Saturday, September 26, 2015

Week 4 - September 26, 2015

Zone
This week has been pretty great in the MTC. The language has been starting to slow down quite a bit. We have memorized a lot of things though! I have the Missionary purpose, the baptismal prayer and baptismal invitation, and the first vision memorized. Anytime we are in a lesson and we are teaching about one of these, my companions just look at me and have me recite them to the investigators. I guess they think I know them better than they do but I really don't. 

Yesterday we had a lesson with our teacher Hermana Anderson and she was playing the role of ceci. We have taught her a couple times and it is hard to try and figure out what their specific needs are. In the lesson yesterday I was able to listen to the spirit and know exactly what she needed to hear. I heard her say something about having hope so I started to talk to her about having hope and how we can have hope through faith in christ. I had her read 2 nephi 31:8-11 and then right after that I asked her, "Segira el ejemplo de jesucristo al ser bautizado por alguien que posea la autoridad del sacerdocio de dios?" aka the baptismal invitation. She paused for a long time. She looked down at the scripture and didn't say anything for like a full minute. It was completely silent. Then she said yes. It was an awesome experience to have yet again another investigator say yes to baptism. Even though it is just a role play, the spirit is so strong. She said it was the best lesson we have given. 

On thursday we taught member TRC which is pretty much like a family home evening lesson. We give a short message to people that are already members. I enjoy it a lot! I think I like it more because the people we teach are really old and talk slow so we can understand exactly what they are saying. It is also easier because they participate a lot! They will share their testimony with you and I love hearing their prayers in spanish! They are incredible. 

On Sunday we had a devotional after dinner and the speaker was the guy from the spoken word. I can't remember his name but it is the guy that says the opening to every general conference. His voice is really cool! We also sang a bunch of songs in between parts of his talk which made it really interesting. Then on tuesday we had a member of the seventy come talk to us. It was Elder Cardon. His talk was really hard to follow and pay attention to. It was just a bunch of scriptures and nobody was really able to tell what his talk was really even about. I could barley stay awake. 
Me and my crew

On wednesday my mom sent us some doughnuts because it was our half way mark here in the MTC. It said happy hump day on the box! There were also a bunch of krispy creme doughnut hats in there so we put them on and walked to class. When we got to class we looked through the peep hole and our teacher was in there. We decided to knock on the door and sing happy birthday to her. We did it and she was so confused it was funny! But she let us eat the doughnuts during class so that was nice. 
MTC Hump Day Doughnuts

Gym is one of my favorite parts of the day. We either go outside and play spike ball.. or go to the gym and I workout on all the equipment on the running track. Spike ball is my favorite thing to do! Me and Elder Harley make a really good team. At the end of the day Elder Martinez, Elder Ainge, Elder Harley and me go into the hall in our residence and we do a insane workout before we go to bed. Elder Martinez is in the army so he is crazy! We do like 100 push ups and in between every ten push ups we do some other workout! It is so tiring but we have to work the food off somehow haha. We started getting a bunch of other Elders to come out and join us cause they hear all the noise from their rooms haha! Elder Ainge was playing basketball yesterday and hurt his thumb, so during class we went to the clinic and they sent us on a little field trip to the BYU student health clinic to get a x-ray. We had to walk there and then after the x-ray we had to walk back to the MTC clinic and find out what the x-ray showed. He broke his thumb. He has to wear this big wrist thing but he thinks it is dumb and never wears it. 

I get my flight plans next week! We are over halfway done with our work here at the MTC! I am so excited to get out of here and be in the real world. It almost feels like a prison here but not at the same time haha. Everything is going great though!

Love Elder Ivie

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Week 3 - September 19, 2015


This week has been a ton of fun with a lot of cool experiences! Elder Harley, Elder Erickson and myself got to go up to Salt Lake City to appear at the Mexican Consulate and get our visas. No we aren't going to be able to go to the Mexico MTC, we will be staying in the Provo MTC. I am totally fine staying here, I think the food is better here anyways! While up in Salt Lake we had a ton of cool experiences, we talked to a young Asian boy at the train station and he said he was a recent convert and was thinking about going on a mission. We shared a couple stories with him and I think we were able to build his hope in serving a mission. We also saw another Sister Missionary at the consulate and she was going to the Mexico MTC and it was pouring rain outside at the time. She said we could get a ride back to the trax station if we wanted and we ended up going with them and she sent a picture of us to our moms which was really nice! Oh and by the way all they did to send us off to Salt Lake was give us a phone and dropped us off at the station and said call us when you get to Orem on the way home! It was a very interesting way of doing it. We also were talking to an old lady at another train station and she was saying how she has been abused in so many other churches and had sinned way to much to be in the Mormon church and she talked so much we couldn't ever reply to her. But while we were talking to here a trax worker that was picking up the garbage's (in the pouring rain) while yelling out random lyrics to songs. He walked by and was like "Elders, where are your rain coats?" We kinda laughed and said, "Oh we left them behind." He chuckled and walked off and started singing some church song! It was pretty neat. I feel like being a missionary you carry around this kind of glow and people are always attracted to you and it is just a very neat experience unlike any other. And I'm not even in the field yet! I can't wait!


We have been teaching a lot of lessons each day here in the MTC! Just this week we taught an investigator named Diana. She was really nice. We talked for a while and I asked her if she would be willing to pray. She was hesitant but we told her it was very easy and was just a simple conversation with god. She then said a very sweet prayer and when she was done, she said she could feel some kind of spirit or something, I told her it was the Holy Ghost and a little while later I asked her to follow the example of Christ and be baptized. She said she already was, so we explained our way of baptism to her and she started to understand and at the end I asked her again if she wanted to be baptized and she said she wants to know a little bit more about our church. I hope on Thursday this week I will be able to get her to commit to getting baptized!
Salt Lake City
Our classroom teachers also play the role of being an investigator and we go and teach them lessons. We taught Hermano Wolfe yesterday and the previous time he said we didn't connect with the investigator enough. So this time we really got to know him and we got him to say a prayer and then I asked him to be baptized and he looked at me and said yes.. he had watery eyes and said he felt the spirit really strong! I think he was getting into character a little too much but it was still an awesome experience!

We also like to have some fun when we are about to go to bed! I received a basketball hoop and some nerf guns in the mail and every night we play Pig or Horse or Speed, or shoot each other with the nerf guns! It is a lot of fun! The other day Elder Ainge found a jump rope out side and so he brought it  back to our residence. Elder Martinez was using it and was tossing it back to Elder Ainge when he wasn't looking, and it nailed him right where you don't want to be hit. He was in the middle of drinking water to wash down some pills he was taking and he spit them out everywhere! It was hilarious! Elder Martinez felt bad so he said he could do it back to him I guess haha. So Elder Ainge had a yo-yo in his hand and they had Elder Martinez turn around and they swung the yo-yo right underneath his legs! He dropped like a sack of potatoes! It was the funniest thing ever! They had to try multiple times to! They are pretty dumb!;) haha I guess boys will be boys!
My Room
We went to the temple early this morning and did initiatories. I saw one of my neighbors there working and he said he would tell my parents he saw me! It was a great experience and after wards we went and got a delicious breakfast at the cafeteria there! The MTC has been treating us well the past couple days and I can't wait to see what it has in store!
Love Elder Ivie
YoYo Kings


Monday, September 14, 2015

Week 2 - September 12, 2015

Hola Everyone,
This week is going by a lot faster than last week. The first week was supposedly the hardest of them all. And it really was. The days were long and you had so much to do. Once Sunday came around things got a lot better. You kind of get put on a set schedule and the next few weeks are about the same. 

A normal day for us here at the MTC goes... Wake up around 6:30 and get ready for breakfast, After breakfast we go till class till 11:10 then we have gym. Directly after gym is lunch and then class until dinner at 5:30. Then we have more class until 9:30. We spend around 11 hours a day in the classroom learning Spanish. It has been coming along pretty good but I know in time it will make more sense to me. Some days we have TRC meetings were we go and teach a lesson to a investigator. We have taught about 4 lessons so far. They are pretty difficult because it is hard for me to understand what they are saying. Then when I do know what they are saying I don't know how to put the words that I want to say into Spanish. It is pretty frustrating.

Our District has been having way to much fun here. We are always doing riddles and things with our spare time. We get so frustrated because we can't figure out the riddles but its a blast. Yesterday we spent over an hour trying to figure out one Elders riddle (not a good way to spend personal study time haha) but we finally got it and felt retarded afterwards because of how easy it was. We also have been going outside during gym and I have been playing Spike Ball! It is my new favorite game! It is just like volleyball but a miniature version. There is a mini ball and a little tramp on the ground that you have to hit the ball onto it and pass it to your partner. It takes some time to get the hang of but it is so fun. Me and Elder Harley were unbeatable for a while until we challenged Elder Ainge the next day. That was a bad idea... he is way to good at sports.
Spike Ball
My other companion Elder Erickson is 23 and we always tease him. He is always twinkling his fingers after everything. He will pick up a cookie take a bite, set it down and twinkle his fingers. Pick up his glass, take a drink, set it down and twinkle his fingers! It is hilarious! We call him twinkfings haha! We also call him papa or something funny and then he just laughs! Its all just fun and games. 

Its been pretty interesting how all the mail works, and also very frustrating. My companion Elder Ainge has gotten 2-3 packages every single day, and 3-4 letters. Me... nothing. I know it is nothing to be worried about but it is nice to be able to hear from people outside of the MTC. One nice thing about the MTC if none of you already know is the Dear Elder website. You can get on the website and type an email to sent to your missionary, then when you send it, the MTC prints it off and sets it in my mailbox the same day. It is a really nice way to get mail and its nice so I don't have to read so many emails. If any of you want to that it would be greatly appreciated! My address is
 Elder Colton Alex Ivie
Oct 12 MEX-MXSE
 2011 N 900 E unit 320 
Provo, Utah 84602

Hope to hear from some of you!
Love Elder Ivie

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Week 1 - Sept 5, 2015



Hola Everyone,
I am just doing a big mass email to everyone right now, I am not sure what the best way to do this is but we will try it like this. Things have been going pretty good here in the MTC. I met my new companions and my district. I have two companions, Elder Erickson, from Midvale, Utah and Elder Ainge, from Boston. They are both awesome Elders. The rest of my district is amazing as well. There is even my cousin Elder Harley in my district, it's nice to have a familiar face every once in a while.
Elder Erickson, Elder Ivie, Elder Ainge

Elder Harley, Elder Ivie
Left to Right: Elder Matthews, Elder Harley, Elder Erickson, Elder Ainge, Elder Ivie (me), Elder Martinez and Elder Hodson up front. 
 The classes here are really long and for the first two days we had a substitute teacher because our teacher was busy with other classes because when we came into the MTC it sorta messed up the schedule for a bit. Just yesterday we got our teacher and she will be teaching us for the rest of the time. She is pretty cool and its interesting because all she speaks is Spanish. There is absolutely no English that comes out of her mouth.

 The food here is pretty good. The first day we had BYU creamery ice cream. I enjoyed that very much. Last night we taught our very first investigator in Espanol. It went pretty well I think. We have learned how to pray, bare our testimony and I also memorized the missionary purpose in Spanish. Invitar a las personas a venir a Cristo al ayudarlas a que reciban el Evanhelio resturardo mediante la fe en Jesucristo y su expiacion, y el arrepentimiento, el bautismo, la recepcion del don del espiritu santos y el perseverar haste el fin. Or something close to that. 

I hope everything is going well for all you guys! I will keep you all in my prayers.
Love, 
Elder Ivie

Monday, September 7, 2015


Words of Mormon 1:7

And I do this for a wise purpose: for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will.