Just a little bit of stagefright...to say the least!

Today I did the unexpected. I can't say that I'd ever imagined myself doing this, but it took me by surprise. It's been a hard thing to deal with the whole semester, but I figured it would mean a lot to those I was doing this for.

Any guesses??????

I spoke in church. In Finnish. Yeah be impressed haha.

Our building

No, I was asked a few weeks ago to say a small talk in church. In our church, every week members address each other, talking about experiences in their lives that have impacted them, quoting scriptures and messages from our prophet and other leaders. It's a time to gather strength from each other, and helps us all see that we have similar struggles.

Becuase of the language barrier, I haven't been able to really share my thoughts or feelings or experiences during lessons or meetings this semester. I felt like I didn't really have a voice in church. So I was really looking forward to having this opportunity for the other members to hear from me in my own voice, what the gospel and Jesus Christ mean to me.

As you can kind of see, it's a small building. One big meeting room, a kitchen, one class room, and office

I wrote it in English first, quickly used google translator (to give us a place to start), and then Leena corrected that translation. It was a big job, and it took a lot of time. She was working on it until about 10:15 on Saturday night, then her friend Antero stopped by the house (who happens to be a professional translator), who said he'd "read it over." Well, he spent another hour or so making it sound flawless in Finnish. Then I had to sit down with it and learn to say all the words. I knew the gist of what  I was saying, but some of the Finnish words are so long because they have less small words (like articles and pronouns), and combine other words together. So I stayed up until 2:30am doing that, plus we had daylight savings time.

Lovely candid moment Leena captured while I was practicing!

I was pretty nervous to say the least, even though there were seriously only 15 fifteen people tops.

I know that I didn't get all the pronunciation right, and I really was only reading the talk, instead of speaking, which I usually hate to do. After it was over I had no idea how it went. Until after the meeting, when two of the ladies reached over to me, took my hands and expressed how wonderful it was. One sweet lady said "It was music to my ears. The words and the content were just beautiful." One man told me that "You read Finnish very well." Haha, but I can't speak it! Finally, in our Sunday School class, the teacher asked the class to share moments where they had felt the love of other members in the branch. One lady that I've barely spoken to mentioned my talk, saying that she was touched that I spent all that time to learn to say my talk in Finnish, because it showed how much I cared for them to do all that work for just the 15 people there. When I was preparing this, I only prayed and prayed that they would be able to understand me. I had hoped that they would feel the emotion in my words, but I am so grateful that I was able to say my testimony and my thoughts to them in their own language.

Note, I was standing at the back of the room. 

The greatest thing was that our neighbor Pekka showed up to church to support me! He is the one that has driven me several times to the hospital and health center in the early mornings so I didn't have to walk. He doesn't speak any English, but he told Leena that Sunday morning he woke up and thought I would like to see him during my talk. Since then, he has told me several times how good it was. Positive feedback sure does make me happy haha!

I've attached copies of my talk in English and in Finnish. I talk about some experiences in my life that have strengthened my faith and testimony. I hope you read them.

Suomeski

In English

Feeding the Baby Seals

In this time of year, baby seals are born all around the Savonlinna area. There is an organization that named Savonlinna the city of the seals and have started a celebration each year for the baby seals. You know how when your neighbor has a baby, you bring them food or something to eat? In Finland, many people get pulla, for example. Today's event is basically symbolic for doing that for the mother seals. Two men in scuba gear bring pulla and fish under the water to a monument of seals in the middle of the lake.

The starting point

And the destination

They start on the side of the lake and swim the few meters underwater to find the seal, using a compass. When they find it they put the pulla on their own heads and then transfer it to the seals. It was funny because they completely went around the seal and it took them longer.

They had a hard time finding it...

The act of providing this pulla means that the people of the area are interested in the welfare of the seals and want to protect and provide for them. This year it's more dangerous for the baby seals because there's no snow. Usually they burrow under the snow on the ice to stay warm in these months, but without the ice or the snow, it makes it harder for these seals to survive. Check out the ceremony in two parts in the videos below :)

Success!

I thought it was a nice ceremony. Only a few people were there, but there was a small band and a guy selling hot dogs. It was snowing pretty hard right before it started and I didn't want to get out of the car, but right as the men found the seal, the sun came out and everything cleared up. It was a beautiful day.

 On another note, today we had some company over.  The husband is Finnish and moved to South America where he met his wife. They have twin girls, and they just moved here a few months ago. The wife is learning Finnish, and doesn't speak English. So I really really enjoyed speaking with her in Spanish. It made me realize how excited I am to use Spanish with my patients or others that I meet. I've realized that I do know it better than I think. It's strange that it took crossing the ocean and coming to a country that has few Spanish speakers for me to realize that! I felt a little bad because we were just chatting away in Spanish for a long time!

Oli Ihana Päivä

As the title clearly states, today was a wonderful day! Actually these last few days have been really great. I intended to write this earlier in the week, but I'll just tell about how every day has been fantastic!

Friday: Sledding on the ice and Finnish pancakes

Even though the weather is warming up, the lakes here are still frozen. Friday was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, so Leena and I decided to take these sleds on the ice.

 It was a 2.5km path to the other side where we enjoyed warm milk, Finnish pancakes and other sweets.

Then on our way back we ran into these kids on the ice and I played with them for a bit, just pushing their sled. I think they were confused when I didn't really talk to them...

These sleds are very Finnish, and with the smooth ice, we went over it pretty quickly. I think it only took us about 15 min one way. (Of course we stopped to admire the views)

Saturday: Leena and I made Finnish pulla

The most popular sweet bread is Pulla, and there are many ways to make it. You know how everybody has their own way to make chili? This is sort of like that. And everybody's grandma makes the best pulla. You can make them sort of like cinnamon rolls or like dinner rolls that you fill with whipped cream, frosting or jam. They are absolutely delicious and it's amazing I haven't gained that much weight. We made these to bring to my friend Zofie's birthday celebration the next day.

We had a fun time making them together and sometimes we were so busy talking that we forgot about the stuff in the oven. oops. But they were still good! Especially warm.

Sunday: Celebrating Zofie's birthday

I don't usually do many things on Sunday because that it is a day of rest, but my Hungarian friend Zofie celebrated her birthday, so we had a Lapland reunion and spent some time together.

Monday: Missionaries and the ice

On Sunday, Leena invited the missionaries to come back to try out the sleds on the ice with us. We brought along Pekka, and even though it was freezing and the snow (sleet) was coming down quickly, we had a good hour along the frozen lake. Afterwards, we had my favorite riisipiirakkas and warm juice! The missionaries enjoyed doing something so clearly Finnish, and once Leena decided to invite them, they really had no choice :)

Tuesday: Awesome day at clinical

Since my public health days are over, I'm now at the hospital's OR and anesthesia unit. I spent my first monday in the PACU/Recovery room, and now I'm with a anesthesia nurse the rest of the time. I've realized that we don't really have something comparable to these anesthesia nurses. What happens is the anesthesiologist starts the sedation for the operation, but the anesthesia nurse manages all the that during the procedure. The anesthesiologist comes and checks periodically, but the nurse stays with the patient. She helps with intubation, she sets the IV, gives all medicines during the procedure, and makes sure that the patient is stable. This is a lot of responsibility and takes good skills and critical thinking. I love it! I was so happy that finally I'm setting IVs, hanging medicines, giving injections, thinking about different heart rhythms, ect. I actually got to intubate before the surgery (put the tube in that breathes for the patient). It was so so cool! I helped manually ventilate a patient a couple of times during cardioversions (when the heart needs to come back into normal rhythm). I love it when they ask me questions like "look at this heart rhythm. What is it?" and then I actually know the answer. One of the anesthesiologist has really taken me under his wing and let me assist in these procedures. I saw an insertion of an arterial line, which is different from a normal IV. They use them a lot in ICUs so we learned how to use them, but I've never seen one put in before. Basically, I was so excited these days because this is the kind of stuff I really love. Of course, it's a little bit better two because when the patient is asleep, I dont' feel so bad that I can't speak Finnish with them. And many of the surgeons have been very open with me and willing to let me ask them questions. It wasn't like that when I was int he OR in the States. Basically, this is been an awesome week.

Another shameless selfie :)

Wednesday: Another fabulous day at the hospital, swimming, Finnish lessons

Wednesdays and Fridays we usually go the pool here in Savonlinna. Thank goodness I have some exercise. Recently we've been taking Leena's grandaughter with us and she plays in the kid pool while we rotate swimming laps. At first it was hard when I had to watch her because I didn't speak much Finnish and couldn't talk to her to play or keep her close. Yesterday was really cool because we talked a lot more then usual, from things like how we were playing, to just the day and small stuff like that. It felt so good to be able to communicate. I remember the first time I met her and I felt so sad that I didn't even know how to ask how she was. I felt mute, which is very unlike me. It is sad to me that just when I start picking up on things, I'll be leaving.

When we came home from swimming, Leena told me that Pekka our neighbor had brought me a surprise.

When I saw this I got so so excited and immediately stuck a spoon it. I just made me day. It was so thoughtful.

Thursday: Fantastic first post-college job interview

I've recently applied for my first job!! I was a little nervous being out of the country and basically felt like it would be more difficult for me to get a job with such an unusual capstone experience. I shouldn't have worried so much, but of course, that's what I do best! :) I applied at a hopsital near my parents in Kansas City, and today I had a Skype interview with managers there. It was so so so good! I was a little nervous but not overly so. I didn't really have much time this week to think about the questions they might ask, so I felt a little unprepared. Also, my computer's backlight screen has been going out, so sometimes when it is turned on, the screen looks black. So I've been nervous that something would go wrong during the interview. It was so relaxed and easy to talk. I already knew one of the managers, and she made me feel so comfortable. They asked about my experiences here, what I've learned from it. They asked how I respond in certain situations, what role my classmates would say I take in a group, how I handles a patient who was having a hard time emotionally, ect. What I was not prepared for was that the ICU manager asked me nursing/medical questions! I hadn't thought about some of this stuff in months, but we got such a good ICU semester that I remembered them and answered them well! I knew I got them right because he kept asking me more. Finally he just said that he liked hearing how I was working it out in my head. I feel so relieved about this interview and feel really good about it. Maybe it's bad luck to talk about it on the internet when I don't know the result yet, but anyway it turns out, it was good experience for me, and I could definitely go into another interview feeling more confident about what I have learned and how ready I am to graduate!!

Sorry to gush about such a great week, but with so many things going on, I didn't want to leave anything out! Do you want to know what I've had stuck in my head the last few hours?? "Oh what a beautiful morning, Oh what a beautiful day. I've got a beautiful feeling everything's going my way" :)

Minä puhun vähän suomea

Remember how I'm taking two Finnish classes here? After three weeks of frustration and feeling that it would never come, I can now officially say that I wrote my first paragraph in Finnish. 

I was so proud of this until the teacher corrected it...

And I can conjugate verbs and am beginning to understand all the endings people add onto words. I obviously can't understand or even follow conversations, but I can talk "pleasantries" and every now and then during a patient interview I recognize a few words and can understand the general topic. From that and by observing body language, I really have been able to understand the things that people are concerned about when talking to the nurse/doctor. It's quite amazing. I don't expect or even anticipate that it will come easy, but I have to say I'm really proud to have come this far in just 3 weeks. 

We have a test next week in the Finnish class that Leena signed me up for (the one that's been meeting since November), but we were doing the exercises today and when the teacher asked me if I understood the text, for the first time I was able to say that I did. 

Some of those things I learned are:

Minä olen amerikkalainen ja olen kotoisin Indianapolisista, USAsta. Minä opiskellen sairaanhoitoa ja minä puhun englantia, espanjaa, ja vähän suomea. :) 

I have to admit though, this feeling only came today. This week has been rough, and to be honest, culture shock has begun to set in. I realized that I miss hearing English and even Spanish, that I missed America and just American things haha. Also the realization that I have to start studying for NCLEX and my KU application is due in a week really started to stress me out. I've had to get up earlier and earlier each day this week, 6am and then walk 30 minutes to the school. I know that's really not that early, but I can't seem to get to bed before midnight! 

Tomorrow is my last day at the elementary school. But for now, I'm up to my neck in Finnish books  :)

Church and Chocolate Chip Cookies

We have had a very busy weekend here in Savonlinna.

As I mentioned in my last post, as a way to welcome me here, Saarika invited me to her house for dinner on Friday night. Well, something that I learned very quickly was that she loves chocolate. Brownies are her absolute favorite, but when she asked me, I told her chocolate chip cookies. And I'm not even going to be humble, my recipe is the best. It just is. So we decided to give those a try because she loves cookies but had never made homemade ones before, and I love to bake. It was an adventure.

When we were getting the ingredients at the store, we had a hard time finding vanilla. That's just an easy thing to find back home, but the store didn't have the liquid kind. It had the plant. Which we had to open and scrape out to get our vanilla. That's the first difference.

Secondly, I was worried because my recipe uses cups. Thank goodness previous BYU groups that have visited brought cups for Saarika to use with brownie mixes from the U.S. They use deciliters here for measuring-that would be tricky to convert.

Third. No hand mixer. Usually you beat the sugar and butter together until they're mixed. I used my hands. It was left as sort of a grainy texture...

Fourth. No teaspoons. It was a guestimate. I only hoped we didn't add too much salt.

Finally, the oven was in Celsius. So we had to eyeball the cooking time. Overall I was very impressed. They turned out exactly like my favorite ones we make at home. And the kids loved them, too. They were gone by the next day. :)

_______________________________________________________________________________

Some of my extended family lives in a small town in South Dakota. We are all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also known as "Mormons," but since there are few people in that small town, there are few members as well. We call our large congregations "wards", but when they are small they are called a "branch." The branch in South Dakota has about 20 people. I knew Savonlinna had a branch, and I was prepared that it would be smaller than my 150 member student ward at BYU. I was very interested to see how differently church might function. 

In our church we have three hours of meetings. First we have our worship service, our "Sacrament Meeting." Then we have Sunday School and finally Relief Society for women and Priesthood for men. This branch only meets for two hours and rotates Sunday School and Relief Society/Priesthood every other week because they are small. There were probably 15-18 people there for Sacrament Meeting and 8 for Sunday School. One of the missionaries blessed the Sacrament and the other passed it. Leena was playing the piano for the meeting so she told me to sit by the elders (missionaries) so they could translate for me. I was very impressed. One had only been in Finland for 8 months but was able to translate most of the talk for me, except for quotes. For scriptures he just told me the reference and we looked them up in my English scriptures. 

Leena taught Sunday School and she asked me questions in English and interpreted my answers for the class. Even though I was separated by the language barrier, I felt the Spirit very strongly in their branch. These members know the Gospel well. They love and serve each other and try very hard to live good lives. Between the missionaries and the Spirit, I learned a lot today. 

In between the two meetings, I took a few moments to read my favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon. It's Alma 26. At the very end, I stumbled upon a treasure in verses 36-37.

"Blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the tree of Israel...Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth."

When I read this, I knew and felt very strongly that this was true. This small and faithful branch of members in Savonlinna are loved and watched over by a loving God. He knows them, and they are never forgotten. They are a small group in our eyes, but God knows every one of them. I began to feel a different sort of love: for a moment, I believe I felt a little of God's love for this branch. 

The Church might function differently in different areas of the world, but it is the same Church and the same Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am grateful for my membership and the strength that I feel from it. I am blessed that I can travel thousands of miles away and still feel the love and hand of the Lord guiding my life.