Week 56

The most wonderful news this week is the birth of baby Doug on Thursday night.  That makes grandchild number nine! He and mom are doing well, and the three big sisters are elated!  We'll be traveling to Denver this week (when he was due) to help (ok, and to snuggle).

Monday afternoon we went to Rosepine to train a new seminary teacher.  The new teacher and her husband are at Fort Polk--her husband is a pediatrician in the Army.

While we were driving to Rosepine Brother Green called to say they were making gumbo and sweet potatoes for supper and we were invited.  That fit our return schedule just fine, and so we enjoyed a good Louisiana meal with the Greens and some other couples--one the wife had served a mission here and the other the husband had served here.  He's back as an Army dentist at Fort Polk, the others were just touring the area.  Pretty fun, and Brother Green makes great gumbo!

On the way home from our prison visit on Wednesday, the Alexandria institute teacher texted to say she was going to have to work that night, so when we got home we hurried and put together an institute lesson.  Teaching institute is one thing we absolutely loved on our last mission and miss on this one, so we enjoy every opportunity to substitute.

Yesterday we went to a Louisiana State Historical site in Pineville, across the Red River--Fort Randolph and Fort Buhlow.  These two fortifications were built in the Civil War after the Confederate Army had defeated the Union in several battles on and near the Red River.  The forts were never really used because the war came to an end the next year, but were built in case the Union tried to come up the Red River again.

All this and Spanish Moss, too!

The forts are near where we check the depth of the river.  It's been a long dry summer, and we've never seen the Red River this low.  It was more than 15 feet higher last winter.

This is shrimping season (August to December for white shrimp), and the place where we bought crawfish is open on weekends selling shrimp boils.  We decided we'd better try it out, and were not disappointed--delicious and very spicy (lips tingling for a long time after eating).

A bag of shrimp boil--potatoes, corn, sausage, and shrimp

Because we're leaving this week, the only day we could do missionary apartment inspection in Marksville was today.  After church Kerby had an Elder's Quorum presidency meeting, then we took the sacrament to a sister who has had some health problems (Kerby also gave her a beautiful blessing), then went to the elders' apartment.  They had invited us to eat dinner with them--they had some homemade spaghetti sauce Elder Alvey had made.  They said this was the first time they'd ever fed the missionaries 😊.  It was good and their apartment was clean, too.