We arrived in Baton Rouge on December 27 and had a warm welcome from President and Sister Wall. Brent and I have known Jim and Connie Wall for nearly 40 years so we are old friends.  (old as in age and acquaintance :)  We are such good friends that when we see each other, we seem to take up where we left off the last time we were together.

Now in a regular home of course, there is usually only one drawer of eating utensils......in a mission home there are three. Sister Wall feeds many missionaries.  Last Thursday I went to the stake center and helped with lunch for about 50.  I think that is going to be a regular thing.   This coming week is mission tour week.  That means that a general authority comes, usually from Salt Lake, and tours the mission.  So on Wednesday he will be in Baton Rouge and meet with the missionaries that are serving there and other areas close by and then on Thursday he will travel to New Orleans and spend the day teaching the missionaries that are serving there.  This year Elder Alan F. Packer is the visiting general authority.  Elder Packer once served as a Mission President in Spain.  It will be a pleasure to meet him because he was our son Zach's mission president when Zach served as a missionary in the Spain Malaga Mission.  This week Brent and I started training in the mission office.  Eeeesh!  There is a lot to learn.  Brent is learning the financial, apartment leasing and car duties.  I am learning the office procedure which includes the phones, taking care of missionary needs and wants, travel arrangements, ordering supplies and anything else that comes up.  We keep busy.  While we are in Louisiana, we want to make the most of our stay. So on Saturday we headed west back over the Mississippi river to Lafayette about an hour's drive west of Baton Rouge.  For all of you who speak French, you will know this.  For the rest of us....did you know that Baton Rouge means 'red stick'?  When trappers first came up the Mississippi, they saw a lance sticking out of the the ground with dead bloody animals on it.  It was a sign of somebodies hunting grounds.....and so this little piece of the world became Baton Rouge.

From the Mississippi River bridge looking north. It was a cold rainy day.

Someone's treasure trove of geneology posted in one of the houses

   In Lafayette, is the Acadian Village. It is a museum of old houses the French Canadians built in the early to mid eighteen hundreds after the English kicked them out of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, after the French lost the French and Indian War.  The "Great Expulsion" deported the French back to France and other places, one of those places being Louisiana.  Those French Canadians and their ancestors were and are now known as cajuns.  Just a little history for you.  

This is a blood orange.  Have you ever seen one of these?  Nope, not me.  Looks like a regular one on the outside but it's red on the inside.  Tastes like a cross between an orange and a grapefruit.  I have a cold right now and Brent bought these in an effort to help me get better.  Love you all.  Carol