Week 39!!!! Hump Day!!!!!

So these past couple weeks we have been doing these things that we like to call "invasions" where all of the missionaries and the members of the ward go to one sector and we knock on doors and talk to the people and set up appointments and find less-active members or people who were listening to the missionaries before and just help with the work in that area!! It is so great!! We have had soo much success doing that!! We have done it in 3 wards now and by the end of the night, there are always LOTS of new people that are interested to learn and we see so many miracles!! I am so excited about it because we're going to do it in our ward this Sunday!! :DD I'll let you know how that goes next week! :) We did some service painting a young woman in our area's room this week and now we are sharing the Gospel with her and her roommates!! She's 20 also and her roommates are 19 and 20. They are really receptive and said that they would love to come to church with us this weekend!! :DD So I'll let you know how that goes too! :) We've been focusing on working with the members of our ward this week and we have seen a HUGE difference in our lessons!! The spirit is more strong and the testimonies and explanations that the members give are a HUGE help!! We especially saw this in one of our lessons where we were teaching about the Plan of Salvation to one of the young women in our ward who was recently baptized (Araceli) and we invited another young woman in our ward who was recently baptized (Paulina) !! :) The spirit was SUPER strong, the lesson flowed naturally, Hermana Jenkins and I worked better together as a companionship in our teaching, and Araceli and Paulina both bore fervent testimony of the truthfulness of the message that we were sharing!! It was soo great!! I love working with the members!! It truly makes all the difference in missionary work!! I love you all so much!! Sorry I haven't sent any pictures lately.. I'll try to be better!! I take pictures.. just don't have time to send them!!! Hermana Harvey

Hermana Harvey's 20th Birthday

UN DÍA MUY FELIZ PARA NUESTRA HERMANITA HARVEY.

Posted by Víctor Leiva Vargas on Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Week 38

Hello Friends and Family!

Thank you all for the emails this week and all of the Birthday wishes!! I know I'm going to have a great Birthday tomorrow because my ward here in Punta Arenas is amazing and they spoil us even on normal days!! They even announced my birthday yesterday in Relief Society!! So I'm going to be well taken care of and Hermana Jenkins says that she is going to make me a cake! So we won't be having another cake fail for my Birthday :)

So, I remember that right before I left on my mission, my dad told me that I had to remember that the miracles always follow the trials (or something like that :))  These last couple weeks have been a testament to that statement. The week before last was one of the hardest of my life but this week we saw many miracles!! On Tuesday, we both received priesthood blessings for comfort and council and I could immediately feel the power of the priesthood working in me to help me overcome this hard time and we got soo excited about the work.  We felt a different power in our teaching and felt the guidance of the Holy Ghost telling us exactly what it was that we had to do!! We received soo much guidance from the Spirit and didn't do ANYTHING that we thought we should do... every time that we thought we should do something, we prayed and asked God and EVERY time (sad how we as humans have no idea how to make our own decisions haha) we were guided in another direction! Everything has turned out great!! I know that everything that has happened has happened for a reason and Gonzalo is VERY excited to be baptized on May 2nd!! :) That is going to be such a beautiful day!! :) We are sooo excited for him!!

Madeline and Gonzalo got married on Friday!!! :DDD They are so happy about this choice that they made to be married to keep the commandments of God!! They told us that they feel something different about their lives now... like it's a new start. Like everything is a first and that they can just start fresh!! We explained to Gonzalo that he will feel that same way but much more after he is baptized on May 2nd! He is soo excited and so are we!! :) It is so true that we can really only start to understand complete joy after we have passed through trials and the greater the trial, the greater the joy afterward!! That's what Hermana Jenkins and I are feeling right now!!! 

I love you guys so much!! Thank you for all of your emails, support, and prayers!! :) You guys are the best!!

Hermana Harvey

Week 37

Hello Friends and Family!

Sorry!! I already used the majority of my time writing my Mission President!! (see the email that I sent dad to have him help you with the translation :P haha)

We have some weeks that are harder than others here in the mission field and this week was one of those really hard weeks.  Our investigator, Gonzalo is getting married on Friday and should be getting baptized this Saturday but, as always, Satan doesn't like the idea of anything that will strengthen the family, which is very important and sacred in the sight of God and for our progression, so he throws whatever he possibly can at those who are ready to take steps to strengthen the family unit.  In this case, getting married and the baptism of the father and future priesthood holder.

So among the temptations and trials thrown at this family this week, some more personal than others, was a job offer to take a trip for 15 days navigating of cruse ship through all of Chile.  He just happened to run into two of his bosses when he went to the hospital to pick up medication for his wife and they offered him this trip.  What are the chances that they would BOTH be in this hospital at the same time as Gonzalo to offer him this job opportunity?  This just so happened to be the trip of Gonzalo's dreams and he would have to leave this FRIDAY!! The same day as their wedding!! Amidst other temptations that they were facing, this was a huge temptation but Gonzalo told us that he has a firm testimony of the importance of this decision that he has made to get married and baptized in the church of Jesus Christ and that this was more important than any job opportunity that they could offer him.  So he was still very excited and ready for his baptism.

The next day he had his baptismal interview to see if he is ready to be baptized and make sure that he is being baptized for the right reasons and that he really has a testimony that they church is true. Everything went great with the interview, we knew it would, because Gonzalo has a real testimony and it READY to be baptized!! But yesterday, because of our mistakes and weaknesses as missionaries in teaching and in verifying what we have taught, we had to tell Gonzalo that he will have to wait another week to be baptized.  This moment was a lot more devastating than it might sound.  Gonzalo was VERY frustrated and confused and told us that he didn't want to talk but that he just needed time to think and to pray. 

Sorry I can't explain better what happened to lead up to all of this but I really have no more time.  But the most important thing to understand is that Satan does not like the idea of forever families or anything that will strengthen and give support to the family.  We can see the fight that the adversary puts up when we are on the right path, this happens MANY times before people are going to make covenants with God.  Please keep Gonzalo and Madeline and their son Vicente in your prayers!! And Hermana Jenkins and I also that we might know what to do to help them!!

I love you all so much!!

Hermana Harvey

Week 36- Winter's a comin'!

It has been getting cooler here in Punta Arenas!! I feel like summer went by way too fast for a couple of reasons!! First of all... because that means that I almost have 9 months in the mission!! That's half of my mission!! NOOO!!! It's going by too fast!!! And second of all.... it's cold!!!! REALLY COLD in Punta Arenas.  It really wouldn't be all that could if it weren't for the fact that there is still a lot of frozen wind (but not quite as much as before) and a lot more rain/snow that blows in your face and down your jacket! Sooo Hermana Jenkins and I are preparing ourselves for winter!! We found out today that we will be together for another 6 weeks!! :DD whooo!! Which means that we will both be able to be here for the marriage and baptism of Gonzalo!!! whoooooo!!! :DD

So they have this think called churipan here in Punta Arenas which is chorizo (their chorizo is different here... less hot and more of an orange color instead of red...) and mayo on bread and it is delicious!!! One of our recent converts, Araceli, wanted to go to get some but we couldn't so we decided to make it! And it was a great success!! :) Not only did we make it but we made it ALL!! I made the bread and the chorizo and Araceli made the mayo!! I didn't even know that you could make mayo!! haha but it was really good!! :) I think it would be even better with the chorizo from the United States though :) AAANNND We got to share with her mom and grandma who are non-members and gain a better relationship with them and then share with them the video of "He Lives" (which is AMAZING) and talk to them about what it really means that Christ lives!! It was great!! :)  Hopefully we can share more with them in another moment!! 

We got to watch General Conference in ENGLISH!! :) It was great to hear the real voices of our prophet (even if we didn't get to hear much from him) and our apostles and other leaders of the church!! I loooove General Conference!! It's like Christmas for the missionaries!! :)) It's a little bit ironic that I had to watch it in Spanish 6 months ago when I didn't understand much of anything in Spanish and this time, now that I understand, we got to watch it in English.  The Lord works in funny ways.  It was great because we had a room FULL of missionaries from the United States plus three members from our ward who speak English!! :) Our neighbor, Bianca, who is 19 and studying to be an English teacher, our ward mission leader who is 21 and speaks English and German, and our recent convert, Niblado, who is from Kansas.  There are more English-speakers in this sector than I have seen in my entire mission!! It was great :)

Easter was fun :) We had lunch with a family in the ward and ate chicken and french fries and Bianca and another Hermana in our ward gave us chocolate eggs!! Fun fact about Chile... they don't dye eggs... a few people pain eggs made out of sugar with some special paint but no one even had any idea that we dye real eggs in the United States! They thought we were insane when we told them haha so funny! 

I love you guys so much!!

Hermana Harvey

 

Look!! We saw horses!! Just ya know... walkin' around in our sector... haha

Soooo... tried to make cake last P-day and this was the result... I burnt my finger trying to look at it in our little-tiny "oven" and dropped it!! :( sad, sad day.

Week 35

Hello Friends and Family!!

Remember that 96-year-old lady that I talked about before? The funniest things always happen when we go to her house!! She INSISTED that we had "once" with her the other day. (once is the meal that the Chileans have at night where they drink a hot drink (usually coffee or tea) and eat bread or crackers or sweet bread) She didn't have any herbal tea, only black, so we told her, it's okay, we'll just drink hot sugar-water. So that we did.  And then she was talking to us about her napkins and telling us that someone gave her these napkins with cupcakes pictures to her as a gift and that she didn't know how much that cost but she knows that they're really really expensive.  She said, "Take it... put it away... take care of it..." Well..., actually she said, "Tómalo... Guárdalo... cuídalo..." But that doesn't really directly translate to English.  I find it funnier in Spanish.

I don't know if I've already told you, but Madeline and Gonzalo finally have real dates for their wedding and Gonzalo's Baptism!! They will be getting married in our chapel on April 17th and he will be baptized on April 18th!! We are soooo excited for them!!! There are no words to describe the way that we feel!! 

Another miracle that we saw this week was that we helped one of our investigators understand as she read in the Bible.  It was really funny because she was saying that no one in her Bible study group could understand what was going on in a chapter that they were reading because there was a lot of symbolism and it didn't make sense to them.  We read it with her and didn't understand what it was saying either.  So we asked her if we could say a prayer to invite the spirit and then try to help her.  So we did and guess what... It was EASY for us to understand!! It is INCREDIBLE how the spirit can help us to understand things that through our own efforts, we have no hope of understanding!! That was a huge testimony builder to me!! That with the help of the Holy Ghost, two 19-year-old missionaries from the United States could understand more than an entire bible study group in Chile!! As Cambrea Van Kammen would always say, "The church is true, you guys!" :)

I love you all!! Talk to you next week!!

Hermana Harvey

Older pictures because my mom says she misses my face... Here ya go!! :) Sorry... I haven't been taking many pictures.

We made our own dessert one day at lunch! They eat a lot of fruit for dessert here.

A picture of us with two of our investigators (Luz and María) at a Family Home Evening

the sky is BEAUTIFUL in Punta Arenas!! But it's hard to get a good picture of it.

Week 34

Hello friends and family!!

I received lots of emails this week!! Thank you all so much for writing me!! It means more to me than you know!! :)

So they do this really interesting thing here to all of the students that are starting for the first time in a University.  They take all of them and they cut up their clothes and paint them and put a bunch of food that smells REALLY bad all over them in their hair and everything and then they all have to go out into the streets and beg for money for school!! It is so gross!! And they are EVERYWHERE right now because summer is ending so school is starting. It is one of the weirdest traditions I have ever seen!!

Another thing that you may not know about South America is that the people here are not exactly the best in the world when it comes to music.  And the wards are not quite as big as they are in the United States so every week I get to lead the music in Sacrament meeting and Relief Society and Hermana Jenkins plays the piano.  I don't know what we are going to do when she leaves because no one else in the ward knows how to play piano!! I might end up regretting all the years that I didn't practice piano!! haha I mess up even when I'm leading the music because I don't know all the words to the songs in Spanish so I lose my place every now and then as I am leading and just sing non-sense trying to follow what the congregation is singing as I try to find my place again. Haha So fun.

They also don't really have pie here. They make one lemon pie and that's really it for pie so on pie day we made some chocolate pudding pie for the activity with the substitute ingredients that we could find here in Chile (a cream that they put on the cakes that is almost a pudding texture and oreos!).  You would not believe the way they were raving over this pie!! haha it was hilarious!! it was gone in seconds and everyone was asking for the recipe so we had an activity on Friday to teach all of the women in relief society how to make chocolate pudding pie! haha It was funny.  

In other news!! We were knocking doors the other day and trying to find a few people that had said that we could come back in another moment to share our message with them and had three doors slammed in our faces. So we decided to just talk to some people in the streets because we had already passed for all of the houses that we had in plans for the next hour or so and as we started walking down the street, we saw this old lady walking carrying a whole bunch of groceries and we decided that we were going to go help her.  So we went up and asked if she wanted any help and her response was "no no. my house is just over there. I'm alone. (she started crying in this moment) My husband died a year and 3 months ago and now I am all alone." So we took her groceries, which were actually pretty heavy for this poor little old lady, and we helped her across the street and into her house.  Then we sang to her the song "Families can be together forever" and shared with he the message of the Plan that God has for each and every one of us and promised her that she would be able to see her husband again. She thanked us over and over again and said that ever since her husband died she has never really been alone because people like us always pass by just when she needs them the most.  It is amazing how the Lord can work through the people here on this earth!! I am so thankful that I can be a tool in his hands here on this earth to help others to receive the message of the restoration of the gospel!! OUR MESSAGE CHANGES LIVES!! And when people come to know that our message is true, there is a difference in their lives.  There is a light and a hope that comes that helps them through all of the challenges of this life!! I am so thankful that I can be a missionary to share this gospel and this hope with the world!! I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true!! That is why I am so happy! That is why the people that we teach are so happy! We are here to help the people to feel the spirit of God testify the truthfulness of our message to their hearts.  We help people to find the answers for themselves!! Once again... I would like you all to know that I AM SO HAPPY!!! 

I love you all!!! Thank you for all of your support and your emails!!!

Hermana Harvey

 

We always have the BEST rainbows I have ever seen in my life here!! Really big, noticeable, complete ones! And it is not uncommon at all to see double rainbows! So beautiful!!

Hmmm... Hermana Jenkins and I thought this sign was funny... we ALWAYS walk down this street but we had never noticed it before... they're inviting the homeless to sleep in this little park? haha

 

Week 33

Hello Friends and Family!!

Ahhhhh!! I have so much to tell you all and so little time!! Have I told you about Madeline and Gonzalo before?!?! I'm sure I have but I'll explain who they are again just in case!! Madeline is a less-active member of the church that Hermana Jenkins and her companion before me found knocking doors and she told them they could come back another time! When they went to visit her again she had fallen and broken her leg! Then they had transfers so when I got here Madeline had just had surgery on her leg so she has two huge metal plates in her leg now.  So obviously she was in need of lots of help which meant that Hermana Jenkins and I could come over  LOT to help them with things around the house that she couldn't do anymore and her husband, Gonzalo, just didn't have time for.  So we started sharing with them VERY often, just scriptures and prayers and service at first and Gonzalo would always leave the room when we were going to share a message but we continued teaching Madeline.  Little by little her husband started being more and more open to talking with us.

We came to find out, little by little, that Gonzalo was pretty sure that he believed in God but didn't believe in religion. He believed that all of the churches are just there to gain money and that he didn't have to be part of a religion to worship God.  Little by little we started teaching him about our message of the restoration of the gospel and we began to see him changing!! Friends and family... I just want you to know that this is the best thing in the ENTIRE WORLD!! To be able to see the change that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings to the hearts and minds and lives of the people!! He began to soften his heart! He began to smile! He began to laugh! He began to share his feelings and desires with us! He began to pray! He began to read the scriptures! He is now a completely different man from the one that we met 2 months ago!!

Well... now that you understand the background... Gonzalo told us this Monday that he has decided that he wants to be baptized!!!!! AHHHHH!!! I am soo happy for him and for his family!! They also have a son named Vicente and I just know that this decision that he has made is going to bless his little family in ways that he does not even understand right now!! The only problem now is that they, like the grand majority of the Chilean population, are not married. soooooo he has a baptismal date for April 11th and we are planning their WEDDING!!! How fuuunn!!!!  They want to get married in the chapel!!! :))) I am so happy that I get to be part of this huge moment in their lives!! And even more, I am soooooo thankful for the wonderful ward that I am in right now that helps us in soo many many ways!!! Ahhhh you have no idea how freaking happy I am right now!!!!!! :DDDD

AANNND we had an awesome missionary activity this week!! (the missionaries plan an activity each month) and it went sooo well!! We were trying to help the members understand how the recent converts and investigators feel when they come to church for the first time so we had a couple of games that they were playing and we explained really badly how to play (one elder was even explaining in English... hahaha) and expecting them to be able to just figure it out themselves and we gave them a recipe to make Rice Krispy Treats which was super brief and in Spanglish and left them to it in the kitchen with all sorts of things in their that they didn't really need! it was super fun! But the best part was that we had one of our zone leaders dress up like a hobo and come in and just sit in the room where we were to try to see what the reaction of the ward would be.  Guys... You have to know that my ward is the BEST!! haha The members treated him sooo well! Included him in all of the activities and helped him to feel comfortable, offered him coats and other clothing items that they didn't need. Our bishop and first counselor even gave him an interview and found him a place to stay for the night and were making plans for the future for him!!! It was sooo amazing!! When we were ending the activity, one of the Elders in our ward was explaining that the same way that they felt when they were doing these activities is how the new members feel when they come into the church.  And then he said that his friend, Elder Gomez (the "homeless man") wanted to say a few words. As he spoke, there were multiple women (almost all of them) crying because the spirit was so strong as he was talking and others laughing because we had completely tricked them.  It was sooo great!!! Then... the next day in church they talked about the activity in EVERY meeting!! haha the bishop even spoke in sacrament meeting and half of his talk was about the activity!! haha we, as missionaries, felt really good about this activity!! :)

I love this work!!! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!!!!!

And I love you guys too!! :) so much!!!

Hermana Harvey

Week 32

Hello Friends and Family!!!

First of all, I got a huge surprise in my email today!!! In my sector before I came here to Punta Arenas. We met this man, Marcelo, on the street who was out riding bikes with his son, Vicente, and we set up an appointment to teach them more about our message.  We were so excited to go to see them because we just knew that there was something special about this family.  When we got to their house, Marcelo wasn't there but his wife, Karina, was so we taught her and Vincente a few things and a little while later her husband came and we already had to leave so we left them with a pamphlet of the Restoration for them to read for when we came back.  In our next lesson, Karina practically taught the ENTIRE lesson when we asked her what it was that she could understand from the pamphlet.  Marcelo told us that he didn't have time to read the whole thing so Karina was also explaining it to him and explaining to him that his doubts that he had weren't valid because he hadn't even read the pamphlet to know!! IT WAS AMAZING!! Then, a few lessons later we put them date for their baptism and I received a picture today of them being baptised on that day!!!! :DDD AHHHHH!!! I started sobbing when I found out that they were going to be baptized and to see this picture now.... it is impossible to explain the joy that I feel right now!! I had the great opportunity to be the Lord's hands in helping to bring an entire, beautiful family into the gospel!! Karina is also pregnant with another beautiful soul who is going to be born into the gospel!! :) sooooooo happpyyyyy!!!!!!

In other news, one of our recent converts in our ward went to the temple this week!!!! She has been a member for 6 months now and she went to Santiago for vacation with another girl in our ward who was in-active for a long time and they went to the temple together FOUR TIMES while they were there in Santiago!! It was the first time that either of them had ever been to the temple and their experiences were BEAUTIFUL!! It makes me so happy to see them progressing so much in the gospel!! AhHH!!! I am so happy.  I don't know how else to explain how I feel right now.  I want to testify to all of you that the temple is the house of the Lord and that the work that is done there is not only for this earth but continues on for the eternities!! Families can be together FOREVER!!!  I know that that is true!! I have the great opportunity to help people to come to that knowledge and to make covenants with God that will allow them to become eternal families!! 

I love the mission soo much!! To go on a mission is honestly the best decision that I have ever made in my life and I will be thankful for this experience for eternity!! :) :) :)

Other great news!!! We have English classes that we are teaching but NO ONE EVER SHOWS UP!! Just our Ward Mission Leader who is already practically fluent in English because he has been to the United States. But this week we had a married couple come to our class!! And we actually got to teach English to people who don't know very much and who really need our help!! And they are amazing people!! We started with a prayer to open the class and taught them how to pray in English (which, in turn, also meant that we got to teach them how to pray... English or Spanish) and then after the class they wanted to get to know the chapel so we gave them a tour and told them all about how things work on Sundays!! We are so excited to continue teaching them English and also about the happiness that they can find through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! Which is a lot more happiness than we can bring to them than through our knowledge of English!! 

I love you all so much!! :)
 Hermana Harvey

Marcelo and Karina at their baptism!!!!!!! :DD

We have a new Elder in our ward, Elder Salgado from Texas and  He's a football player. He lives up to the Texan phrase, "Everything's bigger in Texas."

Hermana Jenkins and I actually decided to be girls one day and did our hair!! :) That's not going to happen very often... haha :)

Week 31

So much happened this week!!

First of all, we went to visit a reference that we received from another missionary named Maria Eugenia and she is an adorable little old woman!! :) haha she does yoga and gardens and talks about nature and the beautiful things of life in her sweet little voice :) haha she is Really receptive and has great questions about the things that we are teaching her!! :) We are so excited to be teaching her!!
On Wednesday we went to visit this little 96-year-old lady that we visit every now and then because she is lonely and it makes her happy to hear us sing.  She doesn't understand anything that we say so we can't teach her but I have confidence that she will accept our message in the next life.  But anyway, she kept telling me how pretty my scarf was when we went on Wednesday so i decided to give it to her.  You would Not believe her reaction.  She just about died. Seriously.  I think I should be more careful with her because she's 96!! I could have given her a heart-attack!! and she kept saying that she was going to go get some money to pay me for it but I told her, repeatedly, that it was a gift.  It made me so happy to see this little old lady so thrilled over something so tiny like a scarf! 

Another thing that happened was that we had transfers this week and one of the elders in our ward had to leave to go to Osorno to be closer to the mission because he is having problems with his foot and so he left on Wednesday but no one told the elders that a companion for Elder Lopez wouldn't be coming until YESTERDAY!! So Elder Lopez was ALONE having to be with members or elders in other wards for 4 days!! So that was hilarious for Hermana Jenkins and I! :) haha we're so mean.

AAND!! I LEARNED HOW TO MAKE BREAD!! And I don't even need a recipe :) Because they don't use recipe's or even real measurements here for anything!! it's really funny :P And now I'm like obsessed with making pan and want to make it every day and Hermana Jenkins has to keep me in line and help me to not make bread every night when we get home :P haha I just want to practice so I don't forget! haha plus it's just really fun the way that they make it here!! :) I learned how to kneed the bread by slamming it down on the table really hard to activate the gluten! :) I really enjoy it! :) 

We are teaching this 16 year old girl named Titi right now and she hasn't really opened up all that much to us... UNTIL THIS WEEK!! She told us her entire life's story about how she gained a testimony that god loves her and is listening to her prayers and was crying as she told us. Which is normal for us because everyone seems to cry when we go to their house haha but it wasn't like her because she's the type of person that does not like to show her emotions. And she told us that she knows that the Book of Mormon is the word of God! :) We are sooo excited for her!! :) 

Aaaaand Madeline and Gonzalo came to church on Sunday!! Madeline is an inactive member who hasn't gone to church for over 10 years and we are teaching her husband right now.  Gonzalo has changed sooo much since we have been teaching him! He has opened up to us so much and even opened up to Madeline and you can just see a new light in him and he is ALWAYS smiling now and he barely smiled at all when we first started visiting them!! AHH!! I am soo excited for them!! The gospel of Jesus Christ really does change lives!! 

I love you all so much!! Have a great week!!

--Hermana Harvey

 

 

Week 30

Hello Friends and Family!!

Transfers are this week!! Hermana Jenkins and I are staying together here in Punta Arenas for another 6 weeks!! Yay!!! :) And guess what else!! Hermana Snyder is coming to Punta Arenas!! She was my companion in the CCM if you don't know or don't remember!! :) I am so excited!! She is awesome!! She's going to be living in the same house as our "Sister Training Leaders." How fun!! I can't wait to hear about everything she's been doing!! 

We had zone conference this week so President Obeso and his wife and the assistants to the president all came to Punta Arenas!! The conference was so great!! They always give us so much great council and excitement to work even more hard!! I love our mission president!! He is honestly the best!!

Sorry it's short today!! I'm out of time!! I love you all so much!!

Hermana Harvey

 

 

Week 29!

Hello friends and family!!

Soo.. first of all, we found someone new to teach!! We have been praying and fasting that we might be able to find the people in our sector that are prepared to receive this message in their lives and to recognize the people that need this message at this time! We had a zone fast on Sunday (as a zone, we didn't eat or drink anything for 24 hours and we were praying for a specific purpose) to be able to find these prepared people.  We saw almost immediate resultes!!  We were trying to find a few people that we had talked to in the streets who live by the coast where there is the most wind physically possible and at one point the wind pushed us in the direction of this big wooden door so Hermana Jenkins just kinda followed the wind and said, "We're gonna knock on this door." So we went and knocked at this house and a man came out and we were talking for a long time about how he had gone to Utah and visited the temple there and went to three different buildings around the temple and we were talking about the importance of the temple and the sanctity of it's purpose.  Then we asked him after a while if we could come back some other day to share with him the message that we have to share with the people and he said... "Another day? Why not now?" So he invited us in and we shared with him about how the Church of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth.  He was really interested and had lots of good questions!! We set up another appointment to visit with him today! So I'll let you know how that goes! :)

We got to go to Torres del Paine yesterday and it was AMAZING!!! Unbelievable!! Torres in Spanish means towers, so the Torres del Paine are these three huge rocks/mountains/things that are incredibly beautiful! We went on a tour for the entire day from 5am to 9:30pm.  We had stops all along the way to see lots of beautiful things! Lakes and mountains and even a lake that usually has glaciers but it is summer so there were only a couple really far away.. :( that was sad but it was still beautiful and fun!! We also got to see lots of these llama things (they're not really llamas but they're like a cousin of the llama) and Ostriches! But we only saw them from the bus so it was really hard to take pictures of them... I didn't get any pictures of the Ostriches :( But that's okay! We had a great time and now I have a bunch of energy to keep working hard!! :)

I love you all!!!

Hermana Harvey

All of the lakes in Torros del Paine are different shades of blue and green!! It was AMAZING!! Soo beautiful! I could not believe how blue this lake is!

Some of us missionaries right after eating lunch above the "glaciers".

Okay... We saw a rainbow cloud!! It was incredible!! Have you ever seen a cloud like this before?? It doesn't really capture how amazing it was in the picture but you can get the idea.  The sun was directly behind the cloud so it created all of these colors in the cloud!! incredible!!

Torres del Paine!

These are the only glaciers we got to see.

Soy yo!

Our district! It was very cold and windy!

Week 28

Hello Everyone!!

So one of the great things about my ward here in Punta Arenas is that we have a bunch of ward activities!! :) It's great! We had an activity the other week where we taught everyone how to play dodgeball (we have three "gringos" in our ward so there were lots of us to be able to explain how it works) and that was super fun! :) Then yesterday we had a Preach my Gospel activity where we (each missionary and our ward mission leader) each had a station in which we taught a concept out of preach my gospel and then did role-plays to help them apply the concepts to a real-life situation! We focused on chapter 5 of Preach my Gospel which is all about The Book of Mormon.  The part that I taught was about how we can contest people's doubts and objections with the Book of Mormon.  I chose this topic because I remember that Brother Chronis taught us very clearly how to help the investigator understand that their real doubt is not whether or not they should be able to drink alcohol (for example) but whether or not this commandment (the word of wisdom) really came from God!  When we come to know for ourselves that the prophets are called of God and receive revelation directly from him, there is no reason for us to doubt because we know that WHATEVER they say is true!  That's the beauty of the faith that we can gain in the prophets.  No matter what it is that they say, you can have a certainty that there is a reason and there is no reason to doubt :)

1. We went ice skating!! This is actually in our sector in the "Zona Franca" Super fun :)

2. this was from our activity of Preach my Gospel. The person next to Hermana Jenkins is our Ward Mission Leader.  He's only 21 years old so I swear he is another crazy Elder which makes our Correlation Meetings interesting :P Haha

This was from our activity of Preach my Gospel. The person next to Hermana Jenkins is our Ward Mission Leader.  He's only 21 years old so I swear he is another crazy Elder which makes our Correlation Meetings interesting :P Haha

We went ice skating!! This is actually in our sector in the "Zona Franca" Super fun :)

The rest of these pictures were posted on Facebook by Hermano Vargas, one of her investigators.

6 Months!!!

I completed 6 months of my mission this week!! How crazy is that?? That's a third of my mission and it is passing waay too fast!! 

This week we got to do lots of service for an in-active family that is moving into a neighboring ward.  We got to help them pack everything up and play with their kids at the same time!! :) Haha we packed up all of their toys and pretty much all of their kitchen.  That was fun :) And another thing that was fun was that we got to hear about all of the sins that the mother has committed in her life while we were in the process of packing up her kitchen.  It was quite interesting.  We have seen in multiple occasions this week that people find it easy to open up to the missionaries and they confide a lot of things in us that I am just not always quite so sure that they should be confiding in us!  Oh! And another great thing about serving in another country where you aren't completely fluent in the language is that you can't understand the profane language!! Haha it's funny because we'll be listening to people at times telling us their entire life story and they will say something like "Oh I'm so sorry... I shouldn't use words like that with you." And it's funny because neither Hermana Jenkins nor I have any idea what they said.  That is the protection of innocence if you ask me :) We can have people yelling profanities at us all day long and still have the Holy Ghost with us because we don't get it!! :) That makes me happy.

We went to this awesome cemetery that is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in the world and it was quite lovely :) It didn't really feel like a cemetery. Until we started looking at all of the pictures of the people who are buried there... That's creepy. :)

I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!!

--Hermana Harvey

Look! It's Hermana Harvey!

Our Hermanas Lideres and us at the cemetery!

We're walkin' on sunshine ooooooo... or on graves... that too.

 

Week 26!!!! (Hermana Harvey isn't counting, but for those of us keeping score at home, that's 1/3 through folks!!!)

This week has been pretty great. We are working really hard right now to try to find new investigators to teach and we have been teaching a lot of people just in the streets and at their doorsteps.  I feel like great things are going to happen this cambio, we just have to work REALLY hard to help them come! We have a recent convert who we are teaching who is from Kansas and it is really strange because we always teach him in English because he understands it better and I have come to realize that there are a lot of things that I don't know how to explain about the gospel in English!! And it's really hard for me to pray in English! That's probably the hardest part!!
We came across this less-active member in the street the other day with her two kids! She stopped us and said! "Hey! Are you missionaries!? My son said that you guys came by my house and I wasn't home. When can you come by??" And, of course, we were a little bit (or a lot bit) surprised, but we set up an appointment to visit with her the next week!! Now we've gone over to visit her a couple of times and we are going to have a Family Home Evening with them tomorrow with another family in our ward!! They are amazing!! Just a little reluctant to get up in the morning... Just like a lot of the other Chilenos... That's why we have so many less-actives here.  But I'm really excited to go visit them again! Their kids are CRAZY but super fun :) so a Family Home Evening will be great!!
Love you guys so much!!
Hermana Harvey

This is my district. Two of the elders live on this island really far away so they can't take a boat for hours every week to come to our district meetings so we just skype them in!

Hermana Jenkins and I have the same shirt from the CCM!! :)

This is just, ya know, part of my sector here.  It's not gorgeous or anything.

Week 25

Hello Friends and Family!!

So Everyone is asking me about penguins!! No, I haven't seen penguins yet :) We have to travel a little ways to be able to see them but Hermana Jenkins and I are planning on going to this island to go and see them.  We could go to this beach about an hour and a half away or so to see the penguins but people have told us that there is this island that we can go out to for $30.000 pesos each (which is about $60) and you can not only see penguins but walk with thousands of them!! So Hermana Jenkins and I think that it is worth it!! How many times are you going to be at the end of the world, right?! So we'll probably be going in a few weeks! :)

We only have a few investigators right now but Hermana Jenkins and I are already working hard and I can just feel that this cambio is going to be amazing!! We have been working a LOT with contacting in the streets and with the members to try to receive references.  Our ward is super strong and they are a HUGE help to us!! I am so excited about this cambio and I LOVE Hermana Jenkins already!! The sun is unbelievably strong here so I put sunblock on everyday and still end up getting a little bit burned!! It's crazy how strong it is.  And it would actually be really warm here if it were not for the wind coming from Antarctica! The wind is literally frozen.... and there is a LOT of it!! Seriously.  A LOT of wind. Like it's hard to walk at times.  And there are actually cords to help you to walk in centro because the wind is so strong at times that without cords to help you, you can't walk against the wind! So that's fun when we are always wearing skirts :) haha but really. It's fun! :)

I love you all so much!!!

--Hermana Harvey

This is our house! :) It's a tiny little thing but it's super cozy for us two missionaries that live in it :) it's behind a member's house.  There's a lot of that here... little tiny houses behind people's houses that they rent out.

Our sector is super rich! This is one example of a super rich house in our sector :) CRAZY! Yes, we are still in Chile.

Guess What!! Robin Williams isn't dead!! He's just hiding out down here in Punta Arenas!! He's actually our investigator!!

Blanca y Victor!! They're our investigators :)

Hermana Blanca, Hermana Jenkins, and I! 

Thank you Puerto Montt! I'm off to Punta Arenas!

Well everyone... I have big news!!! Transfers are this week and guess what!!!  I'M GOING TO PUNTA ARENAS!!

I can't really believe that it is happening.  My companion will be Hermana Jenkins, I don't know anything about her yet, and I will be flying out on Wednesday!! I'm freaking out a little bit!! It's strange how you can have so many mixed feelings when cambios come! I am soo excited to go to Punta Arenas, especially right now because there are still penguins this time of year!!  And I've heard lots of good things about the ward that I am going to be in!! (Barrio Obejero... I think that's how you spell it).  So I'll let you know how my flight was and how PUNTA ARENAS is next week!! :)

This week has been pretty crazy... We have had lots of illnesses in our companionship so we have been able to work a lot with members going on splits!! It's funny how God works with us in ways that we do not understand, like sending a flu virus, but things seem to work out for the best!! We almost met all of our goals that we set this week even though we were in and out of the Clinic and we were in the house a LOT for multiple reasons from illnesses to water miraculously collecting on the bathroom floor as we sleep.  It is incredible how we can see the hand of the Lord in this work in all things that we do!! I LOVE THIS GOSPEL and I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!! 

Talk to you again next week from Punta Arenas!!

--Hermana Harvey

Week 23

This week I learned a lesson about not running faster than we have strength... (or something like that... I read the scripture in Spanish...)  We have been literally running to all of our lessons lately and I was wearing my boots one day which don't have much padding in those boots and running on the rocks and everything, I came home with bruises on the bottoms of my feet!! I was running faster than I have strength and it made the rest of my week hard!! But now my feet are better :) So don't worry!!

My testimony has also grown a LOT this week!! I had some moments that I was super duper happy and there really was no reason for the happiness that I felt other the knowledge that this gospel is true!! It's the only way to explain how happy I have been (really... pure joy!!) this week even though I have been soo tired and had bruises on the bottoms of my feet!!  My companions make fun of me because they say that I say how happy I am ALL THE TIME and that I bear my testimony to EVERY CONTACT and every time I put my hand over my heart and ya wanna know why?? This gospel brings happiness!!

So I may have lied (she said at Christmas that they hadn't been getting much rain)... we had lots of rain for a couple of days this week haha But just a couple days of LOTS of rain :)

I got to ride a bike with this cutie!! That was super fun!!

These last 3 pics are from Hermana Smoot's blog! - We went out to chamisa for the 1st and they roasted lamb!! It was delicious! :)

Week 22

Hello friends and family!!

So this Christmas was great! We went over the the Lanskrun Family's house for Christmas Eve (which is really their big day that they celebrate here in Chile and they call it "Noche Buena" and Santa comes that night and they all open their gifts at midnight!  We had Christmas Eve dinner with them and it was pretty funny because we couldn`t eat the salad because it had pig intestines in it and we have a rule that we can't eat pig intestines for safety reasons, so we ate all of the leaves and the outside of a half of an egg for our salad and just pushed the intestine puree to the side of our plate.  Then they brought out the main course which was turkey and guess what? It was completely frozen :) hahaha It was pre-cooked and just had to be heated up but it was frozen through still so they began to cut it up into pieces and heat it up in the microwave little by little haha I got a good laugh out of that.  Then they brought out dessert and it was these cupcakes that they made in a cake pan (because they don't really make cupcakes in Chile so they didn't really know how to do it and they didn't have any cupcake molds to make it so they were pretty funny looking and they had cream on top (the type of cream that they put on Everything here and that really dosn't have any flavor at all.  And ya know what?  Although it seemed like just about everything went wrong with that Christmas dinner, I had the time of my life!! We focused on the reason for the season, our Savior Jesus Christ and we had a live Nativity and laughed a whole bunch.  I cannot think of a better way to pass the Christmas season than focusing on the true reason and finding the Joy that is possible through our Savior, Jesus Christ!!!

We also had a Christmas activity in which we watched "The Testament" and you wanna know who showed up?! About 5 members of our ward and 5 OF OUR INVESTIGATORS!! And they all loved the movie and were amazing about the Idea that Christ came to the Americas! He visited with not only the ancient inhabitants of Jerusalem, but he visited his "other sheep" here in the Americas! There is a whole other part of the story of Jesus Christ written here in the Americas by prophets of old and you can read all about it in the Book of Mormon!!  What an Incredible gift!!

I love you guys!! Hope you all had an amazing Christmas and will have a Happy New Year!! 

--Hermana Harvey

 

We had a live Nativity with the Lanskrun Family on Christmas Eve! :) That was fun!

Hermana Smoot doing her crunches on Christmas morning! Even on Christmas we've gotta be obedient!! :)

Opened our gifts!! I loved all of them Thank YOu!! And the pajamas are super duper comfy!

We made pizza on Chirstmas! It's a tradition in the Smoot house so we upheld the tradition with Hermana Smoot :)

 (WARNING!! DO NOT LOOK AT THESE PICTURES IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH!!!)

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BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

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My Papito holding up the skin and head of the lamb right after he had skinned it.  He looks WAY too happy, right?!

My mamita is breaking the jaw of the lamb in this moment... It wasn't a pretty sound...

Yes... that's the head of a lamb that I am holding.  Fun, right?