Dear Family and Friends,
Let me start out this E-mail with giving thanks to some people. To my mother, what a great inspiration you are to me, knowing how much you fought (even me) to have me stay on the straight and narrow path. I don't know how much I can thank you. To Meaghan, thanks for being a wonderful sister and always being there, even if I didn't want you there. I see now how important you are in my life (btw, the letters in the mail). To John, I cannot say how grateful I am that you gave me the gospel and took the time to care for me the way you would a real son; even though I'm only your step-son. To all the friends, teachers, ward members, home teaching families, seminary comrades, and even the people I didn't really get a chance to meet thank you. I wish to leave you with a scripture that I hold dear to my heart, 1 Timothy 4:12 "Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."
Well, know I bet you are all wondering what story Elder Daniel is going to leave us with today. I wonder if it's about the spirit blessing someone? Well, it is! If you haven't read my last email then you don't know, but lately I've been doing more therapy work than teaching. I wish to leave you with one of these sessions ( it may be a little gruesome). We have been seeing a lady by the name of Mary Loy. She has been through alot in the past couple of weeks. Her husband works in Washington, because the economy is so bad. She is loosing her house and she has 3 daughters and 1 son. The son (possibly the only success story out of the bunch) lives in Boston. We have been seeing this family about 4 weeks. We went over on Tuesday of last week, upon arriving, the middle daughter was being taken away in an ambulance after overdosing on meds. We pulled up on our bikes watching Mary shaking her daughter, crying, begging that she not die. We returned later that night to find Mary, a women strong in her beliefs, and one that was once uncrushable, destroyed that her daughter had barley survived. Later her daughter told her mother that she wished she wouldn't have lived. As missionaries, what do we do, what can we say, neither Elder Fly or I have ever been through this. We never watched anyone try to kill themselves, especially someone we would be willing to lay our lives down for, as Mary would have for any of her 4 children. You may ask what did you do? Simply, we did all we could do, we testified. We told Mary, "No we have not ever endured a trial like this, but someone had. A Saviour, one who took all of our sins on Him. One who felt every single pain and burden we do. She could not DENY this fact, as no one can. I wish I could tell you the story ends well, but sadly not all do. The next time we went to see Mary, her daughter had returned home and was doing better. While we were leaving a spiritual thought, Mary caught her daughter steeling more drugs. Mary broke down crying and told us she could no longer handle all the stress. We have not seen her since.
I started off my email thanking everyone because after the last few weeks I truly see how the gospel has blessed my life. Not having its strong foundation will eventually lead to a crumbling mess.
I love and miss you all!
I will leave this email with one final scripture. D&C 121:7-8 "My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, it thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
Love,
Love,
Elder Zachary Daniel
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