Baptism in Manchester

This week was AWESOME!!!

We had a baptisms on Saturday!!! Crystal and Ray were baptized. Their son Tyler and Tyler's friend Dakota want to be baptized as well in the near future.

I am so proud of Crystal and Ray, they have both come such a long way from where they were at when we be began teaching them. We are now starting to help them get prepared to go to the temple in a year!!

Hermana Schmit and I have a lot of really solid families that we are teaching. Manchester is white and ready to be harvested!!! We have been really working hard with our members in getting them involved with the work!

We have been using a lot of the ideas that are in the book called "The power of Every day Missionaries".   If you haven't read this book, I would highly suggest it. Actually I would insist that everyone reads it, it is a must read!  One of the principles it talks about in the book is having proselyting families. That is something we are implementing in our area as of now and it has been a great success!

Family I am so grateful for all the support and love you send me. I have been so blessed in my life to live and be friends with all of you. Each of you have individually blessed my life, more than words can explain!  I have missed y'all a lot this Holiday season and I have kept your families in my prayers at night. I hope that you have a great Thanksgiving!!!

LOVE

Hermana Ayre

P.S. I challenge y'all to show your gratitude for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ this season by inviting a loved one of yours to hear the message of the restored gospel!!!

Trabajar Inteligentemente!

Well this week has gone by pretty fast. 

Yesterday we were on lock down because of all the Tornados across TN. BUT I am safe no worries.

Today we are going to go play volleyball again for P Day and I love it. Last week Hermana Schmit and I played 6 elders and we beat them bad, haha, 2 on 6. Hermana Schmit is pretty good so we have a great time playing!!

Last Tuesday we had our Gospel Study Group better known as the TWIG because we are too small to be a branch, haha. We had 75 people in attendance!!! A lot of them were less actives and non members!! This was a big success for us!! We are hoping to have a branch sometime soon :)

This last week we had a zone conference with Elder Pino, one of the Seventies, and it was really good. Elder Pino talked to us about goals and working intelligently.  I really loved his point on working intelligently because far too often do missionaries go out and knock doors all day and they don't get anything done. It takes a lot of planning and working with members to be able to see not just quantity, but also quality in your investigators. So we are really trying to implement working intelligently in our work. 

Trabajar inteligentemente!

I am doing well.  I don't really have anything that is holding me back right now, so we are pushing forward while things are running smoothly. I feel as if I just cursed myself by writing that, haha. As a companionship we are focusing on showing gratitude as much as we can, so God knows that we are grateful for the area and companionship we have. Till further notice.

Love Hermanita Ayre

Patience with Myself

Hello Family and Friends!!! 

I hope y'all are doing great!!,This week has been pretty good.

Lately I have been trying really hard to push myself on my mission, it makes me sad, happy, scared and a whole bunch of other emotions to think that I only have 8 months left of my mission. I want to give myself to the Lord so badly out here and sometimes I just get frustrated because I know I can do more. But, I know it takes time to change and align yourself with the Lord's will.

It is a lot like going to the gym, in my head I feel like I can weight lift 250 pounds ( in missionary work), but I can't. I have to take it step by step adding 5 pounds at a time. I know I need to be patient with myself. When I read the scriptures I get so pumped and I want to go out into the field like Nephi or Alma testifying so boldly and having so much faith. I want to have an experience with all the Mormon haters in the south like Jacob with Sherem! haha   Ok, I am getting a little extreme.  The point is, I want to be a great missionary so I can show my love for my Heavenly Father and show my gratitude for all the blessings I have in my life.

Well, that is my life struggle right now, haha.  All in all I am doing really well, I love my companion and the area is pretty good, even though we are only doing 10% Spanish work. We are working hard to find all the Hispanics in this town.  It is pretty funny because we will be driving and see a Hispanic driving next to us and we may or may not follow them so we can see where they live. Then the next day we will go back and knock on their door.

Well have a great week, LOVE Y'ALL

Hermana Ayre

Staying in Manchester!

Transfers are upon us again, and I am staying in Manchester for another 6 weeks with Hermana Schmit!! Boy the time is flying by, although.... some days are pretty dang slow.  Exciting news from last week: 

1.) President and Sister Andersen came to our lesson Friday night with the Hoods... 

2.) We started teaching another really good family that shows great potential 

3.) Today the AP's called us and said that we will be getting a fulltime CAR. Welcome back to those 10 pounds I lost, haha I hope not. 

4.) We went to the Spanish branch in McMinnville instead of the English ward 

5.) I gave the closing prayer in the Branch and everyone complemented me on my amazing Spanish. They all told me that I have a great accent and good grammar. I just smiled and said Muchas Gracias, but in real life my Spanish is not that good, my prayers are good because I have said at least 8 Spanish prayers a day for the last 8 months, haha.  Once I am required to have a long conversation with someone I start feeling real lost haha #whitegirlproblems 

6.) Daylight savings was yesterday and I am now well rested. We also got to run this morning in the light instead of pitch black! 

I am doing really well. Tonight we have a lesson with the Hoods, a couple that goes to the Church of Christ, they are awesome!!! When this man gets baptized he will be a bishop or stake president or something because he is amazing. He and his wife are some of the most Christ like people I have ever met. 

Anyways, I will let ya'll know next week how tonight's lesson goes!!! 

LOVE

SiStEr Ayre

 

Sacrifice

So this week has been AWESOME!! 

This week I have learned a lot about the Law of Sacrifice. As you may have read in my last letter things were beginning to become a little mundane and the work was at a stand still for us. Hermana Schmit and I were tying to figure out,, "why are we not seeing success in our work."  We are being obedient, we have a great companionship, we are following the council of our mission leaders and Preach my Gospel.  So what is the deal?  When we felt as if we had hit a pretty emotional low after being rejected time and time again and all of our appointments fell through for the whole week, yikes right, we felt as if there was absolutely nothing for us to do but ride our bikes aimlessly in the cold dark night.  Well we decided to regroup and make a new plan.

That night we sat down and decided that we needed to recommit ourselves to the Lord, even though we were doing what had been asked of us by the white handbook, Preach my Gospel, and the mission president. We made a list of things that we could do to show Heavenly Father that we are 100% committed to his work. We set some goals and committed to giving up some things that we felt would push us to a new level, even though we knew it would be very hard. We also fasted to ask Heavenly Father for him to help us accomplish the new goals we had set.

The next day was a Preparation Day and we had a lesson set that afternoon with a family that can't meet with us except for Monday afternoons. In that lesson we committed this family to live the Word of Wisdom and it went fantastic!! We left the lesson with their coffee machine and all the tea they had in their house!! They were not even hesitant!! The father of the family went cold turkey off his coffee from drinking 3 pots of coffee a day to none.

Then later that night we had a lesson with a family that are members of the Church of Christ. Oh man that lesson was awesome, but pretty hard too. We had some deep questions coming our way and a lot of bible action happening. Good thing I've been studying up on my stuff in the Bible. The lesson got pretty intense too, the couple said,  "so are we or are we not saved?" After a little re-explaining of priesthood authority and 3 degrees of Heaven, we answered their question. At the end the wife said, "well I just want to do whatever it takes to get to the Celestial kingdom, because I am living with God when I die." The people of the South are amazing, they are some of the most Christian people you will ever meet and they go to church every Sunday, Bible study every Wednesday and they study and read their bible like crazy. It takes getting past the harsh rumors and stereotypes of Mormonism that are so strong in the South, and once that happens our message rings true to them and the holy ghost does the rest!!

The rest of the week went really well and we had investigators come to church and some more people commit to baptism!!!

All in all, I learned that Heavenly Father will bless you as you give him your all.  As we give God our all, without fail, he will never let us down!!

Love ya'll, and have a great week.

Love

Hermana Ayre!!!

Hello this week has been good.  Hermana Schmit and I had the car this week so that rocked, although I do really love riding my bike just not when we have appointments that are 20 plus miles away.  I've done that and it was no fun.

 

This week we had some good lessons and we continue to contact all the fair referrals! We knock into some really interesting situations when contacting everyone. We have had referrals to meth labs, (fun fact Tennessee has the highest use of meth in the whole country) crazy ladies, creeper men, and all walks of life" we are all children of God"... The last few weeks have been interesting, but out of the 400 referrals we received we have about 150 more to contact. Good news right.

 

We really have seen some amazing miracles come from all the referrals. There really are people who truly are seeking for truth and that desire the comfort and blessings that the gospel brings.  

 

As my schedule has become very repetitive the last few weeks it has been hard  to maintain a burning desire for the work," we have seen a lot of rejection lately."  A talk/story by Joseph B. Wirthlin 1982 really helped my perspective change.

 

 

"There is a story about a young builder who had just gone into business for himself. A wealthy friend of his father came to him and said: “To get you started right, I am going to have you build a ranch house for me. Here are the plans. Don’t skimp on anything. I want the very finest materials used, and I want flawless workmanship. Forget the cost. Just send me the bills.”

The young builder became obsessed with the desire to enrich himself through this generous and unrestricted offer. Instead of employing top-grade labor and buying the finest materials, he shortchanged his benefactor in every way possible. Finally, the last secondhand nail was driven into the last flimsy wall, and the builder handed over the keys and bills, totaling over a hundred thousand dollars, to his father’s old friend. That gentleman wrote a check in full for the structure and then handed the keys back to the builder. “The home you have just built, my boy,” he said with a pleasant smile, “is my present to you. May you live in it in great happiness!”"

 

At the end of each day, week, month, and by the end of my mission I get to look upon the results and the over all outcome of my mission. This is my mission and I want to know that I put all my efforts and put all diligence into the lords work because at the end of everything this mission experience will be my memory for the rest of my life and I will have to live with the type of work I put into the Nashville TN mission.

 

I hope that we can all love our Heavenly Father enough to do our best work for Him. Then when our work is over and we have build a beautiful mansion for him, he will turn and give us the key to the mansion we built for him.

 

I am so grateful for the blessing I have to be a missionary and to serve the Lord full time.  I hope that everyday, missionary or not, we can go to bed knowing that we made our Father in Haven proud of us that day.

 

Have a great week family and friends, love ya'll.

(Oh and this week I will start being a facebook missionary, so I will add all of yall, but I can not chat with anyone. But the mission encourages our families to like my posts and give comments on my facebook posts so I can have more facebook traffic! )

 

Love,

Hermana Ayre

3 attachments — Download all attachments   View all images  Share all images  

SAM_0639.JPG 1181K   View   Share   Download

SAM_0581.JPG 276K   View   Share   Download

SAM_0598.JPG 277K   View   Share   Download

My 21st Birthday!

This Last week has been slow"ish", but we still had some really good lessons. 

The weeks that we ride our bikes are pretty hard because the majority of our investigators all live far out in the boonies and they can only meet with us at nights and our mission president recently said that Sisters can't ride their bikes at night. Soooo we were kind of in a pickle this last week to say the least. The work must go on. We got a few members to come out with us so that helped a lot.

Anyways, things are really good here in Manchester Tennessee. I have felt so close to our Heavenly Father these last few days, and I'm so grateful for all the things he has blessed me with.  

A talk I fell in love with this last week was, " You Can Do It Now" by Elder Uchtdorf.  A part I really liked was: 

" No one likes to fail. And we particularly don’t like it when others—especially those we love—see us fail. We all want to be respected and esteemed. We want to be champions. But we mortals do not become champions without effort and discipline or without making mistakes.

Brethren, our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we rise up, dust ourselves off, and move forward." 

On the mission you have a lot of humbling experiences and even as a missionary you still aren't perfect (shocking right haha).  I have felt so loved as I rely on our Heavenly Father to help pick me up and push me forward on the hard days. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a missionary and to share the gospel with others, I can't picture a better way to spend my 21st birthday then in the service of my Lord. ( oh and going to Nashville for our P day haha) 

I LOVE y'all so so so much
Hermana Ayre

Week 2 in Manchester

So this week was AWESOME! 

Sister Schmit and I have been still contacting referrals all week long and we had some great lessons with the fair referrals we meet last week. 

One really cool lesson we had was with a 14 year old girl, Tiffany, who filled out a fair referral. The first time we meet and taught Tiffany we taught her the Restoration, and she thought it was cool. This next time when we returned, all of Tiffanie's family her mom, dad and little sister all sat in for the lesson. We talked about the plan of salvation and we mostly focused on the gift of eternal families. The family loved this lesson, the mom is a Catholic, the father has no religion, Tiffany is Baptist, and the youngest girl says she is still looking for her religion (welcome to the south) BUT they all agreed on the divine nature of families and the strength families can have through Jesus Christ. After the closing prayer Tiffany said, " Man I just feel so good, I can't explain it. I can't stop smiling, Why am I so happy right now?"  

Hermana Schmit and I just smiled and expressed to her that, that is the Holy Ghost confirming the truthfulness of our message to her. Tiffany and her family then committed to read the Book Of Mormon together as a family cover to cover. AWESOME, right? 

I just love this gospel so much and I have seen how the true gospel of Jesus Christ can change families forever not only in my life, but in the lives of families I have the opportunity to teach. This week, another family we are teaching, committed to being baptized on the 19th of October.  At this time I am reminded of Alma 29: 8-10

 8 For behold, the Lord doth ^agrant unto ^ball nations, of their own nation and ^ctongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he ^dseeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true.
 9 I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do^anot ^bglory 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.
 10 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 ^awhat 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 feel so much joy when I see someone coming unto Christ and changing their lives for good because I know of the joy a person has when they truly come to know God and feel of the love he has for them individually. 

I know that all of us can also feel the joy of helping others come unto Christ through our examples and testimonies. We DO NOT have to be a full time missionary to feel the joy Alma speaks of in Alma 29: 9-10. As we heard this last  weekend during General Conference, it is all of our responsibility as members of the Church of Jesus Christ to share the gospel with others. I hope that we can all have a little more confidence  and courage this week as we open our mouths and share the gospel with those around us. 

I love y'all so very much and can testify of the joy that we will fill as we share the Everlasting and only true gospel of Jesus Christ with those around us.
Oh and Happy Birthday to My AMAZING Mother. She is truly an example of loving others full heartedly. I will always be grateful to my mom and the sacrifices she has made for me and my family to have the gospel in our lives. 

Love
Hermana Ayre

1st Week in Mancheter!

Hello Catwangs, 

I am doing GREAT!!! I have loved my first week in Manchester. To start off... my companion is Hermana KC Schmit. She is from Washington and I love her. Sister Schmit and I are a lot alike in our personalities and our work ethic. Sister Schmit grew up playing volleyball and played volleyball at a community college for 2 years. We love pushing each other to new limits in our work. We both loving having constructive criticism in our companionship and we have really helped each other to grow.

Each morning we both love to run and then we come back to our place and pepper for 10 mins. We have so much fun with each other. I love being able to practice volleyball with her. Oh and I still got my skills, haha. 

My living quarters are awesome!! A family in the ward, The Andersons, have a home that they let us live in. We have a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home. Too bad we have to sleep in the same room, haha. But it has been soooooo nice having my own bathroom to get ready in. 

So in this area we have a car part time. So we go a week on and then a week off with the car. This week we did not have the car. The first 2 days we just walked everywhere and my feet blistered up real good. The whole pad of my foot was one big blister haha, it killed. I had to take a needle and pop that bad boy.

The next day I knew that I couldn't wait to get a bike, so Sister Anderson took me to good old walmart. I got a nice 99 dollar huff bike. It is pink, I LOVE riding a bike, it is so much fun and it just makes doing the work a little bit better. My bum is pretty sore, but I don't mind. My legs are also getting into shape. I feel so much better ridding my bike too because it helps me get more exercise.  30 mins in the morning is not enough time to work off all the food that I get fed. 

This area just finished a fair as well, Sister Schmit and I alone have almost 300 people to contact. It is a really crazy process trying to contact this many people within a certain amount of time. For example, this last week we only got in contact with about 16 people. We attempted to see about 45 people, but they are not home, so we have to retry to contact them. 

Hey on the bright side, out of the 16 people we came in contact with we got 12 new investigators and about 6 golden investigators.

Well that is about all for me this week!! I hope y'all are doing great!! 

Love,

Hermana Ayre

P.S. everyone better be getting pumped for General Conference I CAN'T WAIT

 

I'm Being Transferred! 9-23-13

Well, the day has finally come for Sister Knecht and I to go our separate  ways :( We are pretty sad about it, we thought that we might be Eternal Companions on the Mission. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone at church and goodbye to all of the people we our teaching. Some of the ladies that we teach said that they're going to drive to see me in Manchester, haha.

This last week in Lebanon has been really good. We had some really awesome lessons with people from the fair and made good progress with our investigators that we already had. 

This last Sunday was the primary program and we had 6 of our investigators at church!!! Mauricio had a part in the primary program and he did a fantastic job. I just love Mauricio so much, he reminds me of Nick, I always tear up whenever Mauricio prays. This last week Sister Knecht asked Mauricio, " who do you want to baptize you ?" She explained that it could be one of the men in the ward or one of the missionaries, after 3 mins of thinking he said, " I want Sister Ayre to baptize me, we are really good friends" we laughed and said that it had to be a man, haha. I was flattered. 

Oh and some other really good news.......... Maria is pregnant!!!!! She hasn't been able to get pregnant for the last 11 years since she had Mauricio. It was funny because she told us that she has been really sick for the last 3 weeks and hasn't had energy. She told us that she was pretty nervous about it and told us that she was going to go into the doctor's office. So the next time we talked to her she told us that she was 4 week pregnant!! She was soooooooooooooooo happy and shocked. She knew that it was a blessing from God. The funny thing was she had been going to church for the past month and a half and has been praying for a way for her husband's heart to be softened so she can be married and baptized. She fasted also for this about 4 weeks ago exactly. We know that getting pregnant was the answer to her prayers. Maria's husband is so excited about the baby too!! 

Anyways, this last week has been filled with some really cool miracles and I am very sad to be leaving Lebanon. I am excited to see what's ahead for me in Manchester. I know that I have so much more to learn and grow and that hard changes will make you grow stronger!!! I feel so blessed for all that I have been given and the opportunity I have to serve the Lord !!! I hope all is well with you family, I can't wait to hear from you!! 

Oh and Happy Late Birthday to the Best Dad in the World!!! I miss and love you so much Dad and I am so grateful for our close relationship! I am mostly grateful to you dad for your example to me on how to be a righteous servant of the Lord. I LOVE YOU. 

Have a great week! 

Love,

Hermana Kenedi Ayre

Feeling Blessed

Dad thanks so much for your email! It really touched my heart and made me cry. It sounds like you have some amazing missionaries in your mission. The stories you shared really helped to motivate me to work harder and love bigger.

Sometimes I just can't comprehend how blessed our family is. It just baffles me how much I personally have been blessed from this Gospel and the knowledge that I have.  Whenever I think of my blessings I can't help but be brought to my knees in prayer of gratitude. We are all so blessed for this opportunity to serve Heavenly Father and give our whole attention to his work. The amazing experiences and people we will get to meet during this time will bless our lives forever.

I have pondered a lot about the story you told me concerning your mission and not wanting that to be the only highlight time you got to serve the Lord full time. I reflect on the joy that I feel on my mission and I never want it to stop. I hope as opportunities to serve the Lord continue to come that I will always be willing and able to accept. I never want my mission to stop, even though some days are really hard, haha. The personal growth I have had is incomprehensible. I can't imagine my life without this experience. I hope Amanda as well will get the special opportunity to serve a mission :) or maybe she will get married...... who knows.

Lid and Whit have sent me emails and they sound like they are just loving life!! I am so happy that they are getting married and doing good things with their lives :) I will be forever grateful to Lid and Whit for the special time I got to spend with them growing up. They were amazing examples to me.

I am doing really good in TN, there are some really challenging factors that are happening in our area right now with leadership in the ward and the Spanish group. My mission is really hard because there are hardly any Spanish people left to be taught in our area that haven't already been taught the missionary lessons. But we have sooooo many anxious English people waiting to hear the gospel and how could we deny them the opportunity to learn. So our schedules are being filled with mostly English appointments after the fair. It is hard to define who you are as a missionary when you have been called by a Prophet to speak Spanish and to grow the Spanish branches and wards in the south, but you are in an area where there are not many Spanish people. Sister K and I have to rely on the spirit every day to tell us who to teach and visit.

Anyways, transfers are coming up and I am not sure what is going to happen.

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

Love,

Hna. Ayre

Golden 9-12-13

Hey how are things going? Amanda sent me an email, I hope things get better for her soon. Fall semester is hard after having such a fun summer school experience. Hey, but how are the little boys?  A boy Mauricio that we teach just turned 11 yesterday and he is just the cutest. He reminds me so much of Nick. I miss Nick and Alex a lot. Tell them that I say hello and LOVE them. 

Things with the fair referrals are really good. Yesterday we met the most amazing people ever, they are Golden. I get nervous when it comes to teaching people that are so ready to hear the gospel, BUT I know that I just have to rely on the Lord and he will direct me in all things through the spirit. 

I still haven't got the packages yet, but I think I should have them by Friday. 

Maria and Mauricio attended church for the 5th week in a row. Yep, they are ready to be baptized but she needs to get married.............. I hate that part.

Debbie our neighbor is awesome as ever. She knows everything is true. It is just a matter of time with her. We love all of our investigators so much. 

Oh and this week was full of emotions. You could make some of our mission a reality TV show because we are around so much drama.

I have been exposed to so many different life situations out here. It makes me truly grateful for you mom and for dad. It makes me really appreciate EVERYTHING I have. Being on a mission makes me so excited to get married and have a family and scared at the same time, haha. I know if I trust in the Lord and if I keep the covenants I have made with God that all will be great! 

I hope that you have a great week, 

LOVE

Hermana Ayre

 

Excited About the Referrals

I feel as if it has been forever since I wrote you. Monday was Labor Day, so the libraries were closed. This week has been great! We were crazy busy with contacting referrals from the fair and teaching all of the investigators we have already. BUT we would never complain of having too much to do, hahaha, we are so grateful for a full schedule!!!! 

Last Thursday we did a big missionary night in our ward that Sis K and I organized. We had 16 missionaries come into Lebanon and we had 15 members sign up to do splits with all of us. Then we went out and contacted a lot, a lot of referrals from the fair. Every companionship came back with amazing stories. The majority of the people who said they were interested, are interested! 

When we show up to these homes they are so excited to find out about the gospel!

One lady Sis. K and I contacted, Amber, told us that she has been looking for a church to go to. She went to church with her grandma when she was really young and then never went to church after that. She knows hardy anything about God, Jesus, Prayer, and so on. She told us that she believes that there is a God and she believes in Jesus and that is really all she knows. She expressed to us that she wants to have religion in her life and that she wants to raise her child in a church. Amber is 21 and has a cute 6 month old baby. 

Everyone had amazing stories of people they contacted, it also really fired up the ward members to do missionary work! We still have about 50 more referrals to contact in Lebanon out of the 239 referrals we received! 

Last night Sis. K and I had dinner with Maria, Mauricio, and Armando. Armando still won't allow Mauricio to be baptized and won't marry Maria yet... but we pray every day for his heart to be softened. Armando is a really nice guy, he just doesn't want anything to do with the church. Oh, and last Sunday Maria fasted for Armando's heart to be opened and that she could be baptized! We are so proud of Maria, she is amazing! We know that the Lord will provide a way for her to be baptized 1 Nephi 3:7. 

Anyways, I am doing really good and I am still LOVING Lebanon. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to share the gospel with others, the Lord's work is amazing, even though it can be really hard at times. 2 Corinthians: 4 pretty well sums up what a mission is like, haha. Well, family I love you sooooooooooooooo much and I can't wait to hear how yall are doing! 

LOVE

Hermana Ayre

The Fair

The Fair is going great!!! 

We have had some really good success with it. We already have over 100 referrals because of these surveys (that is only in 2 days!!!).

That is awesome that you and Amanda went out contacting!! Does it make Amanda excited for her mission?? Congrats on your anniversary! That is awesome. I feel your pain about not knowing Spanish.....

I can't believe that Spencer is home and that Austin will be home soon too, crazy.

Lauren is getting married this week and I got an invite. Sarah Nnah is doing good and says hi to the whole family and she tells Amanda congrats. I sent her the email that Amanda sent me,haha. I hope Manda doesn't mind :)

Dad sent me some pictures that just made me cry... especially the one of you and Amanda hugging. Alex looks different to me, he has some mad style going on, haha. Tell Nick I say hi.

Dad said that my old president sent ya'll a letter... that is so nice of him. What did he say? haha, I hope that I got a good report..........

Anyways, I love you mom and I miss hanging out with you and laughing my head off.

LOVE YOU

Fourth Transfer and...

Hello,

Well this week we found out transfers and.......................................HermanaKnecht and I are staying in Lebanon for another 6 weeks!!!!!!!!! We are so excited to stay together!

This next week we have the fair coming up and that will be sick!! I can't wait, everyone in this mission has been getting CRAZY success from the county fairs! The last fair got 563 referrals from the surveys that we do!! 

It really is a miracle that we got a booth because we didn't think we could get one this late. We got the last booth left at the fair and we just got it 5 days ago. The fair starts in 4 days. Lebanon has the biggest fair in the state of TN.  It is in the top 12 biggest fairs in the nation. This fair gets over 500,000 people who visit every year. So, we have a lot of work to do!!

This last week Brice got baptized! Brice is an awesome crazy kid, haha. We love the little guy and we are so happy that we got to teach him!

Things are going well with our other investigators!!! Maria wants to be baptized, but she needs to be married, so we are waiting on that factor.

Some how all of the people we teach have a marriage problem, but we know through the Lord that all things will work out!

I am doing great and I love all y'all soooooo much!

Have a good week

Love Hermana Ayre

Adam's Baptism

It's been awhile since I sent pictures, so I thought I would start off with them!   At Adam's baptism! Oh, what a sweet sweet moment for their family. He came up to us afterwards, tears in his eyes, gave us each a hug and said "we'll make it to the temple, no doubt in my mind"   So sweet.   McKayla and her friend Jessica! They call Sister Ayre and me their twins.

Letter Aug. 5, 2013

Hey Fam!!! 

I am doing good this week, not much has changed. 

So this last Saturday was Adam's Baptism it was a great day. Adam is an amazing person and I know that he is going to be an awesome Member and contribute a lot to the church with the strong testimony he has, I feel very grateful to know him and the Daily family. 

This week with Maria we are still on track for her August 17th baptismal date, so we are looking forward with faith! She needs to get married to her Husband before she gets baptized, but we know with a few miracles all will work out. Maria's 10 year old son is very excited to be baptized and is the sweetest boy you will ever meet. Mauricio's prayers are just the best.  This week in his prayer he said, " I am so excited for my mom and I to get Baptized and I am excited to receive the gift of the holy ghost".  AHHHHHH so amazing he is a very smart kid. I love this family and I know that they are ready to be Baptized!! 

This next Saturday Hermana Knecht and I find out if we stay together as companions!!  We are hoping and praying that we get 1 more transfer with each other!  4 transfers baby!!!! 

All of our other investigators are doing well too!  They are slow to keep commitments, BUT they recognize the things we teach as truth. We just need them to act on these truths that they now know. We are working very hard with our investigators and we prepare good lessons sooooo we know the spirit will come in and do the rest!!!! 

I love being out here and I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve. The days are long, but the weeks are fast. It is an amazing work that I get to be a part of for the next year and a half. I am grateful for the gospel and the peace it brings in my life. I am most grateful for Jesus Christ and the sacrifices he made for all of us so we can be clean and have the opportunity to repent for our sins. I hope we all never forget the power of the Atonement and the healing power it has. I see the Atonement being used every day around me in my investigators lives and in my own life. Never take this sacrifice for granted and use the atoning power every day because we sin every day and we all need to improve! 

I love yall soooo much and I hope that you have a Blessed week! 

Love

Hermana Ayre

Letter from 7/29/13

Hey!!! 

I am doing great. This week was good! Maria and her son came to Church again!! Maria is so cute and nice and she loves the things we teach. Maria can't get baptized just yet because she is not married :( But we are hoping that she will get married soon. Her son Mauricio can get baptized, he is 10 and is the cutest kid ever. You should hear Mauricio's prayers, they melt your heart every time.

Adam is getting baptized this next weekend and we cant wait!!!! They have the most incredible family and we are so excited for them to get sealed in the temple a year from now :)

Our neighbor Debbie is doing great and we are great friends with her. She is already planning trips for Hermana Knecht and I to go on with her. Debbie wants to do a trip of all the Church sites :) She is so awesome, we can tell that she knows everything we teach is true, but she just hasn't admitted it to us. She loves reading the Book of Mormon and learning new things about the church.

I am still loving my mission. There are hard days, but the good times always out weigh the bad moments. I am so grateful for this gospel and they joy it brings me. I am also so overwhelmed with gratitude to have the opportunity to share this gospel with others and to see the changes it makes in people's lives. I know that this gospel is true and the only way for us to have everlasting happiness. 

Family I miss you sooo much, but I know that I am in the right place and I am grateful for that confirmation I have.

Love yall

Hermana K Ayre 

The Life of Treasure and Pumpkin 7/22/13

( Sorry for the odd formatting of this post, can't seem to find the problem) Hola familia!!  I am doing great this week. This letter is titled " The Life of Treasure and Pumpkin" because those are our new  nicknames. A really cute girl in the Spanish Group named Eleni gave us those names, haha her nickname is Beauty! Some amazing news, ADAM IS GETTING BAPTIZED!  We are sooooooo excited for him! Adam is Mckayla's step dad and he is amazing. We knew that he was going to be baptized, it was just a matter of when! We have been praying for him and his family like crazy. Anyways, so we are just so excited for them and can't wait for his baptism. This week I also got to go to Bowling Green Kentucky on exchanges with Sister Tauoa. Bowling Green is a really cute town full of very nice people. I learned a lot from Sister T, she is very outgoing and nice to everyone she meets. She is the type of missionary who really does talk to everybody. We were driving through the poor side of town and 3 black guys come up to our car and I get a little nervous because I didn't know what they were doing. Then Sis T rolls down her window and starts chatting with them and she had taught them all before and she was good friends with them, haha. She is friends with all the people in the "Hood." She has all their numbers and they told her to call them if anyone slams a door in her face! Our Spanish work is going really well in Lebanon and we are seeing good progression! Maria and her son came to church this Sunday and she seemed to really like it! Maria takes everything we say very seriously and is someone that is true to her word. So if she says she is going to read or pray about something, she does it! Although, getting her to church this week was no easy task... When we finished our lesson with her on Saturday night we asked her if she would come to church. She said that she has to ask her husband for his permission and then she said that she would call us later to tell us what he said. Well, when we left we knew that it wasn't going to be enough because she has told us that before. Hna. K and I decided that were going to search for her husband ( a little back story, Maria's husband is known as the local drunk, and he does not care to have God in his life when we have talked with him, we also think that he might be a little abusive with Maria)  We know that Maria is a little afraid of her husband so we knew that she would not ask. So we go searching, we pass by a house that we sometimes see him drinking at, and he was not there, but some other guys were outside drinking on the front porch so we drive on to search trailers that he could be at. We can"t find him at this point, but I have the strongest impression that we need to go back to that first house we drove by, so we pull the car over and pray that we can find her husband so we can ask if Maria is allowed to attend church. We then switched places for some reason that I can't remember, so now I am driving and Hna K is in the passenger seat. I pull back to the house with the men drinking outside and ask them if Armando, Maria's husband, is there. One of them walks inside and then comes back out a minute later. He says that Armando is not there. We don't believe the guy so we ask him if he could tell Armando that we want Maria to go to church with us. We talk with the men a little longer and they are persistent that Armando is not there. Then Armando comes strolling out of the house totally high.  Hermana Knecht gets out of the car and asks him if Maria could come to church, she also invited him as well. Armando said that he would not come, but that Maria has permission to go to Church. We ran back to Maria's trailer and told her that her husband said she could come to church. She was shocked but very happy! She did show up to church the next morning. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary and I love being in the service of my God. I have learned so much about myself these last few months and I have learned new limits I can push myself to that I never thought I could do! God really does love us all and know us individually!  Have a great week family! OH and HAPPY HAPPY Birthday to my AMAZING little Bro Alex! He is an amazing guy and has so much love for the people around him, I know that he is going to be an amazing missionary in 3 years and do great things with his life. I wish I could be in Argentina to tell him Happy Birthday in Person! Love  Hermana Ayre

Meeting with the new President and Wife

Hola Familia! 

I have had a great week. This week was full of fun events. We had Zone Conference, baby shower for Blanca, Zumba, Peter Salazar's baptism, and a lot of really good lessons. 

The Zone Conference was great, we got to meet our new mission President and his wife. They are very nice and we are really excited to have them as mission presidents. President Andersen is a very nice energetic guy with a lot of experience working with people our age. Sister Andersen has a great sense of humor and is very loving and kind. We had some really good trainings on commitments, prayer, and on the God Head. I love my Zone, we have amazing Sisters and Elders. We all have so much fun when we are with each other and we learn a lot about different ways of teaching when we are together. Our Zone is the Madison Zone, or the Madizone, haha.

This week we also had a Baby Shower for one of our investigators, Blanca who is due in 2 weeks. The group members were very helpful and put the event on for Blanca. We had about 15-20 non-members in attendance, we ended up getting 2 new investigators because of the baby shower and 4 ladies that we teach were there as well. ( they are all Hispanic) 

We had a really good lesson with Reina this week and we read the talk, "Faith of our Father" from general conference with her and she really liked it. She says that she listens to the Spanish primary songs we gave her when she is driving in the car, and that she loves listening to them. We love singing hymns with her as well, it really invites the spirit into the lesson and her kids like singing with us too. 

Hermana Knecht and I are still having a great time with each other and we continue to learn from each other every day. Hermana Nnah emailed me this week and she is doing great in California! Sister Allred is also doing great in Indonesia and is loving her mission! I am so excited to be reunited with these girls, so we can all tell our crazy mission stories with each other back at BYU!! 

Love y"all,

Hermana Ayre

A Wet 4th in Lebanon

How are y'all??? 

Man I can't even remember what has happened this week. Oh this week was the 4th of July (mine and Alydia's favorite holiday along with Halloween, shout out to Lid and her hubby) The 4th here was really, really, really rainy! We had flash flood warnings all day and all the next day! It was still good though, in the morning we had a pancake breakfast with the ward and it was really fun! That night we had an activity for the Spanish group, only 1 investigator showed up, probably because it was raining so hard, haha. 

Then on Friday we had a great visit with the Daily Family and boy is Adam Daily ready for baptism. He is an amazing man and I feel like I learn more from him then he does from me, haha! We also had a ground breaking lesson with Rosa this week and she is showing great progress. It is really fun trying to describe the Apostasy in deep detail with very poor Spanish, haha, but the Lord provided and she got the message and it was a spiritual experience! We still have a good group of about 10 or so serious people that we are teaching!  We are being patient with each of their learning levels and helping them come unto Christ! 

We are also busy with less actives and part member families in this ward! We have some really amazing people that we get to visit and we love them ALL. It is interesting trying to work out who gets to visit and teach who, when having 3 sets of missionaries in the same ward! It is also interesting trying to figure out what Spanish people we get to teach also, haha.  My Spanish is still a work in progress, but it is still getting slowly better and better! 

Hermana Knecht and I are still having a blast with each other and we are both learning so much together! It is amazing how you continue to change and grow every day and every week as a missionary. I am finally starting to really feel like a missionary and to really be able to find myself as a missionary. It is a really interesting process trying to forget yourself and become the servant of the Lord that you need to be. Each week you find something new to work on. At the beginning of my mission it was overwhelming trying to figure out what I needed to working on, because I had so many things to change! I have learned how to choose and take one thing at a time and really work on that specific thing and then the next week pick a few new things to work on. IN the moment it seems that you progress slowly, but now looking back it is amazing to see how much I have changed and learned! I continue to try and grow through setting and keeping goals. It is awesome how much setting goals and keeping track of your progress can really help you learn and understand what you need to be working on! 

I love y'all so much and I pray for you every day! I pray for you to be safe and to have good missionary moments in your lives as well!! I am excited to go home and be a good member missionary because it is funny to learn that you can be a more efficient missionary when you are home because you know the people at home and know who is ready to hear the message. So, I hope at home you are praying for opportunities to share the gospel as well and to help others come unto Christ!! 

Love

Herman Kenedi Ayre!!