Farewell Elder Thomas

Burn It All Up

Yeah, I work out

Has anyone in the audience ever destroyed a piano? I have. Jealous much? I bet you are. Well I can tell you right now that it is awesome. I feel so relaxed now.

I brought Dixon's sledgehammer to my friend Felicia's house and soon the piano was no more. It was all for some sort of art project that she's doing. She wants to take broken instruments to a waterfall and take pictures of them. Who knows how or where she got the idea but I like it and wanted to help. So since I helped pick up the piano I got to take one of the first hits.






I'd like to point out my left calf in this picture. But anyways, in a matter of minutes we managed to take it down to this...






Soon after that it turned into this...

This was probably one of the last big things I got to do with Justin, who is leaving next Tuesday to go to Brazil on his mission. So I picked up the ax and we got a picture together.

The Red is Redder, the White is Whiter, the Blue is Bluer

Yesterday I got to participate in one of the most incredible things I have ever done. A cousin of mine, Jim Lively, passed away last week and his funeral services were conducted yesterday morning.

He is a Marine and when my brother joined the Marines he was so proud of him and he loved him very much. At the viewing, his wife even had a picture of my brother in his dress blues on display. Jim was very proud to be an American and loved the military. He flew a flag for every branch of the military, the state of Idaho, a remembrance flag for those missing in action and prisoners of war, and and American Flag. His wife asked that my brother and one of their grandsons who was a sailor retire the Marine flag before the viewing on Sunday.

Monday after the funeral she asked that we retire the other flags for the day. Being an Eagle scout I helped my brother retire the flags this time. It was a great feeling to be able to assist my brother in this and to honor Jim and the service that he rendered in any way that I could.

I wish I was eloquent enough and creative enough to properly honor Jim in this post. But Jim was an amazing man and I know I will see him again someday. He did a lot for my family and his lovely wife Elsie will miss him dearly. Thank you Jim. Rest in peace.

(soon) to be Elder Pieper

He's going to Munich, Germany.


He opened his call tonight.


He leaves two weeks before me.


His name is Jared Pieper.


10 weeks my friend.

"It's like my sandwich grew legs and kicked me in the face... But in a good way."

- Michael

Cinco de 3rd

Michael is a strange boy. He's the only other male I work with. He just got back from a mission in Tennessee, and he's been my brothers best friend for the longest time.

Since he got home from his mission he's been wanting to go to this restaurant called Zupa's. It's all he talks about. No matter where we go he asks if there's a zupas nearby. So far there hasn't been... until today.

I started planning in advance and called him yesterday and told him the Zupa's in American Fork went out of business. Extremely disappointed he said, "Oh well I guess i can sleep tonight." Forgetting to tell the other girls about it, we all got in the car this morning. As we were talking he mentioned that Zupa's went out of business. Straight-faced and completely serious the girls said things like, "Yeah I heard about that. It's too bad." Or, "What a shame." I have never been so proud to be a member of this group.

Throughout the day we kept talking about lunch and where we would go. As we were leaving we decided to go to sonic. Begrudgingly Michael agreed. We began our drive to lunch and Michael kept pointing out restaurants along the way. We kept reminding him we had decided on sonic! Then as we drove near Zupa's he tearfully said, "Or we could go to Zupa's." Then as we started to pull into the parking lot he could see inside the window and yelled, "There's people in there!!!!" It was about then he realized we were joking the entire time. He got out of the car and shut the door before the rest of the girls even got out. He was a man on a mission.

I'm pretty sure this was the best day of his life.

I guess you had to be there.

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Quote of the day
"I like big bread and I cannot lie."

-Hollie

Training

This was last year riding up Little Cottonwood Canyon. This was right before it turned into snow. Today was the same situation except that coach was sensible and we road inside.

Even though I haven't worked out for weeks the 2 hour ride still felt incredible. I'm sad to be leaving my team for two years, but getting away from the oval will definitely be a welcome break.

In other news, I met another Australian today. He's never been on the west coast or anywhere near my mission but we talked for a while and I can't wait to go :-)