9/6/25
It is hard to believe that it is September. We are having beautiful weather, we are busy working and serving as we have always done. And yet, we are in the month that our mission started one year ago. I’ll probably be reminiscing about this all month. How can we be half way through this experience?! In just a few days we’ll hit the official half way point and I’ll be sure you know all about it! For now, welcome to September! Here’s what happened with us during the first week of this new month . . .
On Sunday morning at about 5:30 we landed back in Iceland after our wonderful visit to Pennsylvania and meeting our cute new grandson. We made it home, got ready for church, and were off for the day. Because it was a 5th Sunday we had a combined relief society and priesthood meeting that was taught by President Larbie, our branch president and his counselor, Gerhard. He talked about serving in the church, paying tithing, reading scriptures every day, and other things that are part of being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He gave an inspired lesson that was focused on helping the newest members of the church in our branch understand some of the things we do as members of the church. We’ve had many baptisms this year and we have inspired leadership under this good man.
On Sunday evening there was a district fireside. Elder Marcos Aidukaitis and his wife Luisa were in town and they spoke. Elder Aidukaitis is the 1st counselor in the Europe North Area. He was in Iceland with his wife and President & Sister Davidson (our mission leaders) to do a mission tour. He spoke about the financial support of the church in Iceland, the role the member’s tithing and funds contribute to that, as well as the inspired program, Come, Follow Me. (If you would like to learn more about this program, click here.) We were happy to get to participate in this meeting. In the picture below you will see L-R: President Gummi (District President), Sister & President Davidson, and Elder Aidukaitis at the pulpit.
Monday morning we had a zone breakfast at the church and it was really fun! I brought a French toast casserole. (It is DELICIOUS. Click here for the recipe! You know you want to try it!) Each of the mission companionships brought a different breakfast food item and we ate and chatted. While we were sitting around the table we got into stories about the worst dates they had been on, what things we looked for in a potential spouse when our daughters were dating, and who has the most girls writing to them while they are on their mission! It was an enlightening conversation! When our girls were young we went camping a lot and we would sit around the campfire talking about the type of men they thought they would marry. We weren’t around a campfire with these elders, but it was a similar feeling! These are good young men and there is great happiness in store for their future families . . . after their missions. 😉
Below L-R: Elder Nielsen, Elder Morales, Elder Nehren, Sister & Elder Mogenhan, Elder Monzon, Elder Mijares, Elder Geertsen, Elder Benzley, President Morel (Elder Morel is currently serving as the Akureyri branch president), Elder Moyer, Elder Young, & President Richardson.
We were back to the church again Monday evening for YSA. We had a great class! Three of our stalwart members are Jakob, Sarah, & Keifer; they have been staying late each week for game tournaments. I’m not sure who won scrabble this week?!
Tuesday we had zone conference so we were back to the church at 8:15. Elder Aidukaitis presided and led the meetings. We had several hours of teaching from our leaders and it was wonderful. Here is the Iceland Zone:
Back row L-R: Elder Mijares, Elder Morel, Elder Geertsen, Elder Moyer, Elder Young, Elder Nielsen, Elder Benzley, Elder Morales, Elder Monzon, Elder Nehren
Front row L-R: Elder & Sister Mogenhan, Sister & President Davidson, President & Sister Aidukaitis, Sister & President Richardson
We were taught by Sister & President Davidson about the importance of speaking to everyone we meet to see if they are ready to hear the message of the gospel.
Sister Aidukaitis taught about the importance of obedience. She shared a quote I love from Joseph F. Smith. He said, “Faith, a gift of God, is obtained by obedience.”
Here are the boys!
Elder Aidukaitis taught for two hours about looking for, and finding, those who are seeking Jesus Christ. It was inspiring and powerful teaching. He did demonstrations and role play and he is a very enthusiastic speaker! It was fun to watch him teach with so much passion! He talked about the power of bringing people to watch others be baptized and partaking of the Spirit that is there. Among other things, one thing I loved that he shared is that “goals are a reflection of our desires”. And that we should ask ourselves, “Is this goal too big for God?” Is any goal too big for God? No! The meetings were great.
Of course we enjoyed lunch together after the conference. There is always food! Sister Mogenhan did so much work for this meal and we really appreciate her.
President & Sister Aidukaitis:
President & Sister Davidson:
Wes & Karen Mogenhan:
And, of course, us. 🙂
The Aidukaitis’s have never been to Iceland before and they didn’t have time to do much sightseeing while they were here. We wanted to share some of the beauty of Iceland with them so before they came I put together a small gift bag with a special project included. I’m going to do an extra addition blog post that tells about our zone gift for them that will be available the same time this post is available. If you’d like to see what we made for them you can find it here, click on the post called “A Gift From The Iceland Zone”.
By the end of the day Tuesday we were pretty exhausted. We’d traveled through the night Saturday to Sunday and the spent the next couple of days between our apartment and the church either cooking & baking or sitting in meetings. It was an exhausting, but inspiring, couple of days! We had a quick errand Tuesday evening and after that we went for a walk and saw a beautiful sunset. The days are getting shorter and fall is on the way! Sunset was at 8:40 pm — earlier and earlier.
Wednesday was a solid recovery day for us after our week of traveling and several days of meetings. We spent it resting and catching up on a bunch of administrative work. We also had gorgeous weather so we went for an evening walk. Todd convinced me to jump on a scooter with him and our evening walk turned into an evening ride! With both of us on the scooter we weren’t going very fast, and Todd was super careful so he wouldn’t scare me! It was fun! I would do it again . . . probably. 🙂
We spent some time on both Thursday and Saturday doing cookie drops. It was time to take more chocolate crinkles to bring happiness to the world! We had a good visit with our friend Jóhannes and we tried to see a couple of people who were not home. But we enjoyed taking selfies by mailboxes!
We had a wonderful visit with Victoria. She is from Nigeria and she and her two daughters – who are 5 & 6 years old – are living in Reykjavik. Her husband is in Italy hoping to join their family soon. Victoria was just baptized in June as a member of the Church and she is expecting a baby in January. She is so great! She was surprised to see us at her door and she welcomed us in for a visit. Todd helped her set up her church account and we gave her a quick lesson in using the church tools app and got her signed into the gospel library.
Victoria told us that her mother belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ in Nigeria. When Victoria found the church here in Iceland she was intrigued. She went to church a couple of times but thought it was too boring! But her girls, Regina & Rejoice, loved going to church and to primary. They begged her to go to church each Sunday so she took them. Eventually she started to feel the Holy Ghost while she was at church. She enjoyed the peace that was there and began to gain her own testimony. We loved hearing Victoria’s testimony and we are glad to be her friends.
In addition to Jóhannes & Victoria we gave cookies to Margrét, Audrius, Faith, and another Faith(!), a friendly little boy who helped us with directions, and the new neighbor moving into our apartment building. Chocolate crinkles and the Holy Ghost were working well together on our cookie drops this week.
Later Tuesday afternoon we met the Parry family at the church. They live in Wellsville, Utah and are on vacation in Iceland for a few days. Just a couple of weeks ago their son, Jacob Parry, got his mission call to the Denmark Copenhagen Mission serving in Iceland! Elder Parry will be in Iceland in April 2026. Their family had already planned a Scandinavian vacation, but not including Iceland. They made some changes so they could spend a few days here seeing where their son will soon be a missionary. Elder Parry’s dad was a missionary in the Denmark Copenhagen mission, serving in Denmark. They are very nice and we had a fun visit with them. Elder & Sister Mogenhan and Elder Nehren & Elder Moyer stopped by the church to meet the Parry’s and say hello. Elder Parry will be replacing Elder Nehren when he goes home in April. And, yes, we shared some of those delicious cookies!
Below, L-R: Elder Nehren, Elder Moyer, Jacob, Isaac, Ryan, Kayla, Angela, Travis (Parry Family), & Sister & Elder Mogenhan
On Friday we attended a zoom class that was based in Ecuador. Our friends, Ron & Jenny Meldau, are senior missionaries in Quito, Ecuador. We met a year ago in the MTC and have kept in touch throughout our missions. While serving their mission, Ron & Jenny have been teaching the church’s Emotional Resilience course to the elders and sisters in their mission. Each week they teach these classes in both English and Spanish and they have adapted the lessons to apply directly to the issues the missionaries deal with while they are serving the Lord in the mission field.
(On a side note, the Emotional Resilience course is inspired. Todd and I have taught this course before, in our home ward in Eugene. If you’d like to learn more about it you can see the manual here.)
The Denmark Copenhagen mission is considering beginning the Emotional Resilience course with the missionaries serving in this part of the world. We’ve been emailing with the Meldaus asking about how they have taught the course and getting tips about what has worked for them. They are being very helpful. Jenny invited us to join one of her zoom classes so we could see how she is teaching them, what material she is emphasizing, and what is working best in their mission. We were happy for the invitation. We zoomed in along with several missionaries in Ecuador. Isn’t it amazing that we could be sitting in our apartment in Iceland learning from inspired material and Hermana Meldau along with missionaries who are more than 5,000 miles away from us?!
This week’s lesson was on chapter 6 — Overcoming Anger. Here are a few of the slides Jenny shared. I think everyone, not just missionaries, can learn from this information.
We’re very grateful for the help we are receiving from Ron & Jenny as well as for their friendship. Our mission isn’t quite ready to start teaching this course yet, but soon it will be something that all of the missionaries get to participate in and we know it will bless their lives.
Throughout the week Todd and I have taken several beautiful walks. In the mornings and the evenings the air is getting cooler and we are loving the end of summer weather.
Who wouldn’t want to spend time on this purple bench?!
It’s been a good week of work, ministering, enjoying each other’s company, and the beauty of Iceland. As we reflect back on the first year of our mission we know the Lord is here with us. We are grateful for His trust and support, as well as the trust and support of our friends & family members. All of the good things happening remind us that God is good and He wants us to be good too. Thank you for your love and we’ll see you again next week. The week’s fly by, don’t they?!
Check out Todd’s social media pages for more pictures and videos. You can find him here:
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