Ruska, and Return and Report

 Ruska is beginning! 

Well actually I think that ruska is what they call the autumn color change in Lapland. 

But the leaves are starting to change color here. This is a tree right by the office.

We are now finding ourselves in the strange mission time warp. We find that the two months that we have been here in Finland has gone by so fast, but at the same time it feels like it was soooo long ago that we were last at our house and leaving to come here. Looking back, it seems like this week has gone by so fast, but the things that we did just a week ago seem like they happened much longer than just a week ago. I am not sure how to really explain it, but we find it to be a strange phenomenon and one that many missionaries seem to experience. 

This week we spent a good amount of time getting ready to do some training at Return and Report. 

The missionaries come back to the mission home 6 weeks after they arrive to report on how they are doing and to receive further training. They also go to the temple while they are here.

We typically go to the temple on Wednesday night and that is when the missionaries were going. 

The session was almost totally full. 

President Lehtinen said that he had never seen that many on a session in the Helsinki temple before. 

Here is a picture of the new missionaries at the temple.

We got a phone call that evening from a sister who had lost her phone.

It had a case on it which was also her wallet. 

On Thursday we went to the mission home to do some training at Return and Report. 

There was a nice brunch provided for the missionaries. We enjoyed visiting with them as we ate.

We went outside and Elder Shurtz did some vehicle training. 

Trying to show the missionaries how to find out what the tire pressures should be. 

One sister showed us how to check the oil in the car.

One sister said that she knew how to change a tire, 

so Elder Shurtz had her come and show everyone where the spare tire is.

Only, when she opened the compartment, there is no spare tire!

Hidden under some of these items is a black pouch.

Inside the black pouch is a compressor and sealant. 

Although if you ever use the sealant, the tire can't be repaired. Elder Shurtz is still trying to figure out just what he is supposed to tell the missionary to do if they have a flat tire.

Also in the black pouch is a tow bolt. 

Elder McArthur had had experience using his tow bolt and so he was showing the others the piece to pop out on the bumper and how to screw the bolt in. 

It was all quite interesting!

Sister Lehtinen invited us to pick up or pick apples from the two apple trees at the mission home.

We got word Thursday late in the day from an Elder in our mission who has been waiting for his visa to go to South Africa that his visa is now ready. 

The challenge is that his visa is in the South African Embassy in Stockholm Sweden! The embassy has said "Please arrange courier and forward the DHL label or collect during the Embassy consular hours, weekdays between 09:00-12:30." 

I tried looking at a DHL website, but I could not figure out how to do this. 

I reached out to the area travel office. 

Someone finally got back to me and said that they didn't have experience with this but she found a website and sent me the web address. I tried that and started down that path, but soon found out that I could arrange to send something within Finland, or from Finland to another country, 

but not from another country to Finland. 

We called DHL in Finland and they said that we needed to start out on the DHL Sweden site and put in our business account information. We told her we didn't have a business account and she said that was OK, we could still do it and just pay with a credit card at the end. 

We went down that road putting in all of the information and it seemed to be going well until it came to putting in the credit card information. When I got to that point a box was checked that said the billing address was the same as the "From" address. 

I unchecked it, because that address was the embassy, and it wanted me to fill in all the address for the billing information. The problem is that the country could not be changed and the country was Sweden. We realized that the billing address for the office credit card in not Finland either, 

but Salt Lake City, Utah. 

I reached out to the area again and was passed onto someone else, 

but we still don't have a solution to the problem. 

If anyone has any experience or suggestions of what we could do, we could use some help! 

Thursday evening we went to the Haaga building for game night. 

The missionaries use this as an activity to invite their friends and facebook acquaintances to. 

Elder Shurtz ended up taking the Elders to go give a blessing to someone. 

It was late so he drove them home as well and I went home with the Mitchells. 

We had some visitors on Friday. The Parmleys came by the office. 

They were the office couple before the Bridges. 

We had fun showing them around the office and talking to them about some of the experiences that we have shared as we serve in the mission office. 

They wanted to take us out to lunch. The sister who had lost her phone/wallet came to the office with her companions and the Parmleys invited them to come to lunch also. 

We walked over to Luckiefun's shushi buffet. It is on the ground floor of our apartment building. We have never been there to eat, only walked past it everyday. 

The food was good and we enjoyed being able to visit some more.

The Parmleys came back over to the office and Elder Shurtz asked them for some help because Kirsti is a Finn and he knows a lot more Finnish that we do. 

We went for a long walk on Saturday morning. 

We saw some very large mushrooms

We thought the view looking over the marshmallow field was lovely. 

I want to go back in a week or two to see how the leaves have changed.

We enjoyed when we went around a corner and could see the temple in the distance.

Even though we are closer to the temple in this picture, it is harder to see in the background, right there near Steve's shoulder.

We found an outdoor gym area. I tried one of the things. Those rope things are HEAVY!

It took my whole body to move these things, not just my upper arms!

We passed the Angry Bird park on the way back to our house.

Saturday evening was a baptism in the Espoo 1 ward. It was a nice service and after the closing prayer, the young man who was just baptized went up to the microphone and said that he wanted to say something. He thanked everyone for coming and told a little bit about his story of how he found the church and his path to God. It was a very nice addition to hear his testimony.

Today we went to church to the international ward. There was a couple there visiting who are hoping to be able to come here on a mission in the spring. We enjoyed visiting with them.

Sunrise/sunset Sunday 17 Sep 2023 

Espoo Finland 6:53am - 7:37pm for 12 hrs 45 min of daylight

Provo Utah 7:09am - 7:32pm for 12 hrs 23 min of daylight