>>>>To Tamara - shortly after the birth of our fifth child. She was having post pardon complications. I lived in Wisconsin and she in Salt Lake City and I asked her to read this to the kids.
Love Ya babe. Good luck with all your preparations and be sure and ask your dad for a blessing.
Kiddos,
Well our time is getting short and very soon we will be in Germany. If you are like me, you are probably getting nervous and a little worried about the change. I am excited and glad that we will be together, but there will be so many new things, that I am nervous as well.
I had two thoughts for you before we go.
First off. The Lord is aware of your needs and cares about you. He cares about us and is preparing us for the move. A small example of this is your ability to speak German.
I noticed when I was in Salt Lake City last week that all of you kids could actually understand and speak German better now than I you could at the beginning of the summer at the family reunion. I remember thinking at the reunion that you would lose all of your German by the end of the summer. I was worried and prayed for you.
And the exact opposite has occurred. Your German has actually gotten better over the summer. That is the Lord taking care of you. There is no other way your German could have gotten better than through the Lord.
I noticed the same thing happening for me. I wrote several emails in German this week - without much trouble. Usually it is hard for to write in German. I have a hard time remembering the right words, but it was much easier this week. I felt the Lord helping me as I wrote.
Second, I wanted to quote from a talk by President Hinckley. Mark Mills shared this with me. Pres. Hinckley spoke about how the church should care for each other. He told a story about american members of The Church of Jesus Christ who move to Japan.
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A knowledgeable man, who had lived abroad a number of years, who watched Americans come to Japan with their families to work said,
“I have never seen anything like your people to make others feel comfortable and at home. Whenever a Mormon family came to Japan, a week had not passed before they had many friends. It was different with other [families]. Most of them felt extremely lonely and experienced great difficulty in making adjustments.”
Remember, we are not alone. We belong to a great body of friends, thousands upon thousands who are striving to follow the teachings of the Lord.
I remember interviewing a discouraged missionary. He was having trouble with a language which was not his own. He had lost the spirit of his work and wanted to go home. He was one of 180 missionaries in that mission.
I told him that if he were to go home he would break faith with his 179 companions. Every one of them was his friend. Every one of them would pray for him, fast for him, and do almost anything else to help him. They would work with him. They would teach him. They would get on their knees with him. They would help him to learn the language and be successful because they loved him.
I am happy to report that he accepted my assurance that all of the other missionaries were his friends. They rallied around him, not to embarrass him, but to strengthen him. The terrible feeling of loneliness left him. He came to realize that he was part of a winning team. He became successful, a leader, and he has been a leader ever since.
That’s what each of us must do for one another.
Paul wrote to the Romans, “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.” And then he added these significant words, “And not to please ourselves.” (Rom. 15:1.)
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This will be important for us after we arrive in Germany. We won't make it alone. We have to rely on each other for strength. We'll have to watch for those who are sad and help them and pray for them. Everyone will be sad at different times, including mom & dad. And maybe sometimes we will all be sad at the same time. Let's try and do two things.1) tell each other when we are having a sad day or a sad time. 2) help those who are sad and pray for those who are sad.
I love you all and look forward to seeing you in roughly 10 days.
Dad
<<< For Mom - another section of Pres. Hinckley's talk that I thought would be good for us to think about when we are dealing with the kids over in Germany. >>>
There is a sad tendency in our world today for persons to cut one another down. Did you ever realize that it does not take very much in the way of brainpower to make remarks that may wound another? Try the opposite of that. Try handing out compliments.
For a number of years, while I had responsibility for the work in Asia, I interviewed each missionary one-on-one. I asked each what virtue he or she saw in his or her companion and would like to put into his or her own life.
When I raised that question, almost invariably the missionary, an elder for example, would stop with a surprised look on his face. He had never thought of his companion that way before. He had seen his faults and weaknesses but had not seen his virtues. I would tell him to pause and think about it for a minute. Then the answers would begin to come. Such answers as, “He’s a hard worker.” “He gets up in the morning.” “He dresses neatly.” “He doesn’t complain.”
It was a remarkable thing, really. These young men and women, for the most part, had been oblivious to the virtues of their companions, although they were well aware of their companions’ faults, and often felt discouraged because of them. But when they began to turn their attitudes around, remarkable things began to happen.
