Week one in Ixtapaluca January 11, 2016

Had an awesome week here in Mexico! I am now serving in the new area that got opened up in our mission. It is called Ixtapaluca. A lot of people call it Bautisaluca because of all the baptisms they have here. And it is true... they have a ton! I am serving in an area called Ayotla. It is split up into 3

areas and we are in Ayotla 3. It is a mountain, and we have the upper part. The street are literally like 45 degrees. I don't know how they have cars driving on the streets here.

My companion is a Poly from Springs, Colorado. He has been in the mission for a year this week. He speaks English and also Spanish pretty fluently. We get along really good! He has a ukulele that he plays all the time and he sings really good! So that's usually what he does in the apartment. Our apartment is a lot smaller that my last one. This one is just one big room. My last house had like 4 different rooms. On Tuesday when we got to our new area we met with the missionaries that were in that area before. They stayed with us until Thursday to teach us a little bit about the area. Where all their investigators were and the members. We actually don't have any members in our area. There are a bunch of less actives but no active members. That means that whenever we have food we have to walk 30 minutes to the bottom of the mountain to go to members houses to eat. Then we have to walk all the way back up which is like 40 minutes.

We have been working really hard this week! We actually already had another baptism! Sort of... The Elders before us baptized a lady on Monday, then on Sunday we confirmed her. That means that she is our convert. We do all the paper work and all that stuff. When we report to the zone leaders they said that the baptism counts for our mission. Not only have we had one baptism but we have had a ton of other things happen. In the first two days we were able to set two baptism dates. In the first 5 days we got 8 new investigators. In my last area we couldn't do that in 6 weeks. We contacted 79 people and got 9 references from other missionaries and members. That is more than I think I have ever had before. Every night we reported our numbers to the zone leader.. because our district leaders phone doesn't have a signal, but every night we reported he said that our numbers were the best in the entire zone. The other night he reported to the assistants that we were the best companionship in the zone! It is a pretty great feeling to know how much they appreciate our work.

We had a meeting with the president before we left for our area and he told us that him and his wife had prayed for weeks on who to send to Ixtapaluca. He told us that he chose the missionaries that he believes he can trust and will be able to work under these hard circumstances. It is amazing that the president has that much trust in us, to send us to a new area that is really far away from him and an area that nobody knows.

In this new area there are so many kind people. There are some that will actually walk up to us and ask if we can come and talk to them. One day I wanted a drink so I walked into a store and bought a coke and some m&ms. When I was checking out we contacted the lady and she said we could share a message with her right there. So we shared the restoration. It was amazing! She kept rubbing her arms like she was cold and kept looking up like she was looking at someone. When I shared the first vision with her she started to cry and my companion was baring his testimony about Joseph Smith and he started to cry a little bit too! It was amazing how much you could feel the spirit! We got her to commit to baptism but haven't set a date yet. I am so excited to be in this area and meet all the new people.
I hope everyone is having a great new year so far!
Love Elder Ivie