Vappu, Farewells and Hellos
We walked by the manor house on Monday and the leaves have come out even more.
So this picture is Tues (top left), Friday (bottom left) and Monday (right).
This was a sad week for the mission office.
Sister Airto was released after 8 years of missionary service under 4 mission Presidents.
Here are a few of the pictures from Monday and Tuesday. (Tuesday was her last day.)
The Christmas cactus in the office decided offer a farewell and to bloom on her last day.
Here is our final office picture with her.
Oh, how we are going to miss her!
One of the assistants, Elder Weeks was transferred to Turku to finish his mission.
We will miss him as well.
Sister Airto gave out chocolate bars to the departing missionaries for the last time.
We drove Sister Airto home because she had more things to take than what she could carry.
I took a picture of her apartment building. It is all wrapped up while they are working on it.
That means that the residents can't see out of their windows until September!
Wednesday was Vappu. The office was officially closed, but Elder Shurtz and I had things to do there.
We went over to the office at 7:00 so I could get the departing missionaries checked in for their flights.
Elder Shurtz was able to help the assistants swap the luggage in the trailer
between the new missionaries and the departing ones.
We had other things to take care of as well and we ended up spending about 4 hours there.
The Espoo ward had a Vappu activity, so we went over to the church for that.
Bishop Leppanen talked us into getting into the bounce house so he could take a picture of us to show our grandkids.
They had food. We brought a salad, which was the most healthy thing there.
There were meatballs, bread, grapes, popcorn, caramel popcorn, chocolate and munkki (donuts).
They also had a cotton candy machine which was a big hit.
We went to the temple Wednesday afternoon.
Most places were closed for the day, but the temple was open.
I had hoped to get some good springtime pictures of the temple,
but it was rather cloudy by the time we got out of the temple,
so they didn't turn out as nice as I had hoped.
It was fun to see and hear the birds.
Thursday morning, we were disappointed to hear from Nathan and Charlotte
that they had gone to check in for their flights and discovered that SAS was having a pilot strike
and they were unable to check in for their flight.
It hadn't been cancelled, but it didn't show up at all, so it was not possible to check in.
They were trying to reach SAS, but the strike had been going on all week
and there were 300,000 other people also trying to reach them.
We were glad to hear several hours later that SAS was willing to put them on
a Lufthansa flight from Chicago to Munich to Helsinki.
The only problem was that their flight from Salt Lake to Chicago was on Thurs
and the Lufthansa flight didn't leave until Friday.
We talked to Ron and Sheri and they were willing to have them spend the night with them.
On Friday morning, when we went for our walk, it was snowing!
It was even starting to accumulate a little bit in a few places.
The trees are getting very green!
There was still some snow on the soccer filed.
It is covered with the black pellets from when they plowed the field,
and that must insulate the snow so it doesn't melt as fast.
The snow on the former ice rink is all melted,
even though those snow piles were much bigger than the ones on the soccer field.
Nathan and Charlotte were supposed to arrive about noon on Saturday,
but they had a tight connection in Munich and by time they got through
a very crowded passport control,
they had missed their flight.
They were eventually able to get put on a flight leaving 2 1/2 hours later.
Just before leaving to pick them up, I looked out the window and it was snowing!
We picked Nathan and Charlotte up at the airport around 2:30.
We had some sandwiches for them as we drove home.
We made one stop on the way to Heino to get some chicken and frozen vegetables.
We decided to drive to Nuuksio and go on a hike.
It was snowing a little on and off, but it must have been snowing more a bit earlier,
because there was snow on the ground in places.
I thought it was interesting how the water drips on the needles of the trees were almost ice, but not quite.
We hiked to the lookout point.
On Sunday, we really appreciated the Lehtinens coming to our ward,
so they would have a chance to meet Nathan and Charlotte.
After church, we went over to the Espoo Cathedral.
It is a medieval stone church which oldest parts date back to the 1400s.
We had visited this same church on Christmas Eve with the Auras and temple missionaries.
Charlotte was interested in attending a local Finnish Church, so I told her I would look for a service in English.
Elder Lehtinen helped me find the details. It was located very near the Old Church.
It was quite interesting.
I am not sure that they were thrilled to have "Mormon missionaries" attending their meetings,
but they seemed more friendly once they realized that we were just there to visit their service.
Apparently is was Good Shepherd Sunday, and much of the sermon was focused on the Good Shepherd
and the very same scriptures that we had just studied in Sunday School in our ward.
We fixed Salmon Soup for dinner, and had mammi for dessert.
Charlotte gave it a thumbs up, but Nathan was more ambivalent.
We will miss him as well.
I took a picture of her apartment building. It is all wrapped up while they are working on it.
That means that the residents can't see out of their windows until September!
We went over to the office at 7:00 so I could get the departing missionaries checked in for their flights.
Elder Shurtz was able to help the assistants swap the luggage in the trailer
between the new missionaries and the departing ones.
We had other things to take care of as well and we ended up spending about 4 hours there.
The Espoo ward had a Vappu activity, so we went over to the church for that.
Bishop Leppanen talked us into getting into the bounce house so he could take a picture of us to show our grandkids.
There were meatballs, bread, grapes, popcorn, caramel popcorn, chocolate and munkki (donuts).
Most places were closed for the day, but the temple was open.
I had hoped to get some good springtime pictures of the temple,
but it was rather cloudy by the time we got out of the temple,
so they didn't turn out as nice as I had hoped.
Thursday morning, we were disappointed to hear from Nathan and Charlotte
that they had gone to check in for their flights and discovered that SAS was having a pilot strike
and they were unable to check in for their flight.
It hadn't been cancelled, but it didn't show up at all, so it was not possible to check in.
They were trying to reach SAS, but the strike had been going on all week
and there were 300,000 other people also trying to reach them.
We were glad to hear several hours later that SAS was willing to put them on
a Lufthansa flight from Chicago to Munich to Helsinki.
The only problem was that their flight from Salt Lake to Chicago was on Thurs
and the Lufthansa flight didn't leave until Friday.
We talked to Ron and Sheri and they were willing to have them spend the night with them.
On Friday morning, when we went for our walk, it was snowing!
It was even starting to accumulate a little bit in a few places.
It is covered with the black pellets from when they plowed the field,
and that must insulate the snow so it doesn't melt as fast.
even though those snow piles were much bigger than the ones on the soccer field.
Nathan and Charlotte were supposed to arrive about noon on Saturday,
but they had a tight connection in Munich and by time they got through
a very crowded passport control,
they had missed their flight.
They were eventually able to get put on a flight leaving 2 1/2 hours later.
Just before leaving to pick them up, I looked out the window and it was snowing!
We picked Nathan and Charlotte up at the airport around 2:30.
We made one stop on the way to Heino to get some chicken and frozen vegetables.
We decided to drive to Nuuksio and go on a hike.
It was snowing a little on and off, but it must have been snowing more a bit earlier,
because there was snow on the ground in places.
and took the obligatory selfie.
so they would have a chance to meet Nathan and Charlotte.
After church, we went over to the Espoo Cathedral.
It is a medieval stone church which oldest parts date back to the 1400s.
We had visited this same church on Christmas Eve with the Auras and temple missionaries.
There are interesting murals inside.
Charlotte was interested in attending a local Finnish Church, so I told her I would look for a service in English.
Elder Lehtinen helped me find the details. It was located very near the Old Church.
I am not sure that they were thrilled to have "Mormon missionaries" attending their meetings,
but they seemed more friendly once they realized that we were just there to visit their service.
Apparently is was Good Shepherd Sunday, and much of the sermon was focused on the Good Shepherd
and the very same scriptures that we had just studied in Sunday School in our ward.
We fixed Salmon Soup for dinner, and had mammi for dessert.
Charlotte gave it a thumbs up, but Nathan was more ambivalent.
We went for an evening walk even though it was a bit cold.
We found this interesting painting (along with a few more) in an underpass on the walkway.
We love being here in Finland. We love being missionaries. And we love having family come to visit!
The sun rose in Espoo Sunday morning at 5:08 and it set at 21:29 for 16:20 hours of sunlight.
In Provo, the sun rose at 6:21 and it set at 20:25 for 14:04 hours of daylight.
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