Laestadius himself became a teetotaller (except for his ongoing use of wine in holy Communion)[1] in the 1840s, when he began successfully talking his Sami parishioners out of alcoholism.

Due to their benefactor half-brother's death in 1817, the boys were constantly short of funds from the outset of their university studies.

Lars Levi Laestadius was ordained a Lutheran priest in 1825 by the bishop of Härnösand, Erik Abraham Almquist.

[4] Bible Translators Theologians Laestadius's first parish was at Arjeplog in Lapland, where he became the regional missionary for the Pite district.

At the time of Laestadius's 1826 arrival in Karesuando, the people of Lapland parish suffered from widespread misery and alcoholism.

Laestadius met a Sami woman named Milla Clementsdotter of Föllinge (also known as Lapp Mary by the Laestadian Lutheran Church) in the municipality of Krokom in Jämtland during an 1844 inspection tour of Åsele in Lapland.

She belonged to a revival movement marked by pietistic and Moravian influences and led by pastor Pehr Brandell of the parish of Nora in the municipality of Kramfors in Ångermanland.

Further he chose uneducated lay preachers from the Sami reindeer herders to travel year around with them and preach to the unrepented.

Additionally, in the early days of the movement, Laestadius, in order to find common ground with his parishioners, borrowed the Samis' own familiar pagan deities and concepts and adapted them to Christianity.

Because of the wide recognition for his knowledge of botany and the Sami, the French Admiralty invited Laestadius to participate in the La Recherche Expedition to Samiland of 1838–40.

As an expedition member, Laestadius served as field guide for the islands and the interior of Northern Norway and Sweden, studying both plant life and the culture of the Sami inhabitants.