Iquitos week 3

Hello everyone.

This week went alot moresmoothly than last week. I am alot better, and our trio was only a trio for this week. Hermna Vareles is now working with a mini missionary soits just Hermana Idme and I again. This week was amazing.We have been helping Andy prepare for his baptism and he is really excited. He is going to be baptised this saturday and he cant wait! I amso happyforhim.The ward loves him tooand the young single adults are invitinghimto every activity they have and he isloving it.He is going to be an amazing additio to the ward.

Other than helping Andy not too much has happened. Im just trying to enjoy the lastfew weeks of my mission and work really hard unti the end!! We are helping a few other peopleprogress towards baptism too.Julio and ancarolina. There are also progressing really well and were excitedto see when they accept baptism.

One of my accomplishments of this week was also finishing Jesus the Christ! It is an amazing book! I seriouslylearned so much about my savior.I was reading it along with the new testament and I just feel so gratefulfor my savior and for all thatHe did for us.He is mybest friend and my perfect example.I just hope that one day I can becomeeven aableto little bitlike Him. Themission has helped me to see how His gospelchanges lives and I have been  see the gospel chnging Andy's life as weve been teaching him these past few weeks. I just never want to stop sharing His gospel.

have a fantastic week!!! Dont forgetto share your testimony with someone this week. 

sorry for the short and horribly written email, junglecomputers are hard to workwith sometimes!!!! Next week Ill tellmore I hope.

Love you all!!

Hermana Toponce

Iquitos Week 2

I have just finished my second week here in Iquitos, and I have learned a lot this week! Heavenly Father had been giving me a few new trials so I can learn more....

This week Ive been pretty sick. I think that after being in one area for six months and then changing afffected my healñth a little bit and on top of that this week we had Leaders concil, my comp got lice, I have an eye injury, and one of the sisters has to go home so I will be in  a trio to end my mission! So much craziness!!! But I am happy to know that President trusts in me to handle all of these new things. Im excited to see how this next week will go with all of these changes. 

The Highlight of my week was definitly Danilo's baptism. He got baptised on Friday night and it was a super special night. I wasnt able ot be in his moms baptism but I got to be there for him and their family was so happy! We all took pictures together and Lila just kept telling me how happy she waws to see her son get baptised. We are also teaching Lilas other son Andy who is 18 and he said he felt a really good felling when he saw his brother enter into thye water and he accepted baptism too!! He is going to be baptised on the 21 of July! He cant wait! I( am so happy that I get to see how the gospel is bglessing the Mendoza Family. It is amazing how much the Lord can do in a year. They are so prepared!

I know that this gospel is true. I know that Jesus Christ is our savior and I know that there isnt a trial I can face that he hasnt gone through before. The Anonement is so powerful and it helps us to change and become better everyday. I am so grateful for Heavenly Father and His plan and perfect love of sending His son so that we can all have eternal hapiness and eternal life. The mission hy

as helped me to understand more and more Gods perfect love and I couldnt be more grateful for all of the mmany things I have learned here! I will never have word to express how amazing and life changing a mission is!! 

Ps

One crazy story from this week. I was sitting in sacrament meeting this week and my companion had to give a talk so I was by myslef in the congregation and a piece of the cieling fell and was about to fall directly on my head but something made it change course and it fell on the floor next to me. The whole ward was looking at me as if they had seen and angel and the Patriarch said that he saw the hand of the Lord moving the piece of the cieling so it didnt hit me. Pretty crazy experience but just another testimony that God protects His missionaries!!

I love you all tons. Thank you so much for all of your prayers!! They are helping me see miracles!!

Con Mucho amor, 

Hermana Toponce

(There arent any pictures because the internet is slow!!!) 

Natalie didn't send pictures, but the mission home sent some from a leadership meeting

Back to Iquitos

Hello hello!

I am writing to you all from Iquitos. I got the call on Monday night telling me that Im now going to be serving in Punchana Iquitos. Im happy to at least be going back to my old area if I cant finish in Pucallpa. Its been fun seeing everyone I got to know a year ago and the bishop cried tears of joy to see that I am working here again. 

I am still Sister leader but this time for more sisters! Im excited to finally be able to have more sisters in my zone. They are all adorable so Im sure there wont be any problems. My companion is sister Idme from Lima and she is a doll. She has three months in the mission and she was so happy to hear that we are going to be companions! Im excited to work with her for these last few weeks!! 

This week has been a good one. Im just trying to remember all of the streets and learn all of the investigators names. My convert from Iquitos, Lila is so happy that Im back because her son Danilo is getting baptised this next saturday and she said, if you coulnt be at my baptism Im happy youll at least be at my sos baptism! It was really sweet!

Im just loving the mission and soaking in every minute I have left of it. 

Ill let you all know what more is happening next week... not much happened out of the ordinary this week! Just getting to know Iquitos again. 

I love youall and hope oyu have a fantastic week!! Enjoy the pictures of Me and my new comp and me and my aji charapita (one of the spiciest peppers in the jungle!)

Con mucho amor, 

Hermana Toponce

El Fin Se Acerca

So I am oficially starting my last transfer of the mission and I realized how fast time is flying bye! My friends are getting home this week and I still feel like I just got here.

CRAZY!!!! 

Lots of fun things happened this week and Im sending pictures because I am finally using  a good computer. haha! Enjoy. 

This week the people here in the peruvian jungle celebrated their favorit holiday of San Juan. They celebrate by making Juanes (Bals of chicken and rice) and swimming! Since we cant do  the latter we learned how to make juanes and it was so fun! I feel like Ive just gotten so used to cooking jungle style (with a capfire) tha I wont know how to use an oven when I get back! 

Gloria got baptised!!!! We didnt teach her, but she is a friend of Osler and KArinas and she sat by us every sunday at church and she asked me to speak at her baptism! I was so happy to! It was a sweet saturday and we are so proud of her!! 

We ad to say bye to a lot of people this week becaue Im about 99% sure I am going to be transfered. I was sure to get a picture wit Karina and Osler and their family before I go because I am going to miss them tons! They have changed my life!! I want to come to peru again when they go through the temple!!! 

I also really felt like eating smores because I havent eaten them in a year and a half so my companion and I went to thelittle corner store and used candles to roast smores! It was fun, and it was the first time she had ever tried smores!!! I love teaching my companions fun little american treats!

I have been pondering a lot as im entering my last few weeks of the mission and I just want to share all of my testimony with everyone! I dont want to waste a minute of my precious time left here. I was studying about Abinidai and also the last week of Christs life, and it amazed me that even when they knew their time on earth was coming to a close, they used every ounce of their time to share the gospel and help people be saved! It was a really special  study that I had because I know that Heavenly Father wants me to do the same! 

I love the scriptures that help us to recieve personal revelation. I love the restored Gospel, and I love being a missionary!!! If any of you are thinking about going on a mission do it!!! You will not regret it!
I love oyu all!! HAVE A FANTASTIC WEEK!!!!

Con amor, 

Hermana Toponce

Happy Father's Day

So this week had a lot of random things that happened. It was an interesting one! 

It started out by saying goodbye to my Peruvian parents. Victor and Nieves. They have become some of my very favorite people. I was sad to say bye to them, but we had a super sweet family home evening to share our testimonies. Its crazy how often people just move here! I come to love them and then they just leave! The mission is full of see you laters. 

The second thing that happened is we had our District Meting in english and it was crazy. All of the Latinos were really struggling and it made me think of how I felt at the beginning of the mission when I didnt understand anything people were saying! My companion sait that she had a heaadache from so much english! It was great thought because it was a chance for them to use everything theyve learned in their language study! Learning languages is so amazing. I am so grateful that I was blessed with the chance to learn spanish. It is one of the hardest things I have done in my whole life, but I know its going to help so much after the mission too!

My companion had to leave again this week and I stayed with the other sisters here. Our areas are really far from eachother so I just had to work with them and we lost a lot of work time in our area. It made me sad becasue I felt like we werent going to reach all of our goals. When my companion got back we decided to fast together, and we were able to find golden families and have people come to church!! It was a miracle. 

On the day we were fasting we had a member ride up to us and I felt like asking her who she was visiting. She told us it was her friend Jhon and we went straight to go find Jhon. We found him and his whole family and they were som happy to listen to the gospel! It is seriously amazing the power that fasting brings. I loved this experience this week. 

I also read a talk by L. Tom Perry this week from general conference October 2014 about the plan of salvation and it talked a lot about how much Dads do in Gods plan. I loved it and you should all read it. dads are awesome, and I sure love mine!!

I hope oyu all have a fantastic week. Look for all of the little miracles because there are so many everyday!

Con mucho amor, 

Hermana Toponce 

Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd

Hello Everyone!

I had a wonderful week and I dont really have the words to express my gratitud for all of the miracles I have witnessed. I am just so happy to be a missionary!

Osler and Karina got married this week. We were able to get all of the papers in and everything all ready in record time and they got married on Friday. I got to be Karina's witness for her wedding and she was so happy! It was my second time being a witness at a wedding! The wedding turned out great! We decorated he chapel witha  ton of balloons, and the members brought food and it turned out being super great and they couldnt stop thanking us! They are so special to me. It has been so fun helping them to progress on the covenant path so they can have an eternal family!! 

The baptism on Saturday was amazing! Osler and Jose both got baptised and everything went so well! A ton of people came to support them! When Osler shared his testimony after he shared the story from the bible about the lost sheep. He said he was grateful that we had coming looking for him so he could be brought back to the fold. It was a sweet moment and I just had tears of joy in my eyes thinking about all of the hard work these brothers have put into getting baptised and thinking about all of the great things they are going to do now! It was the best weekend ever!

Transfers are in two weeks and everyone is pretty sure that I am going to have transfers and they keep inviting me to eat at their homes to say by. Its really starting to hit me that Im not going to be in Peru forever, but oh how grateful I am that I was sent here. I know that there have been people prepared for me to find, but I know tha t they were also prepared to teeach me too! 

I know that the gospel has been restored and I know tha t our Heavenly Father loves each and every one of His children. I know that Jesus Christ is our saviour and thet He is the way to eternal life! Keep working hard and do all that you can to stay on the covenant path!!

Mathew 18:12-14

Con MUCHO amor, 

Hermana Toponce

Jungle Birds

This week was a lot better than last week and I am super grateful! I enjoyed every minute of it! 

We had a little bit of an unfortunate experience this week but it was really funny! We were out teaching with a member named Celide and we found a bird with a broken foot. Celide thought it would be a good idea to give the bird to someone so they could have a pet... it was a really pretty bird! So we thought of Nieves, the Sister who has been giving us food this month, because it was her birthday! We gave her the bird and we got it into a little cage and gave it something to eat, and then she felt that she should put the bird by us so we could keep an eye on it while we were having lunch. All of the sudden we saw the bird stretch, it sang a little, and then.... it died. We all couldnt believe it!! We had the bird for less than ten minutes!!!! We thought it was the best gift ever and instead of enjoying her cute little bird we had a little funeral for it. It was super unfortunate and now I dont want to give people birthday gifts! 

Then when we were walking home we found a parrot that was sitting on the tree next to our house and it started whistling at us! So many jungle birds! 

I went to leaders councli in Iquitos this week and I got to be in the same city as Sister Griffith and Sister Felshaw for the first time since the beginning of our mission and we were so happy! I loved getting to talk to them and hear how much we have grown. Leaders council was amazing, because we learned about how we can guide our mission better and help all of the new missionaries become great teachers! We set a bunch of goals for this month and it was just what we all needed! I love being able ot think about the needs of the misson, its amazing to see so many people in one room recieving revelation. This is something Ive been able to be better at here. The spirit really guides us when we are praying, fasting, and listening! I love being able to recognize it more in my life. 

We went early today to finish all of the wedding papers for Osler so they can get married on Friday and then Baptised on Saturday and he was so happy. He just said how he cant wait to be able to recieve the Priesthood to bless his family and help everyone. I just know he is going to be a bishop one day!! Jose is also getting baptised on Saturday  and he told us that he knows its what he needs to be saved :) He is such a sweet old man and he loves to tell us stories of living in the jungle for so many years :) Im glad to see that when we work hard, God blesses us. I know that when we trust in Him everything works out how it should. So often we want things to go fast, but its so much more beautiful to see how our Heavenly Father has things planned! 

I am so thankful for all of your prayers. I am so glad that I get to be a missionary because I know that this gospel is true with all of my heart and I know that Jesus Christ is our saviour and that because of Him we can all have eternal happiness. 

Con mucho amor, 

Hermana Toponce