3/8/25
Hello, Friends! As we thought about what to share with you this week we decided to walk you through our meeting schedule. Let’s consider this a journey through a typical week as senior missionaries, one meeting at a time! Sometimes our posts are all waterfalls and northern lights; but in between all those glorious things there are meetings. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but always there. And, thanks to technology, there’s no excuse not to participate. Let’s get started!
Sunday:
Sunday started with our weekly missionary coordination meeting at the church. We met with the missionaries serving in the Reykjavik 1st branch and this week we were happy to have 2 members of the branch counsel join us to discuss the work the elders are doing with friends and members in the branch.
Next we attended sacrament meeting. There was a big storm on Sunday so some of our regular members couldn’t physically get to the church to attend in person. While our numbers were few, the Spirit was strong. The first Sunday of the month is our fast and testimony meeting where members and friends share their testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. President Oaks taught: “A testimony of the gospel is a personal witness borne to our souls by the Holy Ghost that certain facts of eternal significance are true and that we know them to be true.” I was happy to share my testimony in our sacrament meeting.
Following sacrament meeting we had Sunday School and a lesson on D&C 18.
When our church meetings were done we stayed to participate in and celebrate the baptism of Francis Kingsley Aladinma. Francis has been learning from the missionaries for about 4 months. He came to Iceland from Africa and he is hoping his family can join him here soon. Francis bore a powerful witness of the truthfulness of the gospel and it was a privilege to witness his baptism. Todd was able to confirm him a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you’d like to learn more about what it means to be baptized and confirmed, click here.
Below is Elder Nielsen, Francis, Christopher (who baptized Francis), and Elder Fischbeck.
After such wonderful church meetings and a baptism we had more meetings from home Sunday evening. I actually had to schedule a meeting with Todd to meet with me! We had a bunch of companion planning to do and I needed to be on his calendar to get some time on Sunday. So we had a companion inventory/planning meeting.
After dinner Todd had a phone meeting with one of our branch presidents. Todd’s final meeting for the night was a district audit training meeting, by zoom, with a brother in Denmark.
Monday:
Todd wasn’t feeling great on Monday. After our trip to Akureyri last week, long hours of driving, and a very busy Sunday, he needed a rest day on Monday. Our only meeting on Monday was Institute in the evening. Todd rested and did lesson prep. I cleaned the apartment and did food prep for the YSA dinner after class.
Tuesday:
Tuesday we had a meeting with Elder Nehren & Elder Morales to do some adjustments to Elder Nehren’s electronic ID and get him registered to take his driver’s license written exam next week. To sort out his electronic ID we took the elders to the Auðkenni office. Todd and Elder Nehren were being helped by an employee when she noticed, and commented on, Elder Nehren’s good Icelandic. The two of them proceeded to have a conversation in Icelandic about what the missionaries are doing in Iceland, how long they will live here, and what they teach. While I don’t speak Icelandic, by their gestures and a few words I recognized, I knew they were talking about missionary work and the church. She sorted out Elder Nehren’s electronic ID, he shared the gospel with her, and we left her with our card so she can contact us if she would like to learn more. It was a really great experience! And another successful meeting. 🙂
On Tuesday evening Todd had a phone meeting with a senior missionary who is preparing to come to Iceland. And following that he had a zoom meeting doing more driver’s ed training with a couple of the elders who are preparing for their exams. And just what was I doing while he had these evening meetings? I had video chats with 3 of our 4 daughters and with my mom! Do those count as meetings?! Definitely more fun than your usual meeting. 😉
Wednesday:
Each Wednesday we have a missionary district council meeting with the Iceland north district. We have three junior missionary companionships and two senior missionary companionships in our district. Three sets are in Reykjavik and two sets are in Akureyri. We rotate weeks with the meeting in person (with the Akureyri missionaries online) or all online. This week we met at the church and zoomed in with the others in the north. It was great to hear language training, handbook training, and discuss the successes and challenges going on in the north district. The missionaries are working hard and doing great things!
Following this meeting we took a short break from meetings! Wednesday was a special holiday in Iceland called Öskudagur. In fact, each day this week has been part of a holiday week leading up to Lent. I’m sorry to say we didn’t participate in the festivities on Monday and Tuesday – maybe that will happen next year? But after our meeting on Wednesday we stopped at the mall to witness Öskudagur. There is a long history to how this tradition evolved (read here), but in a nutshell, on this day Icelandic children dress up in costumes and go from store to store to sing for a treat. It’s kind of like American Halloween, except there are no tricks involved, it takes place during daylight hours (right in the middle of the day) and it is joyous and not scary. We had no idea what to expect and it was so fun to see! We walked into the mall surrounded by children of all ages dressed up and going from store to store in groups. The would sing a song and then get a treat, which they put in their bags, before moving on to the next store.
Don’t worry, there were more meetings on Wednesday! In the early evening I had a women’s leadership meeting with our District Presidency and the Area Organization Advisor. My friends Anna-Maria (in Finland) & Bettina as well as President Gummi & President Jakob.
And we finished the day with an adult religion class Todd taught for the Reykjavik 1st branch. The focus of the class this month was on faith in Jesus Christ. You can read an amazing talk about faith in Christ here. Once a month Todd teaches this class and we enjoy working with the members in this way. Attending were Agnes & Arnar, Gerhard, Axel, President Larbie, & Jakob.
After class Todd had another meeting with a brother to do a temple recommend interview. That was the end of meetings for Wednesday!
Thursday:
Every Thursday morning we have a mission wide zoom meeting. It is hosted by young mission leaders in Denmark and they ask a different companionship to teach each week. As a mission we are currently studying Preach My Gospel chapter 5 about the power of the Book of Mormon and our Thursday meeting focused on that. It’s great to see all the missionary faces on our screen (I should have taken a screenshot!) and know we are all serving the Lord together across Denmark and Iceland.
Later that morning Todd and I went on a ministering visit to a family in our branch. They are dealing with some real struggles and needed friendship, a listening ear, some counseling, and a blessing. It was our privilege to spend time with them. We hope they are willing to do the hard work necessary to sort out some of the issues they are dealing with.
Yes, there was another meeting Thursday afternoon, but I didn’t go to this one! Each Thursday afternoon Todd meets with the young elders at the church for a group companion study lesson. Those who are not in the city can join by zoom to participate if they are free. Each week Todd either picks a topic of interest he would like to teach or the elders give him topics or questions they want to discuss and they spend an hour learning together. It’s basically an institute class of young men who want to understand the gospel better and Todd, an inspired and gifted teacher, who wants to help them learn. He loves teaching in this way and it is one of his favorite meetings of the week. While he is gone I work on this blog! Or have video calls and do work at home to catch up on things.
Todd and I had another meeting later Thursday to plan and prepare for upcoming training meetings we are holding. It’s fun to work together on these assignments. 🙂
Todd had one more meeting Thursday night — another hour of driver’s training over zoom with elders studying for their tests. And that was the end of the Thursday meetings.
Friday:
Friday morning we met with Elder Fischbeck and Elder Nielsen at the District Commissioner’s office to submit Elder Nielsen’s driver’s license application.
We followed that short meeting with another one at the police station with Elder Nielsen who had to pay a fine for a speeding ticket. He was given a ticket by a speed camera for going 9 km over the speed limit. For those of us with American licenses, 9 km is the same as 5.5 mph over the speed limit. How many of us drive 5 over the speed limit and don’t even think it’s speeding?! Well, in Iceland those speed cameras think it’s too fast. Elder Nielsen was such a good sport about it and even the police we worked with to close his ticket were so nice. We had to commemorate his first ticket and these nice people with a photo! Just another way to do missionary work — accept responsibility, be kind, and do what is right.
Friday evening we had a senior couples planning meeting. Also known as dinner with the Allen’s! Elder & Sister Allen finish their mission in Iceland in about 3 weeks! They have helped us settle in here and (sort of) figure out what we are doing. It will be strange to have them leave us here and leave us in charge! We love and appreciate them. We enjoyed dinner together and also went over things from the past week and things coming up next week. It’s a good time to regroup and plan together for our mission responsibilities.
After dinner Todd and I had a meeting at the church with our zone leaders, Elder Nehren & Elder Morales. We discussed the upcoming transfers, zone conference, the Easter fireside, and a few other concerns the elders have. They are good missionaries and good men. It’s fun to work with them. Todd brought the donuts. 🙂
Saturday:
On Saturday the weather was gorgeous, cold & clear. The only scheduled meeting wasn’t until 8 pm. So we did this:
Skógafoss –
Hestavaðsfoss –
Írárfoss –
Urriðafoss –
Don’t worry, we made it home in time for Todd to have his 8 pm meeting. We couldn’t have a day without at least one!
There were other meetings throughout the week as well. Most of them were unstructured, ongoing conversations that, while you wouldn’t necessarily consider them a meeting, still involved working with other people to accomplish assignments and tasks.
Todd is often in short phone meetings with Elder Larsen in Denmark. He is the mission finance guy, a senior missionary who works with his wife in the mission office in Copenhagen. There are always money issues to address and Elder Larsen always has the answers!
Todd also has ongoing text and email meetings with President Davidson. It’s like they have open ended presidency meetings that they both contribute to throughout each week. The Davidson’s are very busy and when president has time to answer questions he’ll jump into the text/email conversation. Then Todd can reply when he has time. It’s an unconventional presidency meeting but it has the advantage (disadvantage?!) of never ending! 🙂
I’ve been in ongoing email conversations throughout this week with several members of our district about the Protecting Children and Youth training that the church requires its leaders to complete. President Davidson asked me to work to get our district (all of the Iceland leaders) current on the training. Those who haven’t completed it yet will get to hear from me again Sunday in an effort to be 100% compliant to the training.
Other meetings I’ve had through text this week are with two young elders in Denmark who are spearheading an Easter fireside that the missionaries will present throughout the mission on April 13th. It will be held in several places in Denmark that evening as well as in our chapel in Reykjavik. And I get to help organize it here! It will be a wonderful program of music and scripture about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We will be sharing a zoom link for participation — maybe I’ll add it to the blog and you can all tune in?! There is a lot of work to do for that so I have been in several short meetings with these elders to begin to put the program together.
I hope this isn’t the most boring post I’ve written yet on our mission! Did you read all the way to the end? By my count we’ve had about 24 actual meetings this week with several others that filled the space in between. We want you to see that we really are doing missionary work and supporting the church in Iceland! We are not just here to sightsee! 🙂 (Though we enjoy doing both.) The Church is true and the work is vast. There will be more adventures, and more meetings, next week — I can’t wait to see what they are!
You can see more pictures and videos on Todd’s social media pages here:
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