How time flies. And what a crazy week! I hope you are all doing well. Sarah, mom told me that you just want Mia to be born already haha.... at church yesterday Hermana Sanchez was talking about how she was pregnant for a year. I guess count your blessings that Mia will probably be born right about at the 9 month mark!

In case anyone was wondering, Halloween night is probably the one night in the year we're not allowed to go door to door haha! We were asked to be in by 6. We did a deep clean for an hour or two and after we finished we made homemade s'mores over our gas stove and we enjoyed ourselves.

This week was actually a really weird week. For whatever reason it seemed like almost none of our plans went as we thought they would. But the funny part is even though this week could be looked at as one of those less successful weeks, especially compared to the last two great weeks of tons of lessons, I don't feel unsuccessful or disappointed. I know that we will be blessed and this week will be another great week.

I've been working on the Christlike attribute of charity this week and I love it. It's like just working on that has changed a lot. I'm not as stressed, I'm more happy with the work, the companionship is working even better. I feel like I've been more able to consecrate and dedicate my time to the Lord and I can see this week how I've definitely been an instrument in the Lord's hands.

I figured out this week why olive oil is used in the healing for the sick and afflicted. It is partially because it is a symbol of purity and the spirit, but mostly it is because it is a symbol of the Savior and how through him we can be healed if we have faith. It is just like how the atonement took place at the olive garden: Gethsemane. You have to put a lot of pressure on the olives to get out the oil and just like that Christ was practically crushed under the pressure of the sins of mankind. But he endured it and came out victoriously.

That kinds of relates to what ended up happening yesterday; the biggest story I have to tell. In the end a priesthood blessing was given of healing and I know that through the atonement she will be healed.

I won't say the name of the person whose story this is for her privacy (not that any of you would know her anyways, but still). I guess I'll call her Maria, which about the most common hispanic name there is. So we went to Maria's house and you could tell that she has had something big weighing on her mind through this week. She just looked exhausted and miserable. We asked what has been going on and she said that this week especially has been very hard for her. She said that she has been contemplating suicide. In fact, just the night before she was contemplating what pills she could overdose on when we happened to pop our head in the door (we dropped by randomly because we needed to get a DVD back from her so we could let a different investigator watch it). She told us her whole story. That it has been difficult to even get up because it is easier to just be asleep than to do anything. Her whole body was in pain, especially her back, because she had been overdosing on prescription pain meds for a while and she didn't want to anymore. She was a straight A student in high school and she was in all these AP classes and she graduated early. But she got a bad boyfriend who was a drug dealer. He got her pregnant and she was 3 months pregnant when she found out that he got someone else pregnant and so she had an abortion. But this week, he came back into her life and she knows he is a loser but she still has feelings for him so she is so torn. All of that in addition to the fact that she has been doing drugs and alcohol for too long. She hates that she is addicted. She hates waking up from a hangover. She hates that she feels like her addictions control her. Her life is a mess basically. She wants to go to her family but they just judge her and are very hard on her. So this week she hasn't even really wanted to live. She was crying and telling us about how she just wants to be happy on her own. She just wants to have a husband who really loves her. She justs wants to be happy.

We taught her a simple lesson on what the priesthood is and how we have it on the earth today because of the restoration of the gospel. So that same power that Christ used to work all the miracles we read about in the Bible is on the earth again today. And that power can heal her. She asked for a priesthood blessing and we were able to set it up so the elders could come over and give her one just a few hours later.

So many wonderful blessings were pronounced upon her head. The blessing of knowing that Christ lived her life so he knows exactly what it is like for her. The blessing of love and knowing that she is a daughter of God and that God knows her so much. The blessing of being able to discern what friends are good friends. The blessing of absolute and complete physical healing of her body. So many other beautiful and powerful blessings.

That experience was probably one of the sweetest experiences of my mission so far. That we have been able to help lead and guide and teach her for so long. And that that night we could offer her something that no therapist of hers could offer. She has been completely drained spiritually, physically, and emotionally. She has no where to turn to get energy to do anything. But through the power of the priesthood she was able to be healed. The blessing ended and she was crying because she felt it. She knows. So beautiful. She told us that if it wasn't for us she would be dead right now. That she knows that this is the path she needs to go on. That God is basically knocking at her door and she would be dumb to let it pass by. She still has things she needs to work on and work through. But it has been the answer to the deepest questions of her soul...

Where can I turn for peace? Where is my solace

when other sources cease to make me whole?

When with a wounded heart, anger or malice,

I draw myself apart searching my soul?

Where, when my aching grows, where, when I languish,

where, when I need to know, where can I run?

Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?

Who, who can understand? He, only One.

He answers privately, reaches my reaching,

in my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.

Gentle, the peace he finds for my beseeching,

constant he is and kind, Love without end.

~Hermana Whetten