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

Numbers

I thought you might like to know how the mission is doing as of July 1st 2008.

The Elders and couples worked hard and effectively in June and were able to baptize 200+ people. The year before (2007) the number was 66 and the year before that (2006) was 28 - so things are going very well.

We love the work here and the missionaries are amazing!

We just got a note from President Johnson, the area president, who was with us for the Guyana Zone Conference, and he highly praised the feeling in the conference and the great spirits of the missionaries.

Here is another interesting number - we arrived in the mission field two years ago today - only one year to go! I don't know if that makes me happy or sad - both, I guess. We have 5 babies coming into our family this year (including a set of identical twins) so there will be lots to do when we finish in a year. However, I can't imaging leaving the many "mighty miracles" (Alma 26:12) of the West Indies Mission.