While serving as a mission president of the Denmark Copenhagen Mission from 2021 to 2024, Leif Mattsson helped organize two concerts in Denmark and Sweden.
The concerts featured music from world-class performers who are members of the Church. The Church has a historic presence in both of the two countries, and these concerts gave Latter-day Saints a chance to invite friends and neighbors to an event that showcased the talents of fellow members of the Church.
Following the success he witnessed with those concerts, he felt impressed to see if the same thing could be done in Reykjavik, Iceland, which is within the Copenhagen mission’s boundaries. In Iceland, the Church is not as well — especially not by its full name. A concert there would have a double purpose of featuring talented members of the Church and solidifying the full name of the Church — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — among Icelanders.
Iceland is home to nearly 400,000 people, and just more than 400 of them are members of the Church. Iceland’s growing diversity is reflected in its branches of the Church. Mattsson said one branch has Icelanders, Filipinos and Africans all serving together. Another branch has been created for the growing Spanish-speaking population in Reykjavik.
But the Church still lacks mainstream recognition among many living in the country.
“I felt strongly to do all I could to lift the spirits of the members in Iceland and to make the locals aware of the Church’s presence,” Mattsson said.
He reached out to local Church leaders, and they said they and the missionaries serving in Iceland loved the idea of the concert. Mattsson assigned Elder Tony Tibbitts, a senior missionary who was serving as the first counselor in the Reykjavik Iceland District, to chair an organizing committee for the concert.
Mattsson spoke with Latter-day Saint Angela Brower, a mezzo soprano singer originally from Arizona who now lives in Munich, Germany. Brower has performed in opera houses all over Europe. Then, Emily Moffatt, also a member of the Church, agreed to join the concert. Moffatt is from Los Angeles, California, and has been the singing voice of Cinderella for Disney, among other singing accomplishments. Finally, the female vocal group Unitone also joined the concert’s bill. The three pairs of Swedish sisters who comprise Unitone are also all members of the Church and have sung together since Primary.
Latter-day Saint singers from the group Unitone perform at a concert in Reykjavik, Iceland, on Aug. 23, 2024, on the waterfront’s Harpa Concert Hall. | Provided by Leif Mattsson
Members of the Church with ties to Iceland — including former missionaries who served in the area — helped fund the concert and the singers’ participation, Mattsson said.
While Mattsson worked on getting musicians, one of his former mission presidency counselors worked to find other organizations in the area to include in the concert. Olafur Einarsson met with the Icelandic Interfaith Group and invited them to attend, as well.
The “Hope Rises” concert turned into a way to show support for the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue, known as ICE-SAR, and its 6,000 volunteers. The Church made a donation to help ICE-SAR purchase needed emergency position indicator radio beacons for members of its volunteer rescue teams.
Mattsson said the donation of beacons was meaningful to longtime members of the Church because of something then-Elder Russell M. Nelson said when, as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he visited Iceland in 1989.
“He said Iceland would become a beacon to all of Europe,” Mattson said. And providing beacons to the community’s search and rescue team was one, perhaps unexpected, way to do that, he explained.
Fjóla Kristjánsdóttir, ICE-SAR board chair, thanked the Church for its donation and the ability it gives to keep search and rescue teams in the area safe. Her thanks came at a time when some of the volunteers were helping evacuate people following a magma eruption.
Members of the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue, known as ICE-SAR, represent its 6,000 volunteers at a concert in Reykjavik, Iceland, on Aug. 23, 2024, on the waterfront’s Harpa Concert Hall. | Provided by Leif Mattsson
The concert was Aug. 23, on the waterfront on Reykjavik at the Harpa Concert Hall with a capacity crowd of 500. Of those who attended, more than 400 were not members of the Church.
Elder Tibbits said they were surprised and excited at the great turnout for the concert.
“There was such a wonderful feeling in the audience when the concert was over. People didn’t want to leave,” he said.
He and Mattsson hope that those who attended will remember the feelings they had and be receptive to the Church and its members in the future.
“The future will show the outcome,” Mattsson said. “Our hope is that people will recognize the Church and its members for the good they do and for missionaries to be welcomed when they contact Icelanders.”
Mattsson said that following the promptings of the Spirit to help organize the concert helped him know that Heavenly Father works through His children to bless others in ways only they could. Both those who act on the inspiration and those who are served are blessed, he explained.
“Involve the Savior in your life — whatever you are experiencing in your life,” he said. “He will bless us. He will carry us. There is nothing that He does not understand about what we are going through. Blessings come through Him.”
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Publish date : 2024-10-01 11:23:00
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