The Busy Beesley Blog

We love to explore the our part of Illinois on Monday's, prep day. We have mostly gone north so today we headed south! Lots of quaint old towns . We stopped in Chester which is the hometown of Popeye the Sailor Man! The Popeye museum was closed so we just peeked into the windows.  So cute.  The side of buildings are painted with Popeye scenes and statues all around town.   We stopped and had lunch in Murphysboro at a cute little Bar and Grill that had great BBQ Ribs.   Then we stopped at the Southern Illinois University and drove around the campus. They have a beautiful lake and so many trees and trails. You'll see that the trees are pretty bare. Three week ago was the peak color time. When we got home we got our Light the World treats ready and took them to 4 different houses.  We wanted to leave them anonymously, but one house had a Ring doorbell and Dan tried to hide his face, it was pretty funny,   We dropped them off at the Turney family...

Monday it rained all day, really rained. I think they said we got 6 inches of rain. All the little creeks and ponds are running and full. It flooded a few places, thankfully not by our apartment.  It was crazy but a good day to stay in.  By afternoon we both just needed to get out, so when there was a lull in the down poor, we drove over by Scott's Air Force Base. A lot of people in our Ward and Stake work there and we wanted to know where it was.  Of course we couldn't go on to the Base but we drove around it and looked at some of the planes from afar.  That evening we had a Zoom lesson with Bernard.  He is really loving all that he's learning about he church. I'm sure he will be baptized but is working on changing some things in his life before he can do that. Tuesday morning we had an appointment to go back and visit with Howard Tate.  Before he was baptized he was a rapper in LA, SMURF G.  I was interested to learn more about that life but he was a...

 It's starting to get a little chilly and the leaves are turning!!  So pretty.  We had mentioned a few weeks back, to one of the sisters in our Ward, that we wanted to take a drive and see where the leaves turned the brightest colors and asked her where to go.  She mentioned a few places to go but then dropped it.  Then she called out of the blue and said, "still interested in seeing the leaves turn?"  We gave an immediate YES!  She said she'd wanted to take us on a tour the coming Monday, insisted on driving and going to places she felt would be the best. She turned out to be a quite a tour guide.  She knew the history of the places we went and some secret fun spots to hit.  Our favorite place was in Elsa, IL.  It's longside the Mississippi River and the cutest little town ever.  I mentioned that before we go home I want to take the Ferry across the river.  So after seeing a few more places, she drove right over to the Ferry a...