18 to 30

This is kind of a difficult post for me because this is something that i've never been very open about...but there's no better time than now since i'll be 30 in 18 days and that probably means i should be a grown up :) as i've previously mentioned, i am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and most people know that we send missionaries out all over the world to teach people about the gospel. boys are expected (doesn't mean they always do) to serve 2 year missions when they are 19 years old. girls are offered the opportunity at the age of 21 if they want but they are not expected to. missions are very hard experiences. when you serve a mission you dedicate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 2 years (or 18 months for girls) to serving the Lord. that means no tv, no phone, no friends, no family, no napping (except on P day), no music etc. it is a huge sacrifice. during my senior year of college i suddenly started having strong feelings that i needed to serve a mission. for a few months i really fought hard against those feelings because i didn't feel like i could sacrifice everything that would be asked of me. however, as time went on i felt stronger and stronger and i started diligently praying about it and studying my scriptures and eventually i couldn't deny those feelings any more. i went forward with the process of putting in my papers and i remember receiving my call and how shocked i was to receive a call to serve the Lord in Helsinki, Finland and to teach the gospel in the finnish language. I left a week after college graduation and entered the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. your length of stay in the mtc is dependent on the area that you are going to serve and since i had to learn finnish i had to stay in the mtc for 13 weeks. i actually thrived in the mtc. i picked the language up very well and fast, i made lots of friends...i just had a great time...of course i was homesick but it was not overwhelming. after 13 weeks in the mtc i flew all the way to helsinki, finland where i met my new mission president and my companion who would be training me. i was nervous but really excited. the first few weeks was like a shell shock boot camp. in the mtc when you train for this stuff it's not real and you're not dealing with real individuals. suddenly i was tracting 8-10 hours a day (which is just knocking on doors and asking people if they want to learn about the gospel) and the general population in finland isn't the nicest and most people were very rude and would yell and swear and spit and call the police and tell you how crazy you are and you're going to hell, etc. it was really shocking to go from so much positive in the mtc to such negativity in finland. other stuff was wierd too like the sun bright and beaming at 3 am (i got there in august) and then later when there would only be 6 hours of daylight. there was, of course, lots of good stuff as well such as the members and the occasional nice person at the door but there was an overwhelming amount of negative. after some time the negativity and homesickness and everything together started to take it's toll on me and every day i started to feel less and less like myself. there were days where i literally was just going through the motions like a robot but i wasn't really "there". my companion and i would have lots of fights and i feel so bad now for the way i treated her but i really just wasn't myself by that point. after about 3 months it got to be too much and we decided i needed to go speak with the wife of our mission president. we made the trip and i spent some time talking to her and then she put me on the phone with the dr of all the european missions and after speaking with him he diagnosed me as being clinically depressed and recommended that i go home to get some therapy and then decide if i wanted to come back or not. i was given a medical release and was on a flight heading home 24 hours later. it was very surreal. it's been over 6 years since this happened i still don't speak too much about it. i was immediately and still am embarrased because you can't help but think you have failed the Lord, yourself and your family. i have a much better understanding now then i did then but i'm still not all the way there. i did go to counseling and took medication for a time after coming home and i know that at that time i truly was sick. i was not myself and i didn't even recognize myself. after i was home i was called to be a temple worker and i was told that by so doing i was being given an opportunity to finish my service for the Lord. I've also had blessings where i've been told that just me being willing to go was a true test and that's what the Lord wanted to know, to know if i was willing. still, though, there are times when parts of me wonder if it was something that i did or didn't do that made me get sick but deep inside i know that the lord was pleased with what i was able to give.