Tag Archives: True Church

Finglas Ward – First Week of Church in Ireland

finglas ward

Every time I’m traveling I get so excited to go to Church on Sunday. It’s always a hassle trying to figure out how to get to church in a new place but the minute I walk into sacrament meeting is like a breath of fresh air.  The Spirit of the Lord is always the same at all sacrament meetings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints around the world.

We went to the Finglas Ward in Northern Dublin for the first Sunday in Ireland (See picture of ward building above). We took two buses and miraculous got to church without getting lost. As we walked into the chapel two minutes late, (apparently they start church on time here… LOL!), they were singing “Joy to the World” but with an Irish accent. 🙂 At the beginning of the meeting,  a girl was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was given the gift Holy Ghost after being baptized the day before. Afterwards, were two deacons were passing the sacrament. There were about 70 in the congregation but a lot were on vacation for the Holidays.

As we were singing the sacrament hymn #195 “How Great the Wisdom and the Love”, Dallin was putting the hymn book away at the end of the song but they sang all the extra verses in the song! This seems little but we were surprised. We didn’t know the extra verses to the song. I guess sometimes we take for granted little things like that.

In mem’ry of the broken flesh We eat the broken bread And witness with the cup, afresh, Our faith in Christ, our Head.

How great, how glorious, how complete Redemption’s grand design, Where justice, love, and mercy meet In harmony divine!

Micah went to nursery, even though he’s only 16 months old. He was causing trouble in Sunday School so we sent him to nursery. He loved it. He played with a double decker bus and got lots of snacks.

On the way home from church we got lost and it took us like 2.5 hours to get back to the hotel! We ran into a cool cemetery though. It was a nice long rainy walk but we survived!

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Running into a Mormon in Ireland

We were on the bus trying to get to the train station. The train is called the Dart. We only landed in Dublin a few hours before. We were feeling very jet lag and lost. I told Dallin he should ask this elderly lady for directions. In a matter of minutes the conversation went like this…

Dallin: We’re from the United States

Lady: Are you from Utah?

Dallin: Why yes! We’re from Utah.

Lady: That’s where my church headquarters are located. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Dallin: I’m a Latter-day Saint!

Wow… after feeling overwhelmed in a big city… suddenly the world seemed small again. I felt right at home. There are only about 1200 active Church members in Ireland out of 4.5 million people. I doubt it was a coincidence we met her but a gift from God. I wanted to cry when I met her because I was so sleep deprived and grateful for directions. She got off the bus with us and walked us to the train station while telling us her conversion story.

She was a Christian before. She told us the missionaries kept coming to visit her and telling her to read the Book of Mormon. She didn’t want to read it so she lied to missionaries but they kept coming back. Very quickly the missionaries could tell she wasn’t actually reading the Book of Mormon.  Finally, she decided read the Book of Mormon, felt something good about the Church and got baptized.  She also told us that church was at 11:00 am on Sunday at the Finglas Ward and that it was very close by.

We were very blessed to meet that nice elderly lady and very excited to go to church the next day. She led us to our next destination and gave us a bunch of directions. I felt like it was Heavenly Father helping us and telling us that Ireland is going to be great experience for us!