Top Turkey Adventures

Turkey is amazing!!! I had no idea how much was there!
-Turkey is the world's best kept secret! Who knew it was so absolutely beautiful? Well, apparently a lot of people since Instanbul is a city of over 20 million with 8 million tourists every year.  But it's still the world's best kept secret.
- Be careful what food you eat in Turkey. It's sketchy. The watermelon is the absolute best I've ever had though!
- Ugur the Tour Guide (to properly pronounce "Ugur," just take the "T" off "Tour") gave our bus Turkish dancing lessons. He loved that we are sisters and laugh really loud. He would walk up behind me and simply say "Hahaha" and wait for me to laugh!
- Liz and I were given separation orders and restricted from sitting next to each other on the bus for the last half of the week by Ugur. It was traumatizing but probably healthy for everyone else.
- We stayed in some legit hotels! When we asked our director how long it would take to get to the beach from one hotel, he answered with "four seconds." That was a bit of an exaggeration. It only took two. Dance party on the beach? Oh yes!
- The sites were phenomenal! We'll get pictures up soon, but the history and architecture involving these sites was absolutely incredible. Until then, just go Google Hagia Sophia, Basilica Cistern and the Blue Mosque so you'll know what I'm talking about. Exquisite!
-It IS possible to meet someone, break up with your previous boyfriend/girlfriend, date and be officially engaged (proposal and all) within THREE WEEKS of arriving at the center. We have proof.
-It's possible to learn Turkish dancing on a tour bus. Just be careful to not throw in any American moves.
-We saw one of the most gorgeous sunsets I have ever seen across the Aegan Sea outside of our hotel one night! You know those sunsets that even pictures can't even begin to grasp? It was beyond that.
-Turkish Delight is nothing like I ever imagined! It's good, but definitely a different experience than I expected. There are various different kinds, but we tried some jelly-sort of kind with powdered sugar around the outside.
-Traveling to places that Paul taught at is quite the experience, it totally changes the way I read those epistles once I know more of the whole story.
-I know know how the Greeks felt when they climbed into the Trojan horse.
-The scenery on ferry rides and boat rides from Europe to Asia is beautiful.  I felt like I spent those precious hours just living in a movie. The model shoot we took might have helped with that....
-86 carat diamonds are rather large.  And they are worth a lot, so be careful what you throw away cause you might find some pretty large gems.
-Shopping in Turkey yields successful rewards.  I never would have guessed that I could buy so much with only $15.
-Last but not least: bus rides are wonderful.  Nothing brings a group of 42 college students together in every possible way like living on a bus for seven days! :)

Beach and Birthdays

I know this is a few weeks late, but it was just so great that I still had to write about it! The day before my birthday was a free day, so we went to Tel Aviv.  All but three of us in the entire group loaded up in buses and headed strait to the beach.  We weren't quite sure what to expect, but we got there just after 10:00 and huried into the water.  The water was the saltiest ocean I have ever been in (I can't even imagine what it's going to be like when we go to the Dead Sea!), but it was also the warmest water I have ever swam in! I was thrown around and tossed about in that water, it was also the most brutal ocean that I have been in, but it was absolutely magical!! It was SO great to go to the beach!  Sara went with a few other girls on a run for almost an hour and I played catch with a couple of people and collected some Israeli sea shells :) no big deal!  Then a smaller group of us explored Tel Aviv and came across a gelato shop, so clearly we had to stop and treat ourselves!  We had just enough time to go take pictures with the entire coast and city in the background before heading back to the center.
The morning of my birthday I walked out of my room to go to breakfast and there were streamers and a sign on my door as well as a sign hanging up right in front of the cafeteria.  It was a field trip day, so I spent the day in the Negev desert.  We saw structures from nearly 4,000 years ago including where Abraham stayed for awhile at Beersheva.  I was able to call home and after that we partied all night along--it was my best birthday ever!

Cooking Cookies in the Holy Land? Yes!

Hello! So we're being super terrible at these updates, but there's so much to tell you! We'll get the Turkey update on soon, but for now I just had to let you know my highlight of the week! We have had a strong desire to make chocolate chip cookies (surprise!) ever since coming here. Well, I didn't see any way to make it happen, but apparently some others had a little more faith than I did. :) They checked with one of the senior couples who DOES have an oven and they gave us permission to use it! We put it on our Eventually-We'll-Do-This-List, but I wasn't thinking it would come anytime soon. Well, the other day on our travels around the city we took a spontaneous stop at a little market store. They just happened to have chocolate chips...and then magic happened! We bought everything we needed there and took everything home (after a little stop at the Garden Tomb :)). After dinner that night we escaped to the Bench's apartment and made chocolate chip cookies! It was one of the most magical things ever. Definitely didn't taste quite the same as in Utah, but they were still quite excellent! The best part of it though was spreading the joy throughout the center. We took our big huge plate and just started walking upstairs, handing cookies out to everyone we ran into until they were all gone. I felt like Santa Claus! Freshly-baked homemade chocolate chip cookies are a pretty rare commodity here in the Jerusalem Center and you could feel the joy in the air over such a small thing. It was so much fun! Moral of the story? Cookies + love = happiness :)

miracles happen blog has now been hacked :) this hacker must say how wonderful liz and sara are. I have had the best time with them here in Israel and I love them so much!!!

The Voice of Angels

Hello again! Today is Shabbat and we had an amazing day! Everything turned out much better than expected--it was just full of adventures and tender mercies! First of all, they are starting construction in the Center. We have glass EVERYWHERE and they need to replace a lot of it, so we have to move our Sacrament Meeting from the gorgeous room overlooking all of Jerusalem to our Forum room where I'm fighting to stay awake in Ancient Near Eastern Studies every day. I wasn't too excited about that, but then we went to church this morning and they let us have it in our special room still! That changed everything. It's infinitely better. We sang "Come Thou Fount" with our student choir--always amazing! Right after church and  meetings, we went to St. Anne's church by the Pools of Bethesda. It is definitely one of our favorite places already in all of Jerusalem and this was only our second time there. Something about the structure of the church building and the materials used make the acoustics absolutely outstanding. I really can't explain it, but it's something everyone should experience! We went and sang hymns with a small group. It's rare to get goose bumps in Jerusalem heat, but that definitely happened more than once. While we were there an Italian group came in and two girls sang "Amazing Grace," which was incredible too! The Pools of Bethesda are also way cool; you can walk down right up to the pool which is probably 20 feet under ground.  The stones are from the time of Christ, so it's incredible knowing that we literally walked along the same path as the Savior.
From there we went to the Garden of Gethsemane. This was my (this is now Liz) first time there.  Unfortunately, they didn't let us into the private side this time that Sara went to before, and the public side was pretty packed, but that doesn't mean it wasn't cool there!  In that same area is the Church of All Nations, so we walked through that as well.  You know the picture of Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, the first one to come to your mind?  That's legitimately what it looks like there, it's so real! Ya--we live in Jerusalem :)

Aug. 28, 2012, Salt Lake City Airport
We're on our way to Jerusalem!

First day of class in the Jerusalem Center :)
(We may look like missionaries on P-day, but we're
not even allowed to answer questions about the Church.)

Jerusalem's Main street in 6th Century

Liz at the Orson Hyde Memorial Park

 




Western Wall
We made it!!

Aladdin's where we exchange our money

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Western Wall



Dome of the Rock

View from our balcony! No big deal...

Just another day in Jerusalem!

There is a money-changer here whose business is called "Aladdin's" (yes, it's spelled like the Disney movie, but it's pronounced completely different--more like ahl-a-deen) and all of the students here go to him.  He is fair and gives the best rates, so we don't even consider going to anybody else.  He showed us "Aladdin's Book of Mormons," a book filled with past Jerusalem Center students.  Students write the date, their name, where they are from, and a quick note.  It goes back to 1997, so we were able to find Becca and Lizzie (Parsons') notes, as well as several other people that we know.  Also at Aladdin's, there is a wall covered in notes from students in the past.  Most of them are general notes, though some are written to specific people. I found a few from people that I know, but best of all... I found a note for me and Sara from Jay Rainsdon!! That was just the happiest thing ever!  There are all sorts of past-students memorials here.  A couple days ago we walked under the center and they let you write your name, so I found close to a dozen people that I know that have come here!  It's pretty awesome!

I am on the Humanitarian and Hosting committee, and today we had our first service project.  Forty-five (ish) of us put together school kits for a local school or orphanage.  There was a record of putting together 1,700 kits in two hours... we made 2,150!! It was so awesome to see everybody so excited to serve and just whip right through those things!  We really have the most amazing people in our group and it's absolutely wonderful!

Pita-Eating Champion!

Let me just explain really quickly: There are a lot of pitas in Jerusalem. There is also nutella that comes in the size of an ice cream bucket or larger that is out for every meal. Nutella + Pitas = Delicious! That brings us to today's story...

Liz quickly became a celebrity yesterday when she was discovered to have eaten more pitas than anyone else in the center! Brother Judd, the religion teacher from the other class, asked his students on their daily quiz how many pitas with nutella they had consumed since arriving at the center. While talking to him the following evening, he told us the highest number was 12. Liz was shocked. She started counting and decided she had eaten at least 20 by that point. (Keep in mind, we had only been here 1 week!) All of the faculty caught wind, Brother Judd announced it in his class and our dinner table that night all heard it from the source herself. We learned just how quickly word spreads in our little community! We eventually realized the others were only counting the pitas WITH nutella and she was counting any pita at all. Once she realized that, the number dropped drastically. It was too late though. We frequently find ourselves walking around the center now, receiving congratulations from anyone and everyone on her accomplishment!

First Week!

Hello from Jerusalem!!! We've had quite the adventures over the past few days, but we're definitely loving every second of it all! They pack quite a bit into our schedule and with jet lag and adjusting, that's been kinda crazy. It's all super interesting though! We've mainly had a lot of orientations (going over the same stuff about 17 times to make sure we REALLY get it...hopefully we do now!). On Thursday though, we went on an introductory tour of Jerusalem, primarily the Old City. (PS--did we mention we're in the Holy Land? SO cool!) Then on Friday we had free time after class and got to do some exploring on our own! We went to the Western Wall and did our best to get lost in the city. However, one of the students with us was a wonderful tour guide and prevented that from happening.

Friday was also the first day of class. Maybe we should have listened a little more in depth during early morning scripture study. Being awake could have helped us now. We thought we had studied our assignment for Old Testament quite thoroughly...until the pop quiz. "Who was Eliezar?" and "Where in Canaan did Abraham go when Lot faced Sodom?" must have missed our radars. All in all, the class average was probably about 15%. We're all a little more terrified and more intense in our studying now.

Today is Shabbat, so even though it's Saturday, it's really like our Sunday. We had church in an amazing room overlooking all of Jerusalem with an incredibly international ward. It's amazing to see how many places people come from! Imagine singing sacrament songs IN Jerusalem. It's even better. This afternoon Sara had the chance to go to the Garden of Gethsemane. There is a public portion and a private portion. Generally everyone just goes to the public part, but a few of us snuck away from the group and were able to go into the private section. It was nothing like I had ever imagined, but it was a truly remarkable experience.

Liz got to go to the Orson Hyde memorial park. She walked around.

Did we mention we can see all of Jerusalem from our balcony? Or where we eat? Or where we have class? The view is amazing and the center is FULL of windows! The Dome of the Rock sits inside the Old City and we can see that from almost anywhere in the center. Sara woke up this morning, moved her curtains and took in all of Jerusalem before even sitting up in bed! We live in a museum/palace/resort. It's pretty legit. The center is absolutley incredible! The limestone makes it super fun to slide around in socks as well. There are 8 floors and virtually everything we need is here.

The food has been excellent and pita bread is a frequent snack. They combine native foods with American foods so we can broaden our horizons but feel at home as well!

OH!!! And you should all be happy to know that we occasionally have the BYU football games broadcasted in our Forum room!!! On Friday they showed the game live at 5:30 AM. Guess who your dedicated fans are??? (Actually, Liz was there at 5:45. Sara had to work out first, so she didn't make it until 6.) Unfortunately class started at 8 and they threatened us with not showing the games in the future if we were late, so we didn't see the end. Luckily though, nothing significant happened after we left! Also, we learned the BYU/Utah game will be shown. Woot woot!

Our group is great and everything is magical here! We're determined to know everyone as soon as possible, so we've been introducing ourselves and playing lots of games with people to get to know them better. Occasionally we hold study parties with them too in order to multi-task. :)

We love you! Keep writing and updating us on everything! Let us know if you have questions, because we really don't know what to write on here. :) Thanks! Love you!