The Tsunami of Missionaries

I've just read and responded to President's letter where he tried his best to prepare us for this tsunami of new missionaries and straight up craziness that his rolling our way. (Elder Cook described it as such when he came to visit us, and we've been using that term in the mission ever since.) He wrote a special letter to all the sister missionaries, calling us to a higher level of faithfulness and diligence in such a wonderfully President Carter-ish way. Well, first he described in hefty detail all of the challenges that are coming our way with 19 of us sister missionaries who will be receiving 57 new sister missionaries in the next three months.  And then he said, "The Lord has chosen you at this time, in this place, to be missionaries of strength, confidence, intellect, and spiritual power. . . .both the Lord and I know that you can do this, and you can do it well. It is your time to stand up and be valiant in your calling." 

Wow, I'm feeling a little bit humbled and, to be honest, a little bit nervous. But if there's one thing I've learned in this service its that we truly can "do all things" in Christ.  I know that He is going to continue turning my weaknesses to strengths (one of those being flexibility!) as I put all my trust in Him and move forward with faith!  

Now for the work in Padua! Well, we're preparing the baptismal service for three of our little friends who we've been teaching.  Juli and the two adorable twin boys, Adrian and Ezequiel. (Have I told you about them?) Their mom is an inactive member, but the older sister is super active, and when we went to visit her one day, we met the twins and absolutely fell in love. :) I'll have to send pictures next time, but they are two of the most beautiful, cheekiest, most charming little gentlemen I've ever met.  They're ten years old, and when we talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ with them and their mom, they said they wanted to be baptized!  So we've been teaching them for about three weeks, they've been coming to church, and we're been able to help strengthen the family at the same time.  It's been a huge blessing teaching those two.