11/1/25
Hello, Friends! We’ve had such a fun week. Thank you for coming to read all about it! Let’s start off with something that dominated our week and made it really beautiful . . . SNOW! Winter is definitely here. The snow brought October to an end and ushered in November with it’s beauty and the muffled calm and quiet it brings with it. Except for all of the challenges that snow adds to life. But from inside our apartment it is beautiful!
But the snow didn’t start until Tuesday and we have a few things to talk about first. Sunday was busy and great! My lovely friend Helga came to church to and it was a pleasure to see her and sit with her in sacrament meeting. Helga is a blessing in my life and I appreciate her love and friendship. And knitting skills. 😉
After church our friend Doroth got baptized. Doroth came to Iceland from Tanzania to go to school here. She found the gospel through her neighbor and member, Sarah. Doroth has been learning from the missionaries for a couple of months and she was so excited to get baptized. Before her baptism I was helping her with her clothing and preparations. I stood in the bathroom at the door to the font while Elder Benzley baptized her. It was so special. When Doroth came up out of the water she climbed the stairs to me and said, “Something changed! Right as I came out of the water I felt something change!” It was amazing. I felt the Holy Ghost touch my heart as Doroth felt her life change as she made her first covenants with Heavenly Father. She was confirmed shortly after her baptism and the Spirit was so strong in the room. She testified to us that she knows she has changed. It was a blessing for all of us to witness Doroth become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Click here if you would like to know just what covenants we make when we are baptized.)
Below you will see Doroth with Elder Benzley & Elder Moyer. And me!
Monday night we had our regular institute class. It was great, we have a good group of young single adults and missionaries who attend. It was the evening before my birthday and Todd got a treat for everyone to share so we could turn our dinner into an impromptu birthday party. It was fun!
Tuesday was my birthday! My second birthday in the mission field and I definitely feel one year older and (hopefully) wiser! We woke up to the first blizzard of the winter. It had been forecast to begin later in the day on Tuesday so we were surprised to wake up to several inches of snow already on the ground. We are grateful we have underground parking we get to use.
In the picture below on the left you can see the mailman, on his scooter, out to do his job in the snow! And, these bicyclists won’t be stopped, although we did watch several cars get stuck on the hill going up behind our house. The traffic was heavy and slow all day.
We had to change our plans for the day because of the weather. The winter tires will go on all of the mission cars at the beginning of next week. We can still drive on the summer tires, but not in weather like this! The missionaries were dusting off their bus passes and Todd and I spent my birthday mostly working at home. I was spoiled with gifts, cards, and video chats from our family and feel very loved.
Our mission has a fun birthday tradition where the birthday missionary gets a shout-out on the mission chat. Our zone leaders wrote me the cutest note and it made me feel so loved and special here! I want to save it so I’ll add it here. It’s good to know they are happy with what I feed them! It’s such a pleasure to work with these excellent young men.
We did make it out for a snowy walk in the early afternoon. At that time we estimated there was about a foot of snow and it was still coming down heavy.
The elders all had fun working in the snow! Elder Monzon, below left, has never seen snow before! Both of these boys are from California and they had a good time (I think?) doing their work in the blizzard.
All the missionaries braved the snow to do their work. Below you will see L-R: Elder Nielsen, Elder Bredthauer, Elder Benzley, & Elder Moyer.
Elder Nehren & Elder Young are in Akureyri and they already have a lot of snow, but didn’t get the blizzard we had in the south. They still knocked doors in the cold and contributed to the work in Iceland!
I spent my birthday evening in video chats with our girls and their families and with my mom. It was such a fun way to spend a birthday! The party continued into the night. After I went to bed and was sleeping, the storm had moved out and Todd stayed up watching this out of our office window:
The snow had ended but Wednesday morning the high temperature for the day was 28 degrees F. The sun was shining but the snow was not melting. Because the roads were still bad all of our meetings took place over zoom throughout the day.
Wednesday morning we had our first Emotional Resilience class with two districts of the Denmark Copenhagen mission in Denmark. Todd and I are working with the missionaries serving in the Amagerbro district and the Gladsaxe district. We did the first chapter in the Emotional Resilience manual and had a great group discussion about exercising faith in Jesus Christ to build emotional resilience. (You can read more about this here.) Each week on Wednesday mornings at 8 am we will work with these missionaries and learn about emotional resilience together.
Below you will see our class L-R: Elder Allen, Elder Ross, me & Todd, Elder Leifson, Elder Barrus, Elder Christensen, Elder Rose, Sister Kimball, Sister Larsen, Sister Whitt, Sister Fergus, Sister Nelson, & Sister Beeler
Next we had a meeting with the other Iceland couples to review how their emotional resilience classes had gone. Everyone did a good job! We all have room for improvement but it seems like overall it was a successful first week. Nine different senior couples across the mission are all facilitating these classes on Wednesday mornings at the same time. We hope it will be a wonderful, strengthening experience for the elders and sisters in the mission.
Our district council meeting this week was supposed to be in person at the church but it was moved online to keep the cars off the roads. We had great training from our district leaders, Elder Geertsen & Elder Monzon. And all of the missionaries reported on the work they are doing and the progress being made in the mission work in Iceland.
Another fun planning meeting Todd and I had this week was with our zone leaders, Elder Moyer and Elder Benzley, to discuss the holidays! We talked through the plans the elders have for holiday mission work they need our help with and for how the elders want to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. I can’t imagine a better topic to discuss during a blizzard! There are fun things coming up and they all require work in order to be successful.
Sister Mogenhan and Sister Hutchings and I also met to continue our work on the missionary apartment food storage program.
We’re close to having things updated in each apartment and weeks like this are a good reason to have some food storage! The whole week was affected by the weather. The blizzard was Tuesday and it stayed cold and icy on Wednesday and Thursday. The missionaries were either walking or busing around town. Todd had a couple of places he had to get to in the car. We got this beautiful view across the top of our apartment building on our way home from one errand.
Another evening we got a phone call from Elder Nielsen & Elder Bredthauer who were stuck downtown. Not stuck in their car, stuck at a bus stop and no bus was coming to pick them up. We drove into town to get them, slipping and sliding along the way, in and out of icy ruts on the roads. We found them and got them safely to the church and they were able to walk down the hill to their apartment when they were done with their work. It was an adventurous hour for us to be out on the roads.
The next night, at almost the exact same time, we got a phone call from Elder Nielsen & Elder Bredthauer who were stuck downtown. Not stuck in their car, stuck at a bus stop and no bus was coming to pick them up. Yep! The exact same thing happened two nights in a row! Each time we went to pick them up I took them cookies so we were starting to wonder if this was just a ploy to get a treat and a ride home! 😉 The buses usually run later but the icy roads made trouble for everyone.
And, here is their car on Thursday night!
For the majority of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we worked at home. I was grateful for the unexpected snow days to get caught up on loads of work. (A few of the things I’m working on this week: The Christmas concert, unit histories, food storage, branch directories, YSA information . . .) The sun came out but it did not warm up until Friday.
Friday morning Todd had a presidency meeting with President Davidson. During these meetings I am the secretary and take notes and detail the action items. We love President Davidson and are happy to support him in every way that we can. He gave us an interesting new project to work on and we look forward to seeing him and Sister Davidson in two weeks at our next zone conference.
Throughout the day Friday the temperature rose and it rained. There was a yellow warning across the country for high winds and rain. The snow and ice was melting and the roads were much better. We were glad to get out of the apartment for a couple of hours and run some errands in the wind. The roads were wet but drivable and the parking lots were a hilarious mess! But we made it through unscathed.
You might think our zoom meetings were over, but you would be wrong! We watched a zoom webinar introducing the “Light the World” campaign for 2025. We are excited to share the good things this campaign has to offer to the people in Iceland during the holiday season.
We finished our Friday meetings with a meeting with Elder and Sister Davis in Denmark to work on more emotional resilience items.
All through the night Friday to Saturday the wind blew and the snow melted. We woke up Saturday morning to a November view that looks like spring! The picture below is the same view out our bedroom window from earlier in the week. The high temperature Saturday got up to 51 degrees F! So long to winter and back to summer?!
Yep, here they are, four days apart!
The weather gave us whiplash throughout the week and it was so much fun. It was a blessing for me to have several days at home to get caught up on my work. We loved our time with our family and friends to celebrate my birthday through video chats. It was super fun to see all the work the missionaries did throughout the stormy days. We especially appreciated the sadness they felt when they had to change their plans and the effort and energy they put into meeting their obligations in new and creative ways. Who knows what the weather in November will look like? But could it be as crazy as October? I think Iceland would say, “Yes!”
Part of our emotional resilience class is to write down something every day that you are grateful for. Our class has been doing this in our group chat. To close this week’s blog and to usher in the month of gratitude, here are a few of the things our class has expressed gratitude for over the past several days. Maybe this list will help you remember the things you are grateful for too!
- I’m grateful that I know Jesus Christ is always beside me.
- I’m grateful for the scriptures and my personal studies.
- I’m grateful for oatmeal.
- I’m grateful for warm blankets.
- I’m grateful for my potatoes.
- I’m grateful for my companion.
- I’m grateful for President Richardson’s pictures.
- I’m grateful for my eternal companion. (Todd shared this one!)
- I’m grateful for trees.
- I’m grateful for cookies.
- I’m grateful for running.
- I’m grateful for breakfast.
- I’m grateful for music.
- I’m grateful for chocolate.
- I’m grateful for other church members.
- I’m grateful for umbrellas.
- I’m grateful for piano.
- I’m grateful that I was given the choice to eat or not eat Sister Richardson’s new breakfast creation this morning. I chose not to. (Again, Todd’s contribution!)
- I’m grateful for flowers.
- I’m grateful for rain.
- I’m grateful for sweaters.
- I’m grateful for my district.
- I’m grateful for our QUAD. (Group of missionaries who are living together.)
- I’m grateful for pumpkins.
- I’m grateful for techonology.
- I’m grateful for great yields with our harvest.
- I’m grateful for beaches.
- I’m grateful for the SUN.
- I’m grateful for Sister Nelson’s pumpkin bread.
- I’m grateful for my boots.
- I’m grateful for sugar.
- I am thankful for wool socks.
The list goes on! President Nelson said, “No matter our situation, showing gratitude for our privileges is a fast-acting and long-lasting spiritual prescription.” I believe this is true. I am thankful for our mission, for our great God and for His Son, my Savior. And I am thankful for you. See you next week!
Check out Todd’s social media pages for more photos and videos. You can find him here:
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