Thanksgiving in Finland

We finished our two big missionary efforts in the Joensuu branch this week. We published a book of testimonies and held our thanksgiving dinner. Preparing the book in final form took almost an entire week while we worked with Alisa in Maryland and a computer guy in Helsinki to get the book converted to the required format for our local printer. We are very happy with the finished product and hope that it will strenghten the members and those who might read it. We spent all last week making decorations, shopping and cooking for the dinner. The turkeys had to be special ordered, because turkey is not a popular meat here. And whole turkeys appear to be even less popular. Thirteen kilos of turkey cost 51 euros. And we got a discount because the people who ordered them had some kind of business card. The jello, dream whip, sage for dressing,and turkey gravy mix came from America thanks to Becca by way of the customs office. Explaining what sage, Jello, and Dream Whip are to the customs officer was quite entertaining. People were very suspicious of the dressing and ate only about 1/4 of what we had prepared. Our traditional creamy raspberry jello was a huge hit and everyone wanted to know how to make it. "Well, first you take a package of Jello..." "What's Jello?" The cranberry sauce making was a disaster. We tried to follow our usual recipe, but the cranberries here are different and produced great quantities of liquid when we tried to cook them to make whole cranberry sauce. We ended up with cranberry liquid with thin skins floating in it. There's more to the cranberry disaster, but I'll let it be with that. Also, lactose intolerance is a big problem in Finland. So we made separate dishes of milk-free mashed potatoes, milk free creamy jello, and milk-free gravy. On an average Sunday we have 28-30 people in attendance. There were 40 at our dinner including 11 non-members and 5 less active. We were very happy with the outcome. After the dinner we had a brief program of hymn singing (gratitude songs) and two special numbers with children singing. The branch president gave an excellent and brief speech on gratitude. It was all very satisfying and we are happy to be able to do something for the wonderful people of the branch.

Welcome 

Before everyone arrived 

Dinner 

Desserts 

Korhonen and Puhakka's 

David, Sister Tan and her friend from Joensuu 

Sister Korhonen and her three granddaughters singing Karelian folk songs 

Sister Korhonen playing kantele. 

All Saints Day in the Joensuu cemetery November 5, 2005 

A fresh grave in Joensuu cemetery 

Joensuu cemetery on All Saints Night 

All Saints Day

Saturday was All Saints Day in Finland. I think Martin Luther first set All Saints Day as November 1. It was Holy Day or Hallowed Day. Hence, the night before was All Hallow's Eve or ultimately Halloween. This is a loose report. You are welcome to google it and get the real story. So Saturday everything but the Kiosks and flower shops were closed. It was like Christmas is in the United States. It is customary to place candles on the graves of your deceased family members. We're not clear on how to handle night shots with our camera. Perhaps we can (uh) read the manual, practice, and then get some good shots of the fireworks on next July 4th. Seriously, we understand there will be great fireworks on the river New Year's Eve. So maybe by then we'll have the camera figured out. It is also customary to place candles on the graves Christmas Eve. So there'll be another chance. These pictures were taken around 5PM.