Things We've Learned This Week

We have participated in some great lessons with some great missionaries and very sweet families. We love the Lord and love serving him here in New Orleans.

The Diaz family, Carlos, Elena and Tomas have been one of the families we have been working with. Carlos has found temporary work and Elena has been helping cook in the kitchen for our New Member Meetings. It's amazing to see how much they have grown in the few weeks we have been here.

Tonight the Elders had four investigators come to our home for the first lesson on the Restoration. It was all in spanish and was very good. We gave one of them a ride last Monday to a Family Home Evening and it was nice to see him again.

We have learned a lot this week and we are loving our mission. Some things we have learned are:

1- Most missionaries run out of money by the 20th of the month and out of food by around the 25th. It's that last week of the month that is usually when we see them the most, usually around mealtime. If you see them at mealtime, please feed them. They are hungry.

2- Babe (our GPS) is not always right. OK, Cass and Mark we now believe you. We kept trying to put an address into the GPS and the city wouldn't work. It's Friday night and we are trying to find a trailer park with an investigators in it. We get to the town and a local sign has the town's name spelled wrong (we passed the official "Welcome to La Place" sign). So we put the misspelled name into Babe and what do you know, the town was in there. Amazing that our kids were right.

3- Kissing over the Temple alter doesn't protect you from catching the flu. Don has had the flu all week. Luckily we had the medicine on hand and he hasn't had to suffer to much. The cough is pretty nasty and your body lets you know when the medicine has worn off. Which is a good thing.

4- There is only random Trick or Treating in New Orleans?? We had no trick or treaters. Nada. Nothing Not even a kid in the complex running around in a costume. It was really weird.

5- Lockdown for "Senior" missionaries was pretty nice. For those who don't know what "Lockdown" is, it's when the missionaries are not allowed to leave their apartments. Usually on holidays, like Halloween, New Year's Eve and July 4th. It may also apply to some of the Mardi Gras festival dates here in New Orleans, we shall see.

6- The Vietnamese have ALL rebuilt since Katrina. Don found a great article that talked about how the Vietnamese came back right after Katrina and rebuilt their businesses and their homes. Most of them didn't receive federal funds until 16 months after Katrina at the earliest. They called Katrina a bug bite and rebuilt.

7- If you feed them, they will come. Investigators, new members, and missionaries all will be there if you feed them. We had 80 at our New Member Meeting this week. It was great to be able to see so many attend and learn for the second week in a row. We love the people here and we see how much they grow when they are given the opportunity to serve.