Today was our Thanksgiving Day. Germany does not celebrate Thanksgiving, why would they? but the American's in Germany do. They have a military base in Wiesbaden where you can purchase turkey's, marshmello's, and good soft brown sugar, things that Germany does not readily have available. The trick is to have a friend who is retired military, so they can get those items for you. We have a senior couple that fits that description and they donated three butterball turkey's. Everyone else made the trimmings. Our assignment was candied yams. Elder Walter's did most of the work and everyone said they should have been on the dessert table.
We had a little of everything, jello salad, dressing, Waldorf salad, yams, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans with dried onions on top, some home made rolls and last but not least ten kinds of desserts. I had a little sliver of each one but Elder Walters always likes to keep the taste of the meat and gravy, so he did not eat dessert. We had a wonderful program. One of our missionary couples is leaving in a week, so they both gave talks on gratitude. Most of it was taken from Pres. Monson's Conference talk in this months Ensign.
Some thoughts that I gleaned were the following. Pres. Hinkley said, "When you walk with gratitude, you do not walk with arrogance and conceit and egotism, you walk with a spirit of thanksgiving that is becoming to you and will bless your lives." The Greek Philosopher Epictetus said, "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." The Prophet Joseph Smith wrote, "Thou shalt thank the Lord Thy God in all things.....and in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things." That doesn't leave anything out does it? Pres. Monson asked "Do material possessions make us happy and grateful?, perhaps momentarily, however, those things which provide deep and lasting happiness and gratitude are the things which money can not buy like our families, the gospel, good friends, our health, our abilities and the love we receive from those around us." Someone said, "Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." I hope all of you had a blessed thanksgiving.
Earlier in the morning before we were to be at the dinner we had time to run into downtown Frankfurt for a little shopping. They were already setting up their booths all along the Dom Romer, next to the river. I was mesmerized by everything. They love Christmas in Germany. I believe that most of our traditions came from Germany if not England. Anything you would like to eat they have there. They had big frying pans with loads of potatoes that you could put on any kind of topping you wanted. I chose Bearnaise sauce, I love that stuff. Gene just helped me finish them off. Then we had an Indian Fry bread. I don't know what they call it in Germany but they were tasty. When we got a little cold we stopped to have a hot drink. They had a choice of hot cider and hot aphfel wein but I had a drink called kinder punch which tasted a lot like the Russian tea we make back in the states.
In the middle of all the great stores was an original merry-go-round. Also in my pictures was the honig haus (honey house) Everything was made out of honey or the honey comb. I took a picuture of the booths but didn't notice until I got home that I took a picture of a guy that scared me to death when I saw him walking around. He was so large in stature wearing all black leather. I wish I had taken a front view but Elder Walter's said he thought they were Hells Angles. I don't know, can anybody tell me what group they could be associated with? The outfit was way cool but scary just the same.
Well we had to hurry home to get our candied yams ready to take to our dinner and it was getting cold, but we vowed to come back next week. Oh I almost forgot to tell you, we had our first snow the next day, and it was beautiful. I will take lots of photos for you to see on our next blog.
