10/18/25
Hello from Iceland! Let’s get right into a good and busy week.
On Sunday we had the second day of the fall Iceland District Conference. We were happy to hear from our district leaders and spend time with our friends from church. In the picture below you will see L-R: President Bragi Svavarsson, 1st counselor in the District Presidency, President Guðmundur Sigurðsson, Iceland District President, & President & Sister Davidson, our Denmark Copenhagen Mission Leaders.
We also had a terrific district choir who sang two songs during the conference. Sister Mogenhan was their conductor and she did a great job!
After the conference we had Bragi & Áslaug over for a meal and a visit. They are great people and we really appreciate their friendship.
Todd and I both keep an eye on the aurora forecast and Sunday night’s forecast was excellent. At about 9:30 we drove about 10 minutes out of town to find a dark sky. Fortunately there were plenty of breaks in the clouds! I can’t pick a favorite picture so you get several! It was an amazing sight.
In some of the pictures you can see a white spotlight pointing up into the sky. It is a peace memorial that shines from October into December each year. “The Imagine Peace Tower is a work of art conceived as a beacon to world peace by the legendary artist, musician, and peace advocate, Yoko Ono.” You can read more about it here. Aurora viewing was an incredible way to finish our Sunday!
We are excited that our fellow senior missionaries, Wes & Karen Mogenhan, have been here for six months. That means it’s time for them to get their driver’s licenses! They have their applications submitted and now they just have to pass all of the tests. They can do it! They got the commemorative photo at the district commissioner’s office and now they have to study, study, study.
Just for fun, here are a few Icelandic road signs. Do you know what they all mean??
One of the many interesting things we did this week was accepting the keys for and doing a walk through of the new meeting location for the Selfoss branch. The lease has been signed on these rooms but there is a lot of work that will be done to remodel the area for church meetings and it will be some time before it is ready for the branch to move in. We hope it will be done before we go home next summer so we can see the finished space. And we hope the Selfoss branch will grow to fill these large meeting rooms!
Here is a 360 video Todd made of the building. If you’d like to use the 360 effect, open the video in You tube and use your mouse or your finger to look all around the rooms. The building will look completely different from this after it is renovated.
As each missionary in the Denmark Copenhagen mission completes their mission they have the opportunity to share their testimony in a mission wide testimony meeting. On Tuesday evening we watched as three of our elders participated in this meeting before heading home. We have really grown to love these elders and it is sad to say goodbye. They each bore a strong testimony of their knowledge of Jesus Christ as well as how they have grown and changed as missionaries. Below L-R: Elder Morel, Elder Mijares, & Elder Morales.
We were also very happy to watch the press conference announcing the new First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We love and sustain President Oaks, President Eyring, and President Christofferson. It is such a blessing to belong to this church and to know we are led by prophets and apostles. If you would like to learn more about this announcement and our new First Presidency, click here. We will always remember that we were in Iceland as missionaries when this presidency was called. Where were you when you learned about the new First Presidency??
Early Wednesday morning we met with all of the missionaries at the church for a group goodbye and to shuffle elders and luggage around for transfers. Three missionaries left for home, two missionaries went to Akureyri, on the north coast of Iceland. And five missionaries stayed in the city. Below, L-R, Elder Nielsen, Elder Moyer, Elder Nehren, Elder Moyer, Elder Mijares, Elder Morales, Elder Benzley, Elder Monzon, Elder Young, & Elder Geertsen
Iceland is a unique place to serve a mission for so many reasons. One of those reasons is that there is a very small group of missionaries assigned to serve here and they work very closely together. They establish close friendships and are always sad to say goodbye when their friends, brothers, & companions leave for home. Farewell to Elders Mijares, Morales, & Morel! They’re back home with their families today. 🙂
Quick side note from missionary details. Have you ever wondered what an Icelandic ice cream truck looks like? Here it is! One evening this week we heard the strangest horn/tune sounding outside and saw this van parked just below our window. Todd hollered down asking what he was selling. “Ice cream!” We’ve never seen this before and may never see it again!
And! Since we moved into this apartment over a year ago the windows have never been cleaned. We live on the second floor and it isn’t really an option to do them by ourselves. Todd has been trying to work with the HOA and the landlord to see if we can get this project done. Some of our windows were so dirty we couldn’t really see out of them. Well, Todd took it into his own hands and did his best. Fortunately, he did not fall out of the window! They are not streak free but they are much better! Now we will be able to see if the ice cream truck ever comes again. 🙂
Our branch relief society also had our first knitting circle of the winter this week. There were only a few of us there but we enjoyed being together and growing closer as sisters. They even complimented my knitting, so I feel pretty satisfied that I can continue to attend the knitting circle! Below L-R: Me, Helga, Björg, Kolbrún, & Bára
Iceland currently has an allotment for twelve young elders and three senior couples to live and serve as missionaries. When we arrived to start our mission those were the numbers serving here. Some time ago two of the elders finished their missions and left but were not replaced, dropping the young elder total to ten. This week three more young elders finished their missions and went home. There are four elders headed to join us but only one of them has a cleared visa to come to Iceland. For a couple of days mid week we only had seven elders here, then our new elder joined us, Elder Bredthauer, bringing the number to eight. The other three will come as soon as their visas are approved. We are a small and mighty band.
We went to the airport for the second time this week to pick up Elder Bredthauer. The zone leaders, Elder Benzley & Elder Moyer, came with us along with Elder Nielsen who is Elder Bredthauer’s companion. It is always fun to welcome new missionaries to the Iceland Zone!
Below, L-R: Todd & me, Elder Moyer, Elder Nielsen, Elder Bredthauer, Elder Benzley
The boys joined us for the evening for waffles & a training meeting. Elder Bredthauer was a great addition to the group and he even stayed awake through the whole evening after a very long day and jetlag. After they left our house they were headed to meet the other elders who are here in the city and then they had a teaching appointment. It was quite the first day for Elder Bredthauer. (Fun fact, just a few years ago Elder Bredthauer’s grandparents, Elder & Sister Barrett, were senior missionaries in Iceland and they lived in our apartment! What a fun tender mercy.)
On Saturday we took a few hours to have an adventure. Our work schedules have been so full lately and we needed some time outside in nature. We didn’t go far from home but we explored a few places we have not been before.
We drove up to the ski resort outside of Reykjavik. We haven’t taken this road before and we drove out of the city, up into the hills, and out of the fog. We found a pullout where Todd could fly the drone and I could go for a walk. It was cold but not windy and we both explored this lava field and its beauty.
Then we made our way up to Skíðaskáli Ármanns. It’s a small ski resort but in the winter months it gets a lot of use. There’s no snow yet but it was fun to see what it looks like.
When we were driving back to the main highway we both saw the most interesting bow in the clouds. It was shaped like a rainbow but it was completely white. It was amazing! You can read more about fogbows here.
And before long we dropped back down into the fog.
There’s a small town on the other side of the mountain from Reykjavik called Hveragerði. We drive through this town often and we love how quaint it is. We also have several friends who live here. Not long ago I found an article about the tectonic plates and how in Iceland there are several places where you can walk between the Eurasian plate and the North American plate. We have done this in different places throughout Iceland and we love how unique that is. In this article it said that in Hveragerði, the small shopping center is built across the plate divide and they have a spot inside the mall where you can see it. We have been inside this mall many times and I’ve never known to look for this before. So we did! Look what we found:
In the picture below, the library is in Europe, the clothing store is in North America, and Todd is in the great divide. 🙂
Under the glass you can see the rock below the store. They’ve put lights in the bottom to look like the lava. I loved this. From now on I will need to stop and see it each time we are in there.
Our next stop was the The Geothermal Park in Hveragerði. The town is built around this geothermal area and we enjoyed exploring it. There is a geyser that erupts about every 15 minutes and several geothermal pools.
Long ago the people who lived there used the hot water to heat their homes, do laundry, and even cook food. The hot water is still used in geothermal projects today. In 2008 there was a large earthquake in south Iceland that shifted the ground under the geothermal park. As a result of the earthquake many of the pools drained and never refilled. The park has many empty pools. I would have loved to have seen it before they drained! But it was still an interesting place to explore. The pictures below show one of the empty pools, before and after.
One of my favorite things was the bread oven. Well, it’s not an oven! It’s a place where a rye bread batter is placed in the thermal water to cook. The water is about 100 degrees Celsius and it takes 18 hours to cook a loaf of bread! When we checked it out there were a couple pans of bread cooking in the hot water.
Todd bought me some geothermal rye bread in the greenhouse and we enjoyed it together. I really liked it! It almost had a molasses taste and it was sweet and dense. They had the recipe posted with directions to cook it in your oven at home (since we don’t all have a thermal pool in our yard). It only has to bake in your oven for nine hours! I might try it one day?!
It was a wonderful way to end a great week in Iceland. We hope you are well and finding peace throughout your work and responsibilities. Thank you for your love and support of us and for reading all of my long posts!
If you’d like to see more pictures and videos check out Todd’s social media pages. You can find him here:
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