July 28th, 2014

Wow, this was a crazy week. On Tuesday, Hna Tidwell went to the temple because she will be leaving in three weeks, so I got the opportunity to go on divisions with my companion from the ccm, Hna cook. It was so fun to be with her again and see the progress that both her and I have made since we have been out in the field. Then we also had zone conference this week and it was amazing. I love learning from our leaders here in the mission. I feel so blessed that I have the Warnes as my mission presidents. They are two really amazing people and are both really inspired in what they do and say. When I´m around them, I always think about what mom and dad and the boys are up to and it always brings back memories of the zone conferences and interviews that I went to with mom and dad.

I learned on Saturday, that I will be going to Rauquen in Curico on Tuesday. I will be companions with Hna Beastin who is another gringa from Utah. I laugh because all of my companions have been from Utah so far. Hna Beastin only has three weeks left in the mission, so I will go be with her for her last three weeks and then she will leave and another girl in our house is leaving at the same time so I will become companions with whomever is the other girls companion is who is leaving. I have a feeling that we may be really lost for a little bit. I will only have three weeks to learn the sector. It has been really hard to say goodbye to the people here in Centinela. These people have become part of my family. I feel so blessed that I had the opportunity to start my mission in Centinela. 

Family and friends, our mission has started doing our family history and it is something super cool. I invite all of you to go to familysearch.org and start your family history too. There is a lot of work to be done in everyone's family history still and what I have learned here in the mission is that it is not only for old people. I have thouroughly enjoyed doing it. You can upload photos and memories about your ancestors and if I had the time I would love spending more time on the site learning about my ancestors. 

This work is super important because missionary work does not only happen on this earth, it is constantly happening in the spirit world too and we need to help with that work. I promise you all that if you take the time to do it, you will all feel a really cool connection with your ancestors.

 

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

Love 

Hna Ayre 

The Marriage

Hola Todos!

I hope you all have had a great week. Wow, time is starting to fly by here. I cannot believe that another week has come and gone. This week was super crazy for us. We had to move to a different house and that took up one day of work and then we had like three activities in the branch and so we were with the ward lots this week too.

 

Well two really great things happened this week. Our menos activo Maritza finally got a calling in the branch! She will be the secretary in the Young Womens. We are super excited for her. The only bad part is that she did not show up to church on Sunday which was a real bummer. We haven´t been able to talk to her so we hope that everything is alright. 

The other great news is that Carlos and Marcela got married this morning! It was so beautiful and so happy. I was sitting there listening to the vows and it made me think about how grateful I am for temples. It is such a blessing that we can be sealed to our families for all eternity. It is so sad the idea that some people will only have the opportunity to be married til death do they part. I am so excited for Carlos and Marcela because really that is just the beginning of their process to become an eternal family. This morning was so special for their family. Their son Wladimir had told them ever since he was little that they should get married and now they are. He was so happy.

 

It is such a blessing in my life that I have the opportunity to be God´s mouth piece in this marvelous work. I know that real happiness comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ and our obedience to it. I know that without a doubt we have a Father in Heaven who loves us more than we can know and we all have the opportunity to return to live in His presence again. We have to be obedient too though, because He is a just God and nothing impure can live in his presence. I hope that we can all return together to his presence one day and be accepted into His kingdom. 

I invite you all to share what you know to be true with someone else who needs that help this week. I love you all!  Have  a great week! 

Con Muchisimo Amor

Hna Ayre 

5 Month Mark

Hola todos!

How is everyone doing? The time is flying by for me here in the mission. I cannot believe that it is already July. This week I will complete 5 months in the mission! 

This week was a crazy week. All of the people that we normally visit in the week had their appointments fall through. We would go to their house and we couldn´t enter because they either weren´t there or that it was just a man alone. One of our investigators Brian, accepted a baptismal date last week and who accepted to live the word of wisdom and live the law of chastity totally blew us off this week. I don´t know what is happening with him but I hope that everything is alright still. Yesterday we saw him walking in the street and I made eye contact with him and he looked down and walked away, so I made sure to say hi really loud as he walked pàst and then he stopped and said hi. I was a little bit hurt by that because it felt that he was making such good progress and that he confided in us, but I just hope everything is alright with him. 

Our other investigators Carlos and Marcela are supposedly going to the registro civil to put an hour today to get married which we are really excited about. I've been worrying about Marcela because she has a really bad back and has been bed ridden many times which has impeded her from coming to church. I think one of her disks slipped out like moms. The problem is that she needs a surgery, but its too expensive so she can´t get it. She got a blessing and I hope that she can start feeling better. 

Even though this week as far as appointment goes, wasn´t how we planned, it was still a good week. Especially Sunday, the two girls Cata and Feña hadn´t come to church since the day that they got confirmed and this week their whole family came. It made me so happy because they are like my second family here in Centinela and to see them sitting all there together was a very special moment for me. Their brother Pablo still has not been baptized and we are working with him to arrive at that point. I just want them to be able to have the opportunity to be an eternal family. 

Something that I have thought alot about this week is the importance of obedience. The commandments we have been given have been given to us because God loves us and knows what is best for us. To obey brings us the most happiness we can have. 

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

Love 

Hna Ayre 

Transfers 6/23/14

Hi everyone! How is everyone doing?

This week was a crazy week with transfers and everything, but it was still a good week. My new companion, Hna Tidwell is from Provo Utah and she only has two months left in her mission. She is an awesome missionary and I have learned lots of things from her already in just this first week. 

We are working with a family right now who are literally so amazing. They have a lot of faith. They have been together for 22 years and aren't married, but we invited them to get married and Carlos will be going to the Registro Civil to put an appointment so that they can get married this Wednesday. Marcela said that she never had a reason to get married before, but that after she read the Proclamation to the Family she understands the importance of marriage.

 

Something that I have studied a lot this week is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We can't even begin to imagine everything that He sufferred through, but we can know how much He loves us for the sacrifice that he made. He understands when we make mistakes because he suffered for our pains and temptations and he has felt the guilt that we have felt when we make mistakes. Thanks to Him, we can repent and be completely made clean again. I read a general conference talk that said, we are never too far away from Christs love that we can't come back again. All of us make mistakes, but to repent of them we can feel the biggest joy that we can feel in this life. 

I love you all and hope that everyone is all doing really well!

 

Love 

Hna Ayre 

Baptism 6/16/14

Holy cow it has been a crazy week here in Chile. I had to go to Santiago to get my carnet this week and I had to spend two nights in Rancagua to finish everything and then on top of that we had divisions this week and then we had our baptism Saturday!

The baptism was so great. It is a really special feeling to know that you were able to help someone make a covenant with the Lord. Something that I have learned here in the mission is that we are just the mouthpieces of the work, it´s nothing really that you do, it's what the spirit does to help people want to make changes in their lives.

 

We had one of our investigators come to the baptism and afterwards he asked one of the members how many times he needed to come to church to be baptized. We´ve only had one lesson with him. We put a date for the 5th of July this Sunday. The only problem is that we can´t visit him a whole lot because of his schedule and on top of that we always need another women in the house with us when we teach him and a lot of the times his mom isn´t there either, so we´ll see how everything goes.  I really do believe that he can be ready by this date.

 

This week we have transfers too. Hna Clawson will be leaving me to be a sister coordinator in San Javier, Talca. I´m super sad, she is an amazing Hna and I have learned a lot from her. I know that the Lord has a plan in everything though and I know that the Lord needs her in Talca now and needs me to stay here in Centinela.

 

My new companion will be Hna Tidwell, she is coming from Rancagua and is also a sister coordinator which means that I will be doing a lot of divisions this transfer. I am excited to learn from her and am excited for her to come help us with our investigators here. 

The Rain June 9, 2014

Hola everyone! 

This week Hna Clawson and I got drenched. It rained Tuesday, Thursday, Friday Saturday and Sunday. And when it rains here in Chile it rains a ton. Also its super windy so it´s almost like you have to use your umbrella like a shield. On Tuesday when we got home, our clothes looked like we had just jumped in a pool. 

The good news is, we still had a really good week. The rain didn´t stop us from working. On Sunday morning, it was raining really hard and it was really windy and we were so nervous that our investigators wouldn´t show up to church, but another week in a row we had 5 investigators in church! I was so happy. We had a ton of members who didn´t show up because of the rain but our investigators did. I had to speak on Sunday, which is the second time that I have had to talk in church since I've been here in Centinela. We had a meeting with the president of our branch Tuesday night and he was planning Sunday and Hna Clawson jokingly said Hna Ayre wants to talk and then I had to talk. He asked me what can you talk about, and I said, I can talk about faith and then he said you can talk about building Zion or Correction and Discipline. I almost chose correction and discipline. I seriously could not believe that I had to speak another time. When I started talking on Sunday, I started crying because I was so happy that our investigators came to church and then I looked out into the crowd and Hna Clawson was crying and one of our investigators who will be baptized this week was crying too. 

I cannot express to you all how amazing it is to have this opportunity to be a missionary. I have met some of the most amazing people in these past months. When I have hard days, I only need to think about all of the amazing people I've met and it makes it all worth it. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week. Always look for opportunities to share the gospel, I read a quote this week that talks about the best way we can help people is by sharing the gospel with them.

Con mucho amor

Hna Ayre 

Elder Salas 6/4/14

Hola Familia y Amigos!

Wow, this week was amazing!  We had Elder Salas and his wife come speak to our mission this week and what he said changed my whole mission. Elder Salas got up to the pulpit and asked us if we wanted the sugar coated stuff or the cold hard truth.  Obviously we wanted the cold hard truth, so he stood up in front of us and told us that our mission lacked faith. He said that the Lord has prepared many people for us here in Chile and we lack the faith to find them and baptize them. He explained to us the importance of the numbers and why we should want our numbers to be high. We don´t want our numbers to be high because we want the praise of our leaders, but we want our numbers to be high because if our numbers are high that means we are helping more of God's sons and daughters. He explained many things to us and he explained the importance of goal setting and that each and everyone of us need to set goals of faith and be willing to work dilligently to meet our goals. It changed my outlook on the way I set goals and I set some goals for my mission that I want to be able to say by the end of my mission that I did everything possible to meet my goals.

 

Hna Clawson and I had some amazing things happen this week. First off, we started teaching this amazing family a couple of weeks ago, they literally are the perfect example of what pmg says about the Lord is preparing the people for us to teach. Well, we had a lesson with them and a member in our ward and at the end of the lesson the member asked them how long they had been married, and to our shock, turns out that they aren´t married. They have been together 22 years and aren´t married. Hna Clawson and I were so sad. So, for our lesson we had with them on Friday, we prepared a lesson on the law of chastity and the Proclamation to the Family. 

On Friday, we started our lesson by having them read the first paragraph of the proclamation that says marriage is ordained of God. After that we talked really frank with them about marriage and Marcela and Carlos could not stop smiling. They were so happy to read this proclamation. They kept telling us thank you for the wonderful surprise. They told us that they were going to pray and ask if they should get married. They also came to church this Sunday which we were so happy about! We haven´t had investigators in church for a while and this sunday we had 5!

 

We have a baptismal date for two daughters of a menos activo on the 14 of June. We are so excited for them. They seriously are the best family ever and we are so happy because their mom had an interview with the President of our Branch this Sunday and we are pretty sure that she is going to recieve a callling soon! 

This work is amazing. I am so happy to be out in the field. I know that the Lord has prepared a work for me to do here in Chile and I am so excited to keep finding out more reasons why he needs me here right now. 

I hope you all have a great week. You all are in my prayers! 

Con mucho amor

Hna Ayre