OUR FIRST VISITORS FROM AMERICA!!

We thought they might be coming, but not quite sure when or how long they could be here or if it was really going to happen for them!! The Balls Family (or at least one of the daughters, Lindy). They used to live in Mt. Airy Ward and Veli Balls served as the Piispa for a while.

About 3 years ago they moved to sunny, warm and humid Florida! Kerri has relatives here in Finland. Her family came from the Swedish part of Finland many years ago. They came so they could meet for the first time these two cousins! The cousins are not members of our church but suggested that Kerri and family might like to see their Mormon Temple! And indeed they DID want to see it.

We were actually able to spend about 2 hours with the Balls after which time the cousins came back and picked them up.

Perfect Finnish weather for their visit......SNOW!! They love it. We hope this will be the first of many friends and family who may come to see us here! It was a wonderful couple of hours. Did NOT make us homesick! That was good. We love being here!

NOW PICTURE THIS.........

1 English speaking temple worker

plus (+)

1 Russian speaking temple worker

equals (=)

English speaking worker (me, Vicki) teaching FINNISH to one Russian speaking worker!

Who would have ever thought I would be doing that!!

4:30 pm.. and it is DARK!!!

With our first real snow this year, it has been very pretty and also fun to watch!

The days are getting shorter

and darkness setting in way too quickly.

1st picture.......3:00 a.m.

2nd picture.......7:15 a.m.

3rd

picture.........3:30 p.m.

ONE LAST THOUGHT FOR TODAY!

SO, last night (Tuesday night) we had our weekly temple missionary meeting with President & Sisar Haikkola in their apartment. This has been held so that we can talk about any 'issues' which may need to be addressed with regards to specific concerns for the week! Very helpful and useful meetings and good information. We always say 'they will be short.....no more than 30 minutes' but they always seem to go for about 1 hour. It seems that when we all get together, we just love to talk and to visit. We enjoy one another's company!

Well, this week the meeting was the FIRST for President and Sisar Haikkola. They really didn't have much of an agenda but told us we could ask whatever questions we wanted to ask! Oh, that was fun!!

The setting was as follows:

2 Russian Couples - Pechiulis and Zaretski (actually the Pechiulis are from Lithuania)

3 American Couples (Allgaier, Groberg and Johnson)

3 Finnish Couples (Jakko, Olaja, and Makinen)

Keep in mind that President & Sisar Haikkola are Finnish as well.

Sisar Haikkola said she would interrupt from Finnish to English, Veli Jakko would translate from Finnish to Russian and President Haikkola would just speak plain old Finnish! Now, that is a meeting for you isn't it!!

Part way through the meeting we noticed that President Haikkola was speaking in English and his wife was translating his direction to us in English!! Now that was so cute......they both started laughing when they realized that they were both speaking English!

Just goes to show us what a complication we have in working with so many languages. We never quite know what language we are speaking! This work must be true or we would have all ruined it a long time ago!!! LOVE THIS WORK!! :-)

(P.S......IT'S SNOWING TONIGHT!!)

INTERESTING "FINLAND MISSION" WEEK AT THE TEMPLE

Every week is fun and interesting. That just goes without saying it. This week is definitely NO exception. When we think 'things' might be somewhat calm and quiet, we are caught off guard by what we have! Of course we had Russians and American Missionaries serving in Russia (coming here to renew their visas) mixed in with those Finnish saints living outside of the Helsinki Stake area. We are seeing familiar faces because we have been here for a long enough period of time!! We love that.

This week, however, we had a young couple, who have been married for 3 years, come from Russia. The interesting part is that the wife is Russian and the husband is from Peru! Spanish and Russian.....now there is an interesting combination. Wayne helped out with the young Spanish brother. I think he may be the only temple missionary currently serving here who has worked with Spanish patrons to any degree! That was totally helpful.

The weather is very cold now....typically in the 30's during the day and 20's at night. The days are getting shorter and shorter. Daylight appears at about 8:00 a.m. and darkness begins to settle in around 4:30 p.m. That will only get shorter before the end of the year. Ready or not.....here the long dark days of winter come! I have to admit though, that the frost every morning is beautiful! And the temple just shines beautifully. These pictures were both taken at about 4:30 p.m.

I am continuing to enjoy my time of working in the Recorder's Office. I feel like I am learning a lot of things and hopefully being helpful at the same time! :-)

SURPRISE BE-LATED BIRTHDAY PACKAGE!! :-)

Bless her heart, Shirley Cooper sent me a birthday package! It was late in coming, but so worth it! And she totally surprised me with it! All the 'comforts' of America.....Chocolate Chips (2 bags in fact), Jiffy Mix, McCutheon's strawberry jam, pink socks (and a pair of black ones for Wayne!)......fun stuff!!

And, 2 copies of past issue of the Brunswick Citizen! How fun to see what is going on at home.....even late news but still fun!

KIITOS PALJON Shirley! We gave her a quick call on 'skype' to say thank you......she was working at the Jefferson Office.

ANOTHER MONTH GONE ALREADY!!

Where did October go to!?

We can't believe we have been on our mission for 5 months already! A little scary that our time is going by so quickly.

We got home from church today and were so cold. We decided to have a cup of homemade hot chocolate to warm us up before I fixed dinner! It was actually quite good. Not instant and really easy to fix. Add a little whipped cream and anything can be good. Our first attempt at making that since we have been here. It definitely won't be our last though.