Thanksgiving in Oulu

Hi

This week we had the big Thanksgiving zone conference down in Oulu. It was really good and the food rocked. They had all sorts of pies but I was already loaded up from the humongous fruit bowl so I almost didn’t have enough energy. Of course, I came to my senses and stuffed down some pie but I was quite full. The only downer about Thanksgiving is that there is no time for a nap afterwards and we headed out and did some missionary work, the whole time being in the post Thanksgiving dinner grog. It was a day full of thanks, but that was one aspect that I was NOT thankful for.

We drove the next day back to Kuopio. I drove the 3.5 hr trip back. My legs were super tired but it was a fun road trip. Finland is really dark these days and so the whole trip felt like it was nighttime. It will continue to get darker and darker until around the 21st sometime. Right around the time that the world will end. My chances of ever seeing the sun again are not to hot at this point. Are people going crazy about that over there? It has been mentioned a couple times here but overall, the Finns are fairly sensible people.

We found a stand for our Christmas tree. We grabbed a bucket and a ladle and headed out to a forest by our house to get some dirt. We dug up a nice bucket full and headed back home. On the way back, we were talking about if any missionaries in Kuopio had ever used the ladle in the same way we just had. The answer: Probably not. But it got the job done and our tree is sitting pretty now. 

Thats about all that comes to mind. Things are great here. Oberhansley is a champ.

Thanks for the support and love.

Love you all.

Vanhin Merkley