Week 5 - Cruisin' the Books

This post is unfinished, but we wanted our family to see this while you were together, today.  We will finish and repost tonight.  Lots of typos in this draft.


Total Exposures Filmed  4,917 to date

We are going to post a running total of the number of exposures that we have taken.  It will help us and you understand the progress that we are making.

Followup Photos from the Community Cleanup In Chandler  

Grandma cleaned all the stairs, meticulously, and there

were many stairs, wash on dirt, and thistles overgrouwn.

We received, from the Readings, these photos that they took during our cleanup project a couple of Saturdays ago.  Thought we would post them.

This hand rail had no upright to secure it at the bottow.  

It had been bent into the air, so Grandpa straightened it.

This is our group who participated that day.

The kids painted more with there 

hands than brushes.

Dinner for Six (oops, seven) Marshallese Style  

From left to right Elders Allen, Motey, and Wells,

Paul and Kim Reading, and Grandma

We invited our Missionaries over for dinner on Monday night.  Elders Allen and Motey were being transferred on Wednesday so we wanted to bid them farewell.   Elder Motey is from the Marshall Islands.  We wanted to get him talking more.  He was the only one in our group that was out of his food culture.  So we decided to prepare his food.  Does that suggest that Grandma and Grandpa are there culture?       We prepare food as close to his native food as we could research.  We prepared a shrimp, fish and rice dish with stir-fried vegetables and coconut milk.  We also had coconut chicken and fresh pineapple.  Our plan to get him to talk more did not work at all.  He was too busy stuffing himself with food that he loved.  We had a great time together.  Afterward, Elder Allen gave us an FHE lesson where he called us to repentance to become better deciples of Christ, which we needed. 

Service at the Temple  

Grandma in front of the Oklahoma City
Temple at about 7:00pm on our way into
the temple.  This is one of the very small,
new temples, but equally beautiful.

The Cushing Ward was responsible for temple cleaning on Tuesday Night.  A group of us attended the 7:30 PM session.  Then afterwards, we were all given various cleaning assignments.  Grandma and Grandpa were assigned to vacuming and dusting of the 3 most important rooms in the temple.  It was particularly nice to be working together in those rooms by ourselves.  We got home at about 10:30.  We will do this whenever we get an opportunity.

The Cushing Ward Trunk-or-Treat  

This is Sister Hoyt.  She won the prize for best decorated

trunk.  She is the niece of Art (Marge) Anderson of 

Wellsville 

On Wednesday the Ward held a truck-or-treat at the ward house.  There was a very good turnout.  We were served hot dogs and chili.  The cattlemen of the ward grumbled that we were not serving beef. We have members in the ward that are large scale cattlemen and some small scale operators.  The Griswalds (first name not Clark) who have a huge operation in Oklahoma and Nebraska.  His wife also owns a good sized ranch in Utah that they run.

Grandpa talking to a new Elder Westward from 

central Utah.  The sister behind me is Reavis.  

See Grandma's story about her.  

Grandpa is standing next to Sister Margaret Reavis, who Grandma sat by in RS the 2^nd Sunday we were here.  That day she asked me all about being a missionary and I explained to her what we were doing.  She asked if I liked to read the scriptures and I said, “I sure do”.  So I asked her if she enjoyed reading the scriptures and she told me that she doesn’t read the scriptures because the text is too small.  I told her I would try to find her some scriptures with larger text.  I looked up on the LDS website and found a (11X14) Book of Mormon, D&C and Pearl of Great Price in one binding in large print.  It was only $5.00 and no shipping.  What a deal!  It took about 2 weeks to get here but I was sooo excited to give it to her.  I gave it to her on the following Sunday after it arrived and she said THANKS and seemed excited.  I couldn’t wait until the next Sunday to find out how she liked it.  Well, to my dismay she told me she hadn’t taken off the cellophane wrap because she didn’t want to get it dirty.  I about cried.  I didn’t know what to say.  SO at the Halloween Party I got the nerve to tell her to please take off the cellophane wrap and not to worry about getting it dirty.  It would be all worth it. 

This is Bishop John Curry.  He was

running a game for the kids.  He is a 

great guy and quite a character.  He is

a USU alum and he loves Logan.  He is 

a professor at OSU moving to Kentucky

in a few weeks.

Saturday Cruise on Route 66  
We took off Saturday morning to do some exploring above Tulsa.  We wanted to visit the Grand Lake area, Claremore, where we were scheduled to live earlier, and Pryor where we may still be assigned.  We traveled most of the way on the old Route 66 where we could enjoy less traffic, a more relaxed drive, and lots of old places and restored places.  Route 66 is very popular driving route for Harley riders and hot rods.  It is the only place I know of where you can still find old motels still open and in good enough shape that you can sleep there. Anyway this is the results of our drive on Saturday:


CLAREMORE AND WILL ROGERS
Claremore is a very nice city.  It the setting for the movie musical "Oklahoma" and also the home of Will Rogers.  

Will overlooking  his Oklahoma

He is famous for many quotations.  

This one a I liked.

Grandma insisted that it was my turn to be in a photo.  

What a choice, looking at she or me.  This is the tomb

of old Will and grounds surrounding the Museum. 

GRAND LAKE
This is the largest lake in Oklahoma.  Located in the northeast corner of the state.  It is about half the water area of Bear Lake, but is about 40 miles in length.  The Bithels that we stayed with in Edmond Oklahoma have a place here.  We came looking also for some fall color, but did not find the colors here to be the intensity that they are in the Rockies.  

This is the dam that created the lake.  It must have been

built in the late 40s or early 50s.

Very little beach, but lots of boating and fishing water.

There are hundreds maybe thousands

of these covered boat slips with 

some huge boats in under them.

Some of these boats are 3 stories.

Every little cove had one or several

of these covered slips in them.

Pryor Oklahoma
We drove through Pryor and checked out the new County Court House.  This is where we were to be located in our first assignment.  We could live here.  It was a nice city, but did not have the character of Chandler.  We did stop to eat here at Charlie's BBQ Chicken and Ribs.  It was best tasting and best cooked BBQ we have had in Oklahoma.  I must admit that we have not explored too many BBQ places yet.  They are so numerous we do not know where to start.  This was a good start.






Muskogee
We also drove through Muskogee, Oklahoma.  The city which gave Merle Hagard the motivation to write and sing the song, "Okee from Muskogee".  It too was a very nice city. It seem that there is a college in every major city in Oklahoma.  






The Lincoln County Vault
This is where we visit several times a day to get books and records that we test, evaluate, film, and sometimes repair.  At times there is barely room to move around in the vault.

This photo shows the mortgage records that 

we are filming right now.  They are those

books on the back wall in the upper section.

Wouldn't you know it,  my records all require

a ladder to put them up and take them down. 

The mortgage records could be on the lower'shelves for me. 
You are seeing only about half the total records in the vault.  

Our Work Was Acceptable?
Halalulah.  All of the filming that we do is inspected weekly.  We receive an evaluation of the previous weeks filming which tells us whether our work meets the standards for quality microfilming.  We found out on Friday that the rolls we filmed the first week, on our own, were acceptable.  I think 'acceptable' means that they are tolerating us for a little while longer.  This has been a trial and extremely difficult.  It is very difficult for us to get comfortable and confident with the art and science of microfilming.  Each morning we begin our work with a prayer.  We ask for help to remember all of those things we have been taught, and  for guidance in the decisions that we must make for that day.  I was amazed that all of the filming was acceptable.  I was sure that we would be refilming some or all of the roles. We also realize that there will be some mistakes and refilming required.  Everyone, even the pros have to refilm once in a while. You can call this a lack of faith on my part, but I had not yet developed a level of confidence in this work.  This report was a great blessing to us and has given us much hope and great relief.  We now have confidence that we can do this.  Maybe even do it well.  Thanks for answers to prayers.  We must tell you that, through this difficulty we have remainded positive and unduanted in moving forward.  

By the way, we see a great new opportunity for Grandma and Grandpa.  Don't miss the hottest new and intensely exciting TV reality show, "Extreme Microfilming, Surviving in the Dark" or " Man/Woman vs Camera"  See the introductory trailer now being shown around the world.

I know by now that your imaginations are running wild and you are considering posting this on YouTube.  Don't even think about it.  Erase it from your memory. The Brethren could pay us an emergency visit here in Oklahoma.  The results would not be pretty.  






ONLY IN OKLAHOMA SPOT

Only in Oklahoma.  You need to study this photo to 

really appreciate what this guy or gal have done to there
front yard.  My only regret - this should be a night shot.
 Don't missthe impaled sculls.

Based on popular demand, we have decided to start a small section of the blog dedicated to things that make Oklahoma unique, wonderful, and genuinely funny.  Now, for those readers who are way too much on the sensitive side, remember that laughing at ourselves is healthy.  Grandma and Grandpa laugh at ourselves all the time. We do dumb things all the time that are worth laughing at.  There are many things that are laughable about ourselves.  Oklahoma deserves being laughed at.  They will be better for it.   Remember the fuse in the gas tank from a couple of weeks ago?  Here is the newest installment.  I call this "pigs in a pick-um-up truck",

I know you are thinking that I will run out of material for this spot.  Believe me,I will not.  As I was driving today, I remembered of a bunch of "Only in Oklahoma" opportunities that I have seen but not photographed.  My file is growing.  

This photo was taken on our way home on Saturday as

we drove into the western sun.  

Good bye for now.  We Love You