Life is a Roller Coaster..No Matter Who You Are.

Well, its been a few months since I've blogged. Most of the reason being: I was serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (Know what that is?? Check it out here or here.) I left for Utah to enter the Provo Missionary Training Center on June 19, 2013. I spent the week leading up to that day, in Utah with my family. It was such an awesome week with so much excitement! I got to visit old missionary friends who had served in the area that I lived in, and I got to eat Cafe Rio..google it, and of course I got to spend the last week I would with my family before I would see them again in December of 2015. It was awesome.

I was so stoked to enter the MTC and to start this new journey I was on. I wanted to hit the ground running and just go! The day of the 19th was filled with nerves! I woke up at around 10am and my family and I got dressed and got the hotel room ready to leave. I packed the rest of my bags and we got ready to leave. We had a light lunch but I couldnt eat anything. I was a ball of nerves and all I felt like doing was throwing up! We took pictures by the Provo Temple and then at last, it was finally time. We drove to a little parking lot in front of the MTC and said our teary goodbyes. Making each of them promise to take care of each other and love and serve each other and to read their scriptures and all those things that any normal missionary leaving would make their siblings promise ;) haha. It was rough to say goodbye but I was ready. I was so ready to get this started and be a missionary! So I entered the MTC and after that day, I never looked back.

The greatest MTC companions ever!

My awesome MTC district!

My new life had just began. I was no longer Courtney Fries, I was Hermana Fries. I was given my name badge and shown to my room then shuffled onto my first spanish class. My mind was in such a daze because I wasnt exactly sure what was happening. And it continued like that for the first three days I was there. I met my companions who I would be spending the next 6 weeks with. Hermana Tokailagi and Hermana Pinnock. You don't enter the MTC thinking you're going to have this little family that you lean on for anything and everything for the next six weeks, but you do. My little MTC family was the best, most dysfunctional and most awesome family ever. I loved my MTC district. Our last night together in class we had a testimony meeting and there was not a dry eye in the room. Those humans changed me. And I will never forget that. We all were assigned to go to the same mission, but due to visa issues we were all reassigned to a stateside mission (did I mention I was going to the Argentina Bahia Blanca mission?). We all went our seprate ways, and we were all heart broken, except for Hermana Pinnock and I. We got sent to the Arizona Tempe Mission together!

The morning we left was so odd. We traveled together the entire way. I was so lucky to have been with Hermana P. We were both sooooo excited. We chatted with our families in the airport in Utah. Then we were off. We passed out a pass along card to these two little girls who were darling. They knew of mormons and so we told them to tell their parents about Mormon.org. My first contact with someone not from the MTC, as a missionary; UNREAL.

There's something that most people dont realize about missionaries, unless they are or have been one. And that is that they almost instantly gain a bigger heart for everyone. People yelling at them that this religion is a cult? They love them. A homeless man on the street? They love them. You instantly love every human that walks in front of you, whether you meet them or not. My first companion in Arizona told me that as missionaries, the Lord makes our hearts grow 10x its natural size, and with each person and area we serve in and meet, a little bit of our hearts get left there until the end of our missions when its back to normal size. There has been nothing more true than that statement. And I saw it first on this airplane into Arizona.

So, I was assigned to be with Hermana Abarca in the Yuma, Arizona area. I sat next to my new companion who I had known all of 2 seconds and thought to myself...Heavenly Father you are so funny...I live in San Diego and Yuma is about 3 hours from San Diego. I am almost positive Heavenly Father put me here for the sanity of my mother ;). Heavenly Father knew that my family and I needed to still feel close to each other. I don't know how to explain this entirely, but I know Heavenly Father put me so close to my hometown for a very specific reason. :) I laughed to myself and continued in getting to know my awesome new companion. We got straight to work. That set the pace for my time in Yuma. I was with Hermana Abarca for about 8 Weeks. And then with my second companion Hermana Ashby for another 4 weeks. My time in Yuma was truly the happiest I had ever been in my whole entire life. We would come back home exhausted, spiritually, emotionally, and physically, but loved every second of it.

Now for those of you who dont know me or my life, lets flash back to before my mission a little. My family has had a rough life for the past three years. We've kinda been kicked, dropped, punched, and body slammed with alot of issues, heart ache, and hurt. Going through each battle we always trudged forward. And yes, I struggled with depression, but I ALWAYS denied it. I always busied myself with other people's problems or worked, or just plain and simple ran from my depression. Little did I know, that was a huge mistake. I left for my mission, caught up in the excitement of change and a new journey of serving the Lord that I honestly thought that my depression was gone, and I was ready to go and be changed by this mission the Lord called me to. I felt as though I had gotten to a certain healing point and that on my mission, the Lord would finish the rest. That truly was not the case.

After my twelve short weeks in Yuma, my long awaited visa finally arrived. That call from my Mission President broke my heart, but I knew I needed to go to where the Lord had called me. I knew that there were people in Argentina that I needed to meet and I was scared, but excited all in the same moment. So, I left the scorching hot heat of Arizona, again with Hermana Pinnock :) and we arrived in the freezing cold, Argentina!

We were so excited!! I instantly LOVED Argentina and the little city of Bahia Blanca and everything about it. I met the Mission President and his wife, sweet people, and I knew this would be great! I noticed just as instantly, that this mission definitely did things differently than Arizona. That scared me, but I knew that was going to happen. I was so ready to work, and learn a ton more spanish!

I got assigned to the Toay area with Hermana Tolman. I shouted, "I KNOW HER" when I saw her picture! She had served in the Arizona Tempe Mission as well, and I had heard NOTHING but how much everyone loved her. As soon as I met her I figured out EXACTLY what everyone was talking about. She is amazing. We instantly were best friends. We were the kind of companions that are going to be BEST FRIENDS FOREVER after the mission, and we always told each other that! We would walk the streets of Toay searching for anyone to talk to, and we made a daily promise to each other that we were going to be best friends after this. It was more than best friends, this girl was my sister.

Unfortunately, that was also when things started to take a turn for the worst. I started noticing that I was sad alot more. It was hard for me to get up in the morning and sleep at night. I started getting sick alot and for absolutely no reason. It was as if my body was doing its best to reject this saddness and move on, but I wouldn't let it. Then, one day Hermana Tolman sat me down and asked what was going on. The minute I said it I realized how true it was. "I am depressed Hermana."

Those four words hit me like a brick wall. I sobbed as she sat there with me. She told me of the Savior's love for me and that we could get through this together. And for a minute, I felt better. We continued working. I had this new mentality of, "FORGET YOURSELF AND GET TO WORK." I began reading more and more talks from Jeffery R. Holland about the importance of leaning on the atonement. I read one called, "The Miracle of a Mission" almost everyday. Along with "The First Great Commandment" (which is my absolute fave!!) I tried anything and everything I could to make myself feel better. I told myself to shake it off, you should be able to get through this! Come on, these people need you! Little did I know, that was simply making things worse. So, despite all these efforts, I still felt sluggish, sad and depressed. I felt myself slipping more and more each day into a dark abyss of nothingness, and I wanted nothing more than to just forget myself and finish the job I was sent here to do. To fulfill and magnify this calling as the Lord's missionary. So thats when I turned to my Father in Heaven. (Obviously, I was always turning to Him, but this time I was being honest with God and myself.)

I remember one night, when I knelt down and prayed and spoke to Heavenly Father, practically begging Him to take this from me. Telling Him I couldn't do it. I couldnt live, I couldnt do any of this. I was inadequate, I was nothing here. And I just remember crying to Heavenly Father pleading for His help, for His mercy, for anything. The next morning my companion suggested getting a Priesthood blessing from our leaders. I got one and felt prompted to go to my Mission President. The next week, I opened up to him about it. Telling him my worries and everything. He set me up to meet with the doctor and from there things only got worse.

After speaking with the doctor for a few weeks, giving my all to stay here and to change this and just get better, the doctor asked me this, "Would you be obedient to the Quorum of the Twelve's orders to return home honorably?" With that simple question my already broken heart melted away. My heart was gone. I had nothing more to give. To say I felt like a failure was beyond words. Everything that I wished and wanted was to stay and finish my mission and to serve the people of Argentina with my whole heart, might, mind, and strength. I couldn't do that anymore. So my companion wept with me as I broke the news to her. We cried and wished for things to be ok, we prayed that we could both be comforted, and that we could have the strength to get through this.

I left Argentina the 16th of December. My last day was spent with Hermana Pinnock. My first sister in my mission and certainly not my last. She too wept with me and we shared memories of just 6 short months ago in the MTC of farts and testimonies and everything in between. It was the sweetest tender mercy the Lord had revealed to me, and I felt so blessed to know He was still there with me.

Now I know that if you're reading this you're probably thinking holy guacamole this is so dark or wow this is sad or whatever, but I want to tell all those who are reading this one thing; this is not for the attention of being depressed, and it's not to get people to feel sorry for me either. I am writing this for me, because for far too long I have run from this. It has become who I am, and I don't want that. I am also writing this for those missionaries or anyone for that matter, who are battling depression, who feel lost or alone and as if this is all consuming and there is no tomorrow. I am here to tell you, YES! There is a tomorrow and its brighter than you could even imagine. A brighter tomorrow for you and me. I promise.

Since returning home it has been 3 months. Three of the absolute hardest months of my life. I've fallen to the absolute bottom that I could possibly fall to, but slowly I am putting things back together. No, I dont have it all figured out, YES it's still hard. YES, I am still battling depression, but I know that Heavenly Father is here with me every step of the way.

Depression is a taboo subject to most, heck I refused to tell people it was depression for these past three months, but Elder Holland said it best in his talk "Like a Broken Vessel"...

"Whatever your struggle, my brothers and sisters—mental or emotional or physical or otherwise—do not vote against the preciousness of life by ending it! Trust in God. Hold on in His love. Know that one day the dawn will break brightly and all shadows of mortality will flee. Though we may feel we are “like a broken vessel,” as the Psalmist says, we must remember, that vessel is in the hands of the divine potter. Broken minds can be healed just the way broken bones and broken hearts are healed. While God is at work making those repairs, the rest of us can help by being merciful, nonjudgmental, and kind."

Depression is hard, but the Lord is here to help. He sent His son to suffer for us, and every moment of our suffering has passed through Christ. He knows how we feel. He knows of our battle scars, and is healing them step by step. Do not give into the darkness that consumes your life. We are loved by the most powerful person in existence. He will not forsake nor forget us. He loves us with the most perfect love. How can we fail with that? We cant. So, to those who are suffering, Do. Not. Give. Up. You are not alone or unloved. Never forget that. Lean on the Savior, and I promise with all that I have to promise, that you will be healed, helped, and perfected.

I plan to keep this blog as a log of my journey of being healed. I will be as real as I can be, and I pray that you all can as well.

God be with you!
-Courtney, the Returned Missionary with a story to tell :)