Celebration of San Juan!

Hola familia!

Well this week was full of all the normal frustrations of missionary life but I guess that is just the way it is.  First of all this week was the celebration of San Juan. Everyone makes their juane and goes to the river. No one wanted to listen to us because they were all making their juane…. With is rice and eggs wrapped up in a palm tree leaf. It is not my favorite thing in the world. Next surprise was that my district leader had some problems with his visa and he had to get transferred to a different mission in Ecuador! Crazy right? Our new district leader is pretty cool though. We got dropped by a lot of people but we are just gonna keep working and things will turn out okay. So yesterday at church I was playing the piano and one of my favorite little boys in the whole world came up and sat by me. He has the hardest life. He was abandoned by his mom, his dad is a drunk and he lives with his grandma. Despite all of that, he is the brightest light is a child that I have ever seen. He is one of the happiest people I have ever met. His name is David and he is 10 years old. He was watching me play the piano and he told me how much he wanted to learn. There wasn’t really much he could do but I told him he could help me. He put his feet on the pedals and pushed them down while I played the hymns. He sat next to me quietly the whole meeting, anxiously waiting for the next song so that he could help me with the pedals. At the end of sacrament he smiled, thanked me and then ran to his grandma and told her that he had helped Hermana Allphin with the piano.  I love little children. You don’t realize how much you have until you see people who have much less! I love you all so much. I hope you have a wonderful fourth of July!

Love,

Hermana Allphin