6/6/26
June is off to an amazing start! We have begun about six weeks of absolute craziness. As President Nelson said, “Eat your vitamin pills. Get some rest. It’s going to be exciting.” Here we go!
We were still in Akureyri on Sunday and we loved attending the Akureyri branch. They are small in number but strong in faith. It was fun to see four of the elders working together. Below you will see L-R: Elder Benzley, Elder Bredthauer, Elder Chynoweth, & Elder Geertsen. Right now Elder Benzley & Elder Chynoweth are living and working in Akureyri without other elders around. They enjoyed a few days with the zone leaders for company.
The branch meets in rooms with a wonderful view of the fjord. On Sunday there was a large cruise ship in port. It might be hard to pay attention in meetings when you have views like this right out the window!
It was nice to see, and say goodbye, to a few of our friends in the branch. Below you will see L-R: Stefán, Karítas, & Jónína. These sweet members give strong support to the branch and they have helped us feel loved and welcomed each time we have come to visit them. We are honored to know them.
Todd & I both spoke in sacrament meeting and Todd taught the second hour class on having faith in Jesus Christ.
And, I made a new friend named Eliza. She and her parents were visiting the branch for Eliza’s senior trip. In two weeks she starts the MTC and prepares to serve her mission in Cambodia! Sister missionaries unite! It is so fun to meet new people who are traveling in Iceland and who also share a love of missionary work.
After church we loaded up the car with Elder Bredthauer & Elder Geertsen and we drove back to Reykjavik. I think Todd and I spent the entire five hours telling them about our family, some of the challenges we’ve faced, and talking a lot about placing our faith in Christ and not in outcomes in the midst of the challenges. These are terrific young men who will be leading their future families with faith in Christ some day soon.
Elder Geertsen would have liked a nap on the way home but we wouldn’t be quiet long enough for him to sleep!
On Monday night at our institute class we said goodbye to our lovely Sarah! Sarah has been in Iceland working on her master’s degree for almost a year. Her school year has come to a close and she is headed home for the summer. It has been such a pleasure to know her and serve with her both in institute and in the branch. Sarah is a wonderful young woman who is already doing great things with her life. We love you, Sarah! And we will miss you.
An institute class farewell. Below left: Keifer, Elder Bredthauer, Elder Geertsen, Yaw, Sarah, Jakob. Below right: Jakob, Elder Geertsen, Elder Bredthauer, Sarah, Yaw, Elder Parry, Otto, Elder Moyer
I’m very happy to report that the lupines are starting to really open and cover the island with their purple loveliness! Not everyone in Iceland enjoys the lupines, but I sure do! They are gorgeous. They are blooming a bit later this year because of our super cold spring. But it looks like we will get to enjoy them just the same. I hope you’re not tired of lupine pictures because I am going to keep taking them!
We spent the middle days of our week doing a lot of administrative work. Lesson plans, errands run, texts & emails sent. We knew our weekend was going to be full of busy fun so we tried to get work done in advance to free up some of that time.
I’m happy to report that Elder Bredthauer got his Icelandic driver’s license this week. I will keep sharing this accomplishment each time it happens because it is a huge project for me and it’s so satisfying to see it work! Hooray for Elder Bredthauer! Next week two more elders do their license applications as we start on the next set.
Thursday morning we had our mission wide scripture study class. We spent the half hour in the Gospel Library showing the missionaries some of the resources it holds that they might not know about. Are you familiar with the Gospel Library? Spend some time looking through it and see what you can find that will enhance your personal scripture study! We showed the missionaries how to find the institute manuals to use with their scripture studies. If you’d like to find them too go to the Gospel Library, Adults, Young Adults, Institute Students. Or, just click here and it will take you to the page with all of the institute manuals.
Elder Nielsen shared his testimony about studying the scriptures with the institute manuals. Throughout his mission he has studied almost the entire standard works with the institute manuals! That is an amazing accomplishment.
Each Thursday after class we spend time doing lesson prep for our lesson the following week. Next week we are back into the Emotional Resilience manual on lesson 6 — Overcoming Anger. We’ll be working on it throughout the week and I’ll let you know how it goes after the next class!
Now it’s time for some knitting news. Or, the parable of the knitted sleeve? Who knew there were so many lessons to be learned from knitting. As you know, in April I finished knitting my Icelandic sweater and at the beginning of May I started knitting one for Todd. I am really enjoying my knitting and I know his is already looking better than mine. It’s amazing how knitting thousands of stitches makes has improved my skills! (Yes, there is a spiritual parallel in there somewhere!)
I finished the lower portion of the body of his sweater and it is set aside while I knit the sleeves. Once the sleeves are ready I combine the pieces and do the pattern around the top. Over the last week I was happily making progress on sleeve number one and I had gotten to this point:
It looks good so far, don’t you think? As you build your way up the sleeve you add in stitches every few rows to make the sleeve get larger as it moves up the arm. For the size of Todd’s sweater the pattern has me add two stitches every six rows. The stitch markers along the side of the sleeve are marking the rows so I know when to add the next set of extra stitches.
One evening this week as I was counting to see which row I was on I realized that I only had five rows between my stitch counters, not six. No matter how many times I recounted the rows there were five and not six for each set! This is a problem. Eventually I realized that I was counting row six as row one for the next set leaving me short one row each round. At the point in the picture above I was already five rows short of where it should have been and this will make the sleeve too short and too wide; it won’t fit or look correct.
At first I sat there wondering how I could keep going forward and try to correct the problem without taking out any stitches. This was not a good option! The only solution was to pull out the stitches down to the cuff and start again. It was so sad to sit and pull the stitches out. In just a couple of minutes I had undone what had been a couple of hours of work. Don’t worry, it wasn’t too big of a tragedy! And I’m glad I realized my mistake as early as I did and it is easy to repair. Here’s the sleeve before (left) and after realizing my mistake:
As I’ve been pondering on the sleeve and the need to pull it out and knit it again correctly I keep thinking of the joy of repentance. President Nelson said, “When we choose to repent, we choose to change! We allow the Savior to transform us into the best version of ourselves. We choose to grow spiritually and receive joy—the joy of redemption in Him. When we choose to repent, we choose to become more like Jesus Christ!”
I wasn’t willfully skipping rows, it was unintentional. But once I realized my mistake if I hadn’t gone back to fix it correctly then that intentional neglect would have been willful and something to regret. In our lives when we sin, or even when we make unintentional mistakes, as soon as we realize what we’ve done wrong we need to stop and fix it. As we follow President Nelson’s counsel and choose to repent we will become “the best versions of ourselves.” Todd’s sleeves will now (hopefully!) be the best versions of themselves! At least they should be the same length . . . as long as I can keep counting properly to six. I’ll keep you posted!
We had a visit with our friend Victoria this week. She was asked to speak in sacrament meeting and she asked if I would help her prepare her thoughts for her talk. At the end of January her cute Eliana was born and we were excited to see this lovely girl growing so big! She was super smiley with me and she made me even more excited to see grandbabies before too long. Victoria told me that Eliana loves looking at white people! I’m glad I could look at her while she looked at me!
We were happy to welcome our friends Rick and Karen Hein to Iceland on Friday morning! Hooray for good friends flying across the world to visit us! We love Rick and Karen and are looking forward to spending the next week sharing the beauty of Iceland and our missionary work with them.
They flew through the night from the US and we spent most of Friday showing them parts of the Reykjanes peninsula. We went to the Bridge Between the Continents and the Brimketill Lava Rock Pool.
We also visited Grindavik for a view of the fresh lava fields and I even had lava soup on our lunch date! There were two ways to order the soup — lava soup or hot lava soup. I took the safe route and left out the hot enjoying regular lava soup which turned out to be a delicious chunky tomato soup.
On Saturday morning Todd taught his young missionary leadership class and then we picked up Rick and Karen for to go exploring around the Golden Circle. This outing started with a trip to another place where the continents separate . . . in a strip mall! The great divide. Karen is in North America and I am in Europe!
We loved our stops around the Golden Circle. In rain, wind, & sunshine it does not disappoint. Here are the highlights:
Brúarfoss —
Geysir —
Gullfoss (in pouring rain!)–
Just looking a bit drowned! 🙂
Faxafoss —
Kerið Crater —
Hveradalir Geothermal Area —
We had such a fabulous day with Rick and Karen. It was so fun to show them around these incredible places and enjoy their company.
We finished the day with a call with our daughters Rachel & Erika. Today was Erika’s baby shower celebrating the baby boy she is due to have next month. I was sad I couldn’t attend and so grateful to her mother-in-law, Cheryl, and her wonderful family and friends who love, support, and spoil her. I’m also very thankful for the technology that allowed me to participate in a small way, celebrating our lovely girl and the grandson she is carrying. God is good.
That’s it for this week. There are more adventures coming! Come back next week and join us again. Thanks for your love and support.
Check out Todd’s social media pages for more pictures and videos. You can find him here:
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