Sunday Afternoon In Louisiana

Today we had 3 new member confirmations at church (one of the converts had his baby blessed) and another baptism after church. It is a very unique feeling when those events take place. It was awesome to see the difference in the countenance of the lady who was getting baptized after church. She has very dark, cold eyes and a rough demeanor. But today she glowed and her eyes were softer. Two of the three confirmations were a man and his brother-in-law. The man is married to a member who stopped coming to church when she moved down here. The missionaries tracted into them, and the husband agreed to take the discussions. The brother-in-law was sitting in on the discussions, seemingly uninterested. However, the day that the missionaries asked Brother Lee if he would like to be baptized, the brother-in-law accepted before Brother Lee could! The missionaries were stunned, but thrilled. We have 3 sets of missionaries in our ward--one is from Preston, ID and served with Bro and Sis Chambers!

This ward has been interesting. The women are a little like pecking hens. There's always at least one "pecking" comment made in Relief Society. And they're very judgmental of others in the ward and how they're filling their callings. Not much ward unity. I wonder if that's part of the reason why out of 500 members, only 100 attend.

We've had crazy weather down here. We were in the 80's with 80% humidity...then in the 60's and rainy...then 80's with really sticky humidity...and today we're in the 60's again. Today I got stuck at one of the three draw bridges on the way to Brian's work. It was interesting to note the behavior of other drivers: most shut off their vehicle engines to wait, a couple people got out of their cars and chatted with other drivers. Very laid back, going with the flow. So I took a deep breath and just enjoyed being there too, watching the boats go down the bayou. Here's an example of common waters around here.

I found a picture of a 19th century plantation home that's just up the road from our place, called Southdown Plantation. Sugar cane is the #1 crop down here. I drove past the other day and there was a wedding going on out front. There's some awesome mansions down here, especially along the bayous. I think the bayous smell awful, but it must smell like home to these people, just like cow manure smells like home to me. Mmmmm, cows....