A mission lasts 102 weeks.
This is the last time I'll access my email as a missionary.
I have a ton to say, and not enough time nor skill to write everything I feel but I'm going to try. My mission means so much to me. I've learned a lot and experience so much and although at times it's felt like an eternity it also is incredible to look back and think that it was two years ago already that I said goodbye to my parents. I feel like I'm a completely different person, yet still the same old Ridge. The craziest part of all is that I'm going to get on a plane, and head home, and after I set foot in America the only thing my mission will be to other people is ''Yeah he served in Denmark''.
I'm now hitting the writers block that I'm realizing will make it hard for me to give my homecoming speech. Everything I feel like saying falls under the category of a clichè that so many missionaries say while coming home that kind of mean nothing to the people that haven't experienced it for themselves because they've heard it so many times.
Real quickly... I'll recap some of the biggest lessons I've learned.
1) We are in charge of our own happiness.
This one was probably the hardest for me to learn. There was a time on my mission when everything was going against me, and I was young enough in the mission that just doing normal work was super hard anyway. On top of that, I was still in the mindset that I deserved happiness from somebody else. Well in the mission if you don't help yourself then nobodies going to help you. It crushed me. It wasn't until I got up on my own two feet and started making decisions to change my surroundings instead of letting them change me that it all started turning around and life became great again. I started to enjoy my mission and realized that I can be happy regardless the cicumstances. Not that I always am happy constantly, but that I always have the ability to be so. It just takes some work and a good dose of humility. 2 Nephi 2:25
2) Prayer is powerful
While having a hard time I was talking to my companion. The lesson I learned about prayer came in a moment when I realized that I had explained more of the way I was thinking and feeling to my companion than I ever had to God in prayer. That night I said probably the longest prayer I ever had up to that point in my life and just unleashed all my thoughts and everything to God. No miracle happened instanteously, but it started a habit that became a principal of power. I started noticing answers to prayers, I started noticing God's hand in the thoughts or feelings or small events throughout the day. Not that I was just thinking about them more because I'd prayed more, but because there was a difference in the way I felt and acted. A change of mindset. I believe the scriptures call it a ''Change of heart''.
3) Our desires matter
I've talked about this one on email before. But I think it's incredible that the scriptures tell us we will be judged based on our obedience and the desires of our hearts. Whoa. Sometimes I follow the commandments, even though I'd rather not. I love the idea though that we can change our own desires. I don't think anything requires more humility that that! But we can change what we want, even though it's really really difficult.
4) Danish is freaking hard.
Yep.
I can't trully explain everything. So I won't bore you with more. But I am just super excited to get back home and to take full advantage of everything I feel like I was wasting before I came out here. I don't know about you but I think I sound different from the first emails I was sending home. I read a few of them recently... oh gosh...
Super happy to be able to see all of you again. For those of you still out in the field. Keep on keeping on. You're doing great things!
I have a testimony that God loves us. Always remember that if nothing else.
Vi ses!
