Week 70
For some reason this was an exceptionally good week. Our classes seemed just filled with the Spirit and the discussions were great.  It is so remarkable to see the overlap in concepts and principles between courses--so often what we're discussing in D & C relates to what happens in P of GP, and Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel might draw from both of those.  We just love studying intently and teaching these great YSAs.

Monday was a fun FHE activity--a messy dinner.  Everyone donned a garbage bag and had to eat spaghetti and a cupcake without using their hands.

It helps to have a big mouth

Northwest Oklahoma has had devastating fires this week.  We smelled smoke on Friday night, but really haven't noticed any other effects here.  However, on Tuesday the sunset acted like there was smoke in the atmosphere and we drove home facing a giant red sun.  By the time we could stop for a picture the color intensity had dropped, but still quite a pretty sight.  A couple of years ago, a sister in the mission office lost everything she owned when her farm was caught in a wildfire. The combination of dry and wind can be deadly.

Our washing machine hasn't really worked properly the whole time we've been here, but it finally got worse and the repair didn't fix the problem.  Thursday the problem ended when the mission bought us a new machine.  Kerby kind of misses watching and waiting so he can manually move it to the spin cycle, but he thinks he can adjust to the new washer.

We had a special event Friday night.  My friend Paula, whose daughter (Heidi) lives here, drove down from Kansas City so she could be sealed to her parents.  Her mother died over 30 years ago, and her father passed away about 18 months ago.  Kerby was proxy for Paula's father and Heidi was proxy for her mother.  It was a marvelous experience for the four of us (and her parents, too!).  After that a few people came in and we then spent another hour doing sealings.  Very nice way to spend a Friday evening.

Saturday we went to Edmond for our CES in-service.  Brother Valletta addressed several things, but the bulk of the time was spent on Doctrinal Mastery and the Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge process.  The three principles to "guide us as we seek to learn and understand eternal truth and resolve questions or issues" are 1. Act in Faith 2. Examine Concepts and Questions with an Eternal Perspective, and 3. Seek Further Understanding through Divinely Appointed Sources.  This is the first academic year for Doctrinal Mastery (which replaced Scripture Mastery), and it's taking time for seminary teachers all over the world to understand and implement it fully, but I truly think it will revolutionize the seminary experience and the ability of youth to face an increasingly challenging world.

The coming week is spring break, so attendance at church was sparse today as so many students went home.  We'll take a couple of days off this week, so hope to have an adventure or two to report next week.

Week 69
Yikes!!  Two months from today we leave for Utah.  However, between now and then, we have 8 Soup Tuesdays and 24 lessons to prepare and teach. That keeps us a little too busy to get trunky.

Another baptism this week--yesterday Carson was baptized.  One of the neat things about this one is that his friend, John, who was baptized in October, got to perform the ordinance.

John, Carson, and Mason

On Tuesday morning when we left for the YMCA everything was wet and we assumed it had rained.  We were wrong--it was 96% humidity and the warm Gulf air had come up and hit the colder ground, resulting in more dew than we'd ever seen.  That's the weather condition that spawns tornadoes if it's cold air hitting the warm air.  We were fortunate to avoid that, but Missouri and Illinois weren't so lucky.

Ever since we got to OK we've seen signs like this:

Have it your way

We didn't know it was optional, but apparently in this oil and gas industry state, you can have it either way.  You pay more without ethanol.

To celebrate Kerby's birthday yesterday we ate lunch at the Smokey Pokey.  We liked their barbecue a couple of months ago and liked it again yesterday.  That and two designer cupcakes made the whole celebration.  He talked to his family, and got pictures of the grandkids.  I must say, in marrying Kerby I acquired incredibly handsome grandsons and incredibly darling granddaughters.  Such a nice bonus!

Week 68
The headliner this week was Rhett's baptism last night.  A wonderful young man who will be such an asset to the church!

This week's FHE was a lip sync bash.  If we had understood what it all was ahead of time, we'd have practiced Sonny and Cher's I Got You, Babe--that would have astounded and amazed all the YSA's, I'm sure.

Who knew we had so many hams in the bunch!

If there's one thing we've learned about Oklahoma it's that the weather can't decide from one day to the next what it wants to do.  I realize much of the country has had crazy weather this year, but Wednesday was 88 degrees here, and then we dipped below freezing Thursday and Friday nights.  The poor plants are so confused--on Thursday (February 23) suddenly trees and bushes were in bloom.  Amazingly, everything seems to still be alive.

Pretty pink bush, magnolia tree, and the Bradford pear tree at the institute--Feb 23

The local food bank is called Our Daily Bread.  It's moving into a new location, and has requested help from various groups in the interior demolition of the existing building so the remodel can begin. The YSA ward and the Pioneer Ward went on Saturday for several hours.  Saturday is our day to volunteer at Elite Repeat, so we just stopped by to say hello on our way there.

So much plaster dust, and lots of helpers

Today Brother Linsenmeyer was released from the bishopric in the YSA ward.  He is a great guy and we'll miss him.  The new counselor is Brother Queen; he's a police officer at OSU.  I'm not sure if I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the two Stillwater ward boundaries were realigned and new bishops called.  Our institute director, Brother Valletta, is now Bishop Valletta in the Pioneer Ward.  The other "new" ward is the Meridian Ward, so named because the 100th meridian passes through Oklahoma.

Today there were at least five investigators at church.  I've been so impressed with our ward--the missionaries try to have a ward member at every lesson, and lots of the kids go with the missionaries two or three times a week.  They also spend time at the booth that the missionaries put up on campus once or twice a week (there has to be a student present since it's on campus).  It is wonderful to see such dedication on the part of the missionaries and the ward.  What a privilege it is to be part of this for 18 months!

Week 67
On Monday when we got to the institute a beautiful bouquet of 18 red roses was on our desk--from my Valentine! And now almost a week later, they still look that good; must be some kind of Oklahoma magic.

On Thursday at 9:30 am, we felt a very quick but distinct shake.  It was a 3.7 magnitude earthquake in Ripley, about 30 miles away.

Friday afternoon we spotted the first daffodils in bloom, so spring is trying to happen regardless of the calendar.

Friday evening we had the annual Evening With a General Authority--a broadcast from Salt Lake for all Seminary and Institute faculty (volunteer and paid) and staff throughout the world.  The speaker was Elder Gerrit Gong of the Presidency of the Seventy, and his topic was the accounts of Jesus feeding the 5000 in the four Gospels.  He had taken all four accounts and threaded them together so that all the details were combined in one.  Elder Gong read that to us, then talked about the 9 points he drew from the experience (I did write them down, but got these from MormonNewsRoom):

1. Christ is moved with compassion. Jesus knows “our hearts and circumstances,” “He is filled with compassion for our hopes and hurts, our desires and needs.”

2. Christ begins from where we are. Just as Christ began his miraculous feedings with what the people had (such as five loaves of bread and two fishes), “we begin with what we have, with who we are now. He can then magnify us and multiply our efforts.”

3. Christ does things in an orderly way. Instead of introducing the chaos of “a large crowd … shoving and grabbing for something it wants,” Christ has the people sit down in organized companies “with a higher shared purpose.”

4. Christ is grateful. Luke 9:16 says Christ took the loaves and the fishes, and “looking up to heaven, he blessed them, and brake.”

5. Christ feeds his disciples and has them feed the crowds. . . . a pattern of “teaching the teachers so the teachers can teach the students.”

6. Christ feeds the 5,000 and the individual at the same time. “This is a miracle we teachers seek—to teach our whole class and each person in the class.” “It invites addressing general concerns and individual needs.”

7. Christ makes sure nothing is lost. Whether the subject is souls or material things, “Heaven’s economy does not waste. Everything is drawn on in the beginning, nothing is left to be lost in the end.”

8. Christ helps us end with more than we began. With Christ, “we end with more love, more learning, more inspiration, more kindness.”

9. Christ teaches of “sacramental abundance.” This point speaks to the spiritual edification we seek during weekly sacrament meeting, which includes distribution of bread and water, symbolizing the body and blood of Christ.

Elder Gong said that the Savior's world is not a world of sticks and stones, but of loaves and fishes.  I really love that image.

The spiritual feast continued on Saturday and Sunday with stake conference.  We had an Area Seventy visitor, Elder Carlos Villarreal from Texas.  He has an incredible ability to be both engaging and uplifting at the same time.  His insights included:  "Coming to the meeting is as important as the meeting--it is an outward sign of our commitment."  "How can I make the Sabbath be part of the solution to my problems or concerns?"   "Saying, 'repent' essentially means to say, 'go get closer to your Heavenly Father' and the best way to get God's help is to be closer to Him.  The best way to be closer to Him is to repent."  "When life is hard, we need to stop asking 'why' and ask 'what' twice--'what am I to learn from this?' and 'what am I to do now?'"  I can't even begin to do justice to the remainder of his remarks.

We also heard from the temple president and matron (the Campbells) and from the mission president and his wife (the Mansells).  I've mentioned before that we have a marvelous stake president, President Bowman, so all the meetings were well planned and full of inspiring messages and beautiful music.  President Bowman stressed the importance of Sabbath day observance and also the importance of developing Christ-like attributes in order to become more like Him.  All in all the last three days have been a wonderful spiritual boost.

Week 66
One of the fun parts of living in a small town is the newspaper.  It has a "Smile of the Day" picture every day with a little caption about why the person is smiling.  Since this is the buckle of the Bible Belt, more than once the reason has been, "because he (or she) loves Jesus" or "because Jesus loves me."  Every Sunday, in the Lifestyle section, is the agriculture page with valuable information about caring for cattle, hogs, hay, etc.

Another fun part is the events sponsored by the city.  Yesterday was the 14th Annual Daddy Daughter Dance at the community center.  Over 900 folks went to one of three 90 minute dances.  We went to Zaxby's for dinner, and a dad in a dress military uniform and his little daughter in a fancy dress came out on their way to the dance.  Fun.  Just before Halloween, there is the Dance With Your Mummy for moms and sons.

The temperatures were mostly warm this week (in the 80s yesterday), so we took a little walk on Tuesday and came across this plant in bloom.

Not very pretty yet, but blooming on February 7th!!

For FHE on Monday the YSAs had a Heart Attack party--making fun hearts and messages with which to plaster doors of some in the ward who just needed some loving.

They "attacked" about 7-8 kids

A young man in our ward is here on a track scholarship (he's from Las Vegas).  Yesterday he ran his best time ever, under a 4 minute mile, and was the top collegiate finisher in the mile race.  The two who beat him were Olympians.  

Go Josh Thompson!!

That's the news from this week, nothing earth shattering, but life is good in Stillwater.

Week 65
Today was our last Sunday dinner with Elder Riffenburg and Sister Smith.  He's going home and she's being transferred to Cleveland (OK, not OH).  Sister Allred and Elder Rounds are both going to be training missionaries straight from the MTC, so it will be fun to meet them when they get here on Wednesday.

Good-bye to Elder Riffenburg and Sister Smith

Lately we've been seeing a lot more hawks than usual, and for some reason I really love these birds of prey.  One was sitting on a car in our parking lot when we left yesterday!

Hunting for mice

In addition to our cardinals and jays, we've spotted a pretty woodpecker near our apartment several mornings.

Of course we enjoyed our classes this week--teaching institute has been a wonderful experience for us.  Our days are numbered, however.  Three months from today we head back to Utah.  We'll teach our last two classes on Thursday, May 4th, and leave on Friday, the 5th.

Friday we went to the temple with Heidi again.  Her mom was going to come down to be sealed to her parents, but an aunt got really ill on Thursday, so she stayed with her in Kansas City.  We went ahead with the sealing of Heidi's grandparents to each other, and it was a very special experience. Now we'll just see when her mom can come down to complete her sealing to them.   We had not realized what a big part the temple would play in our mission, but we're so grateful it has.

Week 64
Really not a whole lot to report--another busy week of lesson preparation and teaching, but nothing out of the ordinary in that.  We love the time/assignment we have to study the gospel and then teach and discuss it with our classes.

FHE was a photo scavenger hunt.  Five groups had 50 minutes to find and take a picture of as many items on the list of 27 campus spots as possible.  We didn't look for anything, but did stroll around campus, and ran into a couple of groups madly looking for the spots described on the list.  They had a great time, and the winning group found 26 of the items or places.

Wednesday Kerby told me to come look out the window.  He said, "Quick--it's some kind of blue bird!"  I looked and said, "Well, it's actually a bluebird."  There were three of them outside our bedroom window.

Such a welcome visitor--the bluebird of happiness!

Wednesday evening we had a ward temple baptism trip, so we had a carload of YSAs, which we always enjoy.  One of the young men did a baptism for Heidi's grandfather.  Then on Friday we went to the temple again with Heidi, and Kerby was proxy for her grandfather's ordinances.  It was special to me, because I knew Heidi's grandfather from my young adult days when her mother, Paula, and I were friends in Kansas City.

In honor of Chinese New Year yesterday, I made a Chinese dinner for the missionaries today.  Happy Year of the Rooster!  I got to spend two lunar new year days in Taiwan on my mission, and fell in love with the holiday.  Hard to convey what a big deal it is to westerners, but it is huge in Asia or Asian communities around the world. Here's a website for just a glimpse:  http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2017/01/year-rooster-millions-chinese-year-170128052310196.html