August 1, 2016

This week we had an activity on Saturday and it was based on the Iron Rod. We invited everyone that was in our area and all the members. We didn't want this activity to end up like the last one where nobody came. What we did is we started out with a relay race. There were three groups and they started out having to do 20 pushups, then they had to eat 3 giant marshmallows and say conejitos esponjaditos. After that they had to eat a doughnut off of a string. Then they had to run over to a chair and pop a balloon that was taped to the chair. This was all just to determine what team would start out on the Iron Rod.... or the string that was tied all the way around and throughout the church. The people were then blindfolded and we chose one person from each group to be the voice of the spirit. Humberto was the voice for the first group and then his dad was the voice for the second. They started out in the soccer field and walked around the back of the church where we had tires in the way that they had to walk through. They then entered into the church and walked through a disco room. They had music blasting and the young women were in charge of persuading them to take off the blindfold. They then left the church again and then entered into another room that was filled with balloons and chairs thrown around and people screaming. Then the last room was like hell pretty much. We had heaters in the room and incense. It smelled really strong and when they entered they freaked out cause it was hot. After that they entered into the sacrament and it was the end. It was a great success. Before we started the activity they had a baptism and all the people that came out of the baptism wanted to participate in the activity. It was pretty neat.
The relay race we used to explain the Gospel. The pushups were like our faith. Some of us have strong faith and others not so much haha. The marshmellows were really big and hard to get into your mouth and we related it to repentance because it never was easy. Then baptism was the doughnuts because you have to go step by step to partake of a baptism. Then the balloon was the Holy Ghost. It is very easy to break the balloon only if you were able to do all the other activities first and correctly. It was a pretty great success in all! It was really fun also!
On Sunday we had a pretty funny experience. We were walking to the food and we were at the corner of the street waiting to cross when some drugged up guy walked up and was like "Hey guys what are we teaching now?"  He then walked up to me and looked at me and was like "Hey what are you looking at?"  I was just like nothing and turned around. He kept talking to me and he had a rag in his hand that he kept putting up to his mouth. While he was talking to me a member came walking around the corner and saw the guy talking to me and came up really fast and was like hey whats your problem! The guys went running! It was hilarious! The member was a guy pretty big with beard and all and looks pretty scary! It was a strange experience.
We had a lot of strange lessons in the week. We went with a pastor of another church and then we went with another family and asked if we could share a message and they said that they had some christian missionaries in their house at the moment but we could enter if we wanted. We were like sure! They were so rude! They started talking about why we dont have missionaries in china. They said it is because of the meaing of the word Mormon. We were like it is the name of a prophet! They were like no... it means The road to hell. we laughed so hard!! haha We then told them that we have a temple in china and my companion jokingly said, I guess china accepted the road to hell hahahaha! It was a pretty exciting week and tomorrow morning I will be in a new area. I heard I will be moved to Los Reyes but I am not sure exactly! Hope everyone else is doing well!
Love Elder Ivie

July 25, 2016 "Out of This World"

We had a pretty strange week here in the mission! On Thursday night we got a call from the Assistants and told my companion that he would be having Special Changes the next morning and he was devastated! We didn't have time at all to visit all the families that we were teaching or anything. He loved working up in our area. On Friday we had planned to have two baptisms and so we were able to talk to the President and he gave my companion permission to come back to my area for the baptisms that we had on Friday! I am now with two other Elders, in a trio! Elder Rodríguez and Elder Figueroa. Rodríguez is from Chiuahua and Figueroa is from Guadalajara.

The baptisms on Friday were incredible!

Humberto was able to baptize his own mom and his sister! First was his mom and when he tried to dunk her under the water she freaked out! So we had his sister go first and it went perfect. Next his mom went and this time it went perfect and when she came out of the water she gave her son the biggest hug and they both were they crying and hugging each other! It was one of the neatest moments in the mission so far! The feeling we all had was something out of this world!

On Saturday we went to the Temple... the day after the baptism of Sandra and Wendolyne. We went there in a van with the Ward and my companion Elder Figueroa sat up front with the driver and when we got there we invited him to come in with us and he had a blast! What we did there is we watched the movie of meet the mormons! It was a great trip!

It is pretty weird to work with three people now. I am so use to working with just two people but it is pretty neat also. I will be having changes on the 2nd of August. I wont know where I am going until we go to the changes.
I hope everyone else had a great week!

Love Elder Ivie

Ripley`s Believe It Or Not - July 18, 2016

This last week we were planning on having a baptism but we decided that it would be better to have it on Friday this week. The Sister Sandra and her daughter Wendoly will be getting baptized by their son Humberto who we baptized the last week! It will be really special. Then the next day on Saturday we will be going to the temple and Humberto will be entering to do baptisms for the dead! He is super excited and has been helping us this week with some of the lessons that we have had! He is wanting to leave on the mission when he finishes his schooling. He is amazing!
Pretty funny story, one day we were walking to a appointment that we had and a drunk guy stopped us in the street and started talking to us forever. I kept telling him that we had to leave but he wouldn't listen to us. My companion didn't know what to do. While the guy was talking to my companion I pulled out our phone and put an alarm for the next two minutes and so when it started going off I was like, ``Hey sorry but the lesson we have right now is calling us and we have to go!`` He barely let us leave and we were late to our appointment.

Today my companion, Humberto and I went to the Ripleys Belive it or not, and the wax museum! It was a pretty great experience. We walked through and looked at all the weird items that they have and all the random things people have done. The wax museum was a bunch of sculptures of famous people... out of wax. It was pretty neat. They had Obama, Batman, Elvis, Hannibal Lector, and a ton more! It was a great day! We then ran to the mall and ate at Subway and then went all the way back to our area. It was a long day!

This Sunday we had a lot of success with getting our investigators to the church! We had 9 investigators show up! 5 of the 9 were there for the first time and they really liked it. We are hoping that more than half of them will be able to get baptized in the upcoming month! Hope everyone else had a great week!
Love Elder Ivie

July 11, 2016

Humberto

We had another baptism this week! On Saturday Humberto got baptized and he asked me to do the baptism. It was a awesome experience. He brought his grandma that had no knowledge of our church and she liked it a bunch. When we did the baptism I think Humberto was pretty nervous but we

entered the water and he started to feel better. I then said the prayer and dunked him under the water and when he came up I asked him how he felt and all he said was ``WOAH!!`` It was a really neat experience for him and for his family. He then bore his testimony after and he said he couldn't quite put his feelings into words but he has a really strong testimony! We are now hoping that we will have another baptism on Sunday and he will be baptizing his own mother!

This morning we went and played soccer at the church with a bunch of other missionaries and Humberto came as well! It was a lot of fun and I was able to make 6 goals! We then went and walked around at the mall and came back home to get ready for the meeting we have at 5:30. This week we

tried patitas de pollo (Chicken feet). They are really weird but aren't all that bad. You just gotta put a lot of salsa on them haha. Well not much happend in the week but we are hoping for quite a few baptisms in the upcoming weeks and so I will keep you all updated! Hope you all have a great week!
Elder Ivie

July 4, 2016

No Letter from Elder Ivie but some pictures from Facebook.

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