Pat & Jim in Pittsburgh: Halloween--a weird sort of holiday!

We enjoyed a few Halloween festivities the week before Halloween as we participated in an activity after our zone training. We went to Schenly Park as a zone, had a barbeque and carved pumpkins. It was really fun to all be together. We feel like we could get to know some of the zone members that live outside of Pittsburgh and who we don't see very often. The elders and sisters have long, hard days sometimes. They have appointments that cancel at the last minute, people who say rude things, and many times they just feel a little down and rejected. We have to admire them for being upbeat most of the time no matter what they encounter. A few activities of fun and relaxation really help them cope too. We try to support these activities as much as we can. This particular activity even attracted nearby kids who came to join us.

We also took some leftover pumpkins to one of the families we visit and taught them what Halloween is all about. We have always thought the concepts behind Halloween are a little strange ourselves, and so it was a little hard to enlighten them on it's meaning. Anyway, we tried to make some sense out of skeletons, ghosts, begging for candy, and destroying food that they are used to using every last bit of in South Africa. In the end we tried to just convey that rather than trying to figure it out that it might be better to just have fun with the holiday and enjoy an excuse to do something a little different.

While we were carving pumpkins with them it was interesting to see the mom of the family snatch up the seeds. She said one of the foods that they enjoy in Africa is to dry the seeds, grind them into powder, and then make a soup from the powder and other ingredients. The kids also told us that they usually pick the pumpkins green rather than orange and that they eat the leaves as a spinach type dish.

So the week before Halloween President Johnson's weekly letter told us that all missionaries should be in their apartments by 6 PM on Halloween night. He encouraged everyone to clean our apartments, get caught up on study, or just try to find useful things to do. Obviously, missionaries in the past may have pushed the envelope

just a bit too much with

Halloween activities. Anyway, that didn't really cause too much of a problem for us since it's been quite awhile since we have had the urge to go trick or treating. The thing that seemed strange though is that no one trick or treats in our apartment building either because of all the locked doors and security.

So we spent Halloween evening cleaning, organizing and getting texts of pictures from home. We really enjoyed seeing the costumes of our crazy kids and grandkids. It turned out to be a very fun night for us.