Mission Prep: the Pains of Paperwork

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me, for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them

Ether 12:27

I think I can trace my latest and biggest meltdown to the time that I received my mission call and prepared for my mission. It's sad to say that something so wonderful could be the source of so much grief and pain. However, anyone who has served a mission or is preparing to serve knows that the adversary is working his hardest during this time. Satan will do anything to prevent servants of the Lord from sharing the gospel, and he knows our weaknesses. Looking back, I can see now how this challenge from the adversary has in fact been a blessing, for now my weakness is becoming strong. Before I get to that part, let me back up a little about some of the things that happened as I was preparing for a mission.

Growing up, I'd often thought about going on a mission, but I always wavered on the idea. One of my brothers served a mission in Germany, and since then, I've felt a small amount of pressure from my family to go. However, when it came down to it, I knew that it was my choice to go if I felt so impressed.

Then came the historical declaration from the prophet Thomas S. Monson, lowering the age for missionaries. The change was especially dramatic for sisters because now they could serve at age 19 rather than 21.

And I was 20.

I could go. Practically right then. Should I? Would I?

I especially remember that day watching General Conference in my apartment and hearing that announcement. All the girls around me were giddy and screaming with excitement. Me? My heart was pounding. Yes, I felt the excitement, but I also knew all of my fears, the fears that I had been battling since middle school. On top of all that, I was (and still am) shy. The idea of sharing the gospel with complete strangers, teaching them lessons and such, scared me. But everyone was excited to go. All my friends who were the same age as me immediately started making plans to serve, and everyone kept asking me if I would do the same.

I actually worked at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) at the time, and in between conference sessions I was working in the dishroom. The announcement was buzzing in my head that whole shift. On my way home, however, is when I received a very special answer from Heavenly Father about why I should serve a mission: that it would help me to teach my future children.

Whoa.

Most people, when they say they want to go on a mission, it's because they want to share the gospel that has so touched and changed their lives. They wanted to share the good news about Christ and his Atonement, about the Restored Gospel and Joseph Smith. Don't get me wrong, those were also reasons for me to go, but the one that gave me the courage to call my bishop to start the process was because of my future family.

Filling out all the online work came with it's own unique challenges. Since I wasn't at home, my mom ended up having to email or mail certain paperwork for doctors and dentists. At one point we had to fax some paper work over to the campus student health center, and somehow the paperwork got lost along the way. After making several treks to the health center (I say 'trek' because it's a bit of a distance for someone who doesn't have a car), they finally received the information and allowed me to continue with the process. I was emotionally drained at that point because of trying to jump through so many hoops just to fill out a bit of paperwork.

There are two moments in particular that I remember wondering if I was really ready for a mission. The first was filling out my health history. There was a question or two concerning depression and eating disorders, and having them in the past. Well, I knew that I definitely had many depressive moments, but, after all, everyone has their down days, right? Mine just occurred more frequently. I knew I also had a problem with food, but I had never been officially diagnosed with a disorder. Besides, I was over it. I wasn't starving myself anymore. I still sometimes had the mindset, probably more often than I would care to admit, but they didn't need to know about that. It was behind me, in the past. So I didn't say anything about it.

Then came the physical with doctor. She also asked me about being depressed. I told her that every now and then I got that way, but it was never debilitating or prevented me from doing the things I needed to do. I would still be able to function as a missionary.

So, without much more questioning, I finished up my paperwork and interviews finally (after a couple of months), pressed the 'submit' button, and waited.

The wait was awful, as it is with anyone waiting to receive their call, but I was also incredibly busy with preparing for finals. One would think that I would be too preoccupied with the anticipation of my mission call, but for some reason I wasn't. I had to focus on what was going on now, which was finals. I had also noticed myself mentally slipping into depression as the semester went on due to the high demands of my classes, and I didn't want to think about how maybe I perhaps wasn't ready for a mission.

What I was feeling then, however, was only a shadow of what I would feel after I had received my mission call.

The Battle Continues

As I mentioned, I snapped out of this destructive eating mentality. For a while. It hit a dormant stage, exposing itself during times of high stress: tough class and big exams, roommate drama, boyfriend breakup, preparing for a mission. It was a crack in my armor that I thought was fixed but wasn't.

I ended up gaining back about half of the weight I had lost, and for a while, it seemed like I everything was fine, that I had overcome this little battle. No therapy, no medicines. It was a secret thing between me, my family, and my Heavenly Father. I had overcome this hurdle, or so I thought. I don't know why exactly, but my freshman year at college wasn't much of a problem for me. It was certainly a hard and stressful time. I remember that first semester being a lonely one, but the second semester I made some good friends. Perhaps this is why I was fine: I finally found a group to fit in, and I loved them. They helped me and my self-esteem. They were truly blessings from God.

Going home that summer was tough; my parents had just moved to a new town, a tiny speck in Wisconsin, and I knew no one. Living there now, I still don't know where the nearest active LDS young single adult lives (I think they are all hanging out at the university in Madison). I was far away from the friends that I had just made. Some were on missions, some went home, and some stayed at school. It was a lonely first month back. Mentally I slipped, but kind of in the opposite direction. I didn't overeat, and I wasn't bulimic. I just didn't do the greatest in my eating. And it began to show quickly. I started gaining weight. As the scale went up, my self-esteem went down. How would people view me when I came back to school? Not to mention, I was trying to find a job, and I felt like a useless bum hanging around the house all day. My anxiety to move, get going and get out, started to become overwhelming. I doubted who I was. I hated who I was, how I looked. I felt awful in my very skin. I was downright depressed. Again.

I went to a doctor to get my thyroid checked (I have the Hoshimoto's disease, basically an autoimmune form of hypothyroidism). Often it can be the cause of depression and weight gain. The doctor basically told me that it would be easy to lose weight. It's basic math: don't eat this amount of calories, burn this many, and you'll lose the weight. If only it were that easy! If that were truly the case, if there were really no other factors involved, then I should be a stick by now! (As I soon learned in my nutrition class later that year, weight gain/loss is extremely complicated, not just the basic math that teachers and doctors have been telling us for years.)

After about a month or so, I did end up getting a job at Walmart. Not the the most amazing job in the world, but it helped me in more ways than one: I was able to start saving money for college, I was busy doing something productive, and it was physical, demanding work. I also stayed busy at church being a nursery leader. When it came time to come back to school, I was feeling much better than before but completely ready to get back into things and be with friends.

However, there was still that little chink in my armor, a weakness ready to be exposed with just the right amount of pressure. That pressure was felt during my following semesters at school, shattering my defenses and leaving me an emotional mess.

The Atonement

I'm going to take a little side-step from my reminiscing to talk about something very dear to me. In light of the latest General Conference (for those of you who are not LDS, General Conferecnce, broadcasted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is a bi-yearly event where members of our church are able to listen and receive guidance from our beloved prophet and apostles), Elder David A Bednare had a talk that basically hit home with me: the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

I've always loved any talk given on the Atonement, but especially lately, as I've been healing spiritually and emotionally, I've been thinking about just how powerful it really is.

Among other things, the Atonement has two parts that I want to touch on: the redemptive aspect, and the healing aspect. I guess, mingled with those two, it would be appropriate to also mention the enabling power of it. 

Growing up, I've always heard so much about how Christ came to earth to suffer for our sins. Anything that is wrong in our lives, we can be forgiven if we have faith in Christ and repent.

8 And now, behold, I will testify unto you of myself that these things are true. Behold, I say unto you, that I do know that Christ shall come among the children of men, to take upon him the transgressions of his people, and that he shall atone for the sins of the world; for the Lord God hath spoken it.

9 For it is expedient that an atonement should be made; for according to the great plan of the Eternal God there must be an atonement made, or else all mankind must unavoidably perish; yea, all are hardened; yea, all are fallen and are lost, and must perish except it be through the atonement which it is expedient should be made.

10 For it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice; yea, not a sacrifice of man, neither of beast, neither of any manner of fowl; for it shall not be a human sacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice. (Alma 34:8-10)

We all make mistakes in this life. That's just a basic fact of mortality. However, it is through Christ, who takes our sins upon himself so that we can be saved. He sacrificed himself so that we can one day have exaltation and eternal life. The key is to have faith in Him, to trust that He died for us that we might live.

However, Christ did more than just bleed for our sins while in the Garden of Gethsemane: he suffered for all of our pains, afflictions, weaknesses, every single thing that we go through, all so that he may know how to comfort us when we struggle:

11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities. (Alma 7:11-12)

So, if this is true, does that mean that Christ knows how I'm feeling today? How I feel when I'm sad for no real reason? When I get anxiety or depression that makes it so hard to focus on school work, on learning Spanish for my mission? Does he know that I had to fight mentally every single day of my mission not to cry, not to give up? When my brain was so completely fuzzed, did he know I tried my very best to keep moving forward but felt too weak to go on?

Yes.

He knows ALL of this. Not just my sins (and yes, I've had plenty of them), but he knows my emotional pain when no one else seems to understand. But He does.

Since being home, I've seen the effects of the Atonement help me heal. It was slow and dramatic at first. Healing takes time, after all. He knew what I needed most to help me heal, even if I didn't understand it. He sent me home so that, once and for all, I can finally overcome this depression, this anxiety with food. He sent me wonderful friends and a family, all of whom support me. With these, medication, and the help of a loving therapist, I have progressed so much. I went from a breakdown once a day to maybe once a month. I have more self-confidence, more hope, more faith. The fog in my brain has finally lifted, and I can see things clearly now. I can think straight. I have a desire to do things.

I am so much stronger.

I still have a long way to go for healing. I still have chips in my armor that need mending, but it is through faith in Christ, my Savior, that I can heal from these emotional wounds. I can now look back at the past year since entering the MTC, not with regret and remorse, but as a period of growth and healing.

And I would not have exchanged my challenges, nor the wonderful experiences I had,
for anything else in the world.

The Battle of the Mind

You know, I once had a doctor tell me I was fat. Well, not directly, but close enough. I knew what she meant. I had gone in for a physical, and she asked me lots of questions about how much exercise I got and such. Even though I wasn't that coordinated or that good at sports, I was still fairly active. At the time I was babysitting a little boy during the summers, and I would always bike to his home. In fact, most days I would get out and ride my bike around for hours. I knew those neighborhoods literally like the back of my hands. I could tell you how to get to every single park nearby, and I often walked to those, too. I loved being outside. Still do, in fact. Anyway, before I left that doctor's visit, the doctor gave me a pedometer and told me I should walk something like 4000 steps a day, around two miles or so.

That's easy, I thought. It will be just like a game!

I would wear this thing everywhere, just to see how many steps I could get. I would walk around the house, around school, during babysitting. It did become somewhat of a game to see how many steps I would take. During those long hours of babysitting when the boy I watched went to play with the neighbor kid, I would jump around and such during commercials on TV.

Hm...maybe this is why I can't sit still for very long now. I get anxiety after an hour. Long car rides and TV/movie marathons are now almost out of the question. I need to move. I think I fear that if I sit too long, I will get fat. Silly, I know, but definitely with a hint of truth in it.

Now I've somewhat adapted to this anxiety, allowing myself some time to get up and stretch, especially during long car rides or meetings. However, I know I also tend to compensate with food--that is, not eating much of it. At the time, it became a battle in the mind. "If I eat _______ (fill in the blank)," I would think, "Then I will get fat. I have to move so much in order to burn it off." I would think like that all the time. I became obsessed with comparing how many calories I ate with how I many I burned at the gym. It was all I could think about. I remember in high school wiggling my feet in class to burn off random small amounts of calories. I had read somewhere about wiggling during that day could burn around 300 calories, and I figured, if I wanted to lose weight, then I had to do it. Consuming food and burning calories. Consuming and burning. If I consumed less and burned more, I will loose weight. This was my thinking. It was all I really thought about, and I thought about it all the time. Consuming and burning. It overcame my thoughts, making it hard some days to focus on other things. All I could think about was that I was fat and that I had to eat less and exercise more.

I admit, being a nutritional science major, there is some truth behind all of this. That was Satan's tool: take a bit of truth and exaggerate it to use it against you. Yes, if I eat less and exercise more, scientifically, I should lose weight (ignoring the many other factors involved in metabolism), but the way I was going about it was what damaged me. I disregarded the fact that I was a growing girl, that the body does need a certain amount of calories to function properly. Whenever I tried to tell myself that eating this one thing would not turn me into the size of a killer whale, my mind would fight itself. One side tells me it's ok, the other side telling me lies. This escalated
into anxiety, and sometimes I just couldn't decide what to eat, or if I should, so I just didn't.

I lost 40 pounds within a relatively short amount of time. By looking at me, you couldn't tell I was anorexic or had an eating disorder. I wasn't underweight yet because I was still a bit pudgy. However, looking at the pattern I was going in, my mom and even my doctor started to get worried. Instead of her telling me that I needed to lose weight, she was asking me how I was doing it. I didn't tell her that I wasn't eating much. In my eyes, I was still eating normal-sized helpings, just more fruits and vegetables (less calories, remember?).

What kind of snapped me out of it, at least for a little while, was my mom once talking to me, telling me that, if things got worse, people would investigate the situation. I would be monitored, and my parents would be questioned as well. I didn't really fear for myself, but I didn't want my parents to get into trouble. I loved them, and I could feel their love through all of this. I think it was them that helped me not go extreme with things. They knew I was a daughter of God and precious, no matter what size.

Unfortunately it is a lesson I'm still learning.

As I said, this moment kind of snapped me out of things, but not completely...