1/31/26
At church last Sunday we had a combined second hour class with the men and women. The Europe North Area Presidency had requested that all units watch and discuss a video they had made outlining the goals and objectives for the spiritual growth of members and friends in the area during 2026. There were several friends attending with the missionaries and they were part of the discussion about spiritual growth. Here are the questions we discussed:
- What are some activities and influences in the world today that prevent us from having more spiritual power in our lives?
- What are some simple daily practices that increase the influence of the Holy
Ghost in our lives? - What could we do to help someone we know and love strengthen their
discipleship? - What can ministering brothers and sisters do to help someone feel the influence of the Holy Ghost in their life?
It was wonderful to be part of this discussion with good brothers, sisters, and friends about how we are working to increase spiritual power in our own lives and help those around us increase the spiritual power in their lives.
One friend, Ebima, who is learning from the missionaries addressed the question “What could we do to help someone we know and love strengthen their discipleship?” He shared that he met the missionaries recently and they invited him to church. They are teaching him all about how Jesus Christ ministered to his flock all over the world and that His church is restored today. He shared that by learning from the missionaries and coming to church his discipleship to Jesus Christ is growing. Todd asked Ebima, “What do you think about what you are learning?” Ebima answered, “I think I’m in the right place.”
Ebima is in the right place. When we attend church, partake of the sacrament, worship Jesus Christ, strive to live and keep the commandments, repent when we sin, and move forward in faith we are in the right place. It was wonderful to hear Ebima’s testimony as he is learning more about Jesus Christ and His restored church.
Ebima’s story, as well as so many other stories about new members and friends, are one of the great pleasures of missionary work. I’ve told you about Victoria and her preparations to speak in sacrament meeting. She did speak on Sunday and she shared a powerful testimony about how her prayers have been answered. She did such a great job! Victoria joined the church last June and this was her first time speaking in front of the congregation. It was wonderful to share this experience with her. She had her baby the very next day and both mom and little girl are doing well.
Another fun part of church on Sunday was watching Elder Monzon do some great work. He played the piano for the Spanish branch sacrament meeting. Elder Monzon did not know how to play the piano when he arrived on his mission at the beginning of last summer. Now he played four songs for the congregation to sing to and he did a wonderful job! He also translated from English to Spanish for Todd’s talk in the meeting. We appreciate our young elders and all their skills.
We had a great P-day near the start of the week. We had planned on a day trip but the weather was doing its Icelandic thing — major wind — and we decided to stay closer to home. We ended up having such a fun field trip so I’m glad we changed our plans.
We started out by climbing to the top of Þúfa, an art installation just across from downtown Reykjavik. It was very windy (gusts to 30 mph) and the walk was crazy in the wind. But it’s fun to climb to the top and such a unique part of Iceland. I’ve posted pictures here before ages ago. Last year in January this was covered with ice and snow! No snow this year, just a lot of wind.
There is a big ship yard on this side of town and Todd loves to see the boats. I’m also not quite sure what the sculpture is on the right below. It was made of some kind of flexible material, not metal. It was getting plummeted by the wind as it looked out to sea!
There are also several fun murals we found. They are kind of hidden away and I don’t think you’d see them unless you went looking. What do you think of these?
We just happened to stumble on the Northern Lights Center. It’s a science museum all about the aurora. Since we are, apparently, in the best aurora season ever we thought we’d stop in to see what we could learn. We’re so glad we did! It was an amazing place to visit.
First off, there were incredible aurora pictures all through the display. I think any of Todd’s photographs could have joined the display, he’s taken so many good ones. It was wonderful to see the interesting variety of pictures. There was a room full of the legends explaining the aurora from different countries all around the world.
There were so many wonderful displays and movies explaining the science behind the aurora. We learned a lot! I’m not smart enough to summarize the science here but I think Todd will put a lot of pictures of the detailed explanations in his Facebook post this week and if you want to read them you can look at them there. Let’s just say that the earth and the sun and space are amazing. God created beautiful things for us to benefit from and enjoy and we love being part of it!
At the end of the display is a virtual reality experience. You put on the headset and you can turn your head and the chair all around to see the aurora in different places in Iceland. It was really cool to do! However, we have seen so many aurora displays in “the wild” and this experience – while cool – didn’t quite compare!
As we left the science center there was this great map marked with pins from where people have visited from all over the world. Iceland is a hot place to visit! Well, cold and windy right now 🙂
And, this made me laugh so I’m including it as well!
As far as being in the right place, we are so glad to be working with the young missionaries in our emotional resilience class. This week we learned about addiction, recognizing addiction, preventing addiction, and getting help for addiction. This is such an important topic. If you’d like to know what we discussed you can find it here. This link has great lessons, videos, and activities to help you with any behavior or thought process that is addictive. These young missionaries are learning important truths and life skills through the emotional resilience course.
One evening this week we were at the church so Todd could meet with Christopher and do some teacher training. Christopher has been a member of the church for about a year and a half. He is a zealous missionary and he is our Sunday School president. He teaches the adult Sunday school class twice a month and he is feeling the pressure to do a good job teaching the Old Testament this year. I’m so glad Todd can support and guide him in his learning and teaching. I spent some time with the Christus statue and my knitting while these men met together. 🙂
Helga wanted to get her eyes on my knitting so we had a visit with her. I am knitting too tight — apparently I need to loosen up! She had Todd take a video of me knitting and then a video of her knitting so I can reference them at home. It looks like I am holding my knitting too close to my lap and that is making the stitches tighter. Helga holds her knitting up, closer to her chest, and that makes the knitting looser. My understanding is that horizontal knitting is tight, vertical knitting is loose?! So I have more work to do as I adjust my technique. The good news is that Helga did not make me pull out all my stitches and start over! My sweater may end up tight and small, but I am determined to make it! Below you’ll see me on the left, knitting on my lap. Helga on the right, holding the knitting up off her lap. Wish me luck! (Edit to add — after working on this at home I realized that without my reading glasses on, I cannot see my knitting clearly when I’m holding it off my lap! So, with the reading glasses I can focus on the knitting, holding it up, and knitting more loosely. I think that’s why I’d been holding it so low — so I could see it!)
Helga is also listening to an audio version of the Book of Mormon, in Icelandic. The files are a bit scrambled so she and Todd spent some time trying to get them in order for her. Years ago several of the Icelandic saints got together and made this audio version of the Book of Mormon in Icelandic. It is a big google file and, while it isn’t always easy to keep the tracks in order and organized, it is a blessing to have it. We’re so glad Helga is listening to it and we hope she’s feeling the Spirit of the Lord as she does. Helga is a good woman and a blessing in our lives.
We had a chance this week to meet with Eunice and do a little bit of preliminary training for her new calling as the Relief Society ministering secretary. Eunice is from Ghana. She and her husband and son have been in Iceland for several years. She is lovely and smart and it will be fun to work with her.
Todd and I spent that evening out doing cookie drops. I had a list of eight people we wanted to try and find. We found two of the eight at home and ended up giving four plates of cookies to other families who were home when the ones we were trying to find were not home. Todd gave one plate of cookies to some construction workers who were out near one of the stops we made! After a couple hours of trying with different results than we had expected we made it back home with one plate of cookies left! It will find a home soon. We’re grateful for those people we could connect with and everyone is happy to get chocolate crinkles! Those we didn’t find on this try will get another visit next time around.
I think this picture sums up a lot of our mission — apartment lobbies with a plate of chocolate crinkles!
The stars aligned for us on Friday. We had one scheduled meeting – a class Todd was teaching over zoom. The weather was clear, the roads were (mostly) dry, and the wind was calm. We decided to take a quick day trip around the Snæfellsnes peninsula — the trip we had canceled on Tuesday because of the wind. We have done this once before, last May, and we’ve wanted to do it again, revisiting at some of our favorite spots.
It’s a couple of hours to drive from our home to Kirkjufell and we pulled over about half way there so Todd could teach his class. We backed into a small pullout that ended at a fence. Todd got class set up and we settled in for a bit. After about 10 minutes he told me to look behind us. I looked out the back window of the car and saw this:
When we parked there were no horses there. But they saw us! I think they might have been looking for a snack?! We didn’t feed them, but I did a glamour shots photo shoot with them while Todd started his class. Iceland is so gorgeous and these horses are amazing! I think we were in the right place. 🙂 They happily posed for me and we had a fun visit together!
Quick side note to add: When Todd retired and we came on our mission I thought he was done teaching classes. I was wrong! He is currently teaching at least five classes a week to different groups of YSA’s and missionaries. Good thing he is a gifted teacher! And we’re very grateful for the technology that allows him to teach, and us to do our mission work, from all sorts of interesting places.
We had such a fabulous day. As you can see, there is no snow. There is ice in places and the glaciers and mountain tops have snow, but there is none on the ground. We are having a very dry winter on the west side of the country this year. There were also very few other people around. We had several of our stops all to ourselves and it made for great photos and less stress!
Here are some of the other places we enjoyed:
Selvallafoss —
Can you see Todd’s drone in the picture below?
Kirkjufellsfoss —
Snæfellsjökull —
Arnarstapi —
Even with all of the beautiful places we get to go and the wonderful people we get to work with, I often miss our family and it’s hard to be away from them. We are so grateful for the technology that allows us to see and talk to them all of the time. This week we enjoyed many calls with our grandchildren. One especially fun part of this is the attachment some of the youngest ones have with Grandad! Lincoln and Clara were both only about six months old when we left Oregon. They have grown up with us being away and serving as missionaries. They both have birthdays right now, just a week apart.
When I’m on a video call with them they just play and do their thing. Clara likes to push the red button when she is talking to me. (That means she likes to hang up the call!) But with Grandad they talk and play and laugh! When they are talking to me they ask for Grandad. It’s hard to begrudge him that kind of love and devotion! We know we are in the right place and we know these little cuties know and love us, even though we are far away. Okay, they especially love Grandad! Below you will see Lincoln on the left and Clara on the right.
We hope you are in the right place in your life. If you need some help finding direction to the right place, look here! Jesus Christ is always the right place. If you draw closer to Him you will be in the right place.
Thank you for your love and support! Another month is over and our mission time is moving on. Before we know it, we’ll be back here next Saturday with another post! See you then. 🙂
Check out Todd’s social media pages for more photos and videos. You can find him here:
Leave a Reply