7/4/26
Here we are again in another week and another month! It’s hard to believe it is July already. The year is flying by and I’m excited to tell you about what we’ve been up to. We did not have a busy week; just a week with consistent work and ministering opportunities.
Sunday:
This week started with a sad goodbye to our daughter’s family. Rebekah, Isaac, & the darling boy had to go home to get back to work and their life. We loved having them come spend time with us and, while we were sorry to say goodbye we are already looking forward to visiting them in their home in the fall. Family is the best! We had an informal photo shoot in the lupine before our church meetings as they said goodbye to nana, grandad, & beautiful Iceland.
Having grown daughters is such a delight. Not only have these girls given us beautiful and fun grandchildren, I just love having my daughters as my friends. It is a pleasure to watch them as wives and mothers and see how they live, love, parent, and exercise faith in Christ along with their husbands. Rebekah & Isaac live in Pennsylvania and we live in Iceland (and soon, back in Oregon). We are far apart and spending time together is rare. Their visit was lovely.
Monday:
It was back to work for us on Monday since our super cute little distraction had gone home. I spent the day cleaning the apartment and cooking for Institute. The menu for dinner was taco chili, baked potatoes, homemade rolls, & chocolate crinkles. It was pretty straight forward and should not have been any problem, except . . . I forgot to actually turn on the oven when I put the potatoes in to bake!! When it was time to leave for the church there were 20 raw potatoes in the oven with the oven fan running. (Trust me, I was close to tears.)
Fortunately, Todd is my cheerleader and he helped me load those raw potatoes into the oven at the church and crank the convection oven to about 450 F. In just over an hour they were done and dinner was saved, but not without stress. What is better? Burning dinner or just not cooking it to begin with?!
Just for fun I’ll let you in on the secret ingredient in the taco chili – horse meat. Horse meat is a common staple in Iceland and it is much cheaper than any other ground meat. Let me know if you’d like the horse meat chili recipe for your fall cookoff! 🙂 In the picture below you’ll see the horse meat chili in the crockpot, several dozen chocolate crinkles, an empty jam jar whose contents are ready for the rolls that are on the other table, raw potatoes before going into the oven and coming out still raw, and a pineapple waiting for me to eat it!
While I was cooking and cleaning on Monday Todd did lesson prep for class and had meetings. One of his meetings was with those who are working towards getting the new Selfoss meeting rooms ready to go. The church has been paying rent on this space for a whole year now and because the permitting process has taken so much time the renovations haven’t begun yet; but they are getting closer and the meetings are still happening. In the picture below you will see Todd, next to him is David with church facilities management in Ireland. Below Todd is the contractor who is in England and the architect who is in Iceland.
Tuesday:
Tuesday was full of odds and ends. Todd gave the Mogenhans a ride to the airport first thing in the morning. When he got home we had a zoom meeting with Elder & Sister Whitehead in Denmark. They are at the beginning of their mission and will be taking over the Emotional Resilience mission courses for us when we go home next month. They are a delightful couple and will do a great job helping the missionaries build emotional resilience.
Then we met the Selfoss elders at the body shop where they dropped off their car for repairs following an unfortunate episode they had with a parking garage pillar about a month ago.
We drove them back to Selfoss where they spent the next several days getting their steps in while they manage without a car. As a consolation prize Todd treated them to deep fried Icelandic hotdogs. I chose to pass on this one, but check these things out! The hot dog is deep fried and served over French fries. They all enjoyed them. Do you think you would like one of these?! L-R: Elder Nielsen, Elder Monzon, President Richardson
Todd finished the day in a meeting with our new elder’s quorum presidency. They are all new(ish) members and were excited for a training meeting about how to run an elder’s quorum presidency meeting. These are good men and they are going to do good things.
Wednesday:
Todd meets with the missionaries each Wednesday morning for a companion study class. Basically, it’s institute with the missionaries and they have great discussions and lessons. They all enjoy it. Following class this week we took Elder Pedroza & Elder Gutierrez to get their photos taken for their driver’s license applications. Yes, another week, another driver’s license to work on. These two are the final ones we will get started on this process as this work moves the other senior couples to take over when we go home.
After getting them back to their apartment we went downtown for a quick lunch and a walk along the inlet before heading home. There is a small restaurant that does amazing potatoes that we love. They are delicious!
As we walked in to order and find a seat we came upon two different elders also enjoying lunch downtown! Elder Geertsen & Elder Bredthauer went out to lunch on their last day together as companions. Thursday was transfers. These two have been our zone leaders and companions with each other for several months. They are excellent missionaries.
Even though it is July the cool Iceland air is keeping things brisk!
Thursday:
Thursday started with a stormy walk around the inlet.
Then we spent a few hours of excitement doing lesson prep for next week’s emotional resilience class. Yes, we enjoy this. No, it’s not more exciting than this! This week was transfers so we did not have class, but it will be back next week and we will be ready.
Todd continued to work on our lesson and I did some knitting. The sleeves and the body of his sweater are done! Now it’s time for the fun part . . . the pattern around the yoke.
We got a call late Thursday afternoon that the missionary car that had been in for repairs was finished. We ended up taking an evening drive to Selfoss to deliver it to the missionaries. We stopped for a minute and finished the day with another stormy walk on the beach.
Friday:
The best part about Friday was our afternoon visit to Helga. She helped me attach the sleeves to the body of Todd’s sweater and get it set up for the next step. While I was knitting Helga showed Todd some of her latest photographs. They are both keen photographers and enjoy sharing their work with each other.
Helga is a wonderful woman. Todd and I have both grown to really love her and we will miss her very much after we go home. She is funny and kind and she is very patient with me as a student. My life is better because Helga is in it. I hope she knows how loved she is and that she will continue to read the Book of Mormon and teach others to discover the joy of knitting. (Hello, Helga! If you are reading this.)
I’m not sure what we were laughing about in this picture but Helga surely said something fantastic about my knitting prowess!
Saturday:
We finished this very calm week with Todd teaching another class, this time a leadership lesson to our Iceland zone and district leaders. Then we did lesson prep for a scripture study class we have coming up in a couple of weeks so it was back to the dining kitchen table/desk. We had time to get a head start on it and we’re glad we did.
We took an afternoon drive back to the airport to pick up the Mogenhans who returned from their trip to Denmark. And, we actually had some sunshine to warm us up a bit after a cool, wet week.
So there you have it! It was not the most exciting or busy week! Most of the regular weekly meetings are cancelled on transfer week so we didn’t even have those to attend. Weeks like this are not too common but it is always nice to have time to rest, knit, prepare, and plan for the busier weeks ahead.
There will be more excitement in next week’s post, I hope you will join us to read all about it! Todd and I are going on a road trip to the Westfjords, part of Iceland we have never visited. We are excited for an adventure and we look forward to sharing it with you. For now, thanks for coming along! There are a lot of sides to being a senior missionary and rare, quiet weeks are a welcome addition. We’ll see you again soon!
Check out Todd’s social media pages for more pictures and videos. You can find him here:
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