Hola hola hola!
Hey family how are y'all? This week was jam packed with tons of stuff,
I still feel like a chicken running around with my head cut off, but it is
getting better.
This week we did an exchange with the Russellville sisters. I went
with sister Allred in Russellville and we had a great time. We focused
on finding for this exchange because she said she wanted help with
that aspect of missionary work. She expressed how members in their
ward won't give them referrals and that the ward doesn't trust
missionaries any more. I told her about the prayer approach I had
learned on a different exchange, and told her that we are going to
exercise our faith and that God will lead us to a family for them to
teach if we find with faith.
That night we prayed and then we began knocking doors. We knocked on
two doors and had no success. We continued walking down the street and
a man comes driving down the street on a four wheeler, who turns out
to be a member of the ward. This brother asked us what we are doing,
and we told him that we are out looking for a family to teach. With a
pleasant look on his face he says, " y'all are in luck tonight, go
down two more houses and knock on that door and a man will
answer and just tell him that you know me and he will let y'all in."
So that is what we did. We knocked on the door and the man answers looking
confused. We then told him that we know his friend.
Now with a smile on his face he starts talking with us. We talked with
him about his religious background and if he goes to a church. He
replied that he had not grown-up going to church, but that he was
looking for a church currently. To make a long story short he said
that he was going to come to church and that he and his
family are interested in taking the missionary discussions.
Sis. Allred was so happy that we had found a new investigator and her faith
in finding was back.
This week we also had Sergio's baptism and it was great. Sergio is a
great man and he is going to be a great contribution to the Spanish
group in Hopkinsville.
This week we also had MLC in Nashville. Brother Hemingway, director
of proselyting for the whole church, came to teach us more about online
proselyting. We leaned so much from Brother Hemingway. A lot of the
things that he taught us were most definitely answers to my recent
prayers. He taught us how to better use pamphlets and teach with more
simplicity. He focused on getting back to the basics and teaching with
clarity. Oh he also really pushed us to have shorter lessons, instead
of 45 min lessons to have 10-15 min lessons. The new ideas he brought
to the table are really going to change how I have been doing
missionary work.
Well I have to go, but I love y'all.
Love
Hermana Ayre
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
First week in Kentucky
Howdy hey everyone!!!
I have officially arrived in Kentucky and I love
it here. Interestingly there is a difference between Kentucky and
Tennessee, I couldn't tell you what it is, but I like it :)
This week has been slightly crazy because we are whitewashing an area,
and the Hermanas that were here before us had two baptismal dates and
one of them is for this upcoming Saturday. The man who is getting
baptized is named Sergio and he is so ready to be baptized, he is a
very humble man and he is going to be a great contributing force to
the Spanish work in Hopkinsville.
The other man who wants to get baptized is a nice guy
but he is not quite ready to be baptized yet, he needs a lot of help
with his testimony and understanding the doctrine of the church. With
a little work and time he will be ready to be baptized :)
Funny story of the week:
So the first night Hermana Hendrickson and I get to Hopkinsville we
set our stuff in our apartment then we leave to go see an inactive
member. We arrive at this house and it looks pretty trashed and not
taken care of, but we go up to the door and knock anyways. A few
seconds later a tall skinny man with long black hair answers the door
wearing a scary clown costume and invites us in. At this point I'm not
sure to laugh or be worried about what is going to happen next.
Hermana h walks in the door and I follow, we say hello to a lady
sitting on the couch and ask her if this certain member is there, but she just gives us a
dirty look and leaves the room. Hna h and I turn around to talk to
clown guy but he has now disappeared too. We then proceed to sit on
their couch andwait for someone to tell us if this person lives at the address we were at.
After 5 minuets or so clown guy comes creeping into the room while
kissing a huge snake that he has draped on his shoulders. Trying to
fight back the urge to bust out in laughter, I ask the man if he
knows this lady. Before he can answer, someone knocks on the door and to our
surprise it is the Hopkinsville elders. The elders walk in and see us
sitting on the couch and they look just as surprised as we do. The
clown man then tells us that this person is at school and so hna h and I leave
and tell the elders they they can go ahead and teach the clown man,
then we walk quickly down the block back to our car.
We got in the car and we could not stop laughing for the rest of the night.
The rest of the week has been pretty good, we have been doing a lot of
contacting so that we can get a good teaching pool. I am back to
speaking Spanish, but it is frustrating to see the amount of Spanish I
lost in the last six months of not using my Spanish. I know that
it will be back in a few weeks and then I can continue to progress my
Spanish from the point I was at 6 months ago :)
I hope that y'all have a great week and that you will look for
opportunities to share the message of the restored gospel.
Love Hermana K Ayre
I have officially arrived in Kentucky and I love
it here. Interestingly there is a difference between Kentucky and
Tennessee, I couldn't tell you what it is, but I like it :)
This week has been slightly crazy because we are whitewashing an area,
and the Hermanas that were here before us had two baptismal dates and
one of them is for this upcoming Saturday. The man who is getting
baptized is named Sergio and he is so ready to be baptized, he is a
very humble man and he is going to be a great contributing force to
the Spanish work in Hopkinsville.
The other man who wants to get baptized is a nice guy
but he is not quite ready to be baptized yet, he needs a lot of help
with his testimony and understanding the doctrine of the church. With
a little work and time he will be ready to be baptized :)
Funny story of the week:
So the first night Hermana Hendrickson and I get to Hopkinsville we
set our stuff in our apartment then we leave to go see an inactive
member. We arrive at this house and it looks pretty trashed and not
taken care of, but we go up to the door and knock anyways. A few
seconds later a tall skinny man with long black hair answers the door
wearing a scary clown costume and invites us in. At this point I'm not
sure to laugh or be worried about what is going to happen next.
Hermana h walks in the door and I follow, we say hello to a lady
sitting on the couch and ask her if this certain member is there, but she just gives us a
dirty look and leaves the room. Hna h and I turn around to talk to
clown guy but he has now disappeared too. We then proceed to sit on
their couch andwait for someone to tell us if this person lives at the address we were at.
After 5 minuets or so clown guy comes creeping into the room while
kissing a huge snake that he has draped on his shoulders. Trying to
fight back the urge to bust out in laughter, I ask the man if he
knows this lady. Before he can answer, someone knocks on the door and to our
surprise it is the Hopkinsville elders. The elders walk in and see us
sitting on the couch and they look just as surprised as we do. The
clown man then tells us that this person is at school and so hna h and I leave
and tell the elders they they can go ahead and teach the clown man,
then we walk quickly down the block back to our car.
We got in the car and we could not stop laughing for the rest of the night.
The rest of the week has been pretty good, we have been doing a lot of
contacting so that we can get a good teaching pool. I am back to
speaking Spanish, but it is frustrating to see the amount of Spanish I
lost in the last six months of not using my Spanish. I know that
it will be back in a few weeks and then I can continue to progress my
Spanish from the point I was at 6 months ago :)
I hope that y'all have a great week and that you will look for
opportunities to share the message of the restored gospel.
Love Hermana K Ayre
Friday, March 14, 2014
Transfer Time...
Ok so we have transfers tomorrow and I am going to Hopkinsville, KY with Hermana Hendrickson! Tennessee couldn't handle all of this awesomeness anymore so they are sending me to Kentucky, haha.
I am sad to be leaving Manchester, but it is time for me to go :( I am so super excited to be going back to Spanish work and to be with Hermana Hendrickson. Hermana Hendrickson is the one of the power house sister missionaries in our mission. She was made a Sister Trainer Leader 5 weeks into her mission and she has trained a new missionary every transfer of her mission, until now. She was my STL when I first got to Tennessee. Hna H has 2 transfers left in her mission so I will probably be the person to send her back home to California.
Hermana Hendrickson and I are going to be white washing the area together and we will be the Sister Trainer Leaders in the Hopkinsville Zone . There are 7 companionship's of sisters in our zone besides us, so we will be on exchanges a lot. I love being a STL because I get to know the Sisters very well and learn from each of their unique teaching styles.
Sister Smith and I had a great last week together and we set a few baptismal dates :) I am really excited for Lonnie, he is Sister Anderson's (the member that lives across the street from us) son-in-law. Dessi, Lonnie's wife, is so excited too because she will be able to go to the temple with him and get sealed to her husband and two kids!!!!
I am going to miss Manchester and Sister Smith, but I know that I will be able to come back and see the people here soon because of the baptisms we have coming up in the next month. So that helps take out the sadness of the transfer.
Sister Smith will also live in Pleasant Grove when she gets home from her mission, so she plans to visit me a lot at BYU this Fall.
Love you family and have a good week, I will most definitely be praying for grandpa to get feeling better and for grandma Snow every night :)
Love
Hermana K Ayre
PS: A new rule concerning facebook has come out in my mission and we can no longer be friends with people from home on facebook except for our immediate family. BUT they told us to let our friends know that they can go to my profile page and press the FOLLOW button and they will still be able to see, like and comment on all my posts and pictures. So please don't be offended if you go to my page and see that we are no longer friends on facebook. LOVE YALL
A Week of Miracles (March 3, 2014)
Family how's it going? This week was great we had some pretty cool miracles.
The first miracle of this week was when I was on an exchange with
Sister McDonald and we had an experience with a new approach called
the prayer approach for tracting. So the prayer approach is where you
ask a family if you could say a prayer and leave a blessing with them.
Then you ask the head of the house to get their family members to come
together and kneel with you in prayer. Before you pray you ask for each of
their names and you ask specifically if there's anything they would
like us to pray for. After the prayer you ask the family if there is a
time that we could come back and teach them. You also leave their
family with whatever materials you feel prompted to leave.
Sister McDonald and we had an experience with a new approach called
the prayer approach for tracting. So the prayer approach is where you
ask a family if you could say a prayer and leave a blessing with them.
Then you ask the head of the house to get their family members to come
together and kneel with you in prayer. Before you pray you ask for each of
their names and you ask specifically if there's anything they would
like us to pray for. After the prayer you ask the family if there is a
time that we could come back and teach them. You also leave their
family with whatever materials you feel prompted to leave.
So Sister McDonald and I decided we would try the prayer approach and
the first door we knock on said that tonight was not a good night. We
left and continued walking, as we were walking down the street I saw a
house that I felt prompted to knock. We go up to this house and knock
on the door, Sis McDonald asks the lady if we can say a prayer with her
family and leave a blessing for their family. The lady replies that
she could use all the blessings she could get and invites us in. When
we enter the home it is full of people. We sit down and talk with
everyone and explain to them what missionaries are and how we got
called to the Tennessee area by revelation through the prophet and the
12 apostles. Everyone was interested about our lives as missionaries
and the culture of Mormons ( they are Baptists) So we then ask if
anyone has anything that they would like us to pray for, one lady said
to pray for her to get a job another said for her to get a new car and
that was about it. Sister McDonald had to write down everyone's names
so she could remember them all in her prayer, haha they all had
crazy random names too. So sister McDonald begins to pray and prays
for each person by name and when she gets to a girl named Whitney she
prays for God to comfort her in this time of her loss and that she
will feel that God loves her and is aware of what trials she is going
through. As I was listening I thought that what she said was a little
funny because Whitney seemed really happy and didn't ask for us to
pray for her... When the prayer is over we set up a return appointment
leave them with a BOM and leave to our next appointment.
Well that next day I looked up Whitney and the other family members on
Facebook and I find a really cool post on her Facebook wall...... (I
will attach the picture of what she posted an hour after we left her
house.
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