Growing Belly and Missionary Week

I am 32 weeks along now and the boys are measuring four and a half pounds! I am doing great considering I'm the size of a cargo ship. I feel bruised all over, I get charlie horses all through the night, nothing sounds appetizing ever (except banana splits...), and I feel like I've run a race every time I climb the stairs!

But to be honest, I couldn't be happier. Every time they move I smile and when they start boxing each other I laugh out loud! And I love to bate my husband into being all protective by poking my belly. He gets so mad if he thinks I'm "bothering" them! Particularly when I laugh too hard. Evidently, when I laugh I squish them together and when they come out my laugh will make them cry due to bad memories in the womb...

We did a missionary week in my ward about a week ago for the youth and it was amazing. It helped me remember who I was on my mission and that was quite refreshing. Things weren't going quite as planned and I was stressed, sleep deprived, and emotional. This huge piece of missionary week fell on me right at a moment when I felt like I couldn't do any more. So I got on my knees and before I could even begin whining about my situation I remembered something... I am an Italian missionary... I learned how to "eat an elephant" as my dad once said: one bite at a time. No matter how inadequate I felt or how often things fell apart at the seams, I kept moving forward.

Missionary week gave me the opportunity to once again "forget myself and go to work." It was so liberating! I never realized what a pansy I had become since coming back to cushy old Utah. It was such a gift to reach that breaking point and relearn that lesson because I feel so much peace now about the boys coming into our lives. Italy taught me that when things don't go according plans you make a new plan and keep moving forward. That's why I needed missionary week. I'm pretty sure those boys will make me re-plan things about a hundred times a day...

The real goal of missionary week was to help the youth understand the restoration and hopefully start or strengthen their own testimony. It was interesting how many questions this week brought up. They wanted to know more about life after death, repentance, where the Book of Mormon really came from... it was like having a whole room full of progressing investigators!!

NOBODY and I mean NOBODY wanted to do this when we initially announced it. But by the end of the week I couldn't believe how many lives were changed. Not that I'm surprised, really. When you mix some of the most elect spirits of Heavenly Father with a concentrated dose of the spirit for a whole week, incredible things are bound to happen! At the end of the week we had a testimony meeting and it was the most incredible youth gathering I have ever attended. Their greatness was shining through their eyes as they bore humble and honest testimony of the true church of Jesus Christ. The thought kept coming to mind, "Stand ye still, and see the salvation of God."

For a true cynic like myself, it gave me all the hope in the world that no matter how bad and ugly this world gets, the spirits coming down have been prepared to rise above it.