Finnish Summer - Installation Successful! (Finally!)

Apparently Finnish Summer has finally been successfully installed (see last week).

It has been getting a bit warmer this week and by Friday, it was actually feeling like summer!

 Monday morning, I thought that our Book of Mormon order might arrive. 

We tried to get to the office a few minutes early. 

We could see the truck as we were walking up the sidewalk. 

We were grateful to see that Sister Saarnivaara was there and letting them in with the pallet. 

Sister Laitinen arrived just after that and we all worked to get them stacked in the varasto.

We were grateful to get them as we had sent out every Finnish Book of Mormon that we had.

 On Monday, I had to send our release letters to our Stake President and Bishop.

It is always sad for me when I have to send these release letters, but it was especially sad to have to send ours.

The postage machine has a glitch. 

It charges more than what it should if a letter weighs less than 20g and is going to another country. 

So I always put a postage stamp on those letters instead of running them through the machine. 

 On Monday night, Elder Shurtz went over to the mission office to help the assistants 

to get things ready for all of the missionaries to be able to get Area Book Planner on their phones.

He forgot to get a picture, so he had me take one of them on Tuesday morning.

 On Tuesday, I had Sister Laitinen work with me again to know how to decrease 

at the toe of my socks and to finish them off. Here is the finished product!

My first pair of socks that I knitted myself!
For a first pair, I would say they turned out pretty good.

 Here is my wonderful teacher and the beautiful socks that she is currently working on.

On Wednesday morning, I was trying to create some nametags for the 11 youth missionaries. 

They stay overnight with members, but spend the days with the full time missionaries 

learning what it is like to be a missionary.

The label maker ran out of label tape. 

I thought I was fine because we had more in my drawer, but when I tried it, it just became all jammed up. 

I decided that it was one that had been partially used before my time, but I found a new tape in the drawer as well. 

I tried it, but a similar things happened. I wondered if maybe it was because the tape was old.

I tried to take apart the used cartridge to see if we could figure out how to fix what we had.

After I got it taken apart, Elder Shurtz was able to get one of the cartridges working 

so I was able to make the labels that I needed.

On Wednesday, Sister Kira Gedris (former missionary) came to the mission office with her parents.

It is always nice to see the former missionaries once again, and we enjoy meeting their families.

She gave us each a beautiful temple tie tack/pin to say thanks for all we do in the mission.

It was designed by her mom. What a thoughtful gift.

 Elder Shurtz went to pick up a new car Wednesday afternoon. 

 So we now have a car with only 49 km on it.

It seems like every time we get out navigator programmed with frequently used addresses, we get a different car and have to start over again. 😊

 Elder Shurtz had to take all of the winter tires up to the varasto.

On Thursday, I walked over to the park where all the daisies were last month. 

They have all been mowed down now. 

There are a few wild flowers still around and the berries around the perimeter are starting to get ripe.

 I find these bushes interesting. 

They have blossoms that seem to be in different stages and vary in color 

from off white to tan to brown to dark brown.

 Elder Shurtz has been frustrated because he has gotten some bills with a late notice 

and late charges, but we have never received the original bills.

He was talking to Sister Saarnivaara to try to figure out why we hadn't seen the original bills.

I had a thought pop into my mind and I got the key and went out to our mailbox near the front door of the building.

I have looked in that mailbox a couple of times and the only thing 

I have ever seen in there are flyers from the office complex, so I didn't expect to find anything.

It must have been inspiration though, because I found a UPS envelope and about 2 dozen bills.

We could look up the tracking number on the UPS envelope 

and found that it was delivered on July 1, a day when the office was closed. 

The bills though seem to have been sent at varying times over the past month and a half.

We find it very strange that there were not letters to missionaries, just bills.

This is a picture looking across the field to the forest where we go on our morning walks. 

I was noticing that it looks very different that it did just a few months ago, so I took a picture.

On Friday, we got a new missionary. He is from Finland. 

He has served about a year already, but had to come home for some medical reasons. 

He has now been reinstated to serve in our mission. 

He arrived to the mission office after 4:30 with his family. 

His family told him good bye and Elder Shurtz and I stayed late at the office 

to do some orientation with him before he went with President Aura to the mission home.

He is a fine young man and will be a benefit to our mission.

(We forgot to take a picture.)

On Saturday, there was a handicraft fair being held at Seurasaari which I was interesting in going to see.

It was a beautiful, sunny, warm day. a great day for an outing!

We left our house around 10:00 hoping that we would be able to get a parking spot. 

The parking lot looked full when we pulled in, but we could see a family just getting into their car, so we waited.

We were there about 1/2 hour before the museum (the buildings and the handicraft fair) opened, 

so we walked around on some of the paths that we have not been on before.

I found this fence to be interesting.

 Especially how they had tied the diagonal slats to the posts.

 We came across this windmill. 

We have seen a smaller different type of a windmill in a different area, but this was the first time to see this one.

There were several handicraft demonstrations in several of the buildings.

First we saw the carding and spinning of wool.

The pieces of wool and the carding tools

 

The pieces of wool that have been carded and the wool being spun.

 

Samples of the finished yarn.

 The woman who was demonstrating the spinning was very talented. 

She was very kind to take time to explain the process to us in English.

Bobbin lace demonstration.

Another very talented woman. She is using 60 bobbins on the pattern that she is working on!

 Ship in a Bottle.

This man was working on a new ship to go in a bottle.

 A closer view of the ship he is working on.

He showed us the "magic" of how to get the ship into the bottle.

Felting, where we could make a felted bead.

Birch bark boats. 

 The person demonstrating was not around, but we thought this one was nice.

 This little bird flew to the building where we were standing. 

We were amazed that he could cling onto the vertical surface.

 Single needle knitting, but the person demonstrating was at lunch.

Shoemaking.

Bonnet making. 

We would have liked to learn more about this, but this woman didn't really speak English.

This was another interesting sight and also smell.

They were painting pine tar on the roof of the church bell tower.

 Here is a closeup of the job. 

We are curious how they used to do it before they had a mechanical power lift to hold them up there.

The pine tar smell gave a more authentic experience to the day.

We learned more about how the tar was made at the handicraft market 

where a man was trying to sell us some pine tar syrup for our pancakes.

A few more interesting things: seats, beds and sled.

Of course beautiful flowers.

The one on the top right corner and the one beneath it were both growing on the same plant.

I bought a couple of things from the handicraft market. 

I got a beautiful square of wood to serve cheese or bread on. (no picture)

Elder Shurtz told me I could buy this beautiful handwoven linen cloth if he could take a picture.

The woman who made them was delightful.

 We took a quick walk over to the rautakauden kauppakylä (iron age trading village) 

before our parking clock time was up.

Hyrum and Melissa had walked over to this area when they were here visiting and the water was frozen.

It looked quite different now.

 It all looked quite interesting, but the places were not open and there was no one around to explain what it all was.

 

 We found this building interesting because of what looked like an interesting chimney on the roof, but it looks like it was made of wood. 

I had seen on facebook that Jessica from the Haaga ward had gone for a hike in the forest 

and saw that people were there picking blueberries, so she and her daughter had picked 

what they could fit in a little container that they had in the car.

Elder Shurtz was very excited to think that maybe we could go blueberry picking. 

He found a way to contact Jessica and she said that she was actually there right now and 

that she would wait for us to come and show us where to pick.

So we hurried and changed clothes and headed to a forest that was about 20 minutes from our apartment.

 The forest floor is pretty much covered with wild blueberry plants.

Here is what we ended up with after 45-50 minutes of picking.

This many blueberries and several mosquito bites!

The berries are very tiny, but very tasty!

I think that the high temperature yesterday was in the upper 70's, probably about 78 degrees. 

and I think that the high today actually made it to 80 degrees F.

So, apparently we are having a heat wave. If it gets to be over 25 degrees C, it is a heatwave here.

The sun rose today in Espoo at 4:34 and it set at 22:19 for 17:44 hours of daylight.

In Provo, the sun rose at 6:14 and it set at 20:51 for 14:36 hours of daylight.