I'm home!!!

Hello America!
Hey, I'm back from Mongolia, finally! I'm sure I'll post a ton of stuff on Mongolia later, or maybe I won't, we'll just have to wait and see, but for now I just want to talk about being home. Okay, but first I actually do want to say something about my time in Mongolia. So, living in Mongolia and teaching English and the gospel there has been hands down, the most amazing thing of my life. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, especially learning the language, but it was completely beautiful.

I think the thing I learned there the most was how to really love other people. And I've found that love just starts with happiness. In fact, I am pretty sure that's all love is anyway, it's just happiness. What I mean by that is, when you love someone you try to make them happy and you share your happiness with them. I used to be a really reserved, kind of self-centered, self-conscious person. I'd only really share myself and be who I truly was with very select people, and you know, that really put a damper on my life, cause I wasn't "loving' up to my full potential. (ignore that ridiculous pun, please.)

So, anyways, throughout my mission in Mongolia and teaching English, I was pretty much forced to give everything I had of myself to other people, whether it was my students, my investigators, or especially my companions. There was no break and I was required to serve those people 24/7. And at first I really resented that and I had a horrible time on my mission. I missed my family, I missed Yannick, I missed my friends, and I constantly felt like I was pretending to be someone I'm not. But you know what? I finally just let go of my insecurities and figured that this is who I am and if I keep bottling up all of my thoughts and feelings and ideas which are pretty much the only thing that makes me ME, then I'm going to be miserable forever.

And this wasn't an entirely conscious thing either. Through time I just felt more and more of myself just easing up and becoming comfortable being myself more often, and by doing that I was happier and I could start making others happier because I wasn't afraid anymore to share the joke or funny thing I thought of, and I wasn't afraid of what someone would think if I gave them a hug or if the advice I was giving them didn't make perfect sense in Mongolian. I just started sharing myself with other people and even when I felt crappy I loved these people so I'd still try to make them happy and share something and as a result I felt more loved and accepted and it blasted those negative feelings away. So I guess by loving people enough to share yourself with them and loving yourself enough to share yourself with others that everything in the world just becomes a whole lot easier and way happier.

So, that was the biggest thing I learned in Mongolia, and the biggest change I was able to go through. And I'm incredibly happy and grateful for that because I saw the change that had on my attitude on life, the change in my stress level and the change in my ability to communicate with others. And they are all good changes.