First half of Egypt

Hello WORLD!
I have just returned from a most exciting adventure in Egypt. I paid a price, but it was definitely worth it. So here's what went down:
After stocking up on dolla dolla bills for our souvenir shopping in Egypt...

Sunday 17 May

Breakfast at 5:30am in the Oasis. A bit early to fill up a stomach until 1 pm, but I made sure I had plenty of energy. We boarded the bus and took our last glance at the Jerusalem center at 6:30am. Our bus ride was quite long, but it was interrupted by quite a few stops so it made it bearable. First stop was Tel Beersheba where we encountered a Pagan Altar and an ancient well, then Sede Boker (wilderness of Zin overlook and Ben Gurion's grave), Tel Avdat which had a lot of SWEET ruins,

Machtesh Ramon, and then took a tour of Kibbutz Yotvata! The Kibbutz was incredible. To think that these people successfully live on the law of consecration boggles my mind! In fact, Kibbutz Yotvata is very prosperous and very successful, one of the most successful in the world. This little Jewish Community contributes work such as working in date fields (lots of agricultural jobs), milking the cows, working in the restaurant they run, etc and by doing this, just about EVERYTHING is paid for. Housing, insurance, schooling, shared cars, medical bills, utilities, food, they even get a little allowance at the end of the year that they can spend on extra things like furniture and vacation! They have no crime, and for the most part, there is very little dispute because those live there want to live there. To think, one day, that is close to how we will all live! Not to mention, even the dairy cows are pampered to death. They feed these cows three times a day and wash them 9 times a day...

After our tour and dinner, we all went to stay overnight at another Kibbutz called Kibbutz Eilot. That night before bed, a lot of us decided to take a taxi over to the Red Sea for the evening and we swam and walked through the little shops along the coast. It had amazing nightlife. Everything is open so late! It was a lot of fun, we just walked by the shops looked around, helped myself to a mango slushy, and bargained a taxi down to the smallest amount possible to get back to the Kibbutz.

Monday 18 May

We arose and departed for the Taba Border crossing only 30 minutes away. This was my first encounter with Egypt and I could not deny my intimidation and nervousness. As we got out of the bus at Taba it was already scorching hot. We waited in line with our entire luggage as Egyptian officials questioned us about why we were going to Egypt. Our entire luggage went through magnetic scanning but the guy wasn't even looking at the screen. Reassuring my safety that was. Hah just kidding. The people on the Egyptian side I swear had never seen a white person in real life before we came through. The man who took my passport got really close to my face and gasped "beautiful eyes American!" That was just the beginning of the eye comments that flooded every girl in our group's upcoming week. After our border crossing, all we had left was our bus ride to Cairo: a whopping 8 hours on the bus with only 2 rest stops. Our group got to get to know each other quite well ;) We finally arrived in Cairo at around 6pm to the most amazing hotel: The Oasis Pyramid Hotel in Giza, it was very very nice. It had a pool, I looked out my window and there were the pyramids, and we each had our own full size bed, the food was gourmet, I loved it. The only problem was that the Jerusalem Center had labeled me as a male, so everytime I recieved the rooming list, I was put right there with Eric and Brad. It was quite an experience... Ha! Just kidding, don't you worry, I got it figured out. Mary-Kate and Brigitte replaced Eric and Brad and we had a dandy old time. We just had to avoid all fresh fruit, vegetables, and dairy... haha I still thoroughly enjoyed it though. Right from dinner we went to the Sound and Light show at the Pyramids. Despite my exhaustion and the bobbing of the head, it was a spectacular way to introduce to wonders of Egypt.

Tuesday 19 May

I started feeling a little sick today even though I had been so careful of what I ate. I even brushed my teeth with bottled water! But no, the dysentery bacteria infested Nile water still found it's way to my intestines. It didn’t affect me too much though don't you worry! We departed for the Giza Pyramids with our Egyptian tour guide Ahmed. The Pyramids are so spectacular. The three largest pyramids at Giza were Khufu, Khafre, Maunakre and we got to go inside the Khufu pyramid. We walked into a tunnel-like area and then had to ascend up these board planks forever in this TINY space. There's only one way in and one way out so we had to allow Asian tourists squeeze by to get out while we were in line to go in. It was extremely hot and humid, and did I mention how small the tunnel was that we had to crawl through to get to the center? It was AWESOME. I felt like a little Egyptian, all I was missing is the mummified body... ;) when we got into the tomb in Khufu we sung a hymn and it sounded really cool. Funny Story: So before we went into the tomb, this merchantman kept bothering me with these hieroglyphic calendars. I kept telling him no, but he just kept following me around haha, so after the tomb our group was fooling around taking pictures with the pyramids, I decided to take a creative picture with my friend matt, where he dipped me with Khufu in the background. Afterwards, the merchantman that had been following me came up to matt and offered 200 camels for me... and matt almost bartered me off!!

Haha, I’m a 200 camel woman..? Anyways, after the pyramids we visited the Sphinx, which was made in the image of Pharaoh Khafre on a lion’s body, a symbol of strength and power. I gave him a little kiss ;) Next stop was the Papyrus factory where we watched the process of making papyrus. They strip the outer skin on the papyrus and then hammer it down to drain out all the water and then line up strips of the papyrus to make a large canvas.

Papyrus is incredible! Did you know that you can wash papyrus? That's why it lasted for thousands of years; King Tut even had a chair made of papyrus, still intact and everythin. I saw it in the Cairo museum.... but that’s a different story. After the Papyrus museum, we went out to Saqqara to see the Mastaba and Zoser complex as well as the step pyramid which was the very first pyramid constructed by Imhotep for Pharaoh Zoser dating back to the 27th century BC. Personally one of my favorite pyramids, because Imohotep made this pyramid as a symbol of Zoser's ascension to eternal life (hence the steps of this pyramid).

Then we drove through Memphis (the first capital of Egypt) to get to the Airport for our flight to Luxor! I was so excited for this flight because we boarded right from the ground of the runway!!! This has secretly been one of my life-long dreams; I felt like a movie star ;)
The flight was very nice and our hotel was.... SOO so nice. We are so spoiled here. It was a Sheraton and it was right along the banks of the Nile. After dinner, I walked around by the Nile to observe the nightlife. They had ferryboats, lamplights, feet in the sand; it was beautiful and so romantic. Darn dating rule…
TO BE CONTINUED ;)

The Pope and Governor Huntsman

This is my roommate Ashley. She's pretty much awesome. She's also my future anatomy TA, heck yes ;)
We have quite the company here in Jerusalem! The Pope has been our next door neighbor for a couple days now. Guards have swarmed the Center and all streets leading up to it, so it's been a little difficult coming in and out of the Jerusalem Center. We have soldiers guarding all posts, including our side patio by our room because my room is at the very edge of the hallway (coincidentally facing the current residence of the Pope). So everytime we come home, we wave to the Soldier on duty. My roommates and I figured his life must be very boring so we came to the conclusion that we will eventually teach him the "crank dat soldier boy" dance so he can dance while on guard. It's been fun though, I definitely feel 40 times more safe than I did before. I don't get to see the Pope much except when he drives in his car. Sad :( Anyways, tonight we had Governor Huntsman as a guest here. We had dinner with him and then he addressed us in a Forum. He spoke about the importance of our opportunity and how we need to take advantage of it to make a difference in the world and to provide hope. He is a great speaker and is a very nice man. Who knew I had to come all the way to Israel to meet the Governor of Utah ;) Mark Shirtleff (the Attorney General) also spoke. He was actually a student here 30 years ago. (Dad, maybe you know him?) Also a wonderful charismatic speaker. Overall it's been a great night.

Now fastforward....

May 11th
We traveled to Jericho and saw Herod's Winter Palace. Herod was pretty much insane, that's all I have to say. Talk about paranoia, anyway, he died there at the grand Winter Palace by Wadi Cumron complete with a spa and huge pool. Haha. It's still at the beginning of its' archeological discovery state so there wasn't much to see except for the base of it, but it was still really cool. After that we hiked up to the Temptation Monestary that was definately on a mountain. It was really hot and we had to cover up our hair after that, so it was even more hot for the girls.

But it was totally worth it. The monastary was funded by the Romans and built by the Greeks so it has a very Greek Orthodox look to it. We then hiked our way back down and went to the archeological mound that had literally 40 different civilization built on top of eachother. It was AMAZING. There we also saw the Tel, the oldest tower ever found (it dates back to 8000 B.C.!) It's so incredible to see something so old still exists! Can you imagine what people's reaction would be to find our civilization in 8000 years? Afterwards we went to an outlook looking over Jericho and saw some camels and donkeys, sang the battle of Jericho, and took some sweet pictures ;)

May 10th
We had a free day and spent it in Ein Karim which was the birthplace of John the Baptist. It was a beautiful little town. We went up to the Church of visitation where Mary went to stay with her cousin and was visited by an angel of the Lord declaring she would bear Jesus. I literally felt like I was in the sound of music. The rolling hills, we asked nuns for directions to get there, the big steps going up to the church.... haha it was epic. We sang "The Hills are Alive" of course!

After that we went up to see the Chaggall windows which depict the 12 tribes of Israel in a synagogue next to a hospital. We then ventured to St. Johns Church which was SO beautiful, it was blue, white, with chandeliers. My favorite chapel so far :) We ate lunch and I got some pistachio and chocolate chip cookie gelato!!!! can you believe it? SO delicious. We called for a cab ride home and we convinced the cab driver to turn up the crazy arabian music, so we had the windows down, jammin to arabian pop music on the way home. Haha So fun. You have no idea ;)

P.S. Listen to Elder Bednar's most recent CES fireside at BYU-I, it was incredible!

Birthday & Shabaat Shalom!

May 8th

My birthday was fabulous! My alarm went off, but for some reason I refused to get up so I went back to sleep, right as I shut my eyes again, my roommates turn on the birthday song really loud and start dancing around me like black people (I have two roommates that are dance majors) while they threw cut out hearts that said really nice things on them about me. They are so sweet I love them to death. Then I had Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern studies class, learned a lot, and then did some homework. After being stuck in the Library for a while we went out for gelato in West Jerusalem, it was SOOO good. And then we went to visit this palestinian family we made friends with. They are a sweet family, they speak very little English, but it doesn't matter :) We just play with their kids. I feel like we will become very close friends to them. That afternoon we went to the Western Wall, which is one of the places that the Jews consider very sacred because it is the only remaining wall that surrounded the sacred temple which was destroyed in 70 AD. Jews cross oceans and drive for hundreds of miles to come pray here. It was the eve of Shabaat (right at sunset before the sabbath) so it was a little crowded but it was incredible to see so many children of Israel gathered together to worship Heavenly Father. It's a tradition to write a prayer on a little piece of paper and stick into the cracks of the wall, so there are literally thousands of notes stuck into the cracks of this wall. The women and men are seperated, so I walked into the womens section of the wall and made my way up to be able to touch the wall and stick my scroll of paper that I wrote into the wall. These jewish women were praying so very fervently, pouring out their souls at the base of this wall as they kissed it. It was very reverent and I felt the spirit there very strongly even though it was a different religion surrounding me. It made me contemplate: they hold this site so holy because it is the closest thing the Jews have to a Temple. We truly are so blessed to have temples on the earth today where we can be in the house of the Lord and are able to perform the ordinances, you know? I just love the temple. Anyway, after I said my prayer I was walking back and this lady smiled big and stated "Shabaat Shalom!" (which means happy sabbath) so I said the same back to her and she asked "You from the United States?" And I told her yes, and a bunch of 15 year-old girls that surrounded her came up and talked to me. They were from a Jewish school in New Jersey. She asked if I was Jewish and I replied no, and that I'm here with a study abroad program for 4 months. She went on to ask me how my experience was here since I wasn't Jewish. I replied that I truly felt that this was a holy place and felt great peace. She was gracious for my response and thanked me for my respect. She invited me in their swaying circle to sing Hebrew Hymns. It was such a wonderful experience. I hold such respect for the Jews, they really do have great values and a wonderful sense of community and family. It was an amazing experience. A wonderful way to spend a birthday let me tell you :)



May9th

Today was shabaat (sabbath) which is actually on saturday, but we went to the garden tomb where Jesus was buried. It was so beautiful. We saw a stone on the ground that said "pray for Israel" and when President Hinckley came to the Garden Tomb in 1996, his response to the stone was, "I do." Prophets and apostles have been here and believe that this is the place where Jesus was actually buried. It is such a sacred place. We had a quided tour by this little old man from England that had been a minister for many years. He bore his testimony about the Savior, and it was such a sweet experience. We went into the tomb, we sang some hymns about the Savior there and it was an amazing experience to be in the very place where Christ rose from the dead. I had time to contemplate my testimony of the Savior and it was very spiritually enriching. The Garden Tomb is definately a place where I have to visit often :)

Nineteen Years Eve

NOTE: I also made changes to my May 6th entry and added pictures so make sure you take a look!

So I made this blog for everyone's enjoyment really and I don't really know how this blogger thing works, so you few readers can invite others to read it if you'd like...

As many of you know, it is almost my birthday. I will finally be 19... Hooray! As many of my family members know, whenever people ask me what I want for a gift, I always reply: World Peace. I have recently discovered that me and the many of the citizens of Jerusalem have that in common:

This week has been busy so here's a brief overview:
Monday, May 4th we went on our first field trip. We departed the Bus at 8am and headed to Nabi-Samwil which means "Prophet Samuel" which is a church/mosque/synagogue near Gibeon to commemorate the birth of the prophet Samuel (he was actually born further east, the Byzantines had a little mix up ;). The wind was unbelievable. I had experienced first hand the East winds of the Middle East that literally blew me away, not a good day to wear your hair down.

I'm not a fan of windy Israel because it picks up the dust and sand, you can't open your eyes without getting dust in them, nor can you see more than 100 feet in front of you. I knew I should've packed goggles. But the wind slowed down every once in awhile so we pressed on. We boarded back on the bus. One of my jobs as a Field Trips Committee member is to make sure everyone makes it back on the bus after each site we visit so no one gets left behind, so I count heads, thumbs up to the driver, and off we go. We drove to the Seven Arches Hotel overlook which allows a panoramic view of Jerusalem's striking geographical features ;) and then to the Haas promenade overlook to eat our lunch.
Seven Arches Hotel outlook:
We then drove to Augusta Victoria Tower which is atop the Mt. of Olives and the highest point (2670 ft) when you are in the bell tower! It has beautiful, huge ornate church along with the bell tower and hospital. We sang a couple hymns in that chapel as well, it sounded beautiful. We even turned a few tourists heads! ;)

Bell Tower:
Inside the Church:
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Today was nonstop classes (with the exception of Wednesday afternoon) I go straight from Breakfast at 7:30am
to
Old Testament with Bro. Masters
He's a wonderful teacher. We are zipping through (already on Exodus 11 after a week!) but learning so much.
to
Ancient Near Eastern Studies with Brother Skinner
GREAT teacher. He's so intelligent I can't believe that someone could have that much information in one's head. We're lucky to have him, he's quite a famous guy, wrote a couple books and was the General Institute leader at one point I believe.
to
Modern Near Eastern Studies (emphasis on Judaism) with Ophir Yardin
He's a Jewish professor, and he's really great. The class is very very interesting to learn history and Judaism first hand. I love this class.
to
Modern Near Eastern Studies (emphasis on Islam) with Professor Mussalaam
Also a wonderful professor. Very intelligent, a little hard to understand sometimes but I can still follow him very well cause he's very organized and has a great sense of humor :)
to
Hebrew with Judy Goldman
Awesome class. I love it already and can already read a bunch of characters as well as do plenty of greetings. So Shabaat Shalom! (A greeting you say to people on the Eve of the Sabbath) We also learns songs and read children's books in Hebrew. I feel like i'm in elementary school again ;)

Also tonight we had a Forum from my Professor Skinner on the Dead Sea Scrolls and it was FASCINATING. I'll tell you more about that later cause right now I'm about to fall asleep cause my brain is dead ;)

Laila Tov!

A Sunday that seemed like Monday

Sunday, May 3rd, we had a free day so I went with a group around the old city. We went to the Cistern which is an ancient well that dates back before Jesus Christ. It was really cool. We had to crunch down as we descended into these really short, tight (people really were a lot smaller back then) stairs that lead down to the opening where all the water was and you look up above and you can see the well opening where people dropped down their bucket to draw water. We sang "I Am a Child of God" down there just cause it sounded so acoustic.

After that we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where the catholics believe Jesus was embalmed, buried, and crucified. It was a very interesting experience, people crouched down to kiss this giant slab of rock, lit candles, and there was priests singing and it rang throughout the whole church. It was a very grand church; definitely made me feel small, and it was very beautiful, the walls were covered with huge mosaics such as this one:

We then ventured down Christian corner to Jaffa gate where we started the Rampart's walk which goes along on top of the wall surrounding the Old City. The walk turned into more of a hike. The rocks were very uneven and we had to climb up and down these 2 ft. stairs. But it was cool to see a more aerial view of the city. We traveled from Jaffa to Lion's gate and then had to get off because you can't go on top of the wall near the Mosque. We went all the way to the end and the guards laughed at us below because there was a dead and we were like, "uhh..." what? But then we found the hidden exit... I shot arrows: (Me and Stephanie)

We ran into the entrance of the Western Wall so we went in to see that. It was strange to see the men and women separated praying fervently into a wall. In order to get near the Western Wall, or the HaKotel HaMa'aravi (a little hebrew for you ;) the men had to cover their skull with a kippah and the women have to cover their hair. It's amazing to see, a very unique experience.

We then ventured through the Jewish quarter which is actually very nice and very clean, I liked it there. The only strange thing was that the men averted their eyes and put their hands up so they couldn't see us, but i know they do that for religious reasons so it wasn't offensive. As I learned in my Modern Near Eastern Studies from the Jewish perspective class, Jews try to "avoid the natural man" so in order to do that, some just straight up don't look at tourist women.

We then started getting hungry so we decided to go up to West Jerusalem because they have some great places to eat there. As we passed through the city municipality, we were followed by an arabic man that introduced himself very aggressively to Eric (the only guy in our group) and asked us where we were from. He simply replied, "the united states" and tried to say nice to meet you and move on. The man lingered with us and started criticizing Jesus Christ toward us and asking us "where is your God" and started yelling it because we wouldn't reply. He was obviously drunk or drugged cause he couldn't walk straight but it made me sad to hear such words about the Savior. It scared me at the time because he was angry and was yelling, but I knew I was safe, I just got sad. He finally left us and we kept moving on to West Jerusalem.

The food lifted up our spirits. We went to this little shop that had Falafels and Schwarmas. I helped myself to a schwarma (kinda like a gyro, had flavorful lamb meat in a pita with hummus and some chopped cucumber, tomato, they even put fried potatoes in it!) while we took my roommate Ashley to a Kosher McDonalds... haha (she's a very picky eater). Afterwards we dragged Eric along to do a little shopping. There are alot of cute skirts here! We went to Shabaan's shop which is a very well known shop among Jerusalem students because the owner has been there for so many years. He just loves BYU students, he even had BYU sweatshirts and shirts, gave us a great discount, and served us juice and pita with hummus on it. Haha when I say he loves BYU student's and their business, I mean it. I got a few things from there, then we made our way back through the city.

So we ended up coming home, eating dinner, doing some studying, and I had a great time bonding with my roommates. I am so glad I got put to live with all of them. They are such great people. Catherine from Wyoming, Ashley from Sandy, and Brittany from LA. We say roommate prayer every night, and we always seem to distract ourselves with some kind of deep conversation. Over all I just had a blast :)

Rewind to Thursday/Friday

Many of you might have already read this in an email, but I wanted to post it so you could see pictures!

Thursday when I arrived after a LONG flight: I was greeted by the glorious Jerusalem center! What a great building to be greeted in the Holy Land by. It is so beautiful!
The Stairwell that goes all the way up the building, (from the dorms to the 8th floor!)

My room entry:


Our back patio (aren't the flowers beautiful!?)

Friday, May 1st we got to go on our own to the Holy City and a little group and I visited the Orson Hyde Memorial, the Garden of Gethsemane, and just walked around East Jerusalem. Orson Hyde was quite an amazing man, and I think I want to read the biography on him now written by M. Hyde. Orson Hyde dedicated this land for the return of the Jews, (FYI a lot of people thought he dedicated it for the preaching of the gospel to the Jews, but that is incorrect). The memorial is on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Lions Gate and the city wall. Very beautiful, although, unfortunately it is a hang out place for a lot of druggies now, but many people, even locals, still come to walk around to observe it's beauty.


It was an awesome experience to to be at the Garden of Gethsemane where the Savior bled from every pore. The olive trees can live for thousands of years, so the trunks a huge tangled mass and very old so there was a gate around the couple of trees protecting them.


It was very reverent there because it is kept up by monks and sits next to a Catholic church so I was grateful for that. The garden of Gethsemane is actually honored by three churches: Datinus Flevet, St. Mary Magdalene, and the Church of all Nations. The Datinus Flevet, the Catholic Church right next to the Garden, had the huge slab of rock inside and we asked one of the monks the signifance of it and he said that it was the Rock of Unction where they believed Christ knelt upon when he suffered right before he was betrayed.

Walking around town was an interesting experience, there were lots of old women selling vegetables on the floor of the street, Israeli soldiers standing around with their guns, guys taking pictures of us without us noticing... haha a little weird but apparently that happens a lot. We also saw the Via Dolorosa where the Catholics take a walk singing hymns through the city where they believed Christ walked with the cross.

As we headed back before sunset, we got to see a pretty good view of the Jerusalem center. It's such a beautiful building at such an ideal location, we are very lucky :). Right before went back into the center, we played a little game of soccer with the neighborhood kids, it was fun to make friends with our Palestinian neighbors :)


Today was fast Sunday, well actually Saturday because they celebrate the sabbath on Saturday, but it was an amazing experience. We did a full 24 hour fast which I don't think I really do often it's certainly been a humbling experience. We had sacrament meeting in the Jerusalem center where the wall behind the pulpit is completely glass so as we partook of the sacrament we got to overlook the Holy City.
We had fast and testimony meeting with our little branch. There are actually a few members here, most from America serving here for the government and such or attending Hebrew University, but there are about 2 natives that went to BYU that converted to our church, isn't that incredible!? I sang with the choir in this grand acoustic room, the hymn Jesus, Lover of my Soul, and was able to bear my testimony of the Savior today in front of the congregation; I felt the spirit so strongly. Already, this trip has affected me so much. I better head off cause I have some Old Testament reading awaiting me and I can break my fast ;) I love you all

BYU Jerusalem Center Study Abroad 2009

It's so strange to think that I'm actually here, in Jerusalem. The diversity of people still amazes me; all very religious in their own faith, Muslims, Jews, Orthodox Jews, Orthodox Christians, Catholics and you can pretty much distinguish between the different faiths either by their location or their way of dress. I love this city already, they kept the land ancient, the streets are still made of the rocks that the Romans made, all the buildings are still built with limestone, the ancient Western Wall still lines the dome where the temple once was. I am literally walking where Christ walked. It's so incredible and I am so blessed to be here. I'm still amazed at how incredible the Jerusalem center is. Professor Skinner here in orientation quoted Pres. Faust when he came to speak at a forum here a couple years ago and he said "this land has been preserved for many decades..." then Pres. Faust got a little emotional and could tell he was overcome with revelation, "no this land has been preserved for generations and generations for this building and for this very purpose." I am so blessed to be able to be here and experience this.
4/30/09
I was awoken by the Muslim call to prayer again this morning that rung throughout the whole city at 5am, but surprisingly I was quite ready to jump out of bed by then... I'm still getting used to the time. We went through a walk in both east and west Jerusalem today and the two sides are very different. East Jerusalem is mainly made up of palestinians, arabic speaking, much more dated environment whereas West Jerusalem is more urban city, jewish/ hebrew, with lots of shopping and tourists. I found out that Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida (where one of my best friends Ashley Mitchell attends school) has their own study abroad institution here too in West Jerusalem! I was suprised at the fact that a lot of people actually know who we are. These merchants in the streets were like "hello mormonss!" and another was singing "we lovvveee morrrmonns all the way to jerusalemmm" in this arabic accent, and another shop had BYU on his sign and has BYU Jerusalem t-shirts :). haha I couldn't really help myself, I was cracking up. We have a good, neutral, respectful reputation so I feel pretty safe. Although might I add: I am SO glad I dyed my hair, otherwise I would have stuck out like a sore thumb. I still can't get over how uniquely beautiful this place is. I've made lots of new friends, I know the majority of everyone's names here already! I'm still liking being the youngest, everyone else is just like my older brothers and sisters :)