One Word. One Face.

You wanna know what that word is?

FINALS

You wanna know what the face is?

Yeah, this is just an example of what happens to you when you have finals in the JC.

I can't wait for next week to be here and I only have 2 classes to worry about.

Can I get an AMEN?!

AMEN!

Garden Tomb

So, this past Sabbath I ventured up to the Garden Tomb with a small group to just walk around and enjoy the beauty of the place. One thing that I've learned since I've been here is that it's not the place the brings the spirit, but the event that brings the spirit. There are always controversial conversations going on whether or not certain sites are the exact sites where the events happen, but quite honestly I don't care. What I do care about is the event. The one thing that hit me that day was that it doesn't matter what faith you are or where you come from you can still have a strong testimony of the Savior and how He suffered for everyone. While I was sitting at the Garden Tomb a girl named Kayla, who was with a group from Panama, came and sat next to me. When we were sitting there she translated for me everything the different people in her group were saying about the resurrection of the Savior. It just touched my heart so much that she would do that. It reminded me that we are all children of God whether or not we are a part of the same faith. Granted, I really wanted to tell her everything I knew about the gospel and show her the fullness of the gospel, but I knew that the Lord would provide. Because I can't share my testimony to others here in Israel it helps me realize that the Lord has mercy on all of His children. He will take care of them in His own way and I just need to accept it. It is such a blessing to know that the Savior sacrificed Himself for me and for Kayla. By the way, Kayla had the most beautiful voice when she sang it just invited the spirit and was with me so strong. I love the tender mercies I experience everyday.

Me, Chewy and Scott livin' it up in the Garden

Over the hills and through the desert...

To the desert of Jordan we go!

My oh my, can I just say that this field trip has been one of my favorites by far! Not gonna lie, I loved going to Turkey and all over Israel, but Jordan has been one of the most significant for me. For the past 4 days we went from Mt. Nebo where Moses and Elijah were translated all the way down to Petra where the Nabateans ruled, and back up to ancient Rabath-amman where Uriah was killed by the order of King David.Here are some highlights of the trip...Day 1-Mt. Nebo: looked over the valley of Moab, Dead Sea, and off to Jericho looking up to the hills of Jerusalem-Madaba: went to St.George's Church where there was a Byzantine mosaic map of ancient Palestine
-LUNCH-Machaerus: The place where King Herod Antipus (son of Herod the Great) had a palace and where he imprisoned and beheaded John the Baptist
-3 hr drive to Petra-Arrived and ate an interesting dinner at a not so great motel with brown water

Me & the Mt.Nebo Memorial

Me & My Surrogate Parents aka the Chadwicks

Day 2-PETRA!

Oh boy, what can I say about this place. Well, a few things1. Sunscreen AND a hat are a must while you are there. When it's 95 degrees and you are in the middle of the desert a nice sweaty hat will keep you cool.

2. Don't try to look cute when you go. Throw your fashion and pride out the window because you will be drenched in sweat once you walk out of the air conditioned bus.

3. Drink water every 5 mins or else you will die...literally, but it's ok because there are plenty of tombs there for them to throw you into.
4. When you find shade savor it.

5. Beware, camel's have lots of bugs/fleas, but they are way fun to ride
6. Expect to be covered in 5 layers of dirt when you leave
7. BEST PLACE EVER!-Shobak Castle: well, when we got here we were extremely tired from a full 8 hrs of being in the sun at Petra, so we were dead walking up to hill to this castle. However, there was a crazy steep tunnel that Bro. Muhlestein took us down and I thought I was going to slip and fall to my death, because it led to a cistern that looked like a bottomless pit of doom.-Another 3 hr drive to Amman-Ate decent food at the hotel and passed out by 10 after showering off dirt for 30 mins

I LOVE PETRA!

Being one with the elephant rock

I RODE A CAMEL!

Yup, I'm spider woman

Day 3-King Abdullah I Mosque: SIKE! we skipped out on this place because the head people there were being crazy. We didn't miss anything though because we saw mosques in Turkey that were 100 x's better.-Citadel of Amman: place where David ordered Uriah, Beersheba's hubby, to die in battle. This site was a little sad for me because this is presumably where David lost his chance at receiving the highest degree of exaltation. David was such an awesome guy and an example to all of us that even the greatest and most beloved of the Lord can fall. It shows that we need to continually rely on the Lord and when we make a mistake we need to immediately repent and come back to Him.-Jabbok River: when we were driving to this site I looked out the window and saw how beautiful it was outside. Bro.Muhlestein told us that we were driving through ancient Gilead and I just thought of how beautiful the green valleys and hills full of olive trees were. Too bad we can't travel into the West Bank because I've been told it is just beautiful. Anyways, the Jabbok river is the river where Jacob came to prey to the Lord right before he met up with his brother Esau. He had just split it family into two groups because he was scared that Esau would kill them due to the fact that Jacob got his birth right. During the night, Jacob was visited by an angel and they wrestled all night until the angel gave Jacob the blessing he wanted and gave him the additional name of "Israel." I want to be like Jacob. Throughout his whole life he has been fighting for what he wants and doesn't give up until he gets it.

Tyson and Scott reenacting Jacob wrestling with the angel

-LUNCH: the place we ate at gave us the most delicious pita and they gave it to us straight from the oven. Hmmhmm goooood.-Jerash: By this point we were all exhausted from the day before in Petra and walking around everywhere else, plus it was SUPER hot. However, this ancient city was way fun to walk around. It is probable that Jerash was ancient Jershon where Abraham traveled to during the MBII period.
-After a long day we made it back to Amman and played around the city eating delicious pastries, ice cream from "SCREAM," and dancing past the King's night club. All in all, it was a great day.

DAY 4
-Roman theater: SUPER COOL! Apparently this is the biggest theater in the middle east and the most impressive. There is the "sweet spot" where "X" marks the spot, and when you stand there you can be talking in a normal voice and everyone can hear you perfectly. You can guess that we had some fun singing there in that theater.
-Then we walked around through downtown Amman where the normal citizens shop and work and we got to see some interesting things like sheep heads, technicolor baby chicks, and hooka's up the wazoo.-Jordan River: This place is absolutely beautiful. It was here that we read the account of Christ's baptism and sang the song "Baptism." After Bro.Muhlestein gave a lovely devotional he gave us time to share our testimonys. The spirit was so strong that afternoon while we were looking over onto the river. It just made me think of my parents and how thankful I am that they joined the church when they did. I'm thankful that when I was 8 years old my dad baptized me with the correct priesthood authority. I"m sad for those who don't have the full knowledge of the gospel and I just wish I could tell people here about it, but that will come in its due time. I can, however, share my knowledge with you guys. I hope that if you have any doubts or you are just curious about anything I write on here that you will email me. I am more than willing to chat with you about what I know and I'm ready to answer questions. I just love you guys.

-After a fun couple of hours going through the border, we got back, ran and did a quick load of laundry, showered days of stinkiness from my body, and got ready to go to a Matisyahu concert in West Jerusalem. A little frustrating at first, but the night was full of good music, dancing, and thousands of sweaty people that don't believe in personal space. That's ok though, it was worth $26 ha ha.

Me in the Jordan River

I LOVE LIVING HERE!

SHOUT OUT!

Say hello to Joan Johnson or as I like to call her... Joanski
How to begin describing this beautiful girl who has changed my life while being here. Well, I can start off by saying we are two pods in a pea. That's right, I said it, we are better than two peas in a pod. From the time that we started facebook stalking each other to living together in the Holy Land we have become instant friends. She amazes me everyday with her enthusiasm to learn, to explore the city, and just soak in everything and everyone around her. Literally, everyone is drawn to this girl and its because of how amazing she is. She is the best person to talk to when you are down because she can make you laugh instantly. She has the best facial expressions and you just wonder how someones face could do such things. Not only are people drawn to her for those reasons, but she has such a strong and amazing testimony. She is able to reflect everything back to her life and be able to learn from it on the dot. Super jealous of that quality of her because it takes me 100 times of being knocked on the head to learn. Simply enough...Joanski is da BOMB . COM!

Long time no talk

Hello dear friends,
Let me just start off by saying I'm sorry that I suck at writing in my blog regularly. I hope most of you are friends with me on facebook and have been able to see some of the pictures I (and many others) have taken since I've been here. If not, you'll just have to wait for me to come home because for some reason the blog takes 100 years to upload photos. Another reason I"m so awful at this is quite honestly I'd rather be playing in the Old City or hanging out with the people here than write on a blog. Sorry, but that's the truth. I'm sure if you lived here you would feel the same ha ha, but just know that I think of you often and how I wish that I could have you all in my pockets wherever I go.
These past couple of weeks have been crazy with mid-terms, fields trips, playing in the city, and lack of sleep. We all have survived finals...kinda...it has gotten to the point where all of our brains are about to explode from all of the information that is going inside them 24 hrs a day. Right now I can't really recall anything, but I'm sure after hours of pounding it into my head I will be a master of everything I'm learning. Most importantly though are the field trips we have been going on. This past week we went on two AMAZING field trips. 1) The Shfelah (not Shephelah) trip. In the Bible it is spelled as Shephelah, but when you read it that way you pronounce it totally wrong. In order for us to remember how to say it our amazing professor, Bro.Chadwick, made up a spiffy little song. I'll make sure to put it up soon so all of you can enjoy it. During this field trip we were able to go to the ancient cities that were fortified by Rehoboam, son of Solomon, during his reign. The cities we went to were Gath (where Goliath is from!), Beth-Shemesh (story of Samson), Marihah, Azekah, and Lachish; we went to other places but there are foggy in my memory because it was an all day field trip from 7am-6pm, so my mind was mush by the end of the day. Anywho, my favorite was Gath because that is the site where Bro. Chadwick excavates every summer during the month of July. It was an awesome experience to be there where he works and see everything that he has excavated himself! From there we were able to see, or know the direction of, the five major Philistine cities during the Iron Age I/II periods, and see where David stayed for a while when Saul was out to get him. All in all, the day was absolutely amazing and probably one of my favorite field trips thus far.
The next field trip we went on was to the City of David. LOVE LOVE LOVE. The city is right outside my front door, so we took a nice little 15 min walk to the city, which is right outside the modern city walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. There we were able to see where the walls that surrounded the City of David were, built during the time of Melchezidek & Abraham, identify the millo, where David's palace would be, and we got to go through Hezekiah's tunnel...AMAZING! This tunnel was able to provide the people that lived in the city millions of gallons of water everyday. That's right, I was walking through an ancient spring people. By the way, walking through it we needed to have flashlights because if we didn't it was pitch black. Another thing, if you are tall, like myself, you were hunched 80% of the time. This tunnel led out to the pool of Siloam, which in the New Testament is the same pool that Christ healed the man that was born blind. Crazy huh?
Everyday I am just in awe at how amazing this place is and that I'm actually living here. It just reassures me everyday that the Bible is real. The people, places, and history behind everything is real. If you have any doubt that the Bible isn't real than you haven't studied it thoroughly enough. The written word and the archaeology alone will just show how real the book is. Well, I'll get off my soap box now. Enjoy the posts that I have and the pictures on facebook. Love ya'll!

Gobble Gobble Gobble

My Dear Friends,

Can I just say that I'm sorry for not being the best blogger in the world? Well, I'm sorry. I was supposed to blog about this amazing trip to Turkey like...2 weeks ago, so bear with me as I try to remember all of the craziness that went on. However, I could sum up this experience in a few shorts words: Mosques, green hills, gross food, beautiful lamps, long bus rides, New Testament stories, and bonding time.

I kept a pretty good journal about this trip, so I'll give you a fun high lights of the trip. We left on May 15, 2011(Sunday), from the Ben Gurion airport. It was a nice 2 hr flight to Istanbul, which is beautiful! You know how in Utah you can see steeples everywhere? Well, in Istanbul,Turkey in general, there are mosques everywhere! The culture is rich, the people are crazy, and the food was gross, but oh well, the itself to me at that moment was beautiful. In Istanbul we stayed in the Cartoon Hotel, which was super sketch, and Alise (my roomie) and I got shafted with the yuckiest room. In Istanbul we went to the Trokopi Palace, Blue Mosque, and the Basilica Sistern. Later that night, our tour guide Fati (who was a super creep), took us to a place where they sold the best baklava in the world. Not gonna lie, it was dang good. It was so good that I bought a whole box full and ate half of it that night. Hmmmhmm bak.

From Istanbul we made our way down to Troy aka Troas, crossing the plains of Turkey for 4 hrs straight and then took a ferry to where the legendary Trojan War happened. We were able to play in the Trojan Horse (replica of course), walk around the ancient walls, and reenact parts from the Iliad in the theater there. A fun thing a few of us did was help out B.J (Bro. Muhlestein's son) with a movie he is making about the Iliad where we had to pretend we were the Greeks in the Trojan horse. When we left Troy we made our way to Canaakale, where we stayed the night in a sweet hotel near a harbor (i forgot the body of water we were next to please forgive me).

In the morning we made our way to Assos,where we took some sweet pictures at the temple of Athena, then we drove to Pergamous where we stopped on the side of the road to make a stop and jump into the Aegean, and then like 5 hrs later we made it to Pergamous which is considered to be the place of Satan's seat in the New Testament. After playing around in Pergamous we drove another 2 hrs to the land of Ephesus, where we stayed in a sweet hotel on the beach.

The next day we went to the ancient city of Ephesus. This place was amazinggggg. If none of you know, Ephesus is where Paul lived at for 3 years, preached the gospel to the people, wrote many epistles, and made great friends. John the Beloved lived there as well where he wrote the gospel of John, and his 3 epistles. The theater in Ephesus was also the place where the people were ranting against Paul's apostles and yelled, " great is the power of Diana." Then we traveled to Miletus, where Paul held a regional conference for the saints before he went back to Jerusalem. It was beautiful there! Poppies everywhere, ancient temples, and cute little puppies. After that we went to a sweet hotel in the middle of no where, which was surprisingly nice. There was a mud pool, 2 big pools, work out space, etc etc...

Our next adventure was to the city of Bursa, where we traveled 4 hrs to get there, saw about 6 of the churches mentioned in the new testament,have a very spiritual sacrament meeting, explored the Bazaars, and had yucky goat ice cream. In the morning we went to the 5th biggest mosque in the world and then made our way to Istanbul, which was another 2 1/2 hr trip on bus, and then a 20 min ferry ride. Once we got back to Istanbul we went to the Hagia Sofia and we were able to shop a little bit. I bought a beautiful mosaic lamp, a beautiful purse, and a sweet Turkey shirt. After dinner that night we chilled in the airport for a little bit and flew to Israel in the middle of the night. We were finally able to get back to the Jerusalem Center by 3 am...crazy week I know.

All in all, I loved my Turkey adventure. It was a time to come closer to the greatest missionaries of the Church, Paul and John. I was able to see where they traveled and understand the deeper meaning of the words in the New Testament. The days seemed to have blurred together, but I will always cherish the memories I spent at all of the sites where Paul stayed and preached the word of God. If I had the chance I would have stayed longer. However, I will make it a goal to go back later in life. I love being in a place where I can see first hand the experiences the ancient prophets and apostles went through. I hope one day all of you can have that same experience.

Here are some pictures from Turkey for your enjoyment...