Week 53

And in today's agricultural news. . . . We took a day trip to parts a little south of us to catch some of the sugarcane harvest.  We hit it just right, and you'll now have to endure lots of pictures of the process.  There are 400,00 acres of sugarcane in Louisiana, which produce 13 million tons of sugarcane.  There are 11 raw sugar factories in the state, and the whole industry contributes over $3 billion to the economy of Louisiana.

The fields are lush and beautiful, and the cane is much taller than it looks in the first couple of pictures--that's why the third one has Kerby standing in front of a patch of cane for a height reference (he's 6'2"and the cane towers over him).

We saw the actual harvesting machines just a couple of times:

Harvesters in the field

But we saw the cane being loaded into trucks for transport to the raw sugar factories in lots of places.  The cane gets cut into shorter stalks when it's picked, then the cane is heaped in big piles.  Some other equipment picks it up and dumps it into trucks.

Pile of sugarcane "chunks" and the loader

Loading the trucks

The trucks generally have solid sides but mesh gates at the back, and there are LOTS of them on the road.

The back of a loaded truck (as seen through our windshield)

On the way home, we stopped at Lea's Pie Shop in Lecompte.  The shop is surrounded by sugarcane fields. I had the best pecan pie I've ever had (and I've had [and even made] some very good pecan pie) and Kerby had peach.  He said it was very good, but my sister's is better.

Back up here in cotton country, most of the fields have lost their foliage, and the harvest should start very soon.

About ready for harvest

On Tuesday we visited with the Petch family in Marksville--he's a counselor in the branch presidency--and he played his harmonica for us.

This week we couldn't see our prisoner in Pollock because there was a Native American religious ceremony going on and all other activity in the chapel was cancelled for the hour.  

Saturday was very nice, starting with a Stake Relief Society conference in the morning.  It was well attended, and the decorations were amazing.  The theme was worldwide sisterhood, and six sisters gave presentations about their country (including Cajun Country).  

That evening two girls from our branch were baptized.  One is 15, and has been living with her mother on the west coast.  She came to live with her dad this summer and investigated the church.  So she and her eight-year-old sister were baptized together.  

Very special day

This morning we both gave talks in Sacrament Meeting.  Also, today was our last Personal Finance class in Marksville.  The course is amazing and our participants were just wonderful.  We all agreed that everyone in the church over 16 should take the course.  

Week 52

One year ago today the Kerr couple rolled into Alexandria, Louisiana for the first time.  It's absolutely amazing how familiar everything is now, how many people we know and love, and how many experiences we've had in that year.

Kerby had a nasty cold this week, so we skipped the food bank on Monday and going to Marksville on Tuesday so he could try to recover.  On Tuesday we did go to the Green's for lunch--their farewell to a couple of missionaries being transferred.  They always cook some LA specialty; this time jambalaya.  Always fun and always delicious.  That evening we had the elders over for dinner.  We appreciate our elders and sisters so much.  The growth these young people experience on their missions is remarkable and we really learn to love the ones in our district.

Folokwe, Rowe, Sorensen, Glade

We had a good Come Follow Me lesson with our men in the Oakdale prison, then we went north to Natchitoches (since haven't mentioned it for a while, will remind you it's pronounced nak a dish) to attend both seminary and institute.  Even though seminary is a daily early morning class, on Wednesdays they meet at 5:30 pm, right before Young Men/Young Women.  There was a little overlap in class times, but I went into institute to help them with some registration problems. 

Our Thursday trip to the Pollock prison was for naught.  We had been escorted in and were expecting our prisoner soon when there was an announcement that the compound was on lockdown and anyone walking on the grounds needed to get back to their cells immediately.  The chaplain said it might only be 10 minutes or so, but when there had been no change for more than 30 minutes. he escorted us back out.  There is something very eerie about being locked inside an empty prison yard. 

Leesville got a new seminary teacher this week, so on Friday we went out to do her orientation.  Between here and there are several massive cotton fields.  The plants are starting to be defoliated and the harvest will be in a couple of weeks. Here is the progress since a couple of weeks ago.

The cotton field

Looking down a row

Some time in the spring I described love bugs.  Well, they're baaaack.  Coming home from Leesville diving through the love bugs was like driving through a rain storm.  The windshield was just covered in bug splashes, and when we got home the front bumper looked like this:

Top--dead ones on a bumper, Bottom, live ones on a truck hood

And speaking of wildlife, when we came out of a restaurant on Saturday, this little frog was sitting on our car by the windshield wipers.  How he got up there is yet to be determined.  When and how he got off is also a mystery.

Tiny hitch hiker

Soybeans are harvested when the plants are completely brown--we saw this big combine in harvest action this afternoon.

Such huge equipment

We had our next to the last Personal Finance class this afternoon.  This is an incredible program, and we have enjoyed facilitating it so very much.  Everyone in the class seems to be enjoying and benefiting from it.  

Week 51

A sister in the branch often gives us eggs from her chickens.  Every time we open a carton we're just struck by how pretty the eggs are.  Two different types of chickens so two different shades of brown.

And delicious, too

Wednesday we went to visit the home study seminary class in Rosepine, so we drove there from Oakdale (after the prison) rather than drive all the way home then drive a long way south again.  That got us there quite early, so we tried to take the Haunted Jail House tour in Deridder (the town just south of Rosepine).  We were a little too late, but just looking at it from the outside is kind of eerie.  It's now closed until after Halloween to have a haunted house spectacular. We may have to go just to get a good scare!

Actually looks haunted!

Next door to the jail is a doll museum with over 3300 dolls that all belonged to one woman in Deridder.  The woman also repaired dolls.  Soldiers at nearby Fort Polk learned about her and started bringing her dolls from their overseas assignments.  Wouldn't want all these in our house, but pretty interesting.

Some were in amazing clothes

While driving around the countryside before seminary we saw this vine covered mailbox and street sign.  Welcome to rural America!

Things grow pretty fast around these parts

A couple of months ago the Young Women's President in Alexandria (who was one of Nora's students at BYU) asked us to give a youth fireside in the ward about accessing the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  The fireside was last evening, with 15 youth in attendance.  We really enjoyed being with them and hope they learned some things that will be helpful to them.

Alexandria Ward Youth

Temperatures were in the high 90s all week--it is often still 90 degrees at 8 pm.  Summer just keeps going.

Two milestones:  On Tuesday we celebrated the one year mark on our mission.  On September 18, 1919, Verdell Lawrence Nyland was born--Nora's father would be 100 years old this week!

Week 50

To make up for last week's extremely short post, this week's is ridiculously long!
On Labor Day we drove south to explore the Creole Nature Trail, also called Louisiana's Outback.  It's about 180 miles through salt water and fresh water marshes, the Gulf of Mexico, and is home to zillions of species of birds, mammals, and reptiles (most of which were far too smart to be out on a day as hot as Monday was, but it was still a great trip).  There were quite a few birds, including pelicans, just not as many as at other times of the year.  We didn't do the whole trail, but sure had fun seeing a very different side to Louisiana than we'd ever seen before.

We started in Sulpher, and passed some industrial areas before getting to the grasslands.  There is a lot of liquefied natural gas and some of Louisiana's first oil wells in this area.

Liquefied natural gas plant and oil pump jack

A little farther south, we came to Wetland Walkway--a 1 1/2 mile walking path through a marsh.  One section of the trail is called Alligator Alley, but they were staying cool out of sight.

Marsh grasses

A big bayou

Continuing south, we came to the Gulf of Mexico and lovely Holly Beach.  Near the beach are many houses, all colorful, and all built on crazy high stilts.  One must be prepared for hurricanes and flooding!

Gulf of Mexico beach

Houses on stilts

Leaving Holly Beach we drove onto a vehicle ferry which crosses the Calcasieu Ship Channel, connecting the Intercoastal Waterway to the Gulf. It was about a 10-15 minute ride.

Navigation on and shrimp boats seen from the ferry

About one third of all the seafood eaten in the US comes from Louisiana, and it was fun to see lots of shrimp boats.  LA is the number one provider of shrimp (over 100 million pounds a year), oysters, crab, crawfish, and alligator in the country.

Shrimp boats

We saw very little wildlife, but here are a couple of birds and butterflies.  Also some off-shore oil rigs way in the distance:

Might be kind of a wild life on an oil rig

In the town of Cameron the school board/library building was also built above ground level, as were most of the houses and other buildings.

A library on stilts

Heading north, we crossed the Intercoastal Waterway again, which stretches from Brownsville, TX, to New Jersey.

Intercoastal Waterway

Shortly after crossing the waterway, we came to the visitor's center--but it was closed.  However, we did see our most interesting wildlife of the day.  This ENORMOUS spider in a huge web:

Our wildlife highlight

Then it was up to Lake Charles for an early dinner and on to home.  All in all a very fun and interesting day.

Because Monday was a holiday, we went to the food bank on Tuesday.  There we learned that our favorite Rapides Parish Correctional Center prisoner did get his parole.  He'll be released at the end of January, cutting off 2 1/2 years from his sentence.  Never in our lives did we expect to be praying for a parole board to grant a prisoner parole, but that's what we've been doing.  

We spent the afternoon in Marksville, but only saw one person.  We bought some roundup and some kitchen drawer dividers and went to work at the church for a while, then we had a make-up Personal Finance class in the evening.

On Wednesday we learned from our prisoners at the Federal Prison in Oakdale that there is no parole for federal prisoners--in case you wondered.  On returning from the prison we went to the church in Alexandria to have our interview with the mission president. 

Thursday was zone conference.  It started with President Varner showing a video of Elder Christofferson speaking at the New Mission Presidents Training.  A magnificent talk about the Book of Mormon.

We had to leave shortly after that because, five months after the initial contact with the Federal Prison in Pollock, they finally scheduled our first day--on the same day as zone conference.  The prison in Oakdale is a minimum security facility and the one in Pollock is medium security.  The difference between them is stark.  Oakdale has fairly pleasant and attractive grounds, Pollock is grim.  In addition to a security ID badge, we have to have our hands and forearms stamped with invisible ink that is viewed in a blue light box before the gates will open to let us into the yard.  We meet with just one man at Pollock, who has been trying to get religious visitation since his transfer there over a year ago. Later Thursday evening we drove to Leesville to visit the institute class there.

Yesterday was a baptism for two children in the branch.  I gave the talk on the Holy Ghost.  To illustrate the utter paucity of musical talent in our ward, Elder Kerr led the singing while I pushed the buttons on the phone to make the hymns play on the blue tooth speaker we brought.  You really couldn't find two less musical folks to take care of that.  But it was a wonderful event anyway.

Tray'veon and Ramona

Even though it's September, we had three days this week with temperatures of 100 or a little higher.  With the humidity the heat index was up to 111 one day.  Kind of surprising that our hottest week in Louisiana was in September.  Again, so thankful for air conditioning!!  

Week 49

This was an extremely quiet week, so very little to report.  We substituted in institute on Wednesday, and it was the first day of the new semester.  The course of study is Latter-day Saint History, 1815-1846, using the book Saints as the student manual.  We read the book when it came out last year, but started reading it again, since two the of institute classes in the stake are studying that.  What a remarkable history and what an engaging book!

We got a call from the chaplain's office at the prison saying that because of some training there would be no chapel services that day.  So we arranged to see someone in Marksville instead, but she stood us up. 

While in Marksville we stopped at "our" cotton field.  In driving by we could see lots of blossoms, but we also thought we saw cotton bolls.  Sure enough, they have started forming, and today there were virtually no blossoms to be seen as we drove by.

Notice the cotton and blossoms on the plant on lower right--blossoms are gone now

Sign at the Church of the Nazarene:

God can do anything but fail.