Thursday, June 28, 2012

Spencer (and Austin)

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This guy is the reason we made it to the States when we did. He is a Pilot for United and he was so kind to let us have his seat while he took the jump seat. He was a lot of fun to talk to and was super stoked on life.

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“We’re the impossibles from Austin Texas!” (Song lyrics from the group The Impossibles)  So we made it to Austin and man, its hot and awesome!

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So apparently Spencer was supposed to start going to a ward that starts at 8:30AM. We went there, and found out that this week was stake conference! We helped set up some chairs and hung out until 10 when it started. It was a really great stake conference. There was a guy from St. George that spoke, and another guy who served in Italy! The most memorable talk was probably the one given by a young woman who told a story about when she and her friends were hot tubbing and they started talking about spiritual things, she felt prompted to share something with them, hesitated, but then decided to share it. She said they really felt the spirit in that hot tub!

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The three amigos!

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Sunday dinner!!!!! We had some gnarly oven pizza!

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Spencer loves having us over : )

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This is the Capital Building. It’s pretty old and pretty cool. A lot of stuff has taken place in this building. Texas is a pretty important state. I can just imagine how many bandits came into this building, with their pistols yelling, “Sheriff, you and me…outside.” then going to the street as the tumble weeds blow by as the line up in front of each other. All of a sudden they draw and the Sheriff shoots the bandits gun out of his hand and yells, “Get out of here you mangy animal” That is what I call true Texan history.

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Austin is filled with Crickets. It’s crazy.

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Let’s go Rick Perry!!!! Number 1

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The camera didn’t focus too well, but that guy in the background is totally named Ray.

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I am so sorry Hailey. I know how you feel. haha

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I had to have Clark pose for a photo because I seriously thought that Jimmy John’s was just a St. George thing, but they were all over Austin!

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Life is pretty darn good!

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Later Finchster! Love ya homie. Can’t wait for the big day. August 25th is going to be a day to remember. We will see you then.

We had a fun time visiting Spencer!! It must be hard being out there on those hot summer days, but I guess sacrifice brings forth blessings and he seems to be having success and we’re all looking forward to the Bachelor party in August!!! (and the wedding of course)

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Roma – Day 5?!

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There goes our plane!! Due to a weight restriction we weren’t able to get on the flight. There were plenty of open seats, but I guess we would just be too heavy. haha. Oh well, we were excited to spend another day in Rome!
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I was having a conversation with Clark while we were riding back to Rome. I was looking out at the scenery while I talked, and when I looked over he was out!
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This Gelato was amazing! We got the fruit Gelato this time and man, It was sooooo tasty. I got Mango and Melon.
I think we needed to stay in Rome an extra day so Clark could experience more Italian food. I feel bad that we didn’t eat more gelato this trip.
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Haha I bet they didn’t expect us to be eating with them again. I sure love this family. They were so good to us.
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It was a really hot day, so whenever we passed by a church (and there are a lot to pass by everywhere in Rome), we would stop in and sit down to cool off for a few minutes.
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So all day I wanted a hat. I was looking around so I could buy one because I wanted a hat. We show up at this Olympic Game festival that they were doing and they were giving away a ton of stuff including hats. I was STOKED!!!!
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Thank you FFA for teaching me such great skills.
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After I did this high jump a lady invited me to challenge some Olympic competitors to the high jump. They came over, but we only each did one jump. They were probably too scared to raise the bar.
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So we were just shooting the basketball around when the girl on the far right came up to me and said, “Hey want to play a game?” I never pass up a game of Bball. I said of course and we split up and played some 3 on 3. They were such a fun group because they loved to play and have fun. We played for about 15 minutes until we were all sweaty. It was a blast.
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We found Aslan!
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This was us after Basketball. We were sweatin like crazy!
I think it may be hard to see, but my arm was soaked.
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 All three of these guys were on the mission with me! They’re still there! haha.
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The fireside was nice, the refreshments were awesome!
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This is me and Eugenia. She speaks Russian, Romanian, English and Italian. I am glad she could speak English.
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Dima took this picture – If you look in the background you can see it looks like there’s a shoe under that chair. haha. Really it’s just some guys foot.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Roma - 4


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One of the dangers of using self-timer.
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It was so funny. We were all planning to go swimming at this gorgeous lake. When Jeffery came to pick us up he was wearing normal clothes so we were like, “where are we going?”. He then took us to this gorgeous village on this hill. This is not a place many tourist go because it is far from Rome and hard to get to but it was amazing. We took a look around and enjoyed every part of it.
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This is one of many views from the top. How cool would that be to wake up to this every morning? This is their backyard.
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This place was great. Even though it was a very hot Italian summer outside, down here in the wine cellar it felt like it was heavily air conditioned. We need to build a room like this onto our house in St. George.
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Oh, Jeffrey. And look how happy he is about it:
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This photo if for Rex!
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Jeffery is the man!
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So I did this back flip without stretching my ankles which kind of left them stinging. All of a sudden I hear this Italian yell, “Do it again! Do it again!” He had his camera out so of course I had to do it one more time. The second time felt the same way but it was worth it to please my Italian brotha.
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We had a contest to see who could throw the fruit the farthest. Try and find it in the photo! It was hard to judge the distance of our throws, but naturally we can just assume that I won.
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Another flower photo!
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This was my first Gelato in Italy! It was so good.
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Dima is the craziest driver. He is worse than Spencer which I thought was impossible. I would just have to sit in the back and close my eyes and once in awhile pray so that I would live. If you notice in this picture, the speed limit is 50. Dima made the excuse that he thought it said 70. Well even if it was 70 check out how fast he was going in the next picture….
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Jeffrey was on edge the entire time! haha. Eventually he traded me seats because he couldn’t handle sitting in the front. I was already used to it because I served with Dima in Gela and we had a car there. He drives really fast, but it’s safe.
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This is one of Zac Zabriskies companions. He talked up my homie Zac and said he loved serving with him. We also talked about how Zac always kept us in line. Joseph was also the Zone Leader to my cousin Sam.
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The whole purpose of this meal was to watch Portugal play the Czech Republic. Ronaldo scored, life is good.
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His name is Jeffrey, he speaks English, Spanish, Italian and a few other languages. He’s a return missionary, and he’s single. If you want his contact information, shoot me an e-mail
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We ran into Sorella Askew again!! (Caitlin..) That was fun! Unfortunately we didn’t see her until the end of our trip (just like last time. lol) Oh well, I’m sure we’ll find her again and hopefully have time to hang out.