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.