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