Phill and Bec continued

Phill, Becca, and Rick

Well just a couple of more pictures about our travels and then we can move on into the summer.  On Sunday we went to church in Helsinki and went for a walk on the waterfront as I explained in the previous blog.  But it was a beautiful day and our walk was very fun.  I think that half of Helsinki was out walking, but it was a spectacular day and everyone seemed to be doing okay.  After a couple of hours of walking around the town,  Brother and Sister Carpenter picked us up and we went home and all packed for the trip home.  I think that most weight on the way home for Phill and Bec was caused by all the chocolate bars that we bought at Prisma.  Anyway, they reported after they got home that everything went okay and they didn't have too much weight in their suitcases.  I forgot to mention how much stuff Bec and Phill brought with them when they came.  It was just like Christmas to see them open  their suitcases.  I gave away one of the bags of Hershey's Chocolate Kisses to our Russian friends today.  It is always fun to give them American treats. We also went for late walk in the forest this evening.

Rick, Lynne, Becca, and Phill

Monday morning the final trip-home preparations were made and later in the day we went to Helsinki on the train.  It was a fun day of walking around and riding the trolley, bus, ferry and commuter train.  We enjoyed the market square downtown Helsinki and we took the ferry to Suomenlinna, located off shore Helsinki.  This is the castle that used to protect the city of Helsinki many years ago.  It is still used by many government officials and there are some personal residences on the island.  A whole bunch of rock walls and tunnels and cannons and walking.  It was fun, especially the ferry trip to the island.  

Helsinki from the ferry

Picture to the right is Helsinki waterfront from the ferry to Suomenlinna.  It is a "cool" looking city from the water.  The central market place is right straight ahead and we had a great time shopping there.  The food was outstanding.

Well, the kids are home and I think they had a great time.  I know they missed their own children, but we had a wonderful time visiting with them and just talking and relaxing.  We really appreciate the time and expense they went to in order to visit.  Those 24 hour flight days are real "butt" busters as many of you already know.

Final remark.  We met a really nice American couple in the temple today.  They are senior missionaries in the Siberian part of Russia.  But wait, here is the amazing thing about them.  This is there third mission to the same place in Russia and their fifth full-time mission overall and we are only on our first.  We have two temple missionary couples working with us right now that are on their fifth or sixth full-time mission as a couple.  I really have to admire all their efforts and what they have done for the church all over the world.

Second final remark, I would be most ungrateful if I didn't take a minute and express my feelings of love and appreciation to my good friend, Lynn Mickelsen, who passed away last week from cancer.  There are really not a lot of things that being in Finland has caused us to wish that we were back home once in a while, but not being around the last several months, being able to visit with Lynn was difficult for me. Not that I could have done anything to prolong the inevitable, but it was hard.

Lynn Mickelsen

Our love and prayers to Colleen and her family.  He was (is) truly a great man and an example to all of us.

Bye for now.  Rick and Lynne