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...