Thanksgiving a la Newchapel

Even though this Thursday, November 22nd, will be a normal work day for us, and even though many of the missionaries we work with have never celebrated an American Thanksgiving - or maybe even heard of it before - Don and I just had a longing for a good ol' traditional American Thanksgiving dinner this week, so we created one Sunday.

Well, that's not exactly the way it went. We got the idea for it when we thought about how homesick we were going to be for our kids and our grandkids on Thursday. Lucky for us, the Horsleys, one of our two senior couples, must have felt the same way. They generously volunteered to take charge and even cook the turkey. Oh, happy day! We invited all the Visitors' Centre missionaries and the Mission Office missionaries. The Horsleys planned it all, made assignments to everyone, and supervised the whole event. It couldn't have been any better.  It was so much fun, and the food was delicious!

The Horsleys went for a walk in the woods near where they live
at the Bridgstocks and created our beautiful table centerpiece.

You gotta give special recognition to the pumpkin at Thanksgiving!

Sisters Howard and Reneer capturing Sister Cabrera cooking corn.

Elder and Sister Horsley showing us how Thanksgiving is done.

Trying not to look hungry...

Sister Kae, Sister Howard, and Sister Yapi

The turkey is on the table and dinner's ready!

 

How to fit it all onto the plate???

I'm not going to tell you whose plate this was,
but it sure was delicious!

Can we just get this picture taking over and eat, please?

We even had pumpkin pie and whipped cream - a mini miracle here in England. They just do NOT sell canned pumpkin here. (Not that you can't make pumpkin pie from a whole pumpkin, but the Libby's pumpkin pie recipe isn't written on the side of it :)  We checked Sainsburys and Cost Cutter and CoOp and Morrisons and Asda and Tesco. We even checked Costco. I was about ready to bake a couple of whole pumpkins and use them when Don remembered he had seen some canned pumpkin awhile back at a little Waitrose grocery store in East Grinstead. I drove over to check it out and found a very small corner of one shelf under which the label "pumpkin" was attached. The shelf was empty. After talking to three grocery store employees who said they didn't know anything about canned pumpkin, they referred me to the manager who checked and said there was a shipment coming in that Saturday. We were there bright and early! 

Hooray for the pumpkin pie!

Yours, truly.

Now for the dishes. It helps to have four sinks
in the Accommodation Centre kitchen.

Sister Hess and Elder Horsley cleaning up.
Who's that guy standing there with his arms folded?

Then it was time to try to figure out what to do with all the leftovers.
Despite what it looks like, I promise you Don helped out.:)

Sister Cardona chose these leftovers:
pie and pie.

Sister Howard thinking about how great that
second Thanksgiving dinner is going to be.

About all that's left of our leftovers now is the fabulous memories of a good food, good friends, and good times.

We will be counting our many blessings for the rest of this week and thinking of those of you we haven't seen for nearly a year - or more. You are some of our greatest blessings and we are so grateful for each of you and your part in our lives. WE WISH ALL OUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS AT HOME (and everywhere) A WONDERFUL THANKSGIVING DAY and a bunch of the same leftovers!                           ~Pat~