How can it possibly be

PREPARATION DAY AGAIN, ALREADY!!

Baby, it's cold outside! And we do mean cold!

As we walked up the road to the bus stop, it was 9:00 a.m. and the sun was just starting to come up. Just couldn't resist another picture! And with a blue sky....we haven't seen that in several days. That called for another temple picture

We decided to connect from the BUS to the TRAIN to the TROLLY CAR! Have a little variety in our travels downtown. The statues are outside of the main train station in downtown Helsinki, which is right next to the Ernst & Young Office (that is for YOU, David!).

The Christmas Torri was just a'callin' our names again. So that was our destination point again today. Only one more week and it will be gone. How fun it is to go there. We have had light snow for the past couple of days and so that added to the festivities. And with the freezing temps (at least for us warm blooded people.....another in the teens and below is cold), it just made it feel like Christmas!

The above shows a purchase that I just made. Thank goodness these folks have little heaters inside of their little 'stores'! They are in them from about 9 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. every day....rain, snow, sleet or shine.

We were S O O O O O grateful for those toasty handwarmers and toewarmers that the Monocacy YM / YW sent us. We used them today and they made all the difference in the world. The only thing we had frozen today was our chins and noses!! Can you help us with warmers for those parts?? :-)

We decided to take the train back to Leppavarra (with dots over the 1st 'a' but not the others!) because it is a nice smooth ride and fewer stops. Doesn't cost anymore than the bus. As we were sitting on the train we looked out the window and saw a Christmas tree on top of this really high crane! Now who in their right mind put that there?? Crazy Finns!

Our bags on the seat in front and facing us.

As we were walking from the bus stop at the top of the hill down to the asuntola (see the large yellow building in the distance) who should we meet but Veli ja Sisar Zaretskie's headed up to the bus stop (the Russian Missionary Couple). We took their picture, then we had them take our picture, then.....

....after they had done a good job with that, we took our hand warmers out of our gloves and gave them to them because they were still warm and had more 'life' in them! I totally got my money's worth from the blue fox hat/scarf Wayne bought me several months ago. Kept my head and ears toasty warm!!

When we got home, we found that the Posti had been good to us today. A package from Laurie Lewis (a personally signed copy of her newest book that we helped proof for her! Kiitos Laurie...can't wait to read it!) and 3 Christmas cards. It is great to get snail mail!!

And, I looked out the window and what did I see?? An airplane flying right over the temple headed for the airport in Vantaa (which is about 20 minutes from here) and a beautiful sunset!! Wayne actually took the picture and got it PERFECT!!! Great job honey!

It has been a great day......we have a Temple Missionary Choir rehearsal tonight in preparation for our singing in Kerva Ward on Sunday. It should be fun.

And this is TAMPERE week. There are some familiar names on the roster and can't wait to see our friends coming back!! We love being here in Finland and love working in the Temple!