“You’ve Kept Well.” 

10/13/24

Our adventures in Iceland continue this week with more lovely people, beautiful places, and outpourings of the Holy Ghost. 

On Sunday we watched two sessions of General Conference at the church building with several members of the church. We were glad to have the opportunity to meet many members from the Selfoss branch that is about 45 minutes southeast of Reykjavik. Fun fact: 30 years ago my brother-in-law Scott Hansen served as a young missionary here in Iceland. There are many people we are meeting here who know, remember, and love Scott Hansen! It is so fun to meet them and know Scott did a great job preparing the way for us to make connections and begin building relationships with some of the saints here. The two pictures below are people who are still in contact with Scott and his wife, my sister, Jenny.

Here are two lovely new friends from Selfoss: Valla & Greta. I’m excited to get to know them and they are already welcoming us into their lives with open arms. 

And this is Björg & Ólafur  from the Reykjavik 1st branch: 

There are truly wonderful people here and we are already feeling loved and welcomed. One member met me and said, “You’ve kept well.” English is not his first language but I am assuming it’s a compliment and a nod to my unusual age for being a senior missionary?! It made us laugh!

Last Monday we had a terrific P-day adventure with the young elders. The weather forecast was clear, the elders had a preparation day that was available, and the other senior couple were free. So the 10 young elders and 2 senior couples jumped into 4 cars and took a road trip along the south coast. We drove about 100ish miles along beautiful, scenic roads to the town of Vik. We did have some time restraints – the elders needed to be home by dinner time for their evening work and we had to be home for Todd to teach institute and our YSA dinner. We passed several waterfalls and other scenic spots that we didn’t have time to stop at and explore – we’ll save those for another trip and another post sometime. But, we did see this:

Mýrdalshreppur 

Reyniskirkja 

The road we were driving down goes all the way to a parking lot right at the coast, but when we got to the church, Reyniskirkja, the road was closed and traffic was directed to park at the church. People were then sent walking down the road to the beach. The beach parking lot was being repaved and they were keeping tourist cars off it for the day. It was about a mile walk. They were, however, letting buses and tour vans drive through.

Todd and I were just starting to walk and Todd stuck his thumb out as each bus passed by to see if any would stop and pick us up. He was joking, but why not try? One little bus did stop and we jumped on board! It was a group of about 10 people who were on a tour of Iceland with a professional photographer, Stefan Liebermann, who was teaching them how to take photos in all these gorgeous places. We rode the bus with them for about 3 minutes and it was hilarious. We spent some time on the beach and enjoyed the beautiful things there (see pictures below) and when we were ready to walk back to the car we started walking back up the road. Well, the same bus drove past us and stopped and waited for us to get back on! It was so fun! These people were very nice and they were all from Switzerland or Germany. We told them we are missionaries for our church and we had another quick, lovely conversation before they dropped us off at the parking lot. 

Side note – If you’d like to see some of Stefan Liebermann’s work, check out his website here:

https://www.stefanliebermann.de/?logged_in_customer_id=&lang=en

And here is the Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach:

Since we have lived near the Pacific ocean in Oregon for so many years, I have come to have a deep love for the beach and the ocean. It is so amazing to be spreading that love to the Atlantic ocean. Whenever I come to the ocean I have two scriptures that always come to mind. One is 1 Nephi 17:6: “We were exceedingly rejoiced when we came to the seashore.” And the other is 1 Nephi 20:18: “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments—then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.” I am always rejoicing when I come to the seashore, no matter the ocean. And, I love contemplating the never ending movement and power of the water. If our righteousness was as persistent and consistent as the waves of the sea, just imagine the difference we could make in the world! The ocean changes the land and the climate and the world. Maybe our righteousness could do the same?!

At the black sand beach there were basalt columns from past volcanic eruptions. And there is a terrific cave called Hálsanefshellir Cave made out of basalt columns and shaped by the forces of nature. It was pretty spectacular.

Our group went to lunch at the Black Crust Pizzeria in Vik. Apparently this is a big instagram trend?! We enjoyed a black crust pizza (which is a charcoal infused sourdough pizza crust, in case you were wondering) and started the long drive back to Reykjavik.

We had Elder Nielsen and Elder Pollock in our car for the day. We loved spending time with them and getting to know them better. They are pretty terrific! Elder Pollock finishes his mission next month and he wanted to make one more stop on the way home at Sólheimajökull glacier. We didn’t have a lot of time to see it, but we got a good look! We will definitely be going back there someday.

Not every day this week was as busy as Monday, thank goodness! We are starting to get into a weekly routine of our studies, planning, meetings, visits, and missionary work. We know over the next couple of weeks things will continue to settle with our schedule. We are having one young mission companionship over for dinner each week and this week we had Elder Benzley and Elder Hill. These are two more amazing Iceland missionaries who are working hard and doing good things. 

One evening we had a meeting in Selfoss and we decided to drive there early to explore the town and see some of the sights before our scheduled plans. We found a beautiful wool shop filled with handmade Icelandic sweaters made from Icelandic wool. They are gorgeous and I have been keeping my eye out for one I love to buy and enjoy during our mission. 

Many tourist shops here sell beautiful sweaters, but several of them are not handmade in Iceland with Icelandic wool. The shops we visited in Selfoss had authentic handmade Icelandic items that we were interested in supporting. Todd found this beanie:

And, in another shop, I found this gorgeous sweater:

In the small shop where I bought my sweater the woman told us that she and seven other women knit all of the items they sell in the shop. They keep all the proceeds and the items are all done by hand. It was so fun to support them! And, they make homemade shopping bags that are given with each sweater. So, not only do I have my authentic Icelandic wool hand knit sweater, I also have a new, one of a kind shopping bag! It was such a great afternoon.

You may be wondering if we made it to our evening meeting? We did and it was great! We met with a woman named Bettina. She is German, her husband was Icelandic (he passed away four years ago) and she lives in Iceland. Bettina is the Iceland district relief society president. She is also the district Young Women’s president. And she is the district primary president. That is the same as being the stake RS, YW’s, & primary president all at the same time! How is that for a set of callings?! She is so much fun. She needed some help with her computer and getting some things sorted for her callings. Todd and I spent a couple of hours trying to help her and, get this, her computer was only pulling up web pages in German! Bettina speaks German and Icelandic and English . . . but she isn’t quite as adept at speaking computer! She was trying to translate what the computer was saying while we were trying to help her install and learn to use programs at the same time! It made for a lot of laughter and slow going. But, I think we got it done?! It was a lovely way to spend the end of a great day.

If you would like to learn more about Bettina check out this Liahona article. She was interviewed for part of a featurette about the church in Iceland in September’s issue. You can find it here:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2024/09/05-reykjavik-iceland?lang=eng

We woke to snow near the end of the week and it does feel like winter! I wore a handmade sweater our daughter Rachel made me (not Icelandic wool! It’s soft wool that is not itchy and kept me warm all day) and we enjoyed the view. 

On Saturday we went to the airport to pick up Elder & Sister Jensen. They are serving as service mission leaders for the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway, & Iceland. They came to Iceland to interview a young man, Edwnur, who is preparing to serve a service mission. It was so fun to spend the evening with them, and part of the day Sunday. We got to know more about them and their family and their mission call. They are energetically striving to help young people know and understand what a service mission is and some of the options for serving one. If you want to know more about service missions, click here: 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/service-missionary/a-service-mission?lang=eng

This is Edwnur, he is very excited to be a missionary!

Before we went to the airport we made sure we had time to stop at Viking World. You know you want to go to Viking World! It is a museum that showcases Vikings in Iceland and other Scandinavian countries. They have a full sized replica Viking ship that you can climb around on! It’s pretty impressive.

In the gift shop at Viking World we found Todd an original viking sweater! Well, it’s an Icelandic sweater, knit by an 86 year old woman with Icelandic wool. 🙂 We love these finds and enjoy supporting these artists in their work. It was a fun find!

Other things we did this week: 

• Several meetings with missionaries for various reasons
• Less getting lost around town (!)
• We got a new mattress – courtesy of the mission. The old mattress was a well used memory foam that had lost its memory. 😉 We’re so grateful for a new mattress and better sleeping.
• Lots of emails and texts with our mission president about our responsibilities and work.

It was a great and busy week. As usual, check out Todd’s FB page for lots more pictures. Thank you for your love, prayers, and support! And thank you for sharing our adventures with us in this blog. It is a pleasure to serve here and it’s fun to know you’re joining us on our mission. 

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561154456959