Week 63

Hello Friends and Family!!

We have had another great week here in Llanquihue!!  Osme has been doing great!! He is so excited about his baptism on the 31st! He's really committed to this day and we're already getting everything ready so that we won't be running around like chickens with our heads cut off at the last minute.  We have been teaching him ALL of the lessons to prepare him for baptism this week! Which are a lot of lessons! So it has been really fun to get to know him and his family better this week!! They live on a cow farm just outside of town and we love going there!! We get to cross the farm and talk to the cows every time we go to visit them :) It's rather amusing.  And it is GORGEOUS up there!!  One funny thing that happened up there is that Osme decided that he needed to cut his grass so he went and opened up the gate so all of the pregnant cows came onto into his yard and they ate his grass and left it perfect! As if he had worked for hours with a lawn mower.  And her wife, Mariluz told us that it works great because not only do they cut the grass perfectly but they also fertilize it at the same time! :) How convenient!  Then we had the great experience of watching as Osme did his job... he killed a baby calf...  and we watched the whole process. It was so sad!! But it was really interesting to see how it all works!

Yesterday in church, the primary asked us to come to help teach the kids about how to be a missionary and specifically how to talk to people in the street.  So we told them that, first of all, when you are a missionary, you have to say hello to EVERYONE that you see in the street.  Second, you can either offer them a pass-along card or you can offer your service if they need it.   (obviously, this was a very short version of what we do when we talk to people in the street).  Then, we gave each kid a pass-along card and went to work! :) We walked down the street with about 10 primary children all yelling "HOLA!! HOLA!!!" to every single person that they saw, no matter how far away they were or if they were inside of a bus or car :) They even yelled Hola at all of the dogs that they saw in the street :) And each and every one of them gave their pass-along card to someone! :) It was great!! THAT is how to do missionary work! :)

I love you guys lots!! :) Have a great week!! 

Hermana Harvey

The laguna that's about 2 minutes from our house (walking, as always).

I taught my companion how to chop wood :)

Walking to an appointment.... Ya know... just an every-day stroll through the cow farm.  Haha Osme, our investigator who is going to get baptized on October 31st lives on a cow farm in the country soo we get to come here often and it's gorgeous!

and this is the view from his house.  I looove the volcanos. Gorgeous! There are two volcanoes there... Osorno and Calbuco.  Calbuco is the one that looks more broken up because it errupted a couple months ago.

The city below from the cow farm

This is Osme's house.

He put up a good fight little guy...  but by this point, he already knew what was coming

Aaaand we looked away when he committed the crime.  

Mhmmm...

And he ended up here. Being smoked.

I know... I'm awful

Milagros en Llanquihue!

Hello Friends and Family!

So this week we set the goal as a zone that we were going to write down all of the little miracles that happen every day to be able to recognize them and feel more excited about our missions.  So we have been! And it is amazing how miracles just come out of the wood-works when you are really looking for them! We saw miracles all the way from dogs leaping out of their yards and NOT biting Hermana Alvarez's leg off to little old ladies working in their gardens who are interested in listening to our message.  (which you would be amazed how many there are here in Llanquihue)

One thing that happened this week that was super funny was that Hermana Alvarez is still learning how to contact people in the streets... So I decided that I was going to stop contacting every person and let her have a chance to do it for herself. Sooo we walked past a man who was sitting on his bike waiting for another man to leave his house and Hermana Alvarez stopped in front of him and just looked at him for a while (obviously waiting for me to say something) and then, not being able to think of anything else to say, she said, "¿Cómo se llama?" Haha I found it sooo funny that I almost couldn't control myself.  I couldn't even talk so I just waited and let her talk to him.  He smiled and told her his name then Hermana Alvarez invited him to General Conference and he said he might go. haha It was probably one of the most awkward contacts that I have seen but I am so proud of Hermana Alvarez and she was super happy with herself :)  So that was super fun!

We have been teaching a man named Juán and he has been progressing a lot!! We had a lesson with him and a sister named Hermana María and it went really well!! He is scared to be baptized because his family doesn't like the "mormons" and they all seem to be turning against him because he has been listening to us and coming to church with us... soo that makes it hard for him.  He also lost his wife a few years ago and she was Evangelic so he doesn't know how she would feel about him getting baptized in another church.  So we shared with him about the simple truth that families can be together forever and that it is only through the sacred covenants or promises of baptism that we can get to that point.  Hermana María then shared an experience of when her husband passed away a little over a year ago and she met the missionaries a couple of weeks after he passed away.  She explained that as soon as she heard the message, she knew that it was true and that when she was baptized and received the Holy Ghost, she was filled with a joy that she can't even explain.  She still missed her husband a lot because she loved him so much but she felt that the Holy Ghost was holding her up when she couldn't for herself.  That is what this gospel offers us.  We can have the strength to withstand the trials of this world.  And that is exactly what Juán needed to hear at this point in his life. 

We also had a lesson with Osme, our investigator who is going to be baptized on October 31st.  He is soo prepared! He told us that he wrote down the date of his baptism and put it on his door to remind him that he has to do all of the things that we ask him to do so that he can be prepared for that day so that someday he can be sealed in the temple with his family for eternity!! I am so excited for him!! His wife and two kids are already members. They got baptized a year ago in December and the time has now come for Osme also.

I love you guys so much!

Hermana Harvey

We bought firewood! Whoo!!

And we had to bring it all in ourselves.

It was a lot of firewood. 

Week 61

Hey Friends and Family!

Llanquihue is BEAUTIFUL!! I love it here!! And our branch (it's not even a ward) here is AWESOME!! It is more than twice as big as the WARD that I was in in Valdivia.  The members here are soo willing to help us! So not much change there haha but I am soo excited to work with the members here!! On Sunday, it was cool because we brought a calendar for the sisters to sign up to go out to visit people with us and we just had to hand it over to the Relief Society President and she told us that there is a sister in charge of helping us find people to go out and work with us! WHAT? How awesome is that?? And they have the goal in this ward that each of the sisters are going to think of a referral and that they not only give us the referral but they come with us to visit them! They introduce us and teach with us in the first lesson! I have never been in a ward with so much member-support and this is a BRANCH! I am so excited.

Our sector is HUGE and BEAUTIFUL!! I honestly feel like I'm in some sort of paradise.  There is a huge lake (Lake Llanquihue) and on the other side of the lake there are two huge volcanoes :) it's gorgeous! I cannot even close to describe how gorgeous it is here and the pictures don't get even close to capturing the beauty.  But I can tell you that I just feel super peaceful here.  Like you can feel that it's a good place and that there are lots of miracles waiting for us here. I'm so excited!

Hermana Alvarez is amazing!  She is so sweet and humble.  I love working with her!! She is from Chile!! Northern Chile in a city called Quintero.  So she is teaching me a lot!! :) I just know that I am going to learn a LOT more from her than she is ever going to learn from me!  It's refreshing being with a companion who is just starting her mission because she is so excited about the work!  We have been running around everywhere trying to find new people to teach and trying to get to all of our appointments on time in our HUGE area! :) haha It's great!

The other day, we went to teach a lesson with a sister in our ward named Hermana Carrillo.  She had a referral for us named German so we went together to meet him! Hermana Carrillo explained him why she wanted him to listen to us and bore her testimony about the way that this gospel has blessed her life and explained a little bit about our message and invited him to church and to keep listening to us! I can just feel that German is going to understand and accept our message!!

I love you guys so much!!

Hermana Harvey

So there are these awesome swans on the lake. I guess Llanquihue is famous for these swans.  There are two volcanoes behind me... You can't see them because of the clouds but they are gorgeous! And yes, they are active :) haha one of them is the one that erupted a few months ago.  But don't worry, nothing happened here when it erupted! Amazingly, the ash didn't even get here in Llanquihue.

These pretty wood sculptures are all over the place in Llanquihue.

More wood statues

By the lake. Gorgeous!

Walking the line by the lake! :)

Las Hermanitas!! That's us! This is a little store close to our house :)

Week 60 - Big News!!!

Hello Friends and Family!

Soooo... After spending all of 4 weeks in this ward, I'm being transferred! I'm headed to a little town called Llanquihue.  President Obeso called us last night to talk with Hermana Marinho and he told us that he needed to make a few changes in Holzapfel.  So Hermana Marinho is going to be senior companion (that's how they say it in English, right) and is going to have to teach the new missionary in the sector all about the area. I'm going to be headed to Llanquihue where I will be finishing my companion's training.  She has been in the mission for about 2 months now. I'm super excited because I know she's going to have lots of energy to work and to learn and I know that I am going to learn a LOT too!!

So, as many of you know, this week was 18 de Septiembre which is a huge holiday here in Chile in which there are a LOT of drunks in the streets all week long and we had the pleasure of talking with lots of them!  One of them was yelling "¡Rubia! ¡Rubia!" which pretty much means "Blondy! Blondy!" and following us as we walked by very slowly because of Hermana Marinho's bad knee.  The good news is that drunk men also walk very slowly because they almost fall over every other second and they get distracted super easy.  So after a little while of walking, he gave up and started following another lady who was walking by.  But the bad news is that Mamita Edith (my mamita from collico) saw us walking and began running after us to talk to us and was yelling "Harvey! Harvey!" sooo this drunk man learned my name.  He started following us again and he then was yelling "Harvey!! Harvey!!"  He obviously thought... hey... it worked for her so it better work for me too!  Hahaha soo funny!

As you also might have heard, there was a huge earthquake in the north of Chile this week.  It was pretty scary because we heard about it when it happened and they sent out a tsunami warning in our area.  Hermana Marinho always says that she just knows that something is going to happen here in our mission because she can feel it so I was a little freaked out.  Our leaders called us and told us that we had to prepare ourselves just in case something happened and we had to leave quickly in the middle of the night.  So, we decided that we wanted to be extra prepared so I made bread real quick and we made some hard-boiled eggs and put it with a bunch of other food and all of our other emergency kit things in a backpack and packed our backpacks with the things that are most important to us like our journals and cameras and our leaders also told us that we had to sleep in our work clothes (skirts) so that we could be ready to leave at any moment.  Hermana Marinho and I even did our make-up so that we wouldn't be too ugly if anything happened. haha sooo obviously, nothing ended up happening but it was super fun getting everything ready :)

I hope you all have a great week!! 

Hermana Harvey

Chilean flag with my companion!

 Cueca! Chilean national dance!! We saw a lot of Cueca this year!... It was hard to take pictures so sorry they didn't turn out very well.

Week 59

Hello Friends and Family! 

This week, as you know, Hermana Marinho wasn`t able to leave the house because of her knee pain.  So I had LOTS of companions!! :) I'll have to take pictures this week with each and every one of my companions because I had a different companion every day!! Like 6 different sisters! :) It was great!! We have seen lots of miracles while working so much with the members!! 

Cesar got baptized this week!!! :) The baptism was beautiful!! Cesar is a little bit different from the rest of our ward, his personality is just different, so we were all really surprised when he showed up to church yesterday wearing a SUIT!! It was amazing!! And he looked so happy!! He was nervous to be confirmed because he doesn't like being in front of so many people because he's very shy but he said that afterwards, he felt at peace and knew that he had made the right decision! He us now praying to know if he should serve a mission!! :) He's 23 so he still has time to decide!! 

We have also been working a lot with in-active members! It is awesome because all of the members who go out to visit with us know where they live and it's a lot more likely that they accept us in their home if they see an old friend.  So we visited some members that haven't gone to church in YEARS one of these families came to church yesterday and last week and another family that hasn't come to church in about 10 years came to Cesar´s baptism!! It was so great!! :) We are seeing lots of miracles here in Barrio Holzapfel and we will be seeing lots more!! :)

Hermana Harvey

Week 58

Hello Friends and Family!!

Everything is still going great with the members here in my ward! They're still super excited to go out and work with us and that is going to be a HUGE blessing this week.  We had one day that we had 3 members come with us to our appointments and also to talk with people in the streets and it was great! We were with members ALL DAY! And they were all different members! :) 

This week, we weren't able to leave to work for two days because Hermana Marinho was having a lot of problems with her knee.  It hurt so bad that she couldn't walk at all and she had to put all of her weight on me just to be able to get back to the house.  So we spent a couple of days in the house.  After two full days of pain, Hermana Marinho decided to call President Obeso and let him know what is going on with her and to ask for his help in knowing what she should do.  We then talked to the mission nurse and she told us that Hermana Marinho can't leave to work at all this week.  So I'm going to be working a lot with members this week while Hermana Marinho stays with our mamita and tries to get better!  I know that God has other plans for us lots of times, but lots of times, the plans that he has for us are pretty gosh darn hard.  But I know that we are going to be seeing LOTS of miracles now that we are ALWAYS going to be with members in order to work! :)

Other big news!!! We had a lesson with an investigator that the Elders had decided not to teach anymore because he wasn't progressing.  (We didn't know that they had decided not to teach him anymore because we came here in a white wash and we just saw his name in our area book and decided to pass by his house.) We talked about the Book of Mormon and how he could know if our message is true if he reads it and prays about it. Then he told us that he already knows that it is true.  He had received his answer little by little, but he knows that it is true.  We then talked a little bit about baptism and invited him to be baptized this month. He said yes! So we invited him to say a prayer right then and there and ask God what day he should be baptized.  (we were thinking maybe in 3 weeks.... or 4...) He looked up at us and said.. "I'm thinking Saturday...  Not the day after tomorrow but next week.  I think it's the 12th, right?"  I think we were in shock and all that we could get out of our mouths in this moment was "uh huh." Haha so we organized his baptismal interview and everything and he was interviewed on Saturday and will be baptized this following Saturday!! Wow!! He was so prepared!! He was just waiting for someone to ask!!

Have a great week!

Hermana Harvey

Hermana Marinho got to see the sea lions today!

Week 57 - New Area! New Adventures! LOTS of miracles!

Hello Friends and Family!!

Well, I have lots of news for you guys.. so I'm going to start with the bad news so that I can end with the good! :) 

I think you guys may have misunderstood why we had to have this switch in Areas.  Our house before was pretty.  It was new and had everything that it needed and was just a little cold and humid.  But nothing that we couldn't live with.  The real reason that we were looking for another place to live was that we were living next to 4 men who were at times quite drunk.  Here in Valdivia there are a lot of houses that are build behind other houses (just in their back yard) so that they can rent them out. That is the case with the house where we were living before and also where we are living now.  In Collico, there were three houses in this yard and the two other houses were filled with drunk men.  This was especially a problem since our front door didn't really lock well and in the summer when the door wasn't bigger with the humidity it just opens with the wind...  Sooo when President Obeso saw this and saw how secluded our entire sector is, he told us that we had to leave.  And now we live in a really old house (I think it's like 50 years old and you can see it's years) but it's behind our mamita's house! and it's the only house there and it has 4 fences haha so we're super safe :)  

The bad news about the house is that it has RATS!! And slugs all over the place and the water heater sometimes works and sometimes doesn't and when it's working it just about burns us but when it's not it's water straight from the freezing river. Not to mention the man smell that we found when we got here. and there weren't even any cleaning supplies in the entire house! No wonder it was so dirty! The elders didn't even have any supplies!! haha so we're still in the process of cleaning and getting rid of all of our little friends who like to play in our kitchen! haha But we are being very careful about putting away all of our food so that they can't get to it and washing the dishes with bleach before eating off of them.  So we're still safe :) Don't worry.  And we put out poison for them and they have eaten a BUNCH so they're going to die within 3 days now I believe! Whoo! Sad but necessary.  

But now for the good news!! OUR AREA IS INCREDIBLE!! The field is white already to harvest and the ward was just waiting for sister missionaries to get here to be able to progress.  Our bishop apparently has been praying for 7 years (since he was called as bishop) to get sisters in the ward and now here we are! The thing is that there are a LOT of sisters that live alone and are inactive in this ward so the Elders couldn't go into their houses to teach them.  There are also a LOT of sisters who are super excited to go out to teach with us!! We even have ward missionaries!! :D It is so great!! We taught 13 lessons with members this week!! That is definitely a record for my mission.  I have never felt so much support from the members before and it makes a WORLD of difference!! We have also received a LOT of references from the members!! They have a lot of confidence in us! Which is great! but also pretty nerve wracking! 

I don't have much more time but I just want to share one story!! We received 11 references from one member of our ward and decided to try to find a few of them when we had time that same day.  As we were leaving the house, we said a prayer, as usual, but this time, as I was praying, I prayed specifically that we could find someone that God had prepared to listen and accept our message.  Even in the prayer, the spirit was super strong and I KNEW that God was preparing someone to answer my prayer.  So Hermana Marinho and I both felt that we should go find one of the references that lives close to our house.  So we went and knocked on his door and it was really interesting because you can tell from the very moment that someone opens their door if they are going to be receptive or not.  When he opened the door, we knew that he was interested in listening to us because he left the house to come talk to us in front of his gate.  We started by introducing ourselves and telling him a little bit about what it is that we do as missionaries.  After talking for a little while about how our message can bless us as families, he told us that he had woken up that morning feeling like there was something missing in his life. He said that he had been crying and didn't know why he felt so sad and just began to pray to God and he asked him for a sign.  He told us that he didn't think that it would really come but he did know that he had asked with a real desire to receive.  He then told us that he knows that we were sent from God to be that sign that he had asked for.  He said that he could feel something, something good, something that he knew was from God, almost a pain in his chest, and wanted to cry.  We explained to him that he was feeling the Holy Ghost and we invited him to be baptized. He said yes!  Then we gave him a pamphlet to read and he told us that he would read it but that there was just one problem.  He doesn't really know how to read.  In this moment, Hermana Marinho and I both felt really strongly to promise him that if he tried the best that he could, God would help him to understand by the spirit what he needs to understand.  At this point he was crying and we were just about crying also and he promised to read it and to pray for the help of God to understand and to know if it is true. But he told us that he can already feel that it is true.  We will be meeting with him again on Wednesday! God listens to and answers our prayers!! When members and missionaries work together, we can see soo many miracles!! 

I love you guys!!

Hermana Harvey

This is Yeni! She loves to go out and work with us! She worked with us for 3 days straight!! :) It was great haha

Woo!! Look!! The rats ate their food!! Good rats... 

 In therapy! :) Whoo!

Week 56 - Big News!!!

Hello Friends and Family,

So... This week we had interviews with President Obeso and he decided to do them differently.  They came to each and every one of our houses to see if they are clean and organized and if we have everything that we need and when President Obeso got to our house, you could see by his face that something was wrong.  He asked us about our living conditions, who lived next door and everything and after a while of talking, he told us that he wants us our of our house as soon as possible.  He told us that he is very protective of his sister missionaries because he sees them as if they were his own daughters and he does not want us living or working in Collico.  Soooo... They called us last night at 10:00 PM and told us that we are leaving TODAY! At 6:00 we have to be in the church building so that we can switch sectors with some elders in another ward.  Soooo we were up until 4:00am packing up all of our stuff and we don't even have time to say goodbye to all of the people that we have grown to love here in this area.  It all happened so fast because President Obeso told us that maybe he would wait until the next transfers come along but then they called us and said that we have to get out today... Sooo that's the big news of this week! Pretty crazy, right?  I'll let you know how the new area is next week.

In other news... we have seen lots of miracles this week!!! So my companion has some trouble walking because of some problems that she has had with her knee and the mission nurse told her that she can only walk 3-4 hours a day... which is not much when you're a missionary... so we're a little more restricted with the way that we can work.  So this made is a little complicated to know when we should head back to the house so that she can rest her knee.  So what we decided is that every time that she isn't feeling well and wants to go back to the house, we say a prayer to ask if there is anyone else that the Lord wants us to go see before we go back or if it was time to let her rest.  I'm just going to tell you right now that when missionaries have to put in an extra effort to do the work, the Lord blesses them even more than usual!! We have seen so many miracles from the prayers that we have said before heading back home!! I don't have nearly enough time to share all of them with you but I need to share one that was AMAZING!!

 So we had gotten to that point that Hermana Marinho didn't feel like she could walk any further so we sat down and watched the sun as it set over the river and just relaxed for a little while before saying our prayer to see what God wanted us to do.  When we said our prayer, we both just sat there for a long while after... thinking and trying to interpret what the spirit was telling us.  We both, in this moment, felt as though there was Someone... but we couldn't put a name on who that Someone was... So, knowing this, I tried to think of all of the people that I could and one name came to my mind but I wasn't sure if it was really the right person or not but I just felt that we should walk in that direction and see if she was home and if she wasn't home, we decided that we would just go home.  As we were walking, we saw a man there who was just looking at something on his phone and we just said hello and continued walking.  After we had barely passed him, I felt REALLY strongly that I had to turn around and talk to this man.  It was almost as if the spirit literally turned me around and opened my mouth to speak with him.  We asked him why he was out there and he told us that he didn't really know why, but he felt as though he needed to leave his house to get some fresh air and just think because he had been passing through some pretty hard times.  After talking for a while, we began to share with him a little bit about our message and the great blessing that it is to each and every person as they come to know that it is true.  We shared with him our testimonies that we have a prophet on the earth today who receives revelation from God to guide us in the way to be truly happy on this earth and for eternity.  The spirit was soo strong as we spoke with him and he told us that he knows that God had sent us to him in this exact moment to send him the message that he needs. After setting up an appointment to come back and teach him more about our message, we were walking away when I felt the same spirit again push me and tell me that we hadn't finished yet. We turned around and I told him that we had one more question for him.  We asked him what it would mean to him if he came to know that this message that we are sharing is true.  He responded with "If it is true... it means that I have waisted a lot of my life not following the Gospel."  This response brought such power that there is no doubt that he felt the spirit touch his heart and tell him that if it's true, he has to follow this path.  I honestly feel the spirit right now super strong even thinking about this moment.  It was probably one of the most spiritual experiences of my life!  I am so thankful that I have the knowledge that this church is true and that I have felt the joy that it brings into our lives and that I can share this knowledge with the people here in Chile!!

 Obviously, we are sad that we aren't going to be able to continue visiting with Fernando (this miracle man.... haha) but we know that God has a purpose for everything that happens on this earth and that Fernando and all of our other loved ones here in this sector are going to be able to continue learning and will have their chance to receive the same joy that we have! I am just so glad that we were listening to the spirit and that we stopped and talked to him in the moment that God sent him our to talk to us!!  I LOVE THIS GOSPEL!! I LOVE CHILE!!!  I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!

Have a great week and I'll let you know how it goes in our new sector next week!

Hermana Harvey

Look! I found California in Chile!!

I never introduced you to Botch!! He's our dog... he follows us everywhere and fights with the other dogs along the way.  Super fun :) haha He even learned how to open our gate so that he can get into our yard at night.

Week 55

Hello Friends and Family!

We have experienced lots of changes this week! My companion is awesome! :) Her name is Hermana Marinho and is from Brazil.  I've already been learning a little bit of Portuguese which is super fun! :) I've decided that it is a mix between Spanish and French... sooo I'm going to come home speaking English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French! :) Whoo! Haha

It was funny when Hermana Marinho got here because each and every transfer, there are always a whole bunch of missionaries in the bus stations with millions of suit cases all playing games like signs or ninja. We get super bored waiting in the terminal sooo that's what we do to make the time go by faster.  As we were there waiting for our companions to get to Valdivia, one of the elders told me, jokingly, that the best part of these transfers is that I wouldn`t have to go to the clinic anymore (becuase we were always in the clinic with Hermana Sarceño) and I laughed and told him that my companion would tell me "oh, and by the way, I have to go do physical therapy every day in the clinic" haha And guess what Hermana Marinho told me when she got here!! "Oh... By the way... I'm going to have to go to the clinic every morning for physical therapy." haha So we will continue to share the gospel with the physical therapist :) 

Sooo.. for those of you who know me... You know that I have NEVER been good with directions. I get very turned around very quickly.  Which makes everything more interesting.  You know that you are bad at finding your way around as a missionary when you can't remember how to get to the church building!! So... short story... I got a little turned around after getting off the bus in the Elder's sector while headed to a meeting at church and we walked in the opposite direction and found ourselves walking through what we liked to call quicksand... or quickmud? And I almost lost my shoe!! haha It was hilarious but we showed up to our meeting with VERY dirty shoes :P  But the point is that in the end, I found the church building! So we're all good! :) 

We have already seen lots of miracles!! It's like God just wants to bless us and is trying to find every single excuse to bless his missionaries!! :) One of these miracles was Dorris!! It was very interesting because one night, I was planning for the next day and looking through the list of names and addresses of people who said that we could come back later to visit them and came across the name Dorris.  I didn't even look at the description that I had written because we were in a hurry to plan and I just knew that she lived in the area that we would be going the next day so I wrote down her name and direction to go visit her.  When we got there, she acted like she had never seen missionaries in her life (which I thought was strange because I didn't recognize her either but I knew that she was in the list of people that I had contacted)  She told us that she didn't have time right then but that we could come back in another moment to share our message with her.  But she said that she is Jewish and that she isn't looking to change her religion.  So, after asking her a few more questions about herself and talking a little while, we found out that her father had passed away just a couple weeks ago and that it had been really hard for her.  Hermana Marinho testified to her that families can be together forever and we began to feel the spirit super strong! Dorris then, obviously being touched by the spirit, invited us in her house and we got to share with her a little bit about the Plan of Salvation.  She later said that the missionaries that had passed by before (I guess she remembered us after a while) had asked if she needed help with anything and it surprised her because she said that it was the exact day that her father had passed away and she felt as though we knew.  When we got home, I looked at my list of contacts that I had and looked for her name.  I found that I had written that Dorris hadn't even opened the door.  She yelled from inside that she was busy and we simply asked if we could come back later and if she needed help with anything.  After she said no, we left.  It amazes me how God can work through the smallest of things in life to work miracles in the lives of others!! We can never think that what we are doing here is insignificant because each and every thing that we do is important to God's plan!

Love you guys!!!

Hermana Harvey

My companion and I goofing off

Picture after stepping in quick-mud

Hermana Marinho playing in the mud

I made bread and we decided that it looked like a bunch of eyes

We went as hermanas to take some fun pictures today :)

My companion and I in Sunday Dress :) haa

Week 54

Hello Friends and Family!!

I am happy to tell you all that this week was GREAT!! I don't know how to explain the difference between this week and the rest of this transfer but I think something finally clicked! I feel like I finally just this week got to know my companion and now, guess what? Transfers are here... It's funny how the Lord works.  He knows that we were finally able to learn the lesson that we had to learn from one another and now I will be receiving a new companion on Wednesday.  This transfer FLEW by!! I can't even believe that it's true!! But I'm going to have to accept it haha I forget the name of my new companion but what I do know is that she is from Brazil. :) Fun!! Maybe I'll be able to learn a little bit of Portuguese! 

Fun moment from this week... Hermana Sarceño were just knock some doors when a lady called us over to her car and said that a messenger had sent her to find me.  She said that there was someone who wanted to speak with me and she showed me a picture on her phone that she had received from a friend with instructions to find this mormon missionary.  She asked us "You're elders, right?" haha She said that Sister Espinoza's sister wanted to meet up with me to get to know me haha so she gave me here phone number and address and we called her today and met up! haha it was super weird!! Apparently Camila also has a cousin here studying in Valdivia and she served a mission in Brazil!! Small world!! :) so that was fun!

I don't have more time but I love you guys so much!!! 

Hermana Harvey

Sister Espinoza's family! Evangelia and Barbara.

Week 53

Hello Friends and Family!

First of all, this week we had an amazing lesson with Elena!! We taught her about the Restoration of the gospel and the spirit was super strong as we taught her!! Even with her 6 year old son trying to get our attention the entire time :) haha It was funny because her son just wanted us to come so that he could play with us and wanted me to teach him English. But in the end, we were able to concentrate enough to have an amazing lesson!! When we got to the part where we talked about Joseph Smith, we asked her if she believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and she said yes! Then we started talking about the Book of Mormon and telling her how she could get an answer to know if it is true through the Holy Ghost. She responded by telling us that she already knew... she had felt something different, like something moving inside of her... something good... while she was reading the the introduction and so she already knows that it is true!! Wow! She is so amazing!! Elena is going to be baptized on August 29th! 

We also met a woman named Nora walking in the street.  We were walking in one direction and she was walking the other way and my companion stopped and practically started chasing her down (I asked later and she said that she just felt like we needed to follow her to talk to her.)  So we walked with her for a long time and finally, when we got to her destination, she thanked us for walking with her because she was really scared walking alone at night and we were a huge comfort to her.  She said that she would love it if we passed by to share more with her about the gospel! It was great! :)

Welp, I've gotta go! I love you guys!

Hermana Harvey

We found the church in Niebla! It's a little house right by a fort that we wanted to go see but was closed. :P Open from Tuesday to Sunday... Go figure haha

Got to play on the beach! :)

 There were lots of dogs following us haha you know you're in Chile when...