Rule: Selecting exact positions of children is fragile and so avoid doing it.

You don't need to call out a child's position.

Use document order so that instead of this:

<xsl:template match="description">
<div>
<xsl:apply-templates select="p[1]"/>
<xsl:apply-templates select="p[2]"/>
<xsl:apply-templates select="p[3]"/>
</div>
</xsl:template>

do this:

<xsl:template match="description">
<div>
<xsl:apply-templates select="p"/>
</div>
</xsl:template>

Example: doc-order.xml no-doc-order.xsl doc-order.xsl