just missing

I'm just missing my family today. These guys are the greatest. I don't really want to pull the "my family is better than yours" thing....but my family is definitely better than yours. Nate and Liz are off adventuring in Africa for a few more weeks before heading to New York for an internship. (not even married one year and already lived the coolest places). I like to tease Nate and Liz all the time for being too touchy and lovey and weird and gross. But really I love it. I love seeing how in love they are; they make it seem like fairy tales do happen. and my parents...I don't even know where to start with them. They're the best parents in the world. And then there's Allie. She is often heard singing opera and musicals from the den, and forgetting her pantaloons. She has the most incredible voice and I just love her. She's turning 17 tomorrow! My baby sister is growing up! :(

We're currently on three different continents, soon to be four once Allie heads to Peru!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLIE MICHELE!

I'm completely in love with Jerusalem...I think my family is the only thing that will get me to come home.

shephelah

We had a great field trip to the Shephelah yesterday. We visited these 5 valley's...Aijalon, Sorek, Elah, Guvrim, and Lachish. I love our field trips. It's crazy how we can visit some burning hot, desolate land and feel the spirit. Our professor's are so great at explaining the scriptural and historical events from each location and then giving an awesome devotional that always brings the spirit right in.

me and joe at one of the valleys.

 this valley is where samson was from...i think its Elah but don't quote me. The ark of the covenant was at this very location! joe ludlow skipped school today and came on our field trip so he may or may not appear in most of my pictures.

david cramer and david burbidge

 This is at another valley...i wan't to say Sorek... This is the valley where David slew (is that a real word?) Goliath. That's what makes this pic of me and the David's so appropriate. They love David days. Today they wore crowns to class while we talked about the rise of King David in 1 Samuel.

just slinging a rock, like David. If I fought Goliath I would be dead real fast. My rock kept going backwards. 

i look so awkward. maddie, steph, and me

this is how you properly dismount from standing on an antiquity. dont tell dr. jackson. 

 At Lachish we got to stand in an ancient  Holy of Holies. We learned how important this was to their worship and had a great devotional. Except it was so hot that I can't remember much.

saving joe from a big cliff. this kid is great. 

just posin at the bell caves.

rachel, karen, joe, steph, and me

 These pictures don't really show how great these caves were. First, monday was like 1000000 degrees. So going underground was the greatest thing ever. I'm considering moving into these caves for the rest of the summer (it's REALLY getting hot here). Usually i'm not one for breaking into song (mostly just hymns) in public, but this was a really great place for singing.

me, meg, lane, and steph

Life is good.

this week

this week has been crazy and I feel like pictures are the only way to describe it. 

me and chloe at King Herod's winter palace. I wrote a whole three pages on this lovely mound of dirt. 

avery, rachelle, steph, and maddie at Elijah's spring

just hiking through the desert. we sat down in the wilderness and talked about how Christ wandered somewhere around here for forty days. Can you imagine being in this wilderness for that long? I barely survived for an hour.

 Our field trip on Monday was to Jericho. There we saw a lovely tell (mound of dirt), a few ruins of Herod's palace, springs of Elijah, and the wilderness. Brother Ludlow (otherwise known as j-rowdy) told us not to set our expectations too high because there's really nothing there. I can say i've been to the oldest city in the world though...sweeet.

hahaha dwight got a haircut and then the guy started threading his eyebrows. classic.

me and joe at arab night. he's 13 going on 22. too many college girls around here for him. 

roomies at arab night! steph, annie, me, and lane

 arab night was a thrill. The men who recite the quar'an and call to prayer at Al-Aqsa mosque. Al-aqsa is the second? most important place after Mecca in the Islamic religion. I love the sound of that call to prayer and it was SO cool to hear it live, especially by such famous men. Then I had some of the most delicious food the Oasis has ever served.

just learning some arab dances. which of course turned into a real dance party with  dj aj. I feel like everything turns into a dance party around here. Perfect for me. 

me and heather at Gethsemene. 

big group at Gethsemene

 Yesterday for the Sabbath big group of us visited Gethsemene. I was so happy that after a whole month here I FINALLY made it there! It was beautiful but very touristy. We got permission to enter a secret garden across the street next Sabbath! (no tourists and more natural looking olive trees!)


This happened TODAY. I'm so on top of things. 


My alarm went off at 3:45 this morning and I couldn't figure out why. Then I remembered. It's the Jewish holiday Shavout today. A huge group of about 75 students went to the Western Wall to watch them worship. Our Israel teacher got permission for us to go, so we figured it would be cool. Right as the sun came up, all the Jews started praying. It was really neat to see so many people there praying, but I don't think I would get up at 4AM for it again. It was perfect timing though, because then we were first in line to see.....DOME OF THE ROCK!

melissa, me, and analise at the Dome!

not posing at the dome. (we got in trouble for posing). analise, lane, me, bekah, aj, devery.

 The dome has really strange hours and long lines, so it's hard work getting in. We were first in line today and it was great! We were literally the only ones up on the temple mount. I've never seen anything quite like it.

After the dome we ran back to the center to grab breakfast and then went to a Pentecostal church. It's Pentecost today so they had a fun church service full of singing and praising!

After Pentecostal church we went to the Israel museum to finish an assignment for our ANE class. It was cool but we were all so tired so we just checked everything off the list. I definitely plan on going back because they have some real art there!!!!

me and rachel at a replica of the old city at the time of Herod

just an Oldenberg statue. no big deal, just learned about  this in my humanities class! (i was SUPER excited).

at another piece I learned about in Humanities! nobody else shared my excitement.

 Then we decided it would be cool to walk to ben yohouda.

we walked forever and ever and ever and ever. and West Jerusalem was closed for the Jewish holiday. So we walked back to the old city (total of two hours walking), ate pizza, and then went home.

Long day. But i hit four religions. jewish holiday, dome of the rock (islam), pentecostal, and Mormon of course.

hit me baby one more time

yeah this is my third blog post of the day. what are you going to do about it? I don't want to do my homework. and something real special happened recently, so I feel like its a good use of a post.

do you see this beautiful girl? (i'm shocked and embarrassed that all the pics i have of her is high school)

this is Bree. Bree has some exciting news. 

She's getting married, on August 15. Just in time for me to come home. I'm couldn't be more happy for her and even though I haven't met Joe in real life yet (we met in facetime life)...I know he's great! and I am SO EXCITED!

the rebman's (oh my. how cute)

they are adorable. that's all I have to say.

you lie like a rug

I just told brother ludlow that my favorite class is ANE and that i've already studied the readings in depth for class tomorrow. He told me that I lie like a rug. I like that. That's why he's my favorite.

After all of our aqua fantasies had been fulfilled we were obviously exhausted. We went to bed and woke up to our wake up call the next morning...or so we thought. My roommate Beka answered the call and found that it was 7:30. We had missed breakfast and our whole class was on the bus waiting for us. We threw everything in our suitcases and were on the bus within 3 minutes of our wakeup call. If thats not impressive, I'm not sure what is. That was the beginning of a rough day. I spilled a little bit of everything I ate all day on my clothes. Kind of like a walking scrapbook.

We had a 10 hour bus ride that day (not exaggerating) so I guess it was a good day to be rough. We saw Sardis and thyatira (ancient ruins not much to say).

rachel, hannah, and me at Sardis

We got to our hotel in bursa and had the best dinner of the whole turkey trip. Our last hotel had super tasty chocolate cake. (it was real!!!!!!) the cake was a highlight and yes it is documented on the shirt scrapbook.

me and steph

 The next day we went to Nicea where they made theNicean Creed. We talked about the restoration of the Gospel and how it's pretty cool that what scholars took days to decide...Joseph Smith learned in just a few hours!

Then we went to Hagia Sophia! It was so amazing! I learned all about it last fall and have wanted to go ever since. It exceeded my expectations. These pictures don't even begin to describe how beautiful it was.

me, rachel, chantal

Our last couple hours in Istanbul were full of shopping and a completely fishy dinnner (i hate fish), so I had fruit and bread. These pictures don't do Turkey justice. It's an incredible place and I will definitely be going back.

More turkey

I'm trying to update on turkey quickly because new and exciting things happen in my life everyday. So I'm getting behind!

My favorite ancient ruins would have to be assos and Ephesus. I went to Ephesus with some friends about two years ago and hated it! I didn't understand why it was even cool. I'm glad we went to some lesser ruins before Ephesus because then I understood why it's so great!

We had to hike up a big hill to reach Assos. The ruins were just kind of normal. But the view was INCREDIBLE. I think it was one of the most beautiful views i've seen in  my life. The apostle Paul went to Assos, but I can't remember what he did there. I wrote it down somewhere though.

michael and i at Assos. BEAUTIFUL VIEW! and yes. i'm wearing navy&brown. and chacos. 

posing at the assos theater with devery, kenz, and heather

magnum bars forever. (also..i think i pull off the blonde afro nicely)

 Later that day we visited Pergamon. This is one of the seven churches of Asia. We got to take a cool tram to the top of a hill. It was great.

The next day we saw Ephesus and the Church of saint John. Many people believe John was buried there. Those silly guys, John wasn't buried! Ephesus was incredible. Compared to all the other ancient ruins ive seen (and trust me I am becoming quite the ancient ruin expert) it was the greatest. The library of celsus was incredible and the theater was huge. And to top that off I got to pose in the sacriphogus (that's how our cute Turkish guide nejib said sarcophagus.) speaking of nejib. He was the cutest little guy around. He likes everything "so much. It is so good and so beautiful" especially when there are " tirtee tree towsand people" he was great.

ephesus!

just posing in the sacrafogus

 After Ephesus we went to priene. It was just some more ruins. The thing I remember most about this place was the devotional that brother huntsman gave. We talked about how hard it must have been for the apostle Paul to say goodbye to his friends in ephesus. We then talked about death and separation from our loved ones. Im pretty sure everyone cried.

statues at Priene

We then headed back to our hotel "aqua fantasy". We got two solid waterslide runs in before they closed. But now I can say ive been to a Turkish waterpark! That night we partied at the huge hotel and went to a karaoke party.

turkey pics!

rachel, me, karen, avery at the Gollipoli battlefield

 i learned all about this battle of gollipoli but now i've forgotten.

on a ferry, crossing from the european side to the asian side!
brooke, melinda, kenz, d-white, me, heather, and priscilla

the trojan horse!

 Troy was pretty interesting. Mostly it was just a lot of ancient ruins though. the horse was the coolest part.

do we look like horses? trojan horses?
alvin, steph, me, and beka

pool party!!!!! (freezing)

 playing at our hotel!

i found some cheerleaders. we like to stunt.

this doesn't even capture the excitement of our bonfire dance party with dj aj. 

life is just great. It's been crazy around here with midterms and arab dinner nights and such.

something really exciting happened to me today. prepare yourself. this is a real Israel adventure.

I was just casually strolling, minding my own business. This guy selling postcards came up to me and tried to sell. I looked him straight in the eyes and said NO! (that's the only way you can give them the message). He kept being super pushy, which isn't that strange here. He was walking really close to me and kept stepping on Devery walking next to me. He was all up in my face and just being really weird. Finally I said LEAVE US ALONE! and dwight pulled us away from him. Well, dwight looked down at my purse and noticed that it was open. So i looked in there and you'll never believe what was missing. My wallet. Yes, the hot pink wallet that I bought on my senior year music trip. Gone. Luckily, it broke in half about two weeks ago. So I only carry around the money half and not the part with all my ID's and cards. (blessing). I don't exactly know how much was in there...but I would guess about $40-50 dollars. I took out all my American money for some reason this morning and I am really grateful I did. I've become a little too trustworthy here. Everyone is just so nice and nobody has ever had a problem so I stopped being really careful about closing my purse and protecting! But now, I will be much more careful. I remember that creepy guy's little creepy stare. If I ever see him again....he's going down.