Festinord

Last week I went to a young single adult conference/convention the church organize in one of the Nordic countries every summer, called Festinord. This year it was held in Finland, in the little town of Lohja, about an hours drive from Helsinki.

The people from my stake travelled by hired bus to Stockholm, took the over-night boat to Helsinki and then took another bus to Lohja, where we where to be quartered in two schools, one for the men and one for the women. We were some 500 participants, besides the leaders and chaperons. Over the week we had spiritual and secular classes, football (soccer) tournaments which the Swedish men and Norwegian ladies won, the Festinord Amazing Race with fun, silly, tiring, and slightly dangerous tasks to accomplish along the way, dances with different themes every night (Casual, Nordic Midsummer Night, Jungle, and Jazz, which was formal dress), diverse service projects in the community, Festinord’s Got Talent, which mixed brilliant talents with great sense of humour, and meeting a lot of old and new friends. Much as I like all of my friends, and not that I mind sharing my faith at all, there is still something restful about being with my friends in the church; I don’t need to explain certain aspects of how I think, feel and how I live my life, for they know, having the same point of view and the same goals and priorities in life. They are also a great example to me on how to live a good life as a Latter Day Saint. Love and hugs to you all!

Many, many things happened, and I doubt anyone but my family would be interested in it all, so I won’t go into details. This being mostly a sewing blog, I will however share pictures of the “I-need-something-to-wear-and-quick dress” I made the week before Festinord, for the formal Jazz party. I made it from red chiffon, with a black satin lining.

I had all the materials I needed, even the zipper, in my stash, and I made the pattern myself. I wanted it to have a sort of 1930’s-ish look to it, and I tried to put up my hair in a matching way. Someone said I looked like I came from an old movie, which was nice.

After a fun, educating, exhausting week, unnaturally hot for Finland and with the occasional heavy rain (one of which I got caught in, getting soaked to the skin – I love a really heavy summer rain though, so no matter), we left on Saturday afternoon. On the boat back to Sweden on Saturday night it was a bit windy. Actually, it was windy enough at the bow of the ship that my friend C.S and I could lean into it at an almost 30 degree angle without falling.

A member of the crew asked us to go inside after a while, as they where closing of that part of the deck on account of in beginning to be unsafe. It was fun as long as it lasted, but getting the tangles and salt out of our hair afterwards wasn’t – I’m working the last tangles out as I post this, and loosing a fair portion of my hair in the process.

On the boat I bought a tin box with the mother of Moomin on it. My youngest siblings looked at the Japanese cartoon version of Moomin forever when they where little (with the Finish-Swedish accent, of course), and the rest of the family loved the series too, so I couldn’t resist this. It’s divided into four sections, and I use it for my herbal-teabags. Yay!

Now I’m back at home, and just came home from work. I’ve been getting a great deal of inspiration this past week on how I need to better myself in some areas of my life, so I regard this week as a new beginning in a way. I’m so grateful for the fun, spiritual and uplifting week I’ve had. It was just what I needed.