Spring, 2010. Where did the time go?

Well, here we are March 20, 2010. What happened to all the time? We are so Baddddddd! Time has a way of not waiting for anyone to play catch up.

We apologize to anyone that actually is looking at our blog, we cannot guarantee to keep up with the correct time or date of happenings in our lives as we finish up the last months of our missionary experience here in the ever-changing Oklahoma climate. We look forward to warm weather just the same as if it will really come before we take off for the wild, wild west (actually Utah).

Our basic training experiences were enriched this year with the addition of female soldiers being accepted here at Ft. Sill to reinstate a coed training program that was discontinued over 10 years ago. We had our first graduation of coeds last week and the local news was filled with pictures and stories about how the overall experience was accepted by other soldiers, drill instructors, and command leadership. Noteworthy were the honors participants who were women who were also included in the top 10% of the class, as well as high physical fitness award and rifle marksmanship.

Here is the video from last week of our social and one of the classes with the missionaries just getting done. We have had a huge influx of non-members which helps with our efforts to reach out to share the message of the gospel. It is not unusual to have more non-members in attendance than members as everyone brings in a battle buddy.



We had a baptism last Sunday, one of our female soldiers decided to enter the waters of baptism and many of the members and non-members showed their support by attending . She will continue to study with the missionaries for a few more weeks and then move on to her next post for her AIT (Individual Training). We try to keep in touch with them as they move into the next phase of their training and will notify the missionaries assigned to her next duty assignment to let them know more about her status.

Playing Catch-up!!!!!

We can hardly believe the months that have flown by since May, we are so bad at doing this updating of our blog, and apologize for our lack of information on how things have been going for us and our mission.

Since May we have welcomed 8 newly baptised members into the servicemens's group here at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma and if all goes well we will have 4 more baptisms next Sunday with 2 more the Sunday after that. We think that the slump is over and we will have more productivity in the coming Fall months. Our attendance has risen to a high of 137 for the summer months so far, and this past Sunday we had 117, which includes about 40 percent being non-members. We love and welcome all the basic trainees and enjoy taking short video's of them to send off to loved ones, we also are still baking and serving around 30 dozen cookies on a monthly basis for our 'linger longer' on the 2nd Sunday of the month.

Once the recruit has graduated they move on to AIT which is Advanced Individual Training, they move on to another post, or if we are lucky, they continue with Ft. Sill and can come to Church to help in teaching classes, etc.

We also have a few officers who come to this post for BOLC which is advanced training for officers ( 2nd LT ). Needless to say the constant turnover is keeping us very busy with contacting families and loved ones as well as sending in reports to Church Headquarters on the status of each member.

We have had several WTC ( Warriors in Transition ) re-entering military after being out for three years of active duty and we hosted the mother of one of the graduates who came to the ceremony for her daughter.

While they were here we went to the Wichita Reserve and to Meers for hamburgers. It was a very quaint place to eat and is famous in this area for the decor (as you can see) and the huge hamburgers they serve.

Here we are waiting to be seated at Meers!!!

Our living room seems to be a rotating motel for the wives and mothers who travel here without a traveling companion, we feel it is safer staying with us than in a motel room by themselves, and many have taken us up on our offer to do so. We enjoy the company and besides we get to see more of the wonderful sights of the area by taking them with us on short excursions. One of the trips we took was to a small Indian Village recreation near a town called Anadarko and I have included some pictures and videos of that trip with this post.

The Caddo Village


Our guide Vannessa Jennings
Inside the museum, authentic artifacts

Our drummer/ singer and Dancer ( he did great in 116 degree heat), this was on Elder Woodbury's birthday July 11.

We leave you with the Indian dancer and drummer/singer, young men that do a good job of keeping part of their culture alive. They also participate in Indian Pow-wows and competitions.

On May 8th 2009 we received a call from Joyce's second son Bart who was returning to Wisconsin from a truck driving trip to Southern California saying that he was going to be in Oklahoma City on Saturday.

We decided to go up and see him and do some sight seeing that we have wanted to do since we arrived in Oklahoma last September .

When we picked Bart up at the truck stop west of downtown Oklahoma City and as we drove through the city we saw signs of the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum and decided to go to the memorial.

This is Joyce and Bart as we were entering the memorial from the parking lot across the street.

This video is after you go into the monument itself and looking at the reflecting pond which we subsequently learned was N.W. Fifth Street the street in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

This is the plaza of "The Survivor Tree" and as a I took the video I read the inscriptions that are set out around the fence.

"To the courageous and caring who responded from near and far, we offer our eternal gratitude."

This is "The Survivor Tree" a 90+ year old American Elm which survived the blast that now stands as a profound symbol of human resilience.

MESSAGE

"The spirit of this city and this nation will not be defeated; our deedly rooted faith sustains us"

The time was well spent going through the museum and spending the day visiting with Bart, especially the day before Mother's Day.

April Showers bring--- May flowers

Here it is the end of April and the showers have begun, the wind has died down enough to call it a nice quiet rainy day. We have had 3 days in a row of rain, rain and more rain. So far, we are not at flood stage by our apartment. Thank goodness.

Here are some more pictures of our little garden on our patio, Bryce is really enthused that everything is starting to green up nicely.

As you can see we have tomatoes growing upside down in the black containers and strawberries in the hanging pouches. These pictures are already old news, we now have blossoms on the tomatoes and the strawberries, and have picked 1 cucumber from the vine. We also have pole beans growing along the fence behind Bryce. Will try and get a current picture for the blog update soon. My camera refuses to download the pictures without a fight each time I try to do so. Hopefully I will win out and get my pictures saved to my computer soon.

Our mission is going well, we had a baptism last Sunday and will have 2 more soon, the lessons are going on every week with many of the battle buddies of our members. Last week Sunday we had over 50 in attendance which surprised us as we had a graduating class of 17 members leaving us the week before, we hoped we would have 35 in attendance and were blessed with more non-members coming to replace the ones leaving. The Lord is sifting and sorting all the time and we are reaping the harvest continually.

On one of the graduation days we recorded the guest speaker, COL Mary Anne Baker and thought her words would inspire you as much as they did us and the graduating class. She was the former commander of the training brigade.

Spring Time 2009

One would think that the Woodbury's never put up any new "stuff" on their website, how could you tell? The lack of postings might be a clue, so here we are in the Springtime trying to make up for lost time.

We did take a drive up to the Wichita's and drove up to the top of Mt. Scott, here is Bryce on the overlook, you can see for miles up there. The Ft. Sill post and Lawton are on the middle and farside on the left. It was a beautiful day for a drive and I took the picture since I do not like heights, you wouldn't get me too close to get this kind of picture.

Let us count the events of the new year, we did have a snowfall here in Oklahoma, we got approximately 1/2 inch of snow, ice combination and then it melted. We did have two "snow-days" when we were kind of sequestered to our apartment, the military post was closed down and schools were closed.

That is what you get when it snows in Oklahoma. No school, no work.

We did get a picture of the snow, as you can see it was not that threatening, however most of the car accidents happened because of inexperienced drivers trying to navigate on the slippery stuff.

Then the warm weather started to beckon to us to start thinking about planting something, it didn't matter what, just something. I should have been warned about the Spring bug, when all the seed catalogs started coming in right after Christmas.

Then my brother Don and his wife Liz sent us a gift of Amarylis which we planted and watched grow with amazement to full bloom.

First we bought some pots and daylilie rhizomes to plant, and they are doing very well, thank you.

Then we were in Sam's Club and saw a garden starter for the patio, it was one of the models that grows plants upside down in a planter. We couldn't resist, here is a picture of Bryce watering our garden in the back patio.

We have had a frost several times now and finally figured out how to protect our garden boxes, we hung a sleeping bag over the clothesline and it did a fine job of saving the few plants that survived the first two frosts.

We just got 50 strawberry plants and 4 hanging pouches, that is our next garden project. "Stay tuned for more" of the story.

Christmas time and end of 2008

One would think that we dropped off the face of the earth after the Thanksgiving holidays, however we did not. We went on to the festivities involved in getting ready for the Christmas holidays. We busied ourselves with preparing a letter to all of our friends and families (at least all those that we could locate addresses for, either snail mail or e-mail). If you did not get a letter, please accept our apology and get us your address as soon as possible (the best way is to send us a Christmas card so we get the hint, OK).

I just could not have a proper Christmas without a tree, so we went to Walmart and bought a little fake one and the trimmings to put on it. We never even considered bringing our decorations with us on this mission. One thing to think about when considering leaving your home for more than a year, I would guess.

This is a picture we took of our window in the front of our apartment, we bought a cling vinyl manger scene and lights to give the window a festive mood. It looked very nice at night all lit up, and made us feel like it was more with the reason for the season.

One evening we drove through the park and took pictures of the Christmas lights and the different displays, it was really neat all the work that different groups put in to make a nice tour for everyone to enjoy. The video we took was impossible to download, so you will not see it at this time, sorry.

On the 13th of December we sang in the Lawton Community Choir at a performance at the McMahon Center, we sang excerpts from "The Messiah". We had a wonderful time rehearsing and preparing for the hour and a half presentation.

Thanksgiving Holiday

During the week of Thanksgiving Sister Woodbury's daughter Lori and family came to spend the holidays at our apartment in Lawton. It was a wonderful time to enjoy each others company and for them to see the sights of this area of Oklahoma.

The children, all 6 of them, enjoyed visiting the Prairie Dog village in the park by the McMahon Auditorium and Museum grounds. They also accompanied us to the Graduation ceremony at the McMahon on the 26th of November.

The whole family accompanied us as we drove to the Wichita Reserve and took the hike up Elk Mountain, we were surprised to see a Bison next to the trail on the steep mountain side.

The walk up was too much for Sis Woodbury and her daughter so they hung out after climbing one-third of the way to the top. The rest of the group including Elder Woodbury made the entire trip to the summit and then came back to the trail head where the ladies were waiting for them.

The accomodations for sleeping were a little hap-hazard as with only one bedroom, the floor was the best option for the children to share. Thankfully we had borrowed a full size blowup bed for Lori and her husband Brian to sleep on, as well as the baby Aaron.

Oh what fun, at our mission apartment when night time arrived. We had to be careful in walking around and through a maze of bodies in various positions on the living room floor. So much for Sleep-walking, NOT!!!!!

Of course visiting with grandma wouldn't be complete unless the girls made cookies to share with everyone.

Here is a picture of Rachel and Aaron helping out in the kitchen, the cookies were delicious, just ask the boys, the 4 dozen went quickly.

The cookies were good enough for an improvised picnic on our back patio, who knew it was good for more than hanging up our laundry. Rachel, Celeste, and Aaron enjoyed sitting out in the sunshine and having the last of the cookies, what fun??????

Pumpkin pies were baked, with help from Aaron they got a little too browned, he likes to turn knobs, and turned the oven to broil during the pie baking process. Grandpa was in his glory, eating all the burnt crusts, maybe it is a cure for lack of head-toppiing, you know what they say, that charcoal grows hair, or something like that!!!!!

Just a sweet little fellow, as you can see, but he is almost two years old and he likes to get into trouble just the same. Or it may be curiousity, he wants a lot of attention as we found out. His siblings would be playing a board game and he would do his best to get involved even if it meant taking some of the game pieces and running off with them.

To keep him occupied one evening we gave him the unopened individual salt and pepper shakers that were in the supply cabinet. He enjoyed stacking them up and then knocking them over, as long as we were watching him. When our attention wandered to other things, he would attempt to throw them around, at people and things. He does have a good throwing arm, come to think of it!!!!!

All in all the visit from family was a success, we enjoyed having everyone with us for the Thanksgiving holiday. Along with turkey, ham and all the trimmings we were vey satisfied and our tummies were filled as well as our spirits with the joy of families.

We now look forward to the Christmas Holidays and all that it brings to us in the celebration of our Saviors birth.