Hey Chandra F!
Its possible you are syncing contacts with several accounts.
Can you check:
Settings > Contacts > Accounts. Click on each account and make sure “Contacts” is checked.
Then check the Contacts app to see if they are now there.
Likewise, if they were already checked, but still don’t show up:
Open the Contacts app, click “Groups” on the top left.
You should see all your accounts there, such as:
All iCloud
All Gmail
Etc.
Put a check next to all accounts, then select Done.
Do the contacts appear there now?
If not, and they were solely stored in iCloud, do you see them on your other devices? (If you have any)?
Likewise, also, if stored with iCloud, and they are gone on all of your devices, see if there is an archive of them:
Go to iCloud.com > Account Settings.
Near the bottom click on “Restore Contacts”.
There, you should see a list of dates the contacts were archived. If you see the date before they disappeared, choose that one. If you’ve added contacts after that date, a new archive will be made for today/the day you restored the archive.
Hope that helps! Please let me know if not, and the answers to the other questions:
Do you have the contacts on other devices.
The results from checking the other accounts.
Cheers, happy to help out further if I can.