Shurtz Start Two Finnish: Train trip to Rovaniemi and Kokkola

On Monday morning there was a new sign in the elevator.
It was someone going to be sharing about their hobbies of boating and fishing.
If we could understand Finnish, it would be fun to attend some of these meetings.

The Lahti sisters came to the office so they could pick up a car.

Because of the 2 couples who just went home, there are a couple of cars that can temporarily be used by the young missionaries and their area was one of the areas that was chosen to receive one of the cars. Elder Shurtz helped them to learn about the car and how to care for it.

On Tuesday, we noticed that the rose bushes are really leafing out.

On our way to the office we saw that they were sweeping up the gravel that remained in the grass after the giant pile of snow had melted. We are not sure just how this gas-powered device works.

It looked like it was able to sweep up the gravel without tearing up the grass.

Our Book of Mormon order arrived. There were several of the boxes that came taped up with the delivery company tape. I reported to the area that the packaging could use some improvement.

Wednesday brought many interesting things to the mission office.

Sister Kakkinen needed to submit the order for the Turku bus passes.

She had not done this before so wanted my help.

I was happy to help her figure it out, however, it was a bit challenging. The instructions left by Sister Saarinen are all in Finnish, as is Sister Kakkinen's computer. We make lots of use of Google Translate! We also got the help of Sister Saarinen on the phone. We were finally successful!

This is a picture of us using Google translate together, one of many many times.

We received a mystery package. Elder Shurtz got a phone call from a man saying he was delivering a package to our office. He went to the door and got the package. It was addressed to a woman in the US, and the return address was in the US. We weren't sure what to do with it. Sister Kakkinen was especially confused because she couldn't fully understand what we were trying to tell her about it. We could not find the name of a missionary on the package. Elder Shurtz called the person back to see if he could find out any more about it. He was told that a woman who has returned to the US left it at the hotel for them to send it by posti to our office. He thought it was easier to just deliver it. He told us to open it to see what is in it. We opened it. We could tell it was for an Elder. There was also a paper that was with the box. It had the woman's name and our office address and a US phone number. We were going to call that number when we realized it was middle of the night there. Then we realized she was probably on a plane and we couldn't reach her. I looked at the return address again and saw it was from a Jones in Arizona. I looked up Elder Jones and his home address matched the return address. Mystery solved!

While doing apartment inspections, Elder Kite went to the varasto with the Elders

and they found two of the missing luggage covers.

On Wednesday evening, we left on a little adventure.

We took all of our bags and walked over to the Leppävaara train station.

(The blue IKEA bag was quite heavy. it was full of three packages for a missionary.

He had asked us if we could bring them to Rovaniemi with us. They were his birthday packages.)

We caught a train to Pasila, where we were able to get on to our night train to Rovaniemi.

The train left at 7:37.

We somehow were able to get most of our luggage into the little compartments on the backside of the beds in our sleeping cabin. The pictures are poor because they were snipped from a marco polo.

We waited in our cabin until the conductor came by to check out tickets.

We decided to go exploring the train. There were 9 cars on the train.

They also stopped and picked up a car carrier, but we could walk through 9 cars.

Our cabin was at the very front of the train cars, but the engine was in front of us.

We started at the engine, we could only look through the window, but of course that door didn't open.

8 of the train cars were double decker, with the restaurant car only being a single level. We walked through 4 sleeping cabin cars, sometimes upstairs and sometimes down. Then we walked through the restaurant car. We decided to keep going to the end of the train. After the restaurant car, there were two cars with just regular seating, then two more sleeping cabin cars. At the last car, we could look out the window and see the car carrier, but couldn't go onto it. We went back to the restaurant car and bought ice-cream bars to eat. We stayed there to eat them even though it was rather warm in that car, but the windows were large and we could watch the scenery while we ate our ice-cream.

We walked back to our cabin and played a game of 5 Crowns before getting ready for bed.

It is quite strange to have it be so light when it is time for bed.

Steve works hard to get up on the top bunk where he fills the space from head to toe.

The next morning the train got to Rovaniemi by 7:20 am.

Elder Williams picked us up at the train station.

Sister Williams had prepared yummy waffles for breakfast.

Then we went for a walk. It had turned off much warmer than it has been, but there were still piles of snow in Rovaniemi. We walked to the river.

It was a bit cold because of the wind, but it was nice to be able to be outside.

Sister Williams told us that last week they watched big chunks of ice getting caught near the bridge. Now most of the ice was gone, but we could see a few chunks floating down the river.

Can you see them?

We walked past the building where the church is and stopped to take a picture.

The Williams had invited some members to come to a laavu for lunch.

We went to a place where they have a little shelter area where you can build a fire to cook makara.

They even have a small building nearby that has wood that you can use.

It was a beautiful day, and a beautiful setting.

It was a little chilly, but a very nice day after a very long winter for Rovaniemi.

The lake still had some ice on it! Not sure if you can tell that from the above picture, so here is another.

We met three wonderful people and enjoyed hearing their stories about how they each found the gospel.

Elder Shurtz looked like he was sitting in a child size chair.

We made s'mores. Finnish marshmallows are made differently than US ones. I'm not sure what is different about them, but the roast differently that what we are used to. They make a caramel like crust. We used these cookies that have chocolate on one side, so the chocolate and the graham cracker are all in one. I thought that they were the best s'mores that I have ever had. Yummy!

We drove to the Santa Claus Village. We stopped at the main post office, but didn't mail anything.

We took our picture at the Arctic Circle.

Enjoyed hearing the tinkling of the icicles at the top of this sculpture.

We went to the Artikum museum and enjoyed a short movie about the seasons or the arctic.

Then we went back to the William's apartment so we could check into our room for the night. We found a room from booking.com that was actually in the same building as the William's apartment. That made things very convenient. (At least once we actually got into the apartment.)

Elder Williams has rented quite a few airbnb places and he said that each has its own way to get in. He once had to help a couple that was having a hard time. They also had an apartment in their building.

He took us to where he thought we needed to be and after trying for about 5 minutes to get in, we realized that we were at the wrong apartment. The instructions said 1st floor, so we were on floor 1, but we had come down from their apartment. When we started at the door they said to go in, the apartment was on the same floor as the door, so it seemed like the first floor even though the sign said floor 2. Once we found the right apartment, it went pretty smoothly even though it was a bit strange.

We had to put a code into our "boarding pass" online and then

knock 3 times on the door to wake up the lock mechanism.

Then the handle was able to turn. This is what the lock mechanism looked like inside.

We had dinner with the Williams and then they taught a zoom institute class which we joined in on.

The sunset Thurs. night In Rovaniemi was at 11:04pm and sunrise on Fri. morning was at 3:21am!

On Friday, we got up and went for a walk. We walked near this lake.

We saw these interesting whirly things.

We went to the other museum next to the artikum about logging.

The floor of the museum was quite interesting.

It was made of cut pieces of wood standing on edge, put together in a herringbone pattern.

It moved as you walked on it. I managed to get one piece out

so I could see how just long each piece of wood was.

Steve found a balancing thing where he worked hard to get the 4 balls all in the correct place.

There was a big logging machine. It said to climb in, so I did!

You can see just how big the tire is compared to Steve.

Behind Steve you can see a little bit of the trees cutting and stripping mechanism that also cut them into the right length of logs. It was quite amazing to watch a video of it in action.

Here is a link to a YouTube video that shows the machine in action.

At about 50 seconds in, it starts to show better just how it works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oIQAtmyCqE

Elder and Sister Williams found some little chain saws to play with.

This would be a really fun museum to take our grandkids to. We think they would love it.

We went back over to the Artikum for a few minutes. I was amazed by this large amethyst crystal.

We went to the church where all of the missionaries from the Oulu district were gathering for their District Council. They had prepared lunch and we all ate some yummy nachos before the meeting. Sister Williams made peanut butter fingers for dessert.

When Elder Goodrich tried to take a picture all of the other Elders left,

so most of the district is not in the picture.

After the meeting, most of the missionaries, including us all headed to the train.

We were all on the same train to Oulu.

At Oulu, we had a connecting train to Kokkola.

Things just kept getting greener and greener!

When we arrived in Kokkola, the Laitinens told us that on Monday there were just tiny buds on the trees, barely even noticeable. The leaves seem to just pop open overnight and it is amazing to see!

The Laitinens had delicious dinner prepared for us when we arrived. The main dish was called janssoninkiusaus (Jansson's temptation). It was a potato and anchovy dish and it was delicious.

After dinner, we sat out on their deck and visited for a while.

They were so kind to speak to us in English. They said that their English isn't good, but we thought it was great, and when they couldn't think of a word, they would get out google translate.

Sometimes they could say something simple in Finnish and we could understand.

On Saturday, the Laitinens took us to Vuokko's childhood home in Kaustinen, about a 40 minute drive.

I guess that it still belongs to the family and when they were raising their kids,

they spent time there every summer.

Inside we saw many interesting things.

The smallest dress was Vuokko's when she was a child.

The clock belonged to one of their grandfathers.

There was a himmeli hanging up. It is a traditional Christmas decoration made from straw.

It was so enjoyable. It reminded me of going to Uncle Glen's cabin.

There was also an old barn. You can see the house to the right of the barn.

We walked down to the river where they used to go swimming.

She told me that the river is 12 meters deep in the center!

We went to lunch. We had offered to treat them to a meal at a favorite restaurant while we were there. We were glad that they allowed us to do that.

We ate a delicious lunch at the Ravintola Pelimanni (Fiddler Restaurant).

Kaustinen is known for its Fiddlers. There is a huge fiddle in the center of the roundabout.

UNESCO has designated Kaustinen's fiddle playing tradition on their list of

Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humankind.

We drove to the town church. Vuokko's parents and grandparents are buried there.

We walked to their graves. She watered the flowers while we were there.

Afterwards we went to the Ottoset Kansantanssikonsertti (folk dance concert).

The concert hall is built in the rock. We really enjoyed the dances and the music.

It was such a beautiful day! When we got back to Kokkola, we drove to the sea and got out for a little walk. Heikki said that Kokkola was known as a sea town and so we needed to see the sea.

We had a delicious salmon dinner. Mikko (their son) and his wife Sandu came for dinner.

We forgot to get a picture.

They invited us to use the sauna Saturday night. We did and then they did.

Sunday, Elder Shurtz spoke in Sacrament meeting. Mikko translated for him.

A kind woman translated for us during Sunday School.

We went for a little walk after church. We saw lots of interesting things.

Many of the houses had wood piles.

There were also several little log cabins, which we think is where they store the wood.

Others had little play houses.

Some had several of the above, and most everyone seemed to have a trailer.

When we got back, we took a selfie with the little windmill so we could send it to Terhi, the Laitinen's daughter who served with us on our last mission.

We saw several little birds. We heard some interesting ones flying that made loud clicking sounds as they flew. Too bad I didn't have the good camera so I could have zoomed in better.

The sister missionaries serving in Kokkola were invited to come to dinner. We enjoyed a lovely dinner and then a bit of visiting and a spiritual thought by the sisters. Then it was time to leave to catch our train.