Great Week! 10/27/14

Hola A Todos!

Wow, its crazy how fast the time is flying. The weeks just come and go. I am almost half way through my mission now and it feels like I just started yesterday.

Well, this week was a really good week, I love to see the hand of the Lord in our work every single day. I don't remember if I've told you all about one of our menos activos that we are teaching, his name is Gaston. His wife is a very active member and his son served in Argentina a couple years back and his daughter is in Colombia right now serving her mission. He got baptized after the big earthquake that happened here in 2010 and then I think about a year after went inactive. But for some reason, Gaston decided to accompany his wife to general conference a couple weeks back and from that day on has been just the most amazing person. When we taught the first lesson after he had went to conference, I'm not going to lie, he kind of scared me. He went off about how his wife is always trying to trick him into the religion and that he was catholic and that he was going to die catholic. But then, we sang a hymn and said a prayer to start the lesson and a complete 180 happened. He was a completely different person and now wants more than anything to be able to go to the temple with his whole family when his daughter gets back from the mission.

Its amazing what the spirit can do. I love that the work of the Lord really has nothing to do with us. We are just the mouthpieces for His work. All that you have to do is be obedient and dilligent and the Holy Ghost does all the rest. 

We also had a cool experience this week. We found an old investigator of the missionaries from like 7 months back and she was very receptive to us. She accepted a fecha bautismal in our first visit. When we got home that night, we looked up her record and we saw that she had had problems with the word of wisdom so when we went back for a second visit we decided that we should teach the word of wisdom. And always at the end of the lesson we ask if we can do anything to help the person quit smoking, or stop drinking tea, or coffee. And we offer that we will take the substances out of their house for them. The people almost always tell us, no we'll get rid of it, we don't need your help, that is if they accept to live the word of wisdom, but this time was different. Ana went to her pantry and pulled out all of the tea she had and just handed it over to my companion. It was a miracle. We  are hoping to see her progress. 

I love you all and hope that you have a great week

!

Love Hna Ayre

Here are some photos from the last couple of weeks here in Santa Cruz

the first is in Pichilemu

and the last is the day we had to do a deep clean of the house and get down on our hands and knees and scrub the floor. we also had to scrub the walls and fridge, we basically scrubbed everything imaginable. yet when the couple came whose in charge of the houses, they still found faults with the house. we are really sick of cleaning haha, there cant be a house much cleaner than ours in the mission. 

Staying Together 10/20/14

HOla! 

How is everyone doing this week? 

This week was another good week for us! We had transfers and all of us sisters here in Santa Cruz will be staying together. We are really excited about it. Our house is a house full of gringas and we are planning what we are going to do for thanksgiving dinner together! 

So this week, we had district conference and the district wanted all the missionaries to sing together in a chorus. There was a part in I believe in Christ when only the sisters sang and it sounded awful! The only two musically talented sisters in our zone were playing the piano and leading the choir, it was not very pretty. I would say that my singing abilities have gotten a lot better here in the mission but its still not a high enough quality that it should be heard in front of a whole group of people. 

The works going really well here in Santa Cruz. We've got a lot of really great people who we are working with who really love listening to us, but we aren't quite sure if they understand the importance of all that we are teaching them. We are really excited to see them this week and teach them about the importance of the atonement and obedience to the commandments. 

The two cousins who called us last week are doing good. They are really difficult to find and one of them has a ring back tone of a really catchy song here that has really bad lyrics and every time we call him we have to listen to that song, but thats ok, we just sing a hymn to try to get it out of our heads haha my companion always is trying to avoid listening to it by making me call. 

I am really happy here in the mission. This week I have thought about how this has been the best experience of my life. I am constantly changing and becoming a better person. I can really see the hand of the Lord in my life.

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

Con amor

Hna Ayre

Week of Miracles 10/13/14

This week was a week of miracles! 

We were in lunch on Tuesday and we received a phone call from a number that we didn't save in our phone. I answered it and there was a man on the other end that said, "Hello Hermana, this is Hno Juan," I had no idea who hno Juan was. So I awkwardly asked him who he was and he said that we had talked to him in the street a couple of weeks ago and that he wanted us to come over that night to teach him more about our religion. We were so excited, that has never happened to me or my companion before on the mission. So, we went to Juan's house that night with one of the members in our ward and we arrived and him and his cousin had recently moved to that house so they have no furniture and we sat on the floor with the sister from our branch and taught him and at the end of the lesson his cousin came out of the bathroom and was like I have a lot of interest in your church, I was able to attend a baptism before in Peru, but afterwards we moved here and I lost contact with the church. We are so excited about Martin and his cousin Juan. We had another lesson with them this week and we went with another really sweet sister who had told us how she doesn't sit on the floor because her health doesn't permit her to, but she got to the house and just plopped right down on the ground without any problem. I'm so grateful for her and members like her who are so willing to work in this work of salvation.

The even bigger miracle was that we were sitting in church on Sunday and none of our investigators who were committed to come to church had showed up. But the last like 10 min of the meeting Juan and Martin walked in the back door! Even more exciting is that they stayed at church for all three hours! Then after sunday school we walked outside and two of our other investigators showed up for the last hour. They have a son in prison and his visiting hours are during church so it was a huge sacrifice for them to come. They have a baptismal date for the end of this month. We are not sure if they will be able to be baptized this day yet, but we are praying for them that they will be able to. 

This work is amazing. I love how every day, if you just open your eyes to see, you can see miracles. I love the atonement of Jesus Christ and that by Him, we all can be healed from our pains and we can overcome our debilities if we just trust in him.

We had an interesting experience this weekend with a member in our branch who is really down in the work right now and us 4 missionaries have had a lot of conversations about doing the little things like reading and praying every single day and going to church. If we let these three things slide. We begin to get further and further away from our Savior Jesus Christ. Our light starts to dim. And really when that happens you are not only affecting yourself but everyone around you. Please everyone if you are not reading your scriptures and praying every night, start doing it. If it is just a verse to start, it will help you. I know that as you do these little things, you will have more light in your lives and more happiness and will be able to help many people! I love you all. 

con amor

Hna Ayre

Striking Gold 10/6/14

Hola Todos!

Wow, what a great week this has been! We have had lots going on in Santa Cruz. I can't believe how fast the time is flying! This week, we found an investigator of gold (we thought). On Tuesday, we started talking with a woman on the way to her house and she invited us in to her house to talk with her. We taught her the restoration and she was amazed by the idea of prophets in our days. Hna Butler and I put a baptismal date for her and we left the house on cloud 9. We were so excited to find such a good investigator. Well, the next morning we were reading our area book and Hna Butler found the name of this woman. She started reading it and the Elders that had taught her a year ago said that turns out she was a member. Well, we hardly could believe it, so we did an investigation of our own. We checked online and turns out she was baptized almost 20 years ago. When we went to her house again on Thursday, we asked her if she had ever been to church and she was like I went a couple times when I was little but my mom was really catholic so she made me stop going and then my companion asked her if she had been baptized and she said no. We were really confused and she told us some story about how her dad left her mom and had another family and had a daughter and named her the same name and they are almost identical and she said maybe she got baptized, but she doesn't talk with her so she doesn't really know. Well, we were even more confused after that story, but we continued our search and started asking members if they had known her and there were tons that know her and that she was the one who got baptized. We don't know why she lied to us or why she's so good at lying, but it was definitely a shocking event this week.

 

I loved the conference this weekend! It seriously is like Christmas here in the mission. There is so much we can learn from these inspired men. I loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk about how we can gain more light and truth in our lives. It really is such a simple formula but so many people look over it. I love that one of the steps after all that we have studied pondered and prayed about is to act. We truly can't learn much without acting. Our testimonies can grow continually and we should always be searching more truth. Our Father in Heaven hopes that we ask and hopes that His children have desires to know the truth. I know that He loves us individually and is so aware of who we are and what we are going through. He expects so much of us, but that shouldn't make us scared but rather excited to serve our God.

 

I love all of you and hope that each of you were able to watch conference this weekend and gain new insights and understandings of the gospel. If not, go watch it!

 

Con mucho amor

Hna Ayre 

Santa Cruz 9/29/14

Hola Todos!

This week has been a crazy week for me! On Tuesday afternoon , President and Hna Warne came and picked me up from Curico and we drove over to Santa Cruz. It was fun to have time with the two of them and to be able to talk to them personally without being in an interview. They really are so inspired and love everyone in the mission so much. President said some really nice things about mom and dad.

 

Well, this week was basically like we did a white wash because Hna Butler has only been in the sector two weeks and I didn't know anything about the sector. We have been trying to talk to as many people as possible. On Wednesday we were talking with people on the street and we had just talked to two people really pesada ( I can't remember what that word is in english, sorry) and we saw a man walking with his two kids in the street and we decided to talk to them too and I was a little nervous that he was going to be like the two other people we had just talked with, but he was incredibly nice and said that we could pass by in like an hour when his wife was in the house. So we passed by and the wife was so nice too. We entered the house and it felt like we had known this family forever. They had passed for a hard moment a couple weeks back and they have been searching more for God in their lives. We visited them twice last week and they came to church on Sunday! I feel so extremely blessed that I was put in this new sector because I know that God needed me and my companion here this week specifically to find this family. 

We also had a baptism this Saturday for a man named Guillermo. His wife is a menos activo and he actually had her call the missionaries to come teach him. He was such a miracle and so prepared. He has the sweetest testimony.

 

This week I was able to talk to the missionary who took my place in Centinela and she told me that the family that got married when I was there will be baptized the 11th!  I am so incredibly happy for them! The mission has been the biggest blessing in my life! I feel so grateful to be able to meet all of these amazing people! 

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

Con amor 

Hna Ayre

Special Transfer 9/22/14

Amanda in Curico.  Amanda will be transferred to Santa Cruz.

Excited to be Together 9/15/14

Hola Todos!

This week has been a really great week! My companion Hna Landon is an awesome missionary. We are really excited to be together because both of us are determined to work really really hard this cambio. We are always thinking about ways how we can have more success in our sector. We are praying that we can find someone who will be able to get baptized in October. We know that if we do our part, the Lord will put someone in our path who is ready. 

This week, we had to be in the house early because the 11th of September is a day in Chile when many pèople do protests and it's dangerous for the missionaries to be out super late. My companion has uno cards with her so we played uno and I decided that it's probably best for me not to play uno in the mission because it brings out my competitive side... Also it just wasn´t the same as game nights with the fam and friends. The stake also had a noche folclórico this week because next week is Chiles independence day and it was super cool. Each ward did a traditional dance from chile. The culture here in Chile is super cool. I am super excited for the 18th this week, everyone says it's just the best.

 

This week, I was studying in preach my gospel about repentance and how missionaries we have to invite our investigators to repent. I had never done that specifically in the mission until this week. This week we taught two lessons on repentance and at the end we invited them to repent of their sins they had committed in the past and they were two of the most spiritual lessons that I have had here in the mission. I learned this week that repentance is one of the greatest gifts that God has given us. And more than it is just saying sorry, its a process of change, everytime we sincerely repent, we are changing to become more like our Savior. I love Alma 36, its now one of my favorite chapters in the BoM because it talks about the joy alma recieved from repenting and it gives all of us so much hope that we can have that joy in our lives too. 

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

Hna Ayre  

Receiving Hna. Landon 9/8/14

Hola familia!

How is everyone doing? This week was a good week! It was the last week of the cambio and tomorrow I will be recieving a new companion. Her name is Hna Landon. I continue with only gringa companions. All of the other gringas in the mission have only had one or two gringa companions and the rest Latinas. I don´t know why I haven´t been put with any Latinas, but hopefully one day so I can improve my spanish! 

This week I have really gained a testimony of personal revelation. I had a hard day this week and I was kind of just down. I went to our room and got on my knees and prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help me. I opened my scriptures afterwards and I felt like He was talking to me personally through what I read. I have a testimony that God knows us personally and He listens to our prayers. He is very aware of what each one of us is doing in our lives and He wants our happiness. He has a perfect plan for each and everyone of us. If we but just summit our will to His, we will be able to understand that plan better and we will find the happiness and satisfaction that we are looking for.

 

So I don´t know if I´ve told you all this before but we are teaching a menos activo right now who is a clown. We have taught him in his clown attire a couple of times now and can I just tell you how hard it is to concentrate?!

 

I love each and everyone of you and hope that you are all doing good. 

Love 

Hna Ayre 

Interview Time September 1st, 2014

Hola Todos!

Wow so many things have happened this week. We had interviews this week and I love being around President and Hermana Warne. They are some of the greatest people you will ever meet. In my interview Pres and I talked about the one quality that has most changed about me since I have been on the mission. I feel that in my time in the mission I have learned to rely on my Savior. President shared the scripture with me that is in D&C about how we should let our confidence wax strong in the presence of God. We can have confidence that God trusts in us and that is why he called us to this work.

So this week, Hna Butler and I went to get popsicles and we entered the store and I asked for two popsicles and the guy was like, sorry we´re all out of cigarettes... Haha it was super funny, how bad that must have looked for him that two missionaries came into the store to buy cigarettes.. We clarified very quickly that we wanted popsicles.

So this week, one of our investigators that has been studying with the missionaries for awhile now and assisting church called us and said that she wants to be baptized on the 6 of September! We were so excited for her! We went to her house and we put all of it together and the only thing she had to do was have her parents sign the permission form and show up to church Sunday. Well, she didn´t show up to church Sunday and then she was texting a boy in our ward and said she thinks shes going to wait till October. We were a little crushed. But we still have faith that she can get baptized this month, we just have to go talk to her and see what happened.

Other than that everything is good here. I still love the work and am growing every single day in my testimony that I know that God is our Father in Heaven and he knows each one of us personally. He has a perfect plan and all we have to do is submit our will to His and we will gain the most happiness in this life and a place in the Kingdom of God in the world to come!

Love you alll!

Con amor

Hna Ayre

Sopapillas 8/25/2014

Wow, this week has been a crazy week. Right now Hna Butler and I are working in two giant sectors. You could say by the end of the night we are ready for bed.

I can´t believe how much time I have now been in the mission. I´ve lived in a foreign country for 6 months now and it feels like I just left yesterday. I feel like every day I'm learning more and becoming little by little the missionary that the Lord needs me to be. I feel like the Lord has given us a huge job to do in Rauquén right now especially since we are working in two sectors and sometimes I don´t know how we´re going to be able to help all of these people with all that we have to do. But something that I am learning is that I just have to rely on the help of the Lord.  This really this isn´t my job or our job to do, it´s the work of the Lord and He is in charge and if we do our part He will make up for the rest. 

So story for the week. Here in Chile when it rains, all the Chilenos make sopapillas in their houses. Which are like scones but they have pumpkin in them and they put stuff like ketchup and mustard and mayo on them. It was raining Saturday really hard and we showed up to a menos activos house and her two daughters were making sopapillas. Her 8 and 10 year old daughter live the majority of the week in the house by themselves because she has to work every single day. But as such, the house was a little bit of a mess when we came. We entered and there was dog throw up on the ground and so the menos activos started to clean it up. Well, while she was cleaning up the dog throw up, her daughter came up and asked her is the consistency of the dough for the sopapillas was alright and she just stuck her hand in the dough to feel it without giving a second thought to the fact that she had been cleaning up dog puke. We ate the sopapillas afterwords. You know, here in the mission you just kind of stop worrying about stuff like that. 

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

Love 

Hna Ayre

Saying Goodbye 8/18/2014

Hola Everyone! 

Wow, what a crazy week. Hna Beeston left this morning to go home and it was so sad to say goodbye. I wish I could have had more time with her. We seriously were instant best friends. Even better we both wanted to work really hard. I am so grateful that I got to be with her because she taught me a lot about consecration. 

Our time here in the mission really is short and it is so important to give it our all even when times get hard.  This week we found an amazing investigator. She was walking in the street and she had a face like she wanted to talk to us so we stopped and talked to her and supposedly Hna Novoa and Buttler had taught her one time, but then she moved houses and couldn't get a hold of them. We put a cita with her and returned to her house and she is super interested in the gospel. Her husband was killed in Ecuador in April and she is now living alone with her son of 4. She has just been so sad but she called Hna Novoa and Buttler after our lesson and told them that she just feels so much peace when were in her house. She also came to church on Sunday. I know that we are going to be able to help her find the peace and comfort in her life that she is looking for. I´m so grateful that Hna Beeston and I were paying attention when we saw her in the street because I know God put us in her path for a reason. She really is so prepared to hear the message of the gospel. I am so excited to keep teaching her and have the ability to see the healing powers of the atonement take place in her life. 

I know that God knows us personally and is always there for us if we but only go to him. He lets us go through trials because He wants us to become like Him and we can only do that if we go through these trials and learn from them and improve.  And even more we start to understand what true happiness is.

 

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