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

December 5, 2016

We are doing the 25 day challenge. We share the video with all our investigators! I am going to be having changes tomorrow morning! I am going to be Zone Leader as well! Pretty crazy! Next up is assistant! I went and ate with the family that Nick baptized this week! It was really neat! Not much else happened! Love you guys! I will probably start working at Rockys again and go to school in the afternoon or night, at UVU. Not sure yet.
 Love you guys!