Week 74
First a little nature news:  last night at 8:45, there was a magnitude 3.9 earthquake about 5 miles north of Stillwater.  It gave us quite a good shake for about 20 seconds.  Also, the winds have really been sweeping down the plains this week--just howling a couple of nights.  This, of course, whips pollen into the air and poor Kerby is really suffering with his allergies.

Now the fun report:  my sister Gloria came to visit this week.  She's only been home from her mission in Croatia three weeks, but she wanted to come see Oklahoma (and us) while we're still here.  We had a wonderful time visiting a few of our favorite sites and a few we hadn't seen before.

Welcome at the airport and at the Jesus Wept statue across the street from the National Memorial
at the OKC federal building

At the Chihuly exhibit in OKC (top right), then on campus at Botanic Garden,
National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and the OSU welcome sign

Transformers--BumbleBee on the west end and Optimus Prime on the east end of Stillwater

We've featured the transformers in previous posts, and Kerby's sister asked me about their significance.  I told her I didn't really know, except that being in Stillwater is a truly transformative experience!

One of the most fun stops was the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.  We loved it last year and we loved it even more this time.  It is simply a high class museum--almost worth a trip to OKC even if we're not here to greet you.

A really fun exhibit of illustrations on western novel covers in the 1940s and '50s

On the beautiful grounds of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum

Yesterday at Elite Repeat they told us they had a whole bunch of ties that just weren't selling--even though now they were bagged 6 for $1.  They asked if we thought the elders could use them.  Well, one look explained why they weren't selling, but we said we'd take them.  Today at church I told Elder Rounds that after dinner we had a surprise for him for Zone Conference this week.  So after dinner, we dumped about 60 ties on the table and told them they needed to have an ugly tie contest at Zone Conference.  The elders were so excited you'd have thought it was Christmas morning. Don't know if the ties would have been that fun to "civilian" 19-year-olds, but it was fun to make the elders' day!  Elder Rounds told me that he has made several wide ties narrower with a few alterations (must make his mother proud).

We comment constantly on what a great blessing it is to be studying the scriptures so much in preparation for our classes.  Preparing and teaching classes has been such a joy and we will really miss our YSAs and our hours of study when we go home.