What a year - 2008 in 2008!

and then some

The missionaries of the West Indies achieved their very lofty goal of baptizing 2008 people in 2008 - actually they surpassed it by baptizing 2012.

To put this wonderful achievement in context - the West Indies missionaries baptized 601 people in 2006 and 1027 in 2007

I have to admit that as we moved into the last week of December I started wondering how to console sad elders because they had a long ways to go this week. But miracles poured into the West Indies and today we watched those last few baptism reports come in to the office.

The assistants set up this interactive Google doc so we could input baptisms are they came in




We were going to have a quiet New Year's Eve with our family (who leave tomorrow morning) but we decided, instead, to open up the mission home to anyone who wanted to come celebrate

And they came!







Does that hat say 2008 in 2008?








Do you know about our rubber duckies? If not take a look here

Tonight we broke out our brand new Super Hero rubber duckies!


President Johnson, the Area President, congratulated the missionaries over the phone




Do couple missionaries (Elder Collins) miss their grandchildren? Yes, of course


But nights like this make it worthwhile