Terve!
Wow, I sure hope that everyone had such a wonderful Christmas! I hear Utah had a wonderful surpise of a foot of snow for Christmas morning! Ahh how magical. There is no snow here, unfortunately. And it really isn’t that cold. Very strange actually. It is about 3 degrees Celsius. Last night at a dinner appointment I was telling some members that it isn’t even cold and they said, "Just you wait." Not frightening at all!!
But wow. Christmas is Finland is a dream. Christmas Eve we went to the Bishop’s family party. We ate lots and had a jolly old time. Traditional Finnish consists of turkey and lots of casseroles. All very delicious. Dessert: Tortut (pastry with plum filling- I have been force fed many of these in the past few days), gingerbread (my legal drug), and kiiseli (fruit soup- not my favorite). We have been eating this kind of food for the past week— all the members want to make sure we have had a traditional Finnish Christmas! Ahahaha very delish. After we ate we sang and played games by the Christmas tree and it was wonderfully magical.
Christmas morning of course was spent in the very best way. At church!! Christmas fell on the best day this year. There was no better way to celebrate Christ’s birth than on the Lord’s holy day! Oh yes and then I got to Skype home!! Ahhh! Exciting! The members’ home I was Skyping from was literally in the middle of the forest. It was so quaint and nice. I didn’t get a picture though dang it! I have been terrible at taking pictures, there is never time!
Well, now I wish you all a Happy New Year! Make some well-thought out goals and plans on how you want to achieve them :))
Sisar Wilson
I made Christmas cards and cookies for the members who fed us 🙂 *something interesting- they don’t sell chocolate chips here, you just chop up a full sized chocolate bar into chunks
The Christmas tree we sang and played games by
I made pannukakku (Finnish oven pancakes) for my companion and I Christmas morning! *topped with berries, whipped cream and powered sugar
All the gifts from members 🙂 most of this is chocolate and socks
Even though I am tons of miles away– I didn’t fail to wake my family up early Christmas morning (7.30 am)
On Christmas, the cemeteries are all lit up with candles. Such a peaceful, holy feeling.
And this was just one of the many pictures I have of yesterday’s sunset (around 3 pm)
Sister Anna wilson 