Week 56 1/2

The blog will be on hiatus this Sunday as we spend time with new baby Doug, his sisters and parents in Denver (where it's snowing right now--we don't actually remember what snow looks like!). 

We just got back from visiting the home study seminary class in Many, and we had a good class with our Oakdale inmates today.  Prior to that, we attended District Council.  Wednesday is generally our busiest day.

Yesterday we did one missionary apartment inspection and visited one less active member in Marksville.  He worked on an off-shore oil rig for 25 years until he injured his back several years ago (they work two weeks on and two weeks off the rig). 

It rained heavily almost all day Monday, and a couple of streets were completely flooded when we left the food bank.  Yesterday and today were beautiful and we even felt a hint of autumn in the air. 

And since we have no pictures of anything we've seen or done this week, here is the state symbol--the fleur de lis.  It shows up everywhere:

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.

Week 55

Finally some cooler weather!  We had only one day in the 90s this week, the rest were in the 80s and today is 74 degrees.  A nice change from the 96 and higher temperatures all last week.  Monday was about the first time since mid-May that we didn't leave the Food Bank dripping sweat and sopping wet. We're ready to feel a little chill in the air.

We had great success seeing people in Marksville on Tuesday--everyone we tried was actually home!  Pictured below is a satsuma tree (sort of like tangerines) in the yard of one person we visited. They are very popular around here and lots of folks grow them.

First year to bear fruit

Zone Conference was Wednesday--we could only attend the first 90 minutes because we needed to go to the prison.  The focus was on temples in preparation for the Baton Rouge Temple open house to be held October 26 to November 2.  Sisters will be heavily involved as tour guides, and the Elders will hopefully be attending with people they are teaching and others in their wards and branches. The resources the Church has made available to help people prepare for (or just learn about) the temple are wonderful.

The conference started at 10, and our district had interviews with the President from 8-9 am.  So Elder Glade brought his lasso to practice roping in the the cultural hall (he was raised on a ranch) in the down time.

Elder Jackson standing in for a calf

We made him tuck pants into his boots so they would show

When we got to the prison we were so pleased that a man who hasn't attended with us for months came back.  We were so happy to see him--that made five men in our group, and we had a good lesson together.  We enjoy working with them so much.  The next day we finally got to see our prisoner at the Pollock Prison after several weeks of lock downs, etc.  Again, a good meeting, and something that we think makes a difference even if on a very small scale.

Wednesday night we got to substitute in the Alexandria institute class, something we love doing.  There is only one student this semester, but she hasn't missed a class all term and she's so fun to be with.

After running a few errands on Friday, we drove to Houston to go to the temple.  As mentioned before, it takes 4 1/2 hours to get there, and we can hardly wait to shorten the drive to 2 1/2 hours when Baton Rouge opens later in November.  But it is worth the drive and we had lovely sessions on both Friday evening and Saturday morning.  I served as a witness in the sealing, which was a very recent change in temple procedures.

Coming home yesterday, we saw an interesting phenomenon.  While heading east, the rising moon was at exactly the same point above the horizon as the setting sun was while going down behind us in the west.  It was a giant golden-orange orb in a beautifully colored sky (couldn't ever get in a position to take that picture--but here's how it reflected on our car).  The moon is called a hunter moon--the first full moon in October (while a harvest moon is the full moon closest to the fall equinox [in September this year]). Very pretty and unusual.

Moonrise above, sunset below

In our on-going agricultural education, we learned several weeks ago that soybeans aren't harvested until every bit of the field is dry and brown. Finally the fields that surround our apartment got brown (and ugly) enough to harvest.  There's just a little strip yet to get in the field behind us.

They wait 'til it looks dead to harvest

And finally, we pass this sign on our way to and from church--it was just put up a couple of weeks ago.  We do see lots of farm equipment on the roads.  The sign has sound advice (for both farming communities and life!).

Week 54

Our stake is having an online seminary class for the first time this year.  It includes students from several wards (a few wards still have their daily or home-study classes), and it's been a learning experience for students and the teacher.  Things are smoothing out now, and we "attended" the once per week video conference classes this week.  There's one Tuesday mornings at 6 am and a repeat of that class Tuesday evening at 7 pm to meet all the kids' schedules.  It was pretty fun to see, and technology makes things possible that just couldn't have happened even a few years ago.

Wednesday was my birthday, so we celebrated by going to district council then to the prison (ok--that wasn't the celebration).  From the prison we keep driving south to Lake Charles, where we went to a fancy restaurant for dinner (that was the celebration).  We had a little over an hour in Lake Charles before going to the restaurant, so we drove by the lake and looked at lots of beautiful, big plantation-style homes on the lake front.  The homes were across a street from the lake, but right on the lake, each home had a corresponding boat house.  Lots of money in that neighborhood.

Plantation-style homes on Sea Shell Drive

And the boat houses

There is a lovely little park right on part of the lake and we enjoyed a little stroll there.

Millennium Park on Lake Charles

The restaurant was called La Truffe Sauvage (the wild truffle) and had good reviews for its fine dining.  It really was very good, and there was a surprise at the end.  We normally never tell a restaurant if we're celebrating a birthday or other special occasion, so I was very surprised when our dessert came out with a burning candle on the plate, and a birthday greeting in chocolate on the plate.  No singing, clapping, or carrying on, just a lovely message on the plate.  The dessert was a delicious chocolate souffle.

With my handsome date

Delicious and beautiful

On Thursday our weekly video conference call with the seminary/institute area coordinators and the other coordinating missionary couple was cancelled because of a meeting, the prison visit was cancelled because of a lock down, and our addiction recovery person texted to say he wasn't coming.  That means the only exciting thing in the day was getting our flu shots. 

Friday the Golds, the S & I coordinating missionaries in Ruston/Monroe came down and we had lunch together. Then we helped them with a couple of things for the mission assignment.  They're a delightful couple from Utah, and they've been here two months.

We thoroughly enjoyed General Conference.  We watched the Saturday sessions at home, but today we went down to Marksville to watch at the church.  Not many people came, since it can be watched at home, but it was fun to be with those at the building.  We even did a little seminary work between sessions with the young woman who was baptized last week.  Nothing like General Conference to get a spiritual lift!

I saved the agricultural report for the end this week.  Almost half of Louisiana is covered with forest, and logging is a huge industry here (of course only some of the forest is available for logging). We see logging trucks all the time and there are several paper mills as well as lumber yards around.

Lumber mill

 The cotton harvest is in full swing.  Louisiana isn't even close to Texas in amount of cotton produced, but about 200,000 acres of cotton are grown here.  That amounts to 420,000 bales [a unit of measurement], and a bale is 500 pounds.  And that amounts to about $270,000,000 in the state's economy.

The machine below is called, appropriately enough, a cotton picker.

It seems to go through the field once to get the harvest, but we're not sure what happens then--quite a bit of cotton is left behind, but we can't tell if it's re-harvested in a second pass or just plowed under.  The fields have varying stages of clearing.

Bottom left not picked yet, bottom right has been harvested

Cotton is put into modules (about 12-15 bales per module) by a module builder.  Each module weighs around 6 thousand pounds.

Modules on top, module builder on bottom

Kerby by a module

As we've mentioned before, the amount, variety, and size of agricultural equipment we see is mind boggling--and very interesting to a couple of city dwellers.

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!