Week 29
Because summer is much slower for us than the fall and spring semesters, we started volunteering at the Wondertorium on Tuesday mornings in addition to our volunteer work at Elite Repeat on Saturdays.  The Wondertorium is a marvelous children's museum with story time, music time, areas for play in art, science, theater, medicine, building, country store, and more.  The "things to do" change every month.  There is also a Japanese corner because Stillwater has a sister city in Japan and the children send artworks and other things between the two cities every year as well as learn about Japanese culture.

Our first jobs are some carpentry/wood repair for Kerby, and some sewing for me.  I'm repairing lots of cloth bags for the country store and some little costumes.  I'm also making new kimono costumes for the Japanese play area--as our coordinator says, they are "well loved" so they wear out.  Well, as soon as I started figuring out what to do, I knew that if I had a serger, all of the work would be of better quality, look better, and be much more durable.  [For the uninitiated, if you're serious about sewing, you have a serger because it performs many functions a sewing machine can't such as trimming and finishing off edges.]  My beloved 30-year-old serger breathed its last about two weeks before we came on our mission, and I simply intended to buy a new one when we returned home.

Kerby and I discussed it, and decided I might as well get the new one now so I can use it in our volunteer efforts.  They've changed and improved so much since my last serger purchase that I needed to spend a little internet research time.  Believe it or not, the #1 Pfaff dealership in the US is in little Hennesey, OK--about 35 miles away.  We went there Saturday for a test drive, and I'm now the owner of a Pfaff Coverlock 4.0 serger (it helped that they were on sale 30% off until the end of the month).  It remains to be seen if I'm smart enough to figure it out.  This is the last thing I expected to be doing on my mission!

Newest member of the family

This part of the country is so prone to severe thunder storms and tornadoes that it's just part of the daily weather forecast at this time of year.  Stillwater is sort of a dividing point for storms, so although we can get plenty of action, the really severe stuff often goes around us.  We were under a tornado watch on Tuesday, and had some pretty spectacular lightening, thunder, wind, and rain, but the closest tornadoes hit to the north east of us.  It is really fun to watch the sky--the thunder storms are simply unlike anything we get in the west.

Looking out the institute front door Tuesday

From our apartment complex on Friday

Last week a huge bird was soaring toward the church building--as he got closer we could see it was a turkey vulture.  He kept flying, though, so I guess it wasn't a matter of sensing a deadly boring speech at church.  

Yesterday I saw something odd flying low then it landed off the side of the road--another road runner.  They are so interesting to see.  The thing we're really anxious to see is an armadillo.  We see lots of them smashed at the side of the road, but have yet to see one actually moving and breathing.

A young man in the ward, Ammon, got his mission call this week--he's going to Roseville, CA.  We've loved having him in a couple of our institute classes (and he loves games, so he's a Tuesday Twiddles regular).  Ammon will be a fine missionary (just like his namesake).

Attendance at church was sparse again today with the holiday weekend, but we love hearing the talks and lessons our YSAs prepare.  And we love serving our mission in Stillwater.