Week 28 A Long Week July 28, 2014

I've gotten permission to run so I've been running every morning. I had to pull the famous Amie Ingram heel click.

¡Hola!

Una semana bien laaarrrrggggooooo!

Tuesday a man contacted us in the street asking us how he could become Mormon like us. By being baptized of course! We explained that we could visit him at his house and teach him about the word of God. Turns out he doesn't live here...he lives like 2 hours away...I told him that there were missionaries where he lived that would be able to teach him the same message but he insisted that we be the ones to teach him. "Ya I've seen them in my area before....a brown-skinned boy and a white boy...but 2 white girls is so much better!" We've been being contacted by all kinds of people lately! And the only thing they're interested in is having two "gueras" (white girls) come over and preach the word of God. Considering painting my skin brown and dying my hair black...what do you think?;)

Me with the Nezahualcoyotl statue

Why such a long week you ask? EVERYONE is on vacation...which means that NO ONE has been home. Friday we literally spent 4 hours walking our area passing by every member in our ward...and not a single person opened up... 30 houses and NOTHING! A little extra exercise anyone? Frustrating...but it's during the hard times that you have to keep pushing forward...and when you do, something good always turns up.

Saturday we were able to find 4 new investigators....all of that walking paid off!! We also had a Family Home Evening with some of our investigators. We brought the iron rod puzzle that I had made. They made fried plantains topped with sweetened and condensed milk for dessert. FHE's are one of my favorite things out here on the mission. Afterwards we headed to a family of investigators to teach them and remind them to come to church the next day. When I asked the dad told me that they were leaving early the next morning and that they weren't going to be able to come to church. When I asked where they were going they replied, "To see Jesus." What?? So, apparently they're skipping church to go and "see Jesus"...that's a good reason right?

Sunday: pretty great day! President Stutznegger and his wife attended our ward yesterday and spoke. EVERYONE was paying attention...and the spirit was super strong. We also had 2 baptisms! Ivan and Luis Lopez FINALLY got baptized! It's about time right!? And even better, Omar (their dad) was able to get the priesthood and baptize his two sons. He was so happy to be able to baptize them.

Now they're preparing as a family to be able to enter the temple in a year and the two boys are already talking about serving missions. One word: GOLDEN! After the baptism, we headed over to their house for lunch. About halfway through cooking the gas ran out...so we opted into lighting coals and BBQing...Yummy!!!

That's about it for this week… But I love you all! Viva México!!

Hermana Ingram

You know you're serving a mission in Mexico when....
1) Hot Shower = waking up early and sticking an iron in a bucket of water
2) Everyone and their mom owns a dog.
3) It's prohibited to flush toilet paper down the toilet.
4) EVERYTHING you eat is fried.
5) You see a family of 6 drive by on a single moped scooter.
6) You run the trash out to the garbage man and his horse pulling a garbage cart.
7) Midnight snack = salsa verde tamale. (The tamale man walks the streets at night yelling, ¨TAMALES!!!¨) 

Soccer with the Lopez family

 

Week 27 Viva France? July 21, 2014

The Nezahualcoyotl Zone (France)

¡Hola!

What a week!

We had interviews this week with the new president and I can already tell that the mission is going to change for the better. I can't express enough how excited I am to have him as a mission president. I've been able to see how much my testimony has grown while being out on the mission...it's grown mountains! I know that when we do things the way the Lord wants, he's OBLIGATED to bless us. Sometimes it's hard...I mean how can waking up at EXACTLY at 6:30AM decide if I have success or not? As hard as it is sometimes...EXACT obedience counts! The president made us a promise that with hard work and exact obedience, we will start to baptize and have success like never before...I have no doubt that it's true...and I'm going to put it to the test.

A puzzle I made to teach kids about the iron rod and Lehi's dream

So a lot has been happening with Ivan and Luis (Lopez)...they were supposed to have their baptism a long time ago..but things just kept coming up. This week we got everything planned out for their baptism..and everything was all set and ready to go for Sunday. I was SO excited that they were finally going to get baptized! It was about time! Sunday came and as we were walking to church I got a message from their family....and I couldn't believe it. A relative of theirs had died THAT morning and they had left immediately to the funeral and wouldn't be back until the next day...I was devastated... What are the chances!!!??? But no worries...they'll be baptized this week :)

I got a little bored at lunch :)

We were able to find some new investigators this week which is always awesome. Last week we had contacted a lady in the street who accepted an appointment. The next day we went to her house to teach her and a lady walked in with a teenage girl asking if we could help them too. We ended up teaching the contact, her daughter, and the daughter of the daughter. The next day we visited them and 3 more relatives asked us if we could teach them. The next day 2 more...a miracle! It's an entire house of people ready to hear the gospel! And all from one contact!
People just don't seem to be accepting our contacts lately....It gets to the point where I want to explode! If one more person says, "Tengo prisa", "otro día", or "Leo mí Biblia, Gracias"...so help me! These people just don't know what they're missing! Saturday we visited the Lopez Family with the district leaders to do the interviews for their two sons. As we finished, one of the Elders made a comment about having to go and teach some of his investigators. Hermana Lopez commented, "Hey...take the Hermanas with you...and I promise you they'll get baptized!" She then went on about how the Hermanas teach with more power, patience, etc. I don't know how true that is but I'm not saying it's a lie ;) She then asked us a question: "If a complete stranger walked up to you in the street and offered you a bag full of gold, would you accept it?" We thought about it for a few minutes and replied that we would probably be a little nervous to accept it...you'd think there would be other motives involved and we would probably walk away. She then continued by comparing the bag of gold to the message we bring to the people of Mexico. We talk to hundreds of people every week....and almost all of them don't accept us. They're walking away from something worth more than all of the gold in the entire world!!! But there is always someone that's willing to accept our "bag of gold"...and she was one of them.

 

Hermana Benson and me. And a poster I made for our zone for the soccer tournament.

The Nezahualcoyotl Zone in a micro (small bus)

Sports! I miss sports!!!!!! Today we got to play soccer as a mission. Each zone was given a country (we were France) and we got jerseys, socks, and shorts. I was able to get #10! Just like the good old days! (I had to fight for that number!) It felt so good to get out on the field and play! None of the Elders in my zone knew that I had played soccer before and were super reluctant to put any of the sisters in...15 minutes had passed in the game and I just couldn't stand it any longer...so I asked to be put it...you could tell by the looks on their faces that they didn't really want to...but when I finally got in there...I never came back out! You could say the mission was just a tad surprised ;) We lost but I had a blast...I hope we'll be able to play again in the future.

That's about it for this week! But I love you all!

Hermana Ingram

Week 26 12 Investigators July 14, 2014

¡Hola familia y amigos!

This week was probably one of the longest weeks yet! But for good reasons! I've been really focusing on exact obedience and lots of hard work and the blessings have followed.

We have been searching and searching...looking for as many new investigators as possible. It's amazing how you can be walking down the street and get an overwhelming feeling that you should talk to someone walking by...and that when you follow that feeling and talk to them, it is always for a reason. There are so many people here that are SO ready to hear the gospel...the hard part is finding them. I know that I may not know which door to knock on or which of the people I pass in the streets are ready but God does. An Elder once asked me, ¨How would you like the power to walk by any person and know if they were ready to hear the gospel?¨ Of course I said yes...but he continued to tell me that if we are in tune enough with the spirit, we can be guided to every single one of the people God has prepared for us. Does that kind of power come easy? Claro que no! But I know that with a lot of hard work and exact obedience...anything is possible.

This week we were able to find 6 new investigators! We haven't been receiving a lot of references so we have had to do a lot of contacting....but it paid off!! This Sunday we had 12 investigators in the church! I remember sitting down in sacrament meeting with our 12 investigators and wanting to scream because I was so happy. With them all there you'd think I would be able to relax but I still couldn't sit in peace! I CAN'T GET MY MIND TO RELAX! I'm constantly thinking about my investigators...what I'm going to teach them, how I can help them...even at night when I go to bed my mind is still going! Hopefully all this thinking will pay off!

Yesterday after church we spent the rest of our day looking for new investigators. We searched through our list of contacts we had made and chose a few to search for. We knocked one of the contact's doors and a teenage boy answered. We told him who we were looking for and he went back inside to look for her. A few minutes later he came back and invited us inside and guided us to another door down a little alley way. We knocked and a man answered the door, shirtless with blood covering his face and dripping from his chin. You could smell the alcohol coming from him and it was very obvious he was drunk. I knew we needed to leave right away but he was blocking the alley way to leave. He immediately started yelling at us and backed us down the alley way...saying things to do with religion and Americans and who knows what else. My comp. burst into tears and I was trying calm him down..trying to figure out how we were going to get out of the house. After about 5 minutes of him screaming in our faces a man came from behind him and shoved him against the wall motioning for us to leave. Thank goodness that man came! We were finally able to get out of there safe...but what a crazy experience!

That´s pretty much it for this week! Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers! I love you all to the moon and back!

Hermana Ingram

Week 25 New President!!! July 7, 2014

Our Missionary Stand

Hola familia y amigos!

The new president has arrived!!!! Tuesday our zone and a few others headed over to the stake center anticipating the moment we had all been waiting for...meeting our new mission president. We all sat down in the chapel...patiently waiting. When the moment came and the new president walked in with his wife you could feel the spirit that they brought with them. Sister Stutznegger already had tears in her eyes and President Stutznegger had a HUGE smile on his face. They walked in and immediately started greeting each one of us one by one (keep in mind that there were probably over 100 missionaries in the room). Sister Stutznegger shook my hand and continued on followed by the President. When he shook my hand he turned to his wife and yelled, "Hey! You've got to give her a big hug from her mom!" She turned around, came back, and had me stand up in front of everyone to give her a hug. She hugged me and quietly said, "This is the hug that I promised your mom I would give you." That's when the tears came....I sat back down totally crying...I'm sure the missionaries were wondering why Hermana Ingram was being a bawl baby but it had meant the world to me.

After having greeted each one of the missionaries, they stood up at the pulpit and began introducing themselves. What a change! They had us all laughing our heads off! Hermana Stutznegger doesn't speak any Spanish but she stood up to introduce herself and in her best effort said, "Buenos tardes!" She finished introducing herself in English and the President translated for her. They are the two sweetest people and you can tell they truly care about each and every one of us. They focused on how we were going to be a mission of "exact obedience" and how by doing so we would have more success than ever as a mission. I just about stood up and gave a giant HALLELUJAH! I can't wait to see where things go in the mission and to become a mission of exact obedience.

Thursday we went as a district to the area of the other Hermanas to help them contact and find new investigators. We carted over a table, Books of Mormon, pamphlets, hymns, pictures, cards, etc. and set up a "missionary stand" where we contacted people and taught them more on what we believe. It was actually kind of funny because we were right smack dab in the middle of a bunch of other stands. There was the lady to the right of us butchering whole dead chickens, the man to the left of us selling tacos playing mariachi music....and us...preaching the gospel battling the mariachi with our hymns! We ended up contacting a couple hundred people who were pretty interested in what we had to offer.

FELIZ 4 DE JULIO! What's the 4th of July with out a little BBQ??

4th of July Celebration

Hermana Lopez got baptized yesterday! (The sons weren't baptized but will in the next couple weeks). After the church services yesterday we gathered up the ward and had the most spiritual baptismal service yet...Hermana Lopez was tearing up the whole time along with the rest of the ward. When we opened up the font doors her 1 year old son kept saying, "In the bath? In the bath? In the bath?" (he thought he was going to get to take a bath) with the most excited face ever...super cute. I've never seen someone so happy to be baptized before...she was absolutely beaming.

Later that night we went over the Lopez family's with a cake we had bought the day before to congratulate her. We sat down and the dad immediately started crying, thanking us for the blessings that we had brought to their family. That's when EVERYONE started crying and Hermana Lopez said something I will never forget. She said, "I want you to tell your mom something for me. Tell her THANK YOU for giving you up for a year and a half. It's because of her that my family can be eternal." So that one goes to you mom. You know what they say: A missionary is someone that leaves their family for a short time so that others can be with their families for an eternity. I still remember making the drive to the MTC full of emotions, knowing that in just a few hours I would have to say my last goodbyes to the ones I love most. I remember walking away from my life as I knew it wondering if I had really made the right decision. The mission is hard...the hardest thing I've done yet..but it's during times like these that I remember why I gave up everything to be here...why I said goodbye to my family for a year and a half.. There are people here waiting for the knock on their door! And I'm here to find them!

¡Gracias por todo! Les queremos muchísimo. ¡Nunca lo olvidan! Échenles ganas esta semana!

Con mucho amor,
Hermana Ingram

My Zone before cambios

This is how hard we're working.....a hole through my favorite shoes