FELIZ AÑO CAMBIOS! (66th email)

FELIZ AÑO NUEVO FAMILIA!

                What a jolly, happy, mixed emotions week it was. You guys are hilarious, you want to know what the member said about you guys! He said that you guys are like a japanese family because they take a billion potos!! Hahaha but I loved it, it was awesome and I am looking forward to seeing a few today! J I gotta admit, I was a lot crazier this time, I hardly cried but that doesnt mean I dont miss you guys! I think I´m just got used to the misión. I was just so so so excited to see all you guys. Also I would like to thank you for the prayer Dad, it touched my heart and very different because it was in english. It caught me off guard I gotta admit! But yeah and I would like to thank you for talking about yourselves a lot this time. It was sooo good to find out what was going on back at home, and to hear from everybody! J Thanks for comin´down Anne, Ive missed seeing you this whole time, I am super glad you are lovin´life and you are still in Moab, oh yeah and I´m still your lumiere! Love you Big Anne!

                Momma! I got the other package with my card, jelly bellies, puzzle and all the amazingly delicious ´Merica stuff!! The only thing that stinks about it is resisting day by day not to eat all of it! J So thanks Momma, oh yeah I got the Christmas Card too soo awesome but why do you have to be soo big Alexis? Good night!

                Alrighty the big BIG news here it is I guess, quite the big changes here and they are……….drum roll please………we are BOTH outta here! Yep they kicked us both out, its called a whitewash here in the misión. Bye E´ Petersen….anyways he´s off to a place called Centenario in the zone Melo. And Im off to BELLA ITALIA in the zone Maroñas!!!!!! As Senior Comp. for reals this time, ahhhhh kind of pumped kind of nervous as usual but it should be a fun time. Im with E´Olsen, a youngin in the misión Ive heard. Ive also heard that he is really awesome and funny so lets hope so! I will have to tell you more details next week, but should be a party! Im gonna miss E' Petersen I know I say this about every comp I have but I really am gonna miss him! I just have too good of comps. each one teaches me something different! I think E' Petersen really taught me how to be humble to the Lords will. Nothing is a coincidence, it all happens because it is Gods will. What we have to do is try our best, just like you always say Dad! Also he taught me to apply the scriptures a lot more to the mission! The scriptures arent just a story but principles to be LEARNED! We had really great comp. studies because he shared not only what he learned in his study but how he was going to apply it into the mission! :) I love that kid, Im gonna miss em' but we live close no worries there we might go play a round or two of golf someday! 

It seems like it always happens when you are about to leave you get the work picking up a bit! I dont know if I told you guys about Santiago but he is a friend of some recent converts. He is only 11, just like you Alexis but he really is special! He has a hard time paying attention and we´ve had to teach him really slow this week! But he looks very probable to get baptized in this next month! He has a baptismal date for the 17th of Jan. and wants to get baptized!! I just hope the other missionaries keep in contact with him, and help him get to the gate to baptism. Im sure they will, its been awesome getting to know that kid I hope the best for him! Other than that, we found a few more people for the other guys to teach now luckily! 

Thats all folks I hope you enjoy the pics!! Christmas was really fun this year! :) Next time I talk to ya guys I'll be in Maroñas woot!! I LOVE YOU ALL TOO MUCH!! :) Have a good chilly news years eve!  CHAU!

The Bishop cooking a pig in Montevideo--December 2014

2nd Christmas package in Montevideo 2014

Christmas morning 2014

Talking with the family back in Utah!!  Yay!!!!

les amo, Elder Tyler Ivie

Christmas 2014 Conference

For Unto Us a Child is Born! (65th email)

Merry Christmas to all and to all good night! Hohohoho

                Oh the weather outside is frightful but talking to you guys is soooo delightful so since we have 2 times this week to talk! Let us skype, let us skype, let us skype!! J Woot it’s the big week! Oh yeah and next week is changes week again, good gravy! So yes I will probably be talking to you guys on Tuesday next week but I cant promise you that quite yet because we might take out the oros again. We´ll have to see, stay tuned! Anyways back to skype info. SO yes we will be Skype video calling on the 25^th of December, I will be speaking first and I will be calling you guys at 6:00pm our time, 1:00pm your time, right? I hope that’s a good enough time for you guys. I got 40 minutes to talk!  J Really looking forward to it, and it should be pretty good internet so we shouldn’t have any problems! Woot!

                It was quite the Christmasy week if I do say so myself. Random thing we did was, we had to shower last pday because we didn’t have water. SO we were invited over to the mission home by President and Hermana Cook to shower in their house! Haha kinda weird but amazingly nice! I haven’t showered in something like that in forever in fact ever! But don’t worry we have water, it got turned on that night. Kinda a random-interesting experience that I had in the mission this week, but yeah it was worth it, the Cooks are just too nice to us! J 

                As you guys already know Wednesday was the Christmas Conference with the whole mission and it was of course a jolly ol´time.  E´Petersen was in the choir, they sung 4 songs all together, there was 2 solos. One of them was by an Hermana that was amazing, mainly because she song one of my favorite Christmas songs ¨Breath of Heaven¨ by Amy Grant! It’s a classic, and she sung it real good! The music is always a highlight of the whole thing. But Pte. and Hna. Cook addressed us as well. Hna. Cook has this quote that I really love she says ¨Put the Lord first, others second, and yourself last.¨Its been quite a special experience to look back at this past year and see how I could have done it without my Savior on my side! I definitely need this time in my mission to reflect on the ultimate gift the our Heavenly Father has given to me personally! And yes, I've seen the ¨He is the Gift¨video by the church, thing is I've never seen it in English haha its called Ël es la Dadiva¨in Spanish! We´ve been going around to everybody we visit and presenting this video, it has been moments never to be forgotten. I get the chills every time I see it! As I said last year it is quite the honor and privilege to represent Christ himself in this time of season! J So yeah anyways back to the Conference we finished with the program, we got a gift full of goodies, caramel corn, and random fun things from the Cooks for Christmas! Then we ate!!! Pizza, salad, too much Watermelon, ice cream good stuff like that it was very satisfying! It was the best and my last Christmas Conference in the mission……

                A scripture that has really helped me keep my thoughts on the Savior this Christmas season was 2 Nephi 25:29 
29 And now behold, I say unto you that the right way is to believe in Christ, and deny him not; and Christ is the Holy One of Israel; wherefore ye must bow down before him, and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul; and if ye do this ye shall in nowise be cast out.

Love the part where it says that we should bow before him and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength just like it says in D&C 4!! I kind of applied that way because Im in the mission in this christmas season I am remembering this scripture SO I will never forget who my Savior is, NEVER! :) I just wanted to share that quick little thought! Umm I wanted to ask for a picture of the christmas tree!! Its a tradish!! I gotta see it! Dont worry about it, what are you guys doing for the holidays?? You guys going to I-HOP?? I hope so!! Sooo delicious, and a never dying tradition! :) Well anyways that basically all I got for the day, I will see you guys in 3 days anyways, umm I stink at thinking of questions before hand so maybe it will just be a spontaneous random question time, BUT I want to hear more of your guys life please!! Well thats its folks thanks so much for the package so I can spend Christmas opening presents by the tree, what a necessity it is! I am sooo excited for this week AHHH I love you all forever and always see ya soon!

Les amo, Elder Tyler Scott Ivie

THE COOKS Christmas Tree oh yeah the guapos! 

President & Sister Cook's Christmas Tree--Montevideo 2014

HOLY BIRTHDAY WISHES! (64th email)

HELLO FAM!

Bueno. I don't have a lot of time to write today but I will make the most of it. It was a week a lot like last week I gotta admit. Very good learning, hard from experience kind of week. But me and my comp. have discussed it out a lot this week! And we are working real hard, its just been a little hard to find success! The Lord has been blessing us with lots of people to talk to, but its been hard to get a 2nd visit with them. Im sure you know how that is Dad! Yeah so we are in that right now! No new investigators really came this week, we had a friend of a recent convert come but we havent had a charla with him yet we will have to see if he's willing to talk to us! ;) 

Its been a busy week though, we've gone to Malvin a couple times to help other Elders out, in fact the Elders in Carraso. The people there are amazing people but I little hard to contact! Haha the people we contacted in the street werent from there, they just worked there and were going home! So maybe we helped some other zones out, you never know! But yeah we had a choir practice on Wednesday, and no mom I am not in the choir. I LOVE to sing, but I cant really sing especially with big competition here in this mission and no I am not just wimping out either! Ha but its gonna be amazing!! Cant wait!! Speaking of Christmas I will be seeing you guys soon!! THATS RIGHT!! Just kidding I remembered we just havent worked it out with anyone. We are gonna talk with some members this week. So I will let you know all the details this week but it should be on Christmas Day VIDEO CALLING WAM BAM!! :)

And yes..........ITS WAS MY BDAY! Thanks for all the bday wishes today! Thats why I dont have a lot of time today because ive been looking at all the amazing bday posts, and pics! I LOVE THEM SOO MUCH! Thanks yall I had a great day yesterday here in Uruguay! It was quite the strange one if I do say so myself. It always is a strange day on your bday in the mission! 1st off I didnt get to shower because our water was turned off, so we had to go to another area like 20min. away during lunch just to get showered!! Yes dont tell anyone but I went to church without showering in the morning!!! NAPPY! But anyways then the rest of the day went fine, I was wished happy birthday from a lot of the people especially the youth! Estefany invited us over to her house and we ate a little food and we had this little jelly cake thing, then she gave me a present! She is the best, I know right?! I got that Santa Hat, thats in the pics! I had some other members get me that little christmas tree, and Estefany also got me the tinsel for the tree!! It really is beginning to look a lot like christmas!! :) Ahhh its so the best time of the year! Alright thats it I gots to go but thanks for the amazing pics, and 9 months left photos AHH! LOVE YOU ALL hope you have a good week and see you soon! FELIZ NAVIDAD!

LES AMO, Elder Tyler Scott Ivie

Birthday cake in Montevideo 2014.  Santa hat gift from Estefany!

Birthday cards!!

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  Montevideo 2014

Christmas tree given to us by a member!

Love this face!  Palm trees in Montevideo!

On the First Week of Christmas... (63rd email)

Opa! Hey Fam!

                Another great week in the Uruguay Montevideo Mission! Every week is a great week because I'm in the misión but we did run into some difficulties this week.

                Wednesday was an awesome day though, we had interviews with President Cook again! I love that man, as I say so many times but really Chris (Elder Johnson) has an amazing grandpa! J Umm anyways he helped me a lot, he always is looking out for me and is always willing to help me with my problems! His wife couldn’t come because she has been really busy lately and shes been working too hard! So Pres. told her to stay home, hmm kind of sounds like a familiar situation at home eh?! Anyways yeah so it was great but the sad thing is I might not be with E´ Petersen next change in about a month! :(  Sad days…

                Anyways then we had some classes about faith and the BofM given by the assistants. We had lunch, and perks about being in Montevideo we got Subways footlongs!!! I know I know it doesn’t sound like much but here in Uruguay Subways isn’t as common, especially for a Zone lunch!! Hmm it was super eat fresh! Ñ= Then we stayed because somehow my comp. sneaked into the Christmas Choir. Because on December 17^th the mission is doing a huge Christmas Conference-Program kind of what they did last year. And the Christmas Choir here is a big deal! They gotta do quite a few practices before the program, its like the step down from being in MoTab its sooo legit! Haha but yeah its gonna sound amazing, cant wait! J I love the Christmas Season! And yeah I know you are gonna ask it but, I have no idea what I am gonna do for my birthday!? Ive been thinking about it all week, but I cant come to a conclusion!! I´ll make something up like I usually do here in the mission. Its super weird to have birthdays and holidays in the mission because we have such high expectations but nothing SUPER eventful happens. Anyways its alright I guess you guys will hear all about it next week! Oh yeah by the way quick question. I GOT A PACKAGE!!! JJJJJ And I think it’s the Christmas package but, I cant tell is it the package with all the shirts, candy, and ties? I haven’t opened it yet, thats just what it says on the outside. THANKS FAM you da bomb!! This is really testing my patience though.

                What else happened this week? Oh yeah we had a Zone Meeting on Friday where they talked about the ¨He is the Gift¨video that the church just recently put out! I know I know it’s a huge deal for me because I haven’t even seen it yet! Im sure you guys have probably seen it like 500 times already but it looks soo sick from what the Ensign says! I am really excited for it, because the First Presidency has asked us to share it with everybody so we focus our hearts more on the greatest gift that has ever been given! J

                Sunday it rained again but in the afternoon thankfully! However it didn’t turn out the way we wanted! Its been a hard few weeks trying to find people to teach that really want to progress and are basically truly interested! Thankfully the Lord helped us find quite a lot of people to talk to. I think he is just giving us as much as we can handle, little by little to teach us a lesson on being diligently humble so that we can show Him our true desires to do His will! That’s what im thinking…we´ll see what happens this week. But hey the Lord did bless us with quite a few less actives and recent converts in church as well! Just little tender blessings the Lord is giving us day by day is keeping us going! J

Thanks Momma for sending that card off so quick!! If it doesnt  get here on time dont worry about it, I will just have a late bday lunch!! But yeah by the way my comp. and I are soooooo pumped for that!! He wants to be fed bad haha! :) thanks for all the early bday wishes, next pday will basically be my bday as well! All is good here! :) Hope ya'll have a great week, is there lots of snow yet?!?!?!? Oh White Christmas's are missed here, people just dont know what they are missing! Anyways I LOVE YOU FAM TOO MUCH! Thanks for the love!

Les amo, Elder Tyler Ivie

Oh the weather outside is frightful... (62nd email)

Hey-Oh Family!

                Hello from insane bipolar Uruguay! The weather has been insane lately. For example Sat. night I was sweating to death of the humidity. Then Sunday it rained ALL DAY! But hey I'm alright, you would think I would be accustomed to all of this change in weather stuff! Oh well…its been a pretty normal week sorry don’t have to much to tell again. Oh my gosh just got all your letters, like really right now! I just had an Elder throw all your letters at me, LOVE YOU GUYS! What a early Christmas Surprise! Thanks guys, but really thank you sooo much!

                Anyways this week was a sad week. As I said we´ve been in a trio with E´ Garcia and he headed out 2:00am Thursday Morning! He spent like a week with us, helping us out teaching us his wise missionary techniques. He taught us to pass by the members houses a lot more, they really trusted him a lot. That’s what E´ Petersen and I have been working out. Work through the members, that’s what we should have been doing in the 1^st place. We are still in the hunt but we seen some great success in the recent converts! We didn’t have many come to church because it was raining a bunch and everything shuts down in this country when it rains. We are getting better with the weekly contact with just about the majority of our 25 Recent Converts! J Anyways yeah E´ Garcia taught us some great things, that have really changed my mission. I know that E´Garcia was sent here to be with us for a specific reason. To help both E´ Petersen and I as a companionship!

                Tuesday we had a thing called Choque de Fuerza where all the missionaries in one zone go to 1 specific area and work, teach, and find new people for those missionaries to pass by. We did it again in Montevideo (Malvin) and I got to admit it was one of the toughest ones Ive ever done on my mission. NO ONE wanted to talk to us I mean NO ONE! We were just walking the streets for 2 hours straight, knocking on doors and just getting rejected out of the wazoo! It was a blast!! No not so much, we were getting exhausted/frustrated to say the least! Then like the last 5 min. came along and we almost called it quits, one of those experiences BUT we decided to go try one more street that we didnt go by right next to the church. We went and knocked on a few doors and of course no answer so we were just like ok I guess thats it sadly! As we were walking back I saw this mid-20´s guy walkin´ down the street, blaring his music that typical kind of guy. And I could notice that he was trying to avoid us but I just went for it! He actually stopped, took off his headphones and listened to us, it almost caught me off guard for a min. haha! Umm turns out that he was basically atheist, like he always grew up with the thought that God didnt exist. But this is the killer, he was actually interested!  We invited him to get baptized when he gets his answer, and set up a time to come back!  He hardly believed but wanted to listen it was a pure tender mercy/miracle from the Lord. That contact made that whole thing all worth it, quite the big testimony builder for me that you just have to DO it! Man up Elder Ivie and DO IT! Just follow the Spirit and TALK! Ahh I love the mission. That was my big experience of the week. Not too much more happened this week, Thursday was Thanksgiving and funny enough we didnt have too much money so guess what we made (you will see it in the picture), chicken bread tortilla things, and burgers with mayo! Woot woot! :) Definitely one of the weirdest Thanksgiving dinners/lunches I've ever had but hey thats the fun part about it! We were laughing that morning, making our stuff because well yeah you know why.....quite the linner eh?! But it didnt turn out as bad as you think, people dont really celebrate thanksgiving here but they gave us random snacks and sandwiches all throughout the day so we were eating like all day basically! :) DAD, COUSINS, VIDEOS of you all I love IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just dont have speakers nor headphones so I didnt hear anything but I will figure a way to hear it sometime. Still anways it was amazing to see all your faces, especially KENZIE!! INSANE she is back, by the way you havent change that much haha, from what I saw no offense. Haha I LOVE YOU GUYS! 

2 topics of interest I would like to address, NAVIDAD!! What time do you want to do Skype? I dont have too many details but what time would work the best for you guys first!? And the other point will be in another email.. Oooh private! Anyways have a good 1st week of December loved ones!! Soooo excited to read all the letters, I LOVE YOU ALL TOO MUCH!! Our boys are representing momma!! :) By the way all you guys looked amazing in the Thanksgiving Dinner pic. love it!

Les amo, tu hijo Elder Tyler Scott Ivie

Chicken bread tortillas & burgers

Thanksgiving meal with Elder Peterson in Montevideo--Nov '14