Week 5
Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegone and in Stillwater.  It was finals week at the university, so students came and went at the institute building to study, eat, and hang out and relax.  Different people volunteered to make breakfast on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 8-10 am, so students could eat breakfast before or after a final.  We cleared out the frozen soups those same days (and baked some Rhode's rolls) so they had something to eat for lunch, too.  On Thursday Kerby baked cookies, so the place smelled wonderful and the students enjoyed the little snack.

On Thursday morning our district came to the institute to rake leaves for a service project.  The building is surrounded by trees, and the grounds were covered in leaves.  Looks much better now.

Three of our enthusiastic sisters

And some even more enthusiastic elders

On Friday afternoon we sat in with the sisters in a discussion with a young woman who has been investigating the gospel for several months.  She is really close to making the decision to be baptized, and there was a wonderful spirit in the meeting.  We watched The Restoration video and discussed preparation for baptism.  Elder Kerr and I both shared a pertinent scripture and bore our testimonies; our primary responsibility is not proselyting, so it was a treat to be involved in sharing the gospel in that way.

Friday evening we went to the community band concert--since we had a little time to kill before it started, we decided to drive around looking at Christmas lights (one of my favorite activities every year).  Much to our amazement, very few folks in Stillwater have decorated their houses with lights.  We saw a few lovely light displays, but they were few and far between!  About 80 amateur musicians played in the band, and it was a fun Christmas concert.

The music director in our YSA ward is a very talented musician (majoring in vocal performance, but he almost majored in organ performance).  He put together a wonderful Christmas concert Saturday night using all of the talent in our ward (considerable) and also four folks from the music department at OSU.  There were some vocal solos, duets, and choir numbers; a woodwind quintet, a flute quartet, a cello and piano piece; and Kerby and I even joined in by reading scriptures from Luke. It was a really lovely evening.

The high temperatures have been in the 70s most of the week (though chilly in morning and evening), but dropped last night with a big thunderstorm.  We were supposed to have some severe weather, possibly even tornadoes, but all we had was rain.

Kerby came home from church this afternoon feeling kind of puny, so he went straight to bed.  He missed dinner with the sisters and we didn't go to ward prayer.  He's feeling a bit better now, and we have high hopes he'll rally by tomorrow.