Week 69

An exceptionally quiet week.  Both prisons were on lock down all week because of computer system upgrades, so no visits there (it's hard to even imagine how dreary lock down is, especially for that long).  Did have an interesting bit of news about our former inmate who was deported.  He actually ended up in Pecos, TX, and the missionary couple working with LDS Correctional Services in Salt Lake e-mailed to say he would like to write us a letter and to hear from us.  It's pretty tricky, because you can't give addresses, so everything has to go through a mission office or some other third party.  But it made us happy to know where he is and that he'd like to communicate.  We really love him.

Our Temple Preparation class is very enjoyable to teach because the couples attending are so very interested and excited about the gospel.  We did the three missionary apartment inspections this week, all on different days, and took the elders to lunch and the sisters to breakfast after the inspections. 

Last evening a sister in the branch called to see if I could speak in sacrament meeting in her place as she wouldn't be able to.  So I did that, as well as teach Sunday School.  Then this evening we had our stake seminary and institute faculty training meeting, so we both had things to present there.  All of the above went well.  This was our last faculty training. 

On Monday these irises were blooming outside the food bank:

Irises on January 13

Today on the way home from church we saw this magnolia tree blooming.

Magnolia tree on January 19

Yesterday afternoon we had a really heavy rain.  It moved on south to Marksville, be we were rewarded with an exceptionally beautiful sunset.  The sunset background on the blog is a stock photo but it is from Louisiana.  We've sure seen some spectacular sunsets here.