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“We are One, Big Family”
The Finnish Temple Cultural Celebration, Part 2
Text by Maurine Jensen Proctor
Photography by Scot Facer Proctor
Editors’ note: Most of
the pictures throughout this article (all parts) are not captioned
with the names of the performers. Can you, the readers, help us
caption each picture by identifying each person with a correct spelling
of their names and where they are from (branch, ward, and/or district
or stake)?
Please be sure and tell us
the exact person you are talking about by saying where they are
in the picture (example: third person from the left with the red
flower in her hair) and the exact picture to which you are referring—each
picture is numbered. Send all caption helps to sproctor3@cox.net
and we will update the articles every few days as we receive the
needed information. When you see someone you know — contact
them and let them know they’re being featured on Meridian
Magazine!
To
go back to Part 1, Click here.
Celebration Theme
This was carried off with the coordination and
orchestration that Latter-day Saints have mastered. A creative committee
in Finland headed by Sirpa Happonen and members Irmeli Tuisku, Ari
Varrira and Ulla Lehtinen developed the theme.
Please
click on any photo to enlarge.
Sirpa Happonen, Creative Director of Youth Celebration
Sirpa said, “In this world today so many
people are looking for something and not knowing what they are looking
for. They feel like something is missing and they are unhappy. They
don’t realize that what they are looking for is the light
that comes from the gospel.”
With this thought, the theme became “Looking
for the Light,” and the program was organized so that each
country in the temple district had an allotted time frame for their
performance.
Yet to make the program really have the glue
they wanted required an original theme song and, with only a few
days to go, the assignment fell back to Sirpa and Irmeli. Could
they create something like this in so short a time?
Sirpa give directions to the cast; Irmeli stands by her side.
It was May, school was just out, and the children
were asleep when Sirpa sat down in her kitchen to try to write some
words. She had a prayer and suddenly the words to the song began
to spill out of her. Three hours later she had all the words, which
she then took to her sister Irmeli, asking if it were possible to
compose the music in four days.
Irmeli came back that same night and said, “Here
it is.”
“This was 100% inspiration,” said
Sirpa “because never in the world would we have been able
to make it on our own.
“I’m a teacher,” she said,
“so I’ve loved writing little plays for school, but
nothing quite like this.”
The celebration began with the Finns depicting
a scene from Babylon ,where an earthquake struck with thundering
destruction and blasting sound.
A woman then sang the theme song, “Oh
where can I find my heaven? I am lost and all alone.” It is
a song about searching for the light, so appropriate not only in
countries that are north and therefore dark so much of the winter,
but where secularism has reigned.
Please
click here to go to Part 3 of The Finnish Temple Cultural Celebration.
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