I want to thank everyone back home for being so helpful for getting me
on a mission and helping me to at least have some preparation before
coming here. Thank you Mom for all your loving emails. Thanks Daniel and
Kira for being awesome and for praying for me. Thanks Dad for helping me
to be financially prepared for a mission.--
--Thank you David and all of my roommates for an awesome prep year
at BYU. Thank you Garrett & Chels, and Jason & Kendra &
Noella, and Jimmer & April & the boys for all you supporting and
helpful advice. Thanks Michael Ahuna, and Theo, and Ben and all my
other friends who played soccer with me so I wouldn't be fat and gross
and chunky on my mission. :) Thanks all the awesome people in the
Crescent City 1st and 2nd wards for being my teachers and friends at
church, helping me to learn the gospel and be prepared to share it with
the German Nation. Thanks to all the awesome students/misisonaries and
leaders in my BYU Freshman ward (109th) and my Campus Plaza ward (32nd)
also for preparing me better emotionally and mentally for what a
mission would be like. Ah! So much love and thanks. Oh ya! and I want to
give a shout out for all my Buds from 1200 Merrill Hall who are out on
their missions right now, and working their tails off to help the people
they are growing to love. You guys are my role models. I was watching
an talk by Elder Holland yesterday and he briefly talked about how we as
members of the church don't know what we have, and even we as the
current inhabitants of the Earth don't know what we have. All the people
in ancient times lived in all pretty dark ages, and all the prophets
who saw and rejoiced at our day knew that their efforts would basically
amount to nothing. Their people would fail and fall into apostasy. How
blessed are we as a chosen generation in these days to KNOW that we are
going to win. We know that as missionaries, our converts will not fail,
and that this will be the one time that this work does not end in
Apostasy. I don't know what we must've or could've done in the
premortal life to deserve that precious knowledge, but I am so grateful
for it. I hope that my being a missionary has some influence not only in
Germany, but also back home, that when family and friends read about my
efforts on a mission that they will decide to try harder for just one
more day, to stay firmly rooted in the miracle called the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. I love all of you so, much, and there's about to be a
whole lot more loving on my part. See you in two years from now.
Aufwiederhoeren! (until we hear [from eachother] again!)
~ElderStandring
p.s. mummy, my companion is from Clearfield Utah
