The Swedish Saints during World War II

In 1938, C. Fritz and Astrid Johansson were called, along with their children, to serve as full-time local missionaries in Sweden. Like Christ’s ancient disciples leaving their fishing nets to follow Him, the Johanssons sold the family grocery business to answer the call. For a year, they served alongside missionaries from overseas—until war broke out in Europe. Though Sweden was neutral in the conflict, missionaries were withdrawn.

Church leaders turned to C. Fritz Johansson to watch over Saints in Sweden as acting mission president. “I was bewildered and confused, being relatively new in the church,” he recalled. “I had only a few hours to be instructed by the departing authorities, and if it hadn’t been for the burning testimony I had of the restored gospel truths and for the experiences I had in the mission field, which was a preparation for the call that now came to me, I could not have done it.”

Johansson family

Fritz and Astrid Johansson and their children, circa 1940.

As acting mission president, Johansson traveled around Sweden, visiting the branches and encouraging the local Saints through the turbulence and uncertainty of the era. Through the Church’s periodical Nordstjärnan, he also shared messages calling them to draw closer to the Lord. “May we remember that the Saints in former days performed under hardships and poor circumstances,” he wrote in one issue. “I wished the same spirit would make itself more perceptible among us; the joy in offering one’s self and one’s means, yea, all for the cause of the Lord; fascination and enthusiasm to be co-laborers in the never-to-be forgotten cause of the latter days.”

One of the ways the Saints answered President Johansson’s call to be “co-laborers” in the cause was extending aid to their fellow Latter-day Saints outside of Sweden. In early 1945, the mission Relief Society helped gather food and supplies to send to Norway. The Stockholm Branch Relief Society held a “sale-evening” in September 1945 to raise additional funds for the Saints in Finland. In efforts such as these, Church members bonded and became more unified. President Johansson’s service also endeared him to the Saints in Scandinavia. When he was released after six years of service in 1946, they thanked him for his example. “Through your kindness and goodness to us,” one branch wrote in thanks, “you have taken a place in our hearts for time and eternity.”