Lessons of 2025
Lesson No. Forty-Five

Thoughts on Thanksgiving 2025

Introduction – In preparing this Thanksgiving Message I was reminded about my Thanksgiving Message I wrote ten years ago in 2015 entitled, Squanto – An Instrument in Preparation for the Restoration. As I reread this account I recognized for the first time the similarities between Joseph who was sold into slavery in Egypt and Squanto who was sold into slavery in Europe.

Squanto, who he was and what he did. I believe the Lord used Squanto in preparation for the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Much of the following comes from The Miracle of Squanto’s Path to Plymouth by Eric Metaxas:

Every Thanksgiving we remember that, to escape religious persecution, the Pilgrims sailed to the New World, landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620. But numerous trading ships had visited the area earlier. Around 1608 an English ship dropped anchor off the coast of what is today Plymouth, Mass., ostensibly to trade metal goods for the natives’ beads and pelts. The friendly Patuxets received the crew but soon discovered their dark intentions. A number of the braves were brutally captured, taken to Spain and sold into slavery.

One of them, a young man named Squanto, was bought by a group of Catholic friars, who treated him well and freed him. Around 1612, Squanto made his way to London, where he learned the ways and language of the English. In 1618, and in return for serving as an interpreter, Squanto was given one-way passage on a ship going to the New World.

After crossing the Atlantic Squanto returned to the village of his birth, but his tribe had perished from smallpox, brought by Europeans. Had Squanto not been kidnapped, he would almost surely have died. But now he was a man alone in the woods.

But there is more to Squanto’s story. In November of 1620, the Pilgrims, desiring religious freedom and intending to build a Christian colony, crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower. They intended to go to Virginia, but were forced to stop at Plymouth, the very spot where Squanto was living.

The Pilgrim’s journey was very difficult, and their landing at Plymouth proved even more so. Forced to live in miserably wet and cold conditions, half of them died during their first winter in the New World. They seriously considered returning to Europe.

Then one day in the spring of 1621, Squanto appeared. He spoke perfect English and had lived in London more recently than they had. Furthermore, he had grown up at the exact place where they had settled. Because of this, Squanto knew everything about how to survive there; not only how to plant corn and squash, but how to find fish and lobsters and eels and much else.

That they found each other it was a great blessing to both Squanto and the Pilgrims. Squanto had nowhere to go, so the Pilgrims adopted him as one of their own, and he lived with them on the land of his childhood. For the Pilgrims this changed everything, making it possible for them to stay and thrive. Squanto even helped broker a peace with the local tribes, one that lasted 50 years, an amazing accomplishment considering the troubles settlers would face later.

All of this was not coincidence as some people want us to believe. To the Pilgrims, Squanto was an answer to their prayers and a miracle from God. Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford wrote in his journal that Squanto “became a special instrument sent of God”. Governor Bradford also wrote about the similarities between ancient Joseph and Squanto who were both sold into slavery but became instruments in the hand of God to deliver His people.

Squanto died, unexpectedly, a year later in 1622. Governor Bradford wrote that Squanto wanted “the Pilgrims to pray for him, that he might go to the Englishmen’s God in heaven.” I believe that Squanto’s work on earth was finished, that Squanto and the Pilgrims have accepted the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ when it was taught to them in the spirit world, and that they are now in Paradise awaiting a glorious resurrection.

Joseph of Egypt and Squanto. Joseph was a most remarkable man whose life is described in Genesis 37-50. I recently restudied Joseph’s life, which I highly recommend. I was reminded of many things that I have not thought about for some time, including that a majority of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are literal descendants of Joseph through either Ephriam or Manasseh.

There are remarkable similarities between the lives of Joseph and Squanto. Both were sold into slavery and taken far from their family and home. Joseph and Squanto were delivered out of captivity so they could be instruments the Lord used to bless both ancient and latter day Israel.

Testimony. The Lord guided ancient Israel through Joseph and Moses. He guided Squanto, the Pilgrims, and our Founding Fathers so the Gospel of Jesus Christ could be restored in the latter days. He guides latter day Israel through living Prophets beginning with the Prophet Joseph Smith and continuing with President Dallin H. Oaks.

All of this enables temples to be built where the work of individual salvation and family exaltation is accomplished for both the living and the dead. These greatest of all blessings are made possible through the covenantal love of our Heavenly Father and His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We have great reason to rejoice and be filled with joy as we celebrate Thanksgiving.

Released on November 23rd. 2025.