ST. PETERSBURG......

HERE WE COME!

IN JANUARY THAT IS.

President Haikkola has arranged our temple schedules so that we are the Michie's can make a weekend trip to St. Petersburg and attend church there. Beginning on December 12th the new FAST TRAIN.....ALLEGRO only takes 3 1/2 hours to get from Helsinki to St. Petersburg. Now that makes it more appealing for us to do that.

With us and Michie's being on the morning shift this week we were able to go downtown to the RUSS TRAVEL AGENT and 'start the process' with our Visa's and train tickets and hotel arrangements, etc.

SVETLANA is our 'helper' there. She is also the same gal who takes care of the missionary visa's for the missionaries from all over Russia. She is familiar with the church and us missionaries. That was comforting to know!! We go back on December 22nd to pick up everything. Until then, we hope we don't need our PASSPORTS because we had to leave them with her.

Since we were downtown we decided to walk around a bit and see some of the CHRISTMAS TORI and have dinner at the Cafe Esplanade where we ate last week with the Groberg's.

It was bitterly COLD but pretty with all of the Christmas lights.

This is one of the CHRISTMAS WINDOWS at STOCKMAN'S DEPARTMENT STORE.....reminds me a lot of MACY'S DEPARTMENT STORE in New York City. So FUN!!