The Experiment: Adventures in Mississippi Part 1

(********warning a really really long post*********)

Why "Part 1"? well because I'm sure there will be lots of crazy adventures coming our way. So here is what has happened so far (as far as the craziness goes):

Do not try to look up our address online you won't find it. We ordered a book weeks ago for one of Spencer's classes. Weird enough it said it would take 5-14 business days...so on the 14th business day it still was not here, and then it still wasn't here, and still wasn't here. We called the company they said the carrier couldn't find our address. I told him it wasn't on googlemaps. They just said "Oh..." So I gave them directions and I gave them my phone number in case they got lost. And yet a week later it still was not here. So I called the company again. They said that they couldn't find the address, I explained to them all the information I had already given them. Yesterday they said it would be here before 8:00 p.m. Guess what? It wasn't. So maybe it will arrive any minute.......

Before we left Utah we realized that some places don't accept credit cards or out of state checks so Spencer ordered us new checks and had them shipped to our new place so we would be all ready to set up all our bills when we got here. Well much like the first story the checks didn't come, and they didn't come and they didn't come. The post office website said they had arrived the day before we had arrived. We called the post office and they had no idea what was going on. So we drove down to the post office and they told us the carrier had made one attempt and had decided that we had moved from that residence so the checks were somewhere in the building of the post office but no one knew quite where and a lady would call us the next day. The next day she actually called us and said we could come down and pick them up before 4:00 that day. So we made it down around 2:00 and that person had gone home for the day and again no one else knew where they could possibly be. And yet somehow the next business day those checks made it miraculously in our mailbox.

Remember how our address doesn't show up on the internet? Neither does most other addresses. Mississippi has not updated the addresses for years, maybe never. I needed to go to the health department to take a pregnancy test to prove that I was pregnant so I could get on insurance. I wanted to tell them that my belly was proof enough but didn't think that would go over so well since most people don't believe me when I say I'm 6 months. We got the address from the health department website, found it on a map and headed over there. It took us to the middle of no where! This has happened several times! Mississippi is a little slow.

No where else but the south could one go to a government agency like the Tax Commission and see a poster saying we could sign the petition to put prayer back in school. Of course we signed it. However the lady at the counter said she also signed it but didn't really know if she wanted it back in just in case her kids were having to pray to "the wrong Lord" and not "the real Lord". We love how everyone is very open about talking about God. I met a lady at the library and then we saw her at the park. She asked me where I was working since Spencer was going to school. I told her I wasn't. She then said "the Lord provides when you are doing what he wants you to do." So we've talked about how dumb we as church members are for not talking about God and the gospel like these people do. It's a way of life for them, it should be a way of life for us.

We changed our drivers licenses and while we were waiting these two ladies couldn't believe how I have red hair, Spencer has brown hair and we produced a blond kid. They sincerely asked Spencer if he was the daddy.

Most of us has seen lightening storms but have you ever seen sideways lightening? No?! Well it's amazing. The entire sky lights up but the bolts don't go down they go sideways into the clouds.

As a child at birthday parties we played bean bag toss games, where usually you throw a bean bag into a hole cut out of a piece of wood or something. A church function is not complete with out a large piece of wood with a hole in the middle and you throw a bean bag into the hole. This is no longer a bean bag toss game it is now called "Corn Hole".

One term I have decided to try to implement into my vocabulary is "showing his butt". To a normal person this would mean someone is naked and showing his butt to others. But not here. It means your kid is outside goofing off and it has nothing to do with his butt.

Last week after I paid our water bill I asked if I could get a receipt. The man just looked at me like I was crazy. I asked for one again, and he just looked at me, smiled real big and said "I got your check." So I walked out hoping the bill actually got paid.

Now you can skip these pictures but so many people have asked what our apartment looks like so here it is:

Looking in from the front door