Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone got to enjoy a nice break from work, school, college apps, and other stressful things. The season of gratitude is a wonderful time of year. The attitude of gratitude is a blessing, a joy that when allowed to fill our hearts can bring peace and happiness deep within us all. I felt the presence of the Savior this week as I reflected on what I am grateful for and the people whom I have served with and why I am grateful for them.

Our Thanksgiving was a wonderful day. We played some early morning football with a small number of members from the ward. We were expecting a larger crowed to show up and play but I suppose the morning snow and cold got the best of them. We had three members of the ward, myself and my companion Elder Merrill, and the two Sister missionaries show up to play. The cold made things challenging but fortunately I bought $2 work gloves at the gas station that had rubber grips to help my hands stay both warm and "grippy". We played a simple game, didn't keep score and had fun running around in the snow and all of us having no traction. Later we played 500 which is a game similar to three flags up. The Sisters had left by then and the game of 500 became very competitive. There was a ton of pushing, shoving, climbing, tripping, and other "foul plays"; it was a lot of fun though. Later in the day we went to the Bishop's house and enjoyed a thanksgiving dinner with him and his family. Four of his five kids were there. They are all grown up, the dinner was excellent and I made sure to have a plate full. We enjoyed some laughter and a good dinner conversation. I have a video, but it's too big to send via email. After the Bishop's, the Sisters followed us for an hour to go eat dinner with the Elders Quorum President and his family. They live in a very small town of 1,200 named Princeton. We had a nice dinner there too and all four of us missionaries struggled a bit to eat a full plate. I did have enough room for a small second plate but no desert.

The week as a whole was very busy for us. We had four people moving this week, and that kept us very busy on Tuesday and Friday. We got Elder Merrill cat trained so we spent some time at the humane society Wednesday and Friday. We had few appointments, but a lot of things that needed to get done. We seemed to have a lot of people that wanted to be visited on thanksgiving week but not taught. We also had extra miles with it being the end of the month, so we drove to the small towns outside Oshkosh and talked to some less actives that don't get visited very often. There were days in our week where we were go, go go all day and we had no breaks until 9pm when it was time to come home and plan for the day. I love having these kind of days; I just wish they had more teaching in them.

On Wednesday we had a wonderful opportunity to meet all kinds of people from other faiths. Wednesday night was the Oshkosh interfaith festival. Each faith was given a few minutes to present something that would allow others to get a taste of what their religious beliefs and faith are about. Our ward choir (plus four missionaries) sung two songs for everyone and shared a short scripture from the Book of Mormon in between the two songs. The traditional faiths were there such as Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Presbyterian. And there were also some other faiths that I had never heard of before. Those were: Baha'i, Zen River Sangha, and Eckankar. Each faith had very different and unique presentations. Some sang, played instruments, others got on stage and prayed. One man from the Zen River Sangha brought a meditation bell and asked that we meditate with him as he rang the bell and listened to the vibrations. Another group gave their stories of how they have experienced spirituality in their mundane day to day life, and then they closed their presentation with a prayer that required humming the word: HU. It was interesting, I really enjoyed it and I was able to talk with many different people about their faith and learn more from them.

Scripture for the week: Mosiah 16:9
He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death.

Thank you for your love, thank you for your prayers, thank you!

Elder Luymes