Two days before Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is next week! I'm going to remember the things I have done two days before the holiday--namely, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

2012. I met with my editing group in my editing class. Some students were mad that we students had to be there but the professor didn't. After that meeting, I went over to the Cougareat and bought some pumpkin soup. I considered getting a donut with Thanksgiving sprinkles, but I decided against it. Then I got ready to go home. I had offered a ride to a girl in my ward, Larissa, so I went over and helped her put her stuff in my car. She ate leftover pizza while I drove. I went on Center Street to get on the freeway and had problems with lanes ending. Larissa and I talked about classes we were taking that semester and the next, and Larissa said she was taking a family history class for fun. My GPS got me off the freeway in the right place, but I kept getting lost when I took her to her aunt's house. I helped her get her stuff out. Then I drove home, turning on some Thanksgiving songs on my Peanuts CD. I was so happy to be home and share all my Thanksgiving candy.

2010. The news had been telling us all about a great blizzard that would be coming that day. When I got up in the morning, it was extremely windy and bitter cold. I went outside to try to pick up our trash can and the garbage that fell out of it, and I got super cold in just a short time--I remember talking to the guys across the street about how crazy it was. Then I went and got a haircut. I remember saying that I was worried about driving home from work in the snow. After the haircut, I went to Winegar's and got some apple cider to spice. I came home and put my spiced cider on. I was preparing for work when one of my leads, Dave, called and told me that they were sending people home and telling us not to come in. So I got to stay home. My mom and dad later came home and I told them how I had lucked out by not having to go in. I remember watching the storm come in; the clouds were really ominous. It was a good snowstorm, but it wasn't as blizzardy as they had predicted (and as I had expected, with how cold and windy it was that morning). I could only get blurry pictures.

2009. I was on exchanges with Elder Hansen in Pullman. We bundled up that morning--it was freezing, certainly not what I was used to in Lewiston. There was snow all over.

We went around various places that day. For lunch we stopped at Jack in the Box and I got a pumpkin shake with my meal. Later, we were near an apartment complex when Elder Hansen got a call from an Asian girl named Penny. He was telling her how he tries to be Christlike, and I heard her say, "You look like Christ!" We both silently laughed, and after the phone call, I said, "Did she say, 'You look like Christ'?" He told me how she had pasted his face onto the picture of Jesus looking down and holding the lamb that is on the Restoration pamphlet. He said she had made a cartoon drawing with Elder Keddington saying her only options were to get baptized. After the phone call we got out of the car and went to knock some doors, but I don't think anyone answered. Most of the snow had melted at this point. Then we stopped at another apartment complex, where there were signs telling the residents to keep their heaters on for Thanksgiving. We went and had dinner with a married couple. Elder Hansen told them how we had come out at the same time, and they might have known that we were going home in less than a week. I remember thinking that those members must have been thinking that I didn't act like I'd been out that long. Eventually we went back to Lewiston. When we got to our apartment, I said to Elder Hansen, "You look like Christ." Elder Keddington said, "Did you guys see Penny?" Elder Hansen explained that she had called him. Elder Keddington then told us the story how she showed them a PowerPoint with the picture of Jesus and said, "Who is this?" They said, "Jesus...?" She said, "No, who is it really?" and then came the mashup of Elder Hansen on Jesus. The night before, we had coined the term "ferociolicious," and Elder Keddington wrote the word on the picture I had drawn on the whiteboard of various scary things happening to Elder LaPratt, but he spelled it "Froiouslious."

2008. Elder Love called a less-active who lived way out in the boonies to see if we could come visit him. He reluctantly accepted. We drove out to really rural places. We went to a place that was a little gully in the middle of wheat fields where there were some houses. We were amazed at the frost at that location.

 We had a potential investigator to check on in that neighborhood, but I think I convinced us not to. (We should have, though, since we rarely went out that way. I think we didn't because it was getting dark and we didn't know where to park and just plain fear.) We checked on a less active someplace, not knowing what to expect, but she was very nice and let us in. She actually told us she went to the Medical Lake ward instead of the Davenport Branch because she didn't feel welcome in Davenport. She told us that her neighbors would probably be mean to us. Then we drove off to our appointment. He was the son of a member in a nursing home. He was nice, and we visited him and his sister. While we were there, I could hear someone watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving in the other room. When we left and went to our car, it was snowing lightly. The man came out and told us that he had been reluctant to have us there because his sister had lost her testimony--but she had been courteous to us as well. We were driving when we encountered a sign that said, "Water over roadway." We were out in the middle of nowhere. We got out and examined the water on the roadway, and this place looked just like a place I had seen in a dream in the MTC, in which my aunt's van got stuck on a muddy road. We were debating whether or not to drive through the river.

Elder Love worried that the ice in the stream might do some damage, so we turned around and went another way. In our travelings, we were amused by this sign. (We were in farm country, after all.)

2007. Susanne took me to get a splint for my sprained ankle. I think we stopped at Arctic Circle, and while we were there, I saw a bread truck fueling up at the gas station next door. Apparently the driver forgot to put it in park, because suddenly the truck went forward and the driver was running alongside it. It didn't stop until it went over the curb and hit the gas station sign. I might have watched The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas that night (since I had just gotten the DVD), but I can't remember if it was that night or the next.

2005. I can remember sitting in my biology class, wearing a yellow polo shirt with a red tie.

2004.  I probably had some apple pie ice cream. I remember studying my chemistry flashcards and finishing all the homework I meant to, which might have been the only time I did so in all of high school. I might have watched the Thanksgiving episode of Bewitched.

2003. I gave the devotional in seminary, although I can't remember what it was. I was wearing my yellow shirt. That night, I went with my parents to Hale Center Theater to see Annie. My mom pointed out a man wearing a toupee. My dad said at least it was better than Annie's, but my mom and I thought he said "better than Allie's," since baby Allie had some hair problems. When we got home, I ate chips and salsa and cheese.

1999. During lunchtime they always showed videos, and on this day they were showing A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, which I had never seen before. I especially found the cooking scene amusing. There was a display of harvest vegetables, and they were giving them away, so I took some small pumpkins. That night my mom went to Toys R Us and bought VHS tapes of The Iron Giant and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. The Iron Giant came with a toy, and I tried to get it out but ended up destroying the plastic on the clamshell case. My friend David Christensen came over for a sleepover, and I think we watched both of those movies.

1996. We were having a Thanksgiving meal in the classroom. We all had paper Pilgrim and Indian hats and headbands and put our desks together like giant tables. The hot lunch people went and got their Thanksgiving meals from the cafeteria, while we paper sack people stayed and started eating. That afternoon we played some kind of game (maybe Bingo) with Reese's Pieces. Miss Slater said she picked that candy because of their fall colors.