Mission Monday

Woohoo!  We're back!  I loved, loved, loved (I wish there was a bigger word for "really, really loved and enjoyed and it wasn't anywhere near long enough") getting to Skype with my missionary boys over Christmas.  The Skype calls overlapped for a while so they could visit with each other.  Due to the time differences, they called first thing in the morning so we opened presents together.  (Note to my Christmas 2015 self: yeah, it was fun, but don't do that again.  Focus on one child at a time instead of trying to do everything all at once.  Your sanity is worth waking up a bit earlier and getting less sleep.)

It was just amazing to see how much they have grown.  That sounds so trite, but it was inspiring, and humbling, for me as a mother to see the amount of personal growth in their faces.  Their voices are the same, but there is a different light there.  They carry themselves more... confidently.  More lovingly.  More gently and yet more strongly at the same time.  My boys are growing into men, and I am delighted and gobsmacked about the whole thing.  And I love them more than ever.

This is our screen shot of one laughing and the other demonstrating how to properly enjoy Christmas chocolate.  Loved it.

From South Africa:

This is going to be an interesting year full of awesome stuff that is going to happen. This new year is full of lots of exciting potential. I'm happy because we have done a ton of finding since the new year started, and we had a bunch of new investigators at church after only one lesson during this past week. I love working with them and seeing the light in their eyes as they learn! And we also had a ton of recent convert and less active lessons this week, even with the holiday. (We weren't supposed to proselyte except for fixed appointments, but the truth is, there was nobody here, and those that were here were all drunk beyond imagination.)


And from Madagascar:

Yesterday was fast Sunday, and because we have been dropping a lot of people because they aren't actually doing anything, Elder Razakamandimby fasted that the people who wanted to learn would find us and ask to learn. So now you're thinking, oh, so then someone came up and asked to learn, and it was all great and happy. No. Four people did. And then at a couple of our lessons THAT DAY they brought family members to come learn with them who hadn't learned before. It was fantastic!  It was pretty cool to see how quickly our prayers were answered!