10/4/25
We began this week with the sad news of President Russel M. Nelson’s death. President Nelson was the prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 2018. We love him and we have loved following his prophetic leadership. While we will miss him, we are profoundly grateful for the pattern established by the Lord for the leadership of the Church and we know that the Lord’s prophets and apostles will continue that leadership according to His will. You can learn more about President Nelson here. And you can learn more about prophets and apostles here.
Sunday was our fast and testimony meeting at church. Todd and I both took the opportunity to bear our testimonies about prophets and apostles on the earth today. It is a pleasure to bear this witness and we look forward to supporting our next prophet as well. Prophets speak for God and we love listening to and learning from them.
Sunday evening I enjoyed a fun video meeting with my fellow Iceland senior sisters, Karen Mogenhan & Cheryl Hutchings. We are deep into a project of getting food storage and 72 hour kits updated for each missionary and each mission apartment. Senior missionaries have done this project before. The problem is, the elders aren’t very good at rotating their food storage. (Are you?!) So we are dealing with expired food that needs to be replaced. And we are trying to come up with a way to incorporate using & rotating food storage into the missionaries weekly planning. What tips do you have for us to help 18-20 year old young men to properly rotate their food storage?! Let me know in the comments! 🙂
I’m super grateful to have Karen & Cheryl to work with. Not only are they fun, they are smart! As the three sister missionaries in Iceland it’s great to have projects to work on together. In the picture below, Cheryl is top-right and Karen is on the bottom.
Of course I have to get in a picture of our Institute kids having fun. We love seeing our class grow and build relationships with each other. These are terrific young adults and they will be of great service in the church throughout their lives.
This week we began a new project we are taking on for the second half of our mission. We are going to work our way through the Reykjavik 1st branch directory and visit every name listed there. It will take some time and we know this list isn’t completely up to date. But, we will bake cookies and we will make an attempt to connect with as many people on the list as possible. While we are doing this we hope to invite those who have stopped coming to church to come back. We love doing cookie drops, so they will continue along with our invitation to come to church. On our first evening attempt we weren’t able to find anyone at home to meet. But, we thought you’d like to see our happy attempts in three different apartment buildings!
We did better the next day starting with a visit to our sweet friend Helga. Helga isn’t a member of the church but she is our friend and she is so much fun to visit! She looked over my knitting and immediately saw (and showed me) my mistakes. But she did say it looks nice!! I take that as the highest compliment coming from Helga. She also showed us some of her recent photography that highlights the beautiful fall colors around Iceland. I asked Helga if she would like to learn more about the church from the missionaries. She said she will think about it and in the meantime she promised me she will say her prayers. I promised her I will say my prayers too. So, Helga and I are praying and knitting buddies! And she and Todd are photography buddies. We are blessed to have Helga in our life.
We also gave cookies to Faith and her children Ella & Cross. Faith and her kids (including Lawson who wasn’t home from school yet) were all baptized just a couple of weeks ago. We scheduled a meeting with them to talk about how the “Come Follow Me” program works and to talk about the importance and blessing of studying the Book of Mormon. There are great blessings associated with reading the scriptures every day and Faith and her family are ready to claim those blessings.
Todd shared the following quote with them: “I feel certain that if, in our homes, parents will read from the Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, both by themselves and with their children, the spirit of that great book will come to permeate our homes and all who dwell therein. The spirit of reverence will increase; mutual respect and consideration for each other will grow. The spirit of contention will depart. Parents will counsel their children in greater love and wisdom. Children will be more responsive and submissive to the counsel of their parents. Righteousness will increase. Faith, hope, and charity—the pure love of Christ—will abound in our homes and lives, bringing in their wake peace, joy, and happiness” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1980, p. 90; or Ensign, May 1980, p. 67).
You can claim these blessings too, if you read the Book of Mormon daily. Maybe you should give it a try?! We had a wonderful visit with this good family and we are excited to help them learn more about what it means to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I want to tell you something wonderful Faith did. Last Sunday she noticed a couple of women she expected to see at church were not there. She told us that after church she texted and called these women to see if they were okay and find out what kept them from coming to church. Faith didn’t know it, but she was ministering to these women by looking for them, checking in with them, and showing them how much she cares. I love her good example of this! If we all looked after our brothers and sisters in this way everyone would feel more loved and needed at church.
We had one other visit to a sister who has not been to church for a long time. Her name is Marlene and she was surprised to see us at her door. She invited us in and we had a short visit. Marlene told us that just the other day she felt that it was time to return to church. She put some church music on her phone for her son to listen to. And, just as she is having these feelings, we show up at her door! She said she knows God is sending her the message that it is time to come back to church. We hope she will follow those promptings and join us there soon. We’re happy to know that the small effort of visiting helped this sister feel God’s love for her. (And the chocolate helps too!)
We had a fun breakfast meeting with our zone leaders mid-week. In addition to cookie drops, feeding the elders waffles and discussing mission business is a favorite thing to do. Elder Benzley and Elder Nielsen are wonderful young leaders. They work hard and they want the best for the missionaries, the members, and the friends they are teaching. They are inspiring to work with. And, we got to discuss some Christmas plans because it is October and we should be discussing Christmas!!
We also enjoyed a hybrid in-person/distance district meeting. Those of us in Reykjavik were together and the missionaries in Akureyri were together. We had trainings and goal discussions to follow progress through this transfer. There is always room for improvement but these missionaries are doing good things.
And the next day there was another in person/online meeting with the elders. Each week Todd teachings a companion study class to all the Iceland elders. This week I got to teach and we had a great discussion together on obedience, faith, & power. “Faith is a gift of God bestowed as a reward for personal righteousness. It is always given when righteousness is present, and the greater the measure of obedience to God’s laws, the greater will be the endowment of faith.” (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed., pg. 264)
Do you believe that obedience increases your faith in Jesus Christ and your access to God’s power? I do. Experiment and see if greater obedience to God’s commandments makes a difference in your life. This is the invitation I gave to the elders.
After class we took Elder Monzon for passport photos for his upcoming driver’s license application. His companion, Elder Morel, came along. Elder Morel goes home from his mission in two weeks. He is finishing up his mission with the same shoes he came out wearing. I think it may be time for a new pair of shoes!
Of course we found time to do some exploring outside this week. Iceland did not disappoint us with her fall beauty! Here are some of the things we saw:
We enjoyed the trails and the fall leaves at Kermóafoss. This urban forest and waterfall is just a couple of miles from our home and we love her autumn look.
We got a view of the aurora between the clouds. We are both watching our aurora apps to see when we need to venture out to look for the lights. It is usually cloudy and raining so we were grateful for this view peeking through the clouds.
We had time for our p-day on Friday and the weather was cool but clear. We went on a field trip to find waterfalls but took time out for a zoom meeting with our friends, Elder & Sister Meiners. We’re grateful for the technology that allows us to have meetings pretty much anywhere we go. We are working with the Meiners to begin our mission wide emotional resilience courses in just a couple of weeks.
Our first waterfall on Friday was Háifoss. Háifoss is Iceland’s fourth tallest waterfall, dropping 122 meters, or 400 feet. You can read more about Háifoss here. It is spectacular.
Next to Háifoss is another waterfall called Grannifoss. Grannifoss means neighbor waterfall, appropriate! And beautiful. These waterfalls are side by side.
We have Helga to thank for sending us to Háifoss and we are grateful for her recommendation. It was a glorious place to visit. Next we drove to Sigöldugljúfur, also known as the Valley of Tears. We have been here once before with our friends Bragi & Áslaug a few months ago and we’ve been eager to return and enjoy some more time in this beautiful place. Coming in October on a cool autumn day we had the place to ourselves and it was amazing! The water comes right out of the side of the cliffs and cascades down to the river. There are numerous waterfalls and more to see at every turn. You can read more about Sigöldugljúfur, here.
It was such a spectacular autumn week in Iceland. Each season changes the scenery into another beautiful sight. Just like life, I suppose. It is all beautiful and we want to enjoy and relish it during each different phase.
We finished the week by participating in General Conference with the missionaries and church members in Iceland and around the world. This conference is very different. President Nelson has passed away and the new First Presidency of the church is not yet in place. The conference is under the authority of the members of the Counsel of the Twelve Apostles, of which there are currently fourteen! If you’d like to watch General Conference you can do so here. And, here is a great church news article about the historic nature of the conference happening so shortly following the death of the church president. I am grateful for latter-day revelation and the good men who lead us as our prophets and apostles on the earth today.
The first conference session was at 10:00 am Utah time. We watched it at our church building at 4:00 pm Iceland time.
The second conference session was at 2:00 pm Utah time. We watched it at home together at 8:00 pm Iceland time.
There is another Saturday session that is at 6:00 pm Utah time. That is midnight tonight Iceland time so we will watch it tomorrow. We are grateful for the technology that allows us to participate in General Conference from the other side of the world. And we are grateful for you! We hope you have had a beautiful autumn week in your part of the world. And we will see you again next week with another mission update from Iceland!
Be sure to check out Todd’s social media pages for more videos and pictures. You can find him here:
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