On Nov. 13, 2022, President Jeffrey R. Holland, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, addressed members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Finland during a special member meeting. President Holland promised Finnish Latter-day Saints that the prayers of the righteous will prevail.
This episode of the Church News podcast features Finnish Latter-day Saint Mia Kemppaala, who also spoke during the meeting. She joins the podcast to discuss what it is like to be a member of the global Church, and what her calling as a ward translator has taught her about the principles of personal revelation.
Listen to the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
Mia Kemppaala: And I’ve also learned that I am never alone, because I know that I have always by my side someone who knows everything, someone who can tailor answers to my personal circumstances. They are not some generic answers, but they are actually answers to my own personal life. It is not just me, but I have Heavenly Father, I have Jesus Christ, and I have the Holy Ghost. And when I’m trusting the Lord, when I’m taking the little steps, even though they make no sense in my head, I am safely walking to the direction that the Lord wants me to walk.
0:58
Sarah Jane Weaver: This is Sarah Jane Weaver, executive editor of the Church News, welcoming you to the Church News podcast. We are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
On Nov. 13, 2022, President Jeffrey R. Holland, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, addressed members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Finland during a special member meeting. Elder Holland promised Finnish Latter-day Saints that “the prayers of the righteous will prevail.”
This episode of the Church News podcast features Finnish Latter-day Saint Mia Kemppaala, who was at that meeting. She joins the podcast to discuss what it is like to be a member of the global Church and what her calling as a ward translator has taught her about the principles of personal revelation. Mia, thank you so much for joining us today.
1:56
Mia Kemppaala: Thank you. It’s my pleasure to be here. It’s a little bit of a nervous thing, it’s a new thing for me, but I’m trusting we will have the companionship of the Spirit to guide us through this.
2:10
Sarah Jane Weaver: Well, I have every reason to believe that this is going to be a really glorious conversation. President Holland visited Finland from Nov. 10 to Nov. 13 in 2022. And his trip to Finland was the conclusion of a 10-day, three-nation European ministry assignment that also included meetings in Germany and Sweden. And I have to confess to the audience that we met in that meeting because President Holland invited a few people in the congregation that evening to share their testimonies. And we did not know that was coming.
And I was asked to share a testimony, as was Mia. But I was so nervous and so flustered by that invitation that I jumped in front of her in line. And I’m so glad that I did, because if she’d spoken before me, I wouldn’t have been able to hear what she said, because I would have been focused on what I might be thinking that I should say. And because she spoke after me, I was able to listen. And I cannot remember, Mia, what you said, but I can remember how it made me feel. And I felt differently about personal revelation.
So, today, I want to talk about personal revelation and how it works.
3:27
Mia Kemppaala: If I can also go back to the time when we briefly met on the stage in Helsinki, we had this very surprise call to be asked to bear our testimonies. And I had very little time — maybe a couple, 10 minutes, 15 minutes — to think about what would be the message that I’d like to share. And it was rather intimidating. And it was also a little bit nerve-wracking, thinking about, “Do I have something to say?”
But then, and this is something that I have learned about how personal revelation works, is that I don’t need to know the entire picture. I don’t need to know everything before I can act. But what I need to know is that I’m not alone. It is not just me, but I have Heavenly Father, I have Jesus Christ, and I have the Holy Ghost, who are guiding me and who are giving me the thoughts that I can say and the thoughts that I can share with other people. And I knew that I’m not alone.
So, when that moment came, I just knew that I needed to do my part, which is just to open up my mouth and share the things that I felt that are important. And the message that day, what I wanted to share, was how precious the information and the knowledge is that we know that we are daughters and sons of God and we have our divine potential, our divine nature, and how with the help of the Holy Ghost, we can do difficult things here on earth, and we can succeed. And we don’t need to know exactly everything beforehand; we just need to act when the prompting comes.
I think it is much the same with this invitation, this surprise email that came from you. You sent me earlier — a year ago exactly, almost a year ago — an email. I was surprised by the email because it came a half year later when we met in Helsinki, and you apologized to me for jumping in before me and that you wanted to just express your gratitude that you had felt the Spirit when you were listening to my testimony. And I thought that was such a precious message. And I thought that, “Oh, she still remembered me, and she didn’t have to think about that she jumped in before me,” because that gave me the time to also a little bit calm myself and just sit there in front of everyone and collect my thoughts. And then nothing; there has been no conversations, no nothing like that one email a year ago.
6:23
And there’s also a story I want to share about why I believe that it was prompted that we are having this discussion today. Because this year, a little bit after the general conference in April, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who’s a rather recent convert to the Church. And I felt prompted to ask my friend if he believed that Jesus Christ really is the head of this Church, and how would that knowledge influence his perspective and his desire to share Christ’s gospel with others. And right after when I said that, I heard in my mind the words that were kind of saying like this: “Mia, how is your own testimony? Would you be willing to share it with the rest of the world, openly in public?”
And I was kind of surprised a little bit about that, and even more surprised the following morning when I opened up my phone, and I was going through my email, and I noticed that there’s a message from Church News. And I’m like, “What does this say?” And then I was like, “It says Sister Sarah Weaver is sending the message. How do I remember? Where have I met this person? Who?” I had the vague memory that I’ve encountered this name before. And then I was like, “Oh, Sister Weaver. She was in the Helsinki visit.”
And then when I read your message, it said something like that the day before, you had been thinking about me and that you should invite me to be part of the podcast because you felt that I would have something that I could share with the rest of the world. And I was really astonished by the message at that time. I knew I had to say yes, even though it felt really difficult and daunting, because it’s difficult to speak about your faith in public for a Finn, because Finns don’t really talk about religion in public to anyone.
8:42
Sarah Jane Weaver: Well, I so appreciate you accepting the invitation. And then how did you find the courage to say, “OK, this is not part of my culture — we don’t often speak openly about our faith — but I’ll go on a podcast”?
Mia Kemppaala: Well, I am a strong believer that things like this don’t happen by a coincidence. I believe that it is because there is a purpose why you felt so. And I believe that it’s the hand of the Lord guiding us in our lives. And sometimes it takes us beyond our comfort zones, because when we step out of our comfort zones, that is when our growth can happen. And that is also when we can feel the most how God is guiding us, and we can feel the most the presence of the Spirit, because we know that we cannot do these things on our own; we know that we are receiving help.
So I knew that, you know, God has a plan for me. I knew that there’s a purpose. I knew that I had to say yes. But I knew that there was a purpose, and I tried to really think about what it is that God would like me to share, and then I just shared with you a couple of thoughts that I had in mind about personal revelation and how serving as the stake translator, and what it has taught me about how the Spirit works.
10:16
Sarah Jane Weaver: And I want to talk about translation. But first, I want to go back to something you shared in an email when you had been thinking about what you could talk about. And in there, you said that you’ve experienced how personal revelation works in a series of questions, promptings and actions. And then you compared it to a masterpiece, as something that feels or may appear small and insignificant becomes a brushstroke that contributes to a larger, more beautiful picture.
And so, can you talk about that? This idea that we receive personal revelation, and it comes in a series of questions, promptings and then actions.
11:01
Mia Kemppaala: Yes, there has been several cases in my life when I’ve felt a strong prompting to do something, but I haven’t really known why. But I’ve just felt that I’ve needed to do it, I’ve needed to take that step. And usually, that step has led to something else, to another prompting. And once I’ve done that, it has led to something else. And then finally, in the end, you’ve been able to look back and marvel at the creation. There’s, for instance, these kinds of things happen not only when you are serving in the Church, but they also happen when you are serving in your community, when you’re doing the work that you do. You get these little things, and then once you just act on them later, you’re able to see the beautiful picture that was created.
And, Sarah, you remember the email half a year later, when we met around Easter time, I just saw on YouTube there was a video about a pastor investigating the Church of Jesus Christ. And the pastor was kind of going through the “Come, Follow Me” book Easter lesson about Jesus Christ and Gethsemane and about the Crucifixion. And it was a rather honest discussion, and where he just talked from the mainstream Christianity’s point how, in the mainstream Christianity, people don’t really place a lot of emphasis on what’s happened in the Gethsemane and that the Atonement happened on the cross. And this differentiates, or kind of like, people think that they cannot believe in the Book of Mormon or they cannot believe in the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ because there’s so much emphasis on what happened in Gethsemane.
And then I just started to think, because in Christianity, a lot of people have asked me, some people have asked me, what it felt like when I changed my religion. And I’ve been thinking about that question. And I don’t think that I ever changed my religion. I don’t think the question is about that. I think that I haven’t changed my religion; I still believe in Christ and God. I just think that I have been given a microscope and a telescope, and maybe even like X-rays, to be able to investigate the very same thing from different perspectives and get a broader picture on “Who is Jesus Christ? And how does His power work?”
14:01
And I believe that also, this is what happened in this case, when I was listening to the podcast, and I was listening how this person was just so adamant about things happening only on the cross. And then I realized that it became so evident to me, it was so clear to me, that in the Bible, it clearly says how — so what happened there in Gethsemane was that Christ went to pray, and Peter, James and John, they all fell asleep three times. They fell asleep three times. And each time, Christ came to them that, “I asked you to be awake. I asked you to pay attention to what is happening,” but they just fell asleep. And they didn’t understand. They didn’t see what was happening there in Gethsemane. It’s not that it didn’t happen, but that they didn’t see.
So, it’s in the similar way, as I think, that we have been given more sort of vision or more tools to look at the very same things and see as X-rays are able to see inside of us, or the microscope is able to identify something that cannot be visible with plain eyes. So I think that this was the very same thing that was happening. And I thought that no wonder the mainstream people feel that our interpretation is wrong, if you only look with a very sort of narrow perspective.
And I felt a strong prompting to write to that person, that I really should write to that person. I wrote him. I told him about my conversion story. I especially told him about how I view that I haven’t changed the religion. I shared this example. And the prompting was so strong, but nothing happened. Nothing, no — I noticed that maybe the message was seen, but I didn’t know if that message was ever read or anything like that. And I was so puzzled, like, “Why did I get this prompting? Why did God ask me to do this, because it didn’t lead into anything.”
And at that particular time, you wrote me the message half a year later that what I had shared still resonated with you. And you remembered what I said. And then I just had this feeling that, “OK, I don’t really know where this all is going and why I was prompted to do so. All I know is that I was prompted to do so, I did that, and maybe a year later, half a year later, maybe that message gets read. Or maybe it doesn’t, but I don’t need to worry about that. All I need to worry is that I did what was asked of me.” So thank you for sending that. It came at the perfect time. It reminded me of this beautiful message. So, that was one example that I wanted to share.
17:13
Sarah Jane Weaver: Well, I think that is beautiful. I want to talk to you about how your current calling as a translator requires you to also have the Spirit of the Lord with you and to receive revelation. Because, so you’re a translator, and you take sacrament meeting talks, and you translate them from Finnish to English. I can’t even imagine what a demanding task that would be, because you’re listening to someone speak in Finnish and simultaneously rendering words in English in real time.
Can you talk about this process and how you prepare for it, and how it does require you to rely on revelation?
17:52
Mia Kemppaala: Thank you. This really is a calling that has taught me a lot about how personal revelation works. Because it is, like you mentioned, a highly demanding task, because you have to listen and speak at the same time. And there isn’t any delays that you can have, because then the speaker has already moved on, that you have lost a significant part of the story.
So, I’ve learned that every time when I start to doubt myself, when I’m doubting that I don’t know what the word is, or I’m not in the right headspace, I cannot do it, then I cannot really do it. It just doesn’t come from me. But when I’m kind of feeling, or when I’m trusting the Lord, when I just know that my task or my job is to say the next two words that the speaker is saying, that is all I need to do.
I don’t need to worry about what the rest of the sentence is going to be. I don’t need to worry about what the talk is going to be about. All I need to worry about are the next couple of sentences or the words, and I will just need to rely on the Lord is with me, and His Spirit is helping me to translate. And every time when I’m doing it like that, I feel that it’s not me who is speaking, but I just feel that I am a tool, I feel that the Spirit is working through me, and it’s a very powerful experience also for me as a translator.
And I remember that I’ve tried to do the translation sometimes in another context without really calling for help from heaven, it just doesn’t go very well. It is a really difficult task, but I can know without a doubt that it is not me on my own doing it, because I couldn’t do it on my own; it’s just too difficult. I’m not a professional translator. I haven’t even studied English as a major or anything like that. So, it’s just that I know that being a simultaneous translator is difficult even for the ones who are professional translators. So it really needs a lot of professionalism and learning and experience.
20:18
Sarah Jane Weaver: How did you learn English? Because you speak it beautifully.
Mia Kemppaala: I have learned English in schools. We started out when we are in the third grade. And then I’ve had the opportunity, when I was 16, I had the opportunity to come to United States for a summer exchange for three weeks. And then throughout my studies, I’ve also had opportunity to come and studied in England for one year. And then I collected some materials for my master’s thesis in United States for maybe three months. And my husband also did an exchange in University of Utah. And we were there for half a year. So, I’ve had these little experiences here and there, where I’ve managed to learn the language more and also use it in my work. So, yeah; gradually, step by step, I’ve learned it.
21:15
Sarah Jane Weaver: I am so glad you’re willing to share your journey, because so many of us have opportunities, and we feel like the Lord directs our lives and He takes us where we need to go. I’m interested in hearing about your conversion story and a little bit about your family. How did you come to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
21:38
Mia Kemppaala: This is a very interesting story. When I was growing up, I always had faith in Jesus Christ and God, but religion in Finland is not something we, as I mentioned already earlier, we don’t talk about it. And we don’t really openly practice it, in a sense that I don’t think Finns really go to the church, other than maybe in Christmas and maybe at some weddings and funerals and christenings and so forth. But I was always taught to pray, even when I was a child, like in the evenings, and I was really content about my faith; I wasn’t actively looking for anything else. I was happy with what I had.
About 90% or 80% of Finns at that time belonged to the Lutheran church, so it was very mainstream to be how I was also. In schools, you also learn about different religions. I remember that I learned about the gospel, or the Church of Jesus Christ, for the first time a little bit in school. But it was just mainly about things that LDS people don’t do and what they do. And it was just about kind of something about that. It was about Joseph Smith and his story a little bit. So I had a little basics about it.
And then I met husband or husband-to-be, and we really shared a lot of similar values, we really enjoyed spending a lot of time together, we started dating, we became a couple. And I learned about that he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And I remember especially thinking that, “OK, it’s good for you that you have your faith, but I will never become a member of that church.” And I just remember that I was very thinking about that. And I had no desire to learn about the Church, because I was very content with what I had. And I remember that he gave me the Book of Mormon, I remember taking it out of courtesy, and I remember that I tossed it in the back of my cupboard, and I remember thinking that I’m never gonna be — like, I hid it somewhere.
And we kept dating, and then my husband wanted to go on his mission. It was something that he wanted to do for his entire life. He had been saving for it, he had been working for it. And then I was also really encouraging him to go on his mission. I just somehow felt very strongly that he should go on his mission and that I would be supporting him. And then the day came; he went on his mission. I wasn’t interested about the Church at all at that time. I was reading before the Book of Mormon, but with the intention of me proving it wrong. I wanted to prove why this is not true. And I remember that I was going through it, I was underlining everything that I thought that “This is really strange” or “I don’t understand it,” that “This is why it cannot be true,” and so forth.
24:59
And that was my sort of perspective, that I was just trying to find reasons why I shouldn’t believe in the Book of Mormon. And it so happens that whatever it is that you are looking for it, that is what you find. So I found more doubts, I found more questions, and so and so. But a significant change happened when my husband-to-be was serving in his mission in Salt Lake City, by the way.
And I had heard before that the members of the Church, that they are obligated to serve a mission, that they have to do it; they don’t do it out of their own will, but they are forced to do it. That was sort of what I’d heard before. But then I learned when my husband went to serve that he did it because he wanted to do it. He had always wanted to do it. It was something that he wanted to do. There’s a big difference between being forced to do or wanting to do. Both of them lead to the same thing, both of them lead to the person serving a mission, but the reason behind serving the mission is completely different.
And I started to think that, “What if these assumptions that I have, what if they are not true? What if these assumptions about the Book of Mormon that I was thinking, that it’s not true, what if there would be even like a 1% chance that the Book of Mormon would be true? Are my assumptions limiting me from even finding it out, because I’m not giving any room for the thought for the 1% chance of it being right?” And that was a very significant moment, because I started to challenge my assumptions. And I changed the way how I was reading the Book of Mormon into me being with an open mind and me wanting to find out if it actually is true.
I remember that there was one particular moment when I was thinking that, “OK, if God wants to speak to me, He is likely to speak to me through the scriptures, that I will start by praying about the Book of Mormon, and then I’ll see. I will just open the book somewhere in a random place.” And now you have to remember that this is the very same book where I had done the underlyings why I couldn’t believe in the Church. So it was filled with all kinds of things. And I opened it up at one page, and the page was 2 Nephi [33], Verse 10: “And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good.”
28:31
And this particular passage was really powerful to me because, as mentioned earlier, I had always believed in Christ. I had never doubted that faith. And these addressed to me in a very personal manner that, “What if these words actually are the words of Christ? Whose troops do I stand in if I’m trying to prove the Book of Mormon wrong? Whose mission is it to prove the Book of Mormon wrong, if the book is Christ’s words?” And then I understood that me trying to just find reasons why I couldn’t believe in the book would make me actually be in the adversary’s troops.
You’d think that receiving such an answer would have immediately gotten me to convert myself and be baptized as a member of the Church, but you’re wrong, because still I kept having my doubts. I was like, “OK, I got this message. But, you know, maybe it’s not,” and I was just finding more and more questions after questions and so forth.
But then there was one particular moment that my husband had actually sent some VHS videos from his mission, and one of the videos was a story about the “Legacy,” about the pioneers, how they were traveling. And I did watch that video. And I was really moved and touched by the strong faith that these pioneers had. They had an incredible amount of faith in something that they had never seen, they had never personally touched or felt, but they just had so strong faith that they left everything behind, everything that they had, and they walked across the plains, and they went to Salt Lake City.
And I was really touched by that. And I felt that, “I want to experience that type of faith. I want to have that type of faith as they have, and I want to feel what that is.” And I remember that I decided that, “Now I’m going to have such faith. And I’m going to have the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ to come and teach me.” I had met the missionaries earlier, maybe half a year ago, I had discussed with them several times. But then something happened, and I didn’t want to do anything with them anymore. I just couldn’t believe, or there was something that I was like, “It’s not for me, I don’t want to talk to them anymore.” But then I felt this, that, “I want to have the missionaries come and talk to me.”
31:31
And I had met the missionaries earlier in a place where my parents lived, and I was now studying in another place. So I had never met any missionaries in where I studied. And I remembered that, “Now I’m going to believe so strongly,” that, “The missionaries are going to come, they’re going to come and visit me, and I have so strong faith in that.”
And I remember that there was a call from a friend of mine, she had broken up with her boyfriend, and she was crying, and she wanted me to come over to talk with her. And I remember that I almost responded to her that, “No, I cannot come because I have visitors who are coming.” And then I remember that, “That is so crazy. I cannot say that, because she needs me, and I don’t even know that anyone is coming here. So obviously, I need to go and visit my friend.” And I did that. And then I remember that I was really disappointed because I could now never know if my experiment would work. I wouldn’t know if my faith worked because I was telling God that, “I’m believing so, so heavily that the missionaries are going to come,” and now I wouldn’t know if that worked. But God knows us and our needs.
The following day, I got a call, and I remember answering the call from a number I didn’t know. And it was someone speaking Finnish with a slight dialect or accent. And that person introduced to be a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ. And he asked me if I would like to visit with them. And I was really blown away, that, “How did they know to contact me? How did they know that it was my number?” But they said that they had received from the place where I had met half a year ago, the missionaries before, that got my contacts from there.
And then they told that the night before, they were about to come to the area where I was leaving, and they were already coming there about the same time when my friend called me, but then they felt a prompting that they should go some other place. And that was exactly the same time when I was also going not anymore in that area; I was leaving and going to visit my friend. And you would still think that this would be something that I would be baptized after that, but no, I wasn’t, because I wasn’t sure.
Sarah Jane Weaver: Maybe you were a little stubborn too.
34:30
Mia Kemppaala: I was a lot of stubborn. And the thing is that there’s also another thing that I realized, is that I could have these questions. I cannot ever be sure. I always had a question, and then I found an answer; then I had another question, then I found an answer. But then I realized that, you know, this continues forever, and I have to sometimes just take the leap of faith. And I was just like, “You know, I have to try it out myself and see. That’s the only way to know if it is true or not: to really live it and just follow it.”
And yeah, so eventually I was baptized. And it’s just taught me so much more about that you are never alone. You’re just never alone. You get help.
35:21
Sarah Jane Weaver: When did you enter the waters of baptism? Did your husband get to baptize you? Or were you baptized before he came home from his mission?
Mia Kemppaala: Oh, you would think that. Like I mentioned, I was stubborn. It took years for me to be baptized. We were actually even married before that. But my husband always knew, that he just had a very strong feeling that one day, eventually, I would find my way. And I did find my way. And he was the one who also baptized me. But we had been married for some time.
36:00
Sarah Jane Weaver: I love that story, and it reflects so much about the lives that you’ve led together. Now you have children, and you’re raising your kids in a place where they’re the religious minority. What is that like?
Mia Kemppaala: It is a challenge. It really is. And I just today read from the newspaper that overall in Finland, there was a youth barometer that was carried out, and people who are aged 15 to 29 in Finland, in general, only about 20% of themselves feel that they are somewhat religious. So only 30% of Finnish youth feel that they are religious, and 60% of the youth consider themselves nonreligious. And so that’s a really huge majority, like we’re talking about, not even a denomination where you belong to, but in general, religious or nonreligious, only 20% feel that they are religious. And it’s a significant change.
Also, as I mentioned, when I was growing up, about 90% of Finnish people belonged to the Lutheran church. And I just checked the statistics, and today, I think it was something about 63% of Finns. There’s a huge decrease within just a couple of decades that has happened, and this is the landscape in Finland. So obviously, it is a challenge, because in the times that we’re living, people quite often may even attack you because they might consider that you are not very tolerant. They might think that, you know, all of these negative assumptions and limitations, and you’re really afraid. You don’t really show that publicly, and I don’t even talk about it publicly myself, let alone how challenging it can be for my kids as well. And this is the very important message that I’ve learned.
And I’ve also learned — as we talked about translations and what it is that you can learn from different languages — I just very recently realized that the Finnish language can actually teach a very powerful way how you can discern what comes from the adversary and what comes from the Spirit. And I will need to explain this a little bit because in Finnish, we have this prefix called “epä-.” Epä-, in Finnish, it often conveys something that is negative or opposite to something else. So, depending on the context, this epä- can translate to words like “non-” or “un-” in English.
For example, “epäonnistunut” means “unsuccessful,” so the epä- is the “un-,” and then “onnistunut” is “successful.” Then there’s “epävarma,” which translates to “uncertain.” But if we think about this epä-, it can really teach us something important because, as we’ve been discussing here, there have been many cases when I — OK, I need to tell this:
39:41
Today, when I knew that I had this discussion with you, I started to get these thoughts that, “No, I cannot do it. There’s nothing I can share. I’m not in this mood. I’m not in the right type of feeling. I don’t even know what to share. No, I’m not going to be succeeding.” And I started to doubt myself. And you also — remember that in this story, I have also doubted this Church. I have doubted, I have doubted myself, my abilities, I have doubted the gospel. And that in Finnish is “epäluulo,” which kind of translates directly — “luulo” is the opposite of knowledge. “Luulo” is kind of like misunderstanding of oneself, maybe our true identities. It’s misunderstanding of others, it’s misunderstandings of religions and so forth.
So this “epä-,” it comes from the adversary, this doubt, this suspicion, this skepticism. And then it continues. When you start doubting yourself, that leads to the next step: You don’t even try, because what you become, then, you become an “epätoivo,” which means — “epä-” is, again, this “un-,” and “toivo” is “hope.” It means that you don’t even have hope anymore; “Why should I even do it? Because I’m not going to succeed. I’m going to fail. I don’t even want to try, because I know that I cannot do this. I know that it’s beyond me. I know that I don’t have the skills to do it.” And then what that leads to, it leads to “epäusko,” which is a direct translation to “nonfaith,” not having faith.
So, this is like a cycle. Everything you can discern when it starts with something like “epä-,” you know that that doesn’t come from Christ, it comes from the adversary, who’s trying to stop me from moving on from acting how the promptings are telling me to do. And I just need to always overcome those doubts. I just need to always just, you know, trust in the Lord, take the steps, the next couple of steps that I know that are asked from me, and just go with the flow.
42:12
Sarah Jane Weaver: And I think that brings us to a really nice place in our podcast. First, thank you for being willing to come on and share your religious journey for us in spite of things that make that difficult in Finland.
And we have a tradition at the Church News podcast; we like to end with the same question and give our guests the last word. And so, as we close today, I want to just ask you the question: What do you know now that you’ve learned from being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
42:44
Mia Kemppaala: What I know now is that the question is not about who is right or who is wrong, but the question is about Jesus Christ. The question is about: “How do we come closer to Christ? And how do we draw His atoning power, His enabling power, more into our lives?” And when we focus more on Christ and coming closer to Him — instead of finding out who is right or who is wrong, instead of our differences or our interpretations of certain scriptures, what is right or what is not right — when we just focus on Jesus Christ and “How can we draw His power in our lives?” That is what matters, and that is where we should focus on.
And I’ve also learned that I am never alone, because I know that I have always by my side someone who knows everything, someone who can tailor answers to my personal circumstances. They are not some generic answers, but they are actually answers to my own personal life. And when I’m trusting the Lord, when I’m taking the little steps, even though they make no sense in my head, I am safely walking to the direction that the Lord wants me to walk.
44:33
Sarah Jane Weaver: You have been listening to the Church News podcast. I’m your host, Church News executive editor Sarah Jane Weaver. I hope you have learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by peering with me through the Church News window. Please remember to subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please make sure you share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates on the Church on TheChurchNews.com.
