2/21/26
What a week! Buckle up for some fun. 🙂 Let’s take it one day at a time, we haven’t done that for a while. This is a long read and a picture heavy post . . . get comfortable!
Sunday — Our day:
Sunday we attended two sacrament meetings — Reykjavik 1st branch and Reykjavik 2nd branch. In the 1st branch one of our newest missionaries, Elder Jensen, gave a talk in sacrament meeting entirely in Icelandic. That is a major accomplishment and we are so pleased with him! I did not understand all that he was saying, but he spoke well enough for Jakob (who was translating Icelandic to English) to translate clearly. These young elders who are learning Icelandic are definitely blessed and empowered by the Holy Ghost.
Todd spoke in the 2nd branch, which is a Spanish branch. He did not speak in Spanish! But he gave an inspired talk on the requirements for worthily obtaining a temple recommend and what the temple recommend questions are. If you’re wondering about temple recommends you can read about them here. We enjoyed back to back sacrament meetings and the rest of our Sunday was pretty calm.
Monday — Our Day:
There’s not too much to report about Monday that is interesting or out of the ordinary. We did our usual work and had institute Monday evening. Todd showed President Oak’s devotional to the single adults for our lesson and we had chipotle bowls for dinner. (The devotional is wonderful. You can watch it here.) Elder Jensen and Elder Nehren brought bollur to share with the class. Monday was cream bun day! I made brownies for dessert but they wanted to be sure everyone had a bollur on Bolludagur. We divided them in half and the class enjoyed brownies and bollur! What’s not to love about that?!
Tuesday — Her Day:
This is where things get weird! On Tuesday morning Todd took me to the airport and dropped me off to catch a flight to Copenhagen. Without him!! We have spent every day together for the past year and a half. It was super weird for both of us to be apart.
On Wednesday there was a sister’s conference in Copenhagen for all of the sister missionaries in the Denmark Copenhagen mission. The mission made arrangements for all of the sister missionaries to attend, including the three of us from Iceland. Karen, Cheryl, & I met in the airport and the girls trip got started!
When we landed in Copenhagen we were greeted by Elder & Sister Larsen, the misison office couple. And, can I just say, they were the most amazing hosts! They drove us around, made sure we were fed, safe, and entertained, and took great care of us. We love the Larsen’s!
Tuesday afternoon we enjoyed the views out the window of the snowy city and got a look at the mission office.
The highlight of the day was attending the Denmark Copenhagen temple. It has been almost a year since I last attended the temple. Todd and I had a chance to visit Copenhagen last year in March and we attended the temple then. It was such a blessing to be able to go again. Being so far away from a temple is hard and I feel very blessed for the chance we had to attend. The session was supposed to be in Danish with English translation through headphones for us. But the session was small and we were all English speakers so they changed the session to English. It was wonderful to hear the familiar words and just bask in the peacefulness in the temple.
Tuesday — His Day:
Todd took the long way home after taking me to the airport Tuesday morning. He made a stop at our favorite lava tube and drove along the lava flows that cover the roads in some places along the peninsula.
He made a stop at the Hópsnes Lighthouse, saw the Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson III Ship Wreck (a fishing vessel that was stranded on the coast in 1988), and the house with a view and no roof!
Watch this drone video Todd took and you can see lots of ruins, lines of old stone foundation walls, and other evidence of past settlement in this area.
Later that afternoon, while I was having a great time in Copenhagen he sent me a series of pictures that all looked something like this! Poor, lonely man! (Don’t worry, he had to pretend he was sad that I was away!)
Wednesday — Her day:
Okay, Wednesday was amazing. We started out the morning with an early pickup at the hotel. Elder Larsen brought the party van (also known as the mission van) to pick up the three of us and three other senior sister missionaries from the hotel and deliver us to the church. There are several couples serving in Denmark who live far enough out of town that they came in Tuesday night and spent the night before the conference.
In the picture below you will see me, directly behind me is Karen Mogenhan and next to her is Sister Kimball. On the back row, L-R you’ll see Cheryl, Sister Davis, and Sister McBride.
It was so fun to meet Sister McBride and Sister Davis in person. We have worked together on our emotional resilience courses and we’ve had meetings together online. But this was our first time to meet in person! It’s nice to see someone has a whole body after just seeing their face on a screen! These are great women and I loved spending some time with them at the conference.
I also got to meet so many young sisters! There are just about 50 young sister missionaries in our mission. In Iceland there are no young sister missionaries. We have eleven wonderful elders, and we love them, but girls are different and wonderful too! Being a girl mom helped me feel right at home with these demonstrative, happy, hugging young women. The energy at the conference was high and the girls were so kind and fun.
Right now in our emotional resilience class we have four young sisters. At breakfast they quickly found me and we had a fun visit together. This week was also our final emotional resilience class and I was happy to meet these four while we are working together. Below you will see, L-R: me, Sister Larsen, Sister Eatchel, Sister Quick, & Sister Durrant.
The morning was spent in a meeting themed around our temple covenants and the meaning and purpose of the endowment and the garments of the holy priesthood. Four different senior sisters taught, each assigned part of this topic to teach on. I was the last sister to speak — my topic was the temple garment — followed by President Davidson. There were also several musical numbers done by young sisters. Below, L-R: Sister Meiners, Sister Kimball, & Sister Davis and . . . me. 🙂
For the past month I have been preparing for this talk and Heavenly Father really inspired me in my preparations. I felt great about how it went, the Holy Ghost was there, and I got a lot of good feedback from the sisters, both young and old. It was a very fun assignment and a privilege to attend and participate.
Two other young sisters I was happy to meet and visit with were Sister Whitt and Sister Top. There were so many sisters! But these two were especially fun to visit with after my talk.
And, here are the Iceland ladies with Sister Davidson, just in case you’ve forgotten what we look like!
After the meeting and lunch the girls were making charm bracelets, doing a clothing swap, and doing zumba. Not that that wasn’t a very fun activity for them, but we said our goodbyes and left early to go do some exploring with the Larsen’s. They drove us out of the city to Frederiksborg Castle.
The castle is incredible. It has a long and varied history, it is surrounded by a lake and a mote as well as beautiful gardens. Maybe one day I will see it in the summer? This week it was under ice and snow and it was cold and impressive. If you’d like to read about the history of the castle, click here.
From the minute you step inside the castle you are met with art work, carvings, furniture, and displays from floor to ceiling. It is incredibly ornate and very beautiful. This is the chapel.
Twenty three paintings on the life of Christ by Carl Bloch are in the Oratory. (Learn more about Carl Bloch here.) As we walked around the chapel we entered a small, dark room where the paintings are hung. Throughout my life I have seen prints of these pictures in church materials. They are beautiful and it was exciting to see the original works of art. The room was dark and there was bright light coming inside from the outer rooms. Because of the challenging lighting it was hard to see some of the paintings. But maybe my pictures of the paintings will give you a small glimpse of what it was like.
I wish I could have spent hours appreciating these paintings. They are incredibly moving.
Something else I loved about the castle was the ceilings. Almost every room had a beautiful, ornate ceiling. I took dozens of pictures of ceilings! But I will only put some of my favorites here. Which one would you like to look at while you’re laying in bed trying to fall asleep?
And here are just a few more pictures of things that are beautiful. We only had a couple of hours here and I have no idea how long it would take to admire all the works in the castle. Maybe one day I’ll get to go again and spend more time. I loved our visit to Frederiksborg Castle.
And here is the lovely Heidi Larsen! She and her husband are just the best. I’m so glad we are friends. They finish their mission in May and we love working with them.
Wednesday — His Day–
Well, Todd’s one picture from Wednesday was a zoom meeting he attended with the Iceland North District. So, we can just assume his life is more exciting when we are together! 🙂
Thursday– Her Day:
My trip to Denmark came to a close on Thursday. The three of us had another early pickup at the hotel. It was Cheryl’s 66th birthday on Thursday so we brought her a birthday crown to wear through the day! She was a good sport and let us take pictures with it while we were working our way around town. Happy Birthday, Cheryl!
We had a couple of hours before we had to be at the airport so the Larsen’s made sure we saw a few more beautiful sights in the city. We did a drive by of Grundtvig’s Church. I love how it looks in the morning light.
We also drove by the temple so we could see it in the daylight. It is also beautiful but in a very different way, don’t you think?
We stopped for a visit to the Church of Our Lady. This is where Thorvaldsen’s Christus statue, Twelve apostle statues, and others are. (You can read about the Church of Our Lady here.) The church opens at 8:00 in the morning and we were there early enough to nearly have it to ourselves. It is a special place and we enjoyed the reverent feeling in the church.
Thorvaldsen’s work is really amazing. This is another place I could easily spend several hours. The bust below is a self portrait.
The sight seeing came to an end with the little mermaid statue on the canal. The ocean water around her is frozen and I just kept thinking she looked so cold! Someone give that mermaid a sweater!
We flew home Thursday afternoon and were happy to be back in Iceland. Todd survived without me! But we are glad to be back together.
It was such a wonderful experience to go on this trip. I enjoyed the comradre of being with the other sisters. I enjoyed the spirit that was in our meetings. I loved being spoiled with friendship from the Larsen’s. I appreciate that the Davidson’s would go to the effort to allow the three of us to attend the conference. And I also really enjoyed being able to participate as a speaker in the conference and work with Heavenly Father to put together my presentation. This was such a memorable part of my mission experience.
Thursday — His Day:
Well, until I got home Todd’s day was pretty boring. Here’s what I’ve got! Good old zoom meetings with missionaries! 🙂
Friday — Our Day:
Back together on zoom meetings! On Friday morning we had our final emotional resilience class. It was great to discuss class with the missionaries and talk about how going through the emotional resilience course had strengthened them. They are remarkable people and they are working hard to learn and grow on their missions. We will miss working with them weekly! We decided to keep our group chat open, even though the class is done. We will keep sharing things we are grateful for and keep cheering each other on as we continue to work and serve the Lord.
We also had a wonderful afternoon visit with Faith and her children. They joined the church several months ago and are a fun and enthusiastic family. We helped Faith get her church account set up and had a nice time catching up with her and the kids.
Saturday — Our Day:
We finished this week with an exciting Icelandic celebration, Þorrablót. “Þorrablót is a traditional Icelandic midwinter festival deeply rooted in the country’s Viking heritage. Celebrated during the month of Þorri (typically January to mid-February), this lively gathering brings Icelanders together in festivities to honor their ancestors, share traditional delicacies, and enjoy music, poetry, and storytelling. While its origins date back to pagan times, Þorrablót has been revived as a way to connect with Iceland’s rich cultural history.” You can read more about this celebration here.
The Selfoss branch hosted Þorrablót and were kind enough to invite us to participate. We took Elder Nehren, Elder Geertsen, & Elder Moyer with us for the party. They all go home this summer and they didn’t get to attend last year.
Some of the foods that were served were fermented shark, singed sheep’s head, dried fish, liver pudding, blood sausage, and more. My food assignment was mashed potatoes! What would you like to try?!
L-R: Elder Benzley, Elder Nehren, Elder Geertsen, Elder Moyer, Elder Pedroza
Friends in the Selfoss branch —
Todd gave the sheep’s head a try! I did try one bite, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat most of the food. The elders were much braver than us and the locals enjoyed all of the delicacies.
After the meal there were traditional Icelandic songs that say goodbye to winter and welcome to spring. Although it doesn’t feel like spring outside! But we are gaining sunlight and that does make the days feel better.
Below you will see Thelma with Elder Pedroza singing, and Gummi & Valla enjoying the music.
Below Todd is with Bragi, Áslaug, Karen, & Wes
We got the elders back to the city in time for a zone call to start a fast. We are fasting together for those the missionaries are teaching who are approaching baptism. We are excited to combine our faith, fasting, and prayers to Heavenly Father for these good people.
There was even more this week, but that will have to do it for our his & hers report. It was an interesting week! Who knows what next week will bring?! I guess we’ll all have to come back here to find out. Thank you for your love, support, and prayers. See you soon!
Check out Todd’s social media pages for more pictures and videos. You can find him here:
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