Week 59
WARRRM!  How we could go from 6 degrees last Sunday to 71 degrees today is a marvel of OK weather.

We had a pretty busy week--some work and some fun.  On Tuesday we went to OKC to attend the temple, then see a movie, and end the day with the lights in Yukon.  I posted some pictures of the lights a year ago, because it truly is the most amazing display of Christmas lights either of us had ever seen.  It continued to amaze this year.

Over 4 million lights used!!

Yukon is on Route 66 and also on the Chisholm Trail (the trail used to drive cattle from Texas ranches to railheads in Kansas after the civil war--you probably learned about it in grade school).  It also has a Garth Brooks Avenue, because he lived in Yukon much of his youth.

Wednesday was the Mission Christmas Conference in OKC.  The far south half of the mission had its conference on Tuesday, and ours was Wednesday.  It began with testimonies of the missionaries who will return home in the next couple of transfers (first batch next Thursday and then 6 weeks later).  Then Sister and President Mansell spoke, each giving very touching messages.  Next was the "talent show" with individual missionaries, districts, or other configurations performing Christmas numbers.  I kept thinking about all those mothers who kept those young men and woman practicing even when they didn't want to--it paid off.  After lunch there were a couple of slide shows, followed by each companionship decorating a gingerbread house.  The one on the bottom right was made by the sisters in our YSA ward.  It's a sorority house (because there are so many and the institutes sits in the middle of four of them).  They asked Elder Kerr what Greek letters they should use--I should make you test your knowledge of the Greek alphabet, but won't.  They're Lamba Delta Sigma (LDS).  After dinner the houses were judged and we called it a day.

The most exciting news at the Conference is that our mission is expanding.  As of next Wednesday, we pick up the three stakes in Tulsa and Bartlesville that are now in the Bentonville, AR mission.  That means closing 30 apartments in our current mission boundaries and opening 30 new apartments in Tulsa/Bartlesville.  We currently have many wards or branches with more than one set of missionaries, while the Bentonville mission doesn't have enough missionaries for all units to have even one set.  After Wednesday, both missions will have a set of missionaries in every ward or branch.  Both missions keep the current number of elders/sisters, but the area of our mission is larger and the Bentonville mission area gets smaller.  President Mansell is very excited about the changes, though it has been a logistical nightmare for about a month.  (Our YSA ward will continue to have a set of elders and a set of sisters, the other two Stillwater wards each lose one set of missionaries.)

Though we intended to do a little cleaning at the institute on Thursday, the carpet cleaners had come early in the morning (rather than at 5 pm as they usually do), so the building smelled awful and the carpets were wet.  Fortunately, we had tickets to the basketball game at noon, so we just took off and didn't go back that day.

Not a full house, but fun to watch OSU beat Texas A & M Corpus Christie

Friends of mine on a CES mission in California told us that CES stands for cook every second.  Though we do quite a bit of cooking, in the last two weeks it's been clean every second for us.  We spent most of Friday working on the kitchen (refrigerators, oven, flour/sugar bins, etc).  As a reward, we went to see the 10 homes nominated for best Christmas lighting displays in Stillwater.  It was fun, and between nominated houses, we saw lots of other great decorations.

On this wonderful Christmas day, we had the missionaries over for breakfast, then went to church.  The wards were combined today for a lovely program of music and two talks.  There is a Spanish group in the second ward (not enough of them for a branch), and one of the speakers gave his talk in Spanish with his daughter translating for him. It was very nice.

In the afternoon we took our two computers and two iPads to the institute so we could put our missionaries in four different rooms to either skype or facetime with their families.  They get an hour on Christmas and on Mother's Day.  Sure different than the very short (and very expensive) phone conversations we got in Taiwan during my Christmases there.  Between Saturday and today, we facetimed with my sister in Croatia and Kerby's three children (and the grandchildren) and spoke with Kerby's sister.  What marvelous communication methods we have today!

Then we all came back here for Christmas dinner and a Christmas message.  A very nice day, indeed.  Especially nice because of the real meaning of the day.  As President Hinckley said, if there had been no Easter, there would be no Christmas.  How grateful we are for the atoning sacrifice of the Lord, Jesus Christ which gives us a reason to celebrate His birth.

Week 58
COOOLD!!!!  Right now it is 6 degrees, and it was 1 degree when we woke up this morning. Wind chill makes it feel much colder (feels like -6 now), and we have a little bit of snow on the ground (very little, but we had none last year).  The pond by our apartment is completely frozen over--the poor geese should have kept flying farther south!

On Monday we met the couple that is coming to replace the CES couple in Edmond--they go into the MTC in January.  They have three children living in various parts of Oklahoma and used to live here themselves, although Texas was home.

For FHE we went to the bishop's house and watched White Christmas--many of the kids had never seen it before.

Wednesday we both saw Dr. Stubbs, the orthopedic doc--Kerby is now out of his boot but has to work up slowly to walking long distances and/or quickly.  I got a cortisone injection in my knee--we both agree with a sentiment we saw on a t-shirt:  "I thought growing old would take longer!"
We went to the institute in our jeans and sweatshirts after the doctor and spent the rest of the day cleaning out YSA cupboards and closets.  The accumulation of stuff was truly remarkable, and we took a huge load of craft supplies to the Wondertorium.  Then we took everything out of the kitchen cupboards and put down shelf liner; getting rid of even more stuff in the process.  It actually took us part of Thursday as well to finish the kitchen.  Nothing like a good clearing out to lift the spirits!!

I was not really aware of the Pioneer Woman phenomenon until our daughter-in-law gave me one of her cookbooks a couple of years ago.  Ree Drummond is a blogger, TV cooking show star, and cookbook author who lives on a big cattle ranch in Pawhuska, OK.  In October, she opened the Mercantile in Pawhuska, and I suspect the town hasn't seen as many people in the last 50 years as it has in the last few months.  So, on Friday we made the 1 1/2 hour trip to Pawhuska to check it out.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/ in case you want to see the website (she really does have some good recipes).

Ree and her husband bought the old mercantile about four years ago.  It houses the offices for the ranch and they've spent the last four years remodeling, refurbishing, and reworking the old building into a deli/restaurant, bakery, and general store.  What they've done with the building is really remarkable.  The wait to get into the restaurant was about 40 minutes in the cold (it was over 3 hours the first few weeks), but they had tall heaters going and some employees were outside with a basket of gifts for the 'winners' of the little trivia contests, the Christmas charades, etc.  I thought they did a nice job of keeping the crowd from getting too grumpy.  Ree's youngest son and Papa, her father-in-law, were also on hand to greet and interact with the crowd.  The food was good, but not worth a 3-hour wait!

An original Nabisco ad wall they found when remodeling

Ree signing any purchase, the outside, and the ranch several miles outside of town

The Drummond Ranch next door neighbor (literally just across the fence) is the Church cattle ranch--it is also a huge operation.

Friday afternoon we went to the temple when Jeron received his endowment in preparation for his mission to the Alpine German Speaking mission. (Jeron's uncle Tal was serving in Taiwan at the same time I was.)  On the way down to OKC it got to 71 degrees then the chill hit us on Saturday.

Me, Molly, Nicole, Seth, Jeron, Elder Kerr--YSA eyes are not so eerie in real life

One of the things we really enjoy on our mission is attending the temple with the YSAs.  We've been with eight of them when they received their own endowments or did baptisms for the first time, and that has been a special treat.

Week 57
Well, finals happened and the students seem to have survived.  Many have already left town for the Christmas break, so attendance at church was sparse today, and it will get even "sparser" as the weeks go by.

The next few weeks will be pretty quiet with most of our YSAs gone and no classes to teach, but we have quite a list of tasks we want to complete around the institute and we have our classes to prepare for next semester.  We're not yet sure what we'll be teaching next semester, but that will all be decided this week.  We also plan to attend the temple each week and take a few day trips to explore more of Oklahoma.  It will be nice to have a bit of relaxed time.

For FHE on Monday we had a white elephant gift exchange.  I raided the utility closet in the apartment and found a few things that we've never used and never will--a popcorn bucket with 6 small popcorn bowls for one gift and a basket, plate covers for use in the microwave, and a copper colored bundt-shaped mold for the other.  We added a couple of chocolate bars to each bag, as well.  Over the break I plan to continue exploring the nooks and crannies in our apartment and get rid of some more white elephants.

On the nature front, the cardinals have come back!  We haven't seen any for a couple of months (whether they flew north or were just hiding in the wood I don't know), but they're making their presence known again.

I've been in love with cardinals since my Kansas City days--the cardinal was our high school mascot. We also saw a beautiful blue jay yesterday--they've been absent for a while, too.

And finally, the geese have returned to our pond.  They've been at other ponds in the area for a while, but just came back to our pond this week.  My impression of geese is that one or two are quite lovely, but a gaggle of geese gets too loud and aggressive for my taste.

Our window is not far from the pond, and yesterday about a dozen suddenly flew by really close to the water.  Their wings sounded like a mini buffalo herd rumbling by.

Most leaves are off the trees and it has been cold (16 degrees when we went to the gym on Thursday morning).  No snow or rain to speak of, but lots of cold wind.  If this is "south" to the geese, they must come from a really cold climate.

Christmas lights last year were rather disappointing, but this year we're much more familiar with the neighborhoods in Stillwater and we've seen some beautiful displays.  There are a couple of mansions a few miles south of us, and they were most tastefully decorated.  I'm glad they realize they have a responsibility to us peons--to the manor born and all that. . .

Last evening was the ward Christmas Music Devotional.  Despite the small size of the group, it was very lovely and unique in the choice of music from around the world.  The young man who "created" it is very talented.

Tonight we are going to dinner at Thomas's apartment.  He's a senior in psychology this year, and we truly enjoy him.  Knowing we feed the missionaries every Sunday, he just invited us all over for dinner.  As mentioned in previous posts, there are two elders and two sisters assigned to our ward.  Something very impressive to me is how our little group of YSAs get the missionaries fed almost every night of the week.  Sometimes they cook dinner, sometimes they take the missionaries out, but both men and women in the ward take feeding the missionaries seriously.

Week 56
This was the final week of classes at OSU, so the final week of classes in the institute; also our last Soup Tuesday until January 17.  We had such good discussions in each of our three classes--it's been a good semester of learning and growth.  OSU has a week of finals, then the students get an extra long break; 5 weeks.  During finals week, different local people come do breakfast for the kids at the institute from 7:30-10 am Monday through Wednesday.  That way students can come get some breakfast before or after a final exam.  They are well cared for here!

For FHE on Monday they made graham cracker houses.  Amazing what a little frosting, some candy, and imagination can do:

Such a nice break from studying

The Fanfare of Lights on campus this week brought Santa in his orange suit (I tell you, these people are maniacs for their school colors!) and all the beautiful lights on campus came on.

Last night we went to a performance of Messiah by the OSU Concert Chorale and OSU Orchestra.  It really was magnificent!  Before the performance about a dozen members of the Chorale were singing old English carols in the lobby.  They were delightful, and certainly made us feel like Christmas.

It was drizzling all day today.  We spent the morning finishing up our Christmas packages and cards. Here they are all ready to mail:

The plant is the bright spot of Christmas color in our apartment

After our shift at Elite Repeat we just finished up some errands and then snuggled in for the rest of the day. Not very eventful, but that's nice once in a while.  

Tomorrow evening there is a little Christmas open house at the bishop's house. We'll all bring some finger foods and munch and visit until the First Presidency Christmas Devotional is broadcast.  It's a fun tradition to watch that together.