SIGNS OF THE SEASON!

We continue to love the fall colors here.....although they are not nearly as bright and colorful as what we have at home. They are still pretty.

We have had a lot of wind lately which has knocked a lot of the leaves off the trees. However, there is the one big tree between us and the temple that is trying really hard to hold on to 'her' leaves as long as she can. She doesn't like the idea of winter weather either!! :-(

Sorry for the poor quality of this iphone picture. With my camera broken (that would be Vicki) I have to use Wayne's. I am not too familiar with his 'buttons' and how thing work. I think you can get the picture of what kind of weather we are having right now......cold!!

THEN......we got an e-mail from Steven sending a couple of pictures of what our home and yard look like now!! AAAHHH the beauty of those trees in front of the house.....and with the Finnish Flag flying! How pretty!

And the yard actually looks fairly nice as well. Frank Woullard has been taking care of it for us in our absence. He seems to be doing a great job! Thanks Frank!

THEN.....another sign of the times and seasons here at the Helsinki Temple!! A moving truck pulled up to the front door of the asuntola yesterday! Not a good sign. They brought a lot of boxes so they could start the packing process for the Luthy's! That means they really are going home. Actually in about 1 1/2 to 2 weeks they will leave. They have been away from their home in Utah for about 5 years now. They deserve to go home and rest a bit and catch up on family and friends!! Bless their hearts. They will be sorely missed here at the Temple though.

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY......OFF TO HELSINKI FOR THE MORNING!

We decided that we wanted to go downtown Helsinki again today.....weather said RAIN! But that was not going to stop us.

But, first, Wayne made me a breakfast of crispy bacon, hash browns and toast. My favorite breakfast. It was so good.

We went to find a 'new' tori in another part of downtown but it was not a very good one....not much 'fun' stuff....flowers, vegetables. I bought this little Christmas tray at the Posti shop. They have some great things there.

Last week Wayne had one of his crowns come out!! :-( We knew we needed to find a dentist and get it fixed. There is an LDS Dentist downtown. We had her address and decided to stop by to see what her schedule way. 'I can see you in a few minutes'!! We got lucky. She was able to fix it....cost of 70 euros. BUT there was another filling that needed some work. Two weeks we will be back there and that one will cost 200 euros!! YIKES!

The next stop on our Birthday adventure was at the jewelers shop, Jari. Jari is making some temple jewelry and we are overseeing the selling of it at the Distribution Center for him. Poor Jari, he has all of this construction going on in the building where his shop is located. What a mess. This is the entrance to it.

And, this is Jari!! He does very nice work. When we got inside Wayne told him it was my birthday and that I could buy anything in the shop I wanted!! Bless his heart. I ended up buying 2 rings and Jari made 2 pair of earrings to match for me. What a great surprise! You can see Wayne in the mirror taking the picture. Right after he took this picture, he dropped the camera!! Oh my goodness. How did that happen. Just slipped out of his hand. (A new camera is being ordered from Amazon even as we speak!)

It was time to get back to the asuntola because I had to work in the Distribution Center. The Russians has arrived from Rostov, Russia. I ended up working there for 4 -5 hours. It was long and hard work. There were so many to help. AND not only did we have Russian BUT we had Russian SIGN LANGUAGE!! My goodness. AND, it was snowing by the time we got back. A soft snow is falling tonight....pretty!

By the time I got home tonight about 8:00 p.m. I had not had time for either lunch or dinner. Wayne surprised me with a little birthday cake (perfect size to share with him!) AND Ben and Jerry's chocolate ice cream with lots of nuts! It was SOOOOOO GOOD!!! KIITOS PALJON!

It has been a great birthday! FUN.....FUN....FUN.....

BEAUTIFUL SABBATH

We went to the Haaga Ward today as did all of the other missionaries. This was on our windshield when we came out after church to go home. Beautiful isn't it! Fall is definitely here and a little on the later side of it, actually! We had a very heavy frost again......had to scrape the windows before we could drive to church.

So as to not be to comfortable with the crisp falls days (23 degrees this morning!), this is our reminder that Christmas is not too far off!! This is the Santa and Mrs. we bought up in Rovaniemi.....made with real reindeer fur.

And the Christmas decorations are out. We bought these at Prisma on Friday when we went shopping. We will put one in the living room window and one in the bedroom window. We want to look festive from the outside at least!

FALL / WINTER FLOWERS PLANTED!

Just couldn't resist one more little 'blog' today! The grounds people got the fall/winter flowers planted this week. They are just so pretty I had to post them. And the leaves are just gorgeous right now! Not sure how long they will last.

Sunrise this morning at about 7:15 a.m. Just a gorgeous view!

When we walked home from Lidl's yesterday, this was a great big tree that we always walk past. It was just so pretty. It deserved its own picture too!! AH, if only we could keep this weather all winter long I would be a happy missionary. But alas, this will come to an end before long I am told!!

How do you say Good-Bye in Lithuanian?

VISOGERO

It was just so sad today to see these great people have to leave and go back to Lithuania! They were wonderful to work with. They only get to come to the temple twice a year. I promised 'my girls' that I would make them something next spring when they com! And what languages did they bring with them this time?? Of course, Lithuanian and also Russian and Chinese (Mandarin, yes, Mandarin) and somehow we got a German in the midst of them! Go figure!

Here they are loaded on their bus. They will go to the dock in downtown Helsinki, take a ferry ride over to Estonia and from there take a train or bus back to part of Lithuania!

And, this was the view from our living room window as they left. We waved to them and they waved back!! SOOOOO SAAADDD!! :-(

MY LITHUANIAN GIRLS!!!

Wayne and I were walking home from Lidl's yesterday afternoon. We got back to the temple property and found our little Lithuanian girls walking around taking pictures and having a good time. Couldn't help taking advantage of a great photo op!! They are just the cutest girls. I told them when they come back in 6 months (hopefully) I will make them 'something'.....of course it will be my cross stitch bookmark for each of them! :-)

ANOTHER LANGUAGE TO 'MASTER'!!!

LABAS RYTAS........Lithuanian style

Let's see........here is what we have so far:

Tervetuloa

Hyva Huamenta

Dobroe utro

Tere Hommikust

and now....

Labas Rytas

Some days at the temple I am not quite sure what language to use! But, we keep learning as much as we can so we can help the patrons feel comfortable when they come.