Small and Simple Things

Hola Familia!
Wow this week was super crazy but very rewarding. First of all we had
three baptisms on Saturday that were super awesome. It was three kids
and their mom but their mom cant get baptized yet because of some
problems that she is having. This is the investigator that President
visited with us and her three kids finally got baptized. The oldest
son Marco really wants to go on a mission and he is already preparing
to leave. I know he will be an awesome missionary and it is a really a
miracle that he has made this decision. Another really cool story is
that I did a work visit with my Sister Leader this week and we went
and visited one of her investigators that is going to get baptized.
She is a single mom that I had contacted in the street like a month
ago because her two little girls were in my ward in Secada and I love
them. I saw them with their mom and she gave me her address but it
wasn’t in my area so I gave the reference to the other Sisters. We
went to visit this lady and Hermana Simonson told her, “Ya Hermana
Allphin was the one who gave me your address and that is why we came
to your house to visit you the first time.” This lady, her name is
Nelly, she just looked at me and grabbed my hand and just was like
thank you, thank you, thank you! At the end of the lesson we got up to
leave and she gave me the biggest hug ever and said, “I didn’t know it
was you who had given my name to the missionaries. I am so glad that
God put you in my path; you don’t even know how much I needed to find
Jesus in my life when you came and talked to me and you made it all
possible. You all have really been my angels. I will forever be
grateful.” I just felt so much love for her and I realized that really
all of the small and simple things that we do every day really make a
difference. She is going to get baptized with her two little girls who
I love and they love me and even though it is not my baptism I am so
excited. We had one of the seventy come and talk to us last week and
it was so inspirational and we learned so much! His name is C. Scott
Grow and he was super awesome. We are looking forward to this week and
transfers are coming up. I am headed to Lima this week to do some
paper work for my visa…. Yay! I am excited to go back to Lima for a
day or two, it should be fun  Wish me luck with my travelling. I will
talk to you all next week  Love you!
Love,
Hermana Allphin

Me at my baptism a week ago. These two boys want to go on missions :)

Me at my baptism this week! I love this family so much! :)

6 Months Already??

Hola Familia!
Wow I can`t believe that I have already been out here in the field for
6 months!! How time flies. I have changed so much and I really am so
in love with being here in Peru! I would tell you all of the stuff
that has changed but I don’t have time but one really big thing is
that my new favorite food in the whole world is chicken, rice and
fried bananas! Soooo yummy  I literally eat that all the time. So we
had two baptisms on Saturday of two 16 year old boys and it was so
awesome. They have such strong testimonies and they both want to leave
on a mission in the next year or so. Their baptism was so special! We
had a really funny experience last night, so me and my companion had
had the worst night ever! No one wanted to listen to us, we couldn’t
find anyone to teach, everyone was drunk in the street and there was
like concerts everywhere, all of our appointments fell and really we
were just so bummed. We drive by this house of a guy that we had
talked to before and I saw that his wife was inside with him so we
decided to go and talk to them. We get inside and start talking and
this guy starts telling us like everything he knows. He was talking
about philosophy and politics and the purpose of life and really we
could just tell that this guy was really smart. We started teaching
the lesson and everything and the door to their house was open. All of
the sudden I see my district leader and his companion appear in the
doorway. I was so confused because we were really deep into our area
in a little shack town far away in a random house and I could not
understand why he was there or how they had found us. Then I
remembered that they had told us that they were going to come with us
to visit with one of our other investigators that lived in this area
and for some miracle they had seen us teaching in this house. First of
all my district leader and his companion are super awesome! Like
really they are the best, I know them really well because he has been
my district leader for the last 4 months that I have been in the area.
They came in and sat down and my district leader started talking to
this guy and Elder Munoz loves deep doctrine so he gets into this
conversation with this guy and then we found out that the missionaries
one time had given this man a book of Mormon. He asked him if had read
it and the guy was like, “ Ya, I read all of it.” We were all just
trying not to laugh because that does not happen here, people don’t
read. Then he started explaining the whole book of Mormon to us with
like details and everything and he told us that he had written an
essay about it and at that point everyone lost it. We all just started
laughing because this guy was so cool; his wife was dying of laughter
and was just rolling her eyes. We walked home together just laughing
about how random it was that they found us in the house and that my
district leader and this man got along so well! It was seriously the
funniest experience and it was exactly what I needed after a long
night and I am really excited to keep teaching this guy. The Lord
really does love us. Well that is about all I have for you this week,
I am super excited for the baptisms we have on Saturday; they are
going to be awesome. I love you all!
Love,
Hermana Allphin

The Lord of the Flies

Hola Familia!
Okay so this week was really crazy I have a really good story to tell
you. The week went a little bit slow because everyone was preparing
for Carnival and no one had any time for us. Carnival is this big
holiday in Peru but it is even more celebrated here in the jungle and
I really am excited to tell you all about it. So first of all they
build these huge totem poles that are decorated with like buckets and
chairs and other stuff….. they are huge and they are all over the
place. Okay so during the whole week you just get randomly attacked by
water balloons, it was so weird. We would be walking and then we would
just get nailed with water, it was actually kind of funny! Okay but
here is the creepiest thing about this holiday is that on Sunday night
everyone goes out into the street with face paint and masks dressed up
as Devils. They dance around these huge trees with their masks and
huge drums and they worship Satan! Really it was like a scene directly
out of Lord of the Flies! Needless to say we were not allowed to leave
our houses last night. I am sure Satan was really happy that everyone
was in the street worshipping him and all the missionaries were locked
in their houses. The streets were so crazy! Don’t worry this week will
be much better! That was my fun jungle adventure for the week. We have
a baptism next week of a kid that is almost 17 and wants to go on a
mission and so we are really excited about that. I will let you know
how it goes and send pictures. Love you all! Shout out to Jantzen,
Congratulations on your mission call!! 
Love,
Hermana Allphin

Wedding and Baptism :)

Hola Familia!
This week was super awesome. I had two really cool and kind of funny
experiences. First of all we had our wedding on Friday and it was so
awesome. Their whole family was there and the church was all decorated
and her dress was beautiful and the cake was amazing and they danced
and they got married and it really just was the best night ever. The
next morning we had all of their baptisms and we also baptized another
man named Jairo who is super awesome, in total we baptized four people
and we were really happy. The best part about all of it was though the
next morning in church when they all got confirmed. All of their
blessings were super specific and I know that this family and Jairo
are going to be strong members of the church and are going to bring
others to the knowledge of the gospel through their example. We have
really seen the hand of the Lord this week with everything that was
going on. We started out this month with nothing, nobody had a
baptismal date and no one was coming to church but we just prayed
really hard and had a lot of faith and in the end we baptized some
really awesome people. I will forever have a testimony that miracles
happen. This is the first family that our ward has baptized in over a
year. I am so humbled to be one of the missionaries that got to be a
part of this wonderful experience. The other experience that I had was
super funny. We were in an activity in our ward and this guy in charge
wanted to do a language exhibition because his son speaks English and
French and I speak English and my companion speaks French and English.
So we are in front of our whole ward and I start speaking English with
him and my companion was translating everything into Spanish. Then it
was her turn to speak French and we realized we had no one to
translate from French to Spanish and so the guy in charge stands up
and says, " And Hermana Allphin is going to translate from French to
Spanish." I was just thinking in my head, wait I don't speak French??
But it was really funny because I could actually understand a lot of
and I was able to translate and no one even knew that I didn't speak
French..... haha the things that happen on a mission. That is all I got
this week, I hope you enjoy the pictures. Talk to you all next week .
Love you!
Love,
Hermana Allphin

Baptism :)

The Wedding Planner

Hola Familia!
Wow this week was a crazy one! Lots of people to find an lots of
things to plan. So we had transfers on Monday and thankfully I didn’t
have a transfer. I am still in Internacional with my companion. I was
super happy that I get to finish her training. The work was kind of
slow this week and we didn’t find as many people as we wanted to but
this week is going to be better.  I am so excited for this upcoming
week though. We had a little change of plans for the wedding of
Antonio and Karina. They are now going to get married and baptized
this Friday! There was one point in my life that I thought it would be
fun to be a wedding planner but really I think it would just be a lot
of stress. They are going to get married at 6, baptized at 7 and there
reception is at 8!! It is going to be a big night but we are hoping to
have four baptisms so that should be super awesome. It is a lot of
work to coordinate a wedding but I love this family so much and they
are so prepared to accept the gospel. They have had other missionaries
visit them before and they didn’t want to get baptized but the husband
told me of a really cool experience he had. He said that before he
didn’t believe in Joseph Smith, he didn’t think the church was true
and he and his family had a lot of problems…. Then he read the Book of
Mormon. He told me that his whole life changed from starting to read
that book and he made the decision to get baptized and married, but he
didn’t tell anyone about his decision because they were having
financial problems and he didn’t want to do it. He told us that he
just kept reading and that he knew it was what he needed to do and
then shortly after we showed up on his door step. They came to church
that week without hesitation and accepted a baptismal and marriage
date the same day. This family has accepted the word of wisdom is
attending church with their three kids and they read the Book of
Mormon and pray together as a family every night. They are going to be
strong members of the church and one day they will get sealed in the
temple! I feel so humbled that I have had the experience to teach this
wonderful family because they have really taught me what it means to
put your trust in God and do what he wants you to do. This week is
going to be stressful because we have a lot to do but it is going to
be such a wonderful experience to watch this family get baptized with
their kids. I love being a missionary! I get a front row seat to watch
the atonement change people’s lives  I love you all, wish me luck!
Love,
Hermana Allphin

Trust in the Lord

Hola Familia!
Okay this week was literally so great! The best week in my mission so
far. So first of all we went to someone´s lot in the middle
of the jungle for p-day. We went with our whole zone with some members
and while the members started cooking lunch we decided to go exploring
in the Jungle. We are all like climbing through all of these trees and
jumping over logs and little rivers and my zone leader was in front
cutting a pathway with a machete… it was super funny. We stopped for a
second to take a break and we were all talking and we looked down and
our feet and legs were covered in ants. Everyone just started
screaming and we started running back through the jungle as fast as we
could. Just picture 10 white missionaries running and screaming
through the jungle…. It was really hilarious. After that we ate
chicken and yucca on palm tree leaves…. With our hands. No plates,
just leaves haha it was super funny. So this week we were working
super hard to find new people and have people come to church. The last
couple of weeks we have only had a couple of people in church and it
is super hard. We went to all of our lessons with members and we did
divisions and we got lots of good references. When we came to church
we had 12 people in church! We were so happy and excited. So
heavenly father knew that  I couldn´t live without a mom so he sent me
a mom here in Iquitos. Her name is Hna. Lulù and she does everything
for us missionaries. She cooks and washes the clothes for the Elders
and she does anything we need her to do. She took care of me when I
was sick with Dengue. She is amazing and she introduced me to her
brother and his wife and they are not members and they came to church
. We went and visited them after church and they told us that
they want to have more unity in their family and live the way that God
wants them to live. It was such and awesome lesson and they are going
to get baptized and married Their wedding is the 24th of this month
and they are getting baptized. My companion and I were super
excited…. I have no idea how to plan a wedding in two weeks but I am
going to learn! We have some really awesome families right now that
are progressing and attending church and I have really been able to
see how much the Lord has been helping us. This area is difficult but
we have been working hard and the Lord is leading us and guiding us in
everything we do. I am so grateful to be here on his errand to bring
these wonderful families to the knowledge of the gospel. It is the
greatest opportunity I have ever been given.  Just pray that we can
get everything organized for this wedding. I love you all, have an
awesome week!
Love,
Your favorite jungle missionary

Miracles Happen

Hola Familia!
Wow this week was super crazy. I don't even know why but it was just
like a whirlwind. My companion and I worked really hard this week to
find new people and new families and we did everything we could. We
found this one guy and his family that were super awesome. We were
walking in the street on our way to an appointment and this guy was
sitting outside his house fixing his Moto and he was like "Elders! Hi
how's it going?" I was kind of laughing because everyone here calls us
elders but I was like well at least he knows who the missionaries are.
We started talking to him and he told us that he is a seaman and had
lived in the United States for twelve years. He told me that in every
state he had lived in ( he has lived in like ten different states) he
has seen the missionaries pass by and they always stopped to talk to
him. He told me that he had seen a lot of chapels but never went in.
He continued to tell us that he was home now from work and living with
his family here in Peru. I was super excited and we went back to teach
him a few days later with his wife. We taught them the restoration and
they accepted all of it really quickly. His wife came to church with
us yesterday which was way awesome and they are really excited to keep
learning more. He wasn't able to come to church because his job is
demanding and he works a lot but we are going to keep praying for a
miracle that he can come to church with us next week so that they can
get married and baptized. We met a lot of really awesome people this
week and we are working super hard to find others who are ready to
accept the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We found a man with
his family the other day and he had a broken neck and he told us that
he was drunk one night and fell off his roof. We taught him and his
wife about repentance and how through Jesus Christ everyone can change
their lives. He was so attentive and told us to come back the next
day. We taught him the restoration the next lesson and again he was
super attentive and really listening. The next lesson we were going to
teach the word of wisdom and I was really interested to see how he was
going to take it because I knew he had an alcohol problem. After we
taught the lesson I asked him if he would live the word of wisdom. He
said, "Hermana I didn´t know that this was a commandment of God. But
now that I know I am going to live it. You told me that I could change
and I know this is going to help me change." I was so happy to hear
him say that.  He also accepted baptism. The only hard thing is that
he lives in a little town on the river where there are no missionaries
and no church houses and he is going to go back there in a couple
weeks. I hope that one day he will come in contact with the
missionaries again somehow if he doesn't have time to get baptized
before he leaves. The mission is really hard but I get the chance to
have unique experiences every day and I know the Lord is preparing
people here for me to teach. It has been a hard couple of weeks but we
are pushing through it and doing our best. Miracles happen; that I
know. I love you!
Love,
Hermana Allphin

Sitting in my house dying of Dengue fever.... that disgusting red
stuff is the medicine that I had to take and really.... it is so
gross!

Milagros baptism with her two little sisters :)