Gird up your loins, fresh courage take!

We finally got a picture with President and Hermana Heckmann!

 As of today, we have exactly 2 months left on our mission. Those words carry a lot of meaning to me. On one hand there is certainly some excitement to be reunited with our loved ones. On the other hand, we have a ton of things to do to prepare! Just the logistics of getting the Johnsons up to Barcelona to start training them have a lot of moving parts. I have been mentally going through stuff that we need to go over and I am really scared that I will miss something vital. I really want to make sure they are trained well, because they will just have to turn around and hand it all off to the Lamberts when they finally get here. Then there is getting things ready in the office. This week I grabbed one of the mission secretaries to go down to the "pit of despair" and haul the rest of the boxes of old records that need to be shredded. In total there are about 40! That was a workout! I was super glad to have a young strong back working with me. I would have never been able to get it all myself. My first thought was that we would be able to shred it all ourselves, and we got a few boxes done, but there is no way we can deal with that much, so we are going to have a company come in to shred it all for us. 

We're trying to get some sort of training plans together while dealing with some pretty crazy piso issues. We are trying to close out one piso and deal with a landlord who is trying to soak us for all he can. We also had some missionaries move out of another piso with a ton of problems, and we're looking into what it will take to get it livable again. The landlord has refused to lift a finger even though the water heater, heat, and AC are all out. There is also a mold problem that will need to be addressed. It is on the islands and we're getting a good price for the piso compared with what others in the same area are going for. We will probably fix everything ourselves since this would be cheaper in the long run to getting into a new piso. This morning at about 5:00 AM we got a phone call from some missionaries who all of a sudden have water leaking from their ceiling! There is always drama. 

At church today they asked us to say the prayers. I was super proud of my sweet Brenda. She did a great job even though the thought of having to do it in Spanish had her sweating bullets. This girl can do hard things! It's kind of fun to watch Bishop Alvarado getting nervous about losing Brenda's magic fingers on the piano. I don't need to do a count-down because he will be doing it for me!

Today in Priesthood we talked about Elder Kearon's talk about callings and how they help us grow. It's a blessing to know that Heavenly Father is aware of us and will help us by stretching us. A comment was made that we are given light and power through the priesthood when we are set apart. It comes through those hands that are laid on our head. He received that light and power from a stake leader, who got it from a general authority, and it can be traced clear back to the Savior. So, we can honestly say that we are on the Lord's Errand! 

The weather here is really pleasant. We're in the low 70's and I wish it would kind of just stay here for a while, but I know that soon enough we will be very grateful to have air conditioning! I hope that your week is wonderful. We love you billions!