Thankful for so much

My Niece Natalie came to spend a week with us.  It was so great to have someone from "home" (even though she now lives in Australia for 2 years) come clear over here to see us.  She is always so happy and brings such joy with her it did our hearts good to have her come. While Natalie was here we visited some great sites.  Unfortunately, our camera battery died right after we left the school closing I showed in our last blog.  Natalie did take some great pictures for us and she will be sending them to us and then I can share the memories of Sandakan.  Sandakan was great.  We visited the Oran Utan park, the probiscus monkey park, the crocodile farm, the Sandakan war memorial and the Agnes Keith house.  It was so much fun to have Natalie visit.  She is such an inspiration to me and I love her to pieces.

On the day she left, we visited Mari-Mari, a cultural village here in Borneo.  Think Polynesian Cultural center only much much smaller.

This is Natalie tasting some of the honey at one of the villages in Mari-Mari.  The bees that make this honey are very tiny but the honey is very yummy.  It must take them forever to make a thimble full.

Here I am trying my lips at the blow pipe.  No poison dart on the end though.  Not that it would have mattered much.  It's harder than it looks to blow that dart out the end of the big long pipe.  This was in the head hunter village.  A true head hunter would hit you with the poison dart and then cut off your head and take it to the father of your beloved to prove that he could take care of a bride.  Too bad the custom fell out of favor.  It might be fun to have a head hanging by your family photo "The one that got away".

One of the villages had a kind of in-door trampoline made out of wood.  It kind of hurt your feet to jump on it.  Here are Nat and I jumping on the tramp.  The object is to get the trampoline bouncing really good and then jump up really high and try to reach a prize that is hanging from the roof.  We didn't even come close, but the guys in the native dress could really jump high and get the prize.

THANK YOU NATALIE FOR COMING TO VISIT US.  WE WERE SO HAPPY TO HAVE YOU WITH US.  THANKS FOR LAUGHING AT THE SAME CRAZY THINGS.

It was Thanksgiving week here in Borneo, but not too many Borneoans realized it.  We did and had a great Thanksgiving Day.  I was able to find a Norbest turkey from Moroni, Utah and potatoes from Idaho.  Not too bad for way over here.  We invited the elders, sisters and a newly returned missionary, David Liew (who served in Virginia) over to our apartment for a Thanksgiving feast.  And feast they did.  It is so great and so much fun to watch the elders enjoy the food like they did.  You would think they hadn't had a Thanksgiving dinner in oh 1 year.

The Thanksgiving table all set and waiting for the feast to begin.

The group ready to start eating as soon as we get through taking pictures.

Get closer to the table, it's almost almost time to start eating.  Just 30 more pictures to take.

The group after eating.  We are all so full we can hardly move.  Front row l to r: David Liew, Elder Petersen, Elder Gottfriedson, Elder Taddeus, Elder Schuetz.  Back row, l to r:  Sis. Cabella, Sis. Wilson, Elder Honey, Sis. whats-her-name, Elder Glad and Elder Parker.  They all had to get back to missionary work at 6 pm but they made sure they took lots of left overs home with them.  When I was making the rolls, I thought, I have made too much dough.  I am going to have so many rolls, I will have to freeze them.  Silly me.  By the time everyone cleared out, I had managed to save just 2 rolls for Ben and I out of 5 dozen.  It was a wonderful wonderful Thanksgiving and we will certainly always remember our Thanksgiving in Malaysia.  It was great to reflect on all the extraordinary blessings we have each day in our life.  We are so thankful for good families, good children, good grandchildren and good friends.  We love you all. E/S Read