Pesäpallo and Hämeenlinna

Another week has flown by. We have been in Finland for 10 weeks. 

In some ways it seems like we just got here, but in other ways it seems like we have been here for a long time. 

On Tuesday evening, we (the office staff) went to the temple. (Sisar Romberg had a friend in town, so she did not go with us.) We loved seeing the flowers and the tree in blossom when we came out of the temple.

We have come across some new signs recently. We have had a hard time figuring out what the first one means. 

We have seen it enough now that we think it means dead end. 

The blue circle with the red slash on the second picture means no parking, 

so Vahin Shurtz thought that it meant trucks with cranes couldn't park there. 

Sisar Shurtz looked up the word on the sign and then decided it meant no parking because it is for emergency vehicles.

For our office Finnish lessons we have been learning the ordinal numbers, (first, second,third, etc.) 

For practice, to make it interesting, Sisar Romberg had us playing with dice! When we rolled a dice we had to say the Finnish ordinal number word. Each round we added another dice so the numbers kept getting higher. We always wonder what someone would think if they walk in the office while we are playing with dice or cards. 😊

Because the bank no longer accepts cash deposits, vahin Shurtz had a good amount of cash that he needed to deposit. 

He had made arrangements for the area office to request an ATM card that was tied to the church account so he could use it to make a deposit at the ATM machine. I walked with him to the mall to the bank's ATM deposit machine. 

This machine accepts both bills and coins. At one point, it told us to check the reject tray. 

There were some coins in there and Vahin Shurtz had me toss them back in the coin deposit hole. 

At the end, there were still a few rejected coins, and we had 20 cents more than what we had brought over to deposit. 

We decided that someone else had not checked the reject tray and that one of their reject coins was accepted. 

We then went to the Posti to pick up a package for a missionary. They actually had the package and they allowed Vahin Shurtz to pick it up. We were also able to purchase some stamps. 

We returned to the office feeling pretty good because we had been successful in our errands!

This picture shows Vahin Shurtz with the reject coins and his deposit receipt.

We love seeing the children as we walk in the mornings. 

We have seen this little boy riding his bike several mornings. 

It looks like he must be on his way to school.

We have had a difficult time finding some things in the storage room, and we didn't have any room on the shelves to add things if we need them. Sister Potter was out there trying to straighten things a bit. I went out and helped. 

We got things a bit more organized and straightened up. Now if it could just stay that way.

Brother Grönlund from the temple presidency arranged for a group of temple missionaries and those in our office to go to watch a pesäpallo (Finnish baseball) game. We left the office a little early and drove to the temple where we got in the temple van and drove about 45 min. to Hyvinkää to watch the game. 

Here we are leaving the office. 

It takes two pictures to get us all when we don't have someone else there to take a picture.  

Pesäpallo is like American baseball in the fact that they have a ball, bats, players and bases. 

Other than that the game is very different. Sisar Romberg had told us a lot about what she had figured out about the game and she had printed out a summary version of the rules in English for us. 

Brother Grönlund had printed out a more complete set of rules in English as well. 

Here is what the playing field looks like.

The field

The spectators

The play signals

The pitch

The joker

The mascot?

The scoreboard

The makkara

Notice that the pitcher stands by home plate and pitches the ball straight up over his head. All the players on the team stand around home plate as well. The bases are set up in a zigzag pattern.

This cute former missionary came into the office this week. Her parents live in my mom's ward!

We had a game night with sisar Potter. We played 5 Crowns and then Pass the Pigs.

Today we drove to Hämeenlinna for church. Sisar Romberg, Vahin Shurtz and I spoke in sacrament meeting in the Hämeenlinna Branch. Here is Sisar Potter checking out their supplies.

We brought some supplies for these two fine missionaries. Elder Jordan knows my cousin Keith, so it was fun to meet him. Elder DeBry translated for me as I spoke in the meeting. We sure have great missionaries here in Finland!

We drove to the Hämeelinna castle and walked around it.

Then we drove to the Aulanko Nature Reserve. It was a beautiful forested area. 

We walked up a fairly steep path to a tower and look out area. This is an area we definitely want to come back to visit again when we can climb up in the tower and do a bit of hiking.

Today we have 18:03 hours of daylight. (Sunrise at 4:17 and sunset at 10:21.)

In Provo there is 14:44 hours of daylight. (Sunrise at 6:01 and sunset at 8:46.)