Monday's Memory--Todd's Mission Call

Yesterday, at Stake Conference, one talk was about how serving a mission changed lives.  That 19 year old boys left and 21 year old men returned.  It got me thinking about Todd's mission, from opening his call to him kissing the ground when he got home.
He did come home a changed person, still light-hearted and a fun loving guy, but also, a much stronger person...ready and able to stand up for those things he believed in.
Ever since the MTC "experience", I can't get through the song "Called to Serve" without shedding a few tears.  I always thought that it was because it was so hard for me to let him serve his mission...to be gone for 2 years.  But that was almost 20 years ago...and I still cry through that song.  I realized yesterday, that at first it was because of missing him for those 2 years, but now, it just reminds me of him...how much I love him...how proud I am of the man he had become.

This is the calendar we kept while he was on his mission.  A daily one, even a weekly one made it seem like he was gone for too long.  We made a monthly one, putting a sticker on it the first of every month.