Zone Conference Travels

Wow! How did we get to the end of October already. It seems like just a few days ago that it started.

This was a very busy week and went by soooo fast, but it  seems like Monday was a very long time ago!

We left the office around 1:00 on Monday and went home to eat lunch and 

finish packing up to go to zone conferences. We love being able to drive around the country in Finland. We love the many things to see. 

97% of the trees in forests in Finland are either pine, spruce or birch. 

Usually the yellow trees that we see are birch, 

but we started noticing yellow trees that looked like they were shaped like pine trees. 

These trees have "needles" that turn yellow and fall off. They were bright yellow. 

It was a dark and cloudy day, so their color is not a beautiful as it would have been in the sunshine. 

We were just grateful that it was not raining for our 4 1/2 hour drive.

Some other interesting things on our drive.

Bridges

Animal figures

Giant marshmallows stacked up

Road signs - can you tell what these mean?

Little waterfalls that had turned to ice!

Interesting vehicles

We arrived at our hotel in Kuopio at 7:00pm. 

We checked in and took our things to our room and met Pres. and Sister Lehtinen at the hotel restaurant for dinner. We did not take a picture, but we enjoyed visiting with them. 

We had to wait for a very long time for our food, but we enjoyed the company while we waited. 

The food was excellent!

Tuesday morning, we got up and went out for a walk. It was cold! 

It was 26 degrees F, but it felt like 18 according to my weather app.

It was also very dark! Our hotel was very near the lake, so we walked that direction.

It was so dark, but it was so beautiful. I tried to capture it in pictures.

Even though it was cold, the wind was not blowing and we were well bundled up. 

It was actually a very nice walk. 

We got a bit lost trying to get back to the hotel. 

Steve had it on google maps, but we kept getting lead astray. 

We finally made it back to the hotel to get ready for the day and eat breakfast before checking out.

Heading out of the hotel to Zone  Conference.

We had to scrape the ice off the windows!

It was a beautiful sunny morning.

We passed this beautiful old church on the way.

The assistants drive the van filled with supplies and their mattresses.

We got a picture by the church because this is the first time that we have actually been in this building.

A little later in the morning, I took this picture of our car in the parking lot with a little skiff of snow.

In Sister Lehtinen's training, she said that it is not actually winter yet, it is still autumn. 

This weather is just a little reminder that winter is coming.

For my training, the Kites had asked if I could help the missionaries know how to properly use their "happy lights". So I used the word happy to help them remember the things they needed to know. I had some of the missionaries come up to help spell the word "happy".

Kuopio Zone picture

The sisters wanted a selfie with all of the sisters. It looks like we were missing Sister Andrus who was probably packing up food in the kitchen left from the delish lunch that she and Elder Andrus prepared.

Then they wanted more pictures outside. 

It was time to drive to Tampere for the next conference.

It was nice that the sun was shining, but we were driving with it low in the sky 

and heading directly into it, so it was beautiful, but a bit of a challenge as well. 

We enjoyed watching the sun set anytime we could get a glimpse between the trees.

The Lehtinens left a little bit before we did. 

Sister Lehtinen posted a picture in facebook that she took on the drive. 

It looks like I took the same picture, in the same place just a little bit later. 

My picture is on top and hers is on the bottom.

More pictures along the drive, taken through the dirty windows as we were driving, 

but they still turned out looking pretty nice.

In some places the water was so calm and the reflections were amazing!

Just look at those clouds in the water!

This is such a beautiful country!

We saw some more interesting vehicles. We were not real sure just what this oversize vehicle was ahead of us, but we were especially glad that he was turning the opposite way from us.

We ate snacks that we had brought along the way. By the time we drove the almost 4 hours, we were more tired than hungry. We had planned to stop somewhere to get gasoline and some food, but we just wanted to get as far as possible while there was still a little bit of light. 

After checking into the hotel, we decided to walk a block and a half to a little grocery store where we bought some icecream. We took it back to the hotel to eat it.

We got up Wednesday morning and went for a walk. It is always so amazing to me that we can be in the middle of a city and there are walking paths and usually not far to a forest or a park. It was very dark again, but we found our way to a park.

Another beautiful start to the day.

We found all these boats lined up along the shore of the lake.

Elder Shurtz did training on stewardship. 

We keep realizing more and more things that the missionaries are stewards over and 

Elder Shurtz did a great job trying to help them understand how to be good stewards.

Elder and Sister Cardon were in charge of the lunch with the Williams helping. They had barbecue chicken on buns with cole slaw and chips. They had munkki (donuts) for dessert.

When we had separate trainings for the sisters and the elders, I found some interesting things in the primary room (where the sisters were for their discussions).

I liked the window decorations.

On a table, there were these very tiny rock sculptures of the First Presidency.

Sister Lehtinen was wearing a fun sunshine necklace that she has had for many years. 

It was made by a Finnish artist. It looked so pretty against her blue sweater.

Tampere Zone Picture

After the conference, we headed back to Espoo. 

As we were leaving Tampere, I saw this fun brick work on a building.

The sky was amazing on our trip home.

Thursday was the Helsinki zone conference.

Here is part of Sister Lehtinen's training.

First she did a little Finnish lesson. Mitä kuuluu? It is how they say how are you. She had a little joke to go with it. The picture on the left is kuu (moon) and the picture on the right is luu (bone). 

Then she taught about proper winter gear. She had the assistants and the sister training leaders do a little fashion show and tell about all the layers and gear they wear to stay warm.

Sister and Elder Mitchell were in charge of the lunch. 

They had roasted vegetables, chicken cordon blu, salad and croissants, 

with cookies and chocolate for dessert.

As Sister Lehtinen taught the sisters, "good food, better mood".

The "happy" picture from Helsinki zone conference. The 'A' stopped making their letter.

Elder Shurtz's training

The Sisters breakout session.

President Lehtinen and Elder Shurtz

The sisters.

Helsinki Zone picture

Our poor car after all this travel is very dirty! 

We had planned to wash it on Saturday, but we ran out of time.

Friday was spent in the office trying to get caught up on things. 

We left the office in time to go to Haaga to trunk or treat with the Haaga and English wards combined. People really went all out on decorating their cars. 

The van even had a cardboard maze that the kids could crawl through.

It was really cold outside and so it wasn't long before everyone moved inside for more activities.

While we were there, we noticed the ward newsletter hanging on the bulletin board. 

Steve noticed that my picture was in it. 

The article is about the knitting club.

I felt a little bad that we hadn't taken any time to try to figure out a costume. 

Most of the young missionaries who were there were dressed up.

The cowboy missionaries.

One of the missionaries who's head was turned around backwards.

Sister siracha sauce and Sister sinappi (mustard)

Or course, Elder Mitchell was there filming everything.

He made a little video about the evening.
I am not sure if this link will work, but it is worth trying.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3s90fhiyz3gshmdcp7u7i/Halloween23Haaga_1.mp4?rlkey=r5oa89jdft3rfsuak1kvdpp4e&dl=0

If that link doesn't work, perhaps this one will?

https://www.facebook.com/100016640111645/videos/1775117746253088/

This morning was beautiful with the sun shining. 

We saw this very interesting vehicle as we walked from our car to the chapel.

When we arrived at the church, Jazz came and gave me a hug and told me she had a gift for me. 

It is Finland honey.

She is so sweet. She is a new member and we see her and her son often. 

She is especially fond of playing Skyjo with us at game nights. She also wanted a picture with us.

The lights would not turn on in the chapel today, so we had sacrament meeting in the dark. 

The entire stake presidency was there and they all spoke. 

Also Elder Koivisto was visiting. He is an area authority seventy from Jyväskylä Finland.

We enjoyed speaking with Kimberly and her family tonight. 

Sunrise/sunset Sunday 29 October 2023

Espoo Finland 7:35am to 4:33pm for 8 hrs 58 min of daylight

Provo Utah 7:52am to 6:27 pm for 10 hrs 35 min of daylight

You probably noticed quite a jump in the times for Espoo from last week. That is because we went off of daylight savings time last night, a week earlier than it will happen in the U.S.