Week 2: I Have a Tale about a Tel to Tell...

I decided to post two blogs this week since one is about my mission call, and if you look at it...it's quite huge. Sorry, but I like to talk (theatre trait).

1. So the Tel that I have to Tell is that a Tel is a mound or hill that was made from previous settlements. These settlements are usually cities that have been destroyed either from being old or enemies or just construction to build up the city. So the streets I walk here at Jerusalem aren't really the same streets that Christ walked. He walked the same area, but there are only a few places where the stones are from Christ's time (very few stones).

2. SUNDAY: Wandered the Old City and West Jerusalem. Oh and I bought something on Sunday; I know, I'm a rebel. (Our Sabbath is on Saturday, so don't think too low of me.)

MONDAY: Had a field trip which was many overlooks of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho, and many other places.

TUESDAY: Had classes all day! Great classes, but a little overwhelming.

WEDNESDAY: Had classes but during the break between classes went out to the Old City and looked around some more.

THURSDAY: Classes all day, Jazz/Ethnic concert, and received my call!!!

FRIDAY: After class, waited for 3 pm so I could open my call in the Garden of Gethsemane, then went to the Western Wall to welcome in Shabbot (the Sabbath).

SATURDAY: Went to the Garden Tomb before we had Israel District Conference.

3. My tender mercy this week was on Tuesday. It was just a rough day. We started classes, and they were all overwhelming with the reading. I also started feeling homesick because I think my body and mind finally realized that I wasn't going to be home for a few months and this wasn't just a vacation. (It's soo fun, but we are STUDYING abroad not playing abroad.) So I went and did my laundry (I have a very limited supply) and went to study also. Two of my friends, Devin and Brielle, came in. They didn't just come in, but they came in with one of my favorite things in the whole entire world!! SKITTLES!!! Skittles are my absolute favorite candy. They are seriously my comfort food, but I came across the world without them. So silly of me, but Devin was nice enough to ask me if I wanted some. I love her for that! It's AWESOME how Heavenly Father works through people.

4. Sunday was sooo funny!!! We have a new roommate. His name is Larry. Larry the Lizard. My roommate Taylor went outside on our patio for a few minutes and on the way back she saw something run into the room. I was taking a nap at the time, so she didn't want to wake me up and ran for one of her good friends here. They tried to corner it, then shoo it out, but it was soo FAST!!! Well, after a few minutes of trying to corner it, I woke up and then all three of us tried to either catch it (but we didn't want to tear it's tail off) or have Larry run back out the door. We weren't successful. He ended up running underneath Taylor's bed, and we tried to find him. We couldn't find him. We saw glimpses every once in a while that day, but we didn't see him leave the room. We haven't seen him since Sunday, but we're guessing either he is chilling and eating the bugs in our room or he left. We like to think he's still in our room, so we can claim that we have a roommate named Larry just to satisfy some more rebelliousness in us. ;)

5. Yesterday, we went to the Western Wall. I'm not sure how I can explain the feelings I had. The closest of how I can explain it is with a phrase our Academic Director described it: religious envy. At our meeting before going to the Western Wall, he explained how God works in many different ways to help people feel hope or connected to Him somehow and how if we try, we could feel something too. For many Jews, the Western Wall is the most sacred place to them because that's the wall which was part of a temple that was destroyed in 70 AD. To the Jews, this wall that is still standing is the closest place they can feel connected with God. As I was standing there waiting my turn to touch the wall, I was noticing all the different types of Jews and how they were mourning and remembering. As I watched, I felt something. I felt God's love for these people who are trying to do the right thing. Yes, I may not believe in what they believe, but I do respect them for trying to do what's right. It's amazing for this small town, country girl who's always been in the majority to go to this place with so many different beliefs and cultural ideas. It's the end of week 2, and I can't believe how much I have grown to love this place and the people inside and outside the center! I have already begun to feel sad for when I leave, but it's good because then I'll always feel the pressure to not leave a moment for granted. For I'm not going to leave with regrets, only with memories (and maybe some souveniors). Have a GREAT week!!!

I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go

For those who don't know...I GOT MY MISSION CALL!!! I've been blessed to be asked to serve in the Slovenia/Croatia mission speaking Croatian or however my mission president sees fit (aka I could be speaking something else once I get there). I will be entering the MTC on January 11, 2012 which will be about 3 1/2 weeks after I get back from Jerusalem. This is exactly when I wanted to leave because it's enough time (or hopefully enough) to get home and do whatever last minute things I need to do and spend time with the family at Christmas, but not too long that I get super anxious to leave. From what I hear about Croatia area and seen on Google, I'm already in LOVE. Yes, I know the pictures are for tourist spots but it looks so pretty. There's a girl here that has been to Croatia, and she was telling me all about the place and the people. Apparently there are very few members, and those who are members are basically women. Someone else told me that's where their grandparents top place to vacation because it's so beautiful. Pretty much, I'm stoked. Period.

I thought it would be fun to tell my adventure though on how getting my mission call went down because it wasn't just a simple I got the call in the mail then I opened it right then. It's kind of a process. First off, I didn't expect my call to come on Thursday but instead at least 2 weeks from how mission calls get delivered, and I had turned in my call 9 days before so it was kind of quick. Well, there was a jazz/ethnic concert on Thursday night, and I was ushering for it. I headed upstairs and one of my friends, Shalyn, asked me if I was waiting for a mission call. I told her yes and didn't think much about it because word was getting around that I was waiting for my call. She just looked at me with excitement and said, "There's a white packet upstairs that looks like a mission packet with your name on it." I freaked. I ran upstairs (but she had to keep directing me from behind because I didn't know where I was going), and then ran into the office and there it was. All perfectly white on top of the students' mail pile. I gently grabbed it and started freaking out even more. I just didn't know what to think. I couldn't believe it was here, and I didn't know what to do. I needed to usher and by that time I was running late. I tried to think of different options, then Shalyn who is such a sweetheart kept offering to do stuff. But I ended up just asking her to hold onto my mission call until after I ushered. Well once the concert was over, I booked it out and tried to hunt down Shalyn. I've been waiting too long to get my mission call and I wasn't going to wait anymore as long as it was in the building. But I couldn't find her! The Jerusalem Center is quite a large place, so I went to all the usual places where people go and called her name. No I couldn't find her anywhere! So I just told everyone that if they saw Shalyn to tell her I was looking for her. I went to her room and only her roommates were in there, and we did a sweep of the top of her things to see if it was there. Nope. So I got to my room because I had no idea what to do and I figured she would come to my room if she did try to find me. After about 10 minutes, Shalyn knocked on my door. YAY!! We talked for a little bit about missions (Shalyn served in Chile), and I just kept getting stoked. If you're wondering why I haven't opened it up by now, it's because for the past 5ish months, I've been dreaming of opening my mission call in the Garden of Gethsemane. People kept telling me how patient I was, but I think it's because I had dreamed about it so much, I wanted it to turn out just right. Now don't think I'm a saint or anything because I surely was tempted to open it many times (especially at 1:30 in the morning when I don't have a super good grasp on self-control and the envelope was kind of turned on the end, so it was already at the beginning stages of opening). I didn't open it the next morning because since it was Friday, we can't leave the center until 3 pm because there are prayers going on to welcome in the Sabbath and if a riot was to happen in East Jerusalem and the Old City, it would happen sometime before 3. So I took a lot of naps because there was no way I was going to get homework done, and it made the time go by so much faster. I also was super tired from not being able to sleep the night before. But a blessing happened, and I asked the Academic Director if we could leave at 2:45, so my group and I could be back for our 4 o'clock meeting (the walk to Gethsemane is about 20 minutes). He approved, so off we went at 2:45!

The walk up to the garden was not fast enough! I feel like I could have ran the whole way there, but I don't think my group had enough motivation to run the whole way with me (there are some steep hills). Once we got there, I had thought this all through. I wanted to sing "Called to Serve" and "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go". The girls who went with me (Shalyn, Eliza, Suzy, and Cali) are excellent singers, so I'm glad we were able to sing before I went off down the path a little bit and opened my call (they had a great view, so they caught it on camera. If you want to see it, you'll have to ask when I get home. It's pretty great). When I opened my call, I just couldn't believe it. Croatia? Wow. I'm so blessed. I then called my family (I called a earlier than expected, so it was soo hard to just keep it in. There were many times I wanted to be like, "I AM GOING TO CROATIA!" But I didn't.) The girls who were with me just freaked out when I told my family on the phone. But we had to book it back to the center for our meeting (totally made it back in record time) then I announced it to all of the people in the Jerusalem Center at the meeting where I was going. I received a standing ovation which was pretty cool (since I'm involved in theatre, standing ovations mean a lot to me). I just can't believe I'm going on a mission. AAAAHHHHHHH!!!

I know I need to go to Croatia (or Slovenia or Serbia; those countries are also in my mission). It's going to be super duper hard, but super duper awesome. For whatever amount of effort you put into something, you'll receive a greater amount back. I don't know what Heavenly Father has in plan for me, but I know it will be a great finale to these best two years of my life (EFY, Jerusalem, and then mission). Life is AMAZING!!!

Week 1: Am I in Near or Middle East?

As I have been thinking about what exactly what I want to post on my blog every week I decided to put it into 5 sections. 1. My title will tie into the first part because I'll give a little tidbit of something I thought was interesting I learned this week specifically non-spiritual since I'm guessing a lot of my readers are like me and don't have any idea of what goes on in Jerusalem geographically, politically, historically, and all that jazz. Also, not everything I learn these weeks will have the spiritual aspect. 2. I will give a low down of what I did this week (Randi you might want to skip this part; you asked for a heads up;) ). 3. My tender mercy for the week. 4. Something fun/funny that happened. 5. Testimony builder. Now that you all know the set-up you can read it all or just what you are looking for specifically (or none at all, but I'm guessing you'll want to read something or you wouldn't be on here).

1. Our substitute Academic Director who is getting replaced next week (the new one couldn't come until after a wedding) asked us the question if we were in the Middle or Near East? I answered smart-alecky, "Location?" And I was actually part right. Hopefully I understand this correctly (I was kind of sleep deprived at the time), Near East is a term Europeans use since this area is 'Near East' and Middle East is a term us Americans use. I don't know what Asians call it, but I thought it was a nifty tidbit.

2. Monday: Had orientation in Provo then couldn't sleep because I was so stoked!

Tuesday: Flew from SLC to NYC!! Then from NYC to Tel Aviv (an Israeli airport).

Wednesday: Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean then landed in Tel Aviv. Had Orientation in Jerusalem!

Thursday: Had an orientation walk and more orientation stuff (lots of times trying to stay awake since we were all still jet lagged).

Friday: Went to the Israel Museum (mostly archeological stuff), the Garden Tomb (talk more about that later), and the Old City by ourselves!!!!

Saturday: Had church ( I was chorister for Primary, so much fun!!! Hopefully I get a calling in Primary!) and went to the Garden of Gethsemane (AMAZING, 'nuff said).

3. My tender mercy for the week has been regarding flights. Obviously, I'm grateful I'm here, but seriously. I'm one of the blessed who has been here since the beginning. After our flight made it to NYC, we heard from someone who still had their phone on them taht 51 of our classmates (there are 82 of us all together) were stuck in Phoenix. After that first leg of the trip, their plane which was going to Philadelphia had maintenance problems and got ancelled. When the 30 of us got on the flight, we still didn't know how our friends were going to make it. 16 arrived Friday (note we arrived on Wednesday) while 1 got stuck in Frankfurt because she was put on the waiting list, and 12 more arrived Saturday. 1 student was laready here before because his father is a professor, Bro. Ludlow. If you were counting, yes, you did your math right. 22 people are still not at the Jerusalem Center. I feel very sad for them, but very blessed to be here right now. I can't imagine the last week waiting around to get here. If you look at my schedule, you can see I have done soo much already! I feel like I have been here for a month and want to stay forever! It's so beautiful here, and it's amazing how being in the country! I am so blessed to have Delta pull through for us.

4. Something fun that has happened was after we visited the Garden Tomb. We went into the Old City to just get our bearings and see as many sites as we can. The vendors LOVE us. I cannot express it anymore than that. We just walk down the streets and they ask, "Mormon?" and we reply, "Yes." then they get these HUGE smiles on their faces and say, "Welcome!" and try to get us in our shops. I'm guessing they've had plenty of students come by from the 'Mormon University' (no one knows us from the BYU Jerusalem Center). We had one man, who stopped us on our orientation walk to give us discount cards, stop us again and actually was able to get us into his shop (it was probably my fault but I'll take the blame!) We walked in and he offered us some fruit juice ( he knew that we didn't drink coffee or tea; again previous students) then he dressed us up in legitimate dressess and headdress. We got pictures; don't worry, I got some nice pics. I wish I could post them, but our internet stream can't handle all of us downloading pictures onto the internet so they made a rule to not let anyone. It's cool. You'll just have to come back later for the good stuff. ;) He seemed bummed after we had a good time taking pictures that we didn't buy anything, but I'll definitely come back later not only because his stuff is cheaper than other places I saw, but because he tried so hard. I respect him for his effort and feel like he should get something for it. And if anything, I should pay him for the fun we had!

5. Finally what will probably be my favorite part of my blogs: testimony builder. On Friday, we went to the Garden Tomb. We were supposed to start classes but since a good amount of the students weren't here yet, we did a field trip instead. When we arrived at the Garden Tomb, we had to wait outside a little bit, so we sang some resurrection hymns. Our group has AMAZING voices, and the Spirit came in so quickly. I love how music can do that. As we walked, the tour guide kept telling us how historians THINK where the crucifixion and resurrection were at but no one really KNOWS. He also kept reminding us that the place wasn't the important part, but the subject was what is really important. After the tour and seeing where supposedly Christ's crucifixion and resurrection was, we gathered as a group and had a devotional. We can't talk about our faith to others unless they are already members. So there was a little spot designed for groups, and we sang hymns and two of our professors gave us some thoughts. I'll be saying this a lot but it describes what I feel: it was amazing. The Spirit was so strong, and I'm just so grateful to be here where Christ walked and talked. Where He healed the sick, blind, and lame. Where He suffered, died, and resurrected. But I realized in the Garden of Gethsemane that what he did is important, but it is not the most important thing. He did ALL those things for ME (and you but this thought was directed towards me). If I don't remember and strive to be better, all those events will just be events. What Christ did and how it impacts me right now is the important realization. For Christ is not gone, He's LIVING though me right now. I made the mistake to not understand that until I came here. But if that's all I learn this semester, it will be enough to get me through to the end and return to my Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank goodness though, that this will not be the only thing I learn this semester. I'm so grateful for the adventure that is ahead of me, and I hope you'll enjoy it too. Until next week!

Oh hey

I'm having technical difficulties with my blog. Shalom

Just a Few Adventures

Ok, I'm really horrible at blogging. My goal is to blog every week while I'm at Jerusalem, so hopefully that will help me stay caught up! I just want to share a few moments I've had the previous months.


First off, my freshman roommate got married 2 weeks ago! She looked sooo beautiful, and we had a ball all together. You can catch a glimpse of a few of the amazing people I hung out with that weekend. By the way, don't judge me. ;)

We had a Fiesta at my Grandpa's place for a work party. We had soo much fun! This picture just shows a little bit of the spiciness fun we had. I know, I look cute.

During March again, I went to the American Fork Krishna temple's celebration of the Festival of Colors. I have never coughed up so much chalk in my life! But it was a BLAST!!! It was also amazing to see someone else's religion and culture. I would definitely suggest it to anyone else with these tips: take sunglasses to cover the eyes, handkerchief to cover the mouth, and go early in the day when there aren't as many people high off of stuff other than chalk (if you get my drift). But other than that, go have a ball!!!

This summer I had the A-MAZING opportunity to serve as an Especially For Youth counselor four awesome weeks. I can't think of any other thing better I could have done this summer. I loved being with those girls and saw how they could grow during the week through the gospel. These girls were my first week during pizza night! Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of my other girls because so many cameras were already going on, but I did love them all like my own little sisters that I never have had.

After EFY, there was EFC (Especially For Counselors) at Disneyland!!! It was crazy fun!!!!! I loved getting to know other counselors and people and reminisce with counselors I already knew. I can't believe how blessed I am in this life with the people I know, and the experiences I have shared and will share with others in the future.

Another adventure that I have had which I don't have pictures for at this time:

My cousin, Nate Haines, and a few friends came out to Vernal for the weekend. They came to run the river and go to the Demolition Derby. It was so much fun to see these city folks come to a hick event. The cars roarin', smoke coming out of engines, and the smell of money (cows, that's what my dad likes to refer the smell as) are just a few of the things that reminds me of home. But the big adventure happened earlier that day on the river. We decided to not get a guide especially since the Green River wasn't running fast, and it's not that intense of a river. Well we're weaving in and out of tight spaces and having a grand ole time. There was a rock up ahead in the middle of the river, and we started casually saying right or left. Well some went left and some went right and together we went smack dab in the middle of the rock (Mother-In-Law in case if you were wondering what it was called). I tried to flip the raft over or something, but in my effort my hand instead got caught in between where the raft folded. Everyone was able to swim to shore, but I just kind of chilled there on the raft with my hand being comforted in the middle of the raft. After a mintute or two, I was able to wiggle my hand free. Since I was there, I tried to budge the raft off. The current was ridiculously strong. I tried one side then went to the other and tried. After some tugs, the water took me under and I think I hit a rock with my leg because I had a lovely bruise afterwards. We weren't able to get the raft out, so we had to pay them to get the raft off. But we are blessed because they said since we were so nice and willing to accept whatever consequence that came, we just had to pay the minimum fee ($500, but much better than $2000 which was what the raft cost and much better than someone getting hurt). Let's just say we learned to make decisions quickly in life. The river is like life ;) Think about it.

Updates:

Today I had my interview with the Stake President, and he will press the button in 9 days for my mission papers to go to the 1st Presidency!! AHHH!!!

On that same day (August 30), I will be going to travel to Jerusalem for an entire semester. Life is just simply amazing. I can't believe that I will be blessed to go walk where Christ walked, lived, and died for an entire semster. Hopefully 2 weeks from now I will have updated this blog to let you know my extraordinary experiences that I will have over there.

The Last of 2010

Since I've been lazy, here's a recap of the last 6 months.








It first started off in Idaho, I had a road trip with some friends from my freshman ward. Our Relief Society and Elder's Quorum presidents married in June. Typical BYU :)

The next adventure was in July for the Jolley family reunion at New York, it starated at Niagra Falls, Palmyra, then ending in New York City. I loved spending time with my whole family. I can't wait for May when we can all be together again.

Another trip I took in November was to Cedar City. I didn't get any pictures with one of my best friends, Randi, but I did get a ride to the St. George temple and did some baptisims for the dead. The temple was very beautiful being all white.

My roommates/cousins and I went to the Harry Potter 7 Part 1 midnight showing! It was way fun dressing up and being one of the firsts to see the last first part of the Harry Potter movies.

(Me/Percussionist Weird Sister, Nate/Harry Potter, Aaron/Dobby)

My old roommate, Kaitlyn, and I have this tradition to do something crazy every night during finals week. This past finals week, we only had one night before I went home. So we did something that we've done before. LAUNDRY SLIDING!!!!

I had a little mishap....let's just say I added something to my Christmas list last minute.

Before I went, Aaron and I did baptisms for the dead in the Draper temple. This temple was gigantic! It's so big, there were 18 weddings scheduled for that day. Crazy!

Arizona!!!

It's almost been a month since I was in AZ, but better late than never right? So I went to see Wills, Bailey, and adorable Monson for a week and I had a blast! (except for the weird food poisoning or whatever that was, but I am good now and so is Wills! lucky Bailey, she didn't even go pale) Wills, Monson, and I went to go play basketball on one of the mornings, and we had an epic battle of Around the World!! So to play, you have to shoot around the key, the 3-point line, and half-court (in total 15 spots). You take turns taking two shots each and if you miss the second time you have to start over, or if you miss once than you can say pass and stay in the spot you are at. Well, I slowly made my way to half-court while Wills kept getting cocky then missing and starting over. I shot probably over 80 or 90 half-court shots, then Wills caught up to me and made the half-court shot in 2 shots. (I never practiced half-court shots in high school, I was always in the key) Well, after he made it, I wanted to try one more time. Swish! I made it right after Wills won!!! What an exciting game. I think it took us about an hour and a half or two hours!! Here is a pic right after the game.



I also had to get some pics of the star in the Jolley home! This one I had to take because he looks so cute when he takes a bottle and is about to fall asleep!

I guarantee he is so much bigger now, but I can't wait to see him and the entire William Jolley family in July for Palmyra!!! WHOOHOO!!!! :D :D :D :D :D