The most wonderful time of the year 🏵💀🌼

 Week 73

Feliz Día de Muertos everyone! If you can recall from last year's email, Dia de Muertos is kinda a super big deal here in Oaxaca. It’s so awesome to see all the altars and decorations they put up and all the fun traditions to remember our ancestors. 

This week was a busy one! We traveled back to the city in a little van about 4 hours for leadership council which was pretty much the same as always hahah (iykyk). I got to see all the homies in other zones which is always a plus! And the city was super super decorated. It was fun to walk around and see it all. 

When we came back, we were able to get in on the celebrations with a few activities in our branch. We made a little altar with the cempachucil flowers, had chocolate and bread and everyone went around sharing family stories! It was also a costume party so you know we had to go as our only option: elders. The next day we watched Cocó with the elders branch and our little friend who is getting baptized next week. She loved it. Super wholesome all around 🎃💀

Other things:

- a bird pooped on my companion

- I ate so much mole this week 😋🤰

- there's a lady in our ward that sells piñatas and we've been going over to help her out like 2x week. I'm super pro at making hand-made piñatas now so hit me up post-mish if you want one 🪅

-hit 17 MONTHS. so terrifying.➡️ ⚰️

But all other things aside, the absolute highlight of this week (and my whole mission probably) was that while I was in the city, I had the chance to attend the temple with Mareli, a convert from my first area. In the last year since her baptism she has stayed so firm in the gospel and had a desire to enter the temple and recieve her own endowment. She asked me if I would be her escort and acompany her for her first time. Of course it was an opportunity I wasn't going to miss. It was amazing to be able to see her a year later and see how much she has grown into a wonderful young woman. But more than anything, the spirit that I felt being in the temple with her was unforgettable. It is hard to express in words the absolute joy of being able to meet someone, teach them the gospel, watch them enter into the waters of baptism and embrace it wholeheartedly, and then be able to walk with that person into the celestial room hand in hand. The whole experience made a certain line of every missionaries call come to my mind repeatedly:

"Greater blessings and more joy than you have yet experienced await you as you humbly and prayerfully serve the Lord in this labor of love among His children."

I never could have known 17 months ago of the truth of that promise. I am filled with gratitude for the experiences that Lord has blessed me with, for putting me in exactly the right places with the right people that needed me but that more than anything I needed in my life. I can testify that if we are willing, the Lord will make us instruments in His hands to bless His children. And through that process, which is not always easy, there is joy beyond compare waiting. 🫶🏼

    I 🫶🏼 MARELI

Love you all! Find a way to humbly and prayerfully serve the Lord today! It is so worth it ;)

-Hermana Stephenson