@slonicom, I ended up achieving the desired results by creating a custom menu. It isn’t as autonomous as we’d like, but it’s pretty straightforward. Reply if you need help getting it to work with a custom menu.
You can create a custom menu by going to:
Dashboard > Appearance > Menus
and clicking ‘Create a new menu’
You’ll have to select all the items you want on the menu and click ‘Add to menu’.
Photo of my settings
I understand that it is possible to create a static page that displays blog posts, and that is what I have attempted to do. I do not want a slideshow.
Also, notice that in my Reading settings, I have set ‘Current Projects’ to be the Posts page, as this is the only way I have been able to create a posts page. I would like multiple pages that each show a different category of posts.
Is this possible?