Mother has been fascinated with the magnolia trees here.  They have huge, shiney leaves and they are just starting to bloom.  We visited a part-member couple this afternoon and the husband picked the bloom she is holding.  It is just starting to open up into a full blossom.  We took it home and put it in water in our cabin.  It will look like the blossom on the tree when it is fully open.  It smells good now so it might help the ambiance in our little home away from home.

We call this the church in the wildwood.  It is still in use with a newly surfaced parking lot.  The monument out front states it was built and dedicated in 1848.  It was closed on this day and we couldn't go inside, but it is probably nice and modern on the inside but they have kept the original log construction on the outside.  There are little churches all throughout the countryside but most are more modern.  Like this one most of them are Baptist missionary churches, with a few Methodist and Church of Christ chapels mixed in.

Saturday evening we were invited to a Cinco de Mayo party at Glenda Beck's home in Bowling Green.  Her mother lives here in Morgantown and suffers from alsheimers.  We have gone to visit her several times and have become good friends with Glenda.  We broke a pinata at the party and these two boys showed up to watch when they heard something about candy.  There was another senior couple at the party along with a set of sister missionaries and a set of elders.  The elders and the sisters took their turn at trying to break the pinata and then we let these two boys finish the job.  Then they took a good share of the candy home with them.  We had a good time and enjoyed some social interaction for a change.

We went to a zone meeting in Clarksville, Tennessee Friday.  There is some beautiful farmland in that area where it is flatter and has better soil.  Although this picture doesn't show it well, this field of winter wheat is starting to turn yellow and ripen.  The corn in the adjacent field is about 18 inches high.  This pictures was taken on May 4th.  It just amazed me how much earlier these crops are than back home.  However we are only at about 800 - 1000 foot elevation and it is very warm and humid.  It was in the 90's several days this week and we are already feeling the heat along with the humidity.  Today we are getting heavy thunderstorms along with heavy rain, fortunately no tornadoes.

We visited 41 families last month, some several times.  So we have been busy and have had some interesting experiences.  We saw our first deer in the head lights, which fortunately did not run across in front of us.  We did run over and kill a big black snake that was about twice as long and bigger around than a blow snake.  They are common here and the locals think they keep away the eastern rattlesnakes and cottonmouths just like we think blow snakes keep away the rattlesnakes.  The wife of our turkey-hunting investigator had killed two in her front yard.  She held them up for Vicki to view on our last visit, which might explain why she hasn't been excited to return there?
Elder and Sister Peterson - missionaries in training!