Winter in Finland

We are so grateful every time it snows! . . . . . 

. . . . . . that we don't have to shovel it! 😉😊

It is beautiful when it snows here, especially when the sun shines!

Most days are cloudy, so we love it when we get to see some sun!

It has been below freezing every day this past week.

We enjoy our walks in the mornings. 

This past week, it has been cold and a couple of the days it has been lightly snowing.

 Often, they are out plowing off the ice surface at the skating area.

 We especially like the part of our walk that goes through the forest.
It seems almost magical in the snow!

 In some areas of our walk, sometimes there has only been one person and one dog
on the path before us,                                                and sometimes only a dog. 

Sometimes the path is a mess and hasn't been cleared at all, and has extra snow from the streets being cleared.

 Some places are nicely cleared.

Regardless, there are always people out on bikes.

 This was another week for Elder Shurtz to deal with the new cars.
On Tuesday afternoon, he met these two sisters at the temple parking lot to switch their car with a new one.
They look pretty happy about it.

Elder Shurtz had been waiting for a long time for all of the monthly vehicle reports to come in.
The missionaries are supposed to mail them in so that they can arrive by the 5th of the month.
They send them in a special envelope that is like a postage paid envelope.
We had not seen any of these envelopes in January until on Wednesday.
There were 19 of them. (I wonder if the posti has just been saving them up.)
Elder Shurtz was glad to finally have them!

He met some other sisters at the temple parking lot at 8:00am on Friday.
They first had to get all the snow off of the new car.

 Success!

Pres. Aura was also getting a new car. Elder Shurtz went with him to pick up his new car.

He took his old car to the temple parking lot.

I went with him so I could take the pictures of the cars that are needed to sell them, 

while Elder Shurtz worked on clearing off the cars that needed to be in the pictures.

Some of the cars looked like "igloo cars" when they were first started to be cleared.

Sister Herttuainen has told us that on the news they reminded people that it was illegal to drive "igloo cars".

Of course, since we were at the temple and since it was such a beautiful day, 

I took advantage of the situation to go and take some pictures of my favorite building to photograph in Finland.

We decided to stop at the Lidl grocery store that is near the temple. 

There was a huge snow pile that was from clearing the parking lot. 

Some kids were out using it for a sledding hill.

 We often see a mom or dad pulling their child on a little plastic sled. 

We haven't been able to get a picture of that, but I saw this cute picture posted by our Relief Society President.

The caption said, "Typical morning at a Finnish preschool!"

We were very sad to learn that the two temple couples who have been waiting for their visas were both denied. 

The YSA couple that we are waiting for has't heard anything yet, 

but we are worried that they will also be denied unless something happens. 

We are a bit concerned as it now appears that there is not a category that the

senior missionaries fit into for the purpose of getting a visa. We need a solution soon!

On Saturday, it was a beautiful day, with the sun shining. 

We decided to take advantage of that and drove to Nuuksio (a national park). 

We have been there before a couple of times in the summer. 

There were a lot of cars in the parking lot compared to the other times we have been there, 

and Haltia (the museum there) is actually closed for maintenance right now.

We saw people there with skies, snowboards, sleds and bikes.  Lots of people enjoying the beautiful winter day.

Since we don't have any of the above mentioned equipment, we went for a walk. 

Elder Shurtz thought he would take advantage of the snow and make a snow angel!

He actually made three.

One was a missionary snow angel.

By time he was done, his had quite a bit of snow on him, even on his face.

I guess if you are going to live in Finland, it is good to be able to find some activities to enjoy the winter.

It may be cold, but Finland is definitely beautiful in the wintertime - especially when the sun shines!

It is amazing how much some crisp fresh air and a bit of sunshine does to lift ones spirit!

Saturday evening, we had an enjoyable time with the Lehtinens. 

We invited them to come to our apartment for dinner. 

We made a white chicken chili and some bread. One loaf of cashew-craisen and another of seeds and oats. 

We had a very enjoyable visit with them and then had apple crisp for dessert.

We forgot to take any pictures. 😕

We are continuing to notice that it is getting lighter. 

When we walked home from the temple missionary couple's apartment after church, 

we noticed how much lighter it was than the first Sunday on this schedule.

The sunrise was at 9:02 and the sunset at 16:02 for 7 hours of daylight.

In Provo, sunrise was at 7:44 and sunset at 17:30 for 9:46 hours of daylight.

We are now gaining more than 4 minutes of daylight each day, over a half hour in a week's time.