Decision Time (Feb. 17, 2014)

Well, I have made my decision of when I am going to come home, after 6
months of contemplating back and forth in my head I have finally
come to a conclusion.

As y'all know I went to the temple this last week looking for an
answer to my question of, "when do I need to return home?"
A few days before going to the temple I decided that I needed to make
my decision and then ask Heavenly Father if that is what he would have
me do? And if my decision was not in line with his will to please let
me know that day in the temple.

As I sat in the celestial room I prayed and told Heavenly Father that
I am planning to return home a few weeks early from my mission, so I
can have time to see my family and get myself not just physically
prepared to start college again, but also mentally prepared.
When I finished praying I did not feel any impression that God would
have me do anything different then what I had just told him.
I continued to sit in silence paying close attention to my thoughts
and feelings, some scriptures popped into my head. I reflected on Alma
40:26 and that it tells us that we are consigned to partake of the
fruits of our own labors and our own works.

I also reflected on how dad taught me to never give up or quit early,
through years of sports dad was always cheered me on and never allowed
me to quit. No matter how bad I hated my coaches or teammates or
anything.

When I pictured myself going home early I knew that it was not
consistent with how I was raised or my nature. I did not have a
spiritual impression that I need to stay for a specific companion or
person to teach, but I need to stay for me. I know that there will be
no room for regrets if I stay until I am released from my mission. 10
years from now when I look back on my mission I will be able to
remember that I served The Lord with all my heart, might, mind and
strength and I will not ever have to have a thought that I cut The
Lord short of what I signed up to do by 30 days 30 minutes or 30
seconds.

I don't doubt that it is going to be hard to wait to see y'all until
Christmas, but I know that our whole family will receive many blessings
from The Lord as we put His work first :)

I love y'all so so so so so so much
Have a good week

Love
Hermana Kenedi Ayre

Missionaries and Ipads (Feb. 10, 2014)

Family and friends,

It's been another very good week. As you may have
heard, I got an iPad this week, they are amazing! We got them this
last Tuesday at MLC.  Sis. Smith and I are some of the first people to get
iPads in the mission.

Right now we're kind of in a trial phase, we are trying to learn every day how to use iPads and help them push the work forward in Manchester.  Some of the things we get using iPads are: 

The gospel Library and we have access to all the church videos like Mormon
messages and the full-length videos the church puts out like prophet
of the restoration. 

We are so excited to be able to use iPads and we know that it is going to help the work a lot.

This week we had a really good lesson with Lonnie, who is Dessie's husband and he is not a member. He is slowly making progress and we can see him changing all the time. Dessie is so excited because she is trying to prepare herself to go through the temple this summer.

Sister smith was really sick this week so we were on lock down for most of the week. The ward held a big party this last Friday and it was a good country hoedown! Everyone brought piles of southern food and we even had a live country band performing at it. We got 17 investigators to come and 6 less actives to come to the party, so it
was a huge  success. We learned if you've got food then you've got people haha.

We also had zone meeting and I gave a training on obedience. I really wanted all the missionaries in our zone to recommit to a new level of obedience as they start receiving their iPads. The iPad can be a huge blessing or curse depending on how we decided to use them, in our daily activities.

I am so grateful to be a missionary at this time and to see the hastening of the work happening around me daily. I hope that we can all look for opportunities daily to share the gospel with others around us.

Well I got to go ,
Love
Hermana k Ayre
Sent from my iPad

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Week of Ups and Downs (Feb. 3, 2014)

Hello Family How are yall?

It has been a great week of ups and downs in Manchester, TN. We had so many amazing lessons this week, but we also had some stinky ones as well :(

The best part of the week was that we set a baptismal date with Jennifer and she is doing AWESOME!! Jennifer has caught on to the gospel so strongly, she loves everything about the church. 

Some of the other lessons that we had were sad because we realized that we need to stop teaching two of the solid families we have been teaching because they are not quite ready to accept the gospel yet. This is most definitely the hardest part of the mission, when a good family decides to not accept the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. My heart was slightly broken this week, but I know that God has a plan for them and one day they will be able to accept the fullness the gospel :)

 

Another highlight of the week, was that we got to listen to  Elder Perry and to three of our Area 70 this last Friday!! It was so awesome, I get so pumped every time I listen to our church leaders talk about missionary work.

 

Tomorrow Sister Smith and I will go to MLC in Brentwood and we will be some of the first missionaries to receive and use i-Pads in our mission!! It will be exciting to see how our every day missionary work will change because of technology.

 

I also want to get a shout out to my little sister who has now been set apart as a missionary!!  Amanda I am so proud of you for choosing to serve a mission, you are going to be the greatest missionary of all time. All the people in Chile will love because of the amazing spirit that you have :) Be safe in your travels and I LOVE YOU SO MUCH :)

 

Love, 

Hermana Kenedi Ayre 

Transfers Jan. 27, 2014

Howdy,

Hey Yall, so another transfer is upon us........ Sister Smith will be staying in Manchester and so will I. We are going to stay together as sister trainer leaders. I am way excited to be spending another transfer with Sister Smith, I have loved being with her. I am slightly sad tho because I will continue not having any Spanish practice........... yikes.  

I have had 6 months of a Spanish speaking area in Lebanon and a total of 6 moths of a non-Spanish area. 

Well for some exciting news, Tyler got baptized on Saturday :) I am so happy for the Steward family now that Crystal, Ray, and Tyler are baptized. It is a dream come true to have a whole family baptized and I hope within this next year I will be able to come back to TN and see them sealed in the temple as a family. 

For other good news, we had an AMAZING lesson with Jennifer and Robert Carter. They are both going to be baptized when they get back from their trip to Jerusalem with the Methodist church they attend. Jennifer felt that it might be a little awkward going to Jerusalem with her Methodist Pastor after she had joined the Mormon church haha. They will be home February 27th.  

This last week while we were driving to an appointment I saw Claudia's Pentecostal preacher walking outside of his house. Claudia is one of our investigators.  We decided that this was a sign from God that we should go teach him. So the next day we went back and knocked on his door and he invited us in. I began teaching him and his wife, sister Smith isn't able to help because she doesn't know Spanish. I started teaching them the restoration, and right as I finished explaining the great apostasy the preacher's wife walked out of the home without any warning, leaving the preacher and us alone in their home. The wife did not return so we had to leave before we could even teach him about the restoration of the gospel, it was pretty sad haha. He told us that we could come back this week so hopefully his wife won't run out on us again haha. 

We had some other awesome stories that I don't have time to write, but I will have lost of stories for yall when i get home haha. 

Amanda I heard that you did an amazing job on your farewell talk!! I wish that I could have been there. Although in hindsight, I am glad that I wan't in attendance because I would have been a crying mess, so I saved myself some tears. Amanda I am so proud of you and your decision to serve a mission, it will change your life forever..... seriously it will :) 

Have an amazing week, I hope to hear from yall......email me :)

 

Love 

Hermana Ayre