While millions of Americans will travel this next week to visit friends and family, thousands of young people, serving far from their native shores, will celebrate gratitude working straight through the holiday.

Full-time missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who live outside the United States often miss the holiday in a flurry of everyday activity.

Many say their greatest memories of gratitude come from examples investigators set by spending every day as if it were Thanksgiving.

"I learned a lot about reciprocity," said John Scott Keller, 21, a sophomore from Salt Lake City.

Keller, an international studies major who served his mission in Bangkok, Thailand, said the people of his mission exhibited Thanksgiving kindness by serving one another without though for holidays or special occasions.

"The Thai people are very giving, all the time." Keller said. "It's not anything new to them, but they might take a moment to each say something that they're thankful for. They're so grateful for all they have and are willing to share it."

Keller said the Thai investigators and members who lived in the areas where he served taught a more lasting and profound message of gratitude with everyday living than they did during the one day set aside for celebration.

"They know about Thanksgiving," Keller said. "They call it the Christian's Day of Thanksgiving. You'll say prayers and have a big meal. But it's not so much different from any other day. You just focus on thanking. The fact that they give and are grateful all the time and not just on Thanksgiving is a good reminder for me."

Thai people share in an already warm and giving culture where residents hold huge feasts and share food with one another, Keller said. Those missionaries that didn't share a traditional Thanksgiving meal with American ex-patriots living in or near Bangkok instead shared a generous feast with the people they were teaching.

Although the missionaries taught residents about the American holiday, Keller said the people of Bangkok taught him more about daily expressions of appreciation.

"I shouldn't wait for Thanksgiving to be thankful or to share food. I should always be focused on thanking and I should always be focused on sharing what I have with other people."

Although she shared a largely traditional Thanksgiving meal with a group of American missionaries in her zone, Valene Hadlock, 25, a masters student from Mesa, Ariz., said, without mom's mashed potatoes, Thanksgiving in Lisbon, North wasn't the same.

"It made me more aware that I wasn't with my family," Hadlock said. "I was more grateful for my family I really noticed that lack."

Hadlock she will always remember the pride of the Portuguese people in their humble circumstances.

"They were grateful for the little things," she said. "They were grateful for the chance to get an education. Most students there don't finish any more than the equivalent of high school."

Sophomore Tyson Earl Taylor, a 21-year-old business major from Boise, Idaho said he and his companions didn't celebrate the holiday. Instead they taught investigators the gospel like every other day that week.

However, Taylor said the strong family ties held by the people of Mendoza, Argentina taught him more about gratitude than he might have learned had he celebrated the holiday.

"I learned to have more gratitude in my life and appreciate my family and what I have here in the United States," Taylor said.

For his first Thanksgiving in Taipei, Taiwan, international relations major Todd Woodruff, a 21-year-old sophomore from Seattle, Wash., said he and his companions shared a turkey at the bishop's house and talked about American traditions.

"Even though they don't have a specific holiday, they do have their ways of showing gratitude, though it's different than maybe western terms," Woodruff said.

Instead, the people of Taiwan express their gratitude in everyday striving, he said. To them, words aren't enough. People must back their words with action.

"The fathers worked hard to provide educational opportunities for their kids and their kids worked hard at school to get good grades to show their parents how grateful they were for their opportunities."

Unfortunately the scarcity of words also works in reverse.

Woodruff said many of the children he served did not feel their parents loved them or appreciated them because the parents lacked the words to express their appreciation.

"I think that actually goes to show the importance of physically saying, 'I'm grateful for what you do. Thank you for what you do,'" Woodruff said.

Daren Cole, 25, a senior from Preston Idaho studying agricultural business, said he and his companions didn't celebrate the holiday while he served in Sydney, Australia.

Cole did say he learned it's important to take a day to acknowledge how grateful he was since he didn't have the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving with the rest of the U.S. really take time out to reflect and ponder and remember a day to be grateful to set it aside for thankfulness.

"I have a million, billion lessons these people taught me," said Katie Shaha, 23, a senior from Honolulu, Hawaii majoring in recreation therapy. "I've been back a year and a couple of weeks and it still completely amazes me how much Christ can do for people."

Shaha said although she didn't celebrate the holiday with a turkey and stuffing, one of the greatest lessons of gratitude and simple thanksgiving came on a miserable day in November.

"It was raining outside," Shaha said. "In Paraguay, when it rains, the streets turn to mud and puddles. You're totally filthy the entire day, yet the families still took us in."

On this particular day Shaha said she and her companion had stopped by the home of a recently widowed mother of seven. Chairs borrowed for the wake still dotted the earthen floor of her home.

Although this family lived day to day, they mixed up and served the best they had for the sister missionaries and did so with a deep sense of joy.

"As I drank my burnt sugar and deep-fried flour, I was filled with absolute love and shame," Shaha said, reading from a journal entry recorded that November afternoon. "I'm trying to be poetic because this was one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever seen in my life. In this moment I never wanted to be selfish again. It was so cozy and beautiful. Here they were, with seven kids. They hardly have money for sugar or flour but they were totally piling them on for us."



Copyright Brigham Young University 22 Nov 2002