I originally had this email planned out to be completely different then what I am going to write about. The beginning of this week suuucked. I was going to go on a whole rant about my companion, and how the title of the email wasn't an exaggeration, but things have changed. Let me give a little backstory. This week was the first time that I had a serious thought of “I want to go home.” I have been having issues with my companion, and our sink stopped draining (I already hate this apartment), and it just hasn't been good for me mentally.
Back home when my mental health got bad, I always had the gym. And I didn't realize how much that helped me until I don't have it. It's not just working out, it's also the late night drive to the gym with music, and the atmosphere of the gym. Anyways, it started me genuinely wanting to go home just because of the gym. And after that, I started questioning if I was out here for myself or if I was just trying to please other people, and overall just coming up with a ton of justifications for going home. I started thinking about how I could be starting college right now and working on things I want to do, but then the thought hit me and I started comparing what I am doing now to college. One thing I realized was that they are both things that I always told myself I would never do. This made me think that if I can't finish this two years, why would I be able to do four plus? I then started thinking about how this is building grit, which is a characteristic I find super valuable. I also started to think, if I was just searching for instant gratification, or if I genuinely felt like this wasn't right.
Overall, I realized that I needed to stop complaining, and understand that this is what I chose, and I need to stick with it. But that didn't help with my whole companion situation. But guess what, the next day I was doing personal study (President and Sister Scott gave us a challenge when we first got here to read the Book of Mormon and highlight anything that points to or testifies of Christ) and I started to think about Christ, about who he was, what I need to do to be more like him (see where im going with this?). Obviously I started to think about Elder Llanos. How he is a child of God and again how I can't change that he's my comp, but what can I change? I decided that I was just going to lean into everything he says, even if I thought it was stupid or against mission rules, I was just going to accept that that was what we were doing. To be fair he is my trainer (even though most of the time it feels like I’m training him), so I'm just going to lean into it, and trust that the Lord will guide the way.
On top of all that, I realized I could start trying to change things that will make me feel all around better. So I have been trying to eat better and trying to meal plan (see my google photos). I’ve been trying to get as good of a workout as I can get every day, and I've been trying to drink at least a gallon of water a day. Before the mission I would drink like a gallon and a half a day, but for some reason now when I should be drinking more water, I've been drinking less. I also am trying to only drink water unless I'm given soda by a member or investigator. Before the mission I also didn't drink soda, so it has been sad to see how much I am drinking now. That's all. Another hump on this rollercoaster.
Staying jacked,
Elder Lewis
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