thanksgiving, Atonement, and chemistry

Dear Family,

We celebrated Thanksgiving this week as a zone. It was a delayed celebration because turkey is not easy to get here. Luckily, my pensionista (we call her Granny) is an angel and went and bought one for us. In the United States, when you buy a 20lb. turkey, you get - more or less - 20 pounds of turkey. Here, you buy the turkey at live weight. And you have to pay extra if you want them to kill and pluck it. They didn't have any really big ones (like 25lbs that we wanted for our zone), so Granny bought two - a 12-pounder and a 16-pounder. They killed them on the spot and plucked them, and Granny cooked them for us. The meal was almost traditional... Granny just guessed on how to make stuffing, and it turned out wonderfully. We celebrated by taking a huge Book of Mormon cutout to the roundabout and telling 140 people what we're most thankful for.

Our internet time has been dropped down to 45 minutes, which leaves me with about 9 more minutes to write - and I still would like to send a picture or two. Since a picture = 1,000 words, according to the adage, I suppose that will make it fair.

My companion and I have been studying hard this week, talking a lot about Moses 5:11 (see the Pearl of Great Price), and our favorite phrase, "the joy of...redemption". It seems to us that we ought to feel that joy in every moment, much like Lehi felt when in vision he ate of the fruit of the tree of life and was filled with joy, desiring that his family also should eat of the fruit. And only repentance - real repentance - with faith in Jesus Christ will lead the humble soul to that joy. We are seeking that joy with all of our energy, so that we can share it with others. This morning, our companionship study made analogy with an endothermic chemical reaction, but instead of delta H, the change was simply a change in behavior, caused by the Atonement of Christ. I know it sounds nerdy, but it made sense to us. In the scheme of things, we decided that members involved in missionary work become catalysts in the conversion process. We now understand a little more why members are so important in missionary work.

Thanks for your letters and your prayers. Congratulations, Rebecca! Thank you, Achievement Day Girls, for the package! Your support is very uplifting!

Love,
Elder Withers