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 

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