12/13/25
Let’s just start with this picture to kick off our week’s review with a festive start! One of the many things Iceland does well is Christmas decorations! They go big with so many lights and ornaments and it is always impressive. And, no, those red hearts are not helium balloons. Todd checked!
Now you can get comfortable, turn on your favorite Christmas album, and enjoy what was a very busy holiday week as missionaries in Iceland. 🙂
We started off with an early Sunday morning trip to the airport to pick up Elder Jensen and Elder Chynoweth. They both did the first transfer of their missions in the states while waiting for their visas to be approved so they could come to Iceland. We’re so glad they are here! They arrived after an overnight flight, tired but standing tall and ready to get to work. After just a few days with them they are already fitting right into the work and we know they belong here.
The airport welcoming committee, L-R: Elder Monzon (district leader), Elder Jensen, Elder Nehren (senior companion), Elder Chynoweth, Elder Geertsen (senior companion), Elder Benzley & Elder Moyer (zone leaders). Todd and I get to come along to take pictures! And to be there just in case there are any issues with the elder’s immigration documents and details, or problems with luggage, etc.
The senior companions and their “sons”!
Welcome to Iceland in December where it is dark most of the day!
The elders had a couple of hours to get their things to their apartments and then get to church. Both of our new elders bore their testimonies in our sacrament meeting and they both did it in Icelandic! They did a great job, were friendly and chatting with the members, and made a valiant effort to stay awake through both hours of church.
This is my friend Fortune. She has been a member of the church for a couple of months and she has a strong testimony and desire to do what is right. On Sunday she was wearing a traditional Cameroon outfit and she looked so beautiful! She told me she wanted to dress in her best outfit to worship at Christmastime.
On Sunday evening we had our missionary Christmas concert. It went great! I am so happy about the evening. We had over 50 people attend in person and more than 20 who watched online. Todd worked hard to set up all of the audio/visual details so they would work and it all came together so nicely. The elders sang a couple of songs and Elder Jensen & Elder Chynoweth joined right in. Below L-R: Elder Moyer, Elder Nehren, Elder Bredthauer, Elder Nielsen, Elder Monzon, Elder Jensen, Elder Chynoweth, Elder Geertsen
Between musical numbers and congregational hymns we heard the Christmas story from the Bible. Our narrators for the evening were Elder Moyer – English, Elder Nehren – Icelandic, & Elder Monzon – Spanish
We had several musical numbers from other members in the district. The Spanish branch sang “Away in a Manger” in Spanish. Our YSA Sarah sang lovely solo of “Silent Night”. And the Valla & Greta led the Icelandic members singing “Borinn er sveinn í Betlehem”.
Some of the children from the 1st branch sang “Star Were Gleaming”. They were so cute! And Elder Nielsen sang a beautiful solo of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”.
Elder Nielsen also accompanied several songs on the piano and Elder Benzley did the rest of the accompaniment on the piano and the organ. They both played amazingly well!
After the Christmas story and music were completed we watched “The Christ Child”. It is one of my favorite Christmas movies of all time. Have you seen it? You should! The Spirit was so strong in the room. It was truly moving. It’s only 18 minutes long, you should watch it right now!
To close the meeting we ate cookies together and visited. One of my friends in the community, Alexandra, and her husband and mother attended the concert. Another member invited his friends to attend and they came as well. While we were all visiting and mingling, Alexandra and these other friends found each other and rejoiced because they have known each other for years, these other friends had attended Alexandra’s wedding! They haven’t seen each other for a while and, both attending the concert, found each other again. It was a sweet reunion! 🙂
I know I’m gushing about the concert! Watching it all come together was so pleasing and feeling the Spirit throughout the night brought me so much peace. The next night, at institute, our YSA friend Doroth, who is a new member of the church, told me she has never seen “The Christ Child” movie before. She loved it and told me throughout the concert and the movie she felt so much peace and she really felt God’s love for her. She said she felt God telling her that “no matter how bad things get, Jesus will be with me.” Doroth’s comments helped me know that all the work to put the concert together was worthwhile.
We did a Facebook live event to stream the concert. Several of the elder’s families watched it and, you can watch it too! If you are interested, the concert will be available here for about a month. The last 20 minutes are “The Christ Child” movie and it doesn’t show well on the broadcast. But up until then you can hear the elders speak and sing. Let me know if you watch it! I’d love to hear what you think.
And, that was Sunday!! Elder Jensen & Elder Chynoweth were barely on their feet by the end of the night. It was a long and wonderful day.
At institute on Monday we said goodbye to Lilja who went home to her family in Utah this week. Lilja’s dad is Icelandic and her grandma and uncle’s family live in the 1st branch. She has been in Iceland for three months living with family and attending school and we’ve loved having her here. It’s sad to see her go home and we wish the best for her.
Almost as exciting as our Christmas concert and our goodbye party for Lilja was a trip to Nova with the new elders to get their phone numbers and electronic ID’s set up. Nova is a phone store here and the employees know us well! They are very helpful and their store is decorated like a disco. Now it is a disco that is celebrating Christmas! Have you ever seen a disco ball snowman?
One of our newest members in the 1st branch is Vigneshwaran Dhanalakshmi. Fortunately for us he goes by Vicky! Vicky is from India and lives in Iceland working as a cook in an Indian restaurant downtown. He comes to institute each Monday night and he is so appreciative that we will make dinner for him after he spends all of his working hours making dinner for other people. He invited us to his restaurant this week and he made us a delicious dinner. I had to have it mild — Vicky’s spice tolerance is no joke! He did a terrific job and it was mild enough for me to enjoy the whole meal. He did tell us what he made, but I can’t remember now what each of these dishes are called. I know you’d like to eat Vicky’s cooking too! Look at this table of food!
Another member of our branch, Ólafur Jónas, had a very rough afternoon that day and Vicky invited him to join us for dinner. We had a good visit with both of them. When Todd went to pay the bill Vicky wouldn’t let him pay! He not only made our dinner, but he treated us to it as well. It was so kind and we love and appreciate Vicky and his goodness to us and to others.
While we were downtown we took a walk to see the Christmas lights. They are abundant and beautiful. We also enjoyed watching families skate on the rink that is put up in Ingólfstorg square. The Christmas tunes were playing and people were having such a good time!
And it wouldn’t be a trip to town without visiting the Christmas cat. Did you know that if you don’t get new clothes for Christmas, the Christmas cat will eat you?! You can learn more about the Christmas cat here.
As you can see, there’s no snow in Reykjavik right now. I hope we get some before Christmas! This week we’ve had wind, which keeps it chilly, but not much precipitation. Even though it wasn’t too cold or snowy, for some reason there weren’t many people downtown on the evening we were there. I’m sure it will be more crowded over the next two weeks as Christmas approaches. It was fun and different to have the quiet streets mostly to ourselves.
One evening this week we had our new elders over for dinner and a training meeting. They brought their companions and trainers with them. And we were joined by the zone leaders, who led the training meeting. And, Elder Monzon is currently in a trio with the zone leaders so he came too. In other words, we had all seven missionaries who are in the city come for dinner and a meeting! The only other young elders in Iceland are in Akureyri, 240 miles away, so they did not join us for dinner and a training meeting this week!
Usually when we feed the missionaries I like to make waffles because I love waffles and it’s a fun meal to share. But feeding nine of us with one waffle iron is not a good idea. Instead we went with a chipotle chicken pasta (basically a delicious homemade mac & cheese with chicken), garlic biscuits, a green salad (because we hope the elders will eat some vegetables), and brownies. It was fun to eat and visit together. Below, starting on the left: Elder Benzley, Elder Moyer, Elder Monzon, Elder Nehren, Elder Jensen, Elder Chynoweth, Elder Geertsen, & me. 🙂
As new elders join our zone Todd and the young mission leaders are working to train them and their trainers in how to become the most effective missionaries. I love the training they have built and I am amazed at the skills it fosters. One really fun thing about it is how it will help these elders become better husbands one day. A mission is good marriage prep, if done properly. Not only are they sharing the gospel with those in Iceland, but they are also learning people skills, how to study and communicate, how to use their time and money well, etc. It’s wonderful to be a part of this.
As we approached the end of this week we had a few other interesting projects that were out of the ordinary for us. We spent some time at the mall to do a little bit of Christmas shopping. This year Todd and I are each just buying ourselves our own gifts! That is super fun! But I did get a couple of small surprises for Todd. I used one of the gift wrapping stations at the mall. These are set up outside many of the stores around town, and not just at Christmas, but year round. The wrapping paper, tape, and ribbon are there to use. I love this! You buy your gift, wrap it up right there, and take it home ready to give.
We also spent some time in one of our, currently, vacant young missionary apartments doing a little bit of work. While we were there we noticed bags of clothing that had been left behind by several former missionary residents. After confirming with the missionaries that none of these things belonged to them, we loaded up the car to do a big donation drop off to the thrift store. We were happy to find several coats previous missionaries had left behind. We’ve passed those on to the new missionaries here and they will be toasty warm without needed to spend a lot on a new coat for the winter.
Here is most of the donation pile. The elders aren’t supposed to leave clothing behind when they leave. But sometimes they still do.
Saturday was our branch Christmas party. In addition to my food assignment (a large crockpot of ham), I was in charge of the decorations and table set up. A couple of weeks ago we purchased a lot of wrapping paper to cover the tables and I found some cute decorations at the thrift store that would add a little bit of color without costing a lot of money. I also spent several nights making the cutest little 3D paper snowflakes.
When we got to the church we were happy to find a few elders there who joined us to push tables around and move all the chairs. They also helped me wrap one table before they had to get on with their work. We hadn’t planned on the elder’s being there and we were glad they showed up when they did.
Here is the finished look before the party! It was cute and festive! The clean up is easy with this kind of decor — wrap everything in the wrapping paper and toss it in the bin. 🙂
We ended the second week of December with a fun, Christmas filled day! We went to Harpa for the second Saturday in a row for another concert. Todd surprised me with tickets for the Iceland Symphony Orchestra Christmas concert. Before the concert we enjoyed hearing from a lovely bell choir playing Christmas songs.
This week we were in the large auditorium to hear the symphony. The space can seat 1800 people and it was nearly full with families by the time the concert started.
This week’s concert had songs we were more familiar with, with Icelandic lyrics to classics like “White Christmas” and “Silent Night”. In addition to the symphony there were also children’s choirs, a drum ensemble (who, appropriately, played “The Little Drummer Boy”), a ballet group, and more. There was a fun narrator who kept the children engaged and, of course, the fantastic symphony orchestra. It was a wonderful, local experience to participate in.
Following the concert we attended the Reykjavik 1st branch Christmas party. We shared a meal of Icelandic, American, & African foods and Christmas music. Some of the youth shared Christmas scripture verses they had memorized. We made a service chain sharing acts of service we’ve done or received over the last month. And, of course, visiting with good friends. It was a wonderful night to spend together as a branch.
A table of our YSA’s enjoyed a good dinner!
And, of course, the young and the old beauties of the night! L-R: Klara, Lilja, me, Johanna, & Helga. All sweet friends.
This week ended with a mission wide meeting to start a mission wide fast. We are fasting for help to reach the goal of 12 baptisms this transfer. We know Heavenly Father will bless the missionaries as they work towards this goal and we combine our faith in fasting and prayer in our efforts to accomplish it. We would love your prayers to help the mission work in the Denmark Copenhagen mission progress!
Here’s where we end the second week of December. It’s been a busy week, full of missionary work and Christmas cheer! I suspect the third week of December might be the same? But you’ll have to come back next week to find out. 🙂 We hope your December is full of light, joy, & peace. As we celebrate the birth of the Savior and seek to share His light with the world, we hope you feel that light and love as you participate in our mission with us. Thank you 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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