A Work of Two Weeks

Hola from Centinela! 

Wow this week a lot has happened. I feel like we did a work of two weeks, not just one week,  which is really good. I love it here. I love the people. They seriously are amazing. I always think about how I wish all of you could meet all of these amazing people that I have met down here. The mission is seriously a miracle- our work is to talk with people in the streets, so that we can enter their houses, so that they can come to know better their Savior. So that they can understand the path that will lead them back home after this life. I seriously, on a daily basis, enter into houses of complete strangers and we teach them the restored gospel. Its a miracle.

 

This week like I said, many things have happened. We had interviews with our President Monday night and it was so great to be able to talk with him and Hna Warne. They are such great leaders and are really inspired in the things they do and say. I feel so blessed to have them as my Presidents. 

After interviews Monday, we were walking really fast because we were short on time to see all the people that we needed to see that day and I passed this dog on a leash and it jumped up and bit me! The good news is it didn´t break skin, but it seriously was so crazy. 

This week we entered into an apartment of a family that we met on the street and we started talking to them about God and asked them what role God played in their life and the boyfriend doesn´t believe in God, but the girlfriend does and occasionally she reads the bible. RIght after she told us she reads the Bible, J., the boyfriend, looked at us and said, I use the pages of the bible to smoke my marijuana to be honest with you. I know that my reaction shouldn´t have been to laugh and I held it in, but I almost laughed in that moment. It was so ridiculous.

 

We are teaching a recent convert who recently started preaching the gospel with her original church. She told us that she has had 5 baptisms. The most recent was in our church. The poor women is really confused in her head about all the churces. When we try to teach her nothing really gets through to her. We´ve decided that the best way we can help her is to read the Book of Mormon with her and hope that the words there will help her. This week we were reading with her and I asked her a question and she looked up at me and said you´ve gotten fatter and didn´t answer my question! Here it isn´t offensive to call people fat. I really don´t think I have gained weight, but seriously that moment was so funny!

 

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week!

 

Con mucho amor-

Hna Ayre 

Day after Mother's Day

Hola Everyone!

I hopè everyone had a great week! Everything is great here in Chile. I love it here. 

This week was really great. Hna Clawson and I are really starting to see progress in our investigators which is so great. 

Something that I studied this week and am constantly gaining a testimony of is the importance of the Book of Mormon and the importance of a daily study of the Book of Mormon. It really is the keystone of our religion. It is the way that we can know with a surety that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the true and only church of Jesus Christ. If we have a testimony of that Book, we know that every other aspect of our church is true. It also gives us strength daily that each one of us needs. 

I love you all! Have a great week! 

Love- Hna Ayre

Mucho Lluvia

This week I finished my first transfer in the mission field! 

I can´t believe it. I have been in Chile for 3 months now! It's crazy how time flies. I feel so blessed that I have this opportunity to serve the Lord for a year and a half. I know that there is nothing more important that I could be doing with my life during this time. During this transfer, I have met so many amazing people who have changed me and my outlook on life. I also have never felt so strongly the presence of God in my life, I see His hand in the work daily here. I already have been changed so much by this experience and am so happy to be here. 

This week, it rained. It rained a ton, and it was great. Everyone was in their houses and we were able to enter more houses and talk with more people. We had a really funny experience with the rain this week. On Friday, we went to lunch with a family in our branch and they drove us home afterwards. On the way home, the person driving, Franco, went to drive through this huge puddle of water and the car died. Hermana Clawson and I being the only people in the car with rain clothes on got out of the car and pushed the car through the puddle of water with Franco. We were laughing so hard. The bottoms of our skirts were completely soaked through. There was a women watching us three push the car from inside her store and she was laughing so hard. The bummer is that their car is dead, it won´t start back up. The engine was completely flooded with water. 

I love you all and hope you all have a wonderful week and Happy Mother's day to all my second moms! 

Noche Mexicana

Hola Everyone! 

How is everyone doing? I hope all is going well for all of you!

This week, we had a Noche Mexicana in our branch and it was a huge success! It was super embarrassing though, we live in a house with a set of sisters and together we sang a mexican song from a group called Pandora. Supposedly they are super popular. We changed the words to the song and it was super funny and each one of us had a solo in the song which I knew was a bad idea from the start. When I started to sing my part in the song everyone started laughing so hard, it was seriously so funny, and then I started laughing which just made my voice even worse. I didn´t finish my part because I was laughing so hard. I wish I could send you all the video, you guys would die. 

We went to Pichilemu today, which is the surf capital of the world. It is so beautiful there.

Something that I have learned this week, is the importance of following the spirit and to always listen to the thoughts or impressions you get and to act on them. Last Monday, we were contacting and Hna. Clawson went to go to the next house and I had an impression that we should go back to the street we passed and contact there. We decided to go to that street and we contacted a house and a 14 year old girl walked out and we started talking to her and she told us that she had never talked to the missionaries but that her brother had, and we turned around and her brother was walking up the street toward the house. He started talking to us and he said that he had a friend that was a member but hadn´t gone to church for awhile and he said let's go to his house right now. So we walked with him to his friends house and on the walk he told us that he knew the church was true and then we went to his friends house and he opened the door and we talked for a while and he started asking us about missions and he said that he wants to come back to church and wants to serve a mission! We had a lesson with him later that week and he told us the day before we arrived at his door, he texted one of his friends and told her how he felt that he needed to go back to church, for no particular reason but that he needed to go back. He also told us he would like to try to leave on a mission by the end of this year! I was so amazed and touched by him. It also really built my testimony of listening to the spirit and how the spirit works in us and prompts us to do certain things. The Lord prepares the people who need this message and all we have to do is be worthy, obedient and dilligent so that the spirit can guide us to the people we need to find. 

I love you alll and hope you have a great week! 

Con mucho amor

Hna Ayre

Rat in the Bathroom

Hola Everyone! 

Wow, this week was crazy, we had lots of good things happen and lots of sad things happen too. We had to leave one of our families we were teaching because they weren´t progressing and we also had to leave a lady we were teaching too because she didn´t want to do her part to find out if this message is true. The good news is that we found some amazing people this week and are starting to see some big changes in the other people we are teaching. 

The other week I made a street contact with two girls, Hermana Clawson answered the phone and said, ¨Hola como esta?¨and one of the girls turned around to respond  and when she realized Hermana Clawson wasn´t talking to her, she was super embarrassed and we all started laughing. I started talking to them and telling them about the mission and they were both super interested. We got their addresses and told them we would visit them. We couldn´t find them. But this week, we found both of them. We have an appointment with both of them this week and one of them, Nadia, told us that she knew what we taught her was true. She accepted a baptismal date and asked us when we could come back! That never happens!  We are super excited to be able to teach her more. 

This week, I had a traumatizing experience that I will never forget. On Monday, the cover to the drain in our shower was off and I thought that that was super weird, but I just shook it off and put the cover back on. Then on Tuesday, during personal study, Hermana Clawson heard something move and she turned around and saw a huge rat run into the bathroom. We went to the bathroom to see and the cover to the shower drain was off again! We realized that the rat had entered our house through the drain to the shower. At that point, we were all terrified! We put a heavy weight on the shower and just let it be. Well, the next day, I went to shower and I was super scared, but I thought at least with the water on, the rat wouldn´t come in.  So I got in the shower and as I was shaving my legs, I heard the drain move and I looked down and a huge rat came running out of the drain! It ran right under my legs!  I screamed bloody murder and grabbed my towel and ran out the door! The rat ran out of the door too. Now all of us were screaming because the other hermanas saw the rat too. I was shaking and nearly in tears. We called the member that we live with and he came and found the rat and hit it with a broom until it died! It was so scarring! Then he sealed the drain so nothing could happen again. Well, the next day during study time, I went to go use the bathroom and the drain was off again! I screamed and ran and jumped on a chair. We 

couldn´t find another rat but I am so terrified now. The member sealed the thing better and we believe that now it can´t be moved, but it literally was one of the scariest moments ever. Even worse, the rat had been eating my soap, it had huge bite marks in it. But, so is the life of a missionary. If I didn´t have these experiences, I wouldn´t have any funny stories to tell in the mission. But please pray that the rat won´t come back. 

I love you all and hope you have a good week!

 

Con Amor, 

Hermana Ayre