A Big Hello From the Jungle of Peru!

March 30, 2009 - "Iquitos is amazing. It is like a small version of Lima. Only, instead of tons of dust and buses, it is green and everyone has their own moto or their own motorcycle. If I lived here, I would totally get a motorcycle and just cruise down the streets. (Tell Taylor and Braden that they would really enjoy living down here, just being able to cruise the streets on their motorcycles...) A lady told me that a person can buy and pay off a piece of nice property down here for 200 soles. That's less than a 100 dollars, so if you need a place to live, Iquitos is open...I am sleeping with a mosquito net now and it is quite an experience. The mosquitoes aren't really bad right now, but it's winter in the jungle right now. Yeah right. I can't believe it's winter. But it is, and it's about 75 degrees fahrenheit and humid...I have seen the Amazon River. It is huge... Because it's winter, it is rainy season. My second night here, we entered the church at about 7 and it was clear skies, and when we left at 8, the streets were flooding because of how much rain was falling. It was falling hard. There are some houses here that are held up by poles. They build them this way because the water rises and goes down during the year. Right now, the water is high. It is amazing how they live. We have to walk across "bridges" to get to the houses. Now these bridges are anywhere from 5 inches to 2 feet wide, with water on both sides, and they are not very stable... It is awesome, and I love walking on them to get to the houses... We have eaten lunch in these "floating houses" and sometimes, I feel like the house is just going to collapse, but all it is, is an adventure...I am excited for General Conference this weekend. 10 hours to just sit back, relax, and listen to the Prophet, the Apostles, and other leaders of the Church... Everything is going fine."