Week 55
A wonderful Thanksgiving week.  It started on Monday with the FHE Thanksgiving potluck dinner.  There were 45 people, and "a good time was had by all."  We cooked two turkey breasts and made gravy and stuffing.  Brother Linsenmeyer brought a deep fried turkey, the bishop brought ham, and the YSAs brought all the rest.

Lots of folks and lots of food

School was out Wednesday through Friday, and the majority of our YSAs live within comfortable driving distance from OSU (mostly Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas).  For the few who were left in town and for the missionaries assigned to our ward, we had another Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.  We enjoyed the food, the company and visiting, and the game of catch phrase.  

Our little Thanksgiving crew

On Wednesday we talked to Kerby's siblings, to the kids and grandkids on Thursday, and to my sister on Saturday--and we're grateful for every one of them!

Thanksgiving afternoon was beautiful and about 70 degrees.  We drove out to Boomer Lake and walked a bit.  The Veteran's Memorial is on the lake, and we'd never stopped at it before.  

"Eternal flames" at the Veteran's Memorial

The big flame in the middle represents the United States, and there is a flame for each branch of the military and one for the POWs/MIAs.  To the right of each flag (all military branches and POWs) is a bench with the name and founding date of each branch.  It is serene and very lovely.

Earlier this month, an art installation celebrating science was unveiled at the Bellmon Research Center on campus.  We hadn't seen that yet, either, so we moseyed over there on Thursday.  The research center houses six categories of study:  synthetic chemistry, biodiversity, biophysics, photonics, bioforensics, and biogeophysics.  I don't even know what all of those words mean, but the artist who was commissioned to do the artwork gathered microscopic images representing each area of study.  He then converted those images into six-foot diameter art glass discs.  They are absolutely stunning (and lit up at night, so we need to go back after dark soon).

Extra credit if you can identify each area of study by its glass disc

On Thanksgiving night we watched a production called Winter Thaw on BYUtv.  It is based on a Tolstoy short story, and has a wonderful message for the Christmas season.  We recommend it highly.

http://www.byutv.org/

Since fall is my favorite season, I've been disappointed by the lack of fall colors on the trees.  It's just been so warm that the trees couldn't figure out it was time to put on a show.  In fact, lots of them just gave up and dropped their leaves with no color.  However FINALLY it's cool enough that we're getting some awfully pretty trees, and I'm thinking nicer thoughts about Stillwater's autumn.

We're thankful for so many blessings--family, friends, the gospel, scriptures, our mission in Stillwater, YSAs, beauty all around, shelter, food, clothing, transportation, central heat, running water, technology. . . . . isn't it wonderful just to be alive in this amazing time?!?

Week 54
Another quiet week for us.  FHE was a bonfire by the light of the Super Moon.  It wasn't cold, but it's definitely cooling off around here.

The excitement on Monday was Jeron receiving his mission call. Well, actually, his mission call was lost in the mail, but he got visa papers from his mission, so learned he was going to the Austria German Speaking Mission.  He is super excited because he lived in that area for four years while his father was in the military.  Jeron has been in a couple of our institute classes, and we love his love of the gospel and his great insights.  He's going to be a wonderful missionary.

Jeron adding his name to the missionary board

My great-nephew Brigham left the MTC this week bound for the Washington, Vancouver mission.  Another wonderful missionary!

Wednesday was transfer day for the young missionaries--we lost Sister Belshe to Cushing, and Elder Richardson to home.  We enjoyed both of them very much.  The new missionaries in our ward are Sister Allred from Utah and Elder Riffenburg from California.

Good--bye to Sister Belshe and Elder Richardson

The semester is almost over (just two weeks left).  We have enjoyed teaching the Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon.  This week Kerby taught about the love of Christ as described in Moroni 7.  He used an excerpt from Elder Holland's book stating that the only truly charitable act was the Savior's atonement, and without His love we are nothing.  The Book of Mormon is the most remarkable book, and teaching about and from it for a whole year has been a great blessing to us.

Week 53
The week started with a bang--last Sunday night at about 7:45 pm we had a big (magnitude 5.0) earthquake in Cushing, 29 miles south east of here.  We shook for about a minute (which is a long time when the earth is moving), but had no damage in Stillwater.  Cushing had a lot of building damage, but no people were injured.

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful--good classes, good visits with our YSAs, good Soup Tuesday.  On Tuesday we had our first interview with President Mansell since his arrival in July.  He is really a delightful and dedicated man, and the younger missionaries seem to enjoy his leadership style--once they got used to the changes he introduced in the mission.  Transitions are always challenging, but usually work out well.

On Friday we took 5 of the YSAs with us to the temple--two did baptisms and we and the other three did sealings.  Molly had quite a stack of family names for sealings and it was wonderful to participate in those ordinances.  Every time we go with the ward we take a different configuration of young adults, and we love getting to know them even better in the confines of the car; we also love seeing their dedication to attending the temple.

Saturday morning we had a CES in-service in Edmond.  Most of the attendees are early morning seminary teachers, and I'm always amazed at their sacrifice of time and effort (as well as sleep), and their love of their students.  I am still influenced by Carol LeMon and our 6 am Mon-Fri seminary classes when I was in high school.  The in-service was very good; we worked more with the Doctrinal Mastery process and Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge (ASK) that is being used in seminary to help the youth find answers to their questions.

When we are in Edmond, we always like to drive down Broadway.  It has two blocks of intense restoration, and another couple of blocks of building and upgrading.  All of the old buildings have a plaque listing the building date (often in late 1800s) and a list of every business that occupied the building in its life.  Every one of those blocks has between one and three statues--some whimsical, some more serious, and all part of the personality of Edmond.  I'll end today with pictures of many of them just because they're fun.

Week 52--One Year in Stillwater!!
Yesterday was our one year anniversary of arriving in Stillwater, and we have exactly 6 months to go until we leave on May 5. Technically our release date is April 26 (18 months after we entered the MTC) but we are going to extend our time so we can complete the Spring semester.

Since Monday was Halloween, FHE was, of course, a Halloween party.  Fun decorations and treats, and several rounds of Halloween-themed Minute to Win It games with three teams competing.  It was very fun.

Tuesday night at about 11:30 we felt the 4.5 magnitude earthquake centered in Pawnee.  Lasted about 20 seconds and gave us a good shake, but nothing like the big one in September.

By Monday morning, many of the House Decs from Homecoming were already down--the houses spent the rest of the week getting the metal frames deconstructed and pulled down.  So much work for so little time!

The house across the street on Monday morning

Monday night Hannah (pictured outside the temple last week) received her mission call--Scotland/Ireland Mission.  She is so excited and she'll be a great missionary.

Every week the missionaries assigned to the YSA ward set up a booth on campus--it's from 1-3 pm alternating between Wednesday and Thursday.  It's location varies as assigned by the OSU folks.  The missionaries generally find a few people to teach each week and get to talk to lots more.  Several members of the ward participate at the booth as well.  Last Spring they used a handmade poster that was hard to see and didn't do very well in windy or wet weather.  In August we had this vinyl poster made that includes a message and picture on both sides.  It seems to work well.

After we wandered by the booth, we went to the new Welcome Area by the student union.  It was just dedicated last week, and features statues of a mare and her foal.  The mare represents the faculty, staff, and alumni who nurture the new freshmen (the foal).  There is also a pretty little fountain and a saddle statue on a fence, I guess just representing OSU Cowboys.  It really is a lovely spot.

To get there, we went through this lovely garden outside the Atherton Hotel--it's run by the Hotel & Restaurant Management students and is connected to the student union.

Kerby's poor tendon was tired after the long walk.  He is still in the boot for 3 or 4 more weeks, and feels like the heel is improving but very slowly.

After we caught a mouse a few weeks ago, we've just kept a sticky trap by the refrigerator (mostly because they came in packs of 2).  Yesterday I just happened to look down at it and there was a mouse--still wiggling!  Even though we're friendly, sharing the house with a mouse is not on our list of charitable activities.

So, at the end of a year, we are very grateful for the call to serve in the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Mission--Stillwater Church Education System.  It has been a wonderful experience.  We love working with the YSA ward, we love studying the gospel so intently and teaching our classes, and we love the young single adults in Stillwater.  (And we love making soup and bread on Tuesday, even if it does wear us out!)  We're looking forward to what the next six months hold.