[Theme: Oxygen] Issues formatting home page and feature slider

*I should preface this post by clarifying that I am not using a self-hosted site, so I do not have the downloaded version of Oxygen. I am simply working off the activated theme and my webpage is a sitename.wordpress.com page.*

My issue is this: I have secured a static home page but am unable to set it up with the feature slider or any of the articles. The feature slider totally eludes me and the articles I have posted are only viewable if you click my Blog tab.

Feature Slider: Other threads have recommended that I specify a Featured Image in each post and set the Location to “featured.” The problem I am having is that these two options are not available to me when I edit posts. Is this because it is only an activated theme and not fully downloaded?

Articles: How do I get the articles to show on my Home page and not my Blog page? As far as I know, I cannot specify where each post is published.

Sorry for the long explanation, I just wanted to be sure I answered any questions that might have dragged this thread on before getting to the root of the problem. Thanks in advance for the help!