Colorful Autumn

Autumn is a real season here in Finland. We have watched the leaves begin to change colors slowly in August. In September we had the rain and the beautiful rainbows. There were wild berries of all kinds in the forests. There are forests everywhere. The people who know which berries to pick have shared many different ones with us. They gave us instructions on how to use them in cooking or just to eat them fresh. We want to share a wonderful blueberry pie recipe that Sister Hunt has tried and we both loved it. In October autumn ended and winter weather and cold temperture came.

Blueberry Pie
crust:
100 gram butter
3/4 deciliter sugar
1 egg
2 deciliter flour
1 deciliter oatmeal
1 t baking powder
filling:
2 deciliter sour cream
1 egg
3/4 deciliter sugar
2 t vanilla sugar
4-5 deciliter blueberry
(2 t potato flour - if frozen berries are used - shake the berries in it)

Crust: Mix softened butter with sugar and egg. Then add flour, oatmeal and baking powder. Spread the mixture into a baking pan, lined with parchment baking paper.
Filling: Mix sour cream, egg, sugar and vanillasugar. Pour on to crust. Then add blueberries on top.
Bake at 200 degrees Celsius (400 degrees F) for 30 minutes.

We had a Zone Conference where safeguards for missionaries using technology was emphasized. This information is taken out of the booklet, Safeguards for Using Technology by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  (1) There are apps that provide filters on our devices that protect us from inappropriate content. The best filter we have is our own will and desire to make righteous choices. Heavenly Father has given us the gift of moral agency and the gift of the Holy Ghost. We need to be in tune with spiritual promptings. (2) We must be focused on our purpose. Turn on our device only after our intention is clear. Consider the amount of time you will take for your righteous purpose. (3) We must use our agency to be disciplined in using our devices when it is appropriate. Elder M. Russell Ballard taught: "Handheld devices, such as smartphones, are a blessing, but they can also distract us from hearing the still, small voice. They need to be our servants, not our masters." (4) As missionaries we must work as One in developing a culture of unity, turst, obedience, compassion, caring, vigilance, and accountability so that we can all strengthen, encurage, and support one another. We must avoid isolation at all times.

Autumn is an excellent season for learning about things in a classroom or somewhere indoors because most of the outdoor activities are ending or have ended. The weather is getting colder and colder. Soon the freezing temperature will come. We will be plugging in our cars so they will start. But autumn is still beautiful!

We are grateful for your support of our mission. Thank you for your love and prayers. We love you all very much! May the Lord bless you in all you do!

Beautiful Autumn Day

We enjoyed the colorful leaves.

Some autumn flowers are late bloomers.

A few blueberries left for the animals.

Our golden church yard tree.

One species of pine trees turns colors and loosees its needles in the fall.
They are bare in the winter, but are so beautiful with new needles in the spring.

Elder Hunt helping a church member get ready for winter.

Precious monemnts frozen in time with cameras.

We still talk about our children's visit in September.

We Love You Dear Family and Friends! Take Care!

The Visits

Though our photos we want to show you the places we have visited in the month of September as we traveled around throughout beautiful Finland doing our assignment in missionary apartment inspections. Then we'll show the highlight of our children's visit from America. Our son Blaine and daughter Tara came to visit us over the weekend of the 16th. It was like a wonderful dream come true. It was a short visit, but we squeezed some choice experiences into it. We captured some of them in our photos. We loved their visit. We appreciate their families for letting them come. The gospel of Jesus Christ is all about families because His plan for us to have eternal families. We love our children, our siblings, our parents, our grandparents and all whom we call family.

We stayed in a very quaint and elegant hotel from the 80's.

This very large old church in Turku was built in 1300.

These beautiful decorative berry trees grow everywhere.

Elder Hyer and Elder Farkas had a
Mini (youth) Missionary for one week.

Another one of the churches we found in our travels.

A beautiful cemetary with only live flowers or plants.

A very beautiful stained glass mosiac window
at a church in Mikkeli.

Mikkeli Church that we toured on our way to Zone Training.

The other beautiful stained glass window.
Every square has a story or meaning.

Missionaries in our District in front of the church
that we toured.

Huge Turku Castle from its courtyard.

A wooden windmill in the field.

  

The huge old, old church that can be seen from any direction.

Arrivial of our daughter and son from America
at Joensuu Airport. 

All together at the airport.

A visit to the open market at the town's square.

Tara's dream came true-We visited the
Savonlinna Castle and toured it together.

From the Savonlinna Castle upper round window.

Visited piles of logs ready to be loaded on to trucks.

Visited a WWII Bunker (now Museum) with
machine-gun domes on display.

One of the two-man machine gun dome with cap. 

Tara and Blaine with beautiful Orthodox Church
in the background.

Faithful church members after Sunday morning worship.

Tara and Blaine boarding the plane for their
return flight to America!

Sister Hunt holding her birthday flowers
and her special guests.

Elder Farkas and Elder Hyer traveling on a train.

Elder Hyer arrived with Elder Leetham (with eyeglasses)
 who is brand new from MTC. 

Elder Leetham and Elder Hyer on their way to their appartment.

Our children's visit truly was a visit to remember!

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR LOVE & PRAYERS!

WE SEND OUR LOVE!

Learning Has Been Fun

We love serving in Finland.

Thinking of our grandchildren and others who are returning to school at this time year, where they will be learning so many new things, we want to share with you some of the things we have learned to do (and love to do) while serving here in Joensuu, Finland.

Learning is fun and rewarding. It is a lot of work but it can also be enjoyable to learn new things.  We have learned that the Finnish language is very hard to learn, but we still keep at it. Elder Hunt does communicate quite well with the Finnish people in their language.

We have learned to shop at the grocery store without fear. First, we must have a .50 or 1 euro coin to deposit it in the slot of the shopping cart to detach it from the rest of the carts. Then when we are finished shopping and return the cart we get our coin back by pushing the end of the chain into the slot. That pushes the coin back out. We think that is a a really good idea. In that way all the shopping carts are returned to their areas and not scattered thourgh out the parking lot. We had to learn that in the produce area we bag, weigh the items we want.  As it is weighed the scale prints out the price on a sticky label.  We then put labels on the bagged items. We also learned that each item of produce has its own number that you enter into the scales so they know the item placed there.  It sounds like a long process but it becomes so automatic after doing it several times. It is a good system and makes it easier and faster at check out.  Also, at the check out you put a divider after putting your items to be purchased so the next person doesn't have to do it. At the end of grocery shopping when you have paid for your groceries you bag your own groceries in your  own shopping bag that you have brought or you can buy grocery sacks or bags at the checkout as you checkout. All these grocery shopping steps have become automatic to us. So learning all that was at first frustrating but now we just do without thinking.

   

Washing our clothes in the washing machine takes at least two hours.  That is because it is a very high-tech washing machine and washes clothes very gently.  Because of that it makes a lot of loud clinging, banging, and whining noises. It reminds Elder Hunt of the the jet engines on the airplanes that he used to work on. Then after two hours we put our clothes in the dryer.  There is no vent to the outside so the moisture taken from the clothes during the drying process is condensed and saved in a long white container. The container is emptied before running each new load. The dryer does not do well with dryer sheets, it plugs the lint trap so we use liquid fabric softner in the wash cycle of the washing machine. It is quite a chore and a long process to do laundry. But in the end our laundry is clean and smells good.

Our glass top & digital stove.

Cooking on a glass-top electric stove is very different from the gas stove we were used to cooking our meals on in back home in America. First, you activate the stove by touching the touch ON button on the stove top panel, then choose the burner, then touch the "+" or "-" sign and choose what heat number you want, 1-9. If you touch both it turns off the burner. That's the basics. It has other touch buttons for other burner and heat functions. We have learned to cook all kinds of foods on our glass top touch button stove. It is normally easy to clean but it can also be very difficult to clean when food spills on it while cooking.

Pizza dough at sea level.

 Sister Hunt has learned to cook many different foods that she has never cooked before. She likes cooking at sea level. She made cookies for the first time that turned out so good and delicious. Other foods that she has always cooked have also turned out really good.

Most of all, we have truly learned to love and serve the people. We have made many friends, eternal friends, that we will cherish and hold close to our hearts. We know that the gospel is a learning process. It is an action we have treasured all our lives since our conversion. We love sharing the gospel. The Lord has said in the scriptures: "Love one another as I have loved you."

Thank you all for your love, prayers and support in every way. We love you very much and you are in our prayers. May the Lord bless you in all you do and keep you safe.

Finland has trees everywhere.

Finland is beautiful.