Week 8
Since our primary responsibilities revolve around the young single adults, and since most of the young single adults are home for the Christmas break, we've had a slow week.  We didn't even go into the institute; rather we worked on our lessons for next semester at home, with a couple of diversions.

Tuesday night we went to an OSU basketball game.  We bought $10 tickets in the nose-bleed section, assuming we'd be able to move down because most folks wouldn't be in town--we were right.  As expected, the chairs and bleachers are orange.  Every person in the arena except for the opposing team (Univ Missouri-Kansas City) and their fans was wearing orange (including us).  The school mascot is Pistol Pete, and he is one tough cowboy!  I don't know which would be less comfortable--Cosmo's cougar suit or this giant head, but the head keeps him from doing anything athletic.  The Cowboys (or Pokes, as they are also called) won.  There are a lot of Native American tribes in this area, and many operate casinos.  The game was sponsored by four different casinos (and other businesses)--just a little unexpected.

Pistol Pete--Go Pokes!!

We went down to the temple in OKC on Wednesday morning.  Every tree between here and there was covered with ice or heavy frost--it was kind of eerie.  OKC got a lot more ice than we did in the latest storm, and the broken limbs from the previous storm hadn't been cleared out yet.  The next pictures are trees right in front of the temple and the church next to it.  Maybe hard to tell, but they are completely encased in ice.

Icy trees

Here is a little more information about Stillwater and environs:

Oklahoma started here

Before the April 22, 1889 legal opening of the Oklahoma Land Rush, where President Harrison opened up the territories to anyone who wanted to settle here, a group of folks sort of snuck in.  They were called Boomers and were removed before the land rush.  They came back when it was legal and were among the first settlers here.  We have a Boomer Lake Park on the north side of town.  Sooners (hence the Univ of OK Sooners) came in a bit sooner than April 22nd, because they were government employees that could come legally, and they marked out some of the choicest land before the others arrived.  

Oil is a big part of the OK economy, so while we enjoyed paying $1.57 a gallon for gas last week, the low oil prices are hurting the economy.  You can see oil pump jacks all over--sometimes just one and sometimes several together.

Oil pump jack

An unwanted result of all this oil is that the disposal of waste water underground has caused OK to become the state with the highest number of earthquakes in the country.  Our local paper includes an Earthquake Tracker side bar several days a week showing where the earthquakes have been and what their magnitude was; there were 7 in one day in Edmond (40 miles south of us) last week!

And speaking of the local paper, we subscribe because they told us in the MTC that CES couples should be aware of the news and current events to be able to discuss them with students when appropriate or related to class topic.  So, we take the Stillwater News Press, which comes 6 days a week. Sometimes it is just one section, sometimes two.  It is definitely a small town paper, reporting things that just wouldn't make the news in big cities, though it does carry some national columns and good cartoons.  Every day there is a smile of the day with a picture of a person and why s/he is smiling.  One day it was, "and she is smiling because she loves Jesus."

Which brings me to another aspect of life here.  This is a very religious part of the country.  Lots and lots of churches; in addition to the Catholic and various protestant churches (lots of Baptist churches), there are many churches with interesting names that I'd never heard of.  A very popular one is Life Church--several of them in area. Another is Church.tv.  Anyway, people have good solid values.  A local business sometimes posts, "See you in church on Sunday" on it's marque.  However, in quite a few churches the preachers warn their parishioners about Mormons, and between that and believing they are already saved, people aren't very receptive to the missionaries.

In Stillwater, wrestling is a big deal.  The Cowboys have been national champions several times and some of the top ranked wrestlers are (or have been) here.  The National Wrestling Hall of Fame is located just off campus.  Football is a BIG deal in most of this part of the country.  The high schools have huge stadiums--the Stillwater Pioneer stadium is below:

Local high school football stadium

Oklahoma State is the agriculture school for the state, so there are a lot of farming research plots and vet school facilities around town.  Also several USDA centers.  The soil almost everywhere is deep, deep red; quite startling when big patches are exposed for construction.

For hamburger fans, the first Sonic drive in was right here in Stillwater.

1st Sonic

On our first day in Stillwater we drove through town on 6th Street (Highway 51) and saw a giant transformer on both ends of town.  We decided the grandsons needed to see Papa standing by one.

Giant transformer made almost entirely of auto parts

On New Year's Eve, we ate lunch at Red Lobster (thanks to Norm and Kathy) then went to see Star Wars.  That evening, our district had a party at the institute at 8 pm. We joined for a couple of hours--young missionaries had permission to stay out until 11 pm that night, but we left at 10.  

Now we can hardly wait to see what we learn and discover about Stillwater in 2016.  We're excited to teach our classes and work with our YSAs.  Studying and teaching the gospel--what a great mission!