Sunday, October 11, 2015

September Summary

September YSA Temple Day 

Chhorvorn (Cho) Vath, Hua Li, Eren Manis, and Qin (Claire) Yu

We began September with our monthly YSA Temple visit.  We have come to enjoy these monthly activities very much.  This four people above made this a trip to remember!  Cho is from Cambodia and moved to Finland with her family several years ago.  She finished a mission in Finland just before we arrived here last year.  She has been living in Turku, but comes often to Helsinki, as she has family here.  She will be moving to Helsinki in October, so we look forward to seeing much more of her.

Hua joined the church in Turku, where she was working on her doctorate degree.  The week after this picture was taken she returned home to China.  We are hoping that she will be able to stay in touch with the Church there.  We gave her some contact information and have received one email since her arrival.  Hua would like to serve a mission.  We are also following her on FB.

Eren joined the church in Ankara, Turkey at the end of May.  He and a friend, Gökmen (Skyman) have come to Helsinki to study for one semester.  They will be returning to Turkey in December.  This was Eren's first Temple experience and he enjoyed it very much!  We hope to get him started on his own family history work.

Claire, joined the church about 5 years ago in Vaasa, Finland.  She served a mission in San Jose and returned home to Shanghai, China in March following her mission.  She has now come back to Helsinki to finish her education here.  She brought her grandparents' names to the Temple, she was baptized for her grandmother and Eren was baptized for her grandfather.

Prior to the baptism I invited her to share her feelings with those present.  She bore a sweet and powerful testimony about her love for her grandparents, both of whom passed away while she was serving her mission, and her love and gratitude for the Savior and His atonement.  She sent me this picture to use in the blog.


Claire with her grandmother, Jia Jun YU, 
and her grandfather, Ying Quan WANG.

After the baptism and endowment session we met with the young adults in the guesthouse kitchen, where we enjoyed letut (Finnish crepes) made by the young adult advisers from Espoo 1 ward, Pertti and Kirsti Vorimo.  They are awesome!!!



Below are Eren Manis and Gökmen Özturk (white tee shirt).  Eren was baptized in Ankara, Turkey in May and the two of them just showed up in church at the end of August.  They are both wonderful young men, and have participated in many of our young adult activities.  We have also had the opportunity to teach Gökmen with the sister missionaries.  He will be baptized this Saturday!!!  It is wonderful to see his faith and desire to learn about the gospel.



Just before the Temple maintenance closure the
presidency had a farewell dinner for two of the departing Temple missionary couples, Manfred and Helga Shutze, and Richard & Sandy Merrill.

They also invited the new presidency, who will be starting in November.  The picture to the right is of the new presidency and below are the Schutzes (she is in green and he has a suit on)  and Merrills (she is in pink and he is to her left).





Our friends Elder Jorg and Yulia Klebingat paid a visit to Helsinki in September.  He is in the Europe East Area presidency in Moscow and they brought the mission presidents to the Temple here following their training meetings in Tallin, Estonia.  Elder Klebingat was kind enough to speak at a fireside for our young adults.  It was a wonderful opportunity for our young people!!  And for us!!  We are flanked by the Merrills.



Fall has come to Helsinki.  We quite a bit of rain the last half of September, but it brought some beautiful sunsets.  This photo from in front of our apartment doesn't begin to do justice to the sunset.  October has started out much cooler - right at freezing every morning.  If this keeps up it will be a much different winter than last year!

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