Monuments and Melodies: FOOD! Dobby's Dying. It's December!

Hello,

Before you ask about pictures (mom...), yes, I've got a lot to send this week. So there.

Thanksgiving! I do love Thanksgiving, and I'm grateful that I'm serving in the States because I got to eat lots of food and celebrate. Hooray! In fact, President Anderson made a comment on our conference call on Wednesday that he wanted all the missionaries to have "little fat stomachs."

Food stop #1) On Wednesday night we went to the Scheimreif's for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner. It was tons of fun and full of hilarious company. They do Thanksgiving dinner the night before because people usually go to extended family the following day. We had a blast there!

Food stop #2) Thursday morning we went to the Mass's for breakfast and to teach Logan. It was funny, because when we showed up it was dead quiet. But here's the thing-- their house is never quiet, except when Brother Mass is gone, haha. So we helped with breakfast a little until everyone came back from the Turkey Bowl. We were able to have fun and also teach the Plan of Salvation.

Food stop #3) Our first official Thanksgiving meal on Thanksgiving. We had lunch at the Reeve's (which by the way, I'm related to through the Singleton side). We got to meet the Reeve's two sons who were visiting from Philly and North Jersey.

Food stop #4) The Casey's! This was complete madness, chaos, and fun. So...... just like home. We played games while we waited for dinner (air hockey, ping pong, checkers...), and it was tons of fun. We got to meet a lot of their family, and it turns out that Brother Casey grew up in Springville! In fact, his sisters still live there, AND one of them is in my Stake at home and she was visiting for the holiday!

But we had tons of delicious food, and I'm pretty sure by that point I should've just stopped. But oh boy, no need for self-control on a holiday.

Food stop #5) At this point, we're already past uncomfortable, but we had one last stop to Sister Guerrera's house. Sister Guerrera goes to the Spanish branch in Camden, so this was our first time meeting her. She gave us a call on Monday to invite us over, and it was a hilarious phone call because I couldn't understand a lot of what she was saying and it was the back and forth of:

"What? Could you spell that? Uh... I didn't get that... could you spell that? What? Uh...." But! We figured it all out and visited her. She gave us pie and apple juice, which was the final tipping point.

So, putting the food aside for a moment:

Thanksgiving really is fantastic. It is an opportunity to stop and be grateful for the things we have. I am so grateful for all the awesome people in my life, and I'm grateful for all that the Lord has blessed me with. Being on a mission is awesome, and I would never take the experience of being out here back. There's a quote that we shared with all the families we saw throughout the week:

"There are 86,400 seconds in a day-- have you used one to say 'thank you?'"

Show your gratitude to Heavenly Father and say thanks for what He's given you.

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As for the rest of the week, we went to Kyra's surprise birthday party. It was really fun because we got to meet the Mass's family and be there to support Kyra. She was so mad that everyone knew except her, because apparently she doesn't like surprises, haha.

So, next story: our car, Dobby. Well, Dobby seems to be sick or dying. There's a weird light that keeps coming on, it's making a horrible scraping noise, and the maintenance required light came on permanently on Saturday. We talked to Elder Jones, who's in charge of vehicles, and he told us not to drive it too much on Sunday. Which was going to be super hard, because our plans were all over the place! Well, on Sunday all of our plans fell through. Which ended up being a blessing to us, because Dobby sounded much worse. We ended up going to the Mass's to teach Logan, which was super awesome. I've never seen someone so prepared to hear the gospel! We're SO EXCITED for him.

Love yous!
Sister Singleton