We have been receiving a lot of rain the last several weeks, sometimes as much 2 or 3 inches in a storm.  This is the Green River from the bridge near Morgantown.  It is up about 10 ft above normal but still just below flood stage.  As you can see from the picture it is way up on the trees along the banks.

This is a picture off the other side of the same bridge of land bordering the river.  You can see the flood waters that have backed up on some of the land.  It is also a good view of what the Kentucky landscape looks like.

Another view of some flooded low lying farm land.  Most of the land that is farmed is the rich bottom land in the valley areas.  All of this flat will be planted to corn when it finally dries out.   Unfortunately it has been so wet that very little corn has been planted to date.  Farmers around here believe that their yields go down every day that corn is planted after May 1st.  So  they normally try to have all their corn planted by that date.  This year the spring has been cold and wet, so there will be plenty of moisture and the drought is over, but the season is late for getting good yields.

Our current district missionaries:  Sister Toone from Colorado next to Sister Peterson, next Sister Harmer from Idaho Falls, Elder Earl from Sandy, Utah, and Elder Olson from Gilbert, Arizona next to me.  Sister Harmer was in band with Kaiti Ackerman at BYU-I.  Elder Earl is a visa-waiter called to serve in Copenhagen, Denmark.  As soon as he gets his visa cleared he will be headed to Denmark.  Elder Olson bears a great resemblance of the Prophet Joseph Smith.  When President McKee sent me to find him at transfers, he said to look for the Prophet Joseph.  The resemblance is strong enough that I easily found him in a crowd of missionaries.  Elder Olson is our District Elder and does a great job.  All are very good missionaries.

Sister Peterson is standing by a beautiful azalea bush.  The blossoms are very large and an unusual off-pink almost orange color.  Azaleas are very common here and come in many beautiful colors.  All the rain this year has made the flowers appear outstanding.

Sister Bratcher, one of our dear Hartford sisters that we visit quite often.  She's had some severe health challenges and can't come out much.  She has had heart problems, a stroke and suffers from quite severe diabetes.  She lost her leg from diabetes complications.  Despite her health challenges, she has a great attitude and a sweet testimony.  We love to visit her and always come away feeling blessed.

Just a picture that shows the beautiful woods that are everywhere here unless there is a yard or farmland.  There are many hills and hollers but the hills aren't very high.  If you get up 300 ft, you can see forever.  This week we saw a Baptist billboard with the following saying:  "Forbidden fruit creates many jams".

Elder and Sister Peterson - Enjoying the beautiful Kentucky landscape

Saturday we took sister Dorothy Moore to the Louisville Kentucky Temple shown above.  It is nearly a carbon copy of the Nashville Tennessee Temple that is in our mission.  President McKee had to get First Presidency approval for us to to to this Temple because it is out of our mission.  The Nashville Temple is closed right now for cleaning so Sister Moore and the other young couple that went for sealings, chose to go to Louisville.  Ironically they are both about equal distance from Morgantown.

We worked with Sister Moore all last year and thought she was about ready to go when we left.  Unfortunately she didn't really progress much while we were gone.  As soon as we got here, she got excited to go again and we have helped her do everything to prepare.  She told us today after we started home that she probably wouldn't have gone without our return.

Sister Peterson served as her escort and while they were doing the preliminaries, I was able to help with some sealings as they were quite short of patrons.  It was a very rainy day and the day of the biggest event in Kentucky, the Kentucky Derby.

The Temple had some beautiful gardens on each end.  We were especially taken by this tree with its beautiful white blossoms.  This has been a special week with the special blessing of helping this sweet sister go through the Temple.  She comes from a family of 15 children.  Her parents and most of the children joined the Church some time ago but none have remained active until we got Dorothy going.  She is the first to go through the Temple and she is anxious to do the work for her family members that have passed on.

We have also had some other interesting adventures this week.  We visited a fellow that has a wolf for a pet.  We were a little nervous about visiting there the first time because of the wolf.  It was a beautiful animal and very intelligent.  The member had him very well trained and the wolf came and offered his paw to shake.  He had beautiful eyes and you were almost a little nervous to look right into them.  Sister Peterson also had a goat try to jump into her lap.  While I was saying the prayer at the same place, their big German Shepherd jumped up in the chair I had stood up from and began licking my hands and rubbing on my back.  Bandit, the dog's name, is quite playful and hard to keep off us.

Elder and Sister Peterson - Having some wonderful adventures in Kentucky!

This is the old Baptist Church our Hartford Branch meets in.  Notice the stain glass windows and cross on the door.  It is a fairly decent building with a nice chapel and full basement with meeting rooms and bishop's office.  It is air conditioned and has ceiling fans so it has been quite comfortable, at least so far.  Most Baptists believe in baptism by immersion so there is a font on the main floor right behind the stand and it has been used for Mormon baptisms.  It is located near the center of town and near several other Protestant Churches.

This is another nice Baptist Church in an area where we have several members.  Sister Peterson has always loved this one because of its copper dome.  We drive by it often and it always looks well kept.

This is a picture of a dogwood tree in full bloom.  Right now the dogwoods are in full bloom everywhere and they are especially pretty when scattered among the green trees in the woods.  The redbud trees were in bloom earlier and have a beautiful rose-colored blossom but we waited to long to take a good picture.

We love this sign at the entrance to the town of Hartford.  The sun was bright and in my eyes so it looks like I might be one of the few soreheads.  Hartford is not very big but it is separated from another town, Beaver Dam, that is about the same size so together they make up city of about 6-7000 people.  Our branch takes in the whole county which has about 20,000 people including several smaller town scattered throughout the county.  Our members are scattered throughout the county so we are racking up quite a few miles on our car but enjoying traveling through the beautiful green countryside.  We have been getting lots of rain so everything is very beautiful and green.

This old Church is interesting in that it has a goat on top instead of cross.  We always get a kick out of the goat church when we drive past so I took a picture.  The church is no longer in use and there is fairly new building for the same congregation across the road.  But as is typical, few old building are torn down here and are just allowed to grow old and deteriorate.  

A picture of our current Hopkinsville zone at a recent Zone conference.  Note how many sisters there are!  The little sister sitting next to Sister Peterson is from Samoa.  She is very quiet and shy but really perked up when we spoke of our Tongan families.

Elder and Sister Bishop from Meridian, Idaho.  They are the only senior couple serving in our zone right now.  They serve in Clarksville, Tennessee on Fort Campbell as military liason.  I thought you might enjoy these pictures of the area and of our Zone.

Elder and Sister Peterson - enjoying the great elders and sisters in our zone

Friday we went to Nashville for a Senior Couples outing.  Most of the Senior couples, Pres. & Sister McKee, some of their children, and the AP's all went on a river cruise on the paddle wheel ship the General Jackson.  The cruise took about three hours leaving from the Opry Land area, cruising down the Cumberland River to the center of Nashville and back.

The Cumberland River is quite large and this river cruise is one of the Nashville attractions that goes nearly every day.  We had a very nice meal during the journey and also enjoyed two musical shows featuring country western music.

It was a real paddle wheel boat that gave you a feel for the river travel of pioneer days.  The boat didn't move fast and it was a leisurely three hours of enjoyment.

Riverfront area of downtown Nashville, during the summer barges with performers tie up at this dock and put on shows for tourists.  During our tour the weather had turned quite cold and temperatures stayed below 50 degrees.  Just a few days before temperatures were in the high 80's.  We all had to dress warmly for the outing and mostly stayed inside for the shows.

The three AP's (assistants to the President) that accompanied us on the trip.  Left to right, Elder Monson and Elder Horner from Utah, and Elder Andrew from California.  Elder Andrew served in our zone last year and was a great Spanish speaking Elder.  We had a real nice group picture taken but I didn't have a way to scan it into my computer.  I did not think to have someone take a group picture with my camera.  All in all it was a great event and we got to renew acquaintances with some of the senior couples we served with last year.

Elder & Sister Peterson - Just cruisin' down the lazy river

Our new home away from home.  We are in the right half of this duplex.  It is fairly new, clean and quite nice.  We even have a garage for the car.  There is only one drawback, the road just to the right is the main street to a nearby hospital and ambulances go by at all times of the day or night with sirens blaring.

The back side view of our apartment.  The kitchen and living room are across the back and the two bedrooms towards the front.  There is Dish Network service to the duplexes but it is not hooked up to ours.

Our living room is small but comfortable with a nice ceiling fan.  There is built in air conditioning throughout the apartment.

Our kitchen is small but quite adequate with all the amenities.

Our master bedroom has a nice queen bed that is quite comfortable.

I use our second bedroom as my office and use the closet in this bedroom for my clothes.  Mother uses the closet in the master bedroom for her clothes as both closets are fairly small.

Our garage is a bit narrow and I only have about 6 inches on each side of the mirrors.  All in all, it is a nice apartment and we are settled and quite comfortable in it.

Our district missionaries after district meeting in Morgantown recently.  Notice the beautiful blossoms on the crab apple trees in the background.  From the left, Sister Toone is from Colorado, Sister Harmer is from Idaho Falls (actually Ammon), Elder Olsen is from Arizona, and Elder Bastian is from Meridian, Idaho.

Elder and Sister Peterson - Feeling quite old around these great young missionaries

We entered the MTC on March 25th and stayed for five days until March 29th.  It was a great experience and we enjoyed it much more this time, knowing ahead of time what was expected in role-playing and teaching.  All of the classes were held in a ward building north of the MTC because of so many young missionaries.  730 new missionaries came in on Wednesday and nearly half were sisters.  We had a hard time getting in the cafeteria because of all the new young missionaries on Wednesday.

Our traditional picture in front of the world map in the main MTC building, point to our area of service.

Our district in the MTC with our morning instructor.  Brother and Sister Bell on the left are from Brigham City, Utah and were going to the Chech Republic as Humanitarian missionaries.  Brother and Sister Dunn on the right are from a small town near Vancouver, Washington and they were going to Winter Quarters Nebraska as service missionaries.  We were the only couple in our district going as MLS or proselyting missionaries.

Brother and Sister Johnson from Sandy, Utah were going to the Tennessee Nashville mission serving as Employment missionaries.  We got to know them and enjoyed them.  Sister Peterson and Sister Johnson really hit it off and became almost instant buddies.  I am posting this late because we have been very busy after getting to our mission and also did not have a way to transfer pictures to my computer until a few days ago.  I will try to do better in the future.

Glade and McCoy recently came for a winter visit.  Glade had some business to do with Jonathan Price and the went on a snowmobile trip to Island Park with Jono and some other buddies.  McCoy came to experience some Idaho winter, be with his grandparents and spend some time with his cousins.  One of the days he stayed with us, He helped me prune the apple trees in the back yard.  He was so agile that he climbed right to the top beside me.  Grandma caught him starting up the tree in this picture.

One of the things he wanted to try was snowmobiling.  Here he's posing on my snowmobile in the back yard.  We did go up to Mt. Harrison and go for a short ride but he wasn't real excited about it.  I think the noise and steep hills were a little more than he expected, but he was good about at least giving it a try.  Until they came we had plenty of snow to ride on in the back yard and I think he might have had more fun doing that.  Unfortunately it had turned warmer and the snow in the fields had all melted.

One of the first requests when he arrived was, "I want to shoot the BB gun.  We did that several times and then he asked if he could shoot the real gun.  So we got out my .22 and he shot that several times.  Later he did more shooting with his dad and seemed to enjoy that.

Sunday evening we all got together for some family time before Glad and McCoy left to go back home.  Part of the evening was spent writing Valentine messages to the three missionaries serving from our Family.  It was a great evening with all our Utah family giving McCoy some great memories with his cousins and everyone enjoying a great family visit.

McCoy always enjoys being with Nia and Tayler because of the time they spent in Florida last year with us.

I don't know whose sucking it in the most but were all about out of breath.  And what about all that hair?  At least the guy in the middle doesn't have to worry about a perm!

Grampa and Grandma Peterson - Wishing ALL the family could get together more often!