Signs of Fall

We are seeing some definite signs of fall.

Sisar Herttuainen's birthday was Sunday, so we celebrated it at the office on Monday. 

We made some apple cake with caramel sauce, and she brought some ice cream. 

We had a hard time all getting together at the same time. As soon as President Aura and vanhin Shurtz joined us, 

I got a phone call from Germany trying to help me with requesting travel since the new GVM (Global Visa Management) program is having problems. So I went to take the phone call while the others enjoyed the treats and then vanhin Shurtz joined me to have treats when I finally got done with the phone call. 

In all the coming and going, no one took any pictures. 😞

On Monday evening, The Nielsens invited us to go to a FHE with them. The Määtä family from the Marjaniemi ward had invited them to their home for FHE and told them to invite other senior missionaries who might like to come. This is the third time the Nielsens have been here as missionaries in Finland. They served here 20 years ago as senior proselyting missionaries, and then 10 years ago at the temple and now are back again for 6 months at the temple. When they were here 20 years ago, they served in the Marjaniemi ward and they have some great friends in that ward. It turns out that we had actually met the Määtä's daughter and son-in-law when we attended the Marjaniemi bbq a couple of months ago. Their son-in-law is that bishop of that ward. They fed us a delicious meal and then fed us spiritually with a great lesson and discussion about prayer. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures. 😞

A couple of weeks ago, I met a couple outside of our building who had served here as temple missionaries 

a few years ago. They were actually staying in an airbnb apartment that they had rented in our building. 

They invited us to get together with them on Tuesday evening as they were headed back home on Wednesday. 

They actually came over to the mission office so they could say Hello to sisar Airto and sisar Herttuainen. 

We left the office early and walked back to our apartment building.

The Ericksons treated us to a Magnum ice cream bar and we enjoyed visiting while we ate our ice cream bars.

Since we met with the Ericksons so early, we thought that we might actually have a free evening to study our Finnish, 

but we got a call from the sisters in Espoo. They only have one key and it had gotten locked in their apartment. 

We are still trying to figure out why they only got one key when they got to this apartment a couple of weeks ago, 

and what happened to the other key that they should have gotten. We were just grateful that we had an extra key at the mission office and they only live 10 minutes away so we were able to go and help them. 

These are some great missionaries. They are two of our Sister Training Leaders.

The keys in Finland are quite a bit different from what we are used to. here is one variety.

It was a busy week at the mission office and it was Friday before we knew it. The EU Area is doing a 21 day Book of Mormon challenge that the missionaries will be involved in. We had to have some little cards printed. 

They arrived in the early afternoon on Friday. We had to hurry to get them packaged up for the missionaries so that we could take them to the mission home before MLC ended.

Sister Airto and I worked together and got them all packaged and labeled, and divided into zones.

We were giving the thumbs up because we thought we had everything finished up and ready to go.

But, then we found out there was a change in plans. We had to pull out all of the packages for the Zone Leaders, Sister Training Leaders and District Leaders and get those ones to the mission home. We had to get postage put on the rest of them and get them to the Posti before 5:00. Now looking back I realized that we didn't put return addresses on any of them, so I hope the addresses were all correct and they make it to the intended missionaries.  

On Saturday, we went for a walk. We went to the area we had been at the end of the winter when we saw cross country skiers out on the remaining ski paths, and further along the path we could see the temple. 

We wanted to see what things looked like in that area now. 

There were lots of people out at the playground, in the swimming pool and on the playing fields. There were lots of soccer games going on. We stopped at one field to check out what we at first thought was a pesäpallo game. 

As we got closer, we realized that they were actually playing cricket. 

We enjoyed still seeing some wildflowers, but they are not as prevalent as they used to be and I am guessing that we are about at the end of seeing them. What we saw were beautiful though.

We have enjoyed watching the fireweed as it has blossomed and then gone to seed. Elder Shurtz stopped to examine it and to see if the fluff seeds that we could see on some of them came from the plant or they just get caught in the plant. The long thin stemlike things open up and the fluff seeds come out of there. Very interesting!

We wondered if we would be able to see the temple. The first time we walked in this area, there were not leaves on the trees, so we thought that now because there are leaves, we might not be able to see the temple. 

We were pleased to see that the temple is taller than the trees, so it is still visible.

Here it is from a different spot, now the osuntola (the temple guest house) is the most visible.

We stopped at the store to get a few groceries. We decided to try some new things. 

The first is voisilmäpulla (literal translation: butter eye bun). The yellow part in the center tasted like butter and sugar.

 I thought that this cashew craisen ciabatta bread looked interesting. It was very good. 

I could have eaten the whole loaf at one sitting. (No wonder people warned us about gaining weight here.)

We enjoyed seeing a couple of hot air balloons from the balcony of our apartment.

I thought that the cashew craisen ciabatta bread tasted so good and wondered if we could make some ourselves. 

The loaf we bought was rather expensive, and we had bought some cashews and craisens that were on sale a week or two ago that we could try using. 

I found a recipe for some ciabatta bread and it made two loaves. I tried adding cashews and craisens to one and 

siemen-täysjyvähiutale (whole grain seed) cereal and sunflower seeds to the other.

 

Here is the finished product. We liked the seed cereal variety. 

We still need to compare the cashew craisen variety to the one that we bought, but we think we will like it as well.

We saw a BYU license plate tonight. 

Well, sort of.

The days are getting shorter. We notice that it is seeming dark at 9:00 now. That is very different from a month ago. 

The sunrise today was at 6:00a.m. and the sunset at 8:43p.m. for 14:43 hours of daylight.

In Provo, the sunrise was at 6:48 and sunset at 8:07 for 13:18 hours of daylight. 

Our length of daylight is quickly getting back to the same as it is in Provo.

We love being here and we love the people that we serve with and those we associate with. 

We are grateful for the opportunity to serve here as full time missionaries.