Today, Christians in North America celebrate All Souls’ Day. The faithful pray for their deceased. The hope is that those undergoing purification in Purgatory will be allowed into heaven.

All Souls’ isn’t as well known as the more frequently observed All Saints Day and Day of the Dead.

But this focus on death and dying got local writer Teresa Puente thinking about how her travels introduced her to the idea of unwavering faith. Puente is an assistant professor of journalism at Columbia College Chicago, and she is writing a travel memoir about her four years living in Mexico.