Shurtz Start Two Finnish: Hyvää Joulua

On Monday, I was worried about a package. I had received an email from a missionary's parents that let me know a package was coming from amazon, but wasn't scheduled to arrive until Tuesday.

The parents felt very strongly for various reasons that the package needed to get to the missionary before Christmas. The missionary would be to the zone conference in Tampere on Tuesday (so would we). Tampere is a couple hours drive from the office, so we would be leaving early in the morning before packages would arrive. The parents wanted us to ship it to him in an expedited way to get it there before Christmas. (They said they would pay of course.)

The missionary is serving in Pietarsaari, about 6 1/2 hours drive away from the mission office. Since were out on Tuesday, the earliest we would get the package would be on Wednesday. We don't know anything about shipping, but we tried looking at websites to see if we could figure out if it was even possible to get it there in time.

We asked for suggestions at our Monday meeting about shipping packages. Pres. Lehtinen said the only way to get it there for sure would be by car, maybe we could hire a young adult for at least 200€. Sisar Saarinen offered to do it for 500€.

I realized that there was a sister in our ward who's family lives in Pietarsaari. I reached out to her to see if she was going home for Christmas and if she could possibly deliver a package to a missionary there. She said that she could take a package if we could meet her with it at the train station Wednesday evening. I told her I would let her know if the package arrived in time.

Later on Monday I got an email from the aula saying that there were packages and posti (1 very large package). I had Steve go with me because as you can see the package was very large!

This was the package that the parents wanted delivered to the missionary before Christmas! What a relief that it arrived early! There is no way I could have had the sister in the ward deliver that package!
I wasn't even sure how the missionary was going to get that home on the train!

I wonder if parents realize that the things that are sent to their missionary need to be transported, usually by train, to their new area each time they are transferred - along with their 2 full size and carryon suitcases!

As part of the zone conferences we were doing a gift exchange. Elder Shurtz wasn't finding anything that he thought was worth giving, so he had me fold a 10€ bill into a shirt and tie.

We left at 7:00 to drive to Tampere on Tuesday morning. It was still dark and it was raining! It seemed like the longest trip to Tampere that we have every made! Sometimes the rain was coming so hard it was difficult to see. Trying to pass slow trucks was a problem because there was so much water in the left lane that the car would start hydroplaning. One time it was almost like a small lake on the road and a car passed us and it was suddenly like our car was under water and we couldn't see out of the windshield at all. We were grateful when we finally made it there safely!

The first half of the day was a more spiritual meeting and took place in the chapel. There were very cool lights in the chapel in Tampere, and they changed gradually to other colors. It made for a nice backdrop, and there were several candle bridges on both sides of the podium. It was quite beautiful.

Sister Lehtinen wanted the senior missionaries to have a nice Christmas break so she prepared the food for the lunch so we could be in the meeting. She had the help of the wife of one of the counselors to the mission president. It was a delicious, mostly traditional Finnish Christmas lunch. It was hard for me to sit in the meeting knowing that she was in there working on the lunch, but it was a nice treat to be able to hear the whole program. She also had the tables looking nice.

Notice the red Jello. Jello is not a Finnish thing - you can't fine it here. Sister Lehtinen loves Jello,

it reminds her of her childhood when sometimes the missionaries would get Jello

and she sometimes got a taste of it and thought it was sooo good! She asked her daughters to bring this Jello back when they went to New York a few weeks ago.

While we were eating lunch, the Williams showed us what the noonday sun looks like in Rovaniemi. (Last week, I showed a picture of what the noonday sun looks like in Helsinki.)

The missionaries were allowed to change into other clothes and wear Christmas sweaters or hats etc. Two different districts had matching sweaters. This was part of the Lidl sweater group.

After the lunch we had a talent show. We have some super talented missionaries! Even the Lehtinens had a part. They showed a video of their family acting out "A Different Kind of Christmas Story".

One group had the whole audience participating.

The Lidl sweater district must have spent some time practicing.

There was a kirppis (like a flea market or thrift store) set up with winter clothes that came from missionary apartments, but that someone might still be able to use. The Kites were in charge of that.

These are the bags of things that were going to be taken to the recycle center after the zone conference - things not worth taking to the next zone conference. There were some clothing items that were taken for use by missionaries, but I think mostly the benefit of the event was that it got some missionary apartments decluttered.

Sister Kite and I were in charge of the dessert table. I had the other senior sisters bring cookies. We had quite a nice mix of desserts, both Finnish and American. Sister Kite baked some joulutorttu that we had bought frozen so she didn't have to make them all. It made the kitchen smell delicious.

The table looked great!

Plus we had hot glögi (a spiced mulled wine - sometimes alcoholic,

but of course what we drink is not alcoholic).

For the gift exchange I made a zippered bag from some candy wrappers.

Sister Bond was the one who ended up with the bag.

The Elder who got the huge package seemed to be excited to get it!

Of course he had to open it so he had a better chance of getting it home on the train.

Zone conference picture. (Oulu and Tampere zones)

On Wednesday, we left the office early so we could finally make it to the Christmas market in Helsinki.

It was about 2:30 in the afternoon. It was a beautiful cold day with the sun shining.

Of course the market had a carousel.

The missionaries in the Kuopio and Helsinki zones were having a zone p-day.

Many of them came to the Christmas market as part of that activity.

Two of these sisters have only been in the country since 10 Dec.

It was fun to keep running into missionaries. Three of these Elders just arrived 10 Dec.

We bought some gingerbread flavored honey and 3 jars of jam - lingonberry, raspberry and apple.

We also bought three flavors of fudge and a little felted nativity (like the one I got last mission).

Just as we were getting ready to leave the market we ran into these two missionaries.

They took a picture of us with the tree and cathedral in the background.

We were sitting on the train and just before it was ready to pull out, the noise level on the train suddenly got quite a bit louder. I turned around and there were many of the missionaries standing near the doors. They get so excited to be together and they are mostly Americans and are quite loud compared to Finnish people. When they got off at Huopalahti, the train was back to being a Finish train - very quiet!

We went to the office and hurried and finished up there and went back to our apartment

and changed so we could go to the temple. Elder and Sister Andrus came from Joensuu for the zone conference and we wanted to meet up with them at the temple.

This is the view of the temple as we came out after the session.

Elder Shurtz is puzzled by the fact that the moon gets higher in the sky than the sun does.

Thursday, we woke up to more snow.

We drove to Marjaniemi (about 1/2 hour away) for the zone conference.

This time Sister Kite and I helped Sister Lehtinen with the lunch food.

The cultural hall was beautifully decorated.

Sister Lehtinen had asked the ward to leave up their decorations from their ward Christmas party.

This time the talent show included some ballroom dancers

Some horseback riders

Tin Soldiers

WAe had another gift exchange. This time I didn't participate, I just read the left right story.

Zone conference picture for Kuopio and Helsinki zones.

We had more snow on Friday. This was the view out my office window.

In Finland, Christmas Eve is really when they celebrate Christmas.

We started the day by going to Sacrament meeting.

We came home and finished making an apple cake to take for dessert to the Aura's.

They had invited us and the Mitchells to come for Christmas Eve.

Brother Aura explained to us the plates of meats (pork and lamb)

and various fish plates (mostly cold smoked).

We started off the meal with some broth (made from ox tail) and a meat pie. Delicious!

We had a slow, relaxing dinner with lots of visiting.

We changed into warmer clothes to go to the cemetary.

We went to the Espoo cathedral cemetery. It is a beautiful old church.

We noticed this light show somewhat near the church. This wasn't there last mission.

I love the inside of the church with its nativity. I especially love the juxtaposition of the nativity with the crucifix above it and the resurrection depiction in the stained glass behind.