5/2/26
Throughout the course of our mission Todd and I have had the privilege of meeting and working with so many different people. We have enjoyed a variety of interesting experiences with others, many of which we’ve shared with you, that have stretched us in ways we would never have imagined. We are thankful for opportunities and people who have touched our lives. In just 3 1/2 months we finish our mission and return to Oregon. While this is still a fair amount of time to work and serve it is starting to feel a little bit like the beginning of the end. There are a few hints that goodbyes are approaching.
This was evident on Sunday when my friend Mitzi came to me with this lovely painting she had made. She said she had thought of me and wanted me to have it. It is gorgeous and such a special gift that I will treasure. Todd and I have spent time with Mitzi and her family and they have had some real challenges in their lives. They are doing their best to live the gospel and find peace in their challenges by coming to Christ. This lovely vase of flowers reminds me that Mitzi is strong and that with Christ the hard things can become beautiful.
Also on Sunday Todd and I both taught the second hour classes in the 2nd branch. Todd taught Elder’s Quorum and I taught Relief Society. We both shared a lesson taken from Elder Gilbert’s talk in General Conference called “Come Home”. (You can read the whole talk here.) I worked with these lovely relief society sisters and our one young woman who is currently active in the branch. It is wonderful to see the sisters share each other’s burdens and point each other to Christ as we journey along the covenant path. Life as an African immigrant woman in Iceland is not easy. These woman work very hard to provide for their families and they face daunting challenges. We all agreed that life, and its challenges, is better with Jesus Christ and in His church than it is without Him.
Below you will see, L-R: Me, Emily, Dee, Paula, Doris, & Emily (This Emily’s husband, Peace, just joined the church two weeks ago. Emily is now learning from the missionaries and she has started attending church with her husband. She is lovely.)
We had a very fun zoom call Sunday night with our new friends, Ann & John Eberhard. The Eberhards live in Minnesota and they have just received a mission call to serve in Iceland! They don’t come here until January so we won’t get to serve with them, but we are so excited for them! And they are so excited to come. It was great to spend some time answering their questions and telling them how amazing it is to live and serve here. We look forward to the adventures that await them!
As you know, every Monday night we have dinner and class for Institute and YSA. If you’re ever wondering what we do on Mondays you will know — making dinner and lesson prep for our Institute class! We don’t have large numbers and typically they can all have second servings with dinner. They are good at making sure all the leftovers are taken care of. This week we had thirteen people in class! It was terrific! There were new members and some friends, as well as missionaries and our class regulars. I was hoping the meal was enough to feed everyone. It was! But it was not an all you can eat buffet. It was terrific to have a full house. Next week if I make more food we will only have five or six people there. 🙂
After dinner Todd and I spent some time with one of our new members, Yaw, working on the beginnings of his family tree. Yaw is very interested in finding out more about his family. He told Todd that all of a sudden he feels a great desire to make his family tree and learn more about baptism for the dead. It was wonderful to talk to him about the Spirit of Elijah and to see his understanding grow. Yaw was hoping that many other people share his family tree with him. Right now his tree is small, but it will grow as he finds out more. He told us his next step is to call his mom and learn more about his grandparents!
We had a zone p-day on Wednesday. All the young missionaries are in Reykjavik for zone conferences and other activities throughout the week. It was fun to have them all together! We met at the church early in wet, windy weather to head out on an adventure.
Our first stop was the Bridge Between Continents. We love this wild spot! In the picture below on the right is the North American continent and on the left is the Eurasian continent. The elders are in between! These techtonic plates are separating at a rate of about one inch a year. It was very windy and raining here so it was a quick stop to enjoy this wonderful phenomenon in Iceland.
We were happy to spend some time with Karen & Wes Mogenhan as we shuttled the elders around and enjoyed their company. We missed Curt and Cheryl Hutchings this week who were not able to join us from Akureyri because of some health challenges.
Our next stop was the Reykjanes Lighthouse. Fortunately the rain stopped and we only had to deal with the crazy wind as we explored around the lighthouse and the coast. I love this picture of the elders. Isn’t it cute?!
Just down the hill from the lighthouse is Valahnúkamöl. This amazing spot boasts basalt columns, crashing waves, and some artwork! If you’ve seen the movie Eurovision Song Contest, maybe you recognize this piano?! (We’ve never seen the movie, but that doesn’t stop us from enjoying the prop!)
All day I was excited about the geology of Iceland and sharing all sorts of random facts I’ve learned about how different rock formations are made. The elders had to listen to an impromptu armature geology lecture each time we stopped. I mean, look at these eroded basalt columns! They are amazing!
We enjoyed visiting the great auk sculpture. It is beautiful and also a little bit sad. This website says, “This bronze statue of the now-extinct great auk overlooks the impressive sea cliffs where these birds once nested. The statue in the Reykjanes peninsula was created by the artist Todd McGrain. It is one of several works that he has done as part of his Lost Bird Project. The series includes sculptures of several extinct avian species, placed in the last location they were known to live.”
The wind was howling and the ocean was wild! It was great to watch the waves and see the elders enjoy scrambling around on the rocks doing some exploring.
We continued along the coast to the Brimketill lava rock pool. The waves were wild and the views are beautiful. We were glad we had heavy coats on! I tried to not worry about the elders being cold. As one said to me, “I run hot!” 🙂
Next we stopped at the Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson III Ship Wreck from 1988 and an abandoned fishing village. The elders loved the shipwreck and wanted to take a nap break at the village.
There were cool rocks to see everywhere.
We drove through Grindavik and stopped at several places where the lava from recent eruptions has covered the roads. Several of the missionaries have never been there before and it was so fun to watch their amazement at the scope of the lava and how young the rock is! It really is incredible. There is a great chance of another eruption sometime soon. We hope it will happen before we leave Iceland! It is an incredible thing to see.
Our car buddies for the day were Elder Gutierrez & Elder Pedroza. These are two fabulous missionaries who have been in Iceland since January. They both speak English, Spanish, & Icelandic and we loved having time to get to know them better.
We got home that afternoon cold and tired, but we’d had a terrific time! Fortunately the rain held off most of the day and we were just in the wind. That was a blessing. The zone p-day was a great start to our zone conference activities.
As is becoming regular for us each Thursday morning we had an Emotional Resilience review class to start off the day. This week’s review covered chapter 3 called “Our Bodies and Emotions”. We got to talk to about 100 missionaries about washing hands, eating healthy, exercising, brushing teeth, keeping our clothes clean . . . It was fun! Todd added a lot of silly pictures to help the missionaries connect with the material.
An important part of that chapter covers our emotions and the need to respond appropriately to emotions. I think this is a discussion that should be had more broadly across the world today. One quote shared in the lesson came from James E. Faust. He said “I believe the Spirit of the Holy Ghost is the greatest guarantor of inward peace in our unstable world. It can be more mind-expanding and can make us have a better sense of well-being than any chemical or other earthly substance. It will calm nerves; it will breathe peace to our souls. This Comforter can be with us as we seek to improve.”
We are really enjoying preparing and teaching these classes. Next week we are back to a scripture study topic!
And that takes us up to zone conference. We spent the day Friday at the church with the Iceland zone. President and Sister Davidson came to town from Denmark to spend time teaching and training us. It is always wonderful to have them here. We know they love all of us serving in Iceland and they put a lot of effort into joining us and ministering to us. Zone conference is a day long meeting. We are trained by different leaders, younger and older. We spend the day together reviewing the past several weeks of work and setting goals for the upcoming weeks. The focus this transfer is on Preach My Gospel chapter 2 “Search the Scriptures and Put on the Armor of God”. (If you’d like some inspiring reading you can find this chapter here.)
I take a lot of pictures at zone conference to share in the mission Facebook groups. I’ll spare you the full album! But here are pictures of each companionship that we are serving with right now. Let’s start with the whole zone.
Back L-R: Elder Jensen, Elder Bredthauer, Elder Monzon, Elder Gutierrez, Elder Parry, Elder Moyer, Elder Nielsen, Elder Geertsen, Elder Chynoweth, Elder Pedroza, & Elder Benzley
Front L-R: Elder & Sister Mogenhan, Sister & President Davidson, & us
Elder Nielsen & Elder Monzon, Elder Benzley & Elder Chynoweth —
Elder Bredthauer & Elder Geertsen, Elder Jensen, Elder Pedroza, & Elder Gutierrez (currently serving in a trio) —
Elder & Sister Mogenhan —
President & Sister Hutchings (Akureyri branch president & senior missionaries) —
Sister & President Davidson —
And I think you know our names. 🙂 Fun fact — The tie Todd is wearing went with Todd on his young mission to South Wales 43 years ago. Yes, he brought it to Iceland with him and, yes, it is a classic!
Let me tell you about Sister Judy Davidson. She has just become such a delightful friend. When we started our mission she and her husband had been mission leaders for about two months. We were all overwhelmed and starting out together. It has been wonderful to get to know each other, work together, and grow together over the course of the past (almost) two years. I look forward to having this remarkable woman as my friend long after our mission has ended. I am grateful for her example of sacrifice and diligence and for the great support she is to me.
She told me that one of the young sister missionaries in Denmark, Sister Quick, kept slipping up and almost calling her Sister Richardson! (Todd and I taught Sister Quick in emotional resilience and we have interreacted in a few other meetings and text threads.) Judy thought it was hilarious! She took this picture of us to send to Sister Quick to make sure she could tell who was who. I consider the mix up quite the compliment!
On Saturday we spent the afternoon with President & Sister Davidson. They had interviews with the elders throughout the morning and then we took them off to do some shopping for Icelandic sweaters. We have one certain shop in Hveragerði called Egla Glass where they sell beautiful handmade sweaters as well as all sorts of other lovely handmade things. I was certain Sister Davidson would find the Icelandic sweater of her dreams there! And I was right! There were several sweaters that she tried on and she chose a beautiful one to purchase.
While she was shopping I got talking with Svala, the woman running the shop today. I told her that Todd has bought two sweaters from their shop and he and I both have handmade hats from this shop as well. I started describing my hat to her, then found a picture to show her, and we were thrilled to discover that Svala had designed and knit my hat! I sent Todd to get it from the car so we could get a picture together and Todd showed Svala his hat. And she had knit his hat too! What a treat to meet this lovely, talented woman who has been keeping our heads warm for nearly two years! We had so much fun visiting with her and I hope we will see her again sometime.
We finished the day having dinner downtown with the Davidson’s and the Mogenhan’s. It’s a pleasure to work with these good people.
Before closing out this week I have two additional stories to add just so I don’t forget them! First, we had a tender mercy in the form of delicious fish and the generous gift of grocery money. Every so often Todd’s very kind brother and his wife, Steve & Jean, gift us some extra grocery money. It is so sweet of them and we love their generosity and kindness. (Thank you, Steve & Jean!) This week we had some of that extra grocery money and we were shopping at a small international market where we found a shelf of fresh fish that was discounted because it was approaching it’s sell-by date. We have fed ourselves throughout our mission on reduced meats. When we find them we buy them and freeze them to save us money on groceries. Well, this fish was drastically reduced and we were happy to use some of that gifted money to buy several meals worth of fresh fish. If we had paid full price the fish would have cost about $174.00. With the markdown it was $54.00. At home we divided it up into smaller portions to freeze and it will feed us for twelve meals! It is a small thing but it means a lot to us to have delicious food like this just waiting to enjoy.
And, to help us remember that we are working with young missionaries, we have this funny story. One evening this week Todd got a call from some of the elders who were at the church. They had been playing ping pong and the ball had gone far across the room. One of the elders went to get the ball and instead of picking it up he kicked it to send it back to the other side of the room. In the process of the kick, off flew his shoe and this was the result:
How many churches have a hole in the ceiling the size of a missionary’s shoe?! I’m sure there’s a spiritual lesson somewhere in this story . . . Make sure your armor of God is securely fastened? Don’t overthink the simple things in life? Do unto other’s ceilings as you would have done unto your ceiling?! Anyway, they are young and sometimes dumb. 🙂 At least this phone call wasn’t for another car accident!
Throughout the week we have been blessed and we have been busy. We know Heavenly Father is walking with us as we move forward with the work we have been called to do. We hope you see Him walking with you in your life as well. Thank you for your love and support and we’ll see you next week.
Check out Todd’s social media for more pictures and videos. You can find him here:
Leave a Reply