A Special Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is always a wonderful and special time of the year. It’s one of my favorite holidays because it brings families together. Like Christmas, Thanksgiving is a time to feel grateful for many things. Families especially, but also to consider and to serve others.

This past Thanksgiving (last week) was the first one without our two youngest children who are currently serving missions. And though we miss them, we are indeed more grateful for what they’re doing - serving others through sharing the gospel. So our family decided to do something special this year, and that was inviting other missionaries to our home to spend Thanksgiving with us. In that way, while our missionaries are spending Thanksgiving with other families, we will have others to fill their places.  Actually, we ended up with twice as many. Five altogether - three palagis (Caucasians) and two Tongans, one of whom was from the islands and the other one from Texas. For the palagis two were from California and one from Missouri. Our family prepared a semi-formal dinner setup, with a typical Thanksgiving buffet of turkey, ham, meatballs, katsu chicken, pork roast, salad, taros, yams, chop suey, etc., and dessert. In addition to dinner, the missionaries made themselves at home playing games with our family. They certainly added and promoted the Thanksgiving spirit in our home. It was one of the best Thanksgivings our family has had.    

Some pictures ...

All that for these wonderful young men.  We LOVE them ... and ALL the missionaries!