Monday, October 13, 2008

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!






Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! "Oh Canada, Our home and native land." While I lived in Toronto, I was able to celebrate two Canadian Thanksgivings and while celebrating today with my husband, it brought a flood of missionary memories. I miss living in the big city, seeing the sites but most of all I miss the people I met and taught about Jesus Christ. For those of you how don't know and just might be reading my blog, I served an eighteen month volunteer mission to Toronto. While serving the people I gained a stronger testimony of Jesus Christ as my Savior and of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a modern day Prophet. If you would like to know more about what I taught as a missionary, just checkout the churches websites or feel free to ask me some questions
www.mormon.org
www.lds.org
Anyways, Michael and I celebrated by having a Thanksgiving feast with a oven-baked turkey, mashed potatoes, veggies and cider. Then our weekly Family Home Evening Lesson (Each Monday night, Michael and I try to spend time together doing a church activity or lesson)was on appreciating our blessing. I am so blessed!
Here is a little history of Canadian Thanksgiving since I am often asked how the holiday was established.
The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. The feast was one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in North America, although celebrating the harvest and giving thanks for a successful bounty of crops had been a long-standing tradition throughout North America by various First Nations and Native American groups. First Nations and Native Americans throughout the Americas, including the Pueblo, Cherokee, Cree and many others organized harvest festivals, ceremonial dances, and other celebrations of thanks for centuries before the arrival of Europeans in North America [7]. Frobisher was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him — Frobisher Bay.
So Happy Thanksgiving to my friends in the cold white north!

3 comments:

XOXOXOXO said...

I'm grateful for you!

anoyce said...

How fun! My sister-in-law is serving in QC right now, and she wrote home about their Thanksgiving...so fun!

Anonymous said...

Love the bottom pic- that was one of my favorite ones you sent me on the mission.