I love my family!

My Dearest Family,

¡Hola! It has been such a wonderful week. I honestly cannot believe how fast time is flying! Can you believe it is changes again??? The big news is that Hermana Harvey and I are staying here in Piriapolis! haha I already knew that I would be ending my misión here. Today was such a wonderful Pday because Hermana Cox came to visit her old áreas here in Piriapolis and Pan de Azucar. I also got to see her on Thursday for the Conference in Montevideo! It was such a blessing to give her a huge huge hug before she leaves on that airplane. I love her dearly...my sister for the eternities.

BIG NEWS! Vicki Jo and Steve Andersen came to visit Hna Harvey and I here in Piriapolis!!! It was SO FUN and such a huge blessing! I feel like the Lords blessings are so huge. We were waiting for them outside of our Little home and up drives a Little mini van with them inside! I got so giddy and just about had tears in my eyes! Vicki Jo leaps out of the car and give me the biggest hug I have received in 18 months almost! As she squeezes me she said,"This hug is from your mom!" Then she let me go and began squeezing me again and said, "This hug is from your dad. And this one is from me!" We had such a great time together. They took us out to lunch and I loved talking to them. They are just the greatest. I saw pictures of everyone and oh my I cant believe how much everyone has grown! It is incredible! What a giant blessing it is to have them here in Uruguay with me. I love them. 

I am now on my last change as a missionary. That actually brought tears to my eyes as I wrote that last sentence. I cannot believe it. I only have 6 more weeks of being a representative of Jesús Christ. I told Hermana Harvey that we are forbidden to talk about me leaving haha only on Pdays we can talk about it. I am just going to make the most out of everyday. I know that this change will seem like another blink of the eye.

I dont even know where to start. Mom....dont freak out at what I am about to tell you...just another one of those crazy stories from the mission. Its super embarassing, but I figure I have already embarassed myself enough during my misión haha. This week Satan has been working so hard. (It is because there are people waiting for the góspel. That is why he is working so hard. haha) All week, this week and last week, my head has been itching so hard. I thought maybe I got sunburned and my skin was pealing on my head. I thought of every posible reason why my head would be itching. I asked Hermana Harvey to check to see if my worst nightmare had come true...LICE! She said she didnt see any sign of lice. I was relieved. Then, a few days later, we were visiting Hermana Chavez and Hernández and I began itching my head again. It was so painful. I told my dear Hermana Chavez what was happening. She began looking through my head. She gasp from shock. "Hermana Coon," she said, "Usted tiene PIOJOS!" You have Lice! You better believe within a Split second, I was washing my hair in the shower with the lice shampoo that they had. I didnt know whether to laugh or to cry. I think it pretty much has scarred poor Hermana Harvey for life! haha. For 3 hours, I sat in a chair, while my sweet Hermana Chavez picked lice out of my hair. For 3 hours!!!! Hermana Chavez deserves a Golden metal. Her new nickname is Hermana Caridad (Hermana Charity! haha) After 3 hours, I came out nice and clean. Who on earth gave me lice, I have no idea. We enter into so many homes each day and receive so many kisses and hugs from Little children. I have no idea. All I know is that I can now check "getting lice" off of the bucket list!

In so many ways, the Lord has blessed us this week. It is so wonderful all of his tender mercies. For example, as we were walking down the street a few days ago, someone stops their car, hops out, screams "COOON!" and gives me a huge hug! Do you know who it was? My sweet Hermana Pollo from Progreso! I havent seen her in so long! It was such a tender mercy that we were in the right place and the right time. I was beyond happy. I never thought I would love these Uruguayos so much, but I do! They have my heart!

I had a very spiritual experience this week on Thursday at the 2 mission conference in Malvin, Montevideo. It was absolutely amazing. I sat on the very front row right in front of the speaker, Elder Christensen, and soaked up every word. I felt like he was specifically talking to me! Everything that I have been praying about and pondering about these last couple of days he spoke about! He spoke about how the mission is not about preaching the góspel, it is about cleaning our lives. Everytime we teach and testifiy, every time we search and search for people prepared and ready to receive the góspel, the spirit is cleaning us. That is what causes a change of heart.....it is the spirit. It is the process of teaching, baptizing, and testifiying that strengthens us. I know that to be true. He spoke about the difference between charity and love. Love is feelings, but charity is when you sacrifice. You cant have charity without sacrificing. Doctrine and Covenants 138:12 13. We have to suffer through challenges and trials in order to refine us. It is part of the mission. It was amazing as I reflected upon my mission and all of the many experiences that I have blessed to experience. The good and the hard ones. These are what strengthens our testimonies and makes us become the person that our Heavenly Father wants us to be. I was suppose to get piojos, lice, for something. Heavenly Father wanted to teach me something. I am just in that refining processes. I cant wait for James to experience this so soon! The mission is the best. I hope as I walk off of that plane in a few weeks, you will see a different person because I hope that I am not the same Katie Coon that I was when I left almost 18 months ago. I have been put throught the refiners fire here on my mission and I have felt the spirit work within me. That is what changes people. I love my mission. so much.

Love you family with all my heart. I know this góspel is true. What a blessing it is to have such a faithful and stalwart family! Until next week,

Hermana Coon

 My dear Hermana Cox! She is on her way home!

mis hijas! (My daughters!)

 Read my email to find out what are PIOJOS!

Hermana Harvey's letter to her family:

Hola mi familia y amigos!

I'm alive no worries! This week was combios (TRANSFERS), plus today the lights were out at the cyber so im just BARELY getting onto the computer. haha sorry i wont have any time to write letters today, hopefully i can make up for it next week.  What an experience this has all been, thank goodness I have Hermana Coon by my side to help me every step of the way.

First of all let me apologize for how awful that letter was last week! I always just get so excited to hear from everyone else I get lost with the time and forget to write my mass email. You guys deserve more details and so hopefully this week I will have more time.. Sorry if its long!

On Tuesday my Zone all got together for a Choque la fuerza. Its where we all get together to help one zone out. We all met up in Minas to help out that area since they were struggling with investigators. First we had a little meeting, then eat lunch, played a couple games like mafia (oh mafia..good memories of girls camp) then confri which is like big booty. Yeah its even worse in Spanish haha sooooo hard! Next we split up into different companionships and I was with Hna. Ots shes from Argentina and shes hilarious! We had to get 3 new investigators in an hour and a half and we ended up getting 8! Shes amazing ill tell you that! That was fun!

On Thursday we had another huge conference with the 2 missions of Uruguay in Montevideo. Elder. Christensen of the 70 came with his wife and spoke, along with the 2 mission presidents and their wives. Oh the spirit was so strong and they all cried and it was just a beautiful day!

Hna.Chavez (a Hermana in the other area of Piriapolis)  has been having leg problems and hasn’t been able to walk this week. So one day I went on splits with her companion Hna.Hernandez and helped them teach this adorable eleven year old girl who is getting baptized this week! The house we had the charla with was the Relief Society president for our ward and her husband works with bees and makes homemade honey so we got to see all the bees and how it works and he gave us free honey! So yummy!

Hna. Coon and I have felt Satan working hard on us this week. Heres our luck for this week: 

-Our load of whites turned pink.. then blue haha that was our mostly our bad, but still.

-For some reason I decided to wear the shoes that are a bit too big for me and I of course ended up getting  blisters and now they’ve grown to the size of quarters! Its ok though im fine I can still walk.

-Hna. Coon ended up getting lice!!! Ahhh Piojos! Pobrecita! All of us hermanas were her ¨monas¨and spent all day picking them out. Oh She is such a strong woman and has taken so much but her faith is still so strong! Such an example to me! Luckily I didn’t end up getting them..yet. They're very common here!

- Hna.Coon and I have been sharing clothes, its wonderful! You truly do get sick of your clothes fast haha but its hilarious every time she has worn my skirts they’ve ripped.  I just laugh its seriously hilarious! But yeah I might need some new shoes and skirts soon J

But Hna.Coon and I have also realized that we go through these struggles, hard things happen only beacause the lord wants to test our faith and see if we choose to lean on him in times of need. We definitely have. And we know that when something bad happens it just means something even greater is in store for us. And we have also seen that this week J

Our investigator Yasmin (the 11 year old girl with the family that has 14 perros) said she wouldn’t come to church this week because she wanted to go to her dogs race. We told her she should pray about it though and see what the lord wants her to do. Well she came to church and now she can get baptized this week!!! Whooooo! My first baptism! Shes awesome shes just very very shy so pray for her!

Also Enrique surprised us again! We only had one charla with him this week and we weren’t able to talk to him before church but he came! He came sweating again because he walked! Ah he is awesome and you know what. We found out he is living the law of chastity and can get baptized too! Pray for him as well! We also found out he wrote about us in his book! He's hilarious! What a great guy he is so excited to go to the temple too and get sealed. He said ¨the true church has temples, and that’s your church¨

We have also seen many other mircles this week. Our bendiciones (blessings) paper is running out of room! some days we didnt have lunch this week, but the Lord is always watching over his missionaries and surprisingly we haven't run out of food and we haven't gone a day without lunch! Speaking of lunch, yes Hna.Coons family (aunts parents) just came down to start their mission here! It was their first pday yesterday and they took us out to lunch! I don't remember the last time I actually sat down and ordered something it was such a treat! They are such a great family and I cant thank them enough! We also have meet many more great people this week and ill have to write more about them next week.

We LOVE LOVE LOVE missionary work because we truly get to see people change. We don’t judge these people on who they were in the past, we only see them for the person they can become J also in white, we always picture them in white getting baptized and getting to go through the temple! 

Thank you everyone for all the thoughts and prayers! Never lose the faith! Stay strong! Love you all so much!

Xoxoxoxox

Hna.Harvey