6/28/25
Hello Friends! I’m so glad you are here to share our mission experiences with us. Over the last few weeks we’ve loved having some of our girls and their husbands come to see us. It is true — no matter how old we get we are still parents with a deep love for our children. Being separated from them while we serve has its challenges and it has been so sweet to be reunited, even if for just a few short days, with those we love the most. As the girls have come they have told us that some of you worry about me. I know it’s because I tell you how much I cry! I’ll blame it on being a woman of a certain age 😉 and how much I just love my girls! My life has been about being a wife and a mother and those roles bring me intense joy. That has not changed, but it does look a little bit different as a missionary. I’m still a wife and companion to the sweetest husband. And I’m still a mom who misses being with her family. We are finding great satisfaction in our mission and we are loving having family come to visit. Yes, there are tears when they come and tears when they go. (And sometimes tears in between!) God is good and He has filled our lives with so much joy that sometimes we have to cry it out.
In general conference in 2023 Elder Uchtdorf said, “We are eternally grateful for the countless members who serve diligently in the Church of Jesus Christ every day. Your sacrifice is truly sacred. . . there’s something equally sacred—something irreplaceable—about a parent nurturing a child. It reflects the pattern of heaven. Our Father in Heaven, our Divine Parent, surely rejoices when His children are taught and nurtured by their parents on earth.”
Though our children are grown, we love having them in our lives as much as possible. It is a blessing to watch them grow and strengthen as we serve in Iceland. Our whole family is blessed through the Spirit of the Lord as we sacrifice for Him.
Rachel and Joel were here for the first half of this week. Here are some highlights of what we did to enjoy our time together and see as much of this gorgeous country as possible.
Church in the Selfoss branch —
Each month on the fourth Sunday Todd and I attend the Selfoss branch. It is such a pleasure to meet with these good people and work with them. Rachel & Joel joined us and were instantly adopted by the branch. Rachel was put to work accompanying the music in sacrament meeting. Joel joined in singing hymns in Icelandic with his beautiful bass voice as Greta conducted. I got to speak and Todd presided so we were all participating!
Karl & Rebecca Snyder were visiting the branch this week as well. They both work in foreign service for the US government but they have such a love of Iceland that they bought a second home outside of Selfoss. Brother Snyder gave a talk in sacrament meeting in Icelandic (one of the ten languages he speaks) and they are an impressive family.
Rachel & Joel brought Todd’s drone for him to have and play with for the rest of our mission. He regretted leaving it at home and he is working on the certification and requirements to be able to fly it in Iceland. There are many places you cannot fly a drone, but many places you can. He is very respectful of that. He was excited to do some practice flying this week and, soon, you will get drone video footage in the blog and on his You tube channel!
Hallgrimskirkja —
Earlier in Rachel & Joel’s visit we had spent time in downtown Reykjavik. At that time we went to Hallgrimskirkja but it was closed for a wedding. This week we went back to go inside, enjoy the building and architecture, and go up the bell tower.
Currently there is a fiber arts exhibit in the nave that added beauty and color.
Drives through the incredible green of Iceland’s summer —
Summer is lush, rich, and luxurious in Iceland. Yes, it is still cold most of the time, but everywhere you look there are miles of green carpeted hills and mountains that are so beautiful they look unreal. We did a lot of driving throughout the week and here are a few pictures of these lush, green mountains.
Puffins —
We thought we’d had enough puffins after our boat ride last week. We were wrong. We drove the south coast to Dyrhólaey lighthouse. It was cold, rainy, and foggy. We got there and in addition to enjoying the lighthouse we enjoyed the puffins. It was incredible! Puffins nest along the cliffside where the lighthouse stands and they were all over the place. We were within a couple of feet of puffins. They were sitting, they were sleeping, they were coming and going. They were posing for glamor shots! We stayed as long as we could manage in the wind and the rain and we finally had to drag Todd away. I think he took over 300 pictures?! Here are a few of our favorites:
It was a very special and spiritual experience to be witnesses of the beauty of God’s creations in this way. Puffins are quiet compared to other seabirds. They mate for life and return to the same nesting site each year to lay a single egg. As we watched them we were reminded of God’s hand in the world around us. Life may seem chaotic and complicated, but it is also quiet and beautiful.
Here are some more pictures from the Dyrhólaey cliffs:
Todd photographing puffins and being careful to not step off the cliff!
Reynisdrangar —
With just a short drive from the puffins we made our way to Reynisdrangar, a very famous black sand beach in south Iceland.
Sólheimajökull —
We enjoyed views of the glacier. This is just a small arm of one of the largest icecaps in Iceland. Todd took beautiful pictures of the glacier. Here are some of our favorites:
Waterfalls —
Skógafoss
Seljalandsfoss
Joel taking a shower in Seljalandsfoss!
Fossarétt
Kermóafoss
Rachel knit sweaters for all of us before coming to Iceland. We did some model shots to show off her amazing work. Yes, she hand knit these!
We loved having the Hansen’s here to visit.
On Wednesday they had to go home and, while we were sad for them to leave, Rachel was missing her children and they needed to get back to real life. We needed to get back to real life too! Yes, I cried when they left. And I cried on the way home from the airport. Tears of love and tears of joy at having such sweet people to love forever.
Missionary work —
Believe it or not, we did some missionary work this week as well as enjoying our family and seeing some of the most incredible things in the world! Here are some of the mission things we worked on:
We enjoyed being taught by our zone leaders and by the Spanish elders in our mission wide zoom meeting. The mission has set a goal to remove Facebook from our phones. Facebook and other social media can be a big time waster and in an effort to use our time better, we’ve all removed the app from our phones. If you didn’t have Facebook on your phone would you use your time better? Our young mission leaders taught us about this and we have all set this goal together.
Below left: Elder Nielsen & Elder Nehren (teaching from meetings in Denmark). Below right: Elder Monzon & Elder Morales
Todd got to do temple recommend interviews this week over zoom. There is a family who live in Höfn who are active church members. Höfn is about 250 miles from Reykjavik, nearly a six hour drive. This good family participates in church over zoom and were happy to be able to do temple recommends over zoom. It is a privilege that Todd can minister in this way. If you would like to learn more about temple recommends, click here.
One of our elders sideswiped a car in their apartment parking lot. Fortunately we were told that the car they hit belongs to the nicest people who were very understanding. 🙂 Now we get to deal with auto insurance and repair shops!
For a couple of weeks we’ve needed to take Todd’s suits to the cleaners. He brought two suits to Iceland so we decided to take in one at a time. Last week we dropped the first one off to be cleaned. When Todd went to pick up his cleaned suit the business was closed and looked like it had been burgled or vandalized. He called the shop and, would you believe, they had a fire! They are still trying to figure out what happened to all of the clothing that was there at the time of the fire. We don’t know if his suit was destroyed or if it survived! Eventually we will get a call to let us know the fate of the navy suit. In the meantime, we’re very glad we didn’t take both suits in at the same time!
We did some window shopping to figure out how much it will cost to buy a new suit here. Let’s just say, we’ll stick with navy and black – I’m not keen on the Miami Vice look!
This week we started working our way through the long list of young single adult members in the Iceland District. The list we have shows 66 people who could be attending our YSA/institute nights. Right now we have four or five who regularly attend. Many people on that list are not currently active at church, many others are living with partners and have children, and others have moved away but their church records are still here. For the next several weeks Todd and I will be sorting through this list, making notes and trying to get the record current. We’re reaching out to those we can find to invite them to church and our Monday evening meetings and we hope to help them draw closer to Christ as they resume their church attendance.
We spent one evening doing cookie drop offs to some inactive members on our ministering route. It’s always enjoyable to surprise someone with cookies and we have a lot of fun just being out together on such a sweet errand. (This week’s cookie was snickerdoodles. Delicious!)
I’ve gotten in some time to work on my knitting practice. I’m making progress! I’m almost done with this sample piece and I hope that in a few weeks I can have another lesson from Helga and get started on knitting a scarf. I’m happy enough with my work to show you my sample. Don’t point out the mistakes! I’ll keep you posted.
We finished this week out with an video meeting with the Iceland North District. Our new district leader has set some goals for us to help us work hard this transfer. We appreciate him and all of our young missionaries. They are a pleasure to work with.
We went downtown for a walk to get out of the house and we found this art installation by Ólöf Norda called Þúfa. We came here once last winter but it was covered with snow and ice so we couldn’t climb it. This time we wound our way around and to the top to enjoy the views of the city. The thing I like the most about it is the gorgeous green grass — but I wonder who has to mow it? There is a small fish drying shack at the top. It was a fun place to explore for a few minutes.
We also had a fun dinner date with Wes & Karen Mogenhan. Each couple is so busy with our work, we don’t see much of each other throughout the week. It’s nice to connect and visit over good food. We’re very grateful for the Mogenhan’s.
As I finish up our post for this week I am contemplating on the great plan of happiness and, as Elder Uchtdorf said, “the pattern of heaven”. As Todd and I work together on our mission assignments we are growing closer to each other and closer to the Lord. As we enjoy visiting with our children, both in person and electronically, we can see the pattern of heaven evident in their lives and their families. In the Book of Mormon in Jacob 3:7 it says, “their husbands love their wives, and their wives love their husbands; and their husbands and their wives love their children”. This is true in our family and I am so grateful for that love and that pattern that we have been given to follow. As we minister to families, work with families, long for and pray for our family, work with our church family, and encourage our Heavenly Father’s family, we know His will and His work is being done. You are part of our family too. Thank you for loving and supporting us. If you’re not sick of us and Iceland yet, we’ll see you here next week!
Don’t forget to check out Todd’s social media pages for more videos and pictures. If you’d like to see dozens of puffin pictures, this is the place to go! Check it out! You’ll find him here:
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