June 28,2016

We had a pretty stressful week! On Saturday we had two baptisms, Marlen and Iris her daughter. We didn't announce her baptism in sacrament because we had to wait to have an interview so when the baptism came up nobody showed up! We had the water all ready and everything but nobody to help us. We had to run around trying to find people to help us with the baptisms or at least to be one of the witnesses. When our investigators showed up they brought one of their friends. It was a little girl that is like 13 years old. She is a really loud obnoxious girl and the members that were at the baptism kept yelling at her to be quiet and all this stuff and it was so stressful!! At the end of it all, things worked out and we were then able to confirm them members of the church on Sunday.

On Friday we went to the temple with some investigators that we have. The mom Sandra and her three kids, Humberto, Wendoli and Sandibel. We had an amazing time in the temple. They participated so much and learned a ton! They now have a goal of entering in the temple and being sealed as a family! We are going to be baptizing Humberto on the 9th of July and then he will be baptizing his family on the 30th of July! We had a lesson with them yesterday and they told us how much they appreciate everything we have done for them and how much we have changed their lives. They told us how they don't have many friends and that we are now part of their family! They are an amazing little bunch! Cant wait for the 9th to come up and then the 30th!
We just barely got out of a session in the temple and it was amazing! Now we are just getting ready to head back to our area! Hope everyone is having a great summer!
Love Elder Ivie

June 20, 2016

We had a pretty crazy week! It was a pretty successful week and all but also really stressful! We were walking down the street one day and a guy in a store yelled to us so we went up to him. It was a guy I had already met and he wanted to know more about the church. We sat down in his store and we started teaching the Restoration to him. When we told him that the authority of God was lost and nobody had it, he asked if he could share a couple scriptures with us. We were like sure. He showed us a bunch of scriptures and he interpreted them completely differently than we would have. We finished off the lesson and he told us that he was a Pastor at a Christian Evangelical Church or something like that. He then began to tell us that we lack a lot of knowledge from the bible and a bunch of other stuff. He did it in a nice way and all but it kind of bugged my companion.
I think it was later that same day we went with a family that we are teaching right now that has two little kids. One of them is 8 and the other is 6. We always mess around with the 6 year old before we start teaching them. We hadn't started the lesson yet but we were asking them questions to see if they were ready to be baptized. I was asking the 8 year old daughter some of the baptism questions to see if she wanted to be baptized that Saturday but while I was asking the questions the 6 year old came up beside me and gave me a slap in the face as hard as he could!! His mom and sister started to laugh super hard and they all ran outside. I was soooo mad in that moment. They came back into the room and I stood up with my companion and told the family about the activity that we were having on Saturday and that they were invited and we walked out. I was so mad that I didn't even want to be in there any longer. What made me mad is that the mom doesn't punish her kids. I later realized that I should have handled that situation a lot better than I did. It was a experience that will help me to be patient with people.
I can now say that in the mission I have been sworn at, spit upon, had rocks thrown at me, slapped across the face, doors slammed in my face and the list goes on! All of this has helped me be a lot more patient with people. It makes it a lot easier knowing what my purpose is and that the people that actually listen to us will be blessed.
On Saturday we had a missionary activity that we had been planning for 2 or 3 weeks with the help of our ward mission leader. We had planned on starting at 5:00 and when 5:00 came around nobody was there. Our ward mission leader hadn't even showed up yet. We waited a couple more minutes and a couple people showed up but it ended up that they came for a baptism that the other missionaries had. We waited until 8:00 and there were a couple people that came. There weren't even fathers there and the activity was for father's day. We started anyway. After we started a couple people came in after and we had like 3 fathers there. We also did the activity so that we could find more investigators to teach. We didn't even have one investigator show up. It was a pretty hard night. When it was all over we left and ate some tacos haha! We ran to the house of our District Leader to get a dvd that we needed and it was in their room. The door to their room got blown shut and the lock was on. They didn't have a key so they ended up having to put a shoulder through it! Luckily it just bent the metal piece that locks it in place. It was a pretty interesting day haha!
On Sunday we went to the ward council meeting and it was pretty heated with the other missionaries because they were mad that nobody came to the activity and all. But on the bright side we had Humberto come to church with his mom and two sisters. Humberto is going to be baptized on the 9th and then we are going to try and get him the priesthood so that when his family has 5 Sundays he will be able to baptize them! It would be a really neat experience for him. We also had Marlen and Iris come to church and we hope to be baptizing them this weekend! All in all we had a pretty good week!
Hope everyone else's was great as well!
Love Elder Ivie

June 13, 2016

We are getting really close to having a couple baptisms here in Ixtapaluca. This Sunday we had 4 investigators come to church and we were able to put a couple baptism dates with them. We put one with Humberto, he is the one that came to church with his uncle. When we took him into the other room to ask him about baptism he was really surpised and super excited that we wanted to baptize him. He accepted the date and we will be baptzing him on the 9th of July.

This week we went to a part of our area that we have never been to. It is way out on another mountain. There we found a little village and to get to the village you have to climb down a ditch about a 100 feet and then climb back up the other side. It was a pretty neat adventure. We didn't have enough time to teach anyone there because we had to go to the food.

The last week I bought a blue suit and this Sunday I was able to use it. The son of our ward mission leader said when he is older he wants a suit and shoes like Elder Ivie. I had a lot of people compliment me and we took a bunch of pictures! It was a fun Sunday.
I hope everyone else had a great week and will have a great upcoming week!
Love Elder Ivie

June 7, 2016

We didn't have much time yesterday to write so we jumped on the computers real quick to write home. We had a really interesting week! Everyday this month so far it has rained! One day we went to look for some old investigators of the missionaries before us. When found the house but they didn't live there anymore. I decided to walk more down the same street until we reached the house of a contact we did a couple months back. It was the last house on the street. As we were walking I was just focused on getting to that house but then all of the sudden I turned and walked right up to the first house I saw. It was a green house with a wooden door. I have no idea why I turned, it was almost as if someone pushed me that way. I asked my companion if he would like to contact it. He was like sure. We knocked on the door and a teenager answered. He saw us and was really surprised! My companion explained that we were missionaries and all and then the kid let us into his house. Once we entered his house his dad and his mom came out all surprised like they had seen us before. They ended up being members that left the church like 10 years ago. We were the first missionaries to find them in 10 years! We also found out that their sons wife is not a member so we are going to try and teach her. They also came to church this week and the father bore his testimony and it was pretty amazing.
Today we went to the center of the city and went and looked at all the cool things they had. They had a museum of clothing there which was pretty neat. We also found a cool place that sells churros! They were huge and super good! We went and ate at a burger king and then went and walked through all the shops to look at clothes and what not. It was a fun day.
We are getting really close to having two baptisms. We are just waiting a couple weeks till they are ready. We were able to have 5 investigators in the church this Sunday and we had a member bring his nephew and we are going to go visit him tonight. Overall we had a good week. Hope everyone else is having a great summer!
Love Elder Ivie

May 30, 2016

We had another really great week in the mission, had some members in our area pass by for some investigators that we have and bring them to church. We had plans for others to do the same but our investigators were sick. We are hoping that for the upcoming week they are feeling better and are able to come. The investigators that came this week are now one Sunday away from their baptism!

They had been having a little bit of trouble during the week because they heard a lot of people in the streets saying that the Mormons worship God in a bad way and a bunch of other stuff. We asked her how she felt at Church and if she thought we were worshiping God in a strange or bad manner. She said she liked it a lot and we were able to help her and her daughter regain the desire to be baptized.
During the week we also passed by for our convert Lucia that has never returned to church. We were able to teach her and then after we went with her and her daughter. She has been taught a little bit by the missionaries but not much. She shared with us a couple experiences that she has had with prayer and at the end of the lessons we asked her to say it. When she finished she bursted into tears and didn't know why. I explained to her that it was the spirit. She then told us that she would come to church because she wanted to feel like this again. It was a good week in all.
I hope everyone else had a good week as well!
Love Elder Ivie

May 23, 2016

This week we were able to have interviews with President Stutznegger. We had a really neat interview. He shared with me a random scripture that he pointed to in Preach My Gospel and it was D&C 67:10. He explained to me exactly what he interpreted it to mean and said it was talking to me. It has a really neat promise in there if you guys want to read it to find out what it is.
On Sunday we were able to help one of our investigators come to church for the first time. I think that she really liked it. We are hoping for the next week she will be able to come wit the rest of her family. we also had a couple other less actives that made it.
During the week we went and passed by for a member that was feeling sick the other Sunday. We got there and she had forgot that we were going to pass by. We shared a talk that my dad sent me about the logan temple and how the saints did everything they could to make it to church. Afterwards she shared with us that she has been struggling with coffee. She says she has talked to the bishop and he said if she can be clean from coffee for one month she can get it back. She has been clean for a month but she told us that 30 minutes before we knocked (yelled) outside her house, she had the urge to make herself a cup of coffee. If we didnt pass by, she would have lost all that she had been working for. It was a really neat lesson. Afterwards it started to rain and we had to wait for it to stop because it was super strong. The roads were like rivers of mud.
Another day we ran into a drink guy that we had contacted before. He dragged us into his house and as showing us what he was making with all his chicken intestines. He was pulling all the junk out of them to make tacos. We then went to his house and we just shared a scripture and he was acting really strange. We shared james 1:5 then I asked him how he felt and he just stared at the floor for a long time. He then got up really quick went to the other end of the room and grabbed something really quick and came walking back really quick. We thought he was going to have a knife or something but it was a photo album. He shared a couple photos with us and then we left. It was a strange lesson. Overall we had a great week! Hope everyone else did too!
Love Elder Ivie

May 16, 2016 New Companion

First week as a dad! It was a pretty interesting week. The very first day we ended up doing divisions with the zone leaders so I wasn't even with my companion. We were able to find so many new investigators but not many are actually going to progress. We had 17 new investigators. Normally we have about 3 or 4! Our district leader was really happy to hear our numbers this week!
Sorry I wasn´t able to write last week I didn't have time to write a long letter. My companion is from Tamauiplas and his name is Elder Tristan. He is a pretty tall Elder and also pretty quiet. For those of you who know me really well know that I am a pretty quiet person. He is helping me out a lot because now I have to talk more cause he doesn't haha. Now the other Elders in our district say I talk to much haha! This Sunday we were able to get three investigators to come to church. The day before we went and visited them and we asked her how she was doing with the word of wisdom. She said she drinks like three cups of coffee a day. She told us we could take her coffee away when we left kind of jokingly... but when we left I saw the bag on the table, so I took it with us and dumped it in the bushes in the street haha! The next day she told her daughter to make her a cup of coffee and she couldn't find it and remembered we took it haha. Hopefully it will help her out a bit.
Today we went to a really nice 4 story mall in Oriental. We ate some Chinese food and looked at all the clothes they had that we couldn't even buy cause we are poor haha! It was a pretty fun P-Day. We

also had a family night with our convert Lucia. She hasn't come to church ever since her baptism. We told her to invite all her kids that were all grown up. They all actually came and we had a great time. We played a couple games and had a bunch of sandwiches! We also were able to receive 4 references and it was 4 new investigators. I think they liked it a lot too! Hopefully we can go and visit them now and teach them better. Overall it was a great week! Hope everyone else had a great one too!
Love Elder Ivie