HELLAMA!!!!!

It's been awhile, and though our blog updates have stopped, our crazy adventures have not!! This weekend's adventure is Cotopaxi's QUESTIVAL!!!! 

Left to Right: Liz, Tysen, Sara, Chuck, and Cristina

My Mission Call!

On Saturday, October 6^th, 2012 I was sitting in the Forum in the Jerusalem Center watching General Conference.  I made my list of questions and conference began.  President Monson announced that the age that missionaries can leave at is now lower, it meant I didn’t have to wait any longer to go on a mission!  Within five minutes of conference starting half of my questions were answered and I sat there bawling, just experiencing every emotion possible.  I don’t remember what else was said for the rest of the day because I couldn’t focus on anything besides going on a mission!  Within a week I had started my papers (meaning my incredible parents started my papers) and I met with my home bishop and stake president shortly thereafter.  It was quite the process getting everything taken care of from Jerusalem, but somehow my parents did it and before October ended my papers were in!  I have attended mission prep every Shabbat (Saturday/Sabbath) night for the past two months now—Will and Bethany are the greatest teachers ever!  Two girls here turned their papers in just a few days before me (Erin and Mikele), and another one  turned hers in a couple weeks after I did (Laurann).   I decided that when my call came that I wanted to open it at the Garden Tomb, simply because that has been such a significant site for me here and it means so much to me.

Anyways, I asked my parents to not tell me when my call got to my house, and then have them fast-track it to Israel, hoping to be surprised with my call a few weeks later!  Wanting to be surprised might have tested my patience at sometimes, but it worked out better than I could have imagined.  My call got to my house and my parents kept it, hoping to surprise Sara and me by bringing it to Jerusalem with them and Reid.  That is a story in and of itself, but they were unable to come out here and ended up fast-tracking it (keep in mind they haven’t told me any of this until after I opened my call).  It was supposed to take 3-5 days for my call to get out here, but ended up taking a couple of weeks instead.   Erin and Mikele received their calls in Galilee and Laurann got hers Thursday morning, so I was the only one still waiting.  Sara followed the t racking online, and it was in San Francisco for quite a while.  Thursday morning the mail came but my call did not.  A few hours later Sara found that it had reached Jerusalem.

I realized about a week ago that there had to be some reason my call hadn’t come—not just that it might be stuck in the mail, but that I needed to learn something.  I had a couple of things that I wanted to accomplish and study before my call came, but I had pushed them back a little bit knowing that if my call came I could do it at the Garden Tomb…”knowing…” right.  Wednesday I finished that list and that night I had a dream that I got my call.  I remember covering the postage so that it wouldn’t give it away whether I was going foreign or not (I know that’s not supposed to be different, but Erin got called to New York and Mikele got called to Chile and Mikele’s postage was definitely more than Erin’s).  Just like most dreams concerning my mission call, I woke up before I found out where I was going.

We had a final Thursday morning and two Friday, but Thursday afternoon we decided that we needed a break from studying since we hadn’t gone out that past two days.  When we leave the center we have to be in groups of three and we had seven of us going out to the city.  Jake wanted to take pictures in the Old City and at the Garden Tomb, and Bethany needed to stop at Aladdin’s (the money changers), so we decided to split—half of us went to Aladdin’s and half went to the Old City (including myself).  Then we met up at the Garden Tomb; little did I know that they did not go to Aladdin’s, but they stopped by the post office!

We took some pictures and then Sara turned to me and said, “Umm Liz… Bethany has something to give you.”  I can only imagine how big my eyes must have been as I watched Bethany reach into her purse and pull out my call!  I was more than shocked at that point and then Jake handed me his phone with my family on the other end. I was able to open my call just 20 feet away from the tomb—St. Petersburg Russia leaving January 30^th, 2013.  I never could have dreamed that I would get called to Russia, but I can’t wait!  There are a lot of Russian Orthodox churches here, so I’m excited to revisit all of them this next week!  There are three other students here that speak Russian (two served in Ukraine and one in Russia), so I’ve already learned a handful of phrases!  I cannot wait to share the greatest message I know with Heavenly Father’s children in Russia!  Jerusalem has prepared me so much more than I ever could have imagined!

Living life at the JC

Alrighty. It's time for a random post! There are all sorts of adventures/random moments we've had here at the Jerusalem Center that we haven't had a chance to share yet, so I'm taking the liberty of doing that now. It will be a crazy mess of everything, but that's okay! Here goes...

Best sandals/shoes in the world??? Oh yes! Cutest footwear I've ever worn? Definitely! ...Or so I tell myself. I'm still  trying to convince myself that it's true

We found a Yogurt shop in Jerusalem! 

Happy Halloween!!!!

This is the Student Lounge at Hebrew U. Apparently it's for sleeping--NOT talking or doing homework or anything else. Definitely not conducive for our group!

Liz was hard at work during our field trip...

After lunch at Mt. Herzl!

Herzl's tomb--they put rocks on the graves here to commemorate people. It's a different tradition, but super I find it fascinating!

Once upon a time we ordered pizza and had it delivered to the center. That was to celebrate the survival of another midterm!

Please take a close look at that board. We had a massive study session (shown below) in preparation for our Old Testament final. We split up half of the Old Testament and each had to take our portions to teach for our review. There were two of us on this part. And about 10-12 other white boards that looked the same. Going over all of those names, dates, stories and concepts in less than 24 hours nearly caused an explosion in my brain. And this was the shortened, important-points-to-remember-for-each-section summary. 

This was the study group I mentioned earlier! This wasn't even everyone involved. We had over half our class in on these. We scheduled each one out for one FULL day and packed in as many review sessions as possible in order to cover the material. It was rather intense!

Kid History meets Galilee

This is just another little "I know it's green, but what ELSE is about it?" picture for Mommy! This was at Nimrod's Castle in Galilee. SUPER cool castle, but the water didn't look too appetizing!

"I know it's green, but what else is about it?!"

  I know this picture is super random, but it’s so great that I just had to put it up right now!  This picture is taken in Turkey at the Ephesus Princess hotel.  But what you really need to know about it is that we are drinking kiwi juice… it’s green.  Yes Mom, this picture is specifically for you!  “I know it’s green, but what else is about it?!”  And yes, it was delicious!

Excavating Noah's Ark

Sometimes I look like a lion.  And sometimes I look like a prairie dog.  And sometimes I look like Timone (a meerkat).  And sometimes I look like a naked mole rat (yes, they exist).  And sometimes I stand like a flamingo, cause I really like flamingos.  But I'm just a Liz.  However, I went to the Biblical Zoo and I got to see ALL of these beautiful animals!  And lots and lots of other animals, like penguins!  My roommate Lizzie sure adored those!  And at Lemur Land the Lemurs could walk on top of you and we sang "Madagascar" music there!  But there were really more "Lion King" animals there than "Madagascar" animals--like Rafiki!  I saw an actual Rafiki!  It was the most magical zoo of my life!  Then we went to Noah's Ark!  And the animals are all descendants of the animals that Noah put on the ark, how cool is that?!  So it probably really doesn't sound that great, but I promise it was, so let me just show you instead...

Sara and Eleisha being prairie dogs, they're just jealous of me.

There are real flamingos in the back,
they are just hard to see.  Look closely!

PENGUINS!!!

Eleisha and Sara with the elephant!

At Noah's Ark going in by twos of course!

Jake, Sara, Liz, and Lizzie with the grizzly bears!
(They had real ones too).

Roommate pic!  Lizzie, Sara, Liz, and Jenessa!


And sometimes we take pictures at the zoo not
 with animals, just cause we can! :)

Lizzie, Sara, and Liz with palm trees!

Eleisha, Liz, Jake, and Sara (mixed up order of JESL) at the zoo.

Also, I found out tonight that there are legit lyrics to "Circle of Life" and it may or may not have made me really giddy, so I thought I'd share!

"Circle Of Life" Lyrics

Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba  [Here comes a lion, Father]
Sithi uhm ingonyama           [Oh yes, it's a lion]

Nants ingonyama bagithi baba
Sithi uhhmm ingonyama
Ingonyama

Siyo Nqoba                    [We're going to conquer]
Ingonyama
Ingonyama nengw' enamabala    [A lion and a leopard come to this open place]

[Chant repeats]

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life

(Taken from LionKing.org)

Liz's Success as a Page-Turner

Imagine a beautiful Steinway piano.

Imagine a night-time view of Jerusalem.

Now imagine the beautiful Steinway piano in a room with that view of Jerusalem. 

Now imagine somebody playing that beautiful Steinway piano in a room with that view of Jerusalem.

Now imagine that you are that somebody playing that piano in a room with that view of Jerusalem.

And by you I mean me.

This week we had our Jerusalem Center Formal Talent Show, and somehow  Sara and I both got persuaded into participating in it.  How?  I don’t know.  I haven’t ever played in a talent show in my entire life, and I haven’t even performed at all for years.  We have some INCREDIBLY talented people here, so to say that I was highly intimidated is a gross understatement.  I like to think of it more as being an opening act for someone famous!  The more legit the performer, the more legit their opening act, right?  Too bad I more than slaughtered my song (Grandpa’s arrangement of “Joseph Smith’s First Prayer”), but Sara rocked her piece (“Toccata”).  Ya, so I go up and play a fairly basic song (it sounded primary in comparison to everything else) that everybody knows well enough to know when I mess up, and then Sara just shredded the piano apart, it was incredible.  But I did a great job as Sara's page turner!  It was a step up from last time when I got distracted during Sara's 30 minute song and forgot to turn the page! Whoops!  Aunt Ruth, you should be proud!

Now for Sara’s point of view:

So yes, we played in the talent show! And we volunteered to do it (sort of). Surprising, huh?! I definitely was not even thinking about doing it. We have some amazingly talented people here that could rock me in piano any day. I was playing the other day though and one of the girls on the talent show committee came in. She took it upon herself to make sure I signed up. I still hadn't signed up after the sheet was taken down, but she convinced me into it (mostly just so I could play the legit piano... That may or may not have been the motivating factor), so the guy in charge let us sign up anyway (Yes, US. If I had to do it, Liz clearly did as well!). Like Liz said, neither of us have really performed for people for a long time. But it was kind of amazing to be on stage in the JC auditorium with all of Jerusalem in the background with an amazing piano! And Liz sounded incredible. And I didn't even rush my notes. And it was SO much fun! I just had a party playing my song and didn't even freak out or start shaking until I sat down. But then it didn't matter :) Basically both of us thought it was going to turn into a disaster, but then it was super fun and awesome

It’s Donakey family tradition (as well as tradition for several other families) to go out for ice cream after concerts and recitals, but here we don’t really have that option.  So we improvised—and we went to the Shekel Shack!  Although they were out of magnum bars, we were able to get some yummy desserts.  It was magical! 

The two of us with that beautiful Steinway piano that we played  in the room
with that night time view of Jerusalem.  It was GORGEOUS!

Our after-concert treats at the Shekel Shack!