Monday, February 9, 2015

Hello from PA!!

The Elder and Sister Jones Amy mentions, Elder Jones was Brittney's Bishop when she lived in St. George with Great-grandma Ogden. Brittney told them that Amy was going to be serving there. So they were on the look out for her when she arrived. This letter is a 2 part email today. Have a great week everyone!
Anna

The fact that I had someone there to give my little sister a hug...just made my little heart so happy!! I teared up when I saw that she got that hug. Thanks Bishop Jones! ## -Brittney


Hello everyone! 
What a week it has been! Haha. Its been rough, im not going to lie. Ive been super homesick this week and just missing everyone and everything. But thats okay! :) "All is well, All is well." Thats from the hymn Come, Come Ye Saints. Its one of my favorite hymns and I sing it to myself ALL the time just to remind myself that "All Is Well." :) 
Okay well where to even begin?? Haha. First of all thank you everyone for all of your sweet emails! I love them all so much but im so sorry i dont have time to respond to all of them! Just know that they REALLY help and that i love you all! 
Alright so ill start with last wednesday. We all had to get up at 2:30 am to get everything pack and put together to go to the airport. Well once we got to the Salt Lake airport and we finally got to our gate and then boarded the plane we found out that something was wrong with that particular plane so we had to switch planes. Which didnt help considering we had a connecting flight in Detroit. But anyway we got on another plane and when we finally arrived in Detroit we arrived 30 minutes before our flight was suppose to leave. And so then all 13 of the missionaries in our company ran like crazy through the airport to try and catch our flight. Which we only missed by 2 minutes haha. But All was well. We got another flight booked and all. 
Once we got to Philadelphia we saw our mission President and his wife with a few other missionaries standing there waiting for us! It was so great to see them! Once we made our way outside the airport a big man and his wife came over to me and he started shaking my hand and said, "Sister Callaway!!! Its so good to see you!" I then felt bad because I had no idea who this guy was, but then he asked "Do you have any idea who I am??" I then looked down at his name tag and it read Elder Jones. (This story really only has relevance to Brittney) So Brittney, Elder and Sister Jones say "Hi." It was also funny becuase then he hugged me and everyone just stared...and im sure i had a terrified look on my face too because I was like "What are you doing? Im not suppose to hug you!" Haha it was pretty darn funny though. 
Anyway once we got to the mission home we got to have dinner and then we had our interviews with President. And once my turn came he welcomed me in with a smile, asked me a few short questions and then said " I already know who your trainer is going to be!" and then wrote down a name next to mine which i couldnt even read...So fast forward to the next wednesday morning. We all traveled to the mission office to them meet our trainers. My trainers name is Sister McCuen. She a tiny bit taller than me and shes the cutest little red head. Shes adorable! And we have become such great friends already! 
Our area is called Kutztown. But we live in a tiny town called Topton. Its probably about the size of Austin, Nevada. Its tiny. And we live in an old Fire House! Its awesome! Everything is so spread out and all over the place though. And becuase its winter no one really cares to let you inside. People here are very kept to themselves, and dont like being bothered. So its really hard to find people right now. But i still love it! Here in the PPM (Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission) when youre new they dont call you "greenies" they call you "goldens" and so on wednesday when we met our trainers at golden training all of us goldens were challenged to invite someone to be baptized by sunday. And that was scary for me to think about but i did it anyway. So heres the story...
So yesterday we had dinner at a members house and once we were finished we decided to go finding. Well with finding most of the week and having no luck, and having most of our appointments fall through i never got the chance to invite someone to be baptized. But having it be 7 pm on sunday night I was determined to invite someone to be baptized. Even if that meant walking up to someone's door and asking them right then and there....So thats exactly what I did haha :) I told my trainer and she looked at me like I was crazy, and I was haha. But she came up with the idea to start by asking them a question and then leading into the baptismal invitation. So this is how it all went down...
We went and knocked on the door of this very nice house, a man opens the door and our conversation goes something like this...(His name was Jose by the way)
Me: "Hello! I have a question for you!"
Jose: "Yes?"
Me: "If you found the right church, and you studied and prayed about it and came to know for yourself that it was true, would you be baptized by someone holding the proper Priesthood authority?" 

Now at this point I wish i could tell you that he said "Yes!" and let us inside and we had a great discussion and now we have a baptismal date set... But thats not how it happened. Technically he didnt say yes or no haha he just mentioned how he and his family were catholic but he was very kind about it and talked with us about  I know, I know that was a completely crazy approach and i agree it was to some degree. But Jose was very nice and we talked for a bit about both of our faiths. I then gave him a Book of Mormon though and a card with our number on it. I knew that more likely than not he would say no, but I had faith for a miracle. And THAT was a miracle in my eyes. Walking away from that experience though I remembered something that an Elder said at golden training. Even though he said no, I still fulfilled my purpose as a missionary. 

Part 2:
Haha sorry the library we are at is dumb so I'm using my iPad now.
Anyway, we also had a baptism this Saturday!! Her name is Angel and
she is 13 years old. BUT, they already had this baptism planned I
didn't have much to do with the teaching but it was exciting
nonetheless! Also I'm sorry I can't send pictures yet. But I will
figure it out next week! Okay I'm sorry but my time is up! I love and
miss you all!
Until next week :)

~Sister Callaway ~


Ok, HAD to pass along these pictures too! lol
K so I got a few! The first is me and my trainer Sister McCuen. Shes
the cutest little ginger you ever did see! (Besides baby Cole haha)
don't mind how awful I look haha and the second is at Angels baptism!

I hope you like them! Love you all :)



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