How do I style an embedded <strong> in the text from the XML input?

I have the following XML (just a snippet, but should be enough).  There is exactly one <xsl-template> matching the root. Everything is taken from there. A document can contain many sections and a section can contain many textblocks.

Note: in the example given the section/textblocks/textblock/text contains <strong>...</strong>

<sections>
	<section>
		<sectionTitle>
			Contract Validity
		</sectionTitle>
			
		<textBlocks>
				
			<textblock>
				<text>This contract is valid for a period of <strong>18 months</strong> and the .... be 7,400.00.</text>
			</textblock>

		</textBlocks>

		<accepted>false</accepted>
			
		<acceptanceText>
			I certify I have ... agree to the above.
		</acceptanceText>
		
	</section>
</sections>

and the respective fragment from the XSL

	<xsl:for-each select="sections/section">
		<fo:block space-after="0.7em" text-decoration="underline">
                	<xsl:value-of select="sectionTitle"/>
                </fo:block>

                <xsl:for-each select="textBlocks/textblock">
                	<fo:block space-after="0.7em">
				<xsl:value-of select="text"/>
			</fo:block>
		</xsl:for-each>
	</xsl:for-each>

How can I replace the <strong> by the proper <fo:font-weight=“bold”> tags during processing?

I have been reading up on xsl:apply-templates but have only been successful to *additionally* show the text “18 months” in bold either before or after the selected text, but never replacing the "<strong>18 months</strong>” inline by bolded text. However I was able to get rid of the strong-tags so that the text in the PDF just read “...period of 18 months and the...” without any visible boldness.

Thanks a lot
---markus---