Blessings and Thanks

It is strange being in a country where Thanksgiving is not celebrated. I never realized how much decorations and smells prepared my heart for the season until I came here. This week we will celebrate the holiday with family from the city. We are excited, and especially excited about starting some new traditions that we can carry out in the years to come for our kids. But we will also be missing our families in America. We do have so much to be thankful for. Joel and I have made a total of about 25 friends in this city. I never would have imagined all the people that we would become friends with in such a short amount of time. And when I say friends, I mean we have spent time in their homes and dined with them. It has been an amazing opportunity and a huge blessing!

This city is much more Westernized than some in our country, and we have been able to be blessed with such things as: Hormel bacon, Hormel hot dogs, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, KFC, ketchup, McCormick spices, Hershey's chocolate, OREOS, etc. The list could continue. We know that we may not have these things in times to come, so now we can be extremely thankful for the little pieces of America that we can hold onto.
But most of all we are thankful for people back home cheering us on and encouraging us. We are thankful for friends who speak our language, friends who want to teach us a new language, and people that give us smiles as we pass. This truly has been a smooth transition and for that we are SO SO SO thankful.
We are including some pictures of friends that we have made.