I Am Thankful for...

• Aunt Edith for her loving letters and ceaseless service, which took her back and forth between the States, the Caribbean and South Africa, and inspired me to model my life after hers.
  
• Vesal for being an excellent role model and giving me many tools that have proved very valuable.
  
• Kay for paving the pathway for Cristina and my service in St. Kitts.
  
• Jen for starting the Badasht Academy, which is only beginning to empower hundreds of youth who will eventually empower tens of thousands of others.
  
• Martha and Samiyar for their year of service in the Northeast, which helped get Ruhi rolling there and first sparked an interest in doing a year of service myself.
  
• Marguerite and (Hand of the Cause of God) William Sears for the sensational stories of their persistent pioneering.
  
• Mehr for assigning the project that consolidated my thoughts and feelings into the drive to come here and to lead a life of service.
  
• JOn for a great friendship (dire understatement) that has been a window to many others and has brought me into the loop of Bahá'í youth.
• Green Acre and its co-administrators Jeannine and Jim for the setting of the leaps and bounds of my spiritual development.
  
• Cristina for co-seeing this through and being a powerful pioneering partner. (Can you tell I'm shamelessly over alliterating?)
• Lloyd for developing the Noble Youth Alliance, through which we will be able to help form a system that will positively influence hundreds, if not thousands, of students in the Federation.
• Linnea for being a great sister and holding the Franklinville fort. It's been great growing up with you.
  
• Mamma for you gentle guidance.
  
• Pappa for your devotion and loving advise. I love and miss you both!
  
• Halva for being our closest friend on the island and teaching us how to live on it.
  
• the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the Leeward Islands and its Pioneering Committee (Millie and Afsaneh) for their assistance in getting us here and supporting us while we are.
  
• the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States and its Office of International Pioneering (Arjana) for their training that helped us get here and prepared us well.
  
• the Regional Bahá'í Counsil of the Northeastern States for organising the Furútan Institute that "completed" my training in the Ruhi Institute's current courses and allowed me to befriend some wonderful people.
  
• Many other friends (much more than I have listed here) who have and continue to offer loving support Andy, Aundriel, Barbara, Bradley, Briana, Briana, Candace, Cynthia, Darryl, David, Ed, Ed, Eileen, Frank, Gail, Guia, Irene, Javier, Joel, Julia, LD, Michael, Michael, Michael, M0na, Mona, Nicole, Nina, Nishat, Paul, Paul, Philip, Pieter, Scott, Scott, Tandeka, Theodore, Thamar, Tom, Tom, Vickie, Vickle, Wayne.
  

Lavonne had to reschedule our meeting until Saturday. So we were able to go to Cayon for another field trip. We were early and had to just stand around. I felt self-counscious and out of place because things, which I noticed I can be when in an unfamiliar situation in which things don't go as planned. I'm over it. The trip was to Mr. Morris' farm up Monkey Hill. (If Google Earth comes out for Mac soon, I would like to link to views of exact places we go on the island(s).) We planted pumpkin seedlings.

This time we treated Mr. Morris and Mrs. Hutchinson to lunch. At least it works out that we really only paid for our own meals from Tuesday. I didn't speak up about it, but I didn't really want to pay for the beer he had. [Whoa! We just mousetrapped another mouse. We've had enough of their turds in our drawers and cabinets.] Next, he took us to meet his daugher, son-in-law and two-week-old grandson. They are the coordinators of a youth service group and are interested to integrate the Virtues Project and maybe "Breezes of Confirmation." The Bahá'í Faith came up, but we kept silent for the sake of not seeming to offer the moral education project as a means to convert people. Is that too extreme?

Ground turkey was what we had to make a Thanksgiving meal out of. Halva, a vegetarian, recommended making "turkey" balls. I seasoned the turkey and shaped it into balls / patties. Cristina fried them. In honor of Cristina's family tradition we started with saying grace and eating over thanksgiving – the primer for the list above.

I must finish my letter to Aunt Edith and get to sleep as prescribed by Dr. Munk for my sniffles.