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.

Week 68

We had a great time in Ohio visiting Kirk's family.  We got to Columbus Thursday afternoon.  On Friday the boys went to the Ohio State Basketball game and the girls had a girls' night out at Cheesecake Factory.  The Christmas lights were still up at the enormous mall where the restaurant was, and they were fabulous.

Seb with the Chick-fil-a promotional cow before the game

The boys at the game

We had a lot of fun reading books and playing games.

Cute grandkids

The highlight of the visit was having Seb receive the Aaronic Priesthood and become a deacon.  He's so excited and is going to be a great asset to his Deacon's Quorum. The strangest part of the visit was attending church in a regular church building and meeting with so many people.  Didn't realize we'd grown so accustomed to our little triple wide trailer and tiny branch. Got back home about 10:30 Monday night.

It was so good to meet again with our men in the prisons.  I've mentioned this before, but one of the men said again this week--"This is the only hour of the week when I can forget I'm in prison."  We are going to miss these inmates and the warm and uplifting experiences we have with them.

Thursday we resumed our Temple Preparation class in Marksville (after a December break).  It is such a good experience to be part of helping these couples prepare to receive their temple blessings and be sealed as families. 

Before our class we had some time, so we went to see this old cane mill in Cottonport.  Not much to see and no explanatory material, but here it is anyway.

Dora Plantation sugar mill ruins

The weather took center stage again early Saturday morning.  Our power was out for a couple of hours starting just before 5 am, and we had a fantastic lightening show and some heavy rain.  Up near Shreveport, however, tornadoes killed three people.  All week our temperatures had been in the high 60s and up to 75 degrees.  When the cool air from the north came in Friday night, the weather turned nasty.  Yesterday and today the highs are in the 50s--not bad by snow-covered western standards, but cool for us.  A new addition to the flowers we've had all winter, we are already starting to see daffodils in bloom.

Today was our Branch Conference followed by a linger longer meal.  We sure do enjoy our stake presidency; just delightful, good men.  President DeFord spoke about the blessings of the temple, the blessings that come from paying tithes and offerings, and preparing ourselves to meet the Savior.  He told us that from our stake there are 55 temple ordinance workers (five from our branch alone), and there is a stake much closer to the temple with only two ordinance workers. 

With the Monday college football championship game, excitement is high around here.  Even though LSU is 2 1/2 hours away in Baton Rouge, there are tons of grads and fans in Alexandria.  Geaux Tigers signs are all over the place, cupcakes with deep purple and bright yellow frosting are for sale in the grocery store, and even the soda pop display boasts its support for LSU!

Week 66 1/2

Happy New Year!  Today was great fun--Sister Ferrington, the stake seminary/institute supervisor we work with, invited the missionaries to join her family for a Southern New Year's Day lunch.  It was so good!  We had rice and gravy, cabbage fried with bacon, fried chicken, black-eyed peas, and cornbread.  The cabbage, black-eyed peas, and cornbread represent prosperity, luck, and health for the new year.  For dessert there were two southern favorites--coconut cake and pecan pie.  Also a delicious frappe to drink.  Sister F is a good cook and the food was wonderful.

Traditional Southern New Year's Day meal

More of the family with the cake, pie, and frappe

Bella the whippet in her LSU sweater

Tomorrow morning our plane leaves at 6 am.  We're going to Ohio to be with grandson Sebastian as he receives the Aaronic Priesthood.  We missed his baptism while on our last mission, but thought we had timed this mission well, since Seb doesn't turn 12 until August (after we're home).  However, recent changes have young men receive the priesthood in the January of the year they turn 12.  Rules for senior couples have relaxed a bit, so we're able to make a quick trip for this important event.
 

Week 66

We had our district of missionaries come to breakfast Christmas morning--it was fun to start the day that way.

Merry Christmas with the Alexandria District

We had a relaxing day talking to family and eating a nice little dinner. Later in the day we went to the park for a walk--this may be our last warm Christmas (it reached 70 degrees) and we wanted to take advantage of it.  After walking, we drove around a few neighborhoods looking at Christmas lights.

Christmas day walk in the park; posing in front of live oak trees--they never lose their leaves

Thursday we had a good lesson/visit with our Pollock prisoner--it's always dicey whether or not the prison will be on lockdown when we go.  Luckily not this week.

On Friday afternoon we drove to Baton Rouge to attend the temple--we did sessions Friday evening and Saturday morning.  The pictures of flowers below were taken on the temple grounds.  Beautiful roses, camellias, azaleas, snap dragons, pansies, and several other types in full bloom. 

December 28th in the South

Week 65

The weather tops this week's news.  On Monday afternoon we had lightning, thunder, and very heavy rain in our part of town.  Just five miles from our apartment, however, a tornado was causing havoc.  It cut a 60 mile swath from Rosepine up through Pineville.  When it hit in Alexandria it did a lot of damage (it was later classified as an EF3 --winds up to 165 miles per hour), but no one was killed or injured.  News programs just show a shot of a very limited area.  Driving though it the next day, it was hard to believe the widespread damage on both sides of state highway 28 and fields just full of debris.

The FedEx building on the bottom

Gas station

A church/private school

The ball field

On Tuesday we visited several folks in Marksville, then trained the new seminary teacher in the branch.  She had been the teacher before, but there have been no students for about two years.  The interesting thing about that visit was her husband, who is not a member of the Church.  He has Cajun roots in this area going back to the 1700s.  We've met him several times and had heard that he was a Cajun musician, but we'd never heard him play and sing.  He gave us a private concert, and it was fun.  The first picture is of him when he was young and performing with a group.  After that are two videos--the first is Silent Night in English with a Cajun slant and the second is Silent Night in Cajun French. 

He's the one in the air

Friday we had the Christmas Zone Conference in Baton Rouge.  Since it's a long drive, we took four elders with us to save them mileage.  Three zones attended this final conference (there had already been two conferences, each with three zones).  As always it was a wonderful and uplifting day.  One fun highlight was as we were finishing lunch, Santa came to visit.  President Varner makes a fabulous Santa!

The three zones--next to Santa is the Varner's son who had open heart surgery 5 weeks ago

The Alexandria District

Coordinating outfits--on purpose????

After the conference was officially over we got to watch the movie The Fighting Preacher.  It's based on the true story of Willard Bean, at one time the middle-weight world boxing champion, and his wife.  They were called to serve a mission in Palmyra, NY at the Joseph Smith home in 1915.  They were released from their mission in 1939!  A marvelous heartwarming story.  All the missionaries  loved it and it was a wonderful end to a wonderful day.

Well, if Willard Bean was the fighting preacher, Wendell Kerr is the baking preacher.  He spent most of yesterday baking cookies (and our little freezer was full of cookies he baked the previous week).  In the last two weeks he baked 54 dozen cookies.  We packed three different kinds in plastic bags and put those into cute Christmas bags (18 cookies per bag)--one for every family in our branch.  During the week we delivered bags to less active folks and took the rest to church today.  Everybody loves Elder Kerr's cookies, and it was fun to distribute them. 

One of the YSAs we've enjoyed the entire time we've been here got married in the Houston Temple on Wednesday.  Yesterday was a ring ceremony and dinner/reception for them.  She's lived here most of her life, and he's an Army engineer stationed at Fort Polk.  His next post is in Missouri at the first of the year--they'll be missed here.

Happy couple, with flower girls and ring bearer

In a tiny branch there's no such thing as a "ward choir" so we didn't have the traditional Christmas choir program today.  Instead, we were the speakers.  We missed hearing the Christmas music, but we enjoyed thinking and speaking about what Christmas means. 

Week 64

Kind of a quiet week.   On Wednesday the Religious Services secretary at Oakdale called to say there weren't any services that day due to a staff special event.  The next day we drove up to Pollock, only to learn that due to a special function the prisoners were on lockdown until 4 pm.  Not only do we miss our fellows when we don't see them, every one of them has told us our hour together is the best part of their week, and we feel so bad when they have to miss it.  We have a video-conference with the Golds and two Seminary and Institute Area Coordinators every Thursday--but that was cancelled as well.  A week of cancellations.

We visited the early morning seminary class in Natchitoches Tuesday and the last institute class in Leesville on Thursday night.  Another semester comes to a close.  Coming home from Leesville we had frequent glimpses of the last full moon of the decade.

The Tuesday before transfers the Greens generally have all the missionaries over for a wonderful Cajun meal.  However, Sister Green has been ill, so this week her daughter and her husband had us all over.  These people can cook!

Normally District Council is on Wednesday, so we can only attend for a short time before heading to Oakdale.  Because of transfers this week, it was held on Friday.  The good news is that we have another companionship added to our district--sisters are opening the Pineville area.  It's in the Alexandria ward, so they'll have a set of elders and a set of sisters working there.  That brings our district to eight young missionaries and us.  We love their dedication and enthusiasm.

Natchitoches goes all out for Christmas (this year makes 93 years of celebrating). Starting about Thanksgiving there is a fabulous light display along the Cane River, and they look so pretty reflected in the river (pictures and notes from last year talk about it).  Every Saturday there is a fireworks display as well. On Saturday we met up with the Golds, the senior couple in Rustin, to eat dinner and enjoy the festivities.  Our appetizer plate had alligator, fried green tomatoes, shrimp, mini meat pies, and a crab cake.

The Golds and the Kerrs eating shrimp/crab/crawfish macaroni and cheese,
 catfish strips, and a Central Louisiana specialty, meat pies

 In the early evening on festival Saturdays, Front Street is closed to vehicles and becomes a wonderful pedestrian mall.  Walking along, I saw what I was sure was snow flakes on a parked truck.  Knowing that's highly unlikely in Louisiana, I looked up and saw a snow making machine spewing snow flakes over the street.  There were several along the street, and it was fun to watch little kids trying to catch the flakes.  (It reached 80 degrees today, and snow happens very rarely here.)

The crowd and the bridge over the Cane River

 At 5:30 pm there was a lighted boat parade--they don't show well here, but it was fun to watch.

The fabulous fireworks display started at 7:00 pm.  It really was wonderful and we loved watching it.

Today was the last Sunday School class of the year (and I guess of the decade, as well).  I have loved teaching the New Testament this year, and am very excited to be teaching the Book of Mormon next year.  The Come Follow Me program is inspired, and using it is a great blessing to individuals and families.

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.