Saying Goodbye

Hola Familia!
Well this definitely goes down as one of the craziest weeks of my
mission.  We had so many things happen this week that I don’t even
know where to start. So first of all, we live with two other sisters
and we are all best friends. Hermana Simonson is my Sister Leader and
it is really fun to live together. However these last two weeks
Hermana Simonson´s companion Hermana Ventura has been really sick and
this last week they were in the hospital a lot. Last P-day we spent
the whole day in the hospital with them and we were in and out of the
hospital doing divisions all week. In the end they found out that she
had a brain problem and that she needed treatment that you can’t get
here in Iquitos so they had to send her home to Mexico. It was kind of
a shock and we were all really sad but we were happy that she was
going to get the care that she needs. So now we are in a trio and it
is a little bit difficult because we have two different areas. My area
and Hermana Simonson´s area are both really struggling and so it has
been really hard to work with one missionary less. We have had a lot
of stress this week and last week we literally lost every investigator
that we had. I guess that is just part of the mission but I know that
the Lord loves us and is watching over us. We just have to keep going
and hope for the best. Oh I also got some funny news from my mission
president’s wife; she told me that I am going to have these parasites
for the next 3 months…. Yay Iquitos! Haha I am just learning to laugh
at the things that happen in my life. The other night we were walking
on some crazy bridges and my shoe totally fell in the river. There
were some little kids fishing with chicken guts so they stopped
fishing for fish and went fishing for my shoe…….. haha it was pretty
funny. How many times am I going to be able to say that my shoe fell
in the Amazon River? Well I love you all; I hope you have a wonderful
week 
Love,
Hermana Allphin

on the river again. This is half my area.... so fun!

Plywood bridges :)

I made some new friends :)

Hola Familia!

Well have I got a story to tell all of you this week! Haha so Thursday morning we had interviews with President. When I woke up that morning I was feeling really sick and when I got to my interview Hna Gomez told me that I had to go to the clinic just to make sure that I didn’t have Dengue fever again. We were in the clinic all day on Thursday with and IV in my hand and it was the longest day of my life and we were having some problems and my mission president had to come to the clinic with his wife and in the end they told me that I have a stomach infection because I have parasites in my stomach! What happened was that we were eating lunch in a members house down in a little shack town and she gave us bad rice.  Haha so yes I have a bunch of little friends in my stomach that are making me sick. They gave me some medicine and now I am feeling better but it was just the most random thing. Lots of the missionaries here get parasites because of the food we eat so it is nothing abnormal but I thought it was pretty funny. First I get this crazy jungle fever then  I fall into a whole full of gross stuff and then I get stomach parasites…. I don’t even want to ask what is gonna happen next while I am here serving in the jungle, you gotta love it. We had a baptism on Saturday of a man named Elio and it was a way good experience and it was so special to see him get baptized. Well that is about all I have to tell you this week Fam, pray for us that we will find some really prepared people this week. And don’t worry, the parasites are not going to kill me J Love you!

Love,

 Hermana Allphin

While you all were in Hawaii.....

Well I have a really good story for you this week family. So this week
I had a really bad blister on the bottom of my foot because my socks
have holes in them and there is a lot of sand here and so the sand
rubs against my feet and gives me lots of blisters because we walk
miles everyday. So I had this really bad blister and my companion told
me to pop it and let the liquid out so that is what I did. I didnt cut
the skin off though so it was just this empty, open blister on my
foot. Saturday night we were out walking and all the power went out so
we were walking only by the light of the moon and I literally fell
into a whole. Luckily I caught myself before my whole body fell in but
my feet were completely covered in what I thought was mud. When I got
out, I realized that I had fallen into a sewage drain pipe and my feet
were covered in poopy mud! We still had an hour left to work so we
went to teach a lesson. During the lesson my foot started hurting
really bad and when we got back to our house I realized that all of
the poop mud had entered into my blister and was now inside my foot. I
had this huge blueish bubble on the bottom of my foot and my companion
was like "cut that off right now or you are going to have an
infection!" So I cut the blister off with fingernail clippers and
inside was full of this disgusting mud!! I took a really cool picture
because it was so gross. So while you were all chilling in Hawaii, I
was here dying of heat and falling into sewage pipes! Enjoy the
picture, this is my foot after I cut the blister :)

Jungle Style :)

Hola Familia!!
This week was super fun and I have some really cool pictures to send
you so I am not gonna right a ton but we found some really cool
families this week and we are hoping to get them all progressing for
May. Most of my area right now is under water because the river has
gone up a lot from all of the rain and so we have been walking on a
bunch of little plywood bridges that I am sure are going to break. The
river looks like a meadow because there are so many plants but
underneath it is pure water. It really is so gross because there is so
much trash! They told us that sometimes little kids fall in the river
and they are never found again….. creepy right. I kind of feel like I
am in a jungle gym because we have to climb over all these bridges but
it is really fun. I fell into a sewage pipe this week and my family
has the whole story if you want to hear it  Also I held a huge boa
constrictor this week and it was so cool! I kind of felt like
Voldemort! Enjoy the pictures, I hope you all have a fantastic week 
Love you!
Love,
Your favorite jungle missionary

on the river :)

I felt like voldemort

General Conference!

Hola Familia!
Well I dont really have a lot to report this week nothing to exciting
happened. It rained a lot, then it was like more than 100 degrees with
100% humidity and I was literally dying. My cook lives in a little
house with brick walls and a metal roof and it is literally like
eating dinner in an oven every day. I have gotten used to sweating out
all of the water in my body everyday…. Gotta love Iquitos! Conference
was really good and I loved relaxing and watching the talks. We had to
watch it in the stake center and all of the North American
missionaries were in a room together so that we could watch it in
English and it was really fun. There are about 15 of us and we really
had a good time watching conference together. The talks were really
inspiring and I learned a lot and there are a lot of things that I am
going to apply in my life. Now it is back to work as usual and we are
really praying for some miracles to happen this next week so that we
can accomplish the goal that we put for this month.  We have some
people that are really cool that are progressing but nothing concrete
yet so we are just gonna keep working hard and finding lots of people
and doing the work that the lord wants us to do. If there is anything
that I have learned in the last 7 months it is that the mission is
really hard but really rewarding and if we work diligently and with
faith, the lord will never let us down.  I am excited to work hard
this week and have some good experiences. Hopefully I will have some
more interesting stories to tell you next week  I love you all! Talk
to you next week!
Love, Hermana Allphin 

Lots of rain, lots of blessings :)

Hola Familia!! 

Haha it is so funny to try and write you all every week because our
weeks are so crazy and filled with so many things that I don’t even
remember what I have done that day and it is really hard to remember
the things I want to tell you. We worked really hard this week and we
found some really good people. It has rained constantly this week and
I have put to good use my rain boots. We come home every day just
covered in mud from the rain. Thank heavens I brought tall boots! We
are really excited for this month of April and we have found some
interesting people. Fun story, the other night we were walking in the
street and we were both a little bummed because all of our
appointments had fallen through and we really didn’t know where we
were going to go and then all of the sudden this like 17 year old girl
appears out of nowhere and says, “ Hi I’m Jennifer, me and my family
just moved here from a different ward and no we live in this ward. My
whole family are  members except for my dad. My dad wants to get
married to my mom and he wants to get baptized. Do you guys have a
couple minutes to come meet with my family?” I was absolutely blown
away! I mean really can you talk about a miracle. We are really
excited to plan their wedding so that their dad can get baptized and
be united with his family. There are miracles in the mission, we see
it every day. We are a little bit stressed right now but I know the
lord is going to take care of us and he is preparing people every day.
The work is hastening, Iquitos Peru is a living testimony of that. I
love you all! Have a great week  don’t forget about me melting and
covered in mud out here in the Amazon jungle 
Love,
Hermana Allphin

Hunter's Jaguar

Lima :)

Hola Familia!!
Wow this week was so crazy but it was really good. So first of all I
got to go to Lima this week with all of my friends to get my visa. I`m
FINALLY LEGAL!! After 7 months it’s about time  It was really so fun
because in my mission we have a couple Zones in the city of Iquitos
and we have a couple Zones that are way out in the Jungle. I am in
Iquitos but I have a lot of friends from the MTC that have been way
out in the jungle and we never see them because you have to fly to get
there so I haven’t seen them in like 5 months. We got to this really
nice hotel in Lima late at night and we all ate dinner and we were
just talking and then the next morning we went to immigration and we
met all of the missionaries in the CCM that are headed out to the
field this week and so that was really fun. In total we went with 18
North American missionaries from Iquitos and it was seriously the
best. The weather was beautiful and a nice change from blistering hot
Iquitos! We got to go walk around the temple and go shopping and eat
lunch in the temple cafeteria. It was so nice to catch up with some of
my friends that I haven’t seen in a while. So transfers are today and
I am not getting a transfer. I am staying in my area with my companion
and I am totally fine with that. But my really awesome district leader
just got moved up to be the new Zone Leader in a different zone so it
will be interesting to see who my new district leader will be. We are
going into the month of April with a lot of faith because right now
the work has been kind of slow but we have the hope that the Lord is
going to pull through for us and everything will work out. Sorry I
don’t have any cool stories for you this week but I hope that everyone
is doing well and that everything is good at home. Love you all, talk
to you next week 
Love,
Hermana Allphin

Lima :)