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Scandinavian Saints to Meet in Stockholm

This month many of the 15,000 Saints living in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland will gather under the direction of the First Presidency of the Church to participate in a four-nation area conference.

The August 16–18 event will be held in Stockholm, Sweden, with several of the Church’s General Authorities in attendance.

This is the fourth area conference in Church history. Previous conferences have been held in Manchester, England (1971), Mexico City (1972), and Munich, Germany (1973).

President Harold B. Lee explained the purpose for holding area conferences while in Munich:

“… when people are baptized in the Church, they desire to be gathered where a body of Saints may be found, particularly where they can have the fullness of the blessings of the Church, including the blessings to be found in our temples. With this desire to gather on the part of our people so evidenced, we have thought to come to them with these area conferences. Here we are able to meet our leaders and to get acquainted with conditions of each country. Here we are able to communicate more fully than we could if we were to stay just at the headquarters of the Church.”

The Stockholm conference will be a landmark in Scandinavian church activity and follows years of ardent missionary work and members’ faithfulness.

The first missionaries departed for the Scandinavian countries in 1849, just two years following the arrival of the Saints in the Salt Lake Valley.

Elder Erastus Snow, at that time 30 years old and a member of the Council of the Twelve, traveled with two other missionaries, met another in England, and established the mission headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark. Norway and Sweden were included in the original Scandinavian Mission that also supervised Finland and Iceland.

In August 1852 the Lion of Zion, a small vessel, was purchased to sail the coastline of Denmark and Norway, stopping at villages to allow the missionaries to teach the gospel. Soon branches were organized and the Scandinavian countries became the most successful missionary field of the Church among non-English-speaking people. (During the next 80 years more than 30,000 of these converts emigrated to Utah.)

It wasn’t until 1880 that the first missionaries of the Church entered Finland. At this time Finland was a province of Czarist Russia, and officials soon jailed the elders. However, Anders Johansson, a local fisherman, and his wife and daughter were converted and baptized into the Church. When missionaries returned to Finland after World War II, the grandchildren of Anders Johansson met them, having remained faithful to the gospel.

Today there are four missions, one in each country, serving the Scandinavian nations. This month members from these countries will meet to share testimonies, enjoy social programs, and hear the counsel of Church leaders.

Woman Driver Dispels Myth

The mouths of “woman-driver” jokesters have been sealed, for the time being at least, by 16-year-old April Clark, an LDS student from Chico, California, who was selected by a panel, including Governor Ronald Reagan, to attend the National Youth Conference on Highway Safety held in Scottsdale, Arizona.

April was first selected to represent her high school at a conference with Governor Reagan in Los Angeles last January, where youth driving was discussed. On the basis of her performance there, and in consideration of her essay on alcoholism and driving, she was chosen to attend the national conference. There April joined with other youths from across the nation in voicing opinions on the implementation of safe driving practices.

April is a member of the Chico Second Ward in the Chico California Stake and is the pianist in her high school orchestra.

Jo Lynn Potter: Rodeos and Religion Come Together

At first glance, Jo Lynn Potter comes across as a pert, sun-bronzed, 16-year-old LDS girl, full of the wonders and woes common to her age. She is. But she’s something more too, Jo Lynn’s a rodeo rider, and last August at the National High School Rodeo Jo Lynn was named the All-Around Cowgirl, a title she’s working to defend in this year’s competition.

The rodeo was a time of achievement in her life. Besides winning the “all-around” title with a total of 960 points (almost double the score of the runner-up), Jo Lynn saw her Arizona team capture the team trophy with 1,900 points. During the course of the Ogden, Utah, competition she also clocked 16.86 seconds in barrel racing (her favorite event) to win the event’s championship for the United States and Canada. The awards day was a big one for Jo Lynn and her family. It came as the climax to a lot of hard work and overcoming some hard luck several weeks before.

Jo Lynn’s parents are both professional athletes. Her mother is a barrel racer and her father is a calf and team roper. For Jo Lynn’s 15th birthday several weeks before the Ogden finals, they presented her with a horse, Auto Dial, that had won over $40,000 in his career.

On the way from their home in Tucson to the Ogden finals, the Potters made a side trip to several professional rodeos in Idaho. One night Auto Dial “got down in his pen” and somehow completely severed the ligaments and arteries in his leg. After nearly six hours of work, a veterinarian recommended that Jo Lynn’s horse be put to sleep. Her hope of winning in the finals was badly shaken.

But there was still a chance. The Potters had brought along a young, newly trained horse called Moon. He was a fairly inexperienced five-year-old, but Jo Lynn had faith in him, and for good cause. Together, Jo Lynn and Moon went on to the championship.

Jo Lynn has been involved in rodeo activities since about the age of ten. “I’m looking forward to college rodeo in a few years,” she says, “but beyond that, it’s too soon to tell about professional rodeo.”

Would it be hard for her as a woman to get anywhere in the professional rodeo world?

“Anyone can do well as long as they’ve got a good horse and know what they’re doing,” says Jo Lynn emphatically. “A good horse is very important.”

The Potters enjoy their role as Church members in the rodeo world. They often discuss the Church with the people they meet on the circuits and have been responsible for the conversion of at least one family.

The family attends Church meetings no matter where they may be in the country, and believe they have “probably attended more different wards than any other LDS family, except the General Authorities.”

For Jo Lynn the rodeo has been a chance for growth.

President Spencer W. Kimball will be among the General Authorities of the Church who will attend a four-nation conference in Stockholm this month