Service, Singing, and Saints

Dear Family,
On Monday, of this past week, we went to the French Market to check out some of the vendors. It was a real cold day, so not very man people were out. It wasn't a big deal because most of the things they sell is just really cheap touristy stuff. The rest of the shops in the area are pretty cool. One of the best places was a store that just sells hot sauce. You can try the hottest sauce in the galaxy, but you have to sign a waiver to do so. the missionaries that have tried usually end up having a rough next couple of days so I decided to pass. There is also Cafe Du Monde which is just a famous place in New Orleans that sells beignets and hot cocoa. On Tuesday we taught the part member family we have been working with and had a good lesson about Joseph Smith. They fed us roast beef Poor Boys and next week said that it was going to be all seafood. he missed church this past Sunday so we are just hoping that they arent losing commitment. The next few days were spent with Brother Farrell, helping him prep his Aunts hallway for when he begins to tile it. He had pulled up the Linoleum so we had to scrape off all the paper/glue that had held that down. After a couple of days doing that we ended up being pretty sore. On Friday, we tried to see most of the people we normally do but didn't have a whole lot of success. Saturday we started out moving a family from one apartment to another and then went to the church to practice for the MLK interfaith service this coming week. We have been getting excited about that because its going to be the first time that the LDS faith has participated at this event in New Orleans. We are going to be singing in a pretty big chapel/cathedral and from what the high councilman said about it, is that there will be a lot of Baptist professional choirs also singing. Brother Johnson the guy who organized this whole thing used to be a Baptist preacher, so he let us in on all of the different things to expect. (shouting, waving arms, swaying, jumping, etc)  The rest of the day was spent setting up for the Sisters baptism. The baptism went well but the girl was super nervous and it took several attempts at getting it right. We were very glad that our day was busy because the Saints were playing and since it wasn't a good game everyone would have been in a pretty sour mood. After cleaning up the church we went to dinner as a District to Cane's and at about 8 PM I got a call from the second counselor in the Bishopric asking me to give a talk the next morning at church. Today, we haven't done much and don't plan on doing much because of the rain. Our main focus next week is to see how committed the family we have been working with is and see what we can do to help them.
Elder Smith