Week 63

A little more prison news--one of our favorite inmates was sent to a deportation facility (he's from Honduras) just a few hours before we got to Oakdale this week.  He is the sweetest man, and we'll really miss him.  At Pollock the next day, we were just finishing up our lesson with the inmate there when they called a lockdown until two missing inmates could be located.  We were there an extra 90 minutes beyond our hour!  We are learning so much about prison life, and nothing we learn makes us want to break the law and go in permanently.

Thursday night we drove to Vidalia, LA, right on the Mississippi River and just across the bridge from Natchez, MS.  On Friday morning we went first to The Towers, a mansion that has tours all through the year, but has a special Jeweled Christmas Tour in December.  Taking pictures inside isn't allowed, but here is a website showing one of the most amazing and over the top tours we've taken.  Jeweled Christmas

The woman has THOUSANDS of pieces of costume jewelry which she incorporates into at least four 12-foot trees, a couple of 8-foot trees, and many 2- or 3-foot trees.  Every square inch of space (mantles, tables, banisters) is covered in "jewels"--many from movie sets or designers who create jewelry for the rich and famous.  I truly cannot begin to describe this experience.

At The Towers--those harnesses are jeweled!

Next we went to Magnolia Hall, but the garden club that owns and maintains that mansion was having its annual Christmas fundraising luncheon, so no tours were available.  Fortunately, a member of the Church is in that garden club and saw us.  She invited us to join the party.  We decided to go see another home then come back to Magnolia.

 The other house is called The House at Ellicott Hill.  Ellicott is the person who established the dividing line between Spanish and French territory right on this hill, though he never lived in the house later built there.  What was interesting about this house is the lack of grandeur--it predated all the antebellum mansions by many years.  It was built in 1798 and served as a mercantile (and later a surgery) downstairs and home upstairs.

House at Ellicott Hill

Cotton spinning wheel and guns--the bottom one was taken out of a tree that had grown around it

An all-in-one lavatory cabinet

Sewing cabinet and fly catcher--sugar water in chamber attracted them, arsenic in other killed them off

When we went back to Magnolia Hall to (for a price) eat lunch we had such a good time.  We were treated like long lost friends and enjoyed good food with delightful people in an incredible antebellum mansion.  Southern hospitality is a real thing!!  Even though no tour happened, we could wander around the beautiful downstairs rooms where the buffet was served and seating was available.  Pretty grand!

Brownstones were becoming popular in Boston, so the rich southerners used the same color

With our new friends--man on the right was one of the tour guides at the Jewel Tower 

If these homes were not old enough, we went to some Indian mounds.  The second largest in the country, Emerald Mound, is just a few miles outside Natchez.  (Interestingly, when we were courting, Kerby took me to the largest in the country--Cahokia Mounds in Collinsville, IL.)

At the base of a mound covering eight acres

On the top of the mound, with another mound going higher still

From there we drove to the other side of Natchez to the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians.  It was another early site (700 AD) for religious and ceremonial activities--three of these mounds were still being used when European colonists came to the area in the 1700s.

Quite an educational and fun day in Natchez.

Saturday evening was an inter-faith Christmas celebration at the ward in Alexandria.  It was lovely to sing so many Christmas hymns and get into the spirit of the season.

Today was the Primary sacrament meeting program.  We have 11 Primary children--six boys and five girls.  They did a very nice job despite being dependent on our programmable piano and Gospel Library on a phone for music.  After church we had a Linger Longer with three kinds of gumbo, rice, cornbread, and pie.  One of our sisters is from northern LA, and gumbo is entirely different up there.  She wanted to make sure I tasted that kind of gumbo (the only true gumbo) before leaving LA.  It is different--contains okra, tomatoes, lots of chicken, and file (ground sassafras leaves which flavor and thicken it).  Very tasty.

After visiting a couple of sisters who have been ill (one is still in the hospital), we called it a day and came home to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.  So grateful for this time of year.