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