Ireland

Man, what a weekend!  So I realize that I have not posted, for which I have to apologize.  These past couple weeks have been a little crazy. 

 Me with the Fingleton family

This weekend I got to country number four:  Ireland!  Whenever people ask our family about traveling within Europe, and which country we always liked going to the most, I always responded, “Ireland.”  This country is definitely near the top for sheer beauty, and we have some of the best memories from here (Get your trousers on!  I can’t go to the island until you get your trousers on!)  This weekend, I spent it with the Fingletons.  Way back when, he was one of our favorite missionaries in our ward in Germany.  I seriously can remember three names of missionaries in Germany: Elder Wendel, Elder Grimm, and Elder Fingleton.  Elder Fingleton replaced Elder Wendel in Bitburg as Elder Grimm’s companion, and they were just fantastic.  Now “Brother” Fingleton is married and has a beautiful family, with whom I had a great weekend.  I got there Friday morning, and they took the day off to spend it with me.  We went to this beautiful area called Glendaloch, about an hour outside of Dublin. It was an area with lakes surrounded by mountains where a monk built a monastery hundreds of years ago.  It was all misty that day, and it was great to walk around and talk to them.  His parents were also there telling the history about it all, although I did promise to not check anything they said on Wikipedia when I got home J 

Isn't this beautiful?

That night there was a football (NOT American football) match between Germany and Ireland on, so we watched that.  I think Elder Fingleton supported Ireland, although he would have had every right to support Germany as well.  Germany ended up winning, 3-0.  They ARE one of the best teams in the world, so it made a certain amount of sense for them to win.

Saturday Elder Fingleton and I headed up into the city center of Dublin to go to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells.  It’s one of the oldest copies of the Gospels that there are in existence, since it was written and illustrated (since there is tons of artistic elaboration in the book) in the ninth century. 

Elder Fingleton told me that this
is the library that they modeled the Jedi library off of
in Star Wars.  Can't you see it?

It was beautiful to see and recognize the sheer amount of effort put in by those monks to laboriously copy the scriptures without the help of a printing press.  How awesome is it that you can now get any scripture you want on your phone or tablet?  Although we certainly don’t have as beautiful of copies of the scriptures as they did.  Afterwards we did some shopping and went back to the house, where we got in some HALO.  I swear, I don’t think I can travel anywhere without getting in some HALO.  It’s a wonderful thing J  That night there was a concert put on by the Heritage Choir from St. George, Utah.  Apparently they are the choir for the St. George tabernacle.  So, sort of like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but on a smaller scale J  We then went to a birthday party for one of the their friends, where we had a good time talking about a variety of topics.  I have to mention that later that night I was in mourning since Michigan lost.  I absolutely HAD to stay up until the end, only to watch in horror as Michigan lost in quadruple overtime.  Ugh, to Penn State no less…I do think the record is still like 9-3 Michigan over the last 12 meetings or something…

Sunday we went to church, where I got to teach Primary!  I had an awesome time doing that.  I felt like I could give back to them since Tracy, Elder Fingleton’s wife, is the Primary president.  I got to teach the 7-9 year olds (?), and it was so cool to see how they all knew the answers to what I would ask, or how they knew the Articles of Faith.  Elder Fingleton is in the bishopric, so afterwards we had to do some bishopric-y stuff, and got home and had a delicious dinner.  I must say, the dessert was certainly my favorite!  Afterwards we got to talk, which was probably my favorite part of the weekend.  We hadn’t seen each other for over ten years, so we had a lot of catching up to do.  Being able to do that was a lot of fun.

This morning I left beautiful Ireland and my friends there to head back to Brussels, where I quickly snapped back to reality thanks to the mean customs officials.  I don’t know if I look suspicious, but I always get such a hard time from them!  I can’t wait to go back to Ireland with Rebecca at some point (and trust me, it will happen!).  Thanks Fingletons, for an amazing weekend!

This is me playing with Isabelle.  She is seriously
adorable and can't wait to grow up to be a princess :-)

So I tried REALLY hard to not get people in this
panoramic picture, but apparently I was unsuccessful...
still doesn't take away from the beauty of it all.

            

• 0