5/16/26
Hello, friends! Just like that another week has gone by and we are back again to report on the things we’ve been up to. Thanks for coming joining us! Let’s see what we have to report on this week.
Sunday was Mother’s Day, as you know, and I had a great day celebrating my mom and my girls. We had texts and calls with those we love and I loved spending this time with our family. Fortunately, I talk with our girls all of the time and I am so grateful for video chats so I can see and talk with them and our grandchildren often, not just on Mother’s Day. My daughter Rachel made me a beautiful card. Thank you, Rachel!
We spent our Sunday with the Selfoss branch enjoying the fellowship of the members. After the church meetings were over we went to the “new” building where their branch will be meeting starting in August. There are renovations and improvements that need to be done in the building but the permitting is taking ages to complete. The branch may begin having meetings there before the renovations are complete. On Sunday the members got to wander through the space and imagine what it will be like when it is finished. I hope it will be done before our mission is complete; I’d love to see what it will be like!
If you would like to do a virtual walk through of the space, check out Todd’s video below. I’ve shared it here in the past so maybe you’ve already seen it? It is much bigger than where the branch is currently meeting so there is a lot of room for the branch to grow!
Our friends the Mogenhan’s usually handle apartment inspections for the missionary apartments but this week they asked us to do an inspection of the elder’s apartment in Selfoss while we were there visiting. I gave them advanced notice and Elder Monzon & Elder Nielsen had the place spotless! It’s a nice apartment and they are taking good care of it. They showed us a desk that has been in a missionary apartment for decades. In the desk drawer missionaries have signed their name if they lived in the apartment with the desk. We found signatures as far back as 1993! It’s a pretty cool momento, don’t you think?
Unfortunately their car isn’t fairing so well. On Monday night while we were at institute we got a call from the Selfoss elders that they had scraped their car along a pillar in a parking garage. We never like to get these phone calls. The only good things about it is that they were not hurt and hadn’t damaged another car. When the elders cause damage to a vehicle they have to call President Davidson to report what happened. I’m sure that was an uncomfortable call for our Elder Nielsen to make. But, part of growing up is taking responsibility for the things we do wrong. I’m sorry to say that the Iceland elders do a decent amount of damage to vehicles.
The institute class gave a shout out to the elders to help them feel better (or to tease?!) about the news of the accident. Many of them can relate to doing things like this. Can you?!
As we were leaving the building to head home from class we found some friends of ours just coming in. Kent & Jacki Roper are in town visiting for a few days and they came to the building just to find the Richardson’s! It was so nice of them! Kent was here several months ago and we had a nice visit about his interest in Iceland, his work, and his family. He was back in town this week with his wife Jacki and it was great to meet her. They were in the 2nd branch for church but we were in Selfoss so we missed them. If they had been a few minutes later getting to the church we would have missed them again. We’re glad we didn’t. Hello, Kent & Jacki! We hope your Iceland days were wonderful!
We had a grand adventure for our Tuesday P-day at a place called Lambafellsgjá. Let me tell you about it. Because I am in Iceland my online algorithm is always showing me things of interest in Iceland. Just a couple of days earlier I had the following post show up on Facebook and it caught my attention.
We were dropping our friends, the Mogenhan’s, off at the airport early Tuesday so we decided we needed to go find Lambafellsgjá and hike to see it.
The road was slow and extremely bumpy. We took extra care and enjoyed the drive through really spectacular lava fields. I think they are beautiful.
We got to the end of the road and had a bumpy walk ahead of us. It was sunny and cool and it felt like we were the only people in Iceland!
Along the lava bed, leading to Lambafell hill, there were occasional markers to follow. We were grateful for them because there was no way to see any type of trail on the rock. We’d move from one marker to another, getting closer to the hill each time. I think there is a life lesson in this process. Just like gospel ordinances, prophets and apostles, and revelation, we can find spiritual markers in our lives that will lead us along the straight and narrow path. We need to be sure we watch for the markers and follow them, in order to get where we want to go.
Once we got close to the hill the markers were done and there was a visible path to follow. There were cool lava formations and small lava tubes everywhere! Can you see the face in this picture?
What about the gorilla in this one?
We made it to the far side of the hill and found Lambafellsgjá. It is 150 meters long and 50 meters at its deepest point. There was still snow inside and we hiked up as far as we safely could. It was amazing!
The picture below is one wall of the canyon.
As we continued our hike around the hill we had these terrific views of different lava fields coming together. You can see where the lava poured down the hill into this small valley.
Before we left to drive home Todd took the drone out for a flight and got a bird’s eye view of this really amazing place. It was pretty windy so he had to keep the flight short and didn’t get the views he wanted. But I think it’s a pretty great perspective of a beautiful, and not often seen, part of Iceland.
We love the chance to be outside and I was happy to take a couple of other walks, nearer to home, throughout the week. The lupine is starting to grow, but slowly because it has been so cool. In places where the plants get a lot of direct sunshine the flowers are beginning to form. In the next month or so we will start seeing the purple flowers covering the ground all around the island. I can’t wait!
Of course we spent time this week doing this:
We had our mission wide emotional resilience class early Thursday morning. This week’s lesson was on chapter 4, Managing Stress & Anxiety. Missionaries of every age deal with extra stress and anxiety while they are serving. A mission is full of challenges and it can be hard to regulate these emotions. The lesson gave lots of tools we can use to help when we are feeling stressed and it also talked about how a certain level of stress is useful.
During one part of the lesson we practiced mindfulness. There was a breathing and meditation activity where everyone closed their eyes, focused on calm, measured breathing, and felt their stress and anxiety lesson. Here is what the lesson told us to do:
“Begin by taking several long, slow breaths, breathing in fully through your nose and exhaling fully through your mouth. Allow your breath to find its own natural rhythm. Notice the physical sensations of your lungs expanding and contracting as you breathe in and out. If your mind wanders to other things, don’t worry; that happens. If you get distracted, just notice the types of thoughts, feelings, and sensations that distract you. Observe them without trying to control them or judge them, and simply bring your attention back to your breathing. Your breathing provides an anchor to which you can return over and over again.”
It was fun to see all those small screens full of mindful missionaries! Measured breathing really can help you relax. Try it sometime when you’re feeling stressed or anxious.
One day while we were out on some errands we stopped at one of our favorite thrift stores to walk around. While we were there Todd found a beautiful second hand lopapeysa that he added to his (growing) collection. Isn’t it beautiful?! Second hand sweaters cost about a third of what a new one does, the price is right and he looks pretty great!
The sweater is in great condition but we often need to clean up the second hand sweaters when we get them; they can get a little bit pilly when they are worn. I spent some time with our fabric shaver to clean it up and it looks new. There’s a lot of wool fluff that came off the sweater, no wonder it needed a shave!
I am currently knitting Todd another sweater! Who knows how it will turn out and if it will be wearable when it is done. 🙂 But I am making progress. This is where I am at so far — the Icelandic way to knit is from the waist up, so at the bottom of the picture is the waist band. So far it’s looking good!
On Friday we went to visit our friend Fortune at the cute Cafe Babalu where she works. Fortune was baptized a member of the church last summer and she is a lovely young woman. Not too long after she joined the church she got this really great job that she loves, but it has her working every Sunday. Unfortunately that means she doesn’t make it to church and we really miss having her there.
When we got inside the cafe her boss greeted us and we said we were looking for Fortune. I had a plate of cookies for her and he said, “You brought Fortune cookies?!” Yes, it was funny! 🙂 Heavenly Father had us show up at just the right time. Fortune was on her break and she was so happy to see us. We talked about why she is missing church and we invited her to start reading the Book of Mormon again. She accepted that invitation and she asked us to pray with her. The spirit was with us while we were in that cute little cafe. We hope Fortune will find a way to change her work schedule so she can start coming to church.
We finished the week with a bit of a “wild horse” chase. We’ve heard about a day when some Icelanders ride their horses in the ocean and that it would be today. It looked like it would be a beautiful sight to see and we had a vague idea where we could find them. Mid-day we drove to the towns we thought might be the right place. We did a lot of horse hunting and kept seeing gorgeous coast lines like this:
And this:
Pretty, but no horses! We asked a few people in town where to watch for them and were given differing directions. So we did some more driving and searching. At one point, low and behold, there was a group of horses headed down a trail, crossing the road right in front of us!
We didn’t know if these horses were headed to the ocean for a ride or not! We followed them around the corner but then the horse trail and the road went different directions. We spent more time trying to see where they went and hoping to catch up with them again, but they had ridden off into the sunset! (Well, not really. The sunset is tonight at 10:37. 🙂 )
While we didn’t see the horses riding in the ocean we did spend a nice afternoon together enjoying each others company and the beautiful coast line.
And that, along with several other meetings, classes, email, video chats, ministering visits, prayers, and more, is a summary of this week! So we’ll say goodbye here and thank you, again, for following along with what we’ve been doing. It’s been a pretty calm week, which means next week will probably be crazy! We are thankful for your prayers, love, and support. During the upcoming week we will practice our breathing to manage our stress and anxiety, do our best to minister to friends who we have missed seeing, and search for adventure and opportunities for service. We hope you will do the same!
Check out Todd’s social media pages for more pictures and videos. You can find him here:
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