elbow sweat 😓💪

Week 39

Soooo turns out I don't remember a lot of what happened this week. It was overall very average, doing pretty much the same thing all day everyday. Here's the few things I can remember:

- went to go hang out and teach our friend Abigail who's 9. When we got there she was so excited to show us that she had decorated the Book of Mormon we left her previously. So cute

- it's getting so hot here! I am constantly sweating. On Saturday my elbows were literally dripping with sweat from holding my umbrella (to block the sun) 

- finally got the permission we needed from Vanessa's dad so she can get baptized this week for real! Super stoked about it and praying that everything goes according to plan 🤞

- we've been working with the boy named Emilio (who is 12) basically since I got to this area in December. His family are all members. Emilio hasn't been baptized yet because he has autism. He has a difficult time learning the principles of the gospel and having trust in missionaries because they change so often. Emilio is a sharp kid and we have made progress with him bit by bit. His baptism is set to be for the end of this month. Yesterday he called us "his friends the missionaries" and that was a big win in my book #arribaemilio 🙌🏼

- ate like 4 ttlyudas this week. They were all bomb but I always leave feeling soooo full because they are literally huge. Sometimes the hermanas try to get you to eat 2. Wish my stomach was bigger sometimes 😪

This week I have started to dedicate myself to an in-depth study of the New Testament in the Bible. To be completely honest, biblical knowledge is something that I feel like I lack a lot of. I think that a lot of other church members are the same way. As I was studying the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, I thought a lot about the idea of loving your enemies. I don't consider myself to be someone who has legit enemies, but I have been struggling getting along with some of my leaders here recently.  I really liked this quote I found in regards to Jesus's plea to "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you":

"Forgiveness is freeing up and putting to better use the energy once consumed by holding grudges, harboring resentments, and nursing unhealed wounds. It is rediscovering the strengths we always had and relocating our limitless capacity to understand and accept other people and ourselves"

Forgiveness is something that I feel like I study and talk about a lot, but it's because I genuinely know that being forgiving is a celestial attribute. I have seen it again and again in my life. I hope you can find a way to let a little more christ-like forgiveness into your life and through that process, become "the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." 

CUÍDENSE 🫶

-hermana stephenson