KERAVA WARD TODAY

About a month ago, Pisspa Soininen and his wife asked the Temple Missionaries to sing a couple of songs at Sacrament Meeting today.......the Sunday before Christmas! We were excited to be able to do that. Under the Direction of Ronda Groberg, our pianist and a fellow temple missionary, we set out to practice our songs. A medley of 3 Christmas songs.

As we drove over to the Kerava Chapel this morning, it was about 9:20 a.m. when we arrived (about a 40 minute drive from the asuntola). Notice how dark it still is. Amazing.

And the outside of the chapel was so pretty with the candles lit up! The Finns know how to do things right with all of the candles. They use them everywhere!!

This is a picture of the entire group with Pisspa and Sisar Soininen. We had the Russians, Lithuanians, Finns and Americans in this little choir!

Sisar Soininen took this picture of us practicing in the chapel before Sacrament Meeting began.

The two young missionaries serving in this ward were at the MTC the same time we were. They came up to us afterwards and reminded us that we joined them for part of a Finnish class! Oh, yes, we did remember then!

And our journey back to the asuntola. The snow was beautiful. And so cold that is won't be going any where for quite some time. It just glistens and shines when you look at it. It looks like someone took a bottle of glitter and spread it all over the top of the snow. I guess because of the cold weather it just makes pretty little crystals which gives it the sparkle.

When we got home we found the 17 missionaries from Novosibirsk, Russia preparing to leave the asuntola. They had gotten permission to have a Sacrament Meeting right here in the asuntola. This was a fairly large group which came this time. Usually there are not that many in the group that comes to Finland to renew their visas. They are headed toward the bus stop.

It has been a wonderful day......so far, as we still have Family Home Evening tonight. The Pecuilius are giving the lesson......about Christmas traditions in Lithuania where they are from.