Blacker, Dekan

     Oh my goodness, this week sucked. It was filled with depression and dark thoughts galore, but it's ok because I've been given an absolute miracle.        Tuesday through Thursday was absolutely awful, I could barely function. We did basically no missionary work though I tried to a couple of times and quickly discovered that I'm not currently capable of missionary work. Really the only good thing I remember from those days is that one of my friends brought me In-N-Out and I got to talk to them about things.        I woke up Friday feeling 100% trapped. Things were going so poorly that I felt like it was only a matter of time before I gave up. This would make you think that I should come home, but I highly doubt that would've been helpful. So I felt like a ticking time bomb, just waiting to go off with nothing I could do about it.        That sounds pretty bad and it was, but luckily Friday morning is when I g...

          Hey guys sorry I didn't write last week, but it was a rather depressing week. I made a rather dumb decision a while ago and decided to stop taking medication. As many predicted, though not I, it has in fact had a rather large toll on me and my thoughts and actions. I'm back on medication and ultimately it'll be fine, but it's a real struggle at the moment. One thing that's really cool about this time is that I actually have a lot of hope. I've been through prolonged depression 3 times in my life now. The first 2 times it was a real struggle to find hope. It was something I had to fight for every single day, but this time it's easy. I don't have to fight to maintain my hope, it's just already there and it's awesome. It's so helpful to have hope during these times. Preach my Gospel lists hope as one of the attributes of Christ and it's cool to be able to reflect and see the growth that's occurred. I can say that I'm now a ...

      Oh, the weather got so cold here. It's freezing. We had single digit highs and it felt like below 0 for a couple of days. Then one day the temperature got all the way up to 27 degrees and it legitimately felt so warm. I've adjusted way more than I ever thought I would. I've been walking around while it's snowing with only a light jacket and I'm actually comfortable, it's weird. That being said I'm still sick of the cold and I'm ready for some warmth.        Training is still going really really well. Elder Whetten is still such a great missionary for it being his first transfer and I'm seeing the improvement in him. He surprises me in a good way just about everyday and it's so fun to see somebody putting it all together on how to be a missionary. He's also pushing me to be a better missionary. Sadly though he got his Visa and could be leaving as early as a week from today. I'm glad he'll get to go to Tahiti, but still he's a...