So, this is a fun little story that goes back to September of 2008! Let's start there! Wayne retired from his medical practice and we had planned a trip to Europe for a month. As a part of that trip, we planned to visit Finland for a week......where Wayne had served his mission. We had a wonderful time. When we visited Lappeenranta the Bishop was out of town but his wife invited us out to their home. We readily accepted. We were trying to make as many connections as we could. It was quite a ways out in the 'woods' but a very pleasant drive. What a great family. What a sweet gal. The Silvennoinen's have a passel of kids.....6 or 7 I think. We visited for a few minutes then we were on our way.

As we were leaving Sister Silvennoinen gave us some delicious homemade bread / rolls that she had just made. That was actually our lunch that day.

Fast forward to April 2009. In preparation to leaving for our mission to the Helsinki Finland Temple, we decided that we were going to take a little long-weekend trip to Nauvoo. First of all, I have a cousin (Margaret Hein) and her husband (Howard) who are serving a temple mission in Nauvoo. She had encouraged us to come see them before we left for Finland and to see them!! Great idea. Off we went.

While there we 'found' this great little art studio owned by an LDS Artist.....Michael Bedard. His works were beautiful. We bought a large picture for our home of the Nauvoo Temple that we just loved. In talking with Michael, we told him we were headed for Finland for a mission. He told us he wanted to give us a small version of the larger picture that we purchased and asked us to give it to anyone we wanted to. He wanted to get him 'works' in Finland. We were excited and knew exactly WHO that person would be. Yes, Sister Silvennoinen. Their family, she told us last September, was saving their money so they could come to America! What a nice thing to have in their home......a very nice picture of the Nauvoo Temple.

She was here at the temple this week......a day trip to the temple with some of the sisters in the Lappeenranta Ward. When we saw her we were so excited because we could now give her the picture that we had been carrying around with us for several months!! She was very, very pleased to have it.

And so the memories continue to 'build up' in our daily activities of being on our mission here at the Helsinki Temple!