Come with Us to Finland! Part 2
A Photographic Essay by Scot Facer Proctor

Please click on any picture to enlarge

The farms in Finland are so beautiful. Many of the natives here have told us that the Finns are very organized and love to keep things in order. Their farms show this. Most of the farms we observed were picture-perfect.

Here is that same farm from another angle. This farm just spoke peace to my soul.

Never have I seen so many mushrooms in all my life. We’ve been hiking around a bit in the woods and they are everywhere. This one is very poisonous, but there are people we’ve met here who go out and gather mushrooms every day. Picking mushrooms is a very popular pastime throughout Finland.

Just in the few minutes we were standing around the market here I saw two sales for a substantial number of mushrooms from this bin. We’ve seen the mushroom motif all through the gift stores, on napkins, designed on tablecloths, carved in wooden figures — they are everywhere.

I love taking pictures of produce and the good things of the earth. We’ve been eating various berries each and every morning we have been here. This morning’s buffet in the city of Lahti had an amazing mix of berries, some of which I didn’t know, and they were labeled: Forest Berries. I could not understand from the woman who was selling these, what they were. I thought they were currants. I just don’t know. Is there a Finn out there who can help me out (in Finnish and English please)?

Even though it is not particularly cold yet (well, Maurine thinks it is) the schoolchildren are all dressed warmly, prepared for a sudden blast of cold from the real north. The Finns are delightful to be around. Many of the natives tell us the Finns are shy. Perhaps they are, but we keep meeting the ones who are not. What delightful, wonderful people they are!

Okay, I admit it. This scene was so beautiful and so already-perfectly-framed, I just rolled down the window and shot it from the car (ouch). What was so fun, though, was the aroma of mint was so strong here it just filled our car, and our olfactory systems were going wild. It truly was delightful beyond words. The combination of beauty and smell was heavenly. This picture was taken less than 45 minutes from the Russian border.

This was a welcome site in Turku. Does your heart leap when you see this? It should! Yes, it is Finnish for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and this is one of our chapels. Maurine and I have attended church all over the world and there is nothing (except for the temple) that makes us feel more “at home” than our chapels. What a joy to be a member of the Church.

This makes the photographic essay more personal. Here are my traveling companions — my parents — Martha Proctor Flandro and Royce Flandro, and my precious wife (most of you know her), Maurine Jensen Proctor. We invited a number of people to come on this trip with us. One by one they could not come. One day I was telling my Mother about all the people we had invited and who could not come. Mother said, “Well, you never invited us!” I said, “Would you like to come?” She answered quickly, “We’d love to!” Within a few days we had made the arrangements, got the tickets and here we are together having the time of our lives. Mom is 87. We’ll plan another fun trip next year.

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