July 8 2018

Crops


These are pictures of the corn fields around here.  The fields are either corn or soy beans...they alternate these 2 crops and as you can see, the corn is about 10 feet high right now.  The soy beans are above your knee in height. The corn grows about 2 feet each week...some locals say that if you stand near a corn field on a quiet night (they rarely have wind) that you can actually hear the corn growing.  I'm not sure that I believe that but they were quite serious as they were telling us !!  The second cut of hay is off the fields and the winter grain has been harvested already.  The next picture shows what it is like to drive down the country roads lined with corn....you feel like you are driving in a tunnel of corn and you never know what is going to dart out of  it !!   Luckily, they mow the ditches really well so there is a couple of feet of clear vision on either side of the road.  The lightning bugs that fly around at night can cause a startle as you are driving at night, as well.  Take my word for it...hahaha!
A funny thing happened to us last night.  There was a band concert at the space in front of the temple and then they were doing their fireworks for July 4 (two days late but we didn't complain)  We were sitting near the area around the statues of Joseph and Hyrum on their horses while we waited for it to start and were visiting with people and looked over at a couple walking towards us.....it was Jim's cousin from Vancouver Island !! What a total surprise for both of us !!   Carol (McKue) & Mark Ruttan.  She is Aunt Katie (Paxman) & Uncle Bob McKue's daughter and Jim hasn't seen her for many years but we are connected on Facebook and I recognized her and she recognized me at the same instance. We visited and watched fireworks together and had them over for dinner today.  What a fun surprise .... it was a great example of a tender mercy from the Lord.  I was watching many families together and lots of the missionary couples have family visiting and was feeling alittle envious  and then to have an unexpected visit from family let me know that the Lord knows me and loves me. Here are the pictures we took as proof.



You can see the band set up in front of the temple.  It is a community band with members of many different religions.  The band director is very talented and the music they provided was high quality.  There were about 6 members from the YPMs that played with them and he even highlighted them in one of the numbers.  This mission is such a wonderful opportunity for us experience many different customs and apparently WE talk different !  hahaha     Have a great week and know that we love you all and are so appreciative of the heritage that is ours.  This next week is the opening of the Nauvoo Pagaent (Tues., Thurs. & Sat.) and the British Pagaent (Wed. & Fri.) .  It runs from July 10 - Aug 10 so it will be an interesting month. 




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