The Old Woman and the Tree :)

Hola Familia J

Well not gonna lie this week was pretty average. We hiked lots of mountains, walked through lots of mud, jumped over some rivers, ran into a few llamas… you know, normal stuff. This week we were walking down this big, steep mountain and we saw this old woman carrying these big tree trunks on her shoulders trying to get them down the mountain. We stopped and asked if she could use some help and she was so grateful for our offer. My companion and I pick up this big tree trunk on our shoulders and we carried it down the mountain. It was more than a little funny let me tell you. Seeing two girls in skirts walking down the mountain carrying a tree only drew a little bit of attention. We had people outside cheering us on, it was quite hilarious. We are going to go visit the old woman this week and hopefully she is cool. It is really hard to get people to come to church because they live in little mountain villages far away from church but we are hoping that somehow we will have investigators come. We are teaching some families right now that we are hoping to progress in June, but we kind of need a miracle. Well that is all I got this week, talk to you soon J

Love,

Hermana Allphin

My New Calling :)

Hola familia J

This week was crazy as usual but we had some funny experiences. We had zone conference this week and President came to Tarapoto and it was really inspiring! This week we got caught in a huge rain storm and we were way back in the forest and we were walking around in the dark for like an hour, soaking wet, trying not to fall down the slippery muddy slopes into the river…. It was pretty funny not going to lie. The area that I work in really is in the middle of the forest and at night there are no lights. We have a little flashlight that we use to try and help us get a long but most the time we just kind of guess where we are going. The stars and the moon are so bright that they light the pathways and the frogs croak really loud along the river and there are tons of bats that fly around…. Strange little world I live in. Haha so this week I got a new “calling.” In the branch that I am serving there is not a single person who plays the piano and so they usually just sing acapella and it doesn’t sound to great but this white girl from Utah walks in and the first thing that everyone thinks is, “piano player.” The branch president asked me if I would play all of the hymns in sacrament meeting from now on. I have been avoiding that responsibility for a while but I knew it would catch up to me J the hymns did sound better yesterday though. So the person that was going to get baptized on Saturday decided that he didn’t want to and so we were kind of sad about that but I know the lord is preparing other people. The Lord is hastening his work and I am so glad that I get to be a part of it. I love you all, have a great week J

Love,

Hermana Allphin

beautiful Tarapoto :) 

Shilcayo :)

Email to Hunter

Hey buddy!
aso macho it was soo good to talk to you yesterday except that you
only talked to me for a few seconds..... que pumas!! oh well I am
super excited to talk to you more on Sunday! I dont have any way cool
stories for you this week but I hope you liked the story last week of
the kids fishing for the paranas :) I miss you lots dude, I hope you
are excited for school to be out so that you can email me every monday
:) OH guess what? I got attacked by a monkey and a chicken this week!
I was sitting in a lesson teaching these people and this monkey jumps
through the window and lands on my shoulder! I freaked out, the monkey
was soooo ugly. My companion was laughing so hard! Also there is this
parrot that lives in a house next to my investigators and you know how
parrotts copy everything they hear? Well this parrott was mimicking a
screaming baby! I am teaching and all of a sudden I hear this wailing
horrible cry from out the window. We ran to see what was happen and we
look out and see this parrott just chillin in the window, wailing like
a baby..... the jungle is a little weird not gonna lie. I think my
lungs are gonna die because people have campfires inside their
houses...... Also i went to teach a lesson and the persons pet chicken
totally attacked me.... not cool! Okay well I hope you have an awesome
week :) I will talk to you more on Sunday. Love you!!!!

Over the River and to the Woods :)

Hola Familia!

So last Monday we had transfers and I thought  I wasn’t going to have a transfer but it turns out that I did J This whole time in my mission I have been in the city of Iquitos but on Monday they told me that I had a transfer to the Jungle….. which means they are sending me way far away from Iquitos to somewhere  literally in the middle of the Jungle. I got assigned to the Zone Tarapoto and I will be serving in a branch called Shilcayo. I was super excited for my transfer but also a little bit sad because I have so many friends here in Iquitos. I am not going to see the missionaries in Iquitos for a long time because Iquitos is an Island so you have to fly in and out if you want to get there. We sang a last hymn together as a zone after the transfer meeting and then we were up all night packing suitcases because my companion Hermana Hernandez also had a transfer. The next day was hard saying goodbye to Hermana Simonson because we have lived together for 6 months and she will be staying in Iquitos but my new area was her old area J I got on a plane at 2 o clock the next day and flew to the beautiful city of Tarapoto!! Seriously I have never been in a place more beautiful. It is surrounded by huge mountains that are just pure green jungle and the mountains are always misty. We have to hike up to these little villages every day to get to where the people live and I am not going to lie it gets really tiring. We literally walk through the forest every day and we have to climb up old Incan stair cases to get to where we need to go…. It is definitely and adventure but it is absolutely amazing. We have native Indian tribes about an hour away and I think we are going to go to the native villages one P-day. My new companion is adorable. Her name is Hermana Lozano and she is from Mexico. We get along really well J I am genuinely excited to be here and yesterday we had people in church and the branch was so welcoming. We got a baptismal date last night of a man named Julio. All of his family are members except for him and so we are so happy that he will finally be united with his family. This area is amazing and I love serving with the other sixteen missionaries that are out here serving in this little place in the middle of nowhere…. It is going to be awesome. They took me out of the river and put me in the woods…. Literally. I was so good to talk to my family yesterday and I am so happy that everything is going well. I will send lots of pictures of my new area next week. Have an awesome week! Love you!

Love, Hermana Allphin  

The view of Iquitos and the Amazon :)

last pday with hermana simonson :) I am going to miss her!

The family we baptized in February

me and Hermana Hernandez.... I am going to miss her!

The Mission

Hola Familia!
Well I don’t really have too much to report this week but it was one
crazy week. So remember last week when Hermana Ventura went home? So
ya we started this week out as a trio which is fine because we already
live together anyway but we had a few other problems. So we got a new
district leader this transfer and it hasn’t been super easy with him.
Our district is just us three sisters and then him and his companion.
Anyway, it was a really hard month and we knew that something wasn’t
right we just didn’t know what. He ended up in a really interesting
situation and our Zone Leaders and president decided it was probably
better to just get him out so he got an emergency transfer. We have
been living this whole week without a district leader and it has been
really hard! Our Zone Leaders are great and are taking care of us but
it still isn’t super easy. Transfers are today and I am pretty sure
that I am staying in Zona 9 de Octubre en Barrio Internacional again….
Haha I am going to have like 7 months in this area but I trust that
the Lord knows what he is doing. I am happy that I am finally going to
have a district leader again and I hope he is really cool. It is going
to be an interesting transfer but we have a few families that we are
teaching and we hope they will be able to progress. The bridges are
getting sketchier every day and I really think that one day I will
fall in but let’s hope that that doesn’t happen. I love you and hope
you have a wonderful week 
Love,
Hermana Allphin