April 17, 2017

Last Tuesday were the changes. I am still here in my area. My new companion is Elder Torres, he is from Tamauliplas, Mexico. He is 27 years old. He is really cool! We get along great. We didn't have all that much success last week because I had to show my companion around so he could get to know the area. We were only able to find 1 new and usually we have a lot more. We expect to find a lot more this week! So this week wasn't all that crazy for us but for other missionaries it was pretty crazy. Here in mexico they celebrate Easter by walking around and acting out the Crucifixion of Jesus. They have a guy all dressed up like him and they walk up and down the streets and are hitting him and whipping him and all kinds of stuff. We are not allowed to leave the house on that day. It was Friday afternoon, so on Friday after the food we had to go home and stay there the rest of the day. During all of that there are other people that go around soaking people with water. So... my last companion Elder Roberts is in an area where it is a little bit more common that they do this and he told me that ten people showed up with buckets of water and tried to soak them but they escaped in time! Pretty crazy!
Yesterday I had to give a talk about Easter in sacrament meeting. It went really well. I talked about what it was all about and then talked a bit about the gospel that Jesus taught while he was here. I then explained a little bit about the sacrament and the meaning of it and then I read a couple scriptures in Alma 62 that talk about how we need to make changes in what we are doing. Then I explained how our mission president wants the members to work more with the missionaries. It went pretty well. After the meeting I had people asking me if they could help, and have some cards to give out. I also had a young girl come up to me and ask me for the scriptures that I had shared because it had answered a lot of questions that she had. It is an awesome feeling to know that you are helping people out in their lives!
This Saturday we are going to be having another baptism, it is a lady that was a reference from a member. Her name is Lourdes. She is going to make a great member.
Today we went to the gym with 4 other Elders. We are now 6 in the same gym. They let us in for a bit cheaper now as well. We came back home with 2 of them and they stayed at our house for a bit. I have been asking around for the best way to grow facial hair and they all say that putting chili's on your skin helps. I can't grow my mustache haha so I figured I would try it and another elder, Elder Boyer did it with me. So we went to the store and bought a Habanero. It is the spiciest chili in Mexico. So we cut it up and put it on our skin. I just put it on my top lip and he put it on his top lip and then on his cheeks as well. We waited for a bit and nothing happened. The other elders then told us hey put on some vicks and it will work more. So I put on some Vicks Vapor Rub and it immediately started to burn! It was sooooo spicy! We left it on for as long as we could and then we ran to the bathroom and washed it off. Then we tried to put milk on our lips to get the spiciness to go away. It was so spicy that my teeth and gums started to burn! I didn't even eat it! It was one of the craziest things we have done haha! It took quite a while till it all went away! We will have to see if it works haha. Well hope everyone is doing good and has a great week!
Love Elder ivie

April 10, 2017

So we found out about the changes here in the mission... and... I am staying here in my area and my companion is going to be having changes! He actually had asked to stay in our area! They never respect your requests here in the mission hahaha. I am fine staying here in my area. I am really comfortable here and there is a lot of success. We have a routine here in our area haha. We wake up and go to the gym we have at the end of the street and then we come home and we start studying while one of us is running on the treadmill and then we switch. I have actually been trying to gain some weight in the last couple of months. I eat a ton of pasta now haha. I think I have gained around 10 lbs now! We head out and work and then come home and run on the treadmill some more! We love it where we live cause the sister always invites us to eat! She is amazing!
We confirmed our convert Luz Maria yesterday at the church services cause she could get confirmed last week for the conference! Today we went to the stake center and had a zone activity. We played foosball, ping pong, soccer and a couple other games! It was a lot of fun. We then payed a member to make us food. She made us some grilled steaks... it was called carne asada. It was really good! She had nopales (cactus) and stuffed baked potatoes! It was a pretty fun activity that we did! So tomorrow I will be getting a new companion here in Neza! It will be a good next six weeks here! Hope everyone else is doing good!
Love Elder Ivie

April 3, 2017

We had an amazing weekend here in the mission. We had the opportunity to watch the General Conference at our stake center and we even watched it in English... well I did, my companion decided to watch it in Spanish. If I watch it in Spanish I always can hear how they start off in English so then I try to hear what they say and then I miss what they said in Spanish haha... so better if I just watch it in English from the beginning! This was probably one of the more special conferences for my companion and me. We had the amazing opportunity of baptizing one of our investigators in between the first and second sessions of the Sunday conference. A couple weeks back we baptized a kid named Angel Miguel. He is about 13-14 years old and his mom came to his baptism. After he got baptized she said, ´´well if my son is getting baptized and my daughter is already a member, I think I will get baptized also.´´ She was a golden investigator. She already seemed like a member before she got baptized. It was pretty strange baptizing her in the Stake Center because we are use to doing it in our church. The baptismal font in the Stake Center was really badly designed. It is a room that opens up a curtain in a hallway and on the other side of the hallway opens up another curtain so they are two rooms with the hallway in the middle. So during the program there were people walking by constantly which was pretty annoying, but there was a pretty big show out for her baptism which was exactly what she wanted. It was really special!
It was a great week and loved the sessions of general conference. Hope everyone else is doing great and has a great week!
Love Elder Ivie

March 27, 2017

This past week we had the baptism of Everardo. He is an 84 year old man that we found knocking on doors. He had listened to the missionaries before but stopped because he didn't think it was his time. When we got there, he invited us in and we talked for a bit. We made another appointment and he wasn't there so we practically forgot about him for a month. We then went back and he accepted our message and wanted to be baptized because he took it as a sign that it was now his time! He is a really neat man!
We went and played soccer today on a full sized turf field with about 26 other Elders. It was a lot of fun! It is also pretty funny to see  how mad they get over a simple game hahah. We came back home and washed our clothes and the Sister that we live with gave us some tuna fish dip and then some fried bananas. They were really good. It is pretty weird how they fry bananas here. At the beginning of my mission I hated them but now I know how to make them taste good... you have to put condensed milk and cream on them! She is awesome and always makes food for us. She also has started making German Pancakes more often!
Changes are coming up pretty soon. They are in two weeks. We are not sure if either of us will be having changes, but if one of us do... it would most likely be me cause I already have 4 months here in Neza. I like it a lot though. Everything is going pretty good though. Hope everyone has a great week!
Love Elder Ivie

March 20, 2017

We had a really interesting week! We started off the week in divisions after our district meeting with one of the three assistants. He came to our area and worked with us for the day. At the district meeting we found out one of the Elders went home because he was sick. So we had a new Elder in our Zone. At night we got home from working and my companion was jogging on the treadmill. I then got a call from President. He asked me how long it would take to get to this Elders house and some other stuff and said we had to go there right then. It was 9:30 already. We called an Uber and got there as fast as we could. The new Elder that got to the zone has anger problems and didn't get along with his companion. So we ended up taking him back to our house and my companion stayed at there house with nothing. The next day we went to the stake center and he was able to talk with President and he stayed with us for the whole day and then on Thursday he got moved to another zone. It was a lot of work and we barely could do anything the whole week! We were planning on baptizing Saturday but his brother got sick in Oaxaca and so we had to postpone his baptism until next Saturday. He will definitely get baptized this weekend!
We live with a member and she has an oven so this week we decided to make something with her. We made German Pancakes! They were so good! They don't really make stuff like that here and so when she tried it she liked it a ton! She makes us food a lot and it is soo goood! I think she cooks the best out of any other member in the ward! Everything is going pretty good so far. We are planning on having a couple more baptisms this month and actually are going to have one on General Conference! It will be really neat! Hope everyone is doing good!
Love Elder Ivie

March 13, 2107

This week we had a lot of time walking around in the streets contacting and knocking on doors. It is really tiring but its whats got to be done sometimes haha. We didn't have all that much success. On Sunday we only had 2 investigators come to church. One of them was for the first time and the other is an 84 year old man that is going to get baptized on Saturday. He is really excited about it. He was some guy we ran into knocking on doors. He said that he had been visited before and had gone to the church before. We got him to start going again, and he placed himself a baptism date. It was really neat. Tonight we are having a ward family night in the church. It is going to be really fun! I hope we have a good show out with investigators and members! Not much happened this week but I hope everyone else is doing good!
Love Elder Ivie

March 6, 2017

We had a great week here in the mission! This Saturday we had two baptisms! One was of the man we have been teaching that is in a wheel chair (Adolfo). It was a really interesting story with him haha. His wife doesn't want him to get baptized.... He really wants too and has been reading the Book of Mormon everyday. The day of his baptism we went to pick him up and he had his towel and his underwear all ready. His wife answered the door and said ´´Whats this that you guys are going to do?¨ We said we are going to the church for a baptism. She was then like, My husband has already told me he doesn't want to be baptized. We were like, Ok well can we talk to him? We went in and asked him if he wanted to be baptized and he said no, but as he said no he was smiling and nodding his head yes. His wife was like, So if you don't want to get baptized why do you want to go with them with a towel and stuff? He then replied, I am going swimming!!! HAHAHAH It was the funniest thing ever! We decided that we wouldn't baptize someone if they weren't going to say they were gonna get baptized. So we left and went to the church in a taxi and got ready for the Hermana Martha Alicia. Once we got to the church we decided we needed to go back and get Adolfo. We took a taxi back and got to his house and we saw him outside alone. We asked him if he wanted to get baptized and he said yes because his wife wasn't there. He said it in front of his daughters and they were fine with it so we decided that it was alright.
His baptism was pretty funny. Me and my companion both baptized him. We carried him into the water and I had to hold him myself while my companion said the prayer. After he said he could change himself... After he came out he had his pants shirt and sweater all on backwards hahaha! It was a funny day! I baptized the Hermana Martha Alicia. It went really well. On Sunday we went to take Adolfo to church and right as we walked up he was coming out the front door and his driveway is pretty steep and bumpy and the way he comes out is just rolling down. So right as we walk up we see some old man in a wheel chair come flying out of his door and bouncing into the street hahah! It was the funniest sight ever! Was a good week all in all and hope everyone else had a good week!
Love Elder Ivie

February 27, 2017

Tomorrow are the changes here in the mission! My companion and I will be staying together for another cycle. We get along great so that makes it a lot better haha. This weekend we are planning on having 2 baptisms. Adolfo Santiago Santiago and Martha Lisia Guzman Casillas. It is the guy in the wheel chair that we have been teaching this whole cycle. It was pretty neat this week, we would pass by his street randomly and every time we did he was sitting outside reading out of his Book of Mormon. He is already around 1 Nephi 13! He doesn't understand much but it is awesome that he is putting forth the effort! Martha is slowly stopping her smoking problem. She is awesome and will definitely be able to pull it off. She says she feels guilty anytime she smokes a cigarette now. They will be some really amazing baptisms on Saturday!

This week was really long. We spent like 4 days just walking around in the streets talking to random people and also knocking on doors because all the appointments we had fell. It was pretty frustrating but we were able to find a lot of new investigators. This week will be full of exciting experiences with all these new people we have found. They seem really cool!
We have been living beneath the apartment of a member for the last month now. She is amazing and helps us out so much! Almost everyday when we are studying or getting ready for bed.. you just hear her scream ¨Elders!¨ Then she asks us if we are hungry. She makes us pancakes, quesadilla.... but here they call them Sincronizadas, peaches in cream, fried bananas in cream and a bunch of other stuff! She is amazing. I told her about some of the food we have in the united states and told her about German Pancakes. We bought the stuff to make them and we are going to make them with her this week. Oh this week we ate one of the top nastiest things... LIVER! It was terrible. It looked like steak but then when you cut it, it had all the nerves in it and it definitely didn't taste like steak haha!
I hope everyone had a great week!
Love Elder Ivie

February 20, 2017

We had an awesome week! We did have plans on baptizing on Saturday but we felt that he needed more time. It was an old man that is in a wheel chair and has diabetes. He doesn't understand very much of what is going on but he answered all our questions perfectly. Later I asked him why he wanted to get baptized and he said, ``Well because you guys told me to!`` haha we at that moment were like yeah he is not quite ready. His wife came up to us and started asking us about all this stuff about baptism and who knows what. She told us that her husband was sick and always says yes to everything! We asked him a question and it was true... he said yes haha. She told us that after he gets baptized he is just going to return to the catholic church. So I looked at him and asked him exactly that. He said yes haha! So we have a lot of work with him to see if we can baptize him for the right reasons and not just cause we told him to get baptized haha.
Yesterday we had the opportunity to listen to President Russell M Nelson. He talked in a conference at the temple with the Stake Presidents from our stake center Netzahualcoyotl and another one in Los Reyes. He was amazing! He talked about so many things! He talked about how we should teach our children young and then they wont part away from what they have learned. He talked about prayer and shared a bunch of neat stories. He talked about tithing and how he became a full tithe payer. He talked about the word of wisdom and a bunch of other things. At the very end he gave us all an apostolic blessing and it was really neat to hear him give it. He did it in Spanish as well! He actually has pretty good Spanish.
We had plans on bringing about 8 investigators to the church and the night before we got calls from a couple saying that they would not be able to make it.... Sunday morning we went and passed by for two of them and they both couldn't come either. We were at that moment not expecting very many investigators to come to the church and then to come with us all the way to the temple in a bus. We got to the church and we found a bunch of people that were invited from the members. In all we brought 11 investigators to the temple and they could hear the words of President Nelson! It was an amazing day! I hope everyone else is having a good week!

Love Elder Ivie

February 13, 2017

It hasn't been much time since the last time I wrote hahah. Not much has happened in the last two days. We had another baptism on Saturday. Angel, a 13 year old we were teaching got baptized! It was a great baptism and now we are going to be baptizing his mom in two weeks!
Today we went to center and walked around. We also went and ate at Carls Jr, and it was pretty great! We went and walked through the Cathedral in Zocalo and they had a huge Christ doll in there haha! It was pretty creepy. This weekend we are going to be baptizing an old man we found in the street that is in a wheel chair. He is pretty quiet but he has been progressing pretty well.
On Sunday we are going to be having a special conference at the temple. President Russell M Nielson will be coming and talking to a bunch of stakes and we are one of the stakes that was invited! I am super excited to be able to listen to him!
Well I hope everyone has a great week!
Love Elder Ivie

February 10, 2017

We had a pretty great past week! We were able to get 8 investigators to come to church! Then in the week one of the members we went to eat with told us that it's the most investigators she has seen in the ward. She told us we were working really god in the ward, that made us feel pretty good about our work! Tomorrow we are having a baptism of a 12 year old boy Angel Miguel López Flores. He is a members little brother. His mom isn't a member but when she heard he really was going to get baptized, she said well if my son is going to get baptized, I might as well get baptized and bring my other son and daughter too so the whole family can be a member of the church! haha It was pretty surprising reaction his mom had!
This morning we went to the temple and did a session and then went and ate at Burger king. It was a pretty peaceful p day. We didn't do much. Our zone is doing really well right now. President and his wife are always saying that the numbers are really good here! I hope we can keep it up! Hope everyone is having a great week!
Love Elder Ivie

January 30, 2017

We had a really interesting baptism on Saturday! It was Ariadna Jasibe Bolaños Climaco. She is 21 and an awesome convert! We got to the church around 12:00 and we had to empty some of the water from the last baptism that we had.. by using buckets and dumping the water into the toilet! It took about an hour to get all the water out and we cleaned it up a bit and turned on the water to fill it up. The one thing was that there wasn't power in the church. We had the ward mission leader call the bishop and he would figure it out before the baptism. So we left the church with the water filling up. We went and ate and did a couple things and came back to the church around 4:00. We got there and there was no water in the font. There was about 8-9 inches of water and that was it. We got a call from our ward mission leader and he said the the power in the church has to be on the push the water from the tank in the ground to the tanks on top of the church... So we got a little nervous at this moment. We had a couple other Elders coming from other zones to see the baptism cause it was there investigator. They got there and we decided to start filling it up with buckets. So they took the screen out of one of the windows and had a big garbage can on wheels and started filling it up with buckets of water and rolled it to the font and filled it up. The filled it up in about 30 mins!! They got so much water in the church haha! Ariadna got there and there was no light in the baptismal room and I am not sure how excited she was about the baptism. She said she wanted to get baptized either way. It was really a neat baptism. We started off by singing a hymn and right when they started to sing... the lights came on! It was awesome! We had 7 missionaries there and a bunch of members! It turned out really good and I think she enjoyed it a lot! And of course you have to go out for tacos to celebrate! It was a great week! My companion is from Los Angeles California, Elder Roberts. He is really cool! I hope everyone else has a great week as well!
Love Elder Ivie

January 23, 2017

We had a baptism on Saturday! His name was Eduardo Rodriguez Diaz. His daughter is a member in another area of the mission and came over to our ward for the baptism. It went really well. His wife has a baptism date as well and we are working  on getting her all ready for it. This Saturday we are hoping on having two baptisms, one of a 21 year old girl named Ariadna and another of a lady 28 years old named Teresa.
One day me and my companion were walking down the street contacting and trying to find new investigators. We were knocking on doors and everyone was rejecting us. I then told my companion ¨I am going to contact this house number 143, it is going to accept our message and is going to be a new investigator.¨ I knocked on the door and he opened it up and it was an adult and he listened to our message and then accepted another appointment and we left him a pamphlet to read. It was a pretty neat experience to try our faith and see the works!
We had the mission counsel meeting and they pulled my companion aside and talked to him and then pulled me aside and told me that my compnaion would be having special changes and that another Elder would be coming over to work with me. Today at 4:00 I will be saying goodbye to my companion and he will be getting moved up to the asistant to the President with Elder Alverio and Elder Miller. My companions name is Elder Roberts. He is from California and I got to know him a little bit when I was in my first area. He has one cycle less than me. We are going to be working super hard this week! Hope everyone is having fun in all the snow there in Utah haha!
Love Elder Ivie

January 16, 2017

Thanks everyone for all the Birthday wishes! It was a great birthday. We ended up going to the Hospital for a checkup with my companion. Everything went good and President Stutznegger sent a Uber to pick us up from the Hospital and took us to his house. There we went and he bought us tacos and then after the Sister Stutznegger had made cookies! It was the first time in 1 year and a half that I have had a normal cookie! haha She also made a gigantic one! They sang happy birthday and then we went to bed. It was one of the most comfortable beds I have ever slept in haha!

We had some good news as well while we were at Presidents house. He told us that we would be staying together! He also had to do a interview for us and send the results of the interview to the First Presidency to see if they could be baptized. While we were there he got the email back saying that they could be baptized! It was signed by Thomas S. Monson, and his two counselors! Pretty awesome that the Prophet and his counselors gave our investigator the go for their baptism! We are not sure when we will do it yet but President wants to come! I am really excited to be staying here another cycle! We will see how many people we can help come unto christ this cycle! Love what we do! I hope everyone had a good week!
Love Elder Ivie

January 9, 2017 It's My Birthday!!!

On Friday it is my birthday. My companion has an appointment with the doctor at 6:30 because he got a pacemaker put in. So we are hoping that President will pick us up and take us to his house afterwards! I am sure if we tell him that it is my birthday he will take us somewhere to eat and do something fun! I hope that is what happens!
We are hoping for a couple baptisms really soon. We are not really sure if we are going to have changes or not so I hope we don't because we have about 7 or 8 baptisms getting lined up! We got sent home a couple times this week because things are getting really crazy here in Mexico. The gas prices shot up a ton and all the people are freaking out! On Monday half the Zone went to Teotihuacan and on the way home they got stuck in traffic. They ended up having to leave the bus and then walk to a little town where they were and called President and he decided to go and pick them up. He ended up getting stuck in traffic and couldn't get to them. They had to wait for a member in the other mission to pick them up and they stayed in a members house till Tuesday and President went and picked them up. There were protests and they blocked off the roads and nobody can get through. They lit cars on fire and a bunch of crazy stuff. They started to rob stores like Walmart and stuff like that and everything is really crazy! We haven't seen anything happen around our area too crazy but we have been trying to keep an eye out for anything that looks dangerous. Not much else has happend here. The changes are coming up next week! We will have to see what happens! Love you guys a bunch!
Elder Ivie

January 2, 2017

It was another pretty good week. We were supposed to have a baptism on Saturday. They girl works all week long so on Wednesday we went at 6:00 in the morning to check all the baptismal questions. She passed them all but then in her interview on Saturday she actually ended up confessing something pretty big. We weren't able to have her baptism. She had an interview on Sunday and the President came and did it for us. He has to send a letter to the first presidency to see if she can be baptized or not! President was really shocked on what she had done and so were we! Everything will turn out good though!
On Saturday it was the 31st and we were working normally in a lesson and I got a call from President and he sounded pretty worried and told us to get everyone home right then! He said that some Elders had gotten attacked or jumped or something. So we got everyone home and I found out that it was Elder Alverio (Colton's first companion) and his companion Elder Miller that got attacked contacting some guy in the street. He put Elder Alverio in a head lock and punched him in the nose almost breaking it and then punched Elder Miller in the throat. They went to the hospital but they are fine now! Pretty crazy! We had some investigators that brought us food to our house so we didn't starve without anything to eat! They are going to change a bunch of things here in the mission. The times we study and stuff like that! It will take some time to get use to! Today I went with a guy from my last ward to get my scriptures sent in and to get worked on. (He is getting them bound and covered.) I will get them back on Saturday I hope. They are going to be really nice!! Thanks for sending them to me!
Come Pick me up so you can then meet some of Nicks converts! I think it would be awesome! Well not much else has happended. What has happend this week? Love you a ton!
Love Elder Ivie

December 26, 2016

I haven't written for a couple weeks so I figured I needed to write to everyone again. We have been having a lot of success in our new area. I got moved to a City called Nezahualcoyotl. It is huge with about 7 million people living in it. I got moved here with another Elder, Elder Arroyo. We both got here at the same time so we are opening up the area. The only difference is that we are opening it up as Zone Leaders. He has been a Zone Leader for about 5 months, but he has never opened up an area as one. It is actually pretty easy here because it is a really small area. It is a area of 7 streets by 22 streets. Every street has about 400 houses in it. We can get around everywhere pretty quick and without having to use transportation.

The other Elders that where here left us with a lot of work. They had about 4 or 5 baptism dates all set up and we put another 3 with people we found. We were able to baptize a girl last Saturday and this Saturday we are planning on baptizing another! It is pretty interesting being Zone Leader. I have to report with all the Elders in my zone every night and then Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday we report with the Asisstants.

We had a ward Christmas party last Monday. We got there a little bit late cause we had a little activity after the District Meeting. One of the Elders brought a bag of Habanero Peppers. They are some of the spiciest peppers that they have here in Mexico. The good thing about these peppers is that it isn't bad for your stomach. Everyone had to eat one and they started from the top of the leadership pole. First went one of the Assistants, then me and so on. I bit half of it and then it started getting really spicy until if gave me hiccups! I thought that one of the hiccups was going to make me throw up so I ran to the bathroom! It was a pretty crazy activity haha. The Christmas party was pretty fun as well. We missed the devotional at the beginning but we made it in time for the party and all. We had to leave early but they said it went until 2 in the morning! Pretty crazy!

Not much has happend here but I hope everyone had a great christmas!
 Love Elder Ivie

December 20, 2016

December 13, 2016

We had an awesome week! I am now in Nezahuacoyotl or just called Neza. It is a huge city but has a lot of areas in it. My area is called Benito Juarez. It is an area of 7 streets by 22 streets. Pretty small and we can get around it all by walking. My companion is Elder Arroyo from Aguas Calientes, Mexico. He is awesome he is 23 and his birthday is on the 26 of December. We are going to be passing both our birthdays together! We are opening up the area that we are in right now. We don't know anyone at all. We worked super hard and found 13 new investigators and we have 7 investigators with a baptism date right now! In the whole zone, we have half of the baptism dates! On this Saturday we are going to be having one for a girl names Maria Fernanda Nito Farfán. She is 18 and wants the other Elders that were teaching her to come back and be at her baptism.

We had the Christmas activity on Friday. We had a devotional and sang a couple hymns and then afterwards we changed and did a game of white elephant. I brought a gift of Baby diapers, silly string, and a toilet bowl cleaner! It was pretty funny! I won a bottle full of money! We then went and ate and watched the arm wrestling competition. Elder Alverio almost won the guy that beat him last year. After that they turned on the movie The Jungle Book, so I went and watched that with Elder Palacios. It was a really fun party!

Oh yeah I got my name tags made out of Obsidian. I put some pictures on the google drive. It is pretty fun so far being the zone leader. We have to report with the assistants on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. It isn't that much and we don't have to plan for lessons to teach the districts every Monday. We just share something if we want to.

I hope you guys had a great week! Love you!

Elder Ivie