Gratitude

The past month or so I've been (very, very slowly) typing up my mission journal.  Missions are crazy!  Sometimes as I'm reading I just can't believe I volunteered to do these things.  Don't get me wrong, I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to serve God on a mission and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  But it has been funny to see some of the things that have made my mental Gratitude List this Thanksgiving as I've relived some of my mission.  Here are a few-

• I don't have to eat over processed food in a cafeteria every day. 
• I don't have to spend every day in a tiny room full of stinky 19 year old boys (all of whom just consumed massive amounts of that over processed cafeteria food...) and a window that will not open to let in fresh air. 
• I get to wear pants whenever I want.
• I get to walk barefoot in my own house.  On carpet.  
• Whenever I want to talk to my family I can just call them.
• Every 6 weeks I don't have to wait to see if someone else will decide if I'm going to move, drag every one of my possessions through hundreds of miles of dirt roads and city trains (praying all the while that no one will steal them from me), and then settle into a whole new city where every single person including my roommate is a stranger and speaks a language I hardly know.  
• I don't have to wash my clothes in a bucket.
• We live in a home with six rooms.  SIX.  Three of them have running water and none of them have dirt floors.  It is a mansion in comparison to my friends in Argentina.

Life is really pretty good.  I am grateful for Thanksgiving for giving us time to sit down and think about all of the reasons why.