Hakolan Tila - Haikola Place Jyväskylä

Well, our trip to Jyväskylä went well and we had a good time.  The Williamsons went with us to share the driving responsibilities.  We both were invited to visit Heidi and Juha Hintikka at their home outside of town. They live on a farm and try to do as much as they can on the farm.  During the summer they offer week farm camps for youth 8 to 12 years old.  Heidi also is an artist and does quite of few paintings for sale.  They have five boys and no daughters, the mother is alone among her men.

It was a very enjoyable visit.  We stayed overnight one night and went to church in Jyväskylä the next day and drove home Sunday afternoon.  We were able to eat Sunday dinner with Helena before we left.  Gary and Kaisa were there also, but they didn't go to the farm like we did.

Of course every farm has to have a dog and this was a big St. Bernard dog that was friendly and lazy.  We were always walking around him to get any way.  He was certainly part of the family.

Heidi is showing us her herd of cows and calves and all the other animals.  If you want some more information on the their place, go into their web site at www.hakolantila.net and browse their site.  It is in Finnish but use Google translate if you really want to know what it says.

 Heidi's art studio.  She is one busy mom.  She does many of the chores, milks the cows by hand, paints, cooks, and takes care of her husband and 5 sons.

Later in the evening we roasted hog dogs over the fire and ate thin pancakes.  It was fun.  This building is a tepee that they use for their day school camps.  The oldest boy, Heikki is doing the cooking.

We had to go take a look at the milk cows.  They must have around 20 head of livestock, chickens, goats, horses, pigs, dog, and cats.  This a picture of Heikki and his dad, Juha.  I might mention that most of the hay is put up green in sealed plastic bags about the same size as large garbage sacks.  They are air tight and basically this is silage.  In the hay fields there are all these white bags of hay that are waiting to be picked up.. The locals call these bags "kanamunia" or "chicken eggs."  The weather is normally so wet over here that it is difficult to dry hay in the field like we do at home.  They raise most of the hay themselves for their animals.

 Also, Heidi sells raw milk to the neighbors for extra money.

End of the day at the Hintikka farm.  It was a fun time and we enjoyed ourselves very much.  They were wonderful hosts and good friends.

This is the chapel in Jyväkylä.

When we arrived home they were harvesting the wheat outside of our guest house.  We have been watching it grow all summer long and now the culmination of the season.

Well, yesterday we were back in the temple doing our missionary labors.  It was a fairly quiet day but nevertheless it went well.  It was good to be back.  I didn't realize how long it had been.  Also today is our one year anniversary, the day we entered the MTC last year on this date.  It was been a very good year and we hope the same for you at home.

Our good friends the Fullers, Roger and Janice, completed their temple missions and are now back home in Utah.  We will miss them, they were very dedicate missionaries.  Great friends.

  God bless all, Rick and Lynne

And the Norway Trip.

Well after being home for a day we left again for Norway.  This time with Gary and Kaisa as traveling companions.  We flew out of Helsinki to Oslo and then on to Kirkenes which is way up north in Norway, just a few kilometers from the Russian border.  In fact we stayed in a little cabin that was only about 1/2 km from the border.  The picture below is the area around our cabin.  Notice that all the leaves have changes colors already and winter is not too far away.l  This place is so far north that it took us at least 3days on the boat south to cross the Artic Circlee.  (And I thought that was pretty far north.)

 Of course we have to have a picture of the tour group.  We had a good time together.

Is this a beautiful place?  I doubt if they say the same thing in the middle of the winter when it is 30 below zero.

As we traveled south on the boat we stopped at all kinds of little towns and burgs.  In fact, the boat stopped at about 33 ports on the way south.  Some we got off the boat and got a look-see but after a while they all look pretty much the same.

We have got to have a picture of the boat and here it is.

The captain took this big boat into some pretty close spaces.  It was cool and fun along the way.

The day we passed the Article Circle we had a fan club waving at us from the shore.

 And what would a trip to a northern country be like with out a church.  So here it is.

So, even after all this travel we are still talking to one another.  It was a fun trip.  The food was exceptionally good and even Lynne found something to eat.  It was relaxing and interesting.

Just looking from the ship across the water to the little farms along the way.  This so typical of a nice summer cruise up the coast of Norway.  The sun may not shine all the time but they are used to it and they all press on.

Finally after almost a week we arrive in Bergen, Norway to rain and a hurried ride to the airport back to Finland.  All went well, and we made it back to Helsinki and our own beds.

Did we stay home then?  Heck no, there was a couple of days remaining in our vacation so we decided to drive up to Jyväskylä and visit the Hintikka's over the weekend.  More on that next blog.

Love to all of you.  Rick and Lynne

What to do when the temple is closed? Russia trip!

Friends, every year our temple in Finland closes for a couple of weeks for major cleaning and repairs.  So, what do temple missionaries do when their temple is closed?  Well, this couple took the opportunity to travel this September and this blog post will show some pictures from our travels.

First of all we left the same day the temple closed for St. Petersburg, Russia.  We traveled by ferry from the Helsinki harbor overnight and arrived in Petersburg the next day.  In fact we arrived in time to go directly to church and meet with many of our temple friends.  They have a really nice building in St. Petersburg.  The Sunday after we got back we heard that they were made a stake, making it the second stake in Russia.  Our tour guide was made the second counselor in the stake presidency.  Anyway, we had a great time in Petersburg and were awed by many of the sight.

Picture above is the Hermitage and the Winter Palace.  Our tour guide did an excellent job of covering both of them in less than 3 hours.  There is so much in the Hermitage that you could spend the rest of your life looking at everything.

There is so much gold and silver and just so much other stuff that it is impossible to describe it all.  You have to see it for yourself.  Peter the Great played a big role in the life of Russia and they treat him like a God.

Not only precious metals but all kinds of paintings by the masters.  Is this place for real?

 We went for a walk in the evening and as we crossed the Neva River this sunset came into view with much of St. Petersburg in the background.  It is an old town but they are trying to clean it up and make it more presentable.

Of course you don't go to St. Petersburg without traveling to Peterhof with all its gold and fountains.  A beautiful place on the banks for the sea looking out over the water.

Just two old dudes in the picture with Peterhof in the background.

From there we went to Pushkin and viewed much more Russian history in the form of gold and castles.

One place that I really like was a monument and memorial in the middle of town honoring the people of Petersburg for their gallant efforts during the Nazi seige of their town back during WW2. It is almost a sacred place to visit because of all the death and destruction that it represents.

 Back in town again we visited Peter and Paul Fortress and much inside.

Driving around town we stopped and toured the Church of the Spilt Blood which was fantastic.  Not one single painting in the entire church.  There no paintings in this church at all, but there are hundreds of mosaics depicting the Saviour's life and all the bible stories that go along with it.  One of the highlights of the trip, totally awesome.

Believe it or not.  This is a large dome in the church and this is a mosaic made inside the dome.  Unreal with all the work that it took.

 Another church, St. Isaccs's Catherdral is a famous tourist place in Petersburg.  Again, fantastic Christian artwork in every form.

 Wonderful day in Russia looking down the water canal.

We enjoyed our trip to St. Petersburg very much.  The boat trip there and back was not bad and the two nights in our hotel room there went very fast and we were able to see much.  City is about 5- 6 million inhabitants and the food was really good especially the borsch.  Driving in the city is crazy and no one in their right mind would even think of renting a car.  It was great to mingle with the church members there and just look around the town.

We left there in the evening on a cruise ferry and arrived home the next morning.  We took a day off and left for Norway the next day.  That trip will be on the next blog.