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| Puerto Rico! |
Well last week was Thanksgiving week, and let's just say I have PLENTY to be thankful for. On Thanksgiving day we got up at 4:45 in the morning so we could all get ready and go to the church to watch the sunrise with the rest of the members in our ward while everyone shared their testimonies. It ended up being super cool, and afterwards we all got together and had an amazing Thanksgiving breakfast. The members out here in San Juan are honestly so awesome. As far as the rest of the day went... we literally and I mean LITERALLY went from Thanksgiving dinner to Thanksgiving dinner for the entire rest of the day. I don't think I've ever been so full in my life. In total we got invited to about 6 dinners, and by the end of the day all we could ask for was a little bit of dessert.
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| With a recent convert named Paula |
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| Sunrise with the ward |
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| Shawn, probably one of the most unique yet super cool members in the world |
As far as the way Thanksgiving is celebrated out here, it's actually pretty similar. A lot of people didn't really celebrate it in our area because they're Dominicans, and it's not a holiday in the Dominican Republic. However, almost all of the Puerto Ricans do celebrate it. They make a turkey, and instead of serving it with mashed potatoes, gravy, and stuffing, they serve it with this like macaroni dish and arroz con gandules (rice with green pigeon peas). The one thing I definitely missed was the pie. Instead of pumpkin pie, they serve flan. At one of the dinners they actually gave us flancocho which is like half flan half cake which was amazing.
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| One of our Thanksgiving dinners |
The rest of the week was awesome as well. We had zone conference the day after Thanksgiving where we were given a traditional Thanksgiving dinner which was amazing. We also got to do a lot service this week. We helped someone move, and have been cleaning out some abandoned houses from the hurricanes so people can live there. In addition to all of that, I had the opportunity to give a couple baptismal interviews. It is the coolest thing to be able to meet with people that have completely changed their lives, and to listen to their stories of how much the gospel has blessed them.
