This is a Thanksgiving story…

Originally I wasn't going to do anything but float around and visit somefriends. As I was talking to Ruth Helgeson, next door, she was talking abouthaving a turkey dinner so much that it made me feel bad for her. I decidedto make a turkey dinner for her.

The problem is, first, turkeys are very expensive in Taiwan. Secondly, Idon't have the proper equipment to bake with. Although, my next doorneighbor, Suzie, let me use her oven, which is a quarter of the size of anoven in America. It looks like a cute toy and needs to be hooked up to agas tank. The stove sits just four feet away from my bed. If I use it, my room will become like a steam sauna. (small room).

It just so happens that Ibrought a swimming suit with me. I was going to cook it in my room sittingin my swimming suit and pretend that I was in a sauna and sweat it out!

Maybe, in that case, I could loose some weight! And do something good for myskin. Ha! Anyway, I was going to sacrifice myself, and go through all ofthat, but God is good.

Shelly heard about this and said why are you going toall of that trouble when you can just order one? You can get a place to cooka turkey with potatoes for $1,700 NT ($50) - ouch! It told the story aboutwhat I was going to do to my next door neighbor. Suzie told me that her bestfriend has a restaurant and if they have a left-over turkey, then theywould bake it and give it to us for free.

I was willing to go through thetrouble of cooking a turkey, but the Lord delivered me out of it! In the endI got a free turkey, but still with some trouble. This is my Thanksgivingstory!

My continued turkey story:

It begins when it seemed like I was going to get a turkey for free, but Iasked myself, how was I going to make some stuffing? So I asked David andShelley to find bread crumbs. He checked all over but he couldn’t find anybecause they were all sold out.

I looked in the cookbook to get theingredients together and I couldn't find the material so I decided toforget the stuffing. As soon as I decided to give up making the stuffing -what a burden lifted off of me!! I did not realize how much pressure I hadgiven to myself over that stuffing business.

Then I went out to get thepotatoes. They sure sell them in a funny way - the merchandise they have foryou to see is not much and very expensive. Here they don't eat potatoes likein the States. So, I bought about twenty medium sized potatoes and Idelivered them to David McDermot who was going to cook and mash them.

Afterwards, I was looking all over for lettuce to make a salad. I lookedthrough all of the Morning Market and couldn't find anything to make thesalad with. Next, I went to two supermarkets, with no luck in finding it either. In my mind I was thinking how interesting it would be to have saladwithout lettuce! Then I remembered another supermarket called,

"Welcome,"that had a lot of foreign stuff. Sure enough, I found a nice round crispball of lettuce!!

Finally, I was able to put together the material forThanksgiving. John had to go to a class at 7:30 p.m. and so we had to startthe dinner at 4:00 p.m. All together, there were sixteen people. We set thetable over at Ruth's house. It seemed like I had worked very hard, but therewas nothing to put on the table! I was beginning to get discouraged. Whatkind of dinner were we going to have?!

I made a salad and boiled my cornand made gravy, some ranch dressing etc. Finally David and family showed upwith some lumpy mashed potatoes! It still made me happy to see those lumpymashed potatoes! We had bought a nice pumpkin pie because we now have a Costco, which is almost exactly like in the States, from which you can buypumpkin pie.

Then my neighbor, Suzie, tells me that the turkey is going tobe one hour late! I put butter and cookies and some bread and cooked some spaghetti and chicken nuggets for the children along with some rice. Ieven put some hot spicy kimchie on the table! It was a very interestingThanksgiving dinner table! Just in case there was not enough and I didn'tknow how big this turkey was going to be.

Finally, the turkey came! I lookedat it and saw that they had cooked a delicious turkey but it was too smallfor all of us. I decided that I was going to wait to eat!! They also had putsome stuffing inside that was totally different from what we make. It hadbeen stuffed with white lettuce and carrots and onions and some kind offunny stuff and it didn't look good.

I whispered to Ruth, "Do you want totry some of this stuffing?" She replied, "It doesn't look very appetizing!" Then I asked Ruth, "What should I do with it?" She said, "Save it for Suzie’s dog!" We must say that there were, actually, 17 at this dinner, because

Suzie’s dog got a part of it!

Ruth asked the blessing and we all began to eat. Everybody was enjoyingtheir meal, but remember, I am serving 16 people all alone. About the timewe finished the dinner, there was nothing much left over! Not even a turkeycrumb! It's a good thing that I waited!

At the end of the dinner, John gavea short version of the Thanksgiving story. While, I was cleaning up afterthe dinner, they were sure having some good fellowship. It made it allworthwhile.

When I came home, my whole house was a mess including the top ofmy bed, because the whole top of the bed had become my table! David wasteasing me afterwards, that he liked my bed spread because it had become mytable cloth!

This is the end of my story.

Hyoncha will live happily ever after until the next Thanksgiving.

Still, to be continued....?

Love,

Hyoncha