Video of Amanda CCM

No Temas, Cree Solamente

Hola Everyone! 

I hope this letter finds everyone well. All is great here in San Fernando. We are working really hard, day in and day out we are seeing miracles. Right now we are struggling to have progressing investigators and are trying to find new people who are more ready to hear this message at this time. I know that the Lord is in charge of this work and He will direct us to the people who need this message if we are being obedient and dilligent. 

I had my first division this week! When we got the call saying that we would be having divisions, I got so scared. I was so terrified and literally stomache sick. I recieved a handout in the CCM from one of the mission presidents in Chile and it says No Temas, Cree Solamente it is found in Mark somewhere. I have it taped to my wall right now. In the midst of my panic attack, I looked at the wall and read that scripture and it reminded me to not fear and only be believing. My whole outlook changed. I realized I shouldn´t be scared to go on a division. I should be believing and know that the Lord is going to help me. fear is the lack of faith. This has become the theme of my mission. No temas, cree solamente. I am nothing without my God, but with the Savior, I can do everything and anything. 

I went on the division and it was so great. My companion who I was with was so sweet and we laughed a lot and I learned a lot from her. Everything was fine. I also met a sister missionary on the division who met mom and dad when they were visiting Rancagua. Her name is Sister Rojas. She is so sweet and said that you guys were so nice.

 

Funny moment of the week, everyone here is shocked when they hear my last name for the first time. Some say oh how beautiful and others laugh and make jokes about it. My two favorite nicknames I have received since I have been here are Hna Respiracion and Hna Oxygen. People always say where is Hna Ayre, I need some fresh air. Its super funny. 

We have started in our weekly meetings teaching the Latinos english, and they are so funny. I never realized how hard english was before. Teaching english is even harder. I am so glad that english is my first language. 

Well, I hope everyone has a great week, I love you all.

 

Oh also, I invite you all to think about people who you could share the restored gospel with. This message really changes lives and brings people a happiness that they have never had before. Everyone here on this earth are our brothers and sisters and deserve to have the happiness we have. 

Mountains to Climb

Hola everyone! 

I hope all is going well for you wherever you maybe. You are all always in my prayers. 

This week went by so fast! We had district meeting, zone conference and general conference all in one week. It was great! I feel so ready to get back to our normal schedule this week and share all the things that I learned. 

Mom, dad, this past week we were eating lunch at a members house and we started talking about you guys and she said that she met you. She was in the temple the day you guys were in Santiago and she said that you two were the only two that shook her hand. How crazy is that! 

Well I thought I would share with you all one of my favorite things that I learned in conference. It was the talk of Elder Scott (I think) he said the way we can help people is by loving them and putting our trust in them. The last part about trust really struck me. I believe that it is so essential. We need to let the people we love feel that we have trust in them. Those that know they are trusted are more likely to act in the way we want them to and more importantly the way the Lord wants them too. 

I also wanted to share with you something I learned today. Today we decided we were going to go to San Vicente as a Zone and hike to the top of this mountain that had a cross on top of it. When we arrived to San Vicente and I saw the mountain and I thought there is no way any of the sisters including me are going to be able to hike this mountain. It was huge. Well, to my surprise, all of the sisters were able to climb the mountain. We all made it to the top, but it was not easy. In fact, it was killer. At one part we were almost literally rock climbing.  When we got to the part when we were done rock climbing, we found a trail. If we had used the trail from the beginning it would have been a lot easier. 

This made me think about our life on the earth. There are two paths we can take, the path of the Lord or our own path. Like the mountain, both are difficult to follow. There are going to be parts that are really hard, but the trail on the mountain is much easier than trying to create our own path. Likewise is the path of the Lord. The Lord's way, even though it is still going to be difficult, is much easier than us trying to create our own paths in this life.  And when we get to where we want to go, we will reap the rewards of  the path we follow. 

Sorry that was cheesy but I felt I should share. Love you all.

First Week in San Fernando

Wow, I am just overwhelmed by all that has happened to me in this past week. I still can´t believe I am a real missionary. Life in the CCM and in el campo are completeley different! My companions name is Hermana Clawson, and she is great! She has been in the field for eight months! 

One thing that I have learned since I have been out in the mission field, is that missions are not easy, and people have their agency and sometimes things don´t work out the way you want them to. But something else that I have learned in the mission field is that miracles happen everyday. I know that God is leading this work and that the days work out the way they do because the people we talk to in a day are the people that need to hear from us. So far, out of the time that I have been out in the field, only probably 3 or 4 of our set appointments actually happened. The rest fell. By the end of the day we have just been so tired, but everyday we have found someone who for sure needed our help and our message at the end of the day. 

On friday, we seriously had one appointment at three and the rest of the day we were just knocking on doors and no one let us in. It was so cold that day too and there was lots of wind and it was for sure going to rain on us. It was around 8:15 and we had an appointment at 8:30 and the person called and said because it was going to rain they didn´t want to meet with us. It was heart breaking. We didn´t know what to do, we had almost two hours left and no one to meet with and it was dark and no one wanted to open their doors. We decided to say a prayer and just ask for guidance. Right after we said the prayer, the wind stopped and it warmed up a little bit. We knocked on a door and it was a non acitve member who for sure needed to hear from us that night. He was the only one there so we just talked on the porch, but it was super great. Afterwards when we returned to the house, no more then ten minutes later, it started pouring down rain. It was a testimony to me that God answers prayers and looks out for his servants. 

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

I Made it Safely to Rancagua

Hola! 

I have officially made it to my first area! I am serving in San Fernando in the rama Sentinal! I love my mission presidents! they are amazing. I am so excited to be out here serving. My companion's name is Hermana Clawson. She is from Layton Utah and has been serving for 8 months. I can already tell that I am going to love her. I know that she is going to work really hard and that is what I want to do. 

I just wanted to tell you guys something really sweet that Hermano Escobar told me before I left. He said your parents are amazing. He said from good trees come good fruit and you are that fruit and he told me thank you for being such a good example. I feel so blessed to have been able to meet so many great people at the CCM. Also Hermano Figueroa did something so sweet for me too. I wasn´t able to say goodbye to him yesterday, but he gave something to one of the sister missionaries to give me. He gave me his Predicad mi 
Evangelio from the sister missionaries who reactivated him . It was so sweet. I feel so blessed that I got to learn from him. I hope to be as good as missionary as he was. 

I love you guys and will write more

Last Week in the CCM

Wow, I can't believe how fast time flies here. 

I am working on my last  week here at the CCM. I am sad to be leaving my district and the amazing people that I have met here at the CCM, but at the same time I am so excited to go to El Campo. I want to work so hard and be the best missionary I can be. I am realizing how little time I have to serve the Lord, I am already down to 17 months. In comparison to all the life I will live, 17 months is nothing. Being in Chile has already changed me. 

So today for Pday, we went to McDonalds to get ice cream as a district with Hno. Figueroa and one of the teachers who has become one of my really good friends, Hna. Alfaro. Both of them had the day off of work today and both of them decided to come to the CCM to spend time with us on our last pday. It was so fun. They are both so funny and nice. 

So there's a tradition in Chile that all of the freshman starting college have to go through this initiation where people throw all sorts of garbage and fish and paint on them. They rip their clothes and then take their stuff. And then all of the college kids have to beg on the street for money so they can buy their stuff back. So we had lots of stinky, dirty college students asking us for money today. Hna. Alfaro told me that I should be talking to them about the gospel. So, a boy and a girl came up to me and asked me for money and I said, "I don't have money, but I have a gift for you." And I started talking about the restoration of the gospel with a pamphlet. A minute in, the boy said oh I'm christian too and took the pamphlet and walked away. It was super funny. I hope he actually reads the pamphlet! 

For my BYU friends, I ran into Cole Anderson on Monday on the temple grounds! When I saw him, I was so confused. I at first thought I was just imagining things and then he got closer and I thought it was Hunter, but it was Cole! He didn't get his visa so he was sent to Santiago Sur. It was so great to see him! I thought about how we threw those ice cream cones at that window together and thought about how different things are now. It's so funny how much a mission changes you.

Living at Alcantara has been so great! The Gilberts are the greatest people and they feel like our mom and dad at the ccm. Today during exercise time they filled up a bunch of water balloons and we played water balloon volleyball and it was so fun! I admire and am so grateful for how hard they work for us. We can truly feel the love they have for us. They were so happy to see all of us having fun and laughing. 

I hope all is going well at home! I want to hear from all of you! Love you guys!

Week #4 CCM

Hola everyone! How is everyone doing? I hope everything is going well at home or wherever you may be!

I'm still loving it out here! The people are just so nice! Especially everyone that works at the MTC. One of my dad's assistants started working at the MTC last week and he will be my teacher starting tomorrow! It's so interesting to me how everything works out in our lives. Its never the way we expected it, but it always turns out being better! I'm so excited to have Elder Figueroa teach me, I feel like even though I wasn't supposed to go to Argentina and serve in my parent's mission, its really cool and amazing that I get to learn from one of his missionaries! 

So on Sunday this week, the gums by one of my wisdom teeth got really swollen and it didn't hurt but it was really bothering me. We have a nurse going to the Osorno mission who is living at Alcantara with us right now and I went and asked her what I should do and she said that I should just go to the doctor tomorrow and get it popped and I was like ok. But then it just started annoying me even more, so I asked her if she could just pop it when we got home and she said yes. So on Sunday night she took a pair of scissors and made a little incision where my gums were swollen and squeezed out a ton of puss! It was disgusting! The funny part was that it didn't hurt at all and i haven't had any problems with it since, it was crazy! I'll send a picture.

 

Hna Cook and I taught a lesson to one of our investigators yesterday (who is just a teacher) and afterwards he always gives us advice on what we could work on and yesterday he said that he thought we did a really good job and didn't give us any advice. Hna Cook asked what he thought we could improve on and he said that he didn't have any advice for us. We were so excited! I know we have a really long way to go and that we'll never be perfect teachers but it felt nice to have a really good lesson! 

I hope everything is going well with you guys! I love you all!