Au revoir

In a way, this is a good-bye for a little while. Don't get me wrong, I am excited to serve for two years in France, but it is going to be a whole new experience. I have only thirteen days left in Provo, and I will spend most of it locked away in rooms preparing for or taking Finals. I always like to look back at the positives of experiences. Please forgive me, but I am going to take an opportunity to list some of my favorite experiences from my first year at BYU. The image that I will remember best is glancing at the snow covered mountains as the sun shines on campus. I will remember watching The Jimmer. I will always be happy that I went to the SDSU and Wyoming football games, even when nobody I knew was going. My memories of the Swimming Conference Championships, where I broke through and swam well for the first time in years at an end of season meet, are sweet indeed. I will remember the feelings I had when I walked out of the testing center to look at that stupid TV and got scores better than I expected to. I will look back with some pride on the fact that I finally started to come out of my shell towards the end of winter semester. I think that I will laugh when I go home and have church meetings in a place where I have not had classes, study groups, and meetings with professors. I think I will miss walking by buildings with names such as "Smith," "Benson," and "Kimball." I know that the sight of the Lord's Temple, available to me at almost any point in the day now, will carry a greater meaning for me when I don't see one for twenty-two months. I hope that I will be remembered for the good things that I did and accomplished, rather than my many failings or the times I came up short. I hope that I can continue to build on my efforts to be more grateful, as reflecting on the good things in life have made me a much happier person this year. Last of all, I hope to come back with a renewed sense of motivation to accomplish the goals that I have set for myself here at BYU.
"To the reader I bid farewell, hoping that many of my brethren may read my words. Brethren, Adieu."