Elder Palmer

Special mention today goes out to this mysterious super-missionary!! Elder Palmer goes home from his 2 year mission this week. He spent his last few moments of time in Shreveport here at our home on Monday night for which we feel very blessed. We have given this poor young man such a hard time throughout his time here about forgetting words to a song he made an impromtu choice to sing for our family a few months ago at our Family Home Evening. He redeemed himself however when he sang a beautiful song for our baptismal service by singing acapella beautifully and remembering every word. Brother Palmer has been such a blessing to us as a family and we love him dearly. We miss him already!!! We wish him all the best this life has to offer and hope he'll keep in touch often.

Two things I love about Springtime here in Louisiana; Jason's smiles and laughter (shown >>>) and crawfish boils. It's not so much eating the crawfish that I enjoy the most, it's the event. I love to help with the planning, food and fun as we gather together a group of our friends and loved ones. It's just a blast to all get together and enjoy eachothers company while the children play noisily outside. About two weeks ago, we invited Brother and Sister Cardon over with the Missionaries for FHE.

The Saturday before, the Sisters and I had went out on an exchange and drove by a store selling alligator sausage of all things!! Shown here by Sister Heaton in true Vanna White style.

So, in what we thought would be a silly prank phone call we called our personal chef, Jason, and asked him if he wanted us to pick up some Alligator for dinner. To our shock and mild horror he said "Sure". So, we circled back around to the store we had passed and went in to buy alligator sausage knowing that if we did we'd have to eat it later...YIKES!! Long story short, he wasn't able to fix it that night due to a weather related power outtage but come Monday night, with the Cardon Family coming to Family Home Evening, our personal chef, who can make anything taste absolutely wonderful, cooked alligator sausage, crawfish boudan, Pork boudan (for the whimps) and a truly cajun jumbalya (spelling???). We had a cajun feast!! Ironically enough, not a one of us was native to Louisiana or the south for that matter. Amazingly enough, it was great!! All of my anxiety about it being a total flop and about scareing these wonderful folks away from family home evening at the Carris' ever again, it was a huge hit! It was an interesting adventure in foods for most of us and the Cardon boys thought it was so awesome they called their gramma on the way home to tell her they had eaten alligator! So, what lesson did I learn?? I learned that it's ok to try new things because even if it had been gross like I feared, it still would have been a lot of fun to experience. I'm so thankful it was good though and I'm forever grateful that I have the best chef ever in my life. How do I know he's the best?? Because if he can make something as mean and green as alligator taste great, imagine what he can do with chocolate! He's wonderful and we a truly blessed to enjoy him in our lives!! Enough for today!! ~T