THE TEMPLE FENCE PROGRESS REPORT!

As you may recall from several months ago, the permanent Temple Fence was finally started! Albeit very slowly. This has been 3 very long years in the making!! Local politics has had a lot to do with the delays, of course! President and Sister Luthy were so hoping to see part of it completed before they leave Finland the end of October. Their wish, at least in part, may be a reality for them!!

The other day we noticed more 'activity' out on the grounds. Wayne decided that he, along with several of the other brother missionaries, would go investigate!

Here Veli Goodliffe is getting up close and personal with a picture!

We LOVE the solid rock that the temple is built on! We think it will indeed stand for centuries to come!

And......part of the newest section to be put up! It will indeed look nice when completed. We just don't know when that will be. Even my hairdress, Tuula, said on Monday that she hoped the company is doing a good job with the footings. Like she said.....'with the winter weather here, freezing, thawing, and more freezing'. She wants to make sure the company is doing a good job! Bless her heart!

MONOCACY WARD MISSIONARY PLAQUE UPDATED!

A tradition that our ward at home, Monocacy Ward, has is having a Missionary Plaque for those serving full-time missions. And since we are a senior missionary couple, we QUALIFY! Love it! I have always looked at those plaques wondering if we would be one of 'those' some day. Well......we are! And we have a plaque.

Steven, being 1st counselor in the Bishopric, has the responsibility of keeping those plaques up to date! That comes in handy for us.

We had just a 'regular' picture in there to begin with. Once we got in the mission field and were able to take a real missionary picture, we asked him to switch it out for us. We were excited to see what he was able to do.

Great job Steven! KIITOS PALJON!

BEFORE shot of plaque

AFTER shot of 'new' look of plaque!

KERAVA WARD

Sunday, and we decided we would go to the Kerava Ward with the Goodliffe's and the Groberg's. Sister's Goodliffe and Groberg had been asked to play a musical duet after the Sacrament and before Testimony meeting. They did a wonderful job. Really set the tone for the meeting.

I got ahead of myself though. The chapel was built in the early 1980's. It is very pretty and quite unique.

EveryTHING is Finland is built on a rock, or so it seems. There are so many rocks everyWHERE! The church property was no exception. This particular rock was 'dug out' of where the basement of the church is. It was suggested by the architect that it put positioned in front of the church.

President Alakoski (counselor in the temple presidency and a member of this ward) told us that "this is THE ROCK spoken of in Daniel 2:34-45, cut out without hands that smote the idol in King Nebuchadnezzar's dream and filled the whole earth". So there you have it! It must be true.

This is the inside of the church. Quite unique. Bose speakers all around. I was impressed.

Sisar Goodliffe and Sisar Groberg playing their duet during Sacrament Meeting (actually, we did NOT take this picture at that time.....would not have been appropriate. Wayne actually took it after church.)

LOVE, the table cloth on the table in Relief Society. I believe Sisar Alakoski made this as well. She is quite talented! It says.....'1842, Charity Never Faileth.......Relief Society'. What else would you find in a Relief Society Room? And, yes, there were very pretty flowers on the table as well.

We truly feel a great spirit of the Gospel everywhere we visit in Finland. Wards, Branches....all the Saints seem to be strong in the Gospel. We just need it to 'grow' more and faster!!

Now we are off to our every other week FHE with the Temple Missionaries here in the asuntola. This week it is Velli ja Sisar Valiliev's turn to give the lesson. They are the missionary couple from Russia. They will complete their mission in about 3 weeks!

Saturday, the end of a great Young Single Adult Temple Week......

Most of the Young Single Adults had left for various parts of Russia, Sweden and Finland. There were these 4 gals left who would leave on Sunday afternoon to head back to their home in Lithuania. They were just the cutest things. ALL of these young adults we have been so impressed with. With each group of saints that come here, we feel like they just can't get any better. And somehow, they DO!! This group was no exception.

Well, these gals had 'made some food' and they made 'way too much' and said they couldn't eat it by themselves. The temple missionaries got a phone call about 5:30 p.m. and said......'Join us at 6:00 p.m. for some food'! And that we did. What a treat. These gals had fixed a real spread!

Got back to the apartment and looked out the window and what did we see......Another gorgeous temple sunset!!! Man, how do we get so lucky all the time at this great view!

MEET 'VIKA' (or Vicki in English)

Yup, there is another Vicki in the world. Actually, Vika lives in Moscow. We met her two months ago when she came tot he temple. She is here this week with the Young Single Adults from Russia, Lithuania, Sweden and Finland. She is a real sweetie. She hopes to be back next March or April and looks forward to seeing us then. It may be the last time we will get to see her while we are here on our mission!

HOW DO YOU SPELL 'VICTORIA' OR 'VICKI'.........

Виктория – Victoria

Вики -- Vicki

And that would be in Russian!

Why do I ask you may say! Well, you are all aware of the cross stitch Helsinki Temple bookmarks and pictures that I make and give as gifts. Yesterday, I was talking with this sweet young single adult sister that we had met the last time we was here in July. I did not know her name them but we asked what her name was......you guessed it! Victoria or Vika for short (or Vicki in English).

I decided as soon as we met her that I would be making her a bookmark! And here it is. I will give it to her later today.

Brief 'history' of how I came about making these as gifts. When we got our mission call to come to Finland, I knew I would have a difficult time with the language. I would not give up, I wanted to at least be able to read it even if I could not speak it fluently!

I wanted to be able to share 'something' with the great people that I knew we would meet.....Finns and otherwise. I thought about my 'talent' of being able to count (as in doing counted cross stitch......anybody can count, right!?) and make cross stitch pictures.

I had Wayne design a miniature Helsinki Finland pattern. I started making them as little gifts for special friends even before we left on our mission. I brought a ton of supplies with me. I quickly ran out and had to 'e-mail home' for reinforcements! I am sure i will run out again, and I will e-mail for more reinforcements. I have made countless framed pictures and bookmarks!

Here are several that I have given to Finns, Russians and Estonians.......these can be found in the far reaches of all of these countries! Maybe I can make a difference.....one cross stitch at a time!

This sweet gal came to the temple for the first time in July. She is from Savonlinna, eastern part of Finland.

The sweetest couple ever. She was previously endowed, her husband was endowed on this trip and then they were sealed. They just loved their little cross stitch picture!

And below there was Angelikka from Ukraine. She used to do baptisms all the time. She will be coming back soon to receive her own endowment. This was in July 2009

These are just a few of the cross stitch bookmarks that I have made for a variety of folks.

NO BETTER WAY TO START A NEW TEMPLE WEEK THAN THIS!!!

AND......It is YOUNG SINGLE ADULT WEEK here at the Temple.

We are on the morning shift this week. We were up at 5:45 a.m. to get ready. Looked out our living room window at 7:15 a.m. and found this beautiful sunrise!! I knew it was going to be a great beginning to a great week back in the temple. We have a wonderful group of young single adults here this week from all parts of Russia, Lithuania and Finland. None from Estonia this time.

Then, when we got home this afternoon, there was a package waiting for us. It had a few things that I had requested from America PLUS, a bonus bag of CRAB CHIPS!!! Can you believe that! Wow, we were totally stoked about that. We LOVE crab chips. And a big bag too. We will savor every single mouthful. KIITOS PALJON S & E for sending them!

That even called for a P,B & J sandwich to go with them. We were in Heaven!