5/9/26
What do you do with seventeen hours and forty minutes of daylight each day? Sleep less! And work, play, and bake more, apparently! Here’s what we’ve been up to through the first week of May and a lot of daylight hours.
This is the piano in the church building in Reykjavik. The organ is also in this picture, but we will not even dream about the organ. Let’s talk about this piano.
Never in my life would I have thought that I would be playing the piano for sacrament meetings. And yet, here I am, playing the piano in sacrament meetings. This month a few of the elders and I are taking turns accompanying the meetings. Last Sunday is was my turn and I survived the experience, yet again. The Lord is determined to teach me that playing the piano for sacrament meeting (poorly, yes) will not kill me! It’s a relief to know this and I am very grateful that I was warned of this very situation years ago so I could prepare for it. Before our next mission I will learn how to play more than ten hymns so that I will be even more prepared next time around. I’ve decided that if I have to play I’m going to play those ten hymns the best I can. We will all be tired of singing “Come Follow Me” and “Choose the Right” by the time my turn is up. But we will sing them with vigor! Let my story be a cautionary tale for everyone — when the Holy Ghost prompts you that you should prepare for something (piano playing, the Second Coming, etc.) you should do it! It will come to pass! 🙂
Also, on Sunday, one of our very newest members of the church, Propser, taught Sunday School. He was baptized three weeks ago, he was called as the Sunday School teacher the next week, and then he taught the Come Follow Me lesson. He did an amazing job. We talked about what it means to be holy and why God expects His people to be a holy people. It was an inspiring and uplifting lesson delivered by a humble follower of God. If only we were all as holy and humble as a new member of the church.
For some reason right now our institute class is growing by leaps and bounds. We had 18 people in Monday’s class! Four of those who came this week are not members of the church yet. Todd had everyone introduce themselves and share where they are from. Across the eighteen people there this week we had at least one person from each of these countries: Palestine, Poland, Greece, Ghana, Mexico, Iceland, & the USA.
Fortunately the dinner stretched enough to feed everyone a good meal of baked potatoes, chili, rolls, & cookies. According to one of our students, I should open a bakery. This is not going to happen, but I’m glad all the mission baking meets their approval!
On Tuesday we spent the day with a sister from Germany. Ema is a church employee who is a vehicle manager over our area. She came to town to work on the mission cars. Each of the cars has a monitoring system that sends reports to the area office, gives feedback to the drivers, and monitors the health of the cars. Several of the cars needed upgraded trackers and Ema was here to install them. We spent the morning at the church while she did her work and when she was done Todd and I took her on a quick trip around the Golden Circle. Ema had just over 24 hours in Iceland, she’s never been here before, and we were happy to play tour guide for a few hours so she could see something other than the airport and the church building. And, we love the beautiful stops along this route, it’s always a pleasure to get to visit them again.
Ema is 24. She was born in Portugal, grew up in England, and now lives and works in Germany. She served a mission in North Wales and she is a car expert and enthusiast. It was really fun to spend the afternoon getting to know her as we showed her some beautiful sights. She seemed like one of our daughters and it made the afternoon fly by! We didn’t have a lot of time so we made a lot of quick stops at gorgeous places.
Our first stop was the incredible Brúarfoss. I will never get tired of visiting this place. It is unbelievably beautiful and always awe-inspiring. It was very fun to show it to Ema.
Next we stopped at Geysir. Contrasting with the cold water of the waterfalls, Geysir is full of hot springs, mud pots, and – you guessed it – an active geysir.
It was sunny outside throughout the day, but it was still cold. Ema had a coat with her but as the afternoon went on the wind was getting to all of us! We kept our stops short and sweet, yes to meet the time crunch, but also to keep Ema from freezing!
Gullfoss came next and it did not disappoint! It is beautiful to see! Surprisingly, there weren’t that many tourists out Tuesday afternoon, and we enjoyed our visit without the crowds.
It was very windy here and there was ice along the path that was shaped by the wind.
Ema was thrilled with these super jeeps that take people on glacier tours. Being a career car woman she was excited to see how big they are! It would be amazing to ride in one of these on top of the glacier, don’t you think?
Our last two quick stops were at one of our favorites, Faxafoss . . .
. . . and Kerið Crater. We didn’t have time for hiking but the views were worth the stop. Wow I love these beautiful places!
Ema had to head off to her next work stop in Sweden and we wish her well! It was so nice to spend the day with her and show her some of Iceland’s beauty. And, yes, for us it was back to lesson prep, classes, and more baking.
Last week in our emotional resilience class on hygiene, Todd had shown the picture below. He told the missionaries that if they know who this is we will make them dinner.
Elder Bredthauer actually knows who PigPen is so we made him and his companion dinner this week! We met at the church to eat together because Todd had another meeting there that night. It’s always fun to eat with a small group of elders and get to know them better. Elder Geertsen & Elder Bredthauer are great missionaries doing good things.
Dinner was followed up with Todd doing some training with Christopher, the new Elder’s Quorum president in the Reykjavik 2nd branch. Christopher joined us for dinner and then he and Todd worked on ministering routes and lesson plans for the upcoming meetings. Christopher is from Nigeria and he has been a member of the church for less than two years. He is a zealous and dedicated member missionary and will make a wonderful Elder’s Quorum president.
On Thursday morning this week we taught our weekly mission-wide zoom class. This week’s lesson was a scripture study class and Todd taught the missionaries about looking for manifestations of God’s power in the scriptures.
Any time you read a story in the scriptures about God blessing his people, answering their prayers, providing miracles, delivering, saving, inspiring . . . those are manifestations of God’s power. The point of this lesson is that “God is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Mormon 9:9) and if He did it for them, He can do it for us. We taught the missionaries to look for these manifestations of God’s power while they are doing their scripture study and then see how they see that power in their lives today. If you’d like to practice this scripture study tool take a look at 1 Nephi 17:3 or Mosiah 24:12-19. Let me know what manifestations of God’s power you see in your life! The scriptures are full of them.
One really fun thing we’ve been doing in these classes is sending the missionaries into break-out groups. They are all attending class on zoom with their companions. When we put them in break-out groups the computer puts different companionships together to discuss a certain question that we assign. This week they were in a five minute break-out group discussing manifestations of God’s power and Todd and I hoped in and out of groups to see what they were discussing. With the young elders and sisters it almost seemed like more of a speed dating activity! We were laughing at what some of them were discussing — that we were hearing out of context — and wondering how it was a manifestation of God’s power! So funny! We are really enjoying these classes. We hope the young missionaries are too.
I needed to get out of the house Thursday afternoon so we went for a drive to a pretty spot on the coast not far from our house. The wind was so cold! We might be well into the month of May, but it is not warming up too much just yet. We enjoyed a ramble and the great views. This spot has a white sand beach. Typically the beaches in Iceland are black sand and it was lovely to see the white sand contrasting with the water and sky.
We were only a couple of miles from our apartment so I walked home, enjoying the views of the ocean and the cold wind at my back. There was evidence of both winter and spring along the way, I’m confident that at some point spring will win out and it will warm up! (Hopefully!)
Before the end of the week there was, you guessed it, more baking. We had some ministering to do and it is always nice to be able to bring along a delicious cookie or a fresh loaf of bread.
By my count, just this week I have made eight dozen chocolate crinkles, three dozen homemade rolls, and six loaves of bread. Over the course of the week all of this baking was shared with a variety of people through assignments and ministering. Rolls & cookies went to institute, bread was eaten with the missionaries, then a loaf went with them, another loaf went to Christopher, and a loaf went to another set of missionaries. Two more loaves of bread were delivered during ministering visits with a family who has experienced a very difficult challenge this week. And six plates of chocolate crinkles were delivered on other ministering visits!
At the start of the week I got a text from my friend, and newer member of the church, Victoria. She said her daughter had been begging for chocolate crinkles and would I mind making them some? I’m very happy to honor such a request and Victoria’s family was on our cookie drop route during the week. Her daughter, Regina, was so happy to get her hands on those cookies! She opened them up and started into one with a very happy “Thank you!” Victoria told me that Regina had been asking for “the white lady with the church cookies”! I think that is hilarious! I hope Regina will always remember me as the white lady with the church cookies! So funny. It was great to minister to them with a plate of delicious chocolate cookies.
Throughout the week we visited a few other families and shared more chocolate crinkles, hugs, and messages of faith. One evening Todd felt we should drop in on one of our new member couples. They were surprised and happy to see us. Todd helped them set up their church accounts, we talked about how they are doing and some of the trials they are facing, and they let Todd leave a blessing on their home. These are some of our favorite things to do as missionaries — ministering, sharing love, and offering support and cookies. 🙂
Let’s stick with the food theme as we bring this post to an end. We try to have a weekly dinner with our friends and fellow senior missionaries, the Mogenhan’s. It’s great to sit and visit, discuss the assignments we are all working on, and see how we can help and support each other. Lately we’ve switched to Saturday lunch dates and we had such a good time together this week. We met downtown and after we parked I was excited to see daffodils! More evidence that winter is (hopefully) over?!
We had lunch at a food hall downtown and were greeted with this sign that felt appropriate for a week of baking:
But I didn’t have to make this meal! Unfortunately, I ate my shrimp bowl so quickly that I didn’t even take a picture of it! But it was delicious. (Just to show you how we have – sort of – gotten used to the food prices here, Todd had a burrito and I had a shrimp burrito bowl and we spent about $70.00 total for lunch.) We did get a picture of the senior missionaries in Reykjavik. We’re a good looking group!
And don’t you love that wallpaper?! It is so funky. Here is a close up so you can decide if you want to put it up in your home. 🙂 This food hall is built in what was once the main post office in Reykjavik. It’s a quirky building with lots of personality and good, expensive food.
It’s been a good week of work, baking, ministering, and spiritual growth. It’s good to remember what the Savior said in John 6:35, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” I have no idea how many thousands of cookies I have made while we have been serving our mission. I don’t even know how many loaves of bread I’ve made, but it’s got to be in the dozens? However, none of that compares to the work done for us by our Savior Jesus Christ. There is nothing sweeter than the love He has for us. There is nothing more satisfying than the mercy He offers us. If only the world viewed the gift of the Savior and the fulness of His gospel with the desire and happiness that comes from a well baked cookie or a hot loaf of homemade bread.
For now, we will continue to offer both! The goodness of the gospel that comes with forgiveness of sins through our Savior, and the sweetness and love that comes only from Him. It is a privilege to offer our testimonies, our time, and our efforts to the people we are blessed to be with as missionaries.
Thanks for joining us for another week in Iceland. We’ll be back again next Saturday. See you then!
For more pictures and videos check out Todd’s social media pages. You can find him here:
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