Senior Missionary Conference

 Monday morning was beautiful for our morning walk. The sun was shining.
We were surprised to see a couple of swans flying over. That must be a sure sign of spring.
As we got where we could see the field, we noticed an animal going across the field.
We think it was a fox.
You can see in the photo that it has its nose (and upper body)deep in a hole.
It spent quite a bit of time like that, but I don't think it actually got any breakfast.
Someone walking with a dog frightened it into the woods, and we did not see it again.
We also noticed just as we got into the forest that there is an interesting shelter under a tree at the edge of the woods. Can you see it right in the center of the picture?
We have not noticed it before. I think that it has probably been there for some time,
but we just didn't notice it in the dark. It is nice to walk in the light!

On Tuesday, we had a delivery of 6 boxes of Preach My Gospel 2nd Ed books.

The packing slips that we had been sent by email said that one box contained 10,

one box had 12 and 4 boxes each contained 1.

I was happily surprised to discover that the "1" on the 4 boxes must have meant 1 box.

Each of those 4 boxes contained 24 books. We have been waiting for these to arrive for a LONG time. Sister Bridge had preordered them before we came. We had heard that they were coming in Oct. We finally received 24 books in February. The new missionaries have received them at the MTC starting in Oct. so we actually only need about 1/4 or less of these now.

Tuesday evening was the beginning of the Senior Conference.

We left the office a little early to go to the airport to pick up Elder and Sister Williams.

They are serving in Rovaniemi and the Lehtinen's had me make arrangements for them

to fly down since they are so far away. 

We drove them to the Scandic Hotel in Espoo where the other couples from out of town were staying. They checked in and dropped off their things as we went over to the secondhand store nearby.

We got back to the hotel with some time to visit with the other couples as everyone showed up in the lobby. We enjoyed a lovely dinner with everyone in the restaurant of the hotel.

Wednesday morning, Elder Shurtz had to go over to the mission office. We had asked the office Elders if they could get the seats put back in the van. They were willing to do that, but they realized that they had left their fob in the Assistant's car, so they could not get into the office to get the seats.

We were grateful for their help in getting the seats put back in the van.

After breakfast, we went to the office and got the van so we could go pick up the couples at the hotel and drive them to the mission home. This was the first time I have been in the van. I was rather disappointed by several things in the van. As we left the office, first the warning came on that said we had a door open. It was the very back door. You really have to slam it shut or it doesn't shut all the way. Then, the seatbelt warning kept beeping. I checked, I was buckled, Steve was buckled. I lifted my weight off the seat for a second and it stopped beeping. It started beeping again. I pulled on my seatbelt and it was tightly buckled. I finally figured out that I had buckled into the wrong receptacle. I had buckled into the only one that I could see. It was longer and sticking up. Apparently, the receptacle that I needed to buckle into was underneath me! The seats are very narrow. I later found out that the first time the Kites drove the van, the very same thing happened to Sister Kite. The back seats are also very narrow. It was a bit difficult for three people to fit in the tight space, but they did it!

The Lehtinen's had prepared a little program / devotional for us. 

They had things to inspire and encourage us as well as to thank us for serving.

They had us do a little activity - kind of like a mini "My Plan". They had us write on post-it notes, things that were our roots that helped us get to this point, our trunk - our strengths, our branches/leaves - things that we want to focus on once we return home, and things that don't seem as important anymore and we could allow to fall off - falling leaves. We posted them all on a poster of a tree.

Sister Lehtinen had prepared a snack for us since we would be having a late lunch.

The Lehtinen's daughter Noora came and taught us about Finnish music. 

She had us play a Kahootz game.

She taught us about the kantele (a Finnish instrument) 

and she brought several with her so we could try playing them.

We loaded into the van and the Lehtinen's car and drove to the Fazer Experience.
We started off with lunch. I did not get any pictures of the lunch, 

but someone did get a picture of the group just before we had lunch.

Then we did the tour. We have been on that tour a couple of times before on our last mission, but this time they had changed some things and we enjoyed learning about Fazer.

They had some displays of some ingredients used in making candy and you could squeeze the bulb 

and put you nose by the opening and smell the different scents.

There was an activity mostly for children, but we also did it, where you choose blocks representing foods and put them into a little tray. Then you take the tray to the robot who scans it and lets you know if you chose a balanced meal or not. Steve chose wisely and got a green smiley face.

The bunny is covered with eggs. Fazer makes over 2 million Mignon Eggs for Easter. They start after Christmas. They use real eggshells that have been washed out and sanitized. They are filled with a chocolate hazelnut and the opening is closed with a sugar plug. 

At the end of the tour, you can taste lots of the different chocolates that Fazer makes. You can eat as much as you want, but you can't take any out of the area. We had about 10 to 15 minutes to taste.

Here is the wrappers of what Steve tasted:

Each of us were given a gift bag at the end of the tour. 

We also got to do a chocolate decorating experience. 

We were each given a large milk chocolate chocolate bar, some melted white and dark chocolate 

and a table full of candies to use to decorate our chocolate bars. 

We were given plastic containers and bows and stickers to make for a nice presentation.

Our group after decorating.

We drove back to the mission home for our evening program. Elder Shurtz and I were in charge of that. 

President Lehtinen started us off with him playing the mission song on the guitar. 

I forgot to get a picture.

The Andruses entertained us with some Finnish songs.

Sister Lehtinen taught us a little dance to a Finnish folk song.

Elder Williams sang for us.

Sister Cardon taught us some hula actions and a little song.

And Elder Mitchell had a little video for us. (no picture)

We all got a chance to learn from each other and to edify each other by talking about "What do I know now" at this stage of my mission that I didn't know before. We gave some suggestions that might be included, such as: Miracles you have seen, blessings you or your family have received, hard things, how have you grown, how are you different, etc. We really enjoyed getting to know each other better.

The Lehtinen's daughter Gretta had come while we were at Fazer and made spinach waffles.
We had those for dinner with savory toppings 

and then we could have more with sweet toppings for dessert. Yummy!

We drove the couples back to the Scandic Hotel and then returned the van to the office.

Thursday, Steve made muffins for our breakfast. 

We have a Finnish copy of Le Cordon Bleu Home Collections Muffinit (Muffins in English).

He has been going through the book and making the different muffins.

He made the banana ginger muffins. They called for candied ginger, but that was quite expensive and we decided to cut up some dried apricots that we had in the apartment instead. 

For some reason they rose straight up instead of being domed, but they still tasted delicious!

Thursday morning we all dressed in Sunday clothes and met at the temple patron housing. 

The Office Elders brought the mission van and they borrowed the temple van. 

We were able to fit in the two vehicles. They drove us to the natural history museum in Helsinki. 

That way we did not have to worry about parking or the time that it would take to park. 

Sister Lehtinen had arranged for us to have a one hour tour. 

We got to the museum a little bit early and had time to look around a little bit. 

Before we went into the museum, we noticed the statue of a moose (hirvi in Finnish). 

Elder Andrus had told us that he really wanted to get a picture of a hirvi before he left Finland. 

So, of course we had to take a picture of him with the hirvi.

We were fascinated by the huge elephant. 

We were trying to figure out if it was a taxidermy animal or a cement statue. 

It seemed like cement because we could see seams on the legs. 

During the tour, we found out that it was an actual animal, but that it was about 6 inches or more too tall, so they had to take some height out of the legs to get it to fit in the space available. 

The museum is housed in a beautiful old building. The staircase made for some interesting pictures.

Steve was especially interested in seeing the many skeletons that they had there. 

We haven't seen so many skeletons in a natural history museum before 

except for maybe dinosaur bones.

Our guide was very knowledgeable and the hour went by all too fast.

We took a group photo in front of the elephant just before leaving.

Oh how we love these wonderful people!

We drove back to the temple patron housing and had fix your own sandwiches for lunch. Sister Mitchell had everything prepared and plated so we could quickly make a sandwich and eat. 

We all went to the 2:00 endowment session together. I saw sister Hyvarinen in the dressing room. 

She said that she had a gift for me. She had knitted a pair of socks for me and one for Steve.

I was very touched that she would do that for us.

The temple was busy! They actually brought in some extra seats. It ended up that we had one more sister than seats, and one less brother than seats. We used one of the extra seats that they brought in. 

After the session we went back to the temple patron housing and had pizza 

for an early dinner before everyone had to be on their way. 

We took the Williams to the airport for their flight back to Rovaniemi.

I felt such a let down after they left. It was so much fun to be together, but it went all too fast! 

At least we still have the Lehtinens, the Kites and the Mitchells close by. 

It has got to be harder for the three couples who are out by themselves!

It was back to work for us. We went to the mission office to get a few things finished up there.

Friday morning we went walking. We noticed how much has melted on the soccer field since last week.

This snow pile has shrunk some as well.

We are seeing more and more scooters so spring must be near. We saw these on the way to the office.

I had asked Sister Helske if she could come in on Friday so we could get the mission history submitted. She was able to make a few more changes on it and get it signed. 

I was able to find the place online where we could submit it. 

We were excited when we got a message saying that our submission has been received!

It was a busy day in the office. Sister Saarinen came in as it was her usual day.

Sister Lehtinen brought Liisa Antila to look around the office. 

She is going to be working in the office starting in September. 

The office Elders came for a while.

The Kites came to load the van to take to Turku to open a new apartment there.

We had 9 boxes of copies of the Book of Mormon that were delivered. 

Some of the boxes were in sad shape of had been taped up before they were delivered.

We had a few things to take to the Lehtinens for them to deliver on their interview trip. We left the office knowing that we would need to walk home and get the car before we could do that.

I knew we had a package at Taj Mehal, so we stopped by there on our way home. 

They said that I still needed the missionary to give them permission to pick up the package even though it had the name of the church on it. We could not reach the missionary. 

They said that I could take the package, but that the missionary still had to send them a text giving permission for me to pick it up. That was so nice of them. 

It ended up being a good thing we got the package as it was one 

that the Lehinens would be able to deliver.

This morning, it was very foggy when we drove to church.

You can't see far, but you can see the rental bikes that are out waiting for some spring weather.

I took this picture after church. It was overcast, but not so foggy this afternoon.

It was nice to not be parking on big patches of ice! There is still one pile left right near the church. 

It looks like a pile of small rocks, but it is ice and small rocks.

The sisters were super excited to finally get their copies of Preach My Gospel 2nd Ed!

I enjoyed seeing this picture from Noah with another Finland connection. 

Elder Brent Nielson visited Noah's mission. 

Elder Nielson served his mission in Finland and he and Pres. Lehtinen were companions.

Sunrise/sunset time Sunday 24 March 2024

Espoo Finland 6:09am to 6:46pm for 12 hrs 37 min of daylight

Provo Utah 7:22am to 7:43pm for 12 hrs 21 min of daylight

We may not be as warm as Provo, but we are back to having more daylight hours than they do.