One year!!!

Hello everyone!!

Well sorry this email might be kinda short but we went to philly today so that took up a good chunk of our day....... First I have to wish dad a Happy Birthday!! Love you daddy! I hope you have the best day ever! By birthday present to you is being on my mission for one whole year!! Haha....but oh. My. Gosh.....one year?...ONE. YEAR???.......I literally cannot believe I have been on my mission for one. whole. year...I remember everything like it was yesterday. I remember pulling up to the MTC just crying. Tears of joy because I was excited to go on this journey of serving the Lord, but also tears because of my feelings of uneasiness not entirely knowing what lie ahead of me. And worrying about what I was leaving behind to go. Realizing that I wasn't going to see my family for 18 whole months and that just scared me. I didn't think I would be able to do it. I remember just balling as I hugged my mom, dad, and baby sister goodbye and then I grabbed my stuff and turned around and walked away. I can honestly say that those were the hardest steps I've ever taken. I didn't feel good enough or strong enough to do this for my Savior but I went willingly, of my own choice. But then I also remember walking through the doors of the MTC and them placing my name tag right over my heart and then what was once tears of what felt like sorrow turned to joy and smiles as I felt the mantle of the calling that I now held become a part of me. I just can't believe it's been a year. 

As I have been coming up on my year mark I have been thinking a lot lately of how I don't feel like 18 months is nearly enough time to learn how to be a missionary lol. I really don't. I would love to have more time and to learn more. But I also have been thinking about this talk given in conference a while back called "Your Four Minutes." He talks about how we have in this earth life 4 minutes to prove ourselves...And I've thought about it this way...so say that you measure your life on earth by a time span of 100 years. And you break it into fourths which each equal a minute. So 25 years would be 1 minute. Then 50 years would be 2 minutes. 75 years-3 minutes. And 100 years-4 minutes. So right now at my age I'm not even 1 full minute in according to the scale of eternity. And a mission, 18 months is only a few seconds of those four minutes. My pint is is that this earth life is so short. A mission is so short. But it is the most rewarding thing. I started my mission looking at these 18 months ahead of me not knowing how exactly I was going to do this but now, I realize how fast it has gone and I just want to put time on hold for s little while so that I can extend my mission or something lol. 

It reminds me of President Nelson when he said,

"That is why we respond to our own calls from the Lord. When we comprehend His voluntary Atonenent, any sense of sacrifice on our part becomes completely overshadowed by a profound sense of gratitude for the privilege of serving Him."

Sorry this is short!! I love you all! The gospel is true! Learn it! Live it! Share it! 

~Sister Amy Callaway~

We went to independence hall today!! Ugh it was beautiful!!