Blacker, Dekan

      This week was pretty bad except for one thing. I did go through my depression cycle this week, it hit hardest on Wednesday, but it was also on Wednesday that I gained a great testimony of prayer. We were at a church building, I was collecting myself and I handed my phone to Titus, I went by myself, I got on my knees and I prayed. A mission is interesting because it makes it so that there aren't a lot of options for when you're feeling this way, I can ask the Lord for help or I can continue on my own. What I used to do for relief is I would go to In-N-Out, I would play video games or watch a movie and I can't do that anymore so I prayed. I asked for help, I asked for strength to continue the rest of the day and I also prayed and asked for a hug because that's all I wanted in that moment. When I'm in this state I've learned that hugs do wonders for me. After I prayed I felt a little bit better, I walked back out of the room and went back to my companion and ...

       I love being in Utah. The work here is often just given to you. Yesterday was a tough day. We were exhausted both mentally and physically and just had a really really hard time getting out the door. We were just walking around and I kept thinking, I just want to stop here, I just wanna lie down and take a nap. I'm way too tired to be doing this, which was my own fault but I'll get to that in a minute. So we're walking along and a car was there and they stopped us and said, hey we're the Allred's in the Emerald Ward, etcetera etcetera. Then we're talking to them and they mention, we're headed over to the Carr's home their daughter is in my primary class, they were at church today and the daughter wants to be baptized. We did literally nothing except for show up and because we were out, we now have a missionary opportunity.         Now for why I was tired, I'm both very proud and very not proud to say this but for the first time this wee...

Dekan's email:  dekan.blacker@missionary.org        Hello everybody, sorry I forgot to send an email last week, but hey you get 2 for this week. This week was rather up and down. I think I'm headed toward a low point in my depression because my mood has been just kinda off at points during this week. Which means I'm upset for no reason and so I keep to myself and don't say anything, ever. My companion had to teach a few lessons without me saying a word this week.         Other than those spurts though it was a pretty good week. We got to teach Aubree (11) and Alivia (9) Van Der Spek and put them on date to be baptized. Unfortunately Alivia's mad at us, but that's because she doesn't want to wait 2 weeks to be baptized. The Van Der Spek's are so much fun to teach and they came to church this week, finally! It's so exciting, they're actually going to be baptized.         I was on exchanges with a greenie and we wen...

      All in all this has been a pretty good week. Unfortunately, all but one of our progressing people had to cancel their meetings with us. The only one that didn't is the girl that we knocked on the door and then she told us that she wants to be baptized but doesn't know how. Her name is Cheylyn or Shy as her family calls her and they are an awesome family. When we told them that we can only have dinner appointments on Saturday and Sunday they decided that they would bring us some of their dinner to our apartment. They did that twice this week and they are really good at cooking, dare I say better than Elder Stewart? I don't know, I haven't decided yet, but it's definitely better than Dino Nuggets. My companion eats a lot of Dino Nuggets as do I now that they're around the house. We also eat a lot of Otter Pops ever since he's been here. We're planning on putting Shy on date tonight though and she'll probably be baptized by the end of transfer.  W...

    This week was so much fun! I think it was legitimately my favorite one I've had as a missionary. Which is kinda surprising considering the last 3 weeks were not the best of weeks. I had a lot of fun those weeks, I was happy, but we weren't finding success in our missionary efforts and consequently we just kinda stopped being all in, especially after the car was taken. I chalked it up to the area not being very ripe for missionary work. I thought there was nothing to really do, in both stakes not just Kayscreek. Then this week we found a lot of success.       With this week being the beginning of the new transfer both me and Titus knew that things needed to be different. It's kinda funny we never even had a conversation about this we both just knew what it was that we needed to do. So with both of us reinvigorated, we actually got outside each day from 10am to 9pm minus an hour for lunch and an hour for dinner and we saw miracles because of it. We f...