Mississippi Day Four

Tuesday
February 14, 2006

My first Valentines Day that I actually have a boyfriend....and I'm in Mississippi, approximately 1075 miles away from him. Despite this setback of not being with Chris I did thoroughly enjoy todays assignment. And I got to spend Valentines Day with my team and my Lord.

Today we split into two groups, one group went back to finish the roof we had started yesterday, and the other group, my group, went to Ms. Wandas' Pecan Farm...Have you ever been to a Pecan Farm? I really had never thought about the fact that Pecans were grown somewhere...especially a lot grown in the same place like a farm...and on trees...? So I thought that this was pretty cool. When we arrived at the Farm we were told that our job would be to pick up all the branches on the ground and put them on a "flatbed" that was being pulled by a tractor and then we would drive the tractor...or ride on the flatbed, over to a pile and dump all the branches on the pile...and then we would get more branches and start the process again. It was amazing how much devastation the hurricane had caused even here, as far from the coast as we were, there were little twigs and then huge branches, and limbs that we would carry to the flatbed. One nice thing that was provided for us to help us get from the tractor to the house if we needed to use the bathroom was a golfcart! This golfcart made me very excited lol. I LOVED driving it hehehe, and no I don't think I scared my parents too badly, I think they are if anything more assured that I am not going to be a terrible driver lol.

We were able to take a lot of loads of branches to the pile, we worked up until lunch and then until about 5 o'clock. At lunch we had PB+J and other good stuff, along with a special treat of a piece of Dark Almond Cherry Chocolate, that Sue's prayer partner gave to her. Inside was a love poem by a famous authur that I can't remember, the poem was absurd. Sue reading it in a very dramatic voice, and making faces that purely said "this is insane, what the heck does this mean" it was very entertaining. After lunch it was back to work.

We worked very hard although after a bit we started to drag along, a bit tired, we decided that singing songs would get our energy up...and it did. We sang the most random songs everything from Palomalu, to Lion King's hakuna matata, to Matchbox Twenty Songs, to Ring around the Rosie. One time after dropping off a load of branches we were standing/sitting on the flatbed when three of us (me included) decided that it would be fun to do the 'chicken dance' on the moving flatbed. So we stood up, let the camera person get ready and then we did the 'chicken dance' words motions and all! WOW was that amazingly fun and hilarious. That was definatly an energy booster.

After we had worked hard, and it was time to go back to have dinner we all gathered in front of Ms Wandas house and we prayed for/with her. It was wonderful, she was so thankful that we could help her. As a reward for helping she baked us a Pecan cake. We shared that with the other team at dinner as our dessert and it was wonderful! Then people either played games or went to bed, except me, I called Chris to wish him a Happy Valentines Day, and to check out the situation at home. Then it was off to bed, I was exhausted!

Luv ya all!