Week 6 in Mexico- Nov 23, 2015

Teotihuacan

Hey I don't have very much time to write today. We just got back from Teotihuacan. It is a place that has a bunch of pyramids. You can probably look it up and find some cool pictures of it. I got a bunch I will try to put on today while we eat. We had to wait like an hour before the bus came to take us back to Texcoco.

This week was pretty great!

We had one of our investigators come to church again. It is her third time so two more to go before she can be baptized! We had a couple of other investigators come but they are like the husband of the primary president. He isn't a member but it was the primary program and he watched his kids. 

We ate some pretty crazy stuff this week! We were with a chef that had us help him make the food. It was a tortilla, with two kinds of cheese, ham and then we folded it into a triangle and dipped it in egg and rolled it around in bread crumbs then he fried them. They looked so good. Then he pulled out a bag of something and he told me to try one. I looked in and they were chapulines (crickets). They were cooked and they tasted like chilis. Then he walked over to our tortillas (locos tacos) and dumped a ton on them! It was pretty good actually... until you get one that is big and juicy!

And another day at another persons house we had a entire bowl full of chapulines with some salsa on the side for them. Probably the weirdest thing I have ate but not the worst.


Oh yeah I already have to get my brown shoes re soled... One of them is starting to come off like how my work shoes did. But luckily there are shoe stores all over the place here. We actually ordered some shoes last week at a store that sells real shoes and the fake versions. We bought the fake ones for like 15 dollars. I also gave a member 250 pesos to buy a big azteka calendar that looks really cool. While at teotihuacan they had these calendars but out of material for table cloths. I was going to buy one but they were 600 pesos. Then the guy said oh for you 200. I think the next time I am down there I can talk the guy down to 150.
You will have to just tell everyone I was not able to write them back today because i didn't have much time and you can post whatever you want from this letter to the blog.

Well we are going to eat so I got to go.

Love you guys!

Love Elder Ivie

Week 5 in Mexico - Nov 9, 2015

The weeks here have been flying by! Seems like I have only been here for only two weeks but I have already finished a whole month in Mexico and two months in the mission!

This week was amazing! During our study time this week, me and my companion were reading in Doce Semanas, it is the training for new missionaries. And we studied about goals. This week we really focused on setting goals and reaching them. Each day we set a goal for how many lessons we will have and how many contacts we will get. Usually we are supposed to have 40 contacts a week and 40 lessons. It is really hard for us to get 40 lessons because our area is huge and we cant make it to all the houses with enough time to teach. So our goal was 30 lessons and for contacts I told my companion we were going to try for 100!!
We started the week off pretty good and the first day we were able to contact 20 people. Me and my companion split up on the street and contacted two people at a time. I contacted one guy that was trying to sell me something, and he said he was a christian. I was like that's perfect... then he just burst

into song. He sang to me for a good 5 minutes. I kept looking over at my companion talking to someone else and he kept looking at me like, what is that guy doing? It was hilarious. Once he was finished he told me to start singing. I was like um yeah I am learning Spanish right now so... Later in the week we had an activity with the whole zone where we went to Texcoco Central and we all contacted a bunch of people there. I saw a huge group of people at this shoe shining stand so I told my companion, ´´I am going over there to get my shoes shined and I am going to contact all of the people right there.´´ So I walked over and sat down in the chair and right as I did, everyone left. I was like, you got to be kidding. I spent like 20 minutes getting my shoes shined, but I was able to have a awesome talk with the guy. We were able to get 27 contacts that day so we felt like we were doing pretty good with trying to reach our goal.
One day we needed to get 6 lessons and it was 8:30. We only had 5 and we didn't know what to do. We were right next to our apartment and we were thinking of what we could do. Then I came up with an idea. I told my companion to follow me. I walked into a small store and grabbed a Popsicle and some cookies. Then when I walked to the lady to check out I told her we were missionaries and asked if we could share our message with her really quick. She said sure. So me and my companion talked about the Resurrection with her for like ten minutes and we were able to get our 6th lesson!
The next couple days we were really busy and were not able to get any contacts. We had 61 so far and had one day left to get to 100. I told my companion we are going to get to 100. That day we walked sooo far! We contacted every single person we came in contact with on the street. Before we knew it, we had 41 contacts! We reached our goal! We also were able to get 29 lessons, not quite what our goal was but it was a lot more than we usually have.
We have so many investigators right now and have the opportunity to have almost 16 baptisms! The only problem we have been having is trying to get our investigators to come to church. We always talk about the importance of the Sabbath day and they still don't come. Hopefully this week will be better.
Hope everyone has a great week!
Love Elder Ivie

(Part 2)

Yeah we eat with members pretty much everyday. On Wednesday we were waiting for a combi and there was another caterpillar. So we did it again but Elder Alverio did it this time. There were only two girls in there but right when we sat down Elder Alverio slammed his shoes together to get it to fall off, and it didn't. I started laughing a bit. He tried like 3 more times and it wouldn't come off, he slammed his foot against the wall and it still didn't so I was laughing pretty hard. Then he just flicked it off. It started walking around and no body knew it was there. This lady was sitting down and she went to sit in the back to make more room for people and I was watching the caterpillar and when she moved she stepped right on it!! I just looked at her foot then looked at Elder Alverio. Then I bursted out laughing as hard as I could. I started crying! Then when we got off the lady got off at the same spot and asked us why we were laughing. We just said there was a caterpillar on the combi and we don't know where it went. It was funny!

Week 4 in Mexico -November 9, 2015

Monolito en Coatlinchan

Had another great week here in the mission! We made a lot of goals through out the week but they were pretty hard to reach. Everyday we are suppose to get 10 contacts with random people on the streets. Elder Alverio and I always try for 12 so that we have a backup in case we aren't able to contact people some days. This week we were not able to contact very many people because we were so busy walking from one appoitment to another. Elder Alverio says he thinks we walk about 4 to 5 miles everyday. We are also suppose to have 1 baptismal service every week. We are really close to having a ton of baptisms. If we work really hard this week and are able to get in contact with our investigators, we are hoping to have about 7-9 baptisms! 

On Sunday it was Stake Conference and our mission president came out to the stake center to speak to everyone, also we had a general authority, Elder Reyes. I really wasn´t able to get that much out of it because it was entirely in spanish and not being able to understand it made me super tired! We were really excited though because one of our investigators actually came to the conference. The stake center is in Los Reyes which is like a 40 min drive from our church. We are pretty sure we will be able to baptize her in the next three weeks. The rest of our investigators we need them to come to church 5 times before they can be baptized. 

The food here has been so good! I haven´t really ate anything very gross yet. The nastiest thing I think I have ate so far was pumpkin. They literally gave me a bowl with a slice of pupkin, the outside shell and the guts and all. It tasted exactly like the Gerber baby food. They also gave us some caña. It looks like bamboo but it isn´t hollow. It is a stick that is full of sugar. You pretty much just chew on it. I actually like it a lot! Still my favorite food here is tostada de tinga.

This week we were given permission to go to the temple. I am not sure why but we didn´t go. We are going to go sometime pretty soon though. On the 23 we are going to the center of Mexico City. It is not in our mission at all but the mission president says that every missionary should have the chance to go there. I am really excited to go! The other day we met the president at our church because he had some materials he needed to give us. I wasn´t sure what they meant by materials but once I got there I found out it was house supplies. We got a table, shelves, a mop, toilet scrubber and plunger, a shower curtain, and some eating utinsels. It felt like Christmas! 

Oh one really fun thing that happened this week was we had divisions. One Elder in our district fractured his knee so him and his companion (the district leader) have been stuck in their apartement for 5 days. So on friday I got to go stay with him while Elder Alverio and Elder Blotter went to all our appointments that day. Being stuck in a house the whole day, you don´t have much to do. Luckily Elder Choc had some church movies! We watched Johnny Lingo 2, but before we started it we were going to run to a store and buy some chips and coke. We opened the door to leave and I was about to shut the door when he said do you have the keys? Elder Blotter had the keys... which meant we were locked in the building, and at 2:00 some other Elders were suppose to bring us food. If we couldnt leave to get chips, we weren´t going to be able to get food from them. So we watched the movie and waited for Elder Blotter to bring the keys back. Then we watched State of Grace. It was sooo good! We actually started to watch it again today cause we borrowed the movies and had time after cleaning our house. Then we ordered pizza from pizza hut and watched Ephraims Rescue. It was a really fun time.

We attended a baptism of one of the other Elders in our district yesturday and it was really fast. They open the doors once they are all ready and then shut them right after. So they are opened for like 40 seconds. Can´t wait for my first baptism. 

Hope everyone is having fun and is safe! 

Love Elder Ivie

(This is some of the letter that he sent to his mom and dad, I thought it was so funny so included it on his blog. He seems so happy, I love it. I love him!!!!) 

We didn't end up going to the temple yet. We will soon though. I got my missionary money card though. We went to the offices on Tuesday and we got to walk through the tianguis. It was a lot bigger than the ones that are in our area. I bought a backpack for 300$ a.k.a. like 20$ I am not sure how much money I have taken out of the account but I am taking a little bit more out today around 4 and I will use the missionary card from now on. You would love the tianguis here! It is just the entire street covered in canopies and random stuff people sell. They said there is one that sells american eagle socks that are real! We found a bunch of fake ones but we didn't have much time to look around. 

One day we were waiting for a combi (a bus) and there was a caterpiller on the ground. I was playing around with it having it climb on my shoe, and then the combi came. I told my companion that I was going to try to bring it on the combi. I climbed on carefully and sat down, and I think one guy noticed it but the rest of the people didn't. It started climbing up my pant leg so I flicked it off. It then went over to a lady sitting at the back of the bus and started climbing up her shoe. It got to her ankle and my companion was like, ´´excuse me you have a bug on your leg´´ she freaked out! Then a new lady came onto the bus and it craweled over to her and climbed up her shoe and another lady told her she had a bug on her. She freaked out and tried to slide down the bench but it was full. Everyone moved their legs away from it and one guy grabbed it and threw it out the window. Me and my companion were laughing so hard! It was so funny. 

Love you guys, 

Elder Ivie

Third Week in the Field -Nov 2, 2015

Castle By Our Apartment

Things have still been pretty hard here with the language and not being able to understand a lot of the things people are asking me and saying to me. We have been doing a lot of blessings for people in the

An Area in Coatlinch

ward. Just yesterday we gave three blessings. I don´t dare give a blessing because I wouldn't know what to say or how to phrase things. I do the first part of the blessings where you anoint the oil. Hopefully I can get better at giving prayers and blessings and hopefully soon. We have been really busy this week! We got 5 new investigators this week and in the next couple weeks we hope to have 5 baptisms. The people have said yes but they haven't attended church yet. 

Texcoco Central

On Saturday we met with a Lady named Gloria, who was a reference from the other Elders in our district. They found her sitting in the church during one of the activities. When we met with her on Saturday she was really excited about meeting us and learning about our church. We asked her if she would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized and she said yes! Me and my companion were so surprised! The next day we were walking to church and we looked across the street and saw Gloria walking to

Texcoco Central

church with her little two year old girl. We were like NO WAY!!! I sat next to her during sacrament and testimony meeting. She wondered if she was able to go up and I was kind of hesitant and was like... umm yeah I guess so. She went up and talked about the blessings and curses that she has received from being obedient and disobedient, found in Deuteronomy 28 I believe. It was really intense and she talked for like 15 minutes! It was still really cool that she came and wants to make a change in her life for her little girl. 

It is dia de los muertos right now in Mexico! On

Texcoco Central

the 31st we had lunch at a members house and got home at about 5, and had to stay in all night. I guess it was supposed to be dangerous or something. The 31st is when they have Halloween parties and what not. Then the 1st and 2nd they celebrate even more. The 1st is where the little kids dress up and go house to house exactly like in Utah. Then the 2nd is when the adults have parties or something. I didn't take any pictures because we had to stay in but it was exactly the same as Halloween in Utah.

While we were stuck in our house on the 31st I came up with the idea to make a checker board. I got some tape and made a board on the tile floor. We then used pesos as chips. We played until 10:30! My companion wanted to mix things up and so every

Our Checker Board

time we got jumped, we had to do exercise. The first game was 20 push-ups. He jumped me 3 times in a row... I was like you got to be kidding me!! haha the next game was 15 pull ups, then the last was 20 squats with a 45 lb water jug and 10 scissor kicks. I ended up doing like 80 push-ups, 120 pull-ups, 60 squats and like 80 scissor kicks! My companion is crazy! He can do 50 pull-ups at once!

Checker Board

We had a pretty interesting thing happen at a investigators house this week. If you get grossed out easy just skip this paragraph haha. We were having some bread with beans, tomatoes, and onions before we started the lesson about the restoration. The family consists of the grandma the mom and her daughter.

Eating Cana

The grandma has like chronic arthritis or something and has absolutely no muscle on her body. We had to help her into bed the last time we were over and it took like 15 mins. She crys a lot randomly and wants her coffee. But while we were eating she was eating some pan de muerto. Its this popular bread around this time of year. But while she was eating she sneezed! It looked like she threw up. Her granddaughter helped her clean it up but I looked over at my companion and he just looked at me like he was disgusted. He had a huge piece of slimy bread on his arm!

Quesadilla a Member  Made

He said that was the nastiest experience he has had on his mission so far! 

Today we went to Walmart to buy some things we needed. Before we went to Mcdonalds and got some breakfast. It was sooo good! The Walmart here is weird. It is inside of a mall. They sell a ton of weird things. They had a motorcycle for 28,000$ that is like 1,700$. It was a nice bike to! Things here are so cheap its awesome! 

Hope everyone is having a good week. If I don't write you back personally today it is because we thought we had more time but we actually have to go to a meeting in Los Reyes so I will try to write everyone back next week.

Love Elder Ivie

Elder Alverio