Shurtz Start to Finnish

On Monday, we went to the mission office.  Elder and Sister London picked us up so we would know where to find the office.  They have been so kind to us! After our devotional, Sisar London had me sit in her chair and work on her computer while she just sat next to me and told me the things that I need to be doing. In this picture, Sister Potter is also watching what is going on. Here is Vanhin London helping Vanhin Shurtz to learn his responsibilities. On Monday evening, all of the mission office staff were invited to meet with the temple missionaries at the guest house at the temple for a FHE honoring a couple of temple missionaries that were leaving.  They also recognized the 2 mission office couple who are also leaving.  This is a Finnish couple who were just finishing their service in the temple. They don't really speak much English. They demonstrated to us a nightly tradition that they do. It was not in Finnish, but in a different diale...

Kimberly was kind enough to volunteer to drive us to the airport. It was a struggle to get the luggage to fit in the car. We were able to get two of the big suitcases and the two carry-on suitcases in the trunk but the other two big suitcases just had to go in the back of the car. Here we are at the airport with all of our luggage. We checked our 4 large suitcases. They were each right about 50 lbs.  Kimberly circled around just in case we were over weight and wanted to send some things home, but we were OK. We were TSA precheck so we got through security fairly quickly.  We sat by Elder and Sister Bishop while we waited to board our plane.  They are headed to Barcelona Spain.  We also met another missionary couple who were also on our flight, Elder and Sister Linford.  They are headed to Freiberg Germany to serve in the temple there.  . . . . and we're off! We flew from Salt Lake to Amsterdam. It was a little over a 1...

We had our office training this week. There were 5 couples in the training. Elder and Sister Wells going to Chile, Vanhin and Sisar Shurtz going to Finland, Elder and Sister Nielsen going to Philadelpia, Elder and Sister Buehler going to Mexico, and Elder and Sister Bishop going to Spain. One of our instructors, Brother Barham was our instructor 3 years ago as well. Monday evening, Tiffany and Tanisha met us for dinner.  Because they both work in the MTC, they were able to eat with us in the cafeteria.   Here we are with them by the Book of Mormon display shelves just outside the cafeteria doors.  We enjoyed visiting with them while we ate! Brother and Sister Woolley came to class to tell us what it is like to be an office couple. They served in the mission office in Madagascar. They know Bob and Janell, but they served there after Bob and Janell had returned home. One of our teachers showed us this picture which we found funny. 😁 ...

Here we go, driving to the MTC!  We are excited to begin this new adventure!  We arrived at the MTC and an Elder took this photo in front of the building. We were thrilled to be able to wear missionary name tags once again.  We were very excited to see that they were in Finnish! Of course, we had to take a picture pointing to Finland on the famous MTC world map! Good thing Vanhin Shurtz is tall so he could reach that high. It was a little too high for Sisar Shurtz to reach. This is our district with our morning teacher, Sister Nelson, and then with our afternoon teacher, Brother Thatcher.  Our district consisted of Elder and Sister Bushman going to El Paso to do records preservation, Elder and Sister Long going to Virginia to do military relations, Vanhin and Sisar Shurtz going to Finland to do mission office, Sister and Elder Petersen, going to Cove Fort visitor center for 6 months (they served a previous mission in the Phillipines). Elder B...