This week's posti

Today when we received the blue leaflet you see below I knew that we had truly "arrived" in Finland. The text at the far left says "First and only notice" The return address is OY VALITUT PALAT - READER'S DIGEST AB. I am a "finalisti" and yes I have a chance to win 120,000 euros if I soita numeroon 0800-02011 before 7.9 klo 21,00. Seems like the chance of winning would be higher here in Finland with only 5M people. And there are 1,506 prizes altogether. Receiving this notice prompted me to report on all the mail we got this week. The large white envelope comes from tv-maksuhallinto. That's the TV payment administration. It was addressed to David and they want to know if our TV tax payments are in order. After giving us the rates: 49,35 for 3 months, 97,60 for 6 months or 193,95 for a full year they closed "With friendly greetings." They have no way of knowing whether we have a TV. The note says if we don't, then throw the notice away. The temptation is there, but so are the Articles of Faith numbers 12 and 13. The money supports the two state owned and operated TV channels. And the last piece of mail came from a good member of the church. He gave us a lovely picture book about the region of Finland that we live in. I wrote him a thank you note. Then we received a two page letter thanking us for the thank you note we sent. So that was a lovely thing to receive.