Spiritual Sisu

The type of determination we need can be explained by borrowing a word from the Finnish language. That Finnish word is sisu. It has no good or complete translation in English. Sisu has been described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, resilience, and hardiness. Sisu expresses a characteristic that manifests itself in displaying grit, resolve, and courage in the face of extreme adversity or against the odds. Someone with sisu decides on a course of action and then adheres to it—no matter what.

Laura and I listened to a BYU devotional by Elder Renlund titled Lifelong Conversion for our study. He talked about repeatedly and iteratively cycling through the elements of the Doctrine of Christ in an ascending path to heaven. The elements of the doctrine of Christ that we cycle through are faith in Christ, repentance, and the covenants of baptism (where the repetition is partaking of the sacrament). He also introduced the concept of spiritual sisu as quoted above. I like the attitude that it encapsulates.

I had the blessing of finding an opportunity to teach the gospel at home. Bex quoted the mantra “men are that they might have joy” and I took the opportunity to testify of how that concept had no value with the full context of the plan as designed by an all-knowing Father which plan is only completed with the Messiah coming to redeem mankind.