I Stand All Amazed

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Simply put I am nothing but thankful for my mission. It has been such a rewarding experience. I was given a chance to grow in the best way possible, by being stretched.

I have seen the dark, but more importantly I have seen the light. The light that the gospel can bring us. I recently read a talk which mentioned the story of how the song “Lead Kindly Light” came to be. A young preacher from England attempted to make the journey from Italy back to England while being sick. His ship was stuck in thick fog for about a week, without being able to continue its course. In that moment of despair he wrote the words to that song. That song along with many others from the hymn book has helped me to see the light when everything was dark, to see the Savior, and to look to him for hope.

I’m so grateful for the Prophet Joseph Smith, The Book Mormon, it contains a power that is nothing short of God given, it has a power to heal, and it makes it known that we “are not cast off forever.”

I’m thankful for a Heavenly Father who continues to raise my perspective. Higher and higher to the right one, an eternal one.

I love my family, I learned very quickly that I took them for granted, I am ecstatic to be with them again. I have felt so much love while being here, family, friends, leaders. I’m thankful for my Mission Presidents, – I truly was their “most important investigator”.

So much more I could say, but ’til then.

Thank you, thank you.

Elder Winkel

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Cheers

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So, this week we I got to see Berlin for the last time… Also got to see my boy Elder Burns, and a bunch of my other friends. We were blessed to have a great meeting with Elder Charles from the Seventy, he’s right now the Area Seventy in Greece, and for a time was also the mission president there.

He and his wife talked about the role of the Holy Ghost, I learned a lot, not just for missionary work, but it was a nice pump up right before I go home.

Saturday in the transit, I was standing next to drunk guy, he wasn’t sober enough to hold on so when the tram started to go this guy bowling balled himself into a bunch of strollers… I tried to help him up but he was pretty content with laying on the ground with a bashed open head… Luckily they stopped the tram, and kind of kicked him off… So that was Saturday.

Had a good week talking to people, my favorite question to ask on a train is just “so where are you from?” So simple, but always gets the conversation rolling. Met a family who was just on vacation in Belgium, to see some things and to check out their family history! Sadly didn’t get a chance to tell them about familyhistory.com because we had to leave, but it’s always fun getting to know new people.

Personal study has been my best friend lately, the Book of Mormon can heal anyone, and the words of the prophets in conference talks can inspire. I’m grateful for the guidance through the Holy Ghost.

Elder Winkel

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Wonderful

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This week went well, we kept ourselves busy enough.

Saturday night we went and took our dinner hour to play some basketball at the park, we played with a couple guys (safe to say we won;)) Afterward taking a drink break, I talked to one of the guys we played with about the NBA. I mentioned I liked the Utah Jazz and we got into the conversation why no big names ever want to stay there, a couple of his reasons (which are partially true) were that Utah is in the middle of nowhere, and it’s full of Mormons… The conversation moves on to what in the world as an American am I doing in Halle? So I looked at him with a grin… ” weil ich ein Mormone Missionare bin!…” (Cause I’m a Mormon missionary) haha! We both died laughing, great guy, gave him a good chance to see that we’re just normal guys.

I got a nice little slap in the nose from the spirit, we were on our way to a member appointment, and as we got off the street car in the corner of my eye I noticed a rough looking couple, nothing out of the normal, so we just went and got off as normal. As we took a moment to check our map, I heard this guy call out to me, (this is normally the “ah great here we go…” Moment). Well this guy starts asking me in broken English about my US bag and the USA and Deutschland pins I have on it. He thought they were cool, and then asked us if we needed any help finding an address…

It was a nice little wake up, I’m grateful that our Savior looks at us with the perspective of what we can become, not what we are.

“Sow a thought, and you reap an act; sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny.”

Elder Winkel

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