South African Thanksgiving - 2013

We are always excited for the holidays, and this year was no exception.  With Thanksgiving soon at hand, I started planning the menu.   This was not difficult as I am such a traditionalist, I started planning the same things that we usually have.  Sister Hunt had to be in DuBai to help with a new grand baby, since her son had to be in Nigeria for work.  The timing interfered with our Thanksgiving Day plans, but that was fine.  We didn't have another senior couple last year and I managed to do the preparations all by myself.  This year it would actually be easier since I actually had a stove top and oven, which I didn't have last year, as mine died during a thunder and lightening storm the day before Thanksgiving.  I was way excited to have such modern facilities right at my fingertips.

We did our shopping for the feast.  We knew that turkeys would be a challenge, so we started shopping early for them.  Several of the ones I saw had an inch of frost on the inside of the package, so I knew they were old and had been in the freezer for a long time.  I did find some at another store.  They even had the pop up timer in them.  I was excited!  "They're getting more modern every year in Africa", I thought.  The only problem was, they were very small.  They were even smaller than the regular turkey breasts that I usually buy at home.  Even though there would be 7 of us, I thought I should get two  just to be sure.  You know, these Elders eat a lot!

These sweet little turkeys, getting ready for the pan.

With the groceries all bought, I was set.  I just needed to plan my schedule, since I was to bring all the rolls for the luncheon for Zone Conference.  They had also planned to do a Thanksgiving dinner.  I thought this was a little much to have a dinner on Thursday and and another one on Saturday.  But, since I wasn't in charge of it,  I just did my food assignment and kept my mouth shut!  On Tuesday, I made my rolls for Zone Conference, 90 of them, and put them in zip lock bags and put them in the freezer to take out Friday morning when we left.  This way, I would have these preparations out of the way and wouldn't have to  do it Thanksgiving night.

These were just a few of the many that I made.  

The good thing was, they turned out nice!  Hooray!

.

On Wednesday morning, I had my day planned to a "T".  About    8:30, we received a message from Jennifer that she was in town, and would I like to go Visiting Teaching with her?  Great, this wasn't on my schedule today, only food preparations!  However, I thought what a sacrifice it is for Jennifer to come over an hour to Nelspruit  and the expense involved for taxi fare.  I also knew that when you do the Lord's work first first, everything else falls into place.  So I changed my schedule and told her, "Yes, I could go Visiting at 10:00, and told her I would pick her up at the Church at that time.

I got another call from a member who lives an hour away in another direction saying she was in Nelspruit and could I pick her up and take her to Kamagugu to pick up her baby from the other Grandma's.  So I met her and picked her up, then went to the Church to get Jennifer, then to Kamagugu to drop Trish off,and we started off to do Visiting Teaching.  Several people weren't home, but we were able to catch two of the sisters.  We came back to our flat.  I fixed her some lunch and then dropped her off at the taxi area for her ride back home.

At 3:00, I finally  started on my pies, dressing and other food preparations.  Surprisingly enough I was able to get most everything finished without staying up all night!  Actually the Lord blessed me to be able to get these things done in a timely manner.

These sweet turkeys are getting ready for the pan.

All went well with my other preparations with the exceptions of the turkeys.  I noticed that on the bag that the turkey was packaged in, it said, "Packed with Brine"  I wasn't sure what brine meant.  I soon found out when I went to make the gravy on Thursday.  When I was bringing it to a boil to make gravy, I tasted a little bit of it to see if it was flavorful enough.  Wow!  what a surprise.  The broth was so salty I could hardly stand it.  I couldn't understand why it would be so salty, because I had rinsed it well.  I tried everything I could to downplay the salt factor, but it was still bad.  Even the turkey was very salty when we sliced it.  Oh well, we would just have to put lots of dressing and cranberries on it!

We had been able to find real orange sweet potatoes this year.

Last year, all we could find was white!

The pumpkin and lemon meringue pies were all done and were waiting on the shelf on the patio.  

The banana cream pie was in the fridge.

The table was set and ready/

Elder Saintonge and Elder Flynn were strumming and chillin' 

while we waited for the KaNyamazane Elders. 

Elder Baxter donned his African Apron while he sliced the turkey.

The dinner is finally ready!  

Turkey, cranberries, potatoes & gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, 

fruit salad and rolls, and 3 kinds of pies!

                  Despite the earlier problems, the meal seemed to be enjoyed the Elders.

Starting on the left:  Elders Flynn, Elungu, Hunt, Baxter, Saintonge, & Kolani.

Making memories!

                             While we were all together, we held our District Meeting
                    since we had to leave early in the morning for Tzaneen for Zone Conference.

We enjoyed our pies after we finished with our meeting.

Thanksgiving was a new experience for our two African Elders, but they seemed to enjoy most of it.
                        They each got to fix another plate to take home with them for later.

It ended up being a very good day!  Our last Thanksgiving in South Africa!