hmmmm... that’s a little sketchy, no?  So we’re working through that process :P The good thing is that all of the people are really friendly and we’re making lots of friends in the doctor’s office! :D haha

This week, God blessed us with a HUGE miracle!  One of the families that live in our sector has been sharing the gospel with their neighbors Elena, Fernando, and their son Chrístofer (we’re going to call them the Reyes family for now until I learn what their last name is) who were listening to the missionary lessons before but kinda just lost interest and didn’t have time to continue learning.  Well, this week this family invited them to a Ward Family Home Evening that we had and THEY CAME!! THEN... The Reyes family told us that they wanted us to pass by their house to teach them more and that they would be in church the next day! And guess what!! They showed up!! So we sat by them during church and got to know them better and in the end, they said that they had to leave early this Sunday but would stay all three hours next week!! :D WOW!! So we set up an appointment to visit them this Wednesday and got their number to call them just in case and gave them the Book of Mormon, explained to them a little bit about what it was and assigned them the introduction to read before we come on Wednesday!!! AHH!! We are so excited!! They are so prepared to receive the gospel!! I’ll let you know how it goes!!

I love you guys!! Take care!!

Hermana Harvey

On the bridge here in Valdivia, the people put these locks with engravings on them! They were pretty cool.

Uach!!

My comanion "UACH!!!" I kept saying "Watch! Watch!" And she didn't have any idea what I was saying. She doesn't speak English... I thought it was funny.

So I got really close to one of the sea lions and it kinda... I don't know how to explain it... growled at me and started to Charge!! So I got scared and yelled "Chuuuta!" and ran over to my campanion. Only after all of this did we see this sign that in English says "Sea Lions. Biting Animals. Keep your distance."  Haha I almost got killed by a sea lion! Whoo!

 Me by the sea lion.

Me getting closer to the sea lion right before I almost died.

More sea lions.

Week 49

Hello friends and family!!

My trip went well for those who are wondering.  I left Punta Arenas at 1:30pm by plane then took a bus from Puerto Montt to Osorno which took about 2 hours and another bus from Osorno to Valdivia which was about another 2 hours.  With all of the time that we spent waiting for buses and for other missionaries, I got to Valdivia at 10:30pm.  I was soo tired.  Hermana Sarceño practically tackled me with excitement when I got there because she has been waiting for hours :) 

Valdivia is definitely different from Punta Arenas!! It is super green here wherever you look because it is ALWAYS raining!! My sector is called Collico which is a little town about a half hour away from the city of Valdivia.  This sector opened up about a year ago and before that there weren't any missionaries here.  We're a little tiny sector outside of everything else! FUN! And our sector follows the river Calle Calle so we are by the river all day long! :) It's gorgeous!

It's super different to have a companion that doesn't speak any English.  It's funny because I'm trying to teach her English while she has been teaching me Spanish so I have actually spoken more English than in all of the rest of my mission!! I told her that in the mornings we are only going to speak English so that she can learn.  It's funny because she tries to communicate with me in English and she pretty much just points and things and says things like ."I table..."  "I want...." haha it's pretty fun!

I feel even worse about my spanish now because usually people can understand pretty well but when they are listening to my companion speak, they have no problem at all understanding so they just relax and then I can see their face change to a strained, "what is she saying?" face as they try to understand my spanish with a thick US accent.  haha But I know I'll learn lots with Hermana Sarceño!! :)

I love you guys!!

Hermana Harvey

  

Me and my mamita!! She is great! and she has guinny pigs.... (sp?)

came to our house to find a puppy!! yeah... we can't have puppies in the mission so we had to bring her to a member's house who said that they would take him.  Apparently, the Hermana who was here before me had a soft spot for dogs and they found this little dog abandoned in the street and knew he was going to die so they saved him. haha

By the river in the morning :)

Week 48 - Time for Change!

Hello Friends and Family!!

Well... I have now been in Punta Arenas for 6 months and we received the news this morning that it is time for me to move on.  I am headed to Calle Calle (I don't really know how to spell that yet...) on Wednesday.  That is a town inside of a bigger city called Valdivia (pretty much the other extreme of my mission!).  I have heard that it is GORGEOUS there. I've seen lots of pictures and from what I´ve seen it's true! But the pictures I saw were in Summer haha and it is supposed to be the rainiest city in our mission so that should be fun :) So.... As transfers always go... I have lots of mixed feelings.  It is sooo hard to leave all of the people here that I have grown to love so much but I know that there are great adventures waiting for me in Valdivia!! So I'm excited.  I know that the Lord knows better than I do what I need... and right now, I need to leave Punta Arenas. 

I already know my new companion!! It's Hermana Sarceño from El Salvador.  She was here in my zone in Punta Arenas with me and she is tiny and super fun!! :) You'll see what I mean when I send more pictures later :) She was working as a PE teacher before she came on the mission so I'm going to improve my workouts in the morning! :)

We saw a bunch of miracles this week!! One of which was Vanessa and Chrístian!! We had a lesson with them on Saturday and we dedicated the whole time to answering questions and explaining the Restoration until they could really understand.  In the end of the lesson, we asked them if they believe that Joseph Smith was really called to be a prophet and if we have a prophet today and Vanessa said "I believe it! I don't know why I believe it but I just do.  I can feel that it's true."  We explained to her that she had been feeling the Holy ghost testify to her of the truthfulness of our message.  They both told us that they always LOVE when we come to visit them because they can feel something different when we are there and they just want more of that feeling.  We invited them to be baptized on the 25th of July and Vanessa said "¡SÍ!" and Chrístian said "I believe I will be even more than prepared to be baptized that day."  We testified to them of the truthfulness of this gospel and the importance of this decision that they are making and Vanessa just started crying.  She said "I'm sorry.  I don't know why I'm so sad all of a sudden."  And we explained to her that she was not feeling sad.  She was feeling the Spirit and that that is what she is going to feel as she prays for a confirmation of her decision to get baptized.  IT WAS AMAZING!!! I am sooo happy for them!! I'm also sad that I won't be here to see them get baptized but I know that they are in good hands here with Hermana Snyder.

I love you guys so much!! I'll let you know next week what it's like in Valdivia!!

 

Chau Hermana Snyder! Chau Snow!

Hermana Sarceño! My future companion!

 

Week 47!

Hello Friends and family!! 

This week was honestly pretty hard. I didn't realize how draining it would be to walk in the ice and snow every day... all day... haha but we are usually blessed with lots of appointments so I can't complain! :) And it is GORGEOUS!! 

Funny story real quick... We were walking to our district meeting on Tuesday and we have to bring a computer so that a couple of the elders in our district can skype in and so I was carrying the laptop and walking in the snow quickly because we were running late and I fell! It was stange because it was like... one second I was just fine and dandy walking and then the next moment I was on the groud! The good news is that there was lots of snow so it was like a big pillow!! :) haha so that was fun.  

We had an activity this week in which all of the missionaries sang and we watched videos about Jesus Christ.  It went pretty well :) But we diffinitely sang like a choir of missionaries... haha latino missionaries.  But that's okay because the chileans ALWAYS say that the choir sang like a choir of angels.... no matter what they sounded like! But the videos that we watched were great!! :)) 

Love you guys!!

Hermana Harvey

 

 For P-day today we went to play in the snow!! :) It was super fun!!! And only about 15 minutes driving to get there! :D FUN!!

 

 

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! Week 46

Hello Friends and Family!!

Yes.... I am having a white JUNE!! Haha crazy! Hermana Snyder and I feel like it's Christmas!!! :) It's been a little cold this week... and when I say a little, I mean a lot!! Haha we get to ice skate everywhere we go!! :) Super fun!! I'm sending a couple pictures of the snow but I didn't get any super good pictures. Next week hopefully I'll have better snow pictures :) 

So... one of the miracles that we had this week real quick!! We were trying to find a few people that we had contacted in the street and, as happens many times, we realized that someone had given us a fake address so as we were knocking doors on the street that they said they lived, I noticed a girl seated in her house, looking at us from her window.  I told Hermana Snyder that she was looking at us soo... like any good missionary... we took that as a sign that we needed to knock on her door and talk to her.  A girl named Andrea answered and we stared with our typical, "Hello, we're missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." As Hermana Snyder was saying this, I noticed another young girl inside look up very surprised and stand up and Andrea look back in surprise at her friend.  The girl who was inside, Lydia, pushed her way through the door to give us each a hug! That was pretty shocking... She said that she was a member of the church here visiting her friend who is not a member and that she had something to tell us.  She said that just as we knocked on her door, she was finishing telling her friend about how the missionaries had knocked on her door, the message that they shared with her, and how she came to know it was true and.... guess what... that's when we showed up out of nowhere and knocked on her door!! WHAT?!?! Sometimes we don't even realize that God is leading us in each and every thing that we do until things like this happen!! CRAZY!  We are meeting with them this Friday!

Love you guys so much!! Have a great week!!

Hermana Harvey

 

 

Week 45

¡¡Hola Amigos y Familia!!

We have still been finding lots of new people to teach!! One of these is named Solange and she is ADORABLE. I don't really know how to explain how she is in other words... But she is really sweet, soft spoken, and dresses adorable. Have you seen the show The New Girl? She looks and acts kinda like the girl from that show but more sweet and soft-spoken haha ANYWAY... We taught her about the Restoration and she loved it and said that if she received an answer from God that it is true, she will be baptized on June 27th.  Well... she didn't go to church yesterday so we're going ot have to wait a little longer but it's great because she really has desires to know if it is true!!

We also received a reference from our investigator, Victor, to go and visit one of his neighbors (They knew a young woman lived there and that she works as a nurse and has a little daughter but that's all they knew about her)! When we knocked on their door, her husband answered (Chrístian) and he told us that we could come back on Saturday. So, of course, we came back and when we got there, his wife (Vanessa) told us that she was really surprised when her husband told him that we were going to come because he doesn't even believe very much in God and NEVER thought he would want to hear what we had to say. He explained that they had seen missionaries pass by the house many times and always wondered what they believed but they had never knocked on his door. So when we came along this day, he decided that he wanted to listen and learn.  We shared with them about the Restoration of the Gospel and and they loved it also! They said that we could come back any time we want!! haha so we set up an appointment to see them next Saturday when they will both be home together!! I am so excited to teach them more!!

Lots more happened this week but it's too much to write here... If you want to have more details, someday you can read my journal :) it will all be there!!

I love you guys!!!

Hermana Harvey

 OH! And it snowed!! Didn't stick in our area but you could see it up in the hills!! :) So pretty!!

Week 44 - So Much to Say... So Little Time!

Hello Friends and Family!

Some of the miracles that we have seen this week...

We went to have a lesson with Madeline and Gonzalo and we were a little nervous because Gonzalo has been acting differently so we know that there is something wrong so we were praying that we would know what to say and how we could help him.  We decided to watch a video about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the love and forgiveness that we can feel through his sacrifice.  When we put Hermana Snyder's pen-drive in the computer, it started playing some random so we said oh, "no, no, that's not the one."  But Gonzalo said, that's okay.  This one's good too so we can watch both (he obviously had never seen it before and was just assuming it would be good).  So before we even started, we watched this random video that started playing by itself and it was PERFECT.  It talked about the guilt that we feel many times from our sins and the addictions that we may have and that we may feel as though there is no way out but through the atonement of Jesus Christ and through his love, we can all be cleansed.  It was beautiful!! God knew a lot better than us which video they needed to watch.

We passed by the house of a woman named Roxana who the missionaries have passed by before and she said, "Oh.. I don't have much time right now but.... yeah. Come in."  I was surprised at this moment (we never really know what to do at first when people say that we can come in after knocking on their door because it doesn't happen all that often) so we just started talking to her about what our purpose is as missionaries and asking her some questions to get to know her religious background.  She told us that she is from the Evangelic Church (about half of the population of Chile is part of this religion) and that she had come to know that this church is not true and that it is better just to love God and pray and live according to his teachings in your own way.  She explained to us that she had a dream in which Roxana was sitting next to all of the other members of her church and they all had dried up leaves in their hands.  Their pastor then told them to go up one-by-one and put their dried up leaves on an old dried up tree.  She said that each and every one followed his instructions and each leaf fell to the ground.  When it came to her turn, she said that she would not put her leave on the tree because the tree was dead.  The pastor said that she had to put her leaf on the tree because it was his tree and she refused and as she refused, we looked down at her own leaf and it was half-dead and half-living. She said that she knew in this moment that her church was just another dead tree that she should not participate in.  I felt the spirit very strongly as she was sharing this dream with us and I know that it was real! And I Understood her dream!! This was the first time in my life that I have been blessed with the ability to interpret a dream! (exciting right??) The leaf that was in her hand came from two different sources... one was the dead tree of her pastor and the other was the tree of life! The true church of God.  We shared with her a few scriptures from 1 Nephi 8 to try to help her to understand her dream better and let her know that there IS a true church.  Roxana is living her life up to this point as if we are still in the great apostasy but we bring the good news that the church of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth!! All there is to do now is to pray to God to know if it is true and take God's invitation to "prove me now herewith to know if these things are not true."  I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the church of God and that as we pray to God, we can come to know for ourselves if this is true!  And I know how much joy that this truth can bring to the lives of others as they come to know! I also know that Roxana will be able to know for herself if she prays, asks God, and does the things that he asks of us to test it for herself. 

Alma 27: 

But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties,even to an experiment upon my words, 

 and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

We have also been focusing a lot on inviting people to be baptized! We have invited 4 people this week to be baptized! And not one said no! No one really said yes either.. but they didn't say no! Haha They told us that they need to study more, understand more, and pray more before they can say yes.  And that is EXACTLY what we want for them!  It's even better than them just saying yes to make us happy because they really want to know for themselves! We don't want anyone to be baptized without knowing for themselves that what we are teaching is true.  And when they do know that our message is true, we want them to be baptized because it is the only way they will be able to live with their families and with God after this life! We invite people to act because we love them and we want them to be happy for ETERNITY! 

I love you guys!!

Hermana Harvey