Thanksgiving in New Zealand

Thanksgiving Day is alive and well in New Zealand.  Even though everyone around us are not celebrating the Americans are not forgetting.

In our ward there are four young couples who work for WETA (the Peter Jackson production company) and they invited the McVey's and us to join them Thanksgiving night for Thanksgiving Dinner.  We had all the usual food items.  They even had turkey which is very expensive here (a 12 lb. turkey costs $80.00).  They also had mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pies.  They don't have regular pumpkins here so the pies are hard to make.  What they call pumpkins look like squash.  The dinner was at the Osler's home in Seatoun.  It was very nice and made us feel like we were home for the holidays.

The festivities continued on Saturday.  We had Thanksgiving again at the Mission Presidents home in Tawa.  Two senior couples had just arrived so we got to meet them.  The Chesley's are from Hermosa Beach, California and they arrived on Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving) and they are serving in Upper Hutt. Also another couple from American Fork the Farnes were there.  They left early because they had a 6 hour drive to Napier.  A long drive for someone who is just beginning to drive on the other side of the road.  We also had the Brazzeals, Patchetts, McVeys, Kezarians, Overtons and President Kezarians sister, her husband and daughter.  The food and company was very enjoyable.

It was amazing to see the Mission Home.  It had a lot of modern conveniences such as a full size washer and dryer, a full size refrigerator, a dishwasher and garbage disposal.  Their home was also much larger than our flat with a beautiful view of the hills around it.  The upstairs has a large room with rows to beds for when the new missionaries arrive.  In December there will be about 14 new missionaries arriving.  It is a very beautiful house.

Sidenote:  Ann Ross from St. George has a grandson who is one of the missionaries arriving in December.  His name is Alex Ross.  We would like to meet him but he will be on the very bottom tip of the South Island and because the mission includes part of the North Island and all of the South Island we don't see the missionaries on the other island unless they are transferred to the North Island.  Hopefully we will meet him before we leave.