Snow what?

 In a self-efacing way of downplaying our role here as office missionaries, I got feedback that my last entry might give the impression that we aren't keen on the assignment. How can I adequately express that such is the opposite of real. Really, we love our assignment in the office! My attempts at humor can come across as cynical. I just wasn't sure our routine would be engaging. I promise to worry less about what your reactions might be, and just tell you what's happening with and to us.

Last week the weather warned that a "twice in a decade storm was coming" and it hit on Saturday and Sunday. We couldn't get our little car out of the street where we live, it just pushes the heavy snow under it and gets high-centered after a meter of effort. When we did go out during the week I slipped into an icy rut right as a van was coming the other way, and literally, in the words of my Uncle Joe "if we had another coat of paint on we'd have hit him." That was touch and go and I relearned from the other driver various uses of Finnish words for the adversary. Several got thoroughly buried as we looked out our apartment window, starting before the sun was up. I went down to help a young lady who the first and was alone trying to dig out. As I approached I said "Can I help?" She said "What!" "Can I help?" "No, no, no." I watched as she huffed pushing the snow shovel and again she wouldn't let me take a turn. She said she had already called the tow truck. So I looked around the lot for another shovel with no success and had to leave her to her struggle. By the time the wrecker got there, she had a path dug all the way out the parking lot. We watched from our window as the guy got in her car and just drove it to the street and took her payment. She wasn't the last that day, but certainly the most independently minded.

This weekend it appears the second of the "twice in a decade" storms hit. A couple more autos we just pushed back to their parking spots as they gave it up. It was good to see a few people out helping, with several others shouting the solution from their balconies. Church on TV again today.

We spent some time with the nice other couple serving here, the Mottishaws (Springville). They serve as YSA missionaries but much of their effort has been in helping get an English-speaking ward going in Helsinki. They were given a list of 250 potential members that they reached out to. Before the new Rona wave, they had a full house attending. They're doing great work there. There was also a baptism of a young non-Finn yesterday, showing that the gathering work continues in Europe as President Nelson said it would.

I mentioned in an earlier post with our picture of the noonday sun, about the way the snow looked, that the top had melted into ice and that Finns probably had a name for that. A Finnish friend who read that corrected me that it wasn't ice on top but it would be called riite, but I could also use hanki, but she would use hankikanto, the other 6 options I don't need to worry about. Got it.

House doors have an interesting characteristic in Finland: They all lock when you close them, with or without a key. We got a nice drive to see the snow-covered trees and roads as we rescued a pair of sisters who had made that mistake. We keep some spare keys in the office for that contingency. It was nice to get out for a couple hours, and they swore it would never it happen again. This was the second time they've called us since we've been here (a month). The Mottishaws told us they had made that run for them this month too.

The view from our 5th floor balcony on a typical winter day

Another day. Note the amount of snow on the parked cars. 

This isn't the light powdery stuff we get in Utah, more like mortar.

We were treated like royalty at the Aura's home. 

They were mission leaders when we were called to Finland last time

 and were subsequently transferred to Poland.

The beautiful view from my office desk.

The snowy trees ain't bad either.

Not a picture of Bridges on a bridge, but this one under one will have to do.

This is the path we walk daily to the office (the building in the background).

Of course there's no place to put the snow from the pathways,

so they pile it, even to covering the signage, or truck it out of town.

This is Finland winter to me. The two I spent here 40 years ago had snow just like this from November through April. I guess global warming has given them even rain in winter in the past several years. 

I'm happy it's back to normal while we're here.

We're somebody now! 

They put our name on our door.

(yes, I checked that we had the key before taking this pic)