My path in Faith

 My faith journey in a nutshell

plus some of my thoughts and opinions

@Jakobstad, on Friday the24th of April 2026

My faith has been strengthened so much during the past few years of my life. I have noticed how much my mental health situation has changed. My underlying depression has been gone for a few months now and it keeps on getting better. I feel anxiety a lot less, a lot less frequently and lot less intensely. I feel as I am finally able to be myself, and I can see the diamond in me, I am valuable and I am of infinite worth. I am so grateful.

Lately I have been trying to prepare for Celestial marriage a lot. I study and want to learn how to be an excellent wife and a good friend and companion to my future husband. Mind you, I have no clue whatsovever who it could be. I might not have even met him yet. But I will never settle, I will never lower my standards, I will not comply with less. Because I deserve the best and FOREVER (?) it is a very long time. I don't want someone who is just "good enough". He needs to be perfect for me. Mind you, not PERFECT in every way, but someone who I can get perfect with, we can learn and grow TOGETHER. 

Lately I have started to read my patriarchal blessing more and yesterday I started a project to go throuhg it all very closely and write my own opinions, feelings and thoughts on every sentence and word in it. First I write the sentece down and change the wording that it says "ME" and "I", making myself the protagonist and person that the blessing is for and about. It is very fun and interesting. Then I write my own reflections. I have just finished the first paragraph. LOL. It will take a really long time, but good things come to those who wait...

My friend sister Topham that is on a service mission with her husband in my city, has been helping me prepare for marriage. Without the help of her, her husband and the younger missionaries, I would never realise my true value, my true potential and eternal destiny and I wouldn't have any faith in myself, I wouldn't see me through "heaven's eyes" and I would not have any self confidence. Those things have helped me develop in many ways. My illness is maneagable and I am able and I have the energy and motivation to grow, learn and become the right one, for my future husband.

I love the gospel of Jesus Christ and I love Him, my Savior and friend. My friend sister Topham has promised to ask Him personally to heal me. I have a lot of health struggles, but I have been doing a lot better. I never thought I could be so happy and feel so healthy. Just so you know, mental health problems are really a lot more serious and difficult, because the mind is a lot less known, understood or treatable than somatic illnesses. Yet, I have been treated VERY POORLY because of my mental health issues. It is horrible. People have so much prejudice, less understanding and basically they are afraid of me and they really don't know anything about me.

Last year I was told the following:

I am too ugly to be married

I am too old to be married

I am too crazy to be married.

Thanks a lot! :D HAHA. All those people are FINNS, that told me those things. SHAME on them!!!

Because the missionaried have been encouraging me to learn more and keep on going, not to hate myself or think poorly about myself, I have been able to be happy and feel like the best is still ahead. Yes, it keeps on getting better. The solemn, serious and grim outlook that so many Finns have on life in general has made me and kept me depressed for too long! It is time for me to shine. 

I have been watching a lot of YouTube, a lot about faith, religion and also politics. I am grateful for all that I have learned. My favorite atheist on YouTube is Jared:

Jared the Atheist

Jared, if you read this, you are awesome and hope you will hang out with more Mormons! :) 

All of these things I have been studying and concentrating on has taught me not to judge or be mean to anyone who doesn't share my opinions. I am a woke Mormon and I believe that Jesus is a liberal. He told us to love everyone, not judge anyone and He asks us to invite everyone to come unto Him. No one is excluded. Everyone has a place in the fold. I actively try to remove bigoted thinking, rasicm and homophobia from my own brain. I have succeeded a little, I still need to be vigilant and not fall back into the thoughts I used to have. I used to be pretty conservative. i have always been a little liberal though... :D LOL. Growing up with my wonderful cousins instead having siblings during my youth and childhood, my cousins are all very individual and they have all taught me a lot. I was adopted and I am so grateful for both my families but this has been the right place for me. 

I don't remember what else I was supposed to say...

As Jared says: "Go to church!" :D LOL.

The greatest love

 Good evening!

This is my current favorite of the talks at the latest General Conference:

Receive His Gift

It means a lot to me and I have paid attention how much we are being reminded at church, and other places where we as church members gather, that we are children of a loving God and He loves each and every one of us. SO much. 

I need to go to bed, early morning for me tomorrow!

More later!

with love,

Cinders

My faith journey

 Good morning readers!

Lately I have been thinking a lot about my faith journey and I have made it SO far.

We have eight missionaries in my city and they often ask me to tell them a story from my life. 

I have experienced a LOT and I have a lot of fun tales and events to speak about. That is one reason why I blog and write my book on Scrivener, journal and keep notes and write talks and lessons for church. I love writing, it's my most important and fun hobby! 

I listen to music 24/7 if I am not watching some YouTube videos, listening to audiobooks or talking with people. Music is SO important to me. It has made me who I am. I have always loved music, my biological dad was a musician so it's in my genes.

My third important hobby is reading. I read a lot. I am often in a reading slump though... I try to choose the best books, the best stories by the best authors and I DNF a book fast if it's not up to my standards. I used to be less picky with my choices but nowadays I am more selective.

My faith journey started when I was adopted by my parents at the age of 3 months from the orphanage in Nykarleby. I grew up in Tammerfors and Jakobstad. I spent most of my holidays and summers in Jakobstad and Larsmo, with my grandparents, aunts, uncle and cousins. I have 15 cousins on my mom's side, all lived here when we were growing up. I am the oldest cousin. 

My dad baptized me when I was eight years old, on my birthday. He is now in palliative care, my mom takes care of him and I help when I am visiting here in Jakobstad. My parents have thought me a lot of good principles. I am so grateful for my parents.

I have been mostly active in the church, there was a time when I was 23-24 years old when I didn't go to church because of my mental health situation. I had a psychosis when I was 22 and it impacted me still for years, to get back to normal. When I kept a break from church attendance, I had really difficulties saying anything, because I was so tired and my brain was adjusting to new meds. I have been having mental health problems since I was 17 years old. I became sick on my mini-mission. I spent two weeks with two companions in Jtväskylä. It broke me down, I couldn't sleep and it made me all messed up. My biological mom did have mental health struggles so it was in my genes...

I love the Gospel and Jesus Christ. 

My health has become a lot better these last few years. I got a nerve damage last year, even the intense pain from that, in my leg, doesn't compare to anxiety and depression. I would rather have somatic problems, like pain and other things, than mental health problems. The brain affects everything. In case you don't believe me or just think it is not possible to feel so much anxiety it is worse that intense pain, maybe you have not felt anxiety?

Now I need to go wake my parents up. 

More later!

Cinders

Preparations for the Eternal covenant in the House of the Lord, i.e. Celestial Marriage 2025

 Good afternoon peeps! 

How goes it? I am happy. I do have anxiety every once in a while, and it can be pretty severe, but since I have started a kind of "new phase" in my life, my mood has been more stable and less chaotic. It is a huge blessing for me. 

SO. The title is not clickbait.

Last year in the spring my friend from Manchester gave me a special blessing with his missionary companion, from Utah. I am still flabbergasted and very surprised that I could receive such straight inspiration and a message from Heavenly Father. My friend was the messenger. WOW. He is a great guy.

The blessing told me to start getting ready and prepare for the next covenant I am to enter in the Temple. 

 I have all of them received EXCEPT marriage.

So... I first started preparing a little half-heartedly by buying books about the Temple when I visited Utah last year, tried to study marriage more and try to prepare myself. Lately I have been upping the efforts and started to really study marriage with intent. Really hyperfocus on it and the Temple.

I also started LONG AGO to plan my wedding. Just for "fun". LOL.

I have a lot of ideas... but I am still "right here waiting"...

Some things I have been better at is cleaning at home ( I moved lately and have a completely own place now.)  Organizing my stuff, planning how I spend my time during the day, I mean I don't watch or read aa lot of unnecessary movies and books. I am more picky with the entertainment I choose, music too. I could say, that I am kind of living like a missionary! :) Good goal for me...

I have made some music lists on YouTube and Spotify with songs for the wedding and for just being married, like beautiful romantic music. I love music. I also have SO many relationship and marriage and dating advice books ready at hand. Also about sex of course, from a more spiritual perspective. 

I am happy. :) The guy who marries me is one lucky fellow. :) and I will be a lucky lady.

More later!

Answers to my questions about the gospel

 Good morning dear reader,

For the past few years I have been studying the gospel by myself more and more. I think the pandemic kind of kicked it off. Something awoke in me and I started to grow and learn more rapidly and fully immersing myself into my faith and beliefs. I was and have always been a liberal person, I have tried to NOT judge, NOT assume and NOT have strong opinions about anything before I figure it out for myself. So, after beginning this journey, my faith journey if it will, and I started to learn and grow SO MUCH. I participated in a lot of zoom meetings for the Single Adults in the church, both for my home country of Finland and all of Europe. There I got the chance to teach and lead discussions about faith. Through that, I became invested and ALL IN, into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. I have always had a testimony but I wanted to learn more, strengthen it and become strong in the faith, also by actually studying and learning for myself. 

I found friends I had not met before, both here in Finland and in all of Europe. My friends taught me.

I kind of had to deconstruct most of my beliefs in order to "get them right" and strengthen them. It took me approximately five years, from the moment the pandemic hit and up until this point. I realized so many new things. I learned that God is not always as we think, some people who try to follow Jesus, are not showing or understanding some of the things I feel are true doctrine. I do not think God only loves white people. I know, members think they are not very racist and discriminating but they sometimes unfortunately are. I started realizing that because I am a very "weird" or different kind of member, at least here in Finland, I was bullied in church, slandered and bad mouthed by some members. I know, we should all remember no one is perfect and people did remind me from time to time VERY clearly how I wasn't good enough.

Flash forward to 2023 when I met this amazing elder (a missionary) who encouraged me and was really kind and appreciative of me and my efforts to help the missionaries. He was sincere and he has such a good, beautiful heart. Meeting him changed my life and my whole perspective on myself. He taught me about my worth. I don't really know what happened, but I started to seen myself as a precious daughter of God. Whether my friend meant it or not, I felt loved by him and my Heavenly Father, so completely and just the way I was and am. Thank you, you know who you are. My friend changed my life and I will be eternally grateful. I am tearing up a bit. It was a good time in my life.

You may ask, HOW did I not know my worth?

To tell you the truth, I was bullied in school and in church. I thought I wasn't worthy of love or true friendship and acceptance. I thought I needed to fit into the box, be one of the colorless, boring and solemn people that I often saw surrounding me. I know, that is a generalization but that's how I felt. My time in Sweden (January 2001-December 2012) had helped me see other different people and I got very "international" more outgoing and "fun" to put it simply. I didn't really grow up in Sweden, but it laid a foundation of aspects of my personality which help me be the person I am today. I am a lot happier, more smiley and outgoing. I learned to "small talk" but at the same time be honest and straightforward but not in a mean way. I was bullied in Sweden too, at church. But far less than here, which I am very grateful. 

The missionaries have been my "guiding light and inspiration for decades now, I am so grateful for the ones who are still serving here and for the ones who went home already. I love them so much and I want to help and support them always.

Deconstructing my foundation of faith has helped me to build it up again, from the very corner stone and base. I have built it on Jesus, my rock. He is the best friend to everyone! Some people don't understand what it means and to me it's very abstract but I have thought of it this way:´

"Someday I will understand"

I think I will have the possibility in the moment I see Jesus descending from Heaven, during the second coming, I will understand at least most of it and I will understand why I went through all the difficulties in my life and why they changed me as a person, changed my soul. I needed to take a step back and look at everything to appreciate it all and gain an understanding of all the basic teachings of the church.

Understandably it sounds WILD that I would kind of deconstruct most of it. I know, it was a risky path, but it has helped me so much. I needed to know, feel and have faith in my faith, if I may put it that way. I know some of the people reading this will either judge me or roll their eyes or something. It's ok. You don't need to understand my life, because it's not your life, it's mine.

After considering many of the teachings of the church, there are no explanation that I completely understand. I just trust God and what He is doing in my life. I am a lot more mature and a lot more hopeful and optimistic about my future... I might even get that "happily ever after" with someone. Stay tuned for more about that later, when I know more stuff than I know now. LOL. It will be SO great. I believe I have a incredibly bright future ahead of me. A lot of challenges but also a lot of blessings. I am feeling like my time has come. My time to get married, be happy in that marriage and attain exaltation together with my husband. Nothing is impossible for me anymore! I have all the potential and worth and tools to get there.

That's all for today, hope you have enjoyed this blog post!

God bless us everyone!

Are you there God? It's me, Cindy...

 Hello there! 

During the last few years in my personal life, I have had a lot of trials and some difficulties I honestly didn't think I would ever experience. I have kind of had a little faith crisis because of them. I didn't understand why they are happening to me. I know, such a cliché thing to say... But I really felt like I was completely alone. The illness that was prevalent during the last few years didn't help. I had to be alone. I had to stay home alone a lot. My anxiety was high and I had some visits to the hospital too. 

Now, on the other hand, I am feeling a lot better. I haven't been to the hospital since October 2023! :D That is a new record in a long time. I have gained a lot of self confidence, I know myself better, I have finally started to become an adult.

Needless to say, my faith has been fortified a lot. Like, so much.

I read the book of Mormon more often, I remember to pray more, I have decided to:

TRUST GOD

CHOOSE THE RIGHT 

BE BRAVE

I have made my own kind of spiritual quote...

"Overcome all your trials by trusting God, being brave and choosing the right".

But what do you do if you don't trust God? What if you don't even believe there is a God? What if you are afraid? Where can you go, who can you trust? I have friends who have a lot of illness and difficulties. I want to support them and be their friend. I think that's my purpose and task here during my life.

Because I have been having trials too. I have experienced bullying at school, I have become ill on my mini mission and subsequently spent eight months in the mental hospital in my area. I was 17 years old. People have not understood my health problems, because they are not visible. 

For five years my back has been hurting a lot, even longer but in August 2019 I got a walker. I used it a lot, because I had bad balance, pains and my scoliosis made it feel like my back was kind of tilting backwards. It all started to change last year... I met some really lovely new friends and they lifted me to another level, so to speak. I fell back a little now and then, my progress was slow at times. This spring my pains were so bad that I used a wheelchair outside and my friends helped me get around. 

Then another miracle happened. My faith in humanity, God and myself was kind of restored. I met some new wonderful friends and they changed my life some more, in a very huge and positive way. I didn't feel so depressed anymore, my anxiety was and is mostly gone and I got good medication, that has helped me loose weight so now I can walk a lot more without my walker! I haven't needed my wheelchair for a few months now either.

This all has been made possible by the fact that God loves me and has given me the strength I needed.

I have gotten a few awesome blessings from God through my friends the missionaries who have been so important to me. They are so important in fact, that my patriarchal blessing mentions them twice. I was made to be a friend of the missionaries and we cheer each other along.

I needed to learn a few things, still do, but I needed and still need to develop more trust in God. I need to learn how to forgive and how to love others the way God loves us all. This is no easy feat! If you think so, maybe think again lol.

Thinking is good, but I am free most days, because I am on early retirement and have a little too much time to think. It is not good either, for anyone, the least for someone like me who overthinks all the time and worries too much. Some things that help are writing, music and reading.

Faith is important. Often when I wonder what I believe, I just think about that I really WANT to believe. And that helps me get back on track. There are so many different differences between people and they get emphasized often. I think instead of looking at differences, we should focus on our good things that we have in common, the difficulties we have in common, so we can help each other understand others. It is not easy, but it is definitely worth it.

More later!

When you believe

 Good morning!

Today I have something to say about how faith can move personal mountains in each of our lives.

We are all equal and valuable. Everyone on this Earth has an inherent value, a priceless value and we all have the potential for greatness. We all can move mountains in out lives and make our lives better, enjoy our life whatever the circumstances, but many times it is really freaking difficult to be happy and grateful at all times.

We all have different set of difficulties. Some of us are in really difficult circumstances and it seems impossible to be grateful or happy. I often think it is so unfair that we're all kind of given the same commandment to become better, when some of us have so many trials and can't even live long enough to learn how to become better or really enjoy life.

This is a thing I have been thinking about a lot lately.

If we're all on the same starting point, why do some people die early, suffer through pain and hunger, war and abuse? I have not quite found the answer to that one. I am sorry. But I know that when we leave this Earth, we will be healed in the afterlife, at least I personally think there must be some good hospital and doctors to take care of us, or we will never be happy and feel fulfilled, even in the afterlife.

So, no matter your trauma, difficulties and struggles, we will be healed at some point. Our spirits and minds will be ready to be resurrected at some point and both our spirit and body will be at its optimal form. 

Therefore, when we are faced with mountains of trials and difficulties here during our lives, we can feel peace and trust God that it will all be fixed and made perfect at some point. I know this has to be true or God wouldn't be fair and just. 

I started to try to feel more grateful and happy a few years ago, and it has made all the difference.

I got more things to be grateful for, more reasons to be happy and smile.

This isn't always easy. I even try to be grateful for my difficulties! It is amazing how that has changed my life. Now I know God loves me and wants me to grow and learn. I know to some that doesn't seem like a blessing, to constantly be bombarded with trials and problems. I have felt that way. But it will shift at some point and you will feel joy.

A big change starts with small steps. I have written in my #give thanks# journal since 2010 often and it has helped me a lot. Also keeping a prayer journal, where I write my prayers sometimes, has helped me so much. I don't always write in these, and sometimes it's so dark and depressing in my life, that I feel like I can never go on from this situation. But I have always been able to. There is always a new dawn. There is always a fresh beginning. I truly believe and know this to be true.