3 Thanksgivings

3 Thanksgivings:

Not much happened this week except for the 3 Thanksgivings we had! The first Thanksgiving was on the Branch Presidents ranch. We pulled up and didn't know where to park. There was no one in his house and everyone else's cars were parked out by where he keeps his goats. We parked, got out and awkwardly stood there because we didn't really know where everyone was. Then the Branch President's daughter appeared and waved us over. She was leaning on one of those cargo containers big ships have and said, "You can go inside." We noticed a door on the side of the container and went in. There was almost no light inside and so we weren't really sure what was up. I was expecting a room full of chickens and everyone was just inside feeding the chickens or whatever ranchers do. But when our eyes adjusted to the darkness we saw that the container had been completely furnished on the inside to look like a normal house. The one container we were in had a full kitchen and dining room, an adjacent container pushed up to the one we were in had a bedroom in it. 

There were probably 20+ people inside sitting at a long table. The only who was doing any cooking at all was a man who looked like he could be Ron Swanson's dad fussing over 3 seperate turkeys. Needless to say, It was a good Thanksgiving dinner!!

Literally 30 minutes after we ate until we we're full- we drove to our next Thanksgiving dinner. Elder Rowley started complaining about how sick he was and how he was going to throw up because he ate too much while simultaneously shoveling vast amounts of food into his gullet. We ate until we lost any feeling below our waists,  and it came to a point where I just wanted to lie down and sleep. But I couldn't because as soon as we regained enough feeling in our legs we had to go to one last Thanksgiving dinner. 

This one was different and far more important than the 2 we had already been to. You see, the 2 we had already been to were with members, but this one was with the S***** family. They decided they liked us so much that we could come to their family Thanksgiving, which was a big deal. 

We showed up around 7:30, a little too late for dinner with them but was the perfect time to have dessert. In addition to the family we know and love we were able to meet C****'s mom and dad and brother. Things started off a little awkward because everyone wanted us to watch Christmas Vacation with them but then V****** remembered that we weren't allowed to watch movies so they paused it and we just talked and ate pie for an hour. 

As we were eating pie Elder Rowley (now eating probably his 6th slice of pie that day) kept saying "ohhhh I'm so sick." Despite my repeated warnings to stop eating he kept shoveling food into his mouth. 

He kept saying that over and over again until C****'s mom violently ripped his plate away from him and told him that he wasn't allowed to eat any more pie. 

We just talked the entire time which felt a little strange because 

 for 3 nights a week for the past 2 months we've been talking with the S***** family but we mostly talk about church things. This time though, we were asked by the parents of C***** not to talk about religion so we just... talked. It was weird to feel like a normal person (instead of feeling like a human plague or however people see missionaries) for a few hours.

Love y'all,

-- Elder Murdoch