Festinord Marks 60 Years of Friendship and Faith

Approximately 700 young latter-day saint men and women gathered in Finland this month for Festinord 2026, the Church's annual conference for young adults in the Nordic countries. Sixty years after the first conference brought Nordic youth together in Stockholm, Festinord has grown into one of the region's most anticipated events on the young adult calendar.

This year's gathering was hosted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the Ikaalinen Spa in Finland and invited young adults aged 18 to 35 to strengthen their faith and build lasting friendships through spiritual and recreational activities, including devotionals, institute classes, workshops, service projects, dances and moments of reflection. Held under the theme "Use the Gems of His Happiness," this year's conference marked Festinord's diamond anniversary, resulting in the largest turnout in the event's 60-year history.

This year's Festinord conference advisory couple, Jarna Laine and her husband Miiko Laine, along with Festinord core team young adult coordinators, Sami Jäkkö and Renette Laine, led the organisation of the event. "The interest has been incredible," said Jarna Laine. "We had around 200 young adults on the waiting list who were hoping to join us, but we simply ran out of space."

A Diamond Anniversary and a Family Legacy

This year's conference carried extra significance for Jarna and Miiko. Their daughter, Renette, attended Festinord 2024 in Gothenburg, and met her to-be fiancé, Jörgen, there. Jörgen had served as the young adult coordinator for the previous year's Festinord in Norway, giving the couple a shared connection to the event from the very start. "Festinord is a great way to meet new people and it feels extra meaningful to me to be able to give others the chance to experience the kind of spiritual growth and personal connections I did," said Renette. 

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After sixty years of the popular regional conference, Renatte and her mother are not the only ones for whom Festinord runs deeper than a single summer. When Jarkko Metsätähti boarded a boat for Stockholm from Finland as a teenager in 1966 he said he could hardly have imagined how this first annual conference, which would become Festinord, would come to shape his family.

Looking Back at the First Festinord

An article on that first 1966 Festinord conference, published at the time as Valkeus, the Finnish-language predecessor to today's Liahona, described a gathering built as much on service as celebration. Relief Society sisters cooked for the hundreds who attended, while young men from Sweden's priesthood quorums stayed up through the night making beds for more than 500 visitors. By day competitors filled the Gubbängen sports fields, where a small but loud Finnish contingent cheered on a handful of athletes, among them a young man from Lahti who threw the shot put over 12 metres. By night the conference included roadshows and a mass folk-dancing finale at Stockholm's Enskedehallen arena.

Jarkko attended that first Festinord alongside the woman who would become his wife, and decades later his daughter and his granddaughter each met their own spouses there too. This year his great-granddaughter is attending.

When asked what comes to mind when he thinks back on Festinord, Jarkko remembers he and his friends from Turku were involved in a music competition won by borrowing decommissioned fire department bugles and marching onto the stage from every direction at once, resulting in a roar of applause. It’s a stunt they’d continue to repeat at many Church events in the following years. “Competitions and programmes were an integral part of these conferences even back then, during those early Festinord events,” said Jarkko.

Jarkko, who went on to organise the 2014 conference in Turku and Naantali alongside his wife, simply summarised: "Festinord has been a special spiritual experience and a chance to meet new people," he said. "As a participant and an organiser, it has provided experiences that have been helpful in many areas of life—at home, at church and at work. I am very grateful for them."

Finding Happiness Through the Gospel

Those in attendance this year enjoyed devotionals led by Elder Kevin W. Pearson, Europe North Area President, and his wife Sister June Pearson. Both spoke about finding lasting happiness through the gospel and trusting in the Lord throughout life’s challenges.

Sister Pearson reflected on the blessings that come from putting the Lord first, even during times of hardship. “We learned to rely on the Lord. We have had our share of challenges and so will each of you… Yet, we put our trust in Heavenly Father. We were happy. Just happy. We had big dreams and we trusted in the Lord. We made a commitment to each other and to the Lord, that we would put Him first in our life. That eternal perspective has made all the difference in the world. [When] life gets dark and dreary – don’t forget to pray.” Said Sister Pearson

“God bless you, our young friends, to be true and faithful—to be valiant in the testimony of Jesus. And as you do, we promise you, you will find happiness,” said President Pearson.

Similar devotionals were led by Elder Mark G. Stewart, an Area Seventy from the United Kingdom, and local leaders, Brother and Sister Lehtinen.

Carrying Happiness Home

Throughout the week, in addition to devotionals, participants took part in sports, dances and time with friends that were built around this year's theme: "Use the Gems of His Happiness," inspired by the scripture "…and we lived after the manner of happiness" (2 Nephi 5:27).

While intended to reflect Festinord’s diamond anniversary, the theme also landed, fittingly, in a country that has topped the World Happiness Report for nine years running. "We like to think there couldn't be a better place to celebrate a theme centred on happiness," Jarna said.

With the conclusion of another successful conference, that sense of happiness will now be carried to congregations across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and beyond, as participants return home.

And for the hundreds who left Ikaalinen already counting down until next year, Jarna, Renatte, and Jarkko all agreed that what keeps people coming back has not changed much at all: not a guarantee of anything, but a little more friendship, a little more faith and a few more gems of happiness than they arrived with.