Goodbye Tennessee!

Well family and friends this is the last email from my year and half
journey.  As I Have reflected on my mission I am left slightly
speechless, it is a daunting task trying to find the words to sum up
the most amazing 18 months of my life up to this point. But I am going
to attempt any way.....

This crazy journey started two years ago on October the 6th 2012, a
day that I will never forget. That day was the day President Monson
stood before the church and announced that young men can now serve a
mission at the age of 18 and the young women at 19, as I heard these
words come from the mouth of our prophet the spirit witnessed to me
that I needed to serve a mission. With tears in my eyes I called the
family immediately and told them that I want to serve a mission. Just
as they always do, my family responded with love and support.
A few weeks later my papers to serve a mission were submitted. The
Friday before I submitted my papers I also found out that not only
would my life be changing dramatically over the next year and a half
but so would my families because they too had been called to serve a
mission in Argentina for the next three years. The excitement and
anticipation of serving a mission filled my thoughts as I received
"THE LETTER" calling me to serve in the Tennessee, Nashville Mission
and as I waited to enter the MTC.

On February 27, 2013 Mom, Dad, Amanda, Alex, and Nick dropped me off
at the curb of the MTC and sent me off to the mission.  The MTC flew
by so fast but I learned so much. I then entered the field on April
8th and that is when my journey truly began.

Since I have been in Tennessee and Kentucky I have discovered the
person that God wants me to be, through this journey of diligence,
obedience, laughter, love, broken heart, bad hair, weight loss, weight
gain, friendship, leadership, baptisms, awkward moments, hard work,
and many other things. As I come to close another chapter of my life I
have pondered on things that I have to leave behind and the things
that I get to bring home.  The things that I don't get to bring with
me are the people I taught and love, the beautiful green country, my
companions, full time missionary schedule, the amazing members. But
the things I will never lose is the strong relationship I have gained
with my father in heaven, the knowledge and testimony I gained of the
gospel, and the special connections I have with all the people I
taught and my companions.

I know as I being a new phase of my life that I have a lot to look
forward to and that I still have learning and changing to do. God's
plan for us is a plan of continual progression, and I know my
progression will not stop when I return home. I am excited to come
home and apply all the amazing things I learned in the last year and a
half.

I am so grateful to all y'all for your prayers and support. I have
felt so blessed to have had the opportunity to serve a mission and I
would not trade this experience for anything in the world. I know that
this gospel is true, and that we have the responsibility to share this
amazing message with the world. I want to end the way I started this
journey by sharing a scripture that I read in my farewell talk 18
months ago.

"And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming
to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I
remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard
my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended
towards me."

"I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do
not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded
me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in
the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my
joy."

Alma 29: 10, 9

Family I love you and I can't wait to be with y'all again!! Oh and
Chris Harris got baptized on Saturday and it was incredible to see her
be baptized on my last weekend of the mission. Sergio also went to the
temple for the first time to do baptisms, on Saturday!

I love y'all and thank you for everything
Hermanita Ayre

I'm in Love!

Hey Fam I hope yall are doing great. 

This last week has been amazing. I am seriously in love with Nashville. This last week has been packed full with emotions. The week started off with a going away party at Hermana Whittson's home, and it was the sweetest thing ever. The spanish group all made my favorite Mexican food, they gave me cards, pictures, gifts, and cake. I felt like the most loved person on earth that night. My eyes were filled with tears as I said goodbye to so many people I love. It was so hard saying goodbye to my companion Hermana Reed, my heart was ripped out that night.

That next day was transfer meeting and I had to say goodbye once again to so many people I love. Six hermanas went home and it was so sad to see everyone leave. Hermana Knecht and Schmit already sent me emails telling me that they made it home and that they are doing well. Cute Sister Tricia Gregory and Brother Seng from Lebanon came to the transfer meeting to say goodbye to Hermana Knecht and I.

The new sister is Hermana Warner, and she is from Seattle Washington. She is so cute and excited to do missionary work. She talks with everyone and she has great confidence, she is going to become one of the stronger sister missionaries in our mission. I am obsessed with hermana Torez, she is the nicest person you will every meet, she is so kind hearted and she loves everyone. She has been helping me with my spanish this last week and I have been so grateful for that.

I am so grateful that I am in Nashville, it is the best thing that ever happened to me, haha. There are so many Hispanics to talk with and to teach. The Ward here is packed full with amazing members. Everyone is from different places so it is fun to learn about so many cultures and to hear so many different types of Spanish accents. We are teaching a woman from Buenos Aires and she is amazing. She is a doctor at Vanderbilt and she is a golden investigator. I am also obsessed with her accent. When I speak with her my heart just gets so excited to go to Argentina.

I am so sad that I only have one week left, but I am going to make the very best of it and work my tail end off. I have to go, but I will tell you all my stories in more detail when I see you in person.

Love

Hermana Ayre

Goal...No era penal

So this week has gone by crazy fast. 

Tuesday- we had MLC and it was really good. Elder Meredith, an Area Seventy, gave an awesome training on leadership skills. I took a ton of notes and got some of Elder Meredith's notes too so I can show them to you dad :) It was awesome to see a lot of my past companions at MLC and to say goodbye to a lot of people #sadday

Wednesday- we did a lot of tracking and teaching.  

Thursday- Exchanges with the Clarksville YSA sisters, Sister LaFever and Rokovitz. It was really fun to teach in a YSA area, I love getting to teach people our same age because it is very easy to connect with them and to teach them how the gospel applies to their life :) 

Friday- The 4th of July!!!! When Hermana Reed and I switched back from exchanges we thought it would be a sweet idea to treat ourselves to a nice Waffle House Breakfast haha. I had some nasty hash browns with jalapenos, cheese and gravy on them.... it was quite the southern experience. Along with some biscuits and gravy too. We found a sweet tobacco farm with truck load of men to teach. Tabacco season is starting up so tons of workers from Mexico are starting to arrive :) I don't know how to really describe the place where they live so I will just send some pics. But we go up to this "house" and there are 13 or plus men straight from Mexico cooking some tortillas and beans. They invite us in and we teach them all the restoration. Some of them are receptive and others are not. One of the men told us that we are Catholics, but we just change the name haha. We left them with some pamphlets and a Book of Mormon. We don't really know how to continue to teach them because none of them have cars to get to church or anything... the only transportation they have is when the boss will take them all to Walmart in a bus on Saturday night and then bring them back home to work for the rest of the week. The men that come out here will go back to Mexico at the end of November because they are only here with a working visa. They usually come back every year from July to November. 

Saturday- We had a really good lesson with one of our investigators Fermin. We taught him about Fasting and keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. At the end of the lesson he opened up and told us that he is probably going back to Mexico this next week because his mom is dying. It was a really sad lesson, he was super sad because he knows that he will probably never make it back to America again, and all of his life dreams have come to an end. Fermin has been in the US for 4 years and he has his own painting company. All the money he makes he sends back to his family in Mexico to pay for his mom's medical bills... At the end of the lesson we committed Fermin to fast with us the next day. On Sunday we all broke our fast together and he made us some tacos. 

Sunday- We had a few investigators at church. We had a great lesson with Eliceo and Alejandro. We also had an awesome talk with our next-door neighbor Nick.  Nick and his girl friend Andrea have been our friends for awhile and we have tried teaching them on several occasions and it just has not gone very well. As we were coming back from church Nick stopped us and talked with us for awhile about what we do as missionaries. He told us that he has been watching us missionaries for the last 5 or so months and he opened up about how impressed he is with us and what our beliefs are. At the end of the talk with him he told us that he wanted to make a nice dinner for us to thank us for being good people... it was so cute and nice of him. He and Andrea get deployed this next Friday, so it will be the last time we see them :( 

I am doing great. I hope that all yall are having a good summer and I can't wait to see you in a few weeks :)

 

Love, 

Hermanita Ayre

Aliens 6/30/14

Hey y'all! Happy early 4th of July. Hermana Reed and I have had a very good but busy week :)

So our investigator C has been praying to know if the church is true and asked God to give her a sign. And we go over to see her and she tells us that God gave her a sign. She was watching an alien documentary on the Discovery Channel and she told us that it talked about Joseph Smith. We didn't believe her at first and then she showed us the video and there's a 15 minute section all about Joseph Smith and receiving the Book of Mormon. It was crazy. And then of course it talked about aliens and took God out and put in aliens. But it was kind of cool to see how she took that as an answer. Weird.

In other news, Mexico lost in the World Cup. And yesterday we went to go visit some investigators and they open the doors and they were crying and so upset about Mexico losing. It was kind of funny and also heartbreaking at the same time. But everyone is freaking out about Costa Rica. So that's the World Cup update.

We are making big strides with Fer. He had a church tour on Saturday, he stood and looked at the baptismal font for a long time. He knows he wants to make this step, and we are patiently waiting for him to receive his answer. But, it's been so awesome to see how much he's progressing. Update on E, he's doing great. We found out his
girlfriend told him she'd break up with him if he was baptized. So we are trying to overcome that obstacle. Please keep him in your prayers.

This Saturday we had a Spanish conference and Hermana Reed trained, she did a great job. We had some great speakers come to the meeting as well. President Salazar, aka brother Salazar from Lebanon came and spoke to us about stretching ourselves, it was a great training and it was so nice to see brother and sister Salazar, it made me cry. They also skyped in a Seventy to speak to us. He trained on the pure love of Christ and learn the culture of our investigators. We recently have had trainings about elevating our
vision and helping our investigators prepare for the temple. Elder Nelson recently said this,

“Missionary work should begin and end with our minds focused on the
blessings of the holy temple,“Missionary work is all about gathering
people out of the world, ennobling them, and enabling them eventually
to dwell with God forever,”  “This is His divine desire. Simply
summarized, God wants His children to return home to Him. What else
would you expect from a loving Father? Every missionary can have at
least one convert on a mission: himself! Or herself! Not just a
baptism, not just an attender, not just a name to be remembered—but a
rock-solid, true-blue, through-and-through disciple who will be an
exemplary member and spouse, long after the mission is over. We want
your missionaries to develop faith so steadfast that their
grandchildren will qualify for the blessings of the temple. …
How will we measure your success as mission presidents? Yes, we want
both converted missionaries and many baptisms. But, most of all, we
want the grandchildren of your missionaries, and the grandchildren of
those whom your missionaries baptize, to be endowed and sealed in the
temple. We want multigenerational families of faith. God wants His
children to return to Him, converted, endowed, and sealed as
families."

Amen to all that. My testimony of the temple has increased so much since I have come on the mission and I see too that is what sparked my testimony. I love my family, and I want to be with them forever, and I knew the temple could bring me that

This sweet viejito member from Columbia gave a talk in the Spanish conference. He was so precious, he called us all angelitos y angelitas. I was dying, so cute. I love when people talk in ita. But he talked about our church name and what saint means. A saint is someone holy and of virtue, and that's what the church does, it helps
us become more pure. Oh, the meeting was so fun, but sad because Hermana Knecht and Schmit were there and we all said goodbye because they go home in two weeks😥😩😭

I don't know if I had said much about the ward I am serving in, but most of the members are in the military because there is a base very close. It's super humbling to meet all these families that go through the struggles of deployment. But as we sang the national anthem on Sunday, the spirit was strong, and I felt a deep gratitude for the
members of the ward. I have gained such a deep appreciation for our country while serving in this ward and I have come to realize how blessed we all are to live in this country. It is also awesome to teach so many people who come to this country so they can partake of the blessings America has to offer. The number one thing America has to offer is that we have religious freedom and because of that, the gospel was able to be restored to the earth.

I love being a missionary. I love my calling as a Spanish missionary. I love my Heavenly Father!

Con mucho amor,
Hermanita Ayre

Last Zone Conference 6/23/14

Hello!

I had such a great week. So many things happened. We had zone conference and I gave my departing testimony. Aka cry fest. So weird. We also had exchanges, I went with Sister Gustaveson to Hartford Ky. It was a great exchange.

On the exchange we went out tracking and as we were walking we saw a really cute home with a beautiful front porch and we decided that we should knock that door. A lady answers the door and we complement her on how beautiful her porch is. I then turn to look at the front yard and I hear a shatter. I look back and see that my bag hit a vase as I was turning.. I was soooooooooooooo embarrassed. The lady was way nice and just laughed, she said that the vase was only $2 at a yard sale. She also has three little boys, so she said that things like this happen all the time.


(Words of Hna. Reed)
We have sooo many progressing investigators. People we didn't think were really interested are really reading the Book of Mormon. We set a baptism date with E. Things are just so good. Hermana Ayre and I went to the Jefferson Davis monument. I am just loving my time here. I laugh and laugh so much. We were hit on by so many men this week the best being walking in Russellville, and this dude comes pounding out the door saying, " dannnnnng girl. You be fine. How you doin'"  Hermana Ayre looks at him while talking on the phone and politely replies, "great! Have a good day!" Haha we couldn't stop laughing. 

Best tracting conversation this week:
Hermana Ayre: sir, our message is that heavenly father once again has
called a living day prophet on the earth.
Man: It's not Obama is it?
Me: No sir, it's not Obama. His name is Thomas S. Monson
Man: well, as long as it's not him, because he's the anti christ.
Hermana Ayre: here's this pamphlet, let us know if you have any questions.

Creepiest part of the week was a drunk man watching the World Cup pet our hair and call us guerras lindas. Hispanics seriously love Hermana Ayres hair.

So I just accidentally forwarded y'all my companions email from last week haha....
Her email starts at the third paragraph. I'm still trying to get used
to emailing on this iPad.

But this week was really good and I am getting really really nervous to come home. I gave my departing testimony in zone conference and it was super sad. It is hard to say good bye to all the missionaries in my zone.

This morning in my personal study I was reading in Alma

 34 O Lord, wilt thou grant unto us that we may have success in
bringing them again unto thee in Christ.

35 Behold, O Lord, their souls are precious, and many of them are our
brethren; therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom that we
may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee.

 (Alma 31:34-35)

I have read that passage many times on my mission, but today as I read those verses I felt like Alma had stolen my exact thoughts and feelings. I love how the scriptures have really come to life for me while I have been on my mission. I hope that my desire to gain more
knowledge of the gospel will never dim.

I love you family,
Hermana Ayre

The Meal 6/16/14

This has been a good week. We worked really hard this week to keep
this area progressing forward. Hermana Reed and I are still loving
being with each other. We go to bed every night laughing our guts out.

Yesterday was Brianna's baptism and the service went very well.
Brianna is the daughter of a less active family that Elder and Sister
Smith have been working with. We started teaching Brianna about a
month ago and she was very excited when her mom and dad said that she
could be baptized. Brianna's parents are coming back to activity in
the church. We hope when Brianna's little sister turns eight in
January that her dad will be able to baptized her :)

This week we started teaching E again and he is going to be baptized!! E is an amazing guy, but he just needs to let go of some bad habits. The first time when Hermana Hendrickson and I found E he started to cry in his doorway as we taught him the restoration lesson. Later that week Herman Hendrickson and I added E on Facebook and he posted on his Facebook wall, " voy a ser mormón!" I am going to be Mormon. But A lot of his friends posted anti Mormon stuff on his Facebook wall. Two days after that he un-friended us and told us to never talk with him again. Well two weeks ago Hermana Reed and
I felt impressed to go see him. We taught E more about the Book of Mormon and the promise that is given if we will read, ponder and pray about the Book of Mormon. He has been reading now and has started taking the missionary discussions.

Last Tuesday we had a "fun" surprise lunch date with one of our investigators..... So a few weeks ago we get a text from a man named
FM that says, " hey I want to continue learning about y'all's church." We reply and tell him that we can meet at the Hopkinsville park and teach him more. So that day we teach F about baptism and the need to be baptized by the proper authority, just how Jesus Christ was baptized.  We then leave him with a restoration pamphlet and invite him to read it and told him to text us once he has read it and that we then can meet with him again and explain more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Three days after our lesson we get a text from F saying that he read the pamphlet and that he would like to meet with us again.  He asked us if we could meet him at S L, the restaurant he works at, and teach him during his break. We told him that we could do that. That next day we show up to S L to teach F. As we walk in the door F comes to the front and greets us, he then proceeds to escort us to a dinning table and hands us menus. He too sits down and says that we can order whatever we want. The waiter comes up and asks us what we would like to drink, before we say anything F shows us all the alcoholic drinks on the back of the menu and recommends some weird fruity margarita type drink. Hermana Reed and I quickly say water and the waiter leaves. (Oh side note... Hermana Reed and I are the only customers in the whole restaurant, so all of F working buddies are all in the background watching and quietly giggling in the back. We think F was trying to impress his friends by taking out two white girls to lunch.) 

It is now time to order food and once again F tries to flatter us by ordering us the $25 steak. We both reject the offer and order a cheap taco.... At this point Hermana Reed and I are dying and we don't know what to. So I decide to start teaching him the restoration and to recite the first vision to him while he is eating a big steak. He instantly stopped flirting with us. I then proceeded to tell him that our purpose as missionaries is to invite others to come unto Christ through baptism. We ask him if he has a desire to change his life for the better by being baptized... Sadly he didn't accept the baptismal invitation, but he did say that he would like to continue to learn about the church another day:)  F continues to text us and we decided that it would be best to teach him through Facebook for the time being.

Tomorrow we have Zone Conference and I will be giving my departing testimony. I can't believe that my mission is coming to an end. I am super sad about it, but I guess there is nothing I can do except for love every day I have left here.

I am out of time. I love y'all and I hope you have a great week.

Love,
Hermana K Ayre

P.S. Happy Birthday to Grandpa Snow this week! I love you Grandpa,
thanks for all your support.

Awesome & Sad 6/9/14

So this week has been AWESOME!! 

Well there were some sad days in the mix because Hermana Hendrickson went home on Tuesday :( It also takes a little time to learn with a new companion how to teach and how we want to have things go for this new transfer.

I am sooooooo excited to be with Hermana Reed, she is so fun!  We are so much alike in so many ways. It is like I am serving with one of my best friends from home.  This week we had a Zone meeting and I trained on "vision" and setting goals for our transfers. I got a lot of my ideas from the talk Elder Oaks gave in the April 2011 General Conference called "Desire." It was a pretty good zone meeting.

Funny story of the week....  So we've been teaching a referral from a Brother in our ward , and things have been going really good. She is liking the Book of Mormon and she loved the restoration lesson. This last Saturday we planned to bring our own lunch and eat at a near by park. We planned to teach her the plan of salvation. When we showed up she had brought a friend with her. We were really excited that she invited a friend to come listen and learn too.  She introduced us to her "girlfriend".  This girl gave us weird looks and shook our hands very firmly. Then we all sat down and had lunch and we taught the lesson. Things went pretty good and we gave the friend a Book of Mormon and she seemed pretty interested at the end. As Hermana Reed and I were walking back to our car she says.... Interesting.... I said, why? She then says why didn't you tell me that they are a couple? Then I gave her a weird look and said they're not a couple and then I pause and replay the whole last hour in my and head and I realized that they are so dating each other...  I felt so stupid haha. We just laughed and laughed because I was soooo naive. That was also the first time in my mission that I have taught a couple together:)

After that experience I remembered the weekend before I left on my mission and Dad and Kyle pretended to be a couple while Alex Farley and Brent taught them the first discussion. I laughed thinking about that moment, then I wished that I would have remembered how Brent and Alex taught them, so I can be prepared for our next lesson with them.

This week we started teaching a cute couple from Guatemala and we found out they that are related to one of the active members in the ward, Hermana M. They were very welcoming with us and said that we are welcome to come teach them anytime, even though they are very active Catholics.

I am doing so good and I am just trying to live up every minute I have left on my mission. I have felt so blessed for the opportunity I have had to serve a mission at this time in the south states. I hope that y'all have a good week!

Love
Hermana Ayre