Festinord: Uniting the Youth of Scandinavia

In 1934, young Latter-day Saints from Jönköping, Norrköping, Malmö, Göteborg, Västerås, Uppsala, and Stockholm gathered on the midsummer holiday for a countrywide Mutual Improvement Association conference. The event became an annual tradition, with different branches hosting each year, organizing both recreational and spiritual activities. Over the years, the event planning became more sophisticated. The first time Göteborg hosted a conference, one participant recalled, “One person took an old car and got some old mattresses here and there” to lay out for attendees in an attic. Within a decade, however, plans had progressed to the point where “each conference [was] planned and prepared as if it were an Olympic Festival.”

The conference gradually expanded to include neighboring countries. In 1945, Norwegian Saints, newly free after five years of German occupation, attended. “We all felt God’s spirit working on us and abundantly being with us,” they wrote. “Such gatherings stimulate and give strength and courage to continue the work.” In 1966, the conference took on the new name of “Festinord”: over 600 youth from Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden attended, and activities included an MIA Olympics with international competition. Afterward, the hosting for the event began alternating between countries, but the festival always provided a place for young Saints to develop faith and fellowship. When Festinord observed its 50th anniversary in 2016 in Stockholm, the organizers staged a Gala Night and invited participants of past conferences to take part, bringing together multiple generations of Church members.