Long Week

Hola Familia!

Well I really dont even know where to start with this week. It really was one of the longest weeks ever. To start out, it was Christmas and absolutely no one had time for the missionaries..... meaning we walked outside in the hot sun for hours, looking for anyone to teach. We went caroling in the plaza de armas on Wednesday morning which was really fun! On Christmas Eve both me and my companion didnt feel very well but when we tried to go to sleep we were woken up by the loud WW 2 fireworks that were going off outside our window at midnight....... hahaha gotta love Christmas in Peru :) Christmas was way fun, we woke up and played soccor as zone and then we talked to our families which is always the highlight of the day :) After we went to the stake center and played volleyball and the we watched Ephraim´s Rescue..... such a good movie. However, when we got back from the activity I was really sick and the zone leaders came and gave me a blessing and my companion went and worked with a member. Later that night I couldnt sleep because my fever was so high and I was throwing up all of the water in my body.... it was a really long night! The next day my companion was really sick but I was feeling a little better. I got some medicine and have been recuperating but my companion was getting worse. We went to the clinic last night and found out she has Dengue so they put her in the hospital and we slept in the hospital last night! There was no bed for me so I had to sleep on the guerney table..... it was sooo uncomfortable. I hope that my companion gets better and that she can leave the hospital today! We also had a baptism on Saturday of a girl named Pilar. We have been teaching her for a while now and I am so excited that she finally got baptized. Her baptism was really spiritual and we had a good time... however, she didnt come to church on Sunday to get confirmed because her baby was sick :( I was really sad. That is the first time that this has happened to me. I hope she will get confirmed this next Sunday! All in all it was a really long week but this week is going to be much better. It was so good to see and talk to all of you on Christmas, I hope you all enjoy your Christmas vacations! Love you!

Love,

Hermana Allphin

Opening Presents :)

Indian Nativity

in the hospital with my compy

Pilar´s Baptism :)

Teaching King Lamoni

Hey family!

Well this week was pretty normal with all of the craziness of missionary work. We have been working hard this week to find some prepared people and we have had some interesting experiences. First of all we found this guy last week named Vladimir Viena.... my companion and I were laughing so hard because that name is so vampirish.... his friends call him Vladi :) He came to church yesterday and he is praying to know if he should get baptized. He is really cool and we hope that he progresses. Okay now for one of the funniest experiences of my whole mission. Last week Nancy (our recent convert) brought someone to church with her. We went to visit her this week and we found out that the girl she had brought to church was a girl that was now living with them and helping them around the house. Obviously we decided that we should teach her. This girls name is Alicia and she is 18-years-old. She seemed really cool and everything but as we started talking to her we found out that she lives in a little indian village like 10 miles up the river......when I say indian I am talking pure indian here! She has never heard of God, she has no idea who Jesus Christ is and she has never heard of the word sin...... also another catch is that she speaks this old indian dialect called Shipibo.... that is the language the native indian tribes speak here. Guys.... I dont speak Shipibo!! Also in the culture down here, the native indians are terrified of white people. They call us "pela caras" which translates into face peeler. They think that white people only come to peel their faces and steal their organs. Alright so now you can all imagine how this first lesson went. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life!!! For the first time ever I felt so much empathy for Ammon and his brothers. I seriously felt like I was teaching King Lamoni! We are going to try and keep teaching her even though she speaks broken spanish and is terrifyed of us! But the Lord found a way for her to hear the gospel even though she has grown up in an uncivilized community in the middle of the jungle. The lord works in mysterious ways. We are going to do the best we can with her. I love you all, talk to you on Thursday!!

Love,

Hermana Allphin

Enrique´s Baptism

Hola Familia

Well just another crazy week of missionary week. We had some very bitter sweet moments this week. I guess I will start with the bitter. The Dávila Family, the family that we have been working with for the last 3 and a half months didn’t get baptized this Saturday. We went to visit them on Tuesday night and they were super good. They are reading their Book of Mormon and saying their prayers every night and they told us that they were super excited for their baptism on Saturday. However, Thursday they didn’t show up for their final interview. They were not in their house and they would answer their phone. We went by that night to talk to them and we only found Xiomara. We walked into to talk to her and ask her about her interview and she proceeded to tell us that she found out that Oliver had cheated on her. I couldn’t contain the tears. I am not one to cry but after months of such hard work, months of praying and fasting for this family, months of teaching them and helping them….. just for it to end like that. It was hard. They didn’t come to church yesterday and we haven’t been able to talk to Oliver. Their baptismal date fell two days before their baptism. Talk about heartbreaking! I guess that Lord has a plan for everything right? We did have a baptism of a little 9-year-old boy named Enrique. We have been teaching him for the last couple of months as well and his baptism was so awesome. After he was baptized he bore his testimony and it was the sweetest thing I have ever heard. He said, “Before the Sisters came to my house I didn’t know anything about God. Now they have taught me about the Restoration, the Plan of Salvation and the Word of Wisdom. Now I know that God has a plan for all of us and he has a plan for me and my family. He gives us trials so that we can be better and I am grateful that I am now a member of the true church of Jesus Christ.” What a testimony from a nine year old right? His aunt is a very active member and she is happy that she is now not the only member in her family. I was a very sweet experience. We had our Christmas Devotional this week for Zone Conference and it was very spiritual. We talked about how here on the mission we have the best Christmas ever because we are here serving the Lord. It doesn’t matter that it is over 100 degrees every day or that I am always covered in dust…… we are all in the service of the Lord and that is what allows us to be away from our loved ones for so long. I cant wait for Christmas to come! Shay, congratulations on your call! I love you sooo much and I know that the Lord has a great work for you to do. You will be amazing in Canada J I hope you all have a wonderful week, talk to you soon!

Love,

Hermana Allphin

Christmas Devotional

                    Getting ready for Christmas :)

Enrique´s Baptism

Looking over the river

Crazy Transfers!

Okay I really dont have a lot of time to write today but I am going to try and explain this crazy week. So we had transfers on Monday and my companion, Hna Kirk, got transfered to Iquitos. I am really sad because we had a lot of fun together but its whatever. She got on a plane early the next morning and I was left to work with a member all day in my area because my new companion was still in Iquitos. Wednesday morning I went to the airport and traveled with the Zone Leaders to Iquitos for the leadership conference that was this week.... I love traveling but the flights here are really not fun. Lots of turbulence over the jungle. When I got to Iquitos and my companion picked me up there and we went to the leadership conference together the next day. I love leadership conference, it really is so fun and we recieve lots of inspiration. Plus I love seeing all of my friends that I never see because they are serving in other parts of the jungle. Thursday was the conference and Friday we flew back to Pucallpa with the zone leaders of the two zones as well as the assistants. Saturday was stake conference and Elder Waddell from the seventy came and it was so amazing everything he shared. Sunday, the Davila family came to church!!! Yay!! They are going to get baptized on Saturday and I am sooooo excited. However Sunday my new companion hna Linford was really sick and we went to the christmas devotional in the stake center. She stood up to leave because she really wasnt feeling good and she totally passed out! I seriously didnt know what to do. I was trying to get my district leaders attention but in like 10 seconds we were surrounded my like ten elders just looking at me and asking me what to do..... stressful. Good thing that president and hna Gomez also flew into Pucallpa for the stake conference so we were able to go the clinic with them at like 10 o clock last night! Needless to say I am very tired and glad the week is over. My companion´s name is Hna Linford and she is also from Utah. She is in my same group so we will be going home together. I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week. Talk to you soon!

Love,

Hermana Allphin

Miracle Baptism :)

Hola Familia!

Okay this week was so cool. I am so excited to tell you about the experience we had this week.  So as of last Sunday night we knew that due to some reasons, we were not going to be able to baptize anyone in the month of November…. However the Lord had a different plan. Monday night we went to the house of our recent converts and Francis´s brother was there.  His brother´s  name is Alfredo and we actually met him at the beginning of October. When we first met him he said he wasnt really interested in getting baptized but we invited him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and he said he would. A couple days later he traveled up the river to work and we thought we would never see him again. He showed up again and was living with our converts at the beginning of November and started coming to church but he told us that he was going to travel again and so we didnt teach him or anything. Hahaha Monday night when we went to visit the family he was there and said, “ Hermanas, I have read to page 312 in the Book of Mormon and prayed, I want to get baptized.” We were literally shocked into silence. He continued to tell us that he was going to travel again for a couple of weeks this Monday and wanted to get baptized before he left.  Haha he told us, “ Hermanas, I want to get baptized on Saturday,  can I?” We made all of the arrangements and taught him what he needed to know and set up his interviews and everything else and he got baptized Saturday night J It was seriously the craziest miracle ever!! In his testimony after he got baptized he said, “I feel so happy and relieved to have gotten baptized and I just want to thank the Sisters for helping come to know the Book of Mormon.” It just warmed my heart so much to hear that. I hope that he finishes while he is traveling. The best part is that when they get back from the river his 17-year-old son Paolo, who was going to get baptized in October, wants to get baptized J  Yay, they will both be members. There were many things to give thanks for this week. I love you all and I am so grateful for all of your prayers. Transfers are today and it will be interesting to see what happens… I really hope I stay here. If I do stay, we are flying to Iquitos this week for leadership conference J Well,  I love you all, have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Allphin

Miracle Baptism :)

Alfredo and Elder Milne

coming out of the water :) 

Saying goodbye to some of the Elders going home

Gigantic Triantula

Hola Familia!

Wow I feel like I have so much to tell you but I dont know where to start. To begin, President and Sister Gomez came this week with the Assistants for Zone Conference and it was such an awesome experience. The trainings were so inspired and we were really edified and uplifted. President talked a lot about how we should baptize what the church needs so that we can fortify the Kingdom faster. They talked a lot about how we really need to look for the prepared people and not to baptize people that are not ready to be baptized so that they do not become less-active members. The next day, President and Sister Gomez came to our house for our weekly planning session and it was an interesting experience as we were planning for the Davila family, our family that got married last week. We were asking President about this family and about what we should do and he told us something very interesting. He said, “ It sounds like you want them to get baptized so much that you are overlooking the fact that maybe they need more time to prepare.” Reflectioning on that we knew that he was right. We decided to make the final decision based on what happened on Sunday. Sunday morning we passed by their house and they were all ready to go to chuch. We went to wait for them in the chapel and then only the husband showed up. We asked them what happened and he said that him and his wife got into a fight and that she wasnt going to come to church. Hence the decision was made, they are not going to get baptized on Saturday. We  went to their house last night and had a really good lesson and worked everything out and put the date that President had suggested that we put, the 13th of December. They accepted that baptismal date and are really excited. Sometimes we just have to be patient and accept the Lord´s timing. We also had a funny experience this week. We knelt down by our desks to start planning and my companion just started screaming. I looked down and there was this GIGANTIC triantula on the ground!! Seriously it was huge. We didnt know what to do so I got the broom and my companion got the trash can and I started scaring her way and she dropped the trash can on it. We were scared that the spider was going to move the trash can because it was so big so we put a huge spanish Bible on it J The next morning we called like all of our leaders and no one wanted to kill the spider but finally the Zone Leaders came because they had to drop off some stuff. Elder Brown walked in armed with the broom and he kicked over the trash can and speared the spider….. while my other zone leader was in the corner with us screaming J It was soooo funny! We lived and everything was fine. Well that is it for this week. Love you all, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. You have much to be grateful for, trust me! I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Allphin

District Picture 

Isis :) My pensionista´s little girl. I love her!!

Giant Triantula in my house!! 

Wedding Madness!

Hola Familia

Bueno, de verdad no quiero escribir en inglés pero voy a intentar ya? This week was full of crazy adventures like always. To start off, it rained all week!! Literally it started raining on Tuesday and didnt stop until Saturday. We were out trudging in the extremely muddy streets everysingle day and let me tell you, my shoes and socks are all covered in thick, red mud….. gotta love the rain forest! I guess it was a nice change from the tremendous heat. So this week we worked soooo hard so that this wedding would turn out alright and by some miracle it did. We have two awesome Zone Leaders who were able to get all the paperwork done and we did all that we could so that everything would go smoothly and really, their wedding was such a success! Xiomara is 18 and Oliver is 21 and they got a lot of crap about getting married because here in the Jungle people dont get married, they just live together their whole lives. Oliver was so nervous the day of the wedding but when Xiomara walked in she looked absolutely stunning and it was a wonderful experience. We had something called a Massive Wedding which means that more than one couple got married. In total, there were five couples that got married at the same time. All the couples were up front with the companionships of stressed out missionaries in the back working relentlessly to make everything perfect. All of us were very satisfied though J They cut the cake at the end and there was a table full of food. Cultural note: Peruvians love their food! They swarmed to the table like vultures and the food was gone in ten seconds. One Elder almost lost his arm just trying to grab for a sandwich. It was pretty funny!  I am so priviledged to serve with the Elders and Sister who I am serving with. They all work so hard and it was so awesome to see the joy on their faces as their investigators were married. I think we all gave a mutual sigh of relief at the end. It was a beautiful experience and you could tell that the families were all very happy. Some of the couple that were married were older and had multiple children. Our couple only has one little boy and his name is Angelo…. And he is adorable. Now they are a family J They came to church yesterday finally and we are hoping for their baptism on the 29th of November. We will see what happens. Thank you for all of your prayers. I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Allphin

Beautiful Bride :)

Wedding Fun :)

The Wedding was a Success!

The Lord is Always Right

Hola Familia!

Bueno, this week was a little bit hard I am not going to lie. We seemed to be faced with every problem in the book.We did get to travel up to a little village about and hour away called Campo Verde. We went as a zone to support the Elders up there and it was so successful and fun. My zone really is my family and Campo Verde is absolutely stunning. Pure, untouched jungle. We have been working soooo hard with this family that is going to get married this week. We are having problems with their papers and with some other details and it has been really frustrating but hopefully the Lord and the Zone Leaders can pull a miracle out and they might be able to get married on Saturday. The hardest part was that yesterday, they came to church late and so their attendance didnt count. Without that attendance they cannot get baptized. We put our whole hearts and faith into this family and then to just watch them fall so hard like that really broke our hearts. It hurt, it really hurt. The worst was that we had prayed about this family a couple weeks ago and had asked the Lord if they should get married and baptized this month and we got an answer, the sad thing is that we didnt listen to the answer the Lord gave us and we moved on anyway with the plans and we are now suffering the consequences of not listening to the Lord. I guess I can empathize a little bit more with Joseph Smith when he didnt listen to the answer that he got from the lord. It is hard, but I know that the Lord is forgiving and he will lead us to someone else. I guess it was just hard for me to understand why the Lord would not want this family to get baptized but really I just need to remember that the Lord´s ways are not my ways and his timing is different than mine. I know everything will be fine, Satan wins sometimes and everyone has their agency but the work of the Lord will go on no matter what. That is the great hope of missionary work. I love you all, have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Allphin

Beautiful :)

Beautiful Jungle :)

Oliver and Xiomara--- Leadership Conference

Hola Familia!!

Well this week was pretty crazy but very fun. Last Tuesday we went to visit the family of Oliver and Xiomara. We have been working with this family for the last two months and have had so many obstacles with them but have endured. We decided as a companionship that if they did not accept a marriage and baptism date that night then we were going to have to leave them for a little while because we could lose anymore time. We went to visit them and asked about their prayers and everything and Oliver looked at us and said, “ I have read the chapter you left me in the Book of Mormon, and I know that things are hard right now for us but more than anything, the Lord wants us to live the commandments. We are going to get married on the 15th.” Me and my companion almost died of happiness. Now we have been planning their wedding this whole week and of course we are having sooooo many problems with their marriage papers but we will have faith that the Lord will work everything out. This family really is so poor. They live in a one roomed little box and have hardly any food. They were not going to get married because they did not see a way that they could work it out financially and it was such a beautiful experience to see them put their trust in God and move forward, despite the problems. They will be getting baptized on the 29th of November and we are so excited to help them this month. We also flew to Iquitos this week for Leadership Conference and it was so fun! I loved being with all of my friends that I have literally served my whole mission with. These Elders and Sisters have changed my life. We had a really inspiring conference and we flew back on Halloween. We were in the airport forever because the flight got delayed but we had a good time talking with the other leaders serving here in Pucallpa. Pucallpa is the farthest city away from Iquitos so it was kind of a long flight. Peruvian flights are really scary because we fly over pure jungle. I have never felt more turbulance in my whole life. The plane really just shakes and bounces the whole flight and then you look out the window and just see the Amazon river! I never want to crash in the middle of the jungle!! I hope that never happens. Well family I hope you have a great week and have fun counting your blessings. If you would like to lend a prayer our way that this wedding and baptism goes through, it would be much appreciated. We are working really hard. Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Allphin

Leadership Conference :)

Baptism of Paola and Paul

Hola Familia!

Well I dont have a lot of time so this one is going to be kind of short. This week was a Little bit of long one but we survived it. Just so you all know, I did not get transferred and neither did my companion! We were super excited about that. We are still the Sister Leaders and with this responsibility, every time a sister is sick we have to accompany them to the clinic. This week we had a sister that was having a lot of health problems and so we were at the doctor with her a lot and we didnt have tons of time to work in our area but everything will be okay. We had a baptism on Saturday of a really cool family. Hermana Paola and her 12-year-old son Paul. She really has been a golden investigator and she was so excited for her baptism. The Ward has really helped us bring them in and Paul is really excited to be in the Young mens program and recieve the priesthood! She always tells us how good she feels and how she knows she has repented. They have a bright future ahead of them. We are working with the Dàvila family still so that they can get married and baptized in November. They really have desires to do it but they are still really hesitant to accpet a set date. If you wouldnt mind keeping them in your prayers that would be awesome!! I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween! I will be flying to Iquitos this week for the Leadership Conference, I am super excited to see all of my friends again that are serving in different areas of the jungle….. it is going to be awesome J I love you all, have a wonderful week. HAPPY HALLOWEEN J

Love,

Hermana Allphin

Paola and Paul Baptism!

9 Investigators!!

Hola Familia!!

Well this week was an interesting one! We have been hard at work in our area and we are seeing some really good success. We had 9 investigators come to church yesterday!! Whoo! That is a record. We were seriously soo excited. One of the families that came to church is a single mother and her son that are going to get baptized on Saturday! I am way excited for their baptism because honestly they are so prepared. The mom is Paola and her 12-year old son is named Paul. She also has a 3-year old little girl named Annabel. She is the funniest little lady and she is so head strong and even though her whole family is telling her that she should not get baptized she just brushes it off her shoulder and tells us, “Hermanas, I am so excited for my baptism!” We really love her and her son Paul is really enjoying being in the young mens. Their baptism is going to be great. The other family that came is a young couple who want to get married this month of November. They have a little baby. Last week their little boy got really sick and they couldn’t take him to the hospital because they didn’t have any money. When we walked into their little one room house, the first thing I thought was, “that baby is dying.” He was throwing up and had a really high fever. Me and my companion did not know what to do so we called the Bishop and he came and gave him a blessing and the fever instantly dropped and he is doing much better. We are really excited for them to get baptized and married this month. We also had a mother come with her two kids and we passed by to visit them in the night and her husband happened to be there. As we shared the message of the Restoration the father of this family told us that he had been looking for a way to change his life and that he would do everything possible to come to church with his family next Sunday. Score!!! We have some good things happening in our area and we can really see the hand of the Lord in all things. He is really blessing us. I really hope I don’t get transferred today!!!! I guess we will see what happens but I love being here in Ucayali! I love you all, talk to you next weekJ

Love,

Hermana Allphin

Conference:)

Hola Familia!

Well this week was pretty awesome just because of the fact that we got to watch General Conference!! Let me just say that this conference was seriously sooooo inspiring! I was uplifted by every single talk. I cannot wait to get the Liahona so that I can read them all again.  I especially loved Jeffrey R. Holland´s talk about poverty. It really touched my heart. Everything he said is so completely true. You cant understand poverty until you have lived in it. I cant say that I have ever been impoverished but I see the poverty every single day, everywhere I go. There is no escaping it, it absolutely consumes this land. It is a very sad thing to see let me tell you. People live in little river towns in little shack houses. They barely have enough money to buy their rice everyday. The families are destroyed and there are many single mothers with many small children. The children are let free to roam around the dirty streets withougt shoes or a shirt, absolutely covered in dirt. There are many families who have lost children due to disease simply because there are not resoureces here to take care of them. To be honest, I am completely used to seeing these things every day because I have been here for over a year but that talk really made me open my eyes again and see how blessed I really have been in my life. When he spoke of how much the Savior loves the poor and needy it really reiterated in my head how much I need to love them. I am serving some of the poorest of the poor and I know that Jesus would seek them out first because he really does love them. I need to remember that better. We had 6 of our investigators come to conference yesterday and we were really excited! Two of them are getting baptized on the 25th of October and we are working with the other 4 for November. We are being really blessed in our area and I know that the Lord is hastening his work. Are we hastening ourselves to keep up with it? If we are not, we need to. The Lord needs everyone he has got. Family, I challenge you to help the missionaries! We need all of the help that we can get. I love you all sooo much. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love ,

Hermana Allphin

Leadership Conference--- Ariana`s Baptism

Hola Familia!

Wow this week was super crazy. First of all, my companion and I, our Zone Leaders and the Zone Leaders of the other zone all travelled from Pucallpa to Iquitos for the leadership conference. It was so fun! We flew in from Pucallpa and the other leaders flew in from Tarapoto (my last area) and also Moyobamba. It was so fun to see my friends that have been serving in other parts of the mission for a long time. It was like a big family reunion. We were in Iquitos for three days and it was so weird to be back there because I haven’t been to Iquitos for like 5 months!! It was way cool though. We had a really good conference with lots of laughs; they took us to a really cool place for lunch. It was a place with zebra couches and disco lights….. President didn’t let us turn on the lights but it was still fun J We all flew back to Pucallpa Friday morning with President and the Assistants and when we got to Pucallpa we had a meeting for all of the Hermanas in the city. Elder Peacock, one of the Assistants, asked me and my companion if we would give a training at the meeting. Me and my companion sat together on the plane bouncing off ideas for our training and we really received revelation.  We got back to our house and literally wrote our training in five minutes because the spirit told us exactly what to say. After we gave our training, President and Hermana Gomez and both of the Assistants told us how inspiring our training was and that they were very impressed. They congratulated us! I felt pretty good, all thanks to the Holy Ghost really! The next day we had a baptism and it was the craziest baptism ever. Her name is Ariana and she has wanted to get baptized for so long. She is 13-years-old and she has plans to go to the temple at the end of this month.  Her baptism was going to be at 4:00 but when we got to the chapel, the font was filled up with muddy water!! They had broken a pipe working on the road and the water was coming out dirty. We were trying to find some solutions and finally we just called the Elders in a different ward on the other side of the city and asked if we could use their font. They were so awesome and helped us out and we had to move her whole baptism to other side of the city and we ended up having her baptism and confirmation at like 8:00 that night. It was a little crazy but the important thing is that she got baptized!! The work is really progressing here in Ucayali and we hope that it will keep getting better. I will be watching conference this coming weekend due to the elections here in Peru. I am really excited. Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Allphin

Leadership Conference :)

Love this girl :)

Women`s Conference

Hey family,

Well this week was a stressful one, lots of things to do! We found some really cool people and some new families and we are really excited about them so hopefully they progress. So we had the opportunity this week to go to the Womens Conference and honestly it was so inspired. We worked really hard and we were able to have two of our recent converts and one of our investigators come. While the others were watching it in the chapel, me and my companion and another sister went to the stake presidents office so that we could watch it in English. We have been talking a lot about the importance of temples and keeping covenants with our recent converts so we were really happy that the talks were all focused on that. Also we had an investigator there that we are hoping will accept a baptismal date for the 25th of October. She was also really inspired. We went to church yesterday and not a lot of investigators came but Francis ( the man who got baptized last week) brought his nephew and his brother. After church they bothed asked us if they could get baptized!!!! We were so excited! We have never taught them before but we are hoping to help them progress. We have a baptism of 13-year-old girl named Ariana! She is so excited for her baptism and so are we. Something that President Uchtdorf said in his talk really inspired me, he said, " Do you really think that Heavenly Father cares if your make-up, hair, nails and clothes are perfect?" That really hit me because being here in the jungle, my hair, make-up, clothes and nails are sooooo far from perfect. With regard to worldly beauty I have very little but that is not what is important to God, he is just happy that we are doing his work. Well, elections are next week in Peru so we will not be able to watch conference until October 12th but I hope you all enjoy it and feel inspired by the words of the prophets..... I will be sitting here watching election campaigns! Love you!

Love,

Hermana Allphin

The Chauca Family

Hola Familia!

Well this week was another crazy week filled with lots of adventures. First of all the Chauca family got baptized this week and let me tell you, their baptism did not go down without a fight. Satan really put every obstacle in our way but in the end it all worked out. This family has had such a struggle to get baptized but they finally beat Satan and they followed the example of Jesus Christ. They are some of the most special people I have ever met and they will forever be in my heart. They really are converted and I am so happy that the Lord placed them in my life. Every day I see people fall into the many traps and temptations that the adversary has set up and it really brings such joy to my heart when I see someone who has fallen many times, rise above those temptations and follow the Savior. There are not words to describe it. I also had another really cool experience this week.  So as Sister Leaders we do work visits with the sisters to help them out. So this we did a work visit and I went to another area to work with a greenie from Utah J They have a baptismal date that we had to go teach….. the only problem was that their baptismal date is from Brazil and speaks NO Spanish! She can understand it a little bit but she only responds in Portuguese. It was me with another Gringa that is still learning Spanish. She told me, “Hermana Allphin, I can’t really understand her at all so you are going to have to help me teach this lesson.” I prayed before the lesson that the spirit would bless me with the gift of tongues. We went into the lesson and we started teaching in Spanish and we said a prayer and just went for it. We would say something in Spanish and she would respond in Portuguese and it was a little hard but, I understood everything she was saying perfectly! The spirit was so strong in the lesson because he was really there helping us teach and understand even though we were speaking two different languages. I think my next feat will be to learn Portuguese, I kind of like it a lot. The gift of tongues is real family, I testify to that. If two white girls from Utah can go and teach a lesson in Spanish and understand everything in Portuguese….then the gift of tongues is real. Don’t doubt it! I love you all, enjoy the pictures. Talk to you next week!

Love,

Hermana Allphin

The Chauca Family. I love them sooo much!

Raquel`s Baptism

Leaving Tarapoto.... Hermana Martha

stake activity..... being angels in the choir :) Yes, we are wearing baptismal clothes!

Pucallpa- Sister Leader Trainer :)

Hola Familia J

Well I dont even know where to start with this week. First of all, transfers. So I did get transferred out of Tarapoto and I was assigned to work in the city of Pucallpa! I was so excited because I have wanted to come to this city my whole mission. Pucallpa is the farthest city away from Iquitos, it is actually closer to Cusco. Tuesday I got on a plane and left Tarapoto and then I had to fly to Lima (freezing cold!) and then I got on a plane and came to Pucallpa (sooooo hot!!!) I really love this place though. Another big surprise about these transfers was that I got called to be the new Sister Leader Trainer for this zone! The church made this new calling for sister missionaries about two years ago and basically what it is that me and my companion are kind of responsible for all of the sisters here in this city (there are 10 ) with respect to their health and wellbeing. We have to do work visits, obedience checks, doctors’ visits and trainings. We work with the district and zone leaders so that we can help the Sisters in every way possible. It is a big responsibility but I am really excited to fulfill it. I am now in Zone Centenario and my ward is called Ucayali! We had a baptism on Saturday of a woman named Raquel and she is the sweetest person ever. Her baptism was so spiritual. We have another family that is getting baptized this Saturday and they are the cutest family ever. I hope that we don’t have problems this week and that their baptism will go smoothly. My new companion`s name is Hermana Kirk…… and do you know what? We are in the same group! I met her in the airport in Salt Lake City right before coming on my mission. She is from Utah and we literally are the best of friends. I am excited to be serving in this ward with this companion. Well family, that is all I have for you this week. It was a really crazy rewarding week J talk to you soon!

Love,

Hermana Allphin