3 more months!

This week I hit my 15 months of being on a mission. I feel like every
day that passes my spirit grows stronger but my flesh grows weaker.
Hahahahaa. That was my "intelligent" way of saying that I'm tired all
the time. When I got a blessing a few weeks ago it said that "The
Lord's work is tiring and now that the work is being hastened the Lord
will expect more and you". That was Him saying, "Sister Dodd, I know
you're tired but get over yourself!" I am so grateful that I have a
calling that allows me to work hard and to have such pleasure from
seeing the fruits of my labors. Callings provide us with blessings.
There was a talk given yesterday in church from a returned missionary
and his topic was "Bloom where you are planted". He talked about
examples from his mission of bishops and ward mission leaders that
served faithfully and exemplified their callings and ones who didn't and 
how much happier the ward was when they exemplified their
callings. He shared exerpts from Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk "Life Where
You Stand". One of my favorite was,
"You may feel that there are others who are more capable or more
experienced who could fulfill your callings and assignments better
than you can, but the Lord gave you your responsibilities for a
reason. There may be people and hearts only you can reach and touch.
Perhaps no one else could do it in quite the same way.
Our Heavenly Father asks that we represent Him in the noble work of
reaching out and blessing the lives of His children. He asks us to
stand firm with the power of the priesthood in our hearts and souls
and give the calling we have at this moment our best efforts."
I thought that was beautiful. We receive callings because the Prophet
can't do everything by himself and we each have special qualities and
characteristics that others need. Being a full-time missionary is a
calling. You are set apart from the world and asked to labor in other
parts of the world to help save our brothers and sisters. If you think
about callings given in a ward they are not much different except it
isn't a 24/7 duty and you aren't asked to leave your home. Callings are 

given from God and I have come to a firm knowledge of that on my
mission.
I am grateful for my companion. I am grateful for my opportunity to be 

a missionary.