Snæfellsnes

5/3/25

Hello, everybody! Welcome to the first Richardson Missions post in the month of May! A new month is always exciting. I wonder what will happen?! Let’s find out together. 🙂

We started this great week on Sunday going to Selfoss for church. Every fourth Sunday we join their branch to offer support and fellowshipping and, often, speak in sacrament meeting. On this past Sunday I shared some thoughts about the Parable of the Ten Virgins, you can read the parable here, and how filling our spiritual lamps with oil will prepare us for life challenges as well as for the Second Coming of our Savior. Todd talked about the importance of understanding the Plan of Salvation, you can read about it here, and how when we don’t understand God’s plan we more easily justify sin.

The drive to and from Selfoss is gorgeous. It’s about 45 minutes of glorious scenery while doing missionary work.

Sunday evening I had two and a half hours of zoom meetings. The first was a women’s training meeting with our area organization advisor, Anna Maria, in Finland, and my friend Bettina. Anna Maria shared trainings she had received while she was in Utah for General Conference. It was good to learn from her and know what things we can focus on with the women leaders in the Iceland District.

Following that meeting I joined a training given by our branch primary president Shirah. She taught the missionaries how to teach young children and it was really terrific information. They are often teaching people with children and this will help them do even better.

On Monday we celebrated with Elder Benzley and Elder Mijares who both got their Icelandic driver’s licenses! I am sighing with relief to have the first six missionaries through this process. When we started on it months ago I was super overwhelmed. Now we’ve got a handle on it.

I spent the day Monday cleaning our apartment and cooking for our YSA dinner. Todd helped the missionaries with a car issue, picked up and delivered a bill, and ran a couple of other errands. That evening we enjoyed white chicken chili (spicy!), homemade bread, a tossed salad, & fresh snickerdoodles. Everyone enjoyed the meal – they ate every bite. And we had a short lesson and games after. It was fun! Our numbers in YSA are few, but we are enjoying our time together.

At the start of the week I took advantage of the nice weather (which means slow wind speeds, mid temps in the 40’s, and not too rainy) and went on a few walks. Todd rode his bike and we enjoyed the scenery around our apartment.

Throughout the week Todd has been working on planning for the upcoming District Conference we have next week. As well as working on details for a Westman Islands missionary event in June and a district temple trip, also in June. Next week are transfers and he’s preparing travel details for the missionaries who will be moving. He is working on details for the boys who have mission calls to come to Iceland in the future. He’s also had ongoing discussions with our mission president about all of these things and more. There is always some sort of work waiting for him to get to.

On our way to a meeting Wednesday morning we had these two pull up next to us! Elder Nehren (driving) and Elder Morales are doing a great job as our zone leaders.

On Wednesday afternoon Karen came over for a knitting visit. We are both trying to get our stitches down so we will be ready for our next knitting circle in about a week. Karen is getting it! We had fun visiting together.

When Wes came to pick up Karen he brought us this fantastic treat. It’s a frönsku vöfflurnar — a French waffle. It is a light pastry dipped in chocolate with sweet cream in the middle. Delicious!

That evening Todd and I went out to do some door-knocking cookie drop offs. It’s fun to surprise people with treats and say hello. We had a good time together and found most of the people we wanted to visit were at home. (You can’t go wrong with chocolate crinkles!)

Thursday was a day of meetings! It was also the first day of May. Why not start the month out with meetings?! We had an early morning mission wide zoom meeting that was taught this week by the Iceland zone leaders, Elder Morales & Elder Nehren. They did a great job teaching a lesson on humility and comparing missionary work today to the missionary work done by Alma & Amulek in the Book of Mormon. If you’d like to learn more about them you can find the beginning of their story here.

Our Iceland North District council meeting was led by our district leader, Elder Young. He taught us about the Christlike attribute of patience.

On Thursday afternoon Todd taught some of the young elders in a companion study session. He focused on light and truth and the importance of having the Holy Ghost with us in our teaching.

For the last several weeks Todd has been planning an overnight get away for us to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. It’s about a two hour drive north of Reykjavik and we’ve been looking forward to going there since we came to Iceland. Now that Elder & Sister Mogenhan are settled in and things are calm for a couple of days it was a good time to take a short road trip.

We left Friday morning and drove north through the gorgeous Iceland landscape.

We made a stop at Stykkishólmur. This is a small town on the north coast of the peninsula. There is one scene from the movie “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” filmed in this town. If you’ve seen the movie, the small yellow building in the center of the photo below is where Walter met the helicopter pilot, ran out of the building while Cheryl sang to him, and jumped on the helicopter in this parking lot! We are fans of the movie and it was fun to see this spot.

We went around the pier and walked up Súgandisey Island, just across from previous picture, to take in the views.

There is also a member of the church who lives in this town. We tried to get in contact with her while we were there. We didn’t have success, but we left her our card so she would know she is remembered.

Just outside of Grundarfjörður is Kirkjufellsfossar & Kirkjufell Mountain. I have seen so many pictures of this incredible place, I was so excited to go there! And, this is a photo I took — it looks exactly like the pictures I’ve seen. The mountain is named “Church Mountain” because it kind of looks like a church building. It is a really beautiful place.

In our apartment there is a painting of Kirkjufell Mountain. It’s from the west side, not showing the waterfalls. We tried to get the same perspective from the painting in a photo and we did not succeed! But, we got the general idea and we have now seen what the artist saw when he had the vision for this painting.

We stopped for an early dinner of fresh fish and chips because, the ocean! And I love this fish carafe that our water came in! I wish I’d asked if they sell them! 🙂 Dinner was delicious.

We came across the Sæljós GK-2, a shipwreck along the side of the road. While I wandered the beach Todd did some serious exploring! We’re pretty sure it’s not haunted?! I couldn’t find much information about this ship, but check out the great video Todd made.

We kept getting glimpses of Snæfellsjökull, the glacier in the middle of the peninsula.

We spent the evening exploring the coast line as far west in Iceland as we have gotten so far. There is a well at the top of some cliffs where an old Viking settlement used to be. There is fresh water in it and, while it was a little creepy, it was also fascinating!

We enjoyed two different lighthouses, cliff views, birds, the setting sun, and the beauty and majesty of God’s creations throughout a really wonderful evening. Iceland is incredible.

Saturday was another full day as we finished our drive around the peninsula, stopping at all the beautiful places we could find starting with Malarrif Lighthouse. Below it is a cobble beach, one of my favorite types of beach. The sound of the water pulling back off the cobbles is really unique and beautiful.

We drove by several beautiful, small churches throughout our trip. This one was in the town Hellnar. It was quiet and lovely and look at the glacier watching over it!

One of our favorite stops of the day was at Arnarstapi. We were greeted by the Bárður Snæfellsás Statue. This statue represents the guardian spirit of the Snæfellsnes & people.

We spent quite a while wandering the overlooks at this stop. There was so much to see, the weather was gorgeous, and we couldn’t get enough of it. We loved the Gatklettur arch! It is unbelievable!

Just a little way down the trail is Músagjá. There are giant holes in the ground that open to the ocean below. Beautiful and a little terrifying! Here is a small one –

And here is a massive one! Todd did walk along the top of this arch. I did not. 🙂 It must be pretty safe, people were all over it.

One of our later afternoon stops was at a beautiful waterfall, Bjarnarfoss.

We enjoyed a short hike and as we were walking back to the car we met some new friends, Matt & Mandy Ditto from Georgia. They are members of the church, they saw our name badges and said hello. It was fun to visit for a few minutes about the Church in Iceland, to hear about their trip (they’re just starting out to travel the ring road) and to know that there are good people all over Iceland enjoying the beauty of this country.

One of our final stops was at some basalt columns off the main highway. When lava cools under certain conditions it forms into columns that are really beautiful. Just down the road from the columns was a small church and cemetery that felt secluded, lovely, and just a bit lonely.

As we were driving the final stretch back to our apartment we were discussing upcoming plans and work we have for Sunday and the new week. Todd was dictating texts for me to send for him with business he is conducting. I sent emails and texts preparing for assignments I have to do. We had a lovely time and a bit of a break from our usual work while we traveled for two days, but the work doesn’t end! It’s a bonus that we’re in such a beautiful place to do it. We feel so blessed to be missionaries in Iceland. And we love sharing it with you! Have a wonderful week. We know our next week is very busy so we’ll see you on Saturday to share about all we’re up to. 🙂

Check out Todd’s social media pages for more pictures and videos. There are a lot that did not make it into our blog this week! Enjoy!

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561154456959

https://www.youtube.com/@todde.richardson