Vadelma in the Forest

I am not sure how it got to be August already! The summer is going by fast! 

It has continued to be very hot this week, but yesterday and today have been a bit cooler and it has cooled down quite a bit a night which is nice. We just wish we could somehow bottle the excess degrees now to save them for the cold winter months, when I am sure that we will be wanting them.

Today is August 5, so we have been on our mission for 5 months! (We went to the MTC on March 5.)

This week we had some visitors at the office. The Wheelers are Assistant Church History Specialists in the Nordic region of the Europe Area of the church.  They are actually serving in Denmark but were asked to come to Finland and see what Church history has been collected by the Stakes and Missions, and what might be lying around that the Church might be interested in. We have been communicating with them as they were planning this trip. 

They met with Pres. Aura and Sister Herttuainen on Monday. It was fun to meet them and visit for a few minutes. 

We would have enjoyed the chance to visit with them more. 

Last week, Elder Shurtz had thought that we might want to go picking blueberries. 

You can pick berries here anywhere you find them in the forests as long as you stay 30 meters from someone's house. 

We decided not to go because I thought it was too hot to go hiking in the forests. 

On Tuesday morning as we went on our walk on the path that we most usually take, we spotted a little red berry, and as we inspected it closer, we realized that it was a raspberry (vadelma). 

As we looked more closely, we realized that there were lots of little raspberries just off the walking path. 

We picked a few and ate them. They were very tiny, but still quite tasty. 

We were so excited to find berries right along our usual walking path!

Sister Airto told us that we found them because we had learned the word 

the day before in our little Finnish lesson part of our devotional.

I am always amazed with the forest paths here. 

One day we went to a different little section of forest and took this little trail.

 On Saturday we spent the day at home and did some needed things around the apartment. 

One of the things that we did was to defrost the freezer.

In trying to spell Leppävaara correctly, Elder Shurtz came across an article about the area and read that Krepost Sveaborg, a WW1-era fortification system of tranches and artillery batteries defending Helsinki, passes through Leppävaara. 

He realized that we had probably seen some of this in our walks before. 

We remembered seeing what looked like it might be a creek bed, but it was dry and overgrown 

and it didn't look like water would have actually been able to flow through. We came across a section this week 

on one of our walks and this time we actually saw a sign, that confirmed that is what it is.

On Saturday, we had a chance to go teaching with the sisters. 

Since Sister Nielson is being transferred, she asked if we could take some pictures.

Jxx is a recent convert. We have been teaching at his house before. His wife didn't want to be in the picture, but the other "family members did". He a house full of animals. He has 2 hairless cats, 2 hairless dogs and a little Chihuahua.

He took a picture of the 4 of us as well.

We are really going to miss Sister Nielson. She is a great missionary.

The interesting pointed cabbage (suippokaali) that we bought yesterday.

Just as we were about to eat dinner, we got a phone call from the Kereva sisters. 

They had locked themselves out of their apartment. 

A few weeks ago Sister Shurtz discovered in passing that those sisters had the third key in their apartment and that it was supposed to go to the Bishop's office.  About a week ago, she found out that the key was still in their apartment and felt like they should get in to the office just as soon as possible. When we found out that Lake Tuusula was near Kerava, we made arrangements to meet the sisters and bring them some supplies and get their third key. So the good news was that their third key was at the office instead of in their apartment. What a tender mercy! 

We were able to quickly eat and go over to the office and collect some more supplies that they had ordered previously and some packages that belonged to them and their key and drive to Kereva (about 30 min. away) to help them out. 

They were so grateful! (Embarassed and feeling a bit sheepish, but also grateful!) 

Oh, how we love the missionaries!

The other interesting thing was that earlier in the afternoon, I had noticed on facebook that Amanda from our ward in Provo was having a birthday. When I saw her picture, I remembered that she had told me that she had a sister serving in the Finland Helsinki mission. I was able to figure out that Sister Coffelt was her sister, but was I feeling bad because we had just seen her last week, before I realized that she was Amanda's sister. Well, guess where Sister Coffelt is serving? That's right - in Kerava! She was pretty excited when I showed her a picture of her sister from LDS Tools!

We are enjoying our service as missionaries here in the Finland Helsinki Mission. 

We are grateful for the opportunity to serve. 

We are grateful for the tender mercies from the Lord that we see quite often. 

We know that He loves His missionaries. 

We love being able to work with and serve the young missionaries!