We just finished
a YSA convention in the Stake. Some things went better than expected
and some with hitches to be overcome but it all worked out with many
hands involved. Most people are delightfully willing to do their part.
The food was great and conventions, like armies, travel somewhat on
their stomachs. The man who did the Saturday evening BBQ
was a professional chef who is now mostly confined to a wheelchair and
not able to work. He was thrilled to be asked to help and said that
he can either be home and be in pain or go do something and get a
distraction from the pain. He is always cheerful and is an inspiration.
The
service project was photographing headstones to post on Billion Graves.
England is full of wonderful cemeteries that need documenting but so
many of the headstones aren’t easy or are impossible to read.
We
have started to use up any food we have in our cupboards as the time is
approaching to leave. There isn’t a missionary couple designated to
take over from us but we imagine the mission president will move someone
here as it is the farthest from his home other than Guernsey Island.
The occasional “emergency” comes up that he has needed us to handle.
Our
next assignment that is separate from the usuals is talking to a mutual
group about American Thanksgivings. We found a 6 minute video that
explains both the history and customs and will use that for a portion of
it. Elder Warnick has learned how to do downloading and editing from different
video sources that has been helpful in all the teaching we have had to
do. Something visual is always good to get the attention. They plan to
have samples of what might be in a Thanksgiving dinner. We bet they
don’t have pumpkin pie, as canned pumpkin is hard to come by, but they
gladly use turkey instead of goose here now as they admit goose is very
fatty. They do love the goose fat though for roasting potatoes. There
is no comparable holiday to Thanksgiving in the UK.
