THANKSGIVING TURKEY, HAM & VENISON (ALMOST)

This last week has been busy with the first five of over a dozen new cars having come in, the Thanksgiving-day holiday, another ER visit, and our first snow of the year.  According to State Farm, insurance claims for collisions with deer rise significantly in the fall when deer are mating, with November having the highest claim frequency. And deer tend to be most active around dawn and dusk, particularly between 6-9 p.m.  With our over 90-car fleet, statistically, it should come as no surprise that we would have such an accident. Wednesday, shortly after 6 p.m., I (Russell) got a call from two of our young sister missionaries. They were on a quiet country two-lane highway, saw the deer off to the side of the road, slowed down and watched it going away from the road; only to then have it turn back around and run into the oncoming light of their car’s headlights.  The sisters said they were okay, and that the car wasn’t really hurt too bad.  I asked if they had “bagged” their deer. To which they responded that they couldn’t find it or even any blood.  I think all three of us were pleased that the deer survived, but it did mean that we wouldn’t be having venison for Thanksgiving dinner.

 

On Thanksgiving Day, we had a fabulous dinner with most (19 of 25) of the senior missionaries.  One benefit of having lots of senior sisters is that they can cook well, really well!  We had eight kinds of pies. Eileen had been worried about the young missionaries cooking their own turkeys and thought she might be spending Thanksgiving evening dealing with cases of food poisoning.  We did have a few such cases, but it wasn’t from the missionaries’ cooking.  I chalk that up as a win.

 

Friday afternoon/evening, Eileen found herself back at an ER not far from Independence with two young missionaries.  Eileen came home that night frustrated, after taking the missionaries back to their apartment (they got there via ambulance).  She felt that the situation could have been easily avoidable.The next morning Eileen was up early, making her medical notes about the past night’s ER visit in the Church’s Missionary Medical computer system.  Around the time she finished, another young missionary called her.  He was just reporting in following some medical challenges he had recently experienced.   He told Eileen that he was doing significantly better, which given the circumstances was pretty miraculous.  After the call, I could tell Eileen was still frustrated over the events of the previous evening.  I knew she was justified in her feelings, but also recognized her being upset wasn’t doing her or anyone else any good.  The thought came to me to ask her to focus on two blessings.  The first blessing being that one month earlier, Eileen had recorded in her Missionary Medical notes regarding the applicable missionary from the night before, that this very issue was likely to occur if corrective action by the missionary was not taken. The second blessing being the call she had just received from the young elder.   Both the timing of the call and the fact that he did report in (Eileen generally has to chase the missionaries down to follow up with them) was unusual.  Both events were blessings, easy to overlook, but blessings, tender mercies, nonetheless. My guess is that I often miss God’s attempts to bless/help me during my difficult times because I am too focused on my problem of the moment.

Two of our zone leaders, Elder Perry and Elder Smith.  Elder Perry cut his finger pretty badly on Thanksgiving. It wouldn't stop bleeding and the urgent cares were closed. We came up with our creative way to bandage it. He told me to say that his companion threw an exacto knife at him and he didn't catch it correctly and it cut him. In reality he was cutting his fishing line and cut his finger in addition.

                                                     Senior missionary Thanksgiving dinner.

                                                        The options were plentiful

We had Elder Fackrell and Elder Dodd over to our home last week. I sure was impressed with them both.

The first snowstorm of the year. The 27 degree weather made us really miss our garage.

We went on a shopping spree for a young missionary who didn't come to the mission field with the clothing he needed. The Youngs joined us. It was a very nice outing and he seemed very appreciative. 

After a very frustrating evening the previous night in the ER Russell was trying to cheer me up. We went and bought a replacement computer for the one I have been using which is on it's last leg. We found this restaurant right around the corner. This restaurant was one of Russell's favorite in Houston where he spent a good part of his career. Chuy's is gaudy, loud and has delicious food. We were both surprised to find it, and my spirits were definitely lifted.

This was a humongous and delicious piece of tres leche cake we split for two different meals. 

We went to pick up  5 new vehicles for our mission. I (Eileen) was really impressed with some of the gadgets and technology in the car. Since I sold my car before this mission and it was a 2007, I haven't seen some of the cool things cars can do now. Russell's car is a 2013. The missionaries are driving much newer cars than all of the senior missionaries.  It takes Russell about a half hour to transfer the driver monitoring device from an old to new car, but that is still a long time when temperature is close to freezing.