#Brindisiatchristmas

Rex is having a great experience, although the work is slow in Brindisi.  It was the experience of a lifetime to be able to talk to Rex on Christmas.  He can tell me all is well in emails, but until I see his face and hear his voice, I am just not sure.  I think the years of Sean being deployed has prepared me for these trying times.  I wouldn't wish for Rex to be anywhere else than where he is.  It has been such a blessing to our family to have him on a mission.  He is such a great example to us all. 

BRINDISI.

brindisibrindisibrindisi.

this week was an eventful week, and we haven't had one of those in quite a long time.

just a few stories.

We had an awesome investigator named angelica. she is a sweet african lady and she would come to church all of the time, but recently we found out she had one preoccupation. she didn't want to read the book of mormon. plus she thought we were magicians. but we had some fun lessons with her!

we went over to the Okoh's house this week! they were baptized about a year ago. really awesome family. their kids put stickers all over my missionary planner, but it's pretty cool now, so i'm alright with it. :) they made us some chicken and rice, and iot tasted like something my mom would make, and i ate soooo much of it, and i was just the happiest little american boy. 

we went to church on sunday and an american family showed up! the Harris family, from Idaho. brother kip harris is the dean of students at BYU-I and his son brandon served in this mission about a year ago, including 9 months at the end of his mission in brindisi! they came, and sister harris brought us homemade carmel and fruit leather (SUPER GOOD), and we ate pranzo with the palma's, afterwards, we walked around ostuni with this family and some english course students. 

transfers are coming up, so anziano jones will probably go somewhere else. he hopes rome, but we'll see. it's be nice for him to stick around one more, but once again, we'll see. i'm excited for next transfer as well, because i feel like brindisi is going to explode with people interested in the gospel.

work's good, life's good, i'm good. :)

vi voglio bene, 

anziano blair.

That Hair Though

Christmas!



The Harris Family From BYU Idaho

I'll have what he is having!

#birthdaysinitalia‏

I thought I lost Rex's blog for like a month.  I seriously couldn't find it.  I hope this works.  I am not tech savvy at all.  The poor kid.  I swear I saw a picture of him with a birthday cake.  Now I can't find it. Darnit!



There he goes again drinking nasty water again..

 Looking cool as usual!

So thankful he had such a great first companion!



The Island of Malta....

This is why Rex is jealous. Can you imagine???



YO. so it's been a little while. sorry about last week, we napped and missed a lot of email time. lesson learned. no more naps. even if it's p-day.

so a lot of crazy stuff has happened! let's start with my birthday. 

september 1st. it was planned to be the perfect birthday. beach volleyball, awesome food, good day.

and then it rained. and then we forgot the phone at home, so we didn't know that beach volleyball was cancelled. so it started going downhill pretty fast. 

until francesco came around. he took us out to pizza, and he gave me an awesome shirt and tie for my birthday. he is the best.

days passed, and work fell through a lot. we did a lot of finding, and din't find a lot of people. but it's ok. things will work out soon! we had zone conference and i got my AWESOME package. i just hope you guys know that all of he stuff you wanted me to give to the primary kids in my branch are sitting at the house waiting for the next zone conference. :) Those are missionary toys! we had an awesome training from president waddoups, about developing faith to find. it was also good seeing all of the missionaries in the zone again.

i gave the district meeting training on tuesday. it was focused on humility, and i started off by asking people about all of the jank stuff about missionary work. haha, they were like 'what?' and then i said that all of the stuiff that is hard about missionary work can be overcome through humility, which is basically saying that we need to rely less on what we want, and rely more on the fact that what happens to us is what God wants. people told me it went well.

We had scambi on friday and saturday last, and it was awesome. I went and scambied with anziano Bee, and we did a lot of finding. we also got our transfer calls!

so the big news is........ I'm staying in Rome 5! this is going to be my 4th transfer, and i will hit my 6th month mark. awesome! Anziano Smith is going to MALTA! (i'm a bit jealous) i'm extremely excited for him! which means that i will be recieving a new companion. ANZIANO PUFF. (pronounced poof) he is from north italy, and he is german. i've heard that he speaks a little italian, and next to none english. this next transfer is going to be very interesting. it's ok, because we'll be able to keep teaching francesco! francesco has been coming to church with us and he's just an amazing man. he's a good friend, and he already said that anziano smith and i can go visit him any summer for a month after the mission. so i will be going bakck to italy every summer. :)

dario is also doing very well. he's an amazing guy, and he is so excited to get baptized. he's almost ready too! 

well, today we will be going to francescos to play some soccer and ultimate with frisbee. life has been good! i'm excited to be with anziano puff in a few days. maybe i'll drive. probably not. 

Love you all, write a missionary. there are thousands out there.

ciaociaociao, anziano blair.

#levibetterstartlearningparkour

It sounds like he is doing well.  He still has not answered a single question I have asked him.  I even asked him "Why haven't you answered my questions?"  He Said.... "What questions?"  He is exhausting.  Seeing his pictures tells me everything I need to know.  He is making great choices and is loving the work.  I am grateful for his example to my younger kids.  He is setting the standard for the others to follow.  What great kid!  I am glad he got himself a FLY Suit and a tiZight tie.  That boy!



ciaociaociao.

so this week has been long and insane.

Monday- P-day. we went and got some FLY suits, and saw our friend francesco! he is so great. He is a clarinet player for the carabinieri band (carabinieri is basically a branch of the police force in italy). He got us carabinieri ties and they are super sick! 

Tuesday- we did DDM, and afterwards, i ended up staying in terni with Anziano Stephens for a scambio. we had a lot of studies to do, and then we went and taught english course. it went super well, and i'm kinda jealous that they have an english course and we don't. but, we have a couple of places lined up for english course in september. (ps i'm almost 19, which is proprio bogus)

Wednesday- two words. Zone Blitz. basically, everyone in our zone went to the rome 1 area, and did missionary work there all day, because there is not a lot of work going on there. It was fun, because we did scambi basically all day, and we attempted guitar finding. haha, it was tight.

Thursday- we went and hung out with mattia vaccarono, this tight 12 year old brother that wants to learn guitar. so i gave him my guitar and we did some cleaning in his house. we also downloaded spotify on his phone and jammed to lower lights whilewe were doing the dishes. this kid is proprio tight. he always asks about levi and what kind of parkour levi can do. but he says it all in italian, so i kind of just say levi can do anything. so levi, everyone here thinks you are a parkour wizard.

Friday- we went and saw our african boys samuel and latif. they are so tight, and they just need to find a way to get to churc. we really need to get a chapel out here, it is so hard for everyone to meet at the hotel in fiano romano, and even harder for investigators.

Saturday- We got transfer calls, and me and smithboi are doing another! we are super excited, because work will really start picking up after agosto. Smith will be District leader and we will have 2 greenies in our district. tizight. we went and saw our boy francesco at his house in poggio mirteto. he is building a house out ther in the mountains, and it is literally the most tranquillo place on earth. we have been having such a good time with him, and he thinks we are the greatest ragazzi in the world. he says that there are no other people that have this great of faith, to drop everything for 2 years and preach to people the things they know to be true, and paying the entire way there. I just hope one day the spirit can show him that we do this because of the blessings we have recieved and the power we have been given.

Sunday- another day at church. we gave the lesson in priesthood, and i literally don't speak italian, so i asked like 4 profound questions and let everyone share there thoughts. italian priesthood is the best.

today we are going to go on a hike at tevere farfa, since we did our work this morning.

tell me how life is! send pics! vi voglio tanto bene!

Anziano Blair

#itsagoodthingigetpictures

Whelp!  He better get better at giving me more information!  Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.  He obviously doesn't need me.  Thanks goodness for AWESOME pictures.  I can't get enough of his big ole smile! 

There it is.....

So i don't have a crazy email this week. We've had lots of work, and lots of bidones (missionary slang for cancelled appointments [direct-ish translation is trash])

Our investigator stefano came to a baptism at the rome 2 building and he liked it, but he has his orthodox church to attend. everyone has their beliefs. the spirit has really touched him though.

I've decided to start eating cheese again.

Every time we get home late, the warm water doesn't work the next day. So there's a sign. :)

We are working hard, and it's a bit tough, but it was never easy for the Lord and his missionaries. Sempre avanti.

Elder Smith's birthday passed a while ago, so wish him a happy birthday. 

Palazzo had a birthday a while ago, so wish him happy birthday.

I sent some pictures. 

I am sure he ate the whole thing!

Tonight we are meeting with some guy i talked to on the train for like 20 minutes from Rome to Poggio Mirteto. His name is francesco, he is Carabinieri (some sort of police), and he says that baltimore is the most beautiful city on earth. I asked what our first names were, and we told him like a week and a half ago, and when i called him last night, i said 'ciao, francesco?' and he was like 'REX!' haha, awesome dude. he plays the clarinet, and he wants to have a dinner and jam sesh tonight at his house in rome. 

hopefully he's tight with a message.

works going along.

thanks for the pictures. send a lot more.

work on that package. LOVE YOU ALL.

ciao, anziano blair.

beautiful!
 

#emailmeatandchickenburgers

I was so excited to get an email with some meat on it this week.  When I don't get good emails from him I get discouraged because I know he is discouraged.  He has been having headaches a lot.  The Dr. told him it was the cheese.  So I am not sure if he stopped eating cheese or what.  I have asked him a million time if it was crazy over there with the world cup going on.  He still hasn't answered me.  I am not sure what permesso means.  It translates permission.  Maybe for his Italian license?   He sounds so much better than he has.  I know he misses home.  What a blessing he is to our family.  I am so thankful for his service!

LOVE HIM!

I wanna eat what is on the bottom left!

 

 

Can you believe he is there?

REX is a selfy master!

 

 

 

 

this week was off the hook. we had ddm and i met the new ZL. He is dying this transfer, but he's tight. we're starting a band when I get back. 

We had like a lot of lessons last week, and it was awesome. We met up with this girl cammelia, and she speaks proprio english. in fact, she only wanted to meet with us because we spoke english. buuuuuut we left her with an awesome commitment to read alma 32, and talked a lot about the restoration, and she loved it. She is from Rieti, so she belongs to a different area. We have literally had over 20 referrals to other areas. Me and Smith are finding machines, but for everyone else! anyways, I've been having some permesso troubles, so we spent a lot of time in riete this last week. We went to McDonalds and I ate 5 chickenburgers, cause bust.

afterwards, we did english course in our hotel/church meeting house, becuase the sisters could not make it. the students LOVED me and anz simth, and asked us to come back with the sisters next week. so we will see how that goes.

STORYTIME- Ok, I have had some of the best experiences of my life this past week.

over a month ago, me and smith decided we wanted to do some strada out in the country. so we parked the car and started walking. we had probablòy knocked on 12 different houses and decided we should probably head home. we both settled on ringin one more citophone. so we ring it, and this guy comes out and stand at the bottom of his driveway, which was probably a football field long. he yells and asks what we wanted, and we told him we were missionaries. he said he wasnt interested, and i yelled 'MA DAI', which essentially means, 'COME ON.' he smiled and walked away. anyways, After english course last thursday, we called our girl Simona. we first met her when she was sitting in her car. She called us over and wanted to talk to us, so we got her number and told her we'd stop by her store and exchange information. we got her number and call her after english course. she told us we could go to her house, and we got her address and such. so we were driving down some road in the middle of nowhere. we get to her house and IT WAS THE LAST HOUSE WE KNOCKED ON OVER A MONTH AGO. the guy came out, and he totally knew i had yelled ' ma dai' at him forever ago. long story short, they are coming to church next sunday, and want to meet with us again. the work goes on.

Had a good american pranzo with the sorelle and some members for fourth of july, and went and did some service in the old folks home. i sat next to some lady from argentina and she was speaking spanish to me the whole time and i had no idea what she was saying, but she was tight. afterwards, we went and met some of marcos friends (a ton of old people from poggio catino) and we just sat and talked at some benches. like 2 american missionaries and 8 random old italian people that have probably been meeting at those benches their entire lives.

Stefano and lorenzo both cam to church.

We had a bomb lesson sunday night, and this lady is already prime for baptism, so we're going to focus on her. her name is marilena.

no more time. no pictures this week, but next week i will have some tight terni pictures and some rome ones, as well.

vi voglio tanto bene!

#forthebeautyoftheearth

Rex is doing so Great. I have never accused Rex of being a great communicator. As he gets older he is becoming more like his Dad and can tell a great story.  He could give a little more but I will take what I can get.  I love that he can see the beauty in Our Heavenly Fathers Creations.  He is living in a perfect example of the beauty of the earth.  I am jealous.  :) I don't believe I have ever seen Rex so happy.  I am so proud of him.   

 

 


AHHHHHH!



I love his face!



As a mother this picture scares me.
 I am curious to know if he got sick.

Now we are all jealous...

ITALY: WEEK ONE.

Momma, i did not know what I was getting myself into. this place has literally become home and it's been a week.

i have seen so many miracles, it's crazy. 

The first lady I ever talked to is named Jenny. She is a Philipino woman that speaks english. to make a very long story short, she joined the church in '94, had to moe to the middle east so that her son could go to school. in the middle east, there are no scriptural books beside the koran allowed, so she became inactive. she moved to italy and was bedridden because she has a stomach ulcer. the very first time she decided to go outside in months was the day she ran into me. JENNY IS A MORMON. she is meeting with the sisters now, and she wants to come to church.

So we went to Rieti last week (most beautiful place on the face of the earth) to get my permesso papers done, and we met an older woman named Carla. she is a post office worker, with a beautiful family. she said that she wanted to be baptized, rather jokingly, but she accepted our number and gave us hers. we taught her 2 nights ago, with her family. they were so nice and the spirit was super tangible. we gave her a BOM and she said she was going to pray and such. super cool, we're going to set up another appointment. bad news- they live in the Terni district. so we have to give them over to Terni. THEY ARE SO COOL so we might teach them another lesson just for fun. :)

so one thing Dad told me to do was to 'use my talent.' in the last week, i have played the Ukulele and some bongos, and they have led to contacts. all i'm saying is when you can, use you're talents, and then slip some gospel in.

the members of my ward are awesome, and most of them speak a bit of english, so that is helpful.

we lost the car keys this week, so we went on a super long journey to rome to get the spare key. it was probably one of the best days of the mission. we taught most of the restoration of the gospel to a woman named gaisa, and she loved it. we will probably teach her and her husband sometime this week. we also met this dope less active guy named Alex. he was baptized eight years ago, and just stopped going one day. he motioned me over to talk to him and i didn't have many words to say. but he said because i was so eager to talk to him, even though i only spoke a little bit of italian, he really wanted to go back to church, because the people are so nice. he calls me riccio. which means hedgehog. awesome.

we also talked to bamba, and he was awesome. he was with his friend mustafa, and they are the guys that played the bongos. he was so cool, and he accepted a french BOM from us. but he lives in ladispoli, so we referred him to the elders there.

so far we've taught a few awesome member lessons, and hung out with a convert of one year Nem every sunday so far. but it's been awesome. we're trying to get an english course goping here, so i'll let you know how that turns out.

this place is awesome. we'ìve recieved about 10 contacts this last week, all of which lived outside our area, except for gaisa. the Lord is definitely testing our finding skills.

read lots of scrips, send lots of love, and tell the ward that i think about them all of the time. tell matt vest to email me. i still need TJ's email. and michael hansens email.

I love you all very much!

:)

ciao!

anziano blair.

 

 

 

WEEK TWO:

 

don't have a ton of time, because the darn computer froze on me.

lots has happened, and it's all been insane. the last 2 weeks of my life have proprio strano. 

so i have to cut out just a bit.here we go.

i've eaten at 2 restauraunts this week, and it's been great.i ate at 1 for free, because our zone leaders have hookups. IT WAS A 7 COURSE MEAL. too tight. the lady there may have sent a ton of pictures.

we ate at another restauraunt trying to meet a contact who owned the place, but she never showed. it costed 10 euro and was the best pasta i have ever had. too cool.

we only had one lesson this week, and that was with andrea. he is awesome, and he attends the sisters english course. he likes imagine dragons, and thinks its cool how i have every song in the world memorized.

i bought a guitar for 20 euro. long story short, we can play instruments, and i got a tight classical guitar. it needs new strings though, so uncle eric, get on that. 80/20 silk and steel per favore. or whatever you use when you play classical.

so i prophecied like crazy this week. Anz smith came into the room and said, 'should i roll my sleeves up today?' and i said 'dude. if 3 ragazze (teenage girls) walk by today and your sleeves aren't rolled up, they won't want to hear what you have to say. but if they walk by and your sleeves are rolled up, they'll listen to us.'

guess what. we ran into 4 ragazze and 1 ragazzo. anz smiths sleeves were rolled up. the minute he thought, 'there are only supposed to be 3 ragazze.' oine of them went away.

WHAT. prophecy.

we went to mass on sunday, because this awesome african woman invited us. some opf them were super nice. some of them gave us 'the look.' overall it was tight. we jammed to an ecuadorian folk band someewhere in there, also.

'take no thought for the morrow.'

it's been fun! loving life.

Ciao! Anz Blair.

#Italianboyscoutpants

I am getting tired of going through his emails and correcting them.. Love you REX!  but, I am too tired to do all the corrections.  He is doing Awesome!
 His address is.....

Missione Italiana Di Roma

p.zza carnaro, 20

00141 Roma.

Boy Scout pants Italian style!



Anzianos Blair and Palazzo....  Rome Temple!

President and Sister Waddoups!

Elders Blair and Smith

WOW.

this place is nuts.

mama mia. 

before i get into the gritty details of this dope mission, let me tell you that this is the mostbeautiful, dirty, awesome, crazy place in the entire world. it's like africa got slapped in the face with the middle of texas, all at the base of the rocky mountains. i know. its nuts.

my president is straight up the man. pres. waddoups was sent here for a reason, and he's definitely the man for the job. sister waddoups is probably the most enerjetic lady in the entire world, which is super dope.

palazzo and i stayed in the mission home friday night where we got our calls, and we sang the rome mission hymn (rome missionaries are proud missionaries) and we went out the next day.

the people here are awesome! nobody is interested in the gospel, but EVERYONE will give us the shirt off their backs. it's nuts! ahhhhhhh. we ran into someone at the store this morning and she said she would help us find a place for english course. WE JUST MET HER. it was too dope.

anyways, i'm here in the Rome 5 area. and we are like the only area that the elders don't teach an english course. (one awesome way of spreading the gospel here is through our english courses.) I live in Passo Corese with the COOLEST companion on the face af the earth, Anz Regan Smith. he's from Atlanta, he's been here almost a year, and he is the dopest trainer ever! 

Rome 5 rules. yesterday was my first day at church, and everyone in our branch already speaks english, so they are all helping me out. we meet in a hotel for church! IT'S SO COOL! they made me bear my testimony as well. and they all laughed at me. but that's cool, because everyone said i speak better than like any greenie ever.

we brought our investigator Lorenzo on sunday. he is the first person i met out here that wasn't a member. He is so cool! he's an awesome cook, he probably smokes 2 packs a day, and he isn't crazy interested in the church. but he is a great cook.

the food is dope. no other words.

the traffic here is nuts! me and my trainer are like one of the only companionships with a car, and it's nuts. i want an Ape. and everything closes from like 1-5 for lunch. america could learn to do that.