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.
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