California Mormon Mark Paredes knew he was heading into charged territory when he embarked on a fireside tour to Europe -- a mission designed to answer questions and clear up misunderstandings about Mormons and Jews.

Paredes has long been concerned about the misperceptions he believes exist in the public's mind about members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

So he launched a tour that included nine firesides in the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia and Austria from August to mid-September. Earlier this year, he did a similar tour in Norway and Sweden.

Paredes, the president of the Los Angeles office of the Zionist Organization of America and a high councilor in the Santa Monica California Stake, believes he is being spiritually urged to speak in support of Jews and Judaism.



"I believe that Jews in Europe need to know who their friends are now more than ever," he said.

Upon his return to the United States Paredes said, "I've discovered that many European members have spent a lot of time thinking about the relationship between Latter-day Saints and Jews, and every question-and-answer session featured very thoughtful questions.

"The most frequent query was 'I have a great deal of love for Jews. How do I begin to reach out to them here?' Given the small size of the Jewish and LDS communities in most of the countries, most of the time members have to take the initiative, Paredes said.

Paredes met with chief rabbis of two countries and the executive director of the Jewish community in another. All wanted to know more about the LDS Church and were interested in cooperating on projects of mutual interest.

"One of the most gratifying comments came from a sister in Finland who stated that she realized for the first time that baptism into the church confers not only membership in a ward or church but also the House of Israel," Paredes said.

"It goes without saying that I learned much more from the members than I was able to share with them. I was deeply touched to see how the Lord has inspired very capable members in those countries to build bridges to Jewish and other communities. In the Netherlands, for example, both daughters of Area Seventy Chris Kleijweg have master's degrees in Hebrew and Aramaic, and Rotterdam Stake President Jelmer De Jonge studied at the BYU Jerusalem Center. In Finland, Jussi and Raija Kemppainen have played a leading role in taking the gospel to Russia and the Baltic countries."

In Stockholm, Sweden, 200 people came out to hear Paredes.

Rex and Vicky Lewis helped set up the event in Sweden and said he was very well-received.

"There were several people of the Jewish faith in attendance and afterwards they spoke with Mark about the positive things he shared regarding the Jews and the Mormons. He gave some important facts from the Old Testament about how the Jewish temples parallel with the temples we have in the LDS Church. He spoke of the positive interactions between Jews and Mormons, as well as the desire to unite in building relationships," Rex Lewis said. "We felt that the fireside was a positive step in building Jewish-Mormon relationships. The Stockholm Key City Council has a plan this fall to have a dialogue with the Jewish community and the LDS church to establish a bridge of understanding. It was evident that the people were very pleased with Mark's comments as he had people wanting to talk to him, asking him for a copy of his talk, and just visiting with each other about how wonderful the fireside had been."

Paredes' future plans include finishing the final chapters of a book on LDS-Jewish relations for an LDS publisher.

He will also teach two courses at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles: One deals with Jewish themes in LDS theology, and the other is an interfaith dialogue series with Conservative Rabbi John Borak, which they plan to take to stakes and synagogues around the country next year.

He hopes to return abroad next spring to speak at more firesides.

In the interim, Paredes recommends members of the LDS Church and others who are interested in fostering better relations with Jewish people should read an LDS Church News article at: www.ldschurchnews.com

E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com