Thanksgiving

Looks like Thanksgiving, smells like Thanksgiving, tastes like Thanksgiving, so it must be Thanksgiving (it is, if you love  traditional foods and good company and it's the right week, even though it's not the right day here). Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate my first or second favorite holiday.
Munzings, Wallaces (across from each other in white shirt and gold sweater), Isaacsons, Downers, Blacks, Sister Umber. Downers and Munzings will leave us in mid-December. Boo hoo! Brother Isaacson says he feels like blog fodder every time I take a photo, but I am not going to stop! Sorry!

Clara and Jim Downer invited all the North American senior missionaries for Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday in their apartment. We also welcomed our new temple couple, the Wallaces from Twin Falls, Idaho, who recently served in the Quetzaltenango, Guatemala Temple. Just like the doors at Banco de Chile, some come and some leave (we wish we could have everyone we love stay longer).


We all start diets tomorrow (or when the leftovers are gone!) Nina I. had brought two big cans of pumpkin (not available here) from home a year ago, so it WAS Thanksgiving! In my absence much of my family will be driving to San Diego, California, this week to celebrate at the beach with my siblings and families who live there. 

And lucky me, I had just finished eating a lasagna lunch in my apartment with five fun guests. (I could barely move on our Sunday PM walk!) Sister Shields (from N. Carolina) and to be transferred on Tuesday Sister Horrocks (from Utah), both full-time missionaries, Fabiola Torrejon, Sister Pena (new Chilean temple missionary, calling pending, staying in the room across the hall from me) and Yarella Cortez (temple worker and student). Last three are Chileans.

I was extra tired Sunday after moving all my stuff and myself across the hall for my place to be painted, carpets and drapes cleaned, and then back again; taught my Friday English class and English missionary Sunday School class, and worked hard at the temple, which was quite busy this past week....we love it, however!

Thanksgiving is especially set aside as a time for gratitude. A friend just sent an article linking gratitude/ a grateful heart and attitude, to improved health. These are a few of the points:

Gratitude allows us to celebrate the positive and blocks negative

emotions such as envy and resentment; it allows quicker recovery

from adversity; promotes a higher sense of self-worth by creating

a stronger network of relationships which helps us recognize the

values others see in us.

At Thanksgiving I always reflect upon the sacrifices my ancestors made (some celebrating the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth Colony with the native Americans) and wonder if it was as hard or harder to have been an immigrant seeking political and religious  asylum and a better life 300-400 years ago than now. I would agree, at least, with Ronald Reagan who said that...

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction...It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in the United States where men were free." 
(I fear we are doing that...we need to reverse this trend!)

Thanksgiving is the perfect time, if family is gathered together, to ask questions, to share our life stories. The older generation will not always be with us, and children grow up very fast. At our gatherings we reflect upon our blessings and always sing before dinner, a "personalized version" of the hymn "We gather together to ask the Lord's Blessings" and many other songs afterwards which remind us of the blessings of a country founded on principles  of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, with freedom of speech, religion, justice, and more. 

"America":
   My country 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty,
   Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers' died, 
   Land of the pilgrims' pride. From ev'ry mountainside, 
   Let freedom ring.

   Our fathers' God, to thee, Author of liberty, 
   to thee we sing; Long may our land be bright
   With freedom's holy light. Protect us by thy might,
   Let freedom ring.

I hope your descendants and mine will always enjoy these freedoms and recognize that God is the source of all that is good. We are so blessed! We need to choose not only good things, but to live for and defend the best things: to serve God and others with our unique individual talents and personalities, and with our time. 
Happy Thanksgiving to all!