I miss you all so much and I love to hear from each and every one of you every week! It feels my heart with joy! WOW JAMES! Holy cow bro! You got a FULL RIDE SCHOLARSHIP! Congratulations! That is incredible! I always knew that you have great things in store for your future. Keep aiming high. I dont even recognize James or any of his friends in the pictures that you send. When I left they were little boys, now they are MEN! haha. wow i cant believe it. Same with Annie and Hannah! Everyone is so old! haha.
I absolutely love training. I forgot how fun it really is. The last time I trained was a year ago with Hermanita Fuentes. Hermana Harvey is so wonderful and I am so impressed at her diligence to learn. It is so fun because everything is so new to here. I am glad that I get to be apart of her "oro" experience. It is a treat for me everyday. For example, she tried a "torta frita" for the first time this week. I will never forget the first time I tried a torta frita. (There were mice crawling around in the house. haha.) Its fun to reminisce on all the good times, isnt it?
We have had quite the rain storm here in Piriapolis over the past 3 days or so. I have never seen such a big storm in my life! The rain never stops...ever! Piriapolis is so beautiful with such cute houses! You all know that it is my dream to live in a house with a white picket fence. My dream has come true! Our little home with Rosalia has the cutest entrance with a white picket fence. Everyday, Hermana Harvey and I are discovering new plants in our yard. Above our heads, we have grapevines growing. We will be eating grapes all the time for the next couple of months. Just today, we saw that Rosalia is growing corn! We live in the secret garden...I love it!
I love reflecting back on the week and I can really see the hand of the Lord in our lives. We are witnessing miracles. What is so fun is that Hermana Harvey is so new to everything, so every little miracle that we see is like gold to her.
I will begin by telling you an awesome experience of what happened to our awesome investigator, Inrique. We have been teaching him for about a week now, and oh boy, have I absolutely LOVED to see the change in him that the gospel brings. It makes my heart rejoice! Before he didnt believe in God, that god loves him, that god hears him. We found him as we were walking in the street. He told us later that he felt something good about us, that desire to learn what we were all about. I know that the spirit has been guiding us with his teachings. We taught him about faith in Alma 32 and how is faith is growing, how we plant our little seed in of faith in our heart, and then by reading, praying, and going to church our little seed of faith grows! He took that lesson to heart. The next day, he read all of what we left him to read, Alma 32. The next day we come back to him home to see if he read. He had tears in his eyes as he told us that he did read and that he knows that the Book of Mormon was true. Through his study of the Book of Mormon, he received personal revelation for his life. It was so amazing and he was telling us his personal experience. I asked him, "Inrique, now do you believe that God listens to your prayers?" He knows it and he is changing. This strengthened my testimony of the power of the Book of Mormon and how it is written for each and every one of us. Now Inrique is reading the book of mormon everyday and enjoying what he is learning. In his prayers, he thanks Heavenly Father for sending to angels to his home to teach him the gospel. He lived in such darkness, but now he is receiving the light that he was searching for. One out of the many things that I will miss about being a missionary is that all the time we get people calling us "their angels." Hermana Harvey was a little creeped about by this when she heard us called angels. I explained to her that people call us that here. It is the biggest compliment we can ever receive. People are changing their lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love to be a missionary.
We have worked so hard this past week helping reactivate a few inactive families. Hermana Harvey has loved our family nights that we have done with them. I woke upSunday morning thinking that we had done everything, all that we could, and now it was in the Lords hands. It was raining, and no Uruguayo likes to go out in the rain. I am glad to know that Heavenly Father knows the desires of our hearts. All of our little inactive families came to church as well as a few investigators...in the rain! It was a miracle as we saw each one of the pull up to the church. Hermana Harvey and I ran out in the sprinkling rain to give them a big kiss on the cheek and welcome them to church. Inrique came to church as well and loved every minute of it. Each of the testimonies that the members gave were just for him. He knew so many members even and they were so excited to see him there. We had such a fabulous Sabbath day yesterday as we went visiting teaching with our amazing total Type 1 Hermana Corrales. We visited a nursing home and sang to our sweet old hermanas there. My heart was full last night as I went to bed thanking Heavenly Father for everything.
I have been thinking a lot about our neighbors Luis and Sofia. Oh how do I want to share the gospel with them. I think it will help now, now that I can communicate with Sofia. I feel like they are prepared to receive the gospel. They have been on my mind and my heart so much lately, which is a bit unusual. Wouldnt you just love to see them enter into the waters of baptism?! I know I would!
My testimony this week is short and simple, but it feels my whole soul. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love my Savior and I know him. I feel so blessed to be completely immersed in the gospel. It is light.
I love you family! Stay strong and of good courage! We will see eachother soon!
Hermana Coon
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HERMANA HARVEY'S LETTER TO HER FAMILY
HOLLLLLAA familia y amigos!
WOW what a week it has been! Many many miracles as well! So much to tell!
Remember last week how I was saying Hna. Coon and I were sweating bullets haha well this week was completely the opposite! Its been windy and raining all week and we were in our coats! The weather is a bit bipolar like Utah you could say!
We had a fantastic week with lots of great Noche de Hogars (FHE) with some less active families in our area. Everyone is so nice and they are always feeding us. The picture I sent is of the Fila Duerda and their son reminds me of Zero off Holes haha anyways they are awesome and its like a tradition here that everytime it rains they make Torta Fritas and that’s what we had with some dulce de leche . HMMMMM! Hna. Coon took that left over dulce de leche and tried to make popcorn balls with it for another family. They didn’t look too great, but everyone loved them.
That’s another story to tell! This other family owns 14 dogs! Crazy! We clapped saying that we were there at their house (you don’t really knock on doors here its their culture) but anyways all the dogs came rushing to the fence and it was normal like it always is, but then when the mother came out the dogs started attacking eachother! Oh my goodness and Hna. Coon and I weren’t sure what to do! There were so many dogs and we could smell blood and there was dog crap everywhere and the neighbors had to come over and wow what an experience! Poor Hna. Coon haha she hates dogs so much! Other than that the night and lesson was great!
Church this week was another success even with the rain! One of our progressing investigators is a middle age man named Enrique and his faith has been growing so much! He calls us his angels because before he met us he didn’t have any faith. Also the fun fact that we literally see him every day SOMEWHERE because we keep running into him it’s the funniest thing ever! It’s a sign we tell him that this church is for him haha he wants to get baptized but the only problem is he is living with his girlfriend. My favorite quote from him this week was when we asked if he was still coming to church because of the rain (since a lot of people use that as an excuse here) He said “I imagine the rain doesn’t turn off the faith” amen to that! He came, and the less active families, and a girl who has a baptism date with us for next week! It was a great Fast Sunday and great testimonies shared. I have such a strong testimony on fasting! We have fasted so much and we have truly seen so many miracles this week. Its still not an easy task, especially since we aren’t incharge of everyones own agency, but it works! Ah the Lord has blessed us so much! I LOVE LOVE LOVE this gospel!
Oh and the picture of us in the Garden is a service project we did this week with the Fila. Delgado. They are an amazing family and help the missionaries so much so we decieded to give back and help with their garden. The girl with us is their daughter Camila who is 18 yrs old.
Love you all! Never lose the faith, remember faith is also an action!
Xoxoxoxox,
Hna. Harvey
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