“We are One, Big Family”
The Finnish Temple Cultural Celebration, Part 4
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!

Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia

Please click on any photo to enlarge.

The Latvian Saints performed a folk dance illustrating how “Life is like a tree…Life is like a dance…and Life is like a game.”

These Saints were full of enthusiasm, love and joy.

The Lithuanian Saints took us to their country in a series of slides of the countryside with expanses of green fields and weathered barns and villages, before which they danced with long tapestries connecting the partners.

A man on a Jew’s harp began a twanging sound that ushered in the Estonian segment of the show. Children were dressed as lambs and chicks, and a big, four-legged “cow” ambled onto the stage, amidst much laughter from the crowd. Then a line of young women, dressed in colorful peasant dress came in singing the national song.

It is a special rhyme where the leader sings the first sentence and the others take up the rest of the song. The song says that they want to find the material in a field to make a musical instrument.

Then children, who have been gathering flowers, circle in a skipping dance. Former Finnish mission president, Malcolm Asplund, who had served in the country when the Church was still in a struggling infancy, had tears in his eyes when he explained, “These are little children who were born in the covenant.”

The scene changes. Work is finished, and the dancing begins for the adults. Then the performers dance a bit of a story how two people get together. First they are introduced, then they have a little spiff, where the dancers do a quick turn on their heels, and finally there is the coming together.

Piret Lahtimae, one of the dancers said, “We have had such a great time doing this, that we are talking about learning new dances and continuing on.

Please click here to go to Part 5 of The Finnish Temple Cultural Celebration.