Week 2 in the Provo, Utah mission

Hello everyone!!! How are you all doing? I miss you all but I am having a good time sharing the Gospel in the Utah, Provo mission. We have been teaching quite a bit this week and that family that I told you about last week is doing really well and is really ready to receive the Gospel. I don't think they will get baptized while I am here though because both of them have to get a divorce from their spouses so that they can get married and then be baptized. But they have incredible strong testimonies already and beared their testimonies to us several times this week. They said that before they started following this path, all kinds of doors were closing and they were really getting into trouble, but since they decided to put God first in their lives, all those doors have been opening up again and they know that Heavenly Father is pleased with what they are doing. 

Being in this mission has been a huge growing experience for me and I am trying to learn to have more patience, cuz apparently God thinks I don't have any. But I will not go into any detail about that. We had a fun Sister's activity on Sunday night. It was a sleepover at the mission home and then we went to the temple with President and Sister Pitts in the morning. It took up most of our day unfortunately but it was totally worth it. At the mission home on Sunday night we had a question and answer session with President Pitts, (who used to be an area 70, so he knows a lot) and man, he answered a question for me that I have been wondering for a long time and it was really awesome. I love how the spirit works like that. Anyways, I know I was probably sent here for other reasons as well, but I truly believe that Heavenly Father really thought that I needed to know that and so he sent me here so I could get that answer.

Well, I forgot to mention last week about some happenings at the MTC a while ago....so when I got into the MTC I had a goal of doing 5 pullups before I left....Well guess who broke my own record and set the record for pullups for Sister's in the MTC. I set the record with 10 pullups! I can't believe I was able to accomplish that and I bet my little brother wont believe it either....That is why I am going to attach a picture of the certificate they gave me! I love it! I doubled my goal! As dumb as it may sound, I believe Heavenly Father helped me accomplish that one...because he want to help me accomplish all the goals that I have while I am on my mission if I am doing my best to teach his Gospel.

As for the Visa...I may get it in the next week or two. Rumor has it anyways...I hope it comes! I really want to get immersed in the culture there!

Well...I am well out of time. I better go. 

Love you all,

Hermana Eyre

...the snowman in our pictures. We built him when it snowed and then he stayed standing for about a week...but slowly began to tip over. He is still standing now...but he lost his head. Those sister are the sisters in this mission and the other is with me and my companion.

Week 1 in the Provo, Utah mission

Hello all!
I am in the field and loving life!!! It is seriously amazing and I see incredible miracles everyday! We are currently teaching so many people and some of them are truly Golden Investigators and are really quick to follow Christ. It is amazing. I love my companion and she is training me well I think...but she said that I came pre-trained anyways so she doesn't have to do a lot.

I don't have a lot of time to blab...but The Provo mission is really amazing and the people are all really amazing. It is amazing how much the members of the church make a difference in the work. They are great at fellowshipping down here and they take really good care of the missionaries as well. When we went to the grocery store last week, a member just offered to buy our groceries for us and then we went to Cafe Rio to pick up some food for our investigators and a really nice couple bought the food for us there too. Each member that we have gone to for dinner has fed us really well and I love not having to eat the food at the MTC anymore!!!! Homecooked meals are the best!!!!

Anyways...I want to share one really quick story about an amazing couple that is investigating the church... They are Ernesto and Elizabeth. They have a little boy that is about 16 months old. They are seriously amazing. They are going through a really hard time right now. They have investigated the church before but they stopped progressing. So this couple...Ernesto lost his job and they don't have any money right now. Ernesto had even gone to a neighbor a few days earlier that, that we talked to and tried to sell them his packs of cigarettes so that he could have money to go buy some milk for his child. Anyways...we started teaching them. They complete each of the commitments we leave with them. This last lesson, we left the Proclamation to the Family with them. When we came back, they had read it, circled things, made notes in the margins about things he liked and was very excited to tell us about all the things he learned. He realized that there were things that they need to do to be right with God and they are ready and willing to do those things. They said that they know that if they put God first...he will help them through this difficult time and throughout the rest of their lives!!! It is really incredible how ready some people are for the Gospel. I am so excited to have the opportunity to teach them about it.

The language is going fairly well right now. We are teaching about half in English and half in Spanish. It is great to do both!

Well...I love you all and hope to hear from you soon....If you email me...keep it fairly short....when I have 6, 3 page emails...I don't end up having enough time to do everything. Anyways....

Love you all,
Hermana Eyre

Day 1 in the Provo, Utah mission field

Hello everyone!!!

I am out of the MTC!!! It is a crazy and surreal feeling and I kind of feel like I am in a dream or daze or something. I have a new companion and her name is Sister Putnam. We are in a bi-lingual area down here in Provo, so we will be teaching in English and in Spanish. I  am kind of having a panick attack that we are teaching real live people tonight that may or may not know anything about the Gospel. The area that we are serving in is called Geneva Heights. We cover the area of two stakes. 

While I am sad that my time at the MTC is over...I am also really excited. I am so glad that I never have to eat that food ever again!!! But I will seriously miss the spirit there and the incredible opportunities to hear from General authorities all the time.  I will miss my district like crazy!!! We were all seriously the best of friends and it is really strange that they are going to have another week there without me. I will miss my teachers so much too! The language is really all up to me and my studying now which is really strange. I will miss being able to ask any question about Spanish to them any time that I want. 

My P-days are now on Monday...at least while I am here in Provo. Maybe it will be different when I get to Spain...but who knows. 

You all can feel free to email me now or send me a DearElder if that is available for the Provo mission. I don't know...you will have to check. But if you are going to send me an email...only 1 per week if possible and don't make it too long winded. I now have 1 hour to email instead of the 30 minutes from before...but that is still not a lot of time to get through a lot and respond to everyone and write a blogpost. 

Anyways...I love you all so much and hope you will continue telling me what is going on in your lives. Just so you know...it does not make me homesick to know the things that are going on in your lives...so please share them. It makes me happy to know that people are still living and growing and doing other things with their lives.

I better go now though. I love you all! If you have the time to send me a real letter too I always love that. 

My new address is 595 N. 500 W., Orem, UT, 84057. We are living in a tiny little basement apartment of a members home. It is about half the size of our room at the MTC, But it will be great! I will talk to you all next week and let you know how my first week in the field was!

Love,

Hermana Eyre

 And Eyre picture tradition. Sister Eyre and Sister Crowley

 Sister Eyre's MTC district and teachers

 The Hermanas in Sister Eyre's MTC district

 Sister Eyre with her new companion, Sister

 Sister Eyre with her MTC companion, Sister Crowley

 Sister Eyre with Elder Port from MTC district.

 Hermana Eyre's MTC district in front of Provo temple

Week 8 in the MTC and moving out....

Hello Everyone!!!!

News at last!!! Although it is far from what I would have expected...but hopefully it is only temporary. So right now, I have a temporary call to the Utah, Provo mission. I leave on Monday the 16th. Or rather they will pick me up here in 3 days. I am a little sad because the travel office screwed up a bit and sent me out a week before my district even leaves. They don't leave until the 23rd and 25th. So I am missing my last week of language study in the MTC which I am a bit bummed about and I get a whole less week with my district. But I am super excited to actually get out and teach some people. They want to keep me close by in case I get my visa because I think you have to go pick it up in person...so I will need to be close by so that they can take me wherever I need to go if I want to get my visa and leave soon thereafter. We will see what happens though. I don't know how I feel about serving so incredibly close to where I am from and not being locked in like we are at the MTC.

Well...that little news that I got yesterday...this week has been a fairly eventful one. The food here at the MTC finally caught up with me and I got super bad food poisoning on Tuesday night, and sorry for the graphic word, I puked up probably everything that I have eaten since I arrived at the MTC.  I didn't sleep much at all that night and it made Wednesday a very hard day for me because I still wasn't able to stomach anything until about dinner time. We also hosted the new missionaries on Wednesday so I was running around the whole MTC being the most dehydrated and exhausted that I have been since I got here. But it was still fun to be able to help the new missionaries get a little adapted on their first day. Then that evening my companion and I and a companionship of Elders from our district had the opportunity to demonstrate teaching to all the new missionaries. Usually the people that the missionaries will demonstrate with are actors or members who are acting out their own conversion story. This was not the case for us. We taught a real live investigator that just found out about the job through a friend and decided to try it. But he had lots of real concerns about the church but was very interested in learning more. The point of the demonstration was for us to get the investigator to open up to us and then the new missionaries would take over and they would kick us out. Well that is exactly what they did. We got about 5 minutes in and just when we were getting to a really good point to begin teaching a lesson...they kicked us out and let the new missionaries get kicked out. I have never wanted to finish anything more in my life than I wanted to finish teaching this guy. I wish I had time to give more details but I don't. But in short...there is a fire inside me and I am so excited to get out into the field on Monday and teach people the amazing things we have in our lives.

So...don't be sending anymore letters for me to the MTC...I won't get them.  I will email my new address next P-day. I don't know when that is going to be though...so don't count on Friday.

I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Eyre

Week 7 in the MTC

Hello my loved ones!

 

My time here at the MTC is hopefully winding down...I don't really know for sure because I haven't heard any news about my visa...But there might be some hope in it though because an Elder that came in the same day that I did, just got his Visa and leaves this week. He submitted his Visa application stuff a few weeks before I did and before a couple other Elders that are in his district that are going to Barcelona....so hopefully we will all get ours by the time our time here is up. My scheduled departure date from the MTC right now is the 25th of January...so hopefully I get it by then.  Anyways... I met a couple Sisters this week that are going to Barcelona as well. Our district got the opportunity to be Hosts to the incoming missionaries on Wednesday this week. And one of the Sisters I hosted is going to Barcelona and the Sister that was just behind us happened to be going there too. I am really excited about that! They are both super sweet and maybe I will get a chance to be companions with one or both of them. 

 

This week has been some unreal weather. A good and a bad thing I think. I would love to see some more snow before I leave, but the weather has been nice on a few occasions. I found out through asking those in charge, that you can run outside in the winter on the road that goes around the buildings of the MTC, but that is still inside the gates. I am a little ticked that it took so long to figure that out. I had asked several different people when I came in, including my Zone Leaders and our coordinating Sister and they said that they didn't think that was allowed and that we were only allowed to exercise in the gym when the field closed for the winter. Well...as I have learned in the past...always ask the people actually in charge, cuz just because other people don't do it doesn't mean that there is a rule against it...so luckily, several times during the past week I have been able to go running with my companion out on the road and have been getting myself some vitamin D. I love it! It is such a relief to be outside for a little bit when we are stuck inside all day long everyday.

The temple has been closed for the last couple weeks over the holidays for cleaning...so there was that one Friday that I got to practice my violing for like 2 1/2 hours. That was fantastic! But then this last Friday, we got the opportunity to clean the temple since we didn't get to go to the temple. It was such a cool experience and I must say that it doesn't matter if you are doing temple work or cleaning...being in the temple is just amazing.

 

For those of you who don't already know this...I can see pictures that you send in an email. At least I have been able to see the pictures that my sister sends when she forwards her blog posts to me. So if you have anything that you want to share with me feel free to do it through email cuz I don't want to leave the MTC with hundreds of pictures that people have sent me...but email is a great place that I can view them over and over. But if it is something you think I will want to keep with me on my mission...feel free to send it in the mail.

Anyways...so it amazes me how small the world is sometimes...It just so happens that the guy that is what I guess you could call my cousins boss, is in one of the branch presidencies here at the MTC. He is in charge or something of the company that I believe 6 of my cousins work for. My cousins: Ben, Noah, Talmadge, Sam, Eli, Josh, and one other...I can't think of who else it would be that works for Imagine Learning...Maybe all of these cousins don't...but I think those are who we came up with. So anyways...I told him to tell them hello because he was going to see them this week. 

 

As for classes this last week...Things were honestly very hectic and it made things very hard. I was a little ticked about it a couple times. It really messed with our planning which was really frustrating. Anyone who has been on a mission knows how important planning is. I am not a planner in my own life, but for this work, it is crucial. So we would plan our days out and everything that we were going to be studying during times, and then our teachers just didn't show up to class I think about 4 or 5 different times and then some other random teacher would come in during language study or personal study and insist that we do some other activity with them and then all our goals for that day went out the window.  It was quite frustrating...but hopefully now that the new semester at BYU has started and the teachers have their new schedules, they will be a bit more dependable. It was just super frustrating to experience that because up until that point our teachers were the best and were super reliable. But now hopefully all is well. 

 

I am way nervous that the days are counting down that I will actually be out in the field. It is crazy and kind of nerve racking...but I will admit that I am excited to not have to eat the food here anymore. I go to meals and don't even want to eat now most of the time. It is basically just for survival now. But I will miss the spirit that is constantly here the most I think...and my district. We are all super close and have become each others best friends. It will be very sad to leave all of them. 

 

It is surreal that I have already been out 7 1/2 weeks...I am about 1/9 of the way through my mission already. Crazy!!!

 

Well...I am well out of time...so I better go. I miss you all and hope that you don't forget about me while I am gone!

 

Love,

Hermana Eyre

Week 6 in the MTC

Hola!

 

This last week went by so fast it is incredible. I wrote a little bit already about what happened on Christmas and Christmas Eve. We had Elder Bednar and it was really so amazing. It is amazing the spirit that enters the room when one of the apostles of God walks into a room.  The feeling in the room literally changes.

So anyways...that was awesome and I got some fun presents from family that I really appreciate a lot. It is amazing how good many of you are at knowing just what I may be needing. Anyways...the rest of Christmas day was truly amazing and very surprising. We watched the Mormon Tabernacle Concert with Sissel which happens to be my favorite concert of theirs...but I did not have any idea how many times my sister Chelsi's face appeared on that video. Like huge closeups and everything. Over and over again. I loved it! Talk about such an unexpected tender mercy from God. It was like I was actually at the concert watching my sister and so in a way I got to spend Christmas with some family afterall. Maybe that sounds way dumb, but it really made Christmas that much better for me. 

 

Anyways...after that we had our quick sack dinners...and then comes the big surprise. We went to the devotional that evening a little bit earlier than usual so that we could get good comfortable seats since we were going to be sitting there for 3 hours. We got there just before 6:30 for the devotional that was starting at 7. Shortly after we got there, they called a few missionaries down to the front, including me. I had absolutely no idea what it was about. I got down there and they said that Sister Nally wanted to talk to me. I found her. She is the one who holds the auditions for musical numbers. I had auditioned 1 1/2 weeks earlier, but didn't think there was any way that I was going to play because the song I had auditioned with had already been played at several devotionals and other meetings. I had auditioned with O' Holy Night, but she had put me in the yes stack. But I thought she wouldn't get to it since there had already been several others. Anyways...I found her down by the stage and she said..."did you get a notice in the mail in the last few days at all?" I said that I had not. She said, "I was afraid of that." She then began to explain that she had had musical numbers lined up for all the meetings during Christmas day. There was supposed to be a musical number during the departure devotional earlier that day, but the scheduled person had not showed up...so on her way down to this devotional she was thinking that maybe with the staff being short for Christmas, none of the notices to play for the devotional had gone out. It turns out that she was right. So she asked if I would still be willing to play at the devotional that was starting in 20 minutes....mind you that this is the Christmas devotional with the whole MTC! I said that my violin was locked up in the main building and I didn't know where my accompanist was or how I could notify her...but I was very willing to do it. My heart was pounding like a mad woman! Anyways...she said she would find my accompanist and have someone meet me at the music closet to get my violin. I literally ran to get my violin with my companion, I warmed up for 3 minutes and ran back to the devotional. My accompanist and I had not played through it at all for about 10 days...but we just got up there and were the only musical number for the devotional. To say the least, it was the first time I have felt nerves like that playing the violin in front of a crowd for a long long time. It was a little nerve racking to stand up in front of 2500 missionaries with 20 minutes notice and play...but it went quite well for not having rehearsed it for so long and the fact that we had really only played through it together 3 times I believe. It was crazy! So that was a fun little present that God gave to me. Even though I was super nervous, I really had a great time doing it. The prelude numbers that had been planned that other people were supposed to play, were not able to happen because the people didn't have their music with them cuz they didn't know...so I am grateful that I had just enough notice that we were able to provide a musical number for Christmas Day. 

 

Anyways...there have been some other really cool things that have happened this week. We feel a little lost sometimes because we have a new substitute teacher everyday and they don't always follow what the plan is supposed to be, but we have had some good teaching experiences this week because of it. I want to share just one that really had an impact on me. This whole week we have been talking about how important the spirit is in every persons conversion, including our own continual conversion. So we have been sharing and learning a lot more about how the spirit works and that we may not even know what is going on until after it happens.  So yesterday, we were teaching our investigator Lorena. Our teacher had not told us any of the things about her, but it was our second lesson with her. Hermana Crowley and I had a completely different plan than what the spirit led us to in that lesson. As we began talking with Lorena, I had the thought to ask her how her family was doing (I didn't even remember that I had asked that until our teacher pointed it out after). But Lorena began to tell us how she and her family were having a hard time because her parents just got divorced and she didn't know how to feel about anything and she really was struggling with it. When she said that, the spirit hit me like a brick wall and told me that I had to share with her my experience and what I have learned through it. I began to share with her how my parents got divorced and how hard that was for me, especially because of how much I loved my family. I shared with her how important families are to God and that we really can have eternal families. She wondered how that was possible when her parents are divorced. This happens to be a very hard question to answer because I do not know exactly how it works, but the spirit has testified to me many times that I will be blessed with the blessings of an eternal family and I can be together with my family forever even though my parents are divorced. I wouldn't even say that I have just a testimony of this, I really feel like I have an actual knowledge of this, because there is not a doubt in my mind because of the confirmation of these thoughts I have received on several occasions. I truly loved this experience and my teacher shared with us afterwards how incredibly powerful the lesson for her was as the investigator. She could really feel the spirit confirming what I said and that it was so interesting that that came up because only the spirit knew that my experience would be able to relate to her problem. She had not intended to share that with me at all but felt comfortable sharing that when we showed we care about her and her family. but there was no way for her to know that I had been through the same thing. I am so grateful for the mysterious ways in which God works. I am not even out in the field yet and I am seeing literal miracles everyday. 

 

Well I better go...I am way overtime.

I love you all!

This Gospel is so true and I am grateful for the opportunity I have to serve.

 

Love,

Hermana Eyre

Merry Christmas!!!!

Hello my lovely friends and family!

 

I had no idea that I was going to be able to email today. I am glad that I get to though! Know that they are taking good care of us down here. Last night we had a fun huge play of the nativity that they put on with many of the missionaries playing the parts.  After that was over, they gave us some delicious white chocolate popcorn and we watched The Christmas Carol. It was really awesome! 

 

We had a great Christmas morning too...We had a gigantic Sacrament meeting with the whole MTC and guess who came to speak to us at it???....Elder Bednar!!! It was super fun especially because we were all making guesses who it would be last night and he was my guess and hope. He really is such an incredible and powerful speaker. The spirit testifies so strongly of everything that comes out of him. I wish I could share more with you about what he spoke about but with however many missionaries are on the computers right now, I can hardly get a sentence out before the computer freezes on me.  The General gist though...was talking about how we cannot just have a testimony of the things in the church. We are likely to fall away at some point in our lives if that is all we have. We need to be truly converted to the Lord and emulate the character of Christ.  This conversion and emulation comes by doing these 3 things.  We need to learn of the Character of Christ and the Doctrines of the Gospel (we need to have knowledge of them), then we need to apply them in our lives (but to do this, we can't be thinking about ourselves or be looking for ourselves, we have to be thinking about others), then we need to receive the knowledge or confirmation that what we are doing and the way we are living is exactly in line with what God wants us to be doing.

 

He talked about the need to emulate the character of Christ and how it is exactly that we can do that. Character refers to moral qualities that are consistently lived and strikingly displayed. With the Character of Christ, he always turned out (away from the natural man) when he was in the midst of his own suffering. The natural man has the tendency to turn in towards our own problems when we are in the midst of our own trials and tribulations.  Only by turning out towards others and God can we overcome the natural man and the tendency to turn in towards ourselves, away from God, and becoming selfish. It is really hard to get across all the things that I learned today from the Spirit through Elder Bednar...but hopefully you kind of get the gist of what I learned today.  

 

This is something that I am really going to try and emulate in my own life. I know that I am way too selfish most of the time and I want and need to be thinking entirely about others and not myself so hopefully as I learn more about Christ, I will be able to become that in my life...but the funny thing is...I won't even really know when it happens. He said that the time that we become that we won't realize it because we are continuing to turn out towards others and helping them in their pains and afflictions. Christmas has definitely been a spiritually enriching day so far and they have even more plans for us today that I am very much looking forward to. 

 

I love you all and I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas and take a little time to turn your thoughts to the Savior and to others. Think about what you might be able to do for someone else on this day to lift them and strengthen them. 

 

I love you so much!

 

Love,

Hermana Eyre

 

P.S. I am so excited that I will be joined by Nile Facer in the MTC this week! It will be so good to see such a familiar face! I wish I had had a familiar face when I got here. The first couple days were a really rough adjustment...but I am sure she will be amazing! Anyways...I love you all and Merry Christmas!!!