Welcome in any language

The journey back to Our Father in Heaven can have so different roads. As members of our Church we have differences; our ages, history, culture backgrounds and our languages. As members of Church we are all on this journey. I know that we are all welcome.

I have a “problem” in a bilingual country; in Finland as a new member. The problem is not that I am blessed to be the translation coordinator in our ward. I am translating from finnish to english, neither my mother tongue. In a bilingual country I am a minority; swedish speaking and when I have done translation work at our Sacrament Meetings I have been surprised by how the Holy Ghost guides me. All of a sudden I know a finnish word that I haven´t heard before and I do get a translation without hesitation.

My problem as a new member is practical things in different languges.I am talking in various langugaes when I am talking to members (finnish), missionaries (english). I prefer to read Our Holy Scriptures in my mother tounge (swedish). And all this is allright. And I am so glad that elder C baptized me in swedish and that I met a member from Sweden last week and we did talk in my native tounge.

So in a discussion if I know by heart a qoute from The book of Mormon in my mother tounge. I can´t say it. Of course missionaries all around the word has languages “problems” and my friend from Sweden had “problems” even in the Temple here in Finland. In our bilingual country.

The first missionary I met spoked Swedish. Elder W.

One thing though that was wonderful; the first missonary that I met was from Sweden and I started to talk with him because we had the same mothertounge.

As members of our Church we have differences; Our ages, history, culture backgrounds, our languages.As members of Church we are all on this journey. I know that we are all welcome. By our Lord. Amen.

And in Swedish:

Som medlemmar av vår kyrka har vi olikheter jag har stött på vissa praktiska då mitt modersmål är svenska ett minoritetsspråk I Finland. Det viktiga är att vi är ett i Kristus. Tack elder W, elder K och syster T för vad vi har talat.

Johan