Elder Graham LaBass - Oaxaca Mexico Mission 2025-2027

  Bendiciones!!!!!  This week has easily been the hardest week yet. Saying goodbye to the CCM family was crazy difficult but I'm so happy that we are all in field now!  The last night at the CCM our flight was set for 2AM... who does that... it's a 1 hour flight... Why 2am? So no one slept at all, we all just stayed up talking and playing cards. Once we got to Oaxaca we all crashed in a hotel and slept for four hours.  Currently I am in Juchitán, Xochixlon 3 area! This place is crazy because all non-member adults are the laziest people ever, but the niños... they are so awesome!! We have about 7 people on date for next week right now (2 of which were placed by us) and they are all under 15... nice. These kids are awesome, we will be sitting on the street teaching on and then all of a sudden 7 more pull up out of nowhere and listen in. It's so awesome how strong these kids' spirits are. The way we find these kids is through a game called Trumpo. It's basically a top ...

  ONE MORE WEEK!!!! Next week I leave for Oaxaca, (Wednesday to be exact) I'm so pumped for the field! Not too much happened this week, just studying a lot. We took our Spanish tests yesterday and I scored pretty dang good (not to brag or anything).  My district is so awesome and it's gonna be very sad to say goodbye. One of the Hermanas asked for a blessing of comfort and didn't tell me why. After the blessing she let me know that I had quoted her patriarchal blessing word for word. I know this power that I hold is from God and so long as we are worthy we can do amazing things with it. The priesthood is truly amazing.  On Sunday we had a group devotional about a talk we all listened to. We have done these many times before (about twice a week) but for some reason this one was much more powerful. (Probably because the second councilor pulled up so we all locked in haha). Either way the spirit was so strong and even though it was a small discussion, I was reminded of the p...

  This week was probably the slowest week yet... mostly because I have no hair now... (sorry mom). I told my district that if EVERY elder buzzed then I would too... and they all totally did. And because I am a man of my word, I am now buzzed into oblivion.  General conference as a missionary is unreal. Up until now, I have never stayed awake the whole time and barely got anything out of it. As an ordained and set apart missionary, the spirit communicates with me more clearly and with more strength means that when the apostles of God stand and give us a message it's as if a whole new world opens up to you. We did a lot of preparation, gathering questions and praying to find answers, and I can speak for my whole district when I say there was not a single question that we left unanswered. We even plan on going back and listening to them all again. I had a few nagging questions that I didn't realize were weighing on my testimony and when with a sincere and prayerful heart I listen...

 Hola, bendiciones! (I wanted to make these emails short but there is way too much to talk about so if you don't want all the needy greedy details, the last paragraph summarizes it all, your welcome Riley).   I am in the refiners fire  ! Basically Heavenly Father is taking all of my weaknesses and expanding them... so yes, this week was a little hard lol. However, 3 Nephi:7 states that God giveth no commandment unto the children of men save he shall provide a way to accomplish that said commandment. I know that through these trials there is always a light on the other side. No matter what we have done or how far we think we are from the presence of God and his love, you are wrong. Thanks to the atonement of Jesus Christ, the ultimate example of love, we are always just a few steps away from our father in heaven and Jesus Christ will never leave our side.  - Life is good! I'm getting really good at volleyball (still suck) and my district couldn't be any clos...