i found out what i'm supposed to do... i think

SO I THINK, i figured it out.

For some reason all these particular scriptures kept coming to mind.

alma 15:16

in the temple i read some scriptures. I thought each time it was saying "go back out immediatly"
but the spiritual feelings i felt didn't agree with that.

I now know what i'm supposed to do. I feel at peace with this idea, even though i'm really scared to do it.

I'm going to go to school this year, finish up the degree, then go back out on my mission.

I know that sounds awfully weird, but i think thats what i'm supposed to shoot for. I don't know if it means that just striving for it will be the matter (like my sister did) or if i'm supposed to execute, but either way i'm feeling really good about it. I'm glad. I finally feel like all the peices are coming together.

Heavenly Father places little bumps here and there to jog our memories. alma 15:16 reads

And it came to pass that Alma and Amulek, Amulek having ^aforsaken^• all his gold, and silver, and his precious things, which were in the land of Ammonihah, for the word of God, he being ^brejected by those who were once his friends and also by his father and his kindred;

so i woke up yesterday with that scripture firmly implated in my skull. I read it and was really confused, i thought i was supposed to leave now. I now know, with a spiritual confirmation, that next junish i'll be back out. Hopfully back to florida, but thats probably doubtful.

We'll see what happens, but you've got the heads up for now. Spiritually, thats what feels right. We'll see if i listen or not, or if the prompting stays this strong.

Peace be unto you.

insomnia sucks.

yeah, insomnia sucks. The folks in my mission that work out are already awake, and i'm not even tired yet.

i know it will go away.

satan works hard.

It sufficeth me to say (hehehehe) that satan works hard on us. Especially me. Right now at 2 am. I do a google news search for mormon, and i find all these anti websites pop up. Oh well. I'm sure my testimony will survive. Now i just need to get back to feeling the spirit more.

people are worried.

i worry. my dad worries. everyone seems to have this compulsion with thinking excessively about things they can't control. Basically, the escence of worrying is having anxiety over things you can't change.

stop it.

wow.

that was easy.


It seems like when i'm in control of my thoughts, and feelings specifically, i can control the worrying. Right now, i'm worry free! Depression free! ETC ETC ETC.... and i'm great. I know that if i get married, i won't stay worry free, depression free, but i'm sure that i'll be able to work it out. Right now i have no confidence in modern medicine. Someone help me out with that... please. All the 'drugs' seem to keep giving me more damage than good. Now that i'm done with them for the time being, i feel better.

My real questions stem from:

why did effexor not give me as bad of side effects the first go around, and why does EVERY medicine give me side effects now?

oh well. Maybe i'll learn someday. Untill then, its back to traditional ways of coping with depression. Namely family/friends/Amy. They all help me. While i was at WSU, i didn't have any symptoms... thanks to these things. Hopfully i can save myself from heartache once again.

well, thats it.

cya

med free

I talked to the doctor, and now i'm not taking any medicine. I DONT HAVE ANY WITHDRAWLS. I think my body was rejecting it the whole time. It didn't like it or something. Regardless, today i'm not having random brain freakouts and stuff.

w00t.

Some Ranting

So i've had a bunch of things on my mind, and i guess this is as good a place as any to air out my thoughts and ideas.

As i was reading a recent slashdot poll [which i don't care to link to] i was frustrated by the amount of bigotry in our society. People from outside a social group, looking in, don't always get an accurate view of it. Some will say, "i've been there!" Some will cheat to get into the group, not truly understanding the views behind the people, but only observing their outward apperance, and then some will just let it lie. A couple cases in point: Ex-Mormon people who become Anti-Mormon people. The obligotory quote of "I grew up in a mormon home," or "I used to be mormon." is often followed by "so I KNOW WHY they do things." Give me a break. People don't know, or understand my relationship with god. Thats because its MINE. MY RELATIONSHIP with GOD. A seperate but equal case are Jehovah's Witnesses. Yeah they can be pushy. Yeah i don't really like the feeling i had when i was visiting with some who knocked on the door of our apartment in tampa. BUT THEY'RE GOOD PEOPLE NO DOUBT. Trying to do what [they think] is best for everyone. My views are different. BIG DEAL! Hence when people argue "Jehovah's witnesses pray on the weak minded," I tend not to listen. However much truth is in that statement, i don't really care. What i care about is their relationship with god. Did they pray about it? Did they listen to the spirit?

I have enough confidence in the holy ghost to let them know certain things. #1-- Jesus Christ is the son of god. He is Jehovah of the old testament. I read a psalm the other day [ooh, listen to me i sound all baptis' all the sudden] and to me it proved that jesus was jehovah. To me. Thats why i'm not going to provide the reference. Pray about it. Faith precedes the miracle, and thats how prayers are answered.

On the topic of prayer, i'm a little worried. I thought i had this whole fall thing figured right out. I fasted and prayed, and felt really good about staying here. Now i'm more scared. I think my bishop subconciously made me not as certain about my decision. I feel the way he described of not knowing with certainty if what i'm doing is right. Oh well. Next august, fast sunday will roll around, and i'm confident that if i really want to know, he'll tell me. I think he's told me, but not for sure. "Ask and ye shall recieve, knock and it shall be opened unto you." D&C 4:8? I dunno where thats at in d&c 4, but its in there.

So we come full circle. Christ loves us all enough for us to figure things out. Bigotry in any form goes against christ's teachings. A poster said in a comment "Substitute the word Mormon for Muslim in any of these comments and suddenly you're being super ignorant." or something to that effect.

I love you for reading this rant.

Thanks for caring about me.

Hazel rules.

Doctors update:

I'm still not better! More at 11.

i don't know how to fix the medicinal situation. I want to just stop taking drugs altogether, but thats less of an option for my doctor. He doesn't like that idea. In the mean time, i'm going back to school, and junk since i doubt i'll be better overnight, and we'll see exactly what happens. My mission president's son had a similar issue, and he wound up getting married a few months back. I just wish i could talk with him about how he dealt with everything.

You rule once again.

Love you all,

Elder Bennett

er...

Randall

continuence of the blog?

Does everyone want me to keep blogging my normal life? Becuase here's the dilemma: my real life isn't as exciting as my mission. I don't have something to write home about every week, but if i do, i guess i could post it. I just need to know if you guys want me to keep going, or what.


Thanks,

EB

WELL... thanks to the overwhelming majority.... seth.... the blog will stay. I guess i'll just have to figure out what real life is really like. You can join me as, i come of age in this postmodernistic world.... that sounds like a move trailer.

hehe

and i changed the blog summary. I still haven't changed anything on the right side, and i don't really want to. It kind of bums me out to take it down.

so i will someday, but not today.

and whoever reads this in thailand, let me know. cause that just freaks me out.

take it easy.


i think i'm done with life. see if anyone reads this. haha

so, post mission life, on my birthday

happy birthday me!

thanks me.

Today is my birthday, I'm 20. Its weird. I decided since i hadn't updated in a bit that i probably should. I know you're all on the edge of your seat now, since no one probably visits this site anymore.

I have been blessed.

Try to understand how blessed i feel. I feel like i recieved a spiritual reason to be in st. george, and now i have miracles in front of me, but i still feel like i should question. STUPID NATURAL MAN!

So, start of the list of blessings.

I have a list of blessings in my real journal, but its somewhere en route to st. george, along with my GUITAR!!! :@

anyways, back to list of blessings.

#1-- Car

I got a car on saturday. SATURDAY. i got home on FRIDAY. I prayed about whether i should buy it and junk, and i was supposed to, i think to facilitate getting on with life.

#2-- Fasting Blessings!

I fasted to know whats up last fast sunday, and i found that i'm supposed to stay here. Well, here meaning continue on with my life. I'm starting to get the spirit more strongly, just not as strongly as i had it on my mission.

#3-- Palm

My dad gave me his palm. What an awesome dad.

#4-- Celly

I got a cell phone, and its going to cost me -$100. Thats right, i get 100 bucks for getting a cell phone. Pretty rad eh?

#5-- Job @ KCSG

Kcsg called me and was like "do you want to work here?" I was like "YEAH!" "Come to work NOW!" "OK!"

I got a job, in 4 days.

what the heck.

#6-- Many more

I have so many blessings its hard to list, but i know one thing for sure. Heavenly Father loves us. Find out how much he loves you. Pray. A lot.

later,

Elder Bennett.

Er...

Randall

friends are cool

anne sanders is my hero. As well as lisa mangum. They are my good friends from years ago at the dsc testing center. Lisa is engaged. weird.

scroll down if you want to know whats up with the health.

peace.

so... i'm here

Yeah, so in case you were wondering what was happening with the last couple of blog updates... i'll tell you.

i'm home.

Being medically released is one of the hardest things i think that has ever happened to me. I'll give you the full story, so that less people will have to ask me.

I'm here because of depression. I've had depression ever since i can remember, and one of the ways that i used to cope with the problem was talking to family. I would call my brother rick, my sister SueAnn, or my mom and dad and kind of talk out how i was feeling and how dumb it was, then go to sleep and usually the next day i'd feel better. Sometimes we'd have to do it for 3 weeks or more, but somehow it would get better.

on my mission, my support system is uncontactable (if thats a word). I decided that i should start taking medication to fix some of the problems. The depression got so bad i had some suicideal ideations, and that is pretty unacceptable. I started taking effexor, the drug i used to take. For the first couple of weeks, things were great. I had some of the best weeks of my mission in cape coral with elder cook, but then things started to head south. I started to get more and more tired. By the end of my time with elder cook, i was getting fairly fatigued, and would come home for lunch and sleep and not be able to be woken up.

I pressed on though, by the end of the next transfer with elder schoenfeld, i was so exhausted, i would sleep for 5 hours at times during lunch. It got bad enough to where i went to see a doctor. They started to treat me, but i got transferred to highlands. In highlands, i competed with the feelings of terrible and started to try to get better. Negative. I saw 2 new doctors, and took a bunch of blood tests. They decided a course of action would be to switch from one medication to another. Effexor to Lexapro. Holy the worst decision of my life. Lexapro made me even more tired. So we switched again. Lexapro to Zoloft. Zoloft made me super paranoid, like i was high on weed or something. I got many blessings, and many spiritual experiences, and it sufficeth me to say that i started getting spiritual promptings to go home.

I ignored them.

I like my mission, i liked the people, i liked everything, also hated everything too, but it was good enough for me to get through. When i got transferred in to the office,i was pumped, because i could work through all the medicinal side effects.

then it hit me.

Thursday, when we were at zone conference in st. pete, i got this mad spiritual prompting like whoa. Basically re-inforcing everything i had been prompted about. I decided it was time to heed, and to start praying.

and thats why i'm here now.

I talked to the mission president, and we came to the mutual decision that it was the best idea for me. He gave me a blessing, and started everything.

Now i flew to st. george, friday, and am going to bear my testimony in church today. Everyone will have a look of shock... unless they read my blog today... so if you read this, keep this on the DL (down low) untill after sacrament meeting.

Peace.

a bit closer

i'm closer. I'll update this sunday with full details.

take it easy.